A collective gasp swept across the pitch as the bludger sped the short distance from the Slytherin beater's bat to James Potter's head. The stadium was quiet as Lily Evans watched him sway on his broom before he lost his balance and began to freefall towards the grassy pitch, fifty metres below.

On either side of her, Remus and Mary shared her panic as they watched Sirius and one of the Gryffindor chasers, Cressida York, speeding towards James' falling body. With every second that passed, Lily's heart dropped further, beating furiously with panic. Meanwhile, all around them, the silence was thick and the air heavy with anxiety as the school watched the Head Boy plummeting to his apparent doom.

Even from where she sat, she knew that Sirius and Cressida weren't going to make it in time and her eyes stung as James plummeted even faster the closer he got to the ground.

"What's happening?" Mary whispered as students in the rows closer to the pitch began cheering and clapping. "Why are they cheering?"

Lily stood on her tiptoes to try and see what was happening on the pitch below, but could only make out flashes of red and green uniforms speeding towards where James had been falling toward. As Lily stood on the bench seat, the crowd's cheering became louder and more frantic and fevered.

Something tugged on the end of her jeans and Lily saw Remus' panicked face as he yelled up at her, "We're going to go down."

She didn't reply, understanding the invitation, and instead hopped down from the bench and followed Peter and Remus through the crowd and down the stairs.

None of them said anything as they descended, all lost in their thoughts and no doubt worried about what had happened to James. When they were halfway down the stairs, the cheers upstairs had shifted into a cacophony of angry shouts and 'boos' followed them down the rest of the stairs.

"What the bloody hell is going on?" Peter hissed as they exited the stands and began running towards the middle of the Quidditch pitch.

She didn't know what she was expecting to see, maybe James' mangled body splattered on the grass and a huddle of horrified teammates. What she hadn't expected however was a violent brawl of Quidditch players in red and green robes.

"Shit," Remus whispered next to her, and Lily couldn't help but echo his statement.

In the stands above, the crowds yelled and shouted their indignation at the brawl - even the Quidditch commentator, Johanna Shacklebolt, was cussing out the Slytherins for their behaviour and offering a detailed play-by-play of what was happening. Any worry or anxiety that had been felt while James was falling was now forgotten as the rival teams fought each other; and in the stands, the fury of the Slytherins was drowned out by the indignation of the other three houses.

Luckily, none of the players had their wands and no spells were being thrown at each other. This was a good old Muggle punch up, and Lily watched in horror as she caught sight of James throwing a punch, his footing and gait unsteady and wobbly. She'd almost forgotten that he'd just suffered a Bludger to the head.

In the middle of the melee, Madam Hooch stood out with her pink hair as she blew on her whistle and waved her wand around aimlessly. She looked completely out of her depth, and normally Lily would have felt bad had it not been for the utter carnage that was unfolding in front of her.

On the left of the group, Cressida York was nursing a bloody nose with one hand as she aimed a well placed kick to Cassius Avery's groin; and just a few feet away from them, Cressida's boyfriend, Benedict, swung the handle of his broom at Regulus Black's head. Meanwhile, Sirius was barely holding his own in a two-to-one brawl between Adonis Hunt and Adrian Mulciber.

Away from the trio, other brawls were being fought, and Lily frowned as she caught sight of Alice Fortescue wiping blood off her busted lip and James being punched in the gut by Cassius Avery.

Of course, Lily had seen her fair share of action movies, and this was by far worse than anything she had seen on a screen. While people threw punches and kicks, they sputtered out taunts and insults, most of which implied that the Gryffindor Captain was a bog-standard player and couldn't even stay on his broom.

She was frozen as she watched Avery begin to aim a swing at the back of James' head, but before he could, he froze, his arms stilling as his eyes widened.

Lily could hear them before she could see them, but she let out a breath that she hadn't realised she'd been holding as Professors McGonagall, Dumbledore, and Slughorn strode into the middle of the Quidditch pitch. She stepped back as they strode past her, and the fury was visible on their faces as McGonagall sliced her wand through the air and froze both teams into living statues.

Meanwhile, Hooch stumbled out of the group, her robes splattered with dirt and drops of blood. She looked exhausted, and the slight limp that she walked with showed that nobody would be coming out unscathed from the brawl.

The three teachers and the Headmaster exchanged some words between themselves, and Lily smiled at Madam Hooch as she limped out towards the infirmary tent where, no doubt, Madam Pomfrey waited with bated breath.

With another wave of her wand, the Quidditch players came back to life and most fell on their arses as they lost their balance. Once they had straightened themselves up, McGonagall began berating them for their behaviour.

None of what she said was unnecessarily harsh, and both teams let out a collective groan when she and Slughorn announced that each member of both teams had lost their house fifty points apiece; and that all were to spend the next eight Saturdays serving detention. Finally, both captains stepped out from the crowd and begrudgingly shook hands - both Avery and James looked ready to kill one another.

When both captains stepped back to join their teams, Dumbledore pointed his wand at his throat and instructed the students in the stands to leave the Quidditch pitch, and that neither team would be receiving any points towards the Quidditch Cup from this match.

His announcement done, all three professors retreated from the pitch, leaving behind a stunned and indignant group of Quidditch players with badly beaten bodies and even more battered egos. The Slytherins were the first to leave the pitch, all of them nursing some sort of injury.

"Filthy mudblood," Avery spat as he walked past her, his eye swollen and nose bent at an odd angle. As his teammates followed behind him, they hissed their unwelcome insults at her too, save for Regulus who simply glared at her as he cradled his broken arm.

"Fancy seeing you lot here." Sirius smirked as he patted Remus and Peter's cheeks, smearing mud and dirt on both. "Ah, Evans, worried about me are you," he said when he faced her.

"Shut up."

Sirius laughed, though he winced and rested a hand on his stomach, seemingly winded from the simple act. Save from James, Sirius looked the worst out of the whole lot. His hair stuck up in odd angles and blood and mud covered his face, arms and chest. A deep cut above his eye made blood run down his cheek, and his cheek was raw from the beating he'd received.

"Come on lads, I think Evans wants a little word with our Prongs." Sirius joked. "Go easy on the bloke Evans, he's just been mortally wounded."

Sirius smirked at her and Peter and Remus rolled their eyes as they accompanied him towards the infirmary tent. As they walked away, Lily could hear them laughing with one another as they trailed behind the rest of the Gryffindor team.

The bloke in question bent down slowly to pick up the two pieces of his shattered broomstick, cradling them in his arms as he and Lily met halfway. For someone who had been hit with a bludger, fallen fifty metres, and had gotten into a violent brawl, he looked less shitty than he should look.

"Evans."

"Potter."

They stood across from each other and Lily couldn't help the heat blooming across her neck and face. Even though it was the beginning of December, she felt warm as she and James looked at one another. She had never known that looking at someone else could be so intimate, but she had come to learn that many things surprised her when she was with James.

"You look like shit," Lily whispered as she pointed to his crooked nose, split lip, and the cut on his cheek.

"Thanks for noticing, I tried a new face mask this morning."

"Oh yeah?" Her lip quirked up and Lily noticed that the familiar light in James' eyes was returning.

"Yeah, a bit of mud and a lot of blood do wonders for your face. You've really got to beat it in though, a couple of punches to the face should do it." He replied nonchalantly, though he couldn't hide the smile that grew on his face. And even with blood and mud caking his hair and cheeks, her stomach fluttered at the way he looked at her; that and she never could deny that she loved it when he was in his Quidditch uniform.

"I'll keep that in mind the next time I decide to spice up my beauty routine."

Neither of them said anything more as droplets of rain began to splatter on their faces.

She had been so worried when he'd fallen off his broom then seen him in a brawl, and she felt silly for having never admitted to herself that she was completely besotted with the bloke until he was close to dying.

"Listen, I know you're going to give me a lecture, but before you tell me off for being an irresponsible prat and a horrible Head Boy, just remember that I'm bruised, bleeding, possibly sustained a spot of brain damage, and have had three near death experiences this past hour." James rambled as he ruffled a hand through his hair.

"You're a dirty rotten liar, Potter."

James opened his mouth, apparently ready to rebut anything but what she had said, and an adorable look of confusion crossed his face as his eyes narrowed. "I'm a what?"

"You're a dirty rotten liar. You told me that you were good on a broom."

"I am!" He replied as the rain began to fall faster and harder. "I am a bloody brilliant Quidditch player, reckon I'm the be-" His sentence was cut short as he swayed uneasily on his feet and he dropped his broomstick pieces to rest his palm on his forehead. "Merlin, I think I must be dying."

Before he could fall over or anything, Lily wrapped an arm around his waist and rested her free hand on his stomach to further steady him. The rain was pelting down now, and her coat felt heavy as she led herself and James towards the tent where Madam Pomfrey stood waiting at the entrance.

"I think you're concussed." Lily sighed as she struggled to bear the brunt of his weight.

On any normal day, he towered over her and she was only tall enough for her forehead to reach the top of his shoulder; but now he slumped over and their heads were on the same level. James had always seemed lean, knobbly and skinny to her, but with her hand on his stomach, she could feel the rigid lines of his chest and cursed him for being so deceptively muscular and thus heavier to drag.

"I'm a what?"

"You're concussed, it means you've hit your head hard and might hurt yourself if I don't help you," she explained, her voice gentle so as not to hurt his head any further with the sound of her voice.

"You Muggles and your fancy words."

Lily hummed and looked up at him.

His hazel eyes were darker and more the colour of burnt toffee with the lack of sunlight, and he was looking at her in a way that made her body feel warm and feverish. Even as the rain poured down on them, the only thing she could focus on was the way his eyes seemed to scan every little detail of her face before they landed on her lips.

She didn't even see his hand come up to her face, but her eyes close for a second as his thumb traced the outline of her lips, his finger calloused and rough against her mouth. A burst of lightning shakes the ground around them and she wants to cry when his hand leaves her skin.

When she opens her eyes, his head is bowed and brows furrowed. The air around them is thick with tension, and Lily feels the way her lips and body itch for some sort of release. He had scratched an itch that she had been denying she'd had for weeks, but it hadn't been enough.

"This is so inappropriate," he breathed, his breath warm on her face.

"I know."

"Madam Pomfrey's probably wondering where we are." Lily hummed, too afraid to speak, lest she ruin the mood. "Friends don't do this, we shouldn't be doing this."

"Bloody good thing I don't want to be friends anymore then," Lily joked before she took a proverbial leap and pulled him to her, his lips her target.

For weeks she had dreamt about what it might feel like to kiss James Potter. Imagined what it might feel like to have his lips moving against hers, and how their bodies might feel against one another. But even she couldn't have anticipated just how right it felt, how natural and somehow familiar it felt.

And even though their lips mesh and move against one another eagerly, forcefully, awkwardly, and a lot sloppier than she'd imagined, she never wanted it to end.

Another bolt of lightning struck the earth and the air became static with electricity as James' tongue swept across her bottom lip then against her tongue in swift, smooth strokes. She didn't know who moaned first, but as James' hands rested on either side of her hips, thumbs stroking the waistband of her jeans, good sense finally made its way into her head and she pulled back reluctantly.

Their breaths were heavy and warm, faces flushed, and their foreheads resting against one another as they struggled to moderate their breathing and come down from their high.

His hair is plastered to his forehead, the inkly black strands covering his eyes and Lily smiles as she pushes it back, giggling when she sees how steamy his glasses are. He grins back at her before he sways in his spot again, and she helps him regain his balance, assuming the same positions they'd had before she'd practically attacked him with the sole intent of snogging him.

"You know, I don't know if it's my supposed concussion or the fact that I've been dreaming of kissing you for close to seven years, but I feel rather like I'm walking on air," James mumbled as they resumed the slow walk towards Madam Pomfrey's tent.

"Shut up."

"Lily?"

"Yeah James?"

"I always knew you fancied me."

All she could do was laugh and nudge his stomach at that, he was right after all. Somehow, he was always right when it came to matters of the heart.

A/N

WORD COUNT: 2613

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry [Challenges and Assignments]

Media Studies, Task #5 - Write about someone having a crush and acting on it