AN: This chapter is a bit shorter than I'd like, but I didn't want to drag it out. Also, I have some bad news. I was planning to update Thursday, but I might end up having to work then. As much as I would love to update instead, I kind of need the money. I'm incredibly sorry. Thanks to the favorites, followers, and readers for being so patient. Special thanks to reviewers: Random Person with No Name, heart chan, Majerus, Guest, ILoveGeorgeEads, Ari989, Guest, Kairan1979, MaeSilverpaws1, Tellur, becuzitswrong, KTN, Fibinaci, ultima-owner, B00kw0rm92, magitech, Lady Sabine of Macayhill, serialkeller, and Wonderbee31. For those of you who I didn't get the chance to respond to, I'm so sorry. Thanks for your understanding.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter franchise.
The first Quidditch match of the season was approaching fast, and Oliver couldn't help but worry. Who cared if no one on the Hufflepuff team had gone pro? That didn't mean they weren't any good. He wouldn't be able to stand losing that match to a couple of amateurs. It was made worse by the fact that Summers had promised to show up to every game the Gryffindors played this year, and "give him pointers." Oliver was almost positive that was code for listing every little thing Oliver had done wrong. And so, he decided that not a single thing would go wrong. Nope, not one thing. He would make sure there were extra practices, maybe even one a day. He ran over his strategies and drills in his head before he went to sleep, and he had even accidentally written a portion of it in his Defense essay. Lupin had been kind about it, and had given Oliver a chance to rewrite it.
Oliver glared across the Great Hall at Diggory, who was eating his breakfast without a care in the world. Stupid Diggory. Was he really so confident that he thought his team had no problem beating Gryffindor? Well, Oliver would show him. He would prove that the Gryffindors were the team to beat, and that Oliver Wood was not someone you should cross.
After breakfast, the team traipsed out to the field for practice. He had brought Cormac along in order to train him on some of the finer mechanisms of being Keeper. Oliver was mildly worried as he noted the groggy looks on their faces, but he figured it would wear off.
"Alright, team," He began, clapping his hands together. The sound echoed loudly throughout the locker room. "Listen up. This is an important year for us. It's my last year, and it's my last chance to win the Quidditch Cup. Now, I'm incredibly happy we won last year, but that doesn't mean we can slack off now. In order to ensure our win, I have some new ideas. I think it would be helpful for you guys to learn and memorize the following flight patterns and tricks."
Oliver picked up several giant sheets of paper with little figures drawn on them. He tacked them up on the wall and turned back to face them.
Katie's jaw dropped. "You've got to be kidding me."
The twins tilted their heads. "Isn't some of that impossible?"
"Of course not. I have complete confidence in you," He assured them.
Maybe some of Oliver's confidence had been misplaced, because for the next few hours, he watched as they struggled to do just about everything he'd written down. Harry had a decent Wronski Feint, though it was less dangerous than Oliver had anticipated, especially since Harry had a solid reputation for taking risks. And Alicia wasn't half bad at the Woollongong Shimmy, though she almost fell off her broom a few times. But the Bludger Backbeat evaded the twins, and Katie was so fearful of hurting someone that the Chasers' Parkin's Pincer fell flat.
Angelina landed right next to Oliver. "Can't we stop with all of this? Oliver, we were doing great before!"
"Yes, but were we great enough to defeat Hufflepuff?" Oliver responded, bouncing his leg up and down.
The rest of the team swooped down.
"Okay, what's this really about?" Katie demanded. "The Oliver I know wouldn't try to use a bunch of fancy tricks to scare off the Hufflepuffs."
"I'm not trying to scare them," Oliver said truthfully.
"Then what's going on?" Harry challenged.
"Nothing," Oliver insisted, pulling at the collar of his robes.
"We know you better than that," The twins chimed in.
Oliver sighed. "Well…it's just that, Joseph Summers, the guy I'm replacing on Puddlemere, is going to be here, and I really want to impress him—"
The team groaned in unison as Cormac shook his head.
"You mean he isn't impressed with you already?" Cormac asked. "If you haven't managed to make the guy like you, then I don't think showing off how much the team can do is going to work."
Oliver shifted. "It could," He argued weakly.
Alicia made a frustrated noise. "Oliver, sometimes people just won't like you, and there's nothing you can do about it. Why are you letting it bother you so much? It's not like Summers is going to stop you from joining the team when he's gone."
Oliver remained silent and mulled this over.
"We can beat Hufflepuff," Harry told them confidently. "I know we can. We don't need all of these special moves in order to do it. We just need to go in there and do our best, and it'll work out."
"You think so?" Oliver asked dubiously.
The team nodded as one. Oliver's lips twitched.
"Alright then. What now?" He asked, looking around.
"Isn't this the time that you're supposed to give that super motivational speech?" Cormac suggested.
Oliver blushed. "Right. Okay then. Um…Hufflepuff is terrible."
The others roared with laughter.
"That came out wrong," Oliver blurted out. "What I mean is, I've seen them play, and we're miles better than they are. They're still better than Slytherin, of course, but only barely. We can beat them. Er…" Oliver floundered. What was something good to say? What would make them want to win more than anything? "Hey, don't you all want to see the look on Diggory's face when he loses?"
This made several of them cheer.
"I bet he doesn't even think losing is possible for him," Fred jeered scornfully.
"Definitely," Angelina agreed.
Katie and Harry remained unconvinced.
"Don't you think that seems kind of mean?" She said hesitantly.
Harry nodded in tentative agreement.
"Trust me. It'll be worth it," Alicia told them.
Oliver settled in across from Harry. "Okay Harry, here's what you need to know about Diggory. He's a jerk who thinks he can win whatever he wants. He thinks he's the greatest guy in the school. So what you need to do is prove to him that he's not. You need to get that snitch. If you can just confuse him, which will be easy to do, then the rest of the match will be easy. Do a couple of Wronski Feints if you have to. Try to psych him out. I want this game to change his life. I want to see Diggory so upset that he tries to claim you're cheating. I want you to make him cry." Oliver pounded his fist into his hand for emphasis.
"You're expecting all of this from Potter?" A voice asked from behind them.
Oliver whirled around to come face to face with Diggory. He faltered for a moment before straightening up. "Yeah, I do. And guess what? I know he'll do even better than what I expect, because he's just that good. Unlike your sorry excuse for a team," Oliver retorted.
Diggory clenched his jaw. "Oh yeah? We'll see who's crying when that match is over, Wood," He threatened, a sinister smile on his face.
"Fine," Oliver ground out.
"Fine." Diggory swirled back around and stalked away.
"Oi! Diggory!" Fred shouted as the seeker was about twenty feet away. "If your face looks anything like it did after Angelina punched you, I'll laugh for hours!"
Diggory glared over his shoulder and made a rude hand gesture.
"You punched him?" Katie gasped.
"Well, yeah." Angelina shrugged. "Never ever go out with Cedric Diggory, Katie. You'll regret it for the rest of your life."
Halloween arrived, and with it came the day of the first Hogsmeade trip, and Harry was the only one of his friends who wasn't going. They had all offered to stay, of course, but he had waved them off. It wasn't really that big of a deal, after all. It wasn't the first time he'd stayed at Hogwarts while most of Gryffindor was out. It was the first time he'd had to do it alone, though. He tried to stay positive. He could talk to some of the second years. That wouldn't be strange, would it?
Ten minutes later, Harry was seriously regretting his decision. The second years had done nothing but stare and ask several odd questions that were seemingly unrelated. At least Ginny and Colin had the courtesy to pretend to be unimpressed. He was just making plans to politely excuse himself when a tiny girl with dark hair strode up to him and introduced herself.
"I'm Romilda Vane, first year." She said this in such a way that Harry wondered if perhaps she were famous, or someone that he should've at least recognized. Despite the fact that he had seen her a few times in the past two months, he still didn't know who she was.
"Harry Potter…third year?" He tacked this last part on as a question, unsure if this was some sort of formal code he had yet to learn.
She shook hands with him and sat in the chair opposite. Her eyes flitted up to his scar before shooting back down. "So, Harry, I've noticed that you seem to be good friends with Neville Longbottom. Our families used to be al-friends." She switched words so subtly that Harry almost didn't catch it. Almost.
"Used to be?" Harry repeated with a frown.
She coughed delicately. "Certain circumstances forced them to reconsider their relationship. So, did you two meet at Hogwarts?" She crossed her legs and leaned back.
"Uh, yeah. Well, I guess we met on the train, but yeah. We didn't become real friends until last year though," He explained, feeling self-conscious. What eleven year-old spoke so formally?
"How nice. I never got to spend much time with him as kids. He seems very friendly though."
Harry cleared his throat and glanced around. "Er, yeah, he is. Neville's pretty nice." Harry was worried now. Was he not supposed to be saying anything to her? But telling her Neville was a good guy was hardly incriminating, was it? He eyed her warily before jumping up.
"I have to go to the library to study for that test. Alone," He added hastily as Colin made to rise.
"Have a nice time!" Ginny called out pleasantly.
As soon as he turned his back, he could hear them break out in whispers and groaned inwardly. Really, was a break too much to ask for?
Like most people, Remus Lupin had good days and bad days. It seemed fitting that one of his bad days should be on Halloween, the day that his life had gone to ruins. Lily and James were dead, and so was Peter, and Sirius was not who they had thought he was. Remus swallowed heavily. As soon as he had woken up this morning, he'd felt terrible. Charity had invited him to go with the staff to Hogsmeade for drinks, but he had politely declined. He'd rather wallow in his office than with a bunch of people. He didn't want to ruin their day as well.
He paced back and forth, drowning in memories. Their years at Hogwarts had slowly started to fade from Remus' mind when Lily and James died. He'd spend months afterward trying to recall the stupidest, most inane things about them that he'd never thought about before. Back then, Lily's favorite book and song hadn't mattered, and neither had James' countless stories of fantastical adventures that couldn't possibly be true. Who knew they'd be so important to him now?
Over time, he'd begun to worry that he was forgetting something about them. He couldn't let that happen. Lily and James deserved to be remembered, the real Lily and James Potter. His friends. Everyone else in the Wizarding world remembered them as the ones who had gotten killed the night Voldemort was killed, and a select few still thought of them as brave soldiers of the light. But not Remus. He remembered them as they had been all throughout school.
It wasn't like he'd had much else to do. He'd stayed away from the Wizarding world for years, preferring to have nothing to do with it. He still had a subscription to the Daily Prophet, of course, but that was as far as it went. Instead, he found odd jobs around England, working at bookstores and supermarkets, as well as doing yard work and some spare chores around neighborhoods. He kept to himself, and rarely stayed in the same place for too long. Whenever someone got a little too friendly, he kindly rebuffed them. He was a wizard, and a werewolf, and he still wasn't ready for real friends.
He probably needed some lessons on real friends too. He'd thought Sirius was a real friend, but real friends didn't go out and kill their friends for a sick grab at power. It made him wonder if Sirius had always been a traitor, or if Voldemort's empty promises had tempted him. Had those seven years at Hogwarts all been a lie? Or had Sirius stayed true until Voldemort had done something, anything, to get him to join? What had Voldemort done? Maybe he had threatened Sirius. Remus had had that thought more than once.
But what would he threaten Sirius with? Sirius had ended up killing three of them, and he probably would've killed Remus too, if his master had ordered it. Clearly, his friends didn't matter. Possibly it was his family. Sirius had always claimed that he hated his family, and had moved in with the Potters while still in school. But he'd lied about other things before, and if he really did care about his family, then that seemed to be a reasonable thing for Voldemort to hang over his head.
Of course, there was the much more believable idea that Sirius had allied himself with the dark in order to save his own neck. That also went against everything Remus had known about Sirius, but Remus had realized long ago that one of his best friends was not the true Sirius Black. Remus obviously knew nothing about Sirius.
He rubbed a hand over his face. The full moon was coming up soon. He was so tired, and all of this brooding wasn't helping anything. Maybe he should get out and take a walk. Walks were good. They were full of fresh air and sunshine, and sunshine promoted positive thinking, or so Charity had told him this morning before taking off for Hogsmeade. He opened his office door, ready to attempt to shake off his bad day, only to be greeted with the sight of Harry.
"Er, hi Professor Lupin. Um, I know we haven't really talked much lately, I've been kind of busy." Harry scratched his head, starting to feel a little unsure of himself. "It's just that, you said I could come talk to you whenever, and I kind of wanted to ask you about my parents. If this is a bad time, I can come back later," He offered shyly.
"No, no, no, now's fine. Here, come right in." Remus hadn't been prepared for that. Of course Harry would want to talk about his parents on the day they died. Of course he would decide to talk to Remus about it, since he thought that Remus was the only person who remembered Lily and James.
Harry sat down in a chair and watched him for a few minutes. Remus wasn't sure how to start this type of conversation. Did he just launch right into the fun stories, or did he give Harry background? Living with Lily's sister, Remus highly doubted that Harry knew much about James. Should he talk about what they had done together as a couple, or let him get to know them as individuals first? There were so many ways this conversation could go, and so many ways he could mess it all up.
"Professor Lupin? How did you meet my dad?" Harry looked up at him with wide emerald eyes.
Remus was momentarily taken aback. That was an easy question. "I first met James Potter on the train to Hogwarts. He looked so much like you. He was a lot shorter than I was, and he was really scrawny, too. He made up for it by being incredibly loud…"
Remus' day only got better from there.
Reply to anonymous reviewers
Guest: Don't worry about it. I like reviews, no matter their size. And your English seems great!
KTN: You're totally right. Thanks so much. Unfortunately, I have no clue if it's even been posted anywhere. I suppose you could try the Harry Potter Fanfiction website, but I doubt it would be up there.