A/N: Hey all, here's chapter 5! Sorry for the long delay, exams and writer's block are both to blame. Hopefully there won't be as long a delay on the next one, but I'm not making any promises! Sorry. Please remember to read and review at the end of the chapter! Thanks guys!

CHAPTER 5

The day of the first Quidditch match of the season dawned bright and clear, something for which Vesper was very thankful. Slytherin would, of course, be playing Gryffindor, and Vesper wanted perfect conditions. She had managed to book the pitch to practise the night before, and it had gone splendidly. Her team really knew how to play together. Thankfully the only position she'd had to fill this year was that of Seeker, and Donovan Higgs was stellar. Her only reservation was that he was sometimes more concerned with putting down the other team (or his own team, if he was talking about Sara) than he was with finding and catching the snitch.

Vesper had been up since dawn, and at 9 00 she met the rest of her team in the common room and they headed up to breakfast together, smirking in their green and silver robes. They were booed loudly as they entered the Great Hall, but kept their heads high and their sneers in place.

"Ready to be crushed today, Malfoy?" Garrett Long, one of the Gryffindor Beaters, called as the team made their way to their table.

"You wish," Vesper said quietly.

She and Potter glared at each other as their eyes met, and Vesper grinned at him in a dangerous way.

As she sat at the Slytherin table, her team surrounded her.

"They are so going down," Cailean Yaxley, one of Vesper's fellow Chasers, sneered.

"No question," Braeden Nott, a Beater, agreed.

"Watch yourselves today," Vesper said quietly, darkly. "Keep your heads in the game. Don't worry about what Gryffindor is doing unless it directly affects you. Donovan, if Potter catches the snitch because you were hazing his players, you're off the team. Got it?"

Higgs glared at her but nodded.

"Good. Now eat. You have ten minutes and then we're leaving."

Exactly ten minutes later Vesper hustled her team from the table and down to the pitch. She saw a slightly panicked look on Potter's face and he began hurrying his team, apparently now eager to get down to the pitch. Vesper smirked. Anything that put Potter on edge worked well for her.

Sirius loved Quidditch. He didn't have the concentration or skill to play himself, but he took his cheering duties very seriously and never missed a match, school or otherwise. He wasn't sure how it had happened, but Vesper had put James on edge when she and her team left the Hall and now he needed to calm James down.

"Where's she going?" James demanded.

"Who cares?" Sirius asked lazily. "Prongs, calm down. Eat. Malfoy's trying to put you on edge. You're playing right into her hands by acting this way."

"Yeah, well," James retorted. "She's making me nervous. I don't like this."

"Calm down."

"Everyone, eat faster," James snapped suddenly. His team stared at him. "If Slytherin beat us today because they got down to the pitch sooner and had time to practise, I will not be impressed."

"How about if they beat us because we puke our breakfasts up because we ate too quickly?" Emily-Hope Jeffries snapped.

"Gross," Steph Waters said, wrinkling her nose.

"Calm down, Potter," Long said. "We'll be fine. If Slytherin need last minute practise it's because they don't think they're good enough to beat us."

"Good point," James replied thoughtfully.

"Great, so can we all get back to eating our breakfast in peace then?" Steph asked.

"Yeah," James replied, grinning. He turned to Sirius. "We're gonna win today, aren't we?"

Sirius shrugged. "I've always believed in you."

James' grin widened and he attacked his toast with new enthusiasm.

Her team were talking amicably amongst themselves when Vesper emerged from her office fifteen minutes before the game started. When they'd arrived at the pitch she'd taken her team for a few warmup laps and she was now ready for her pep talk. Sara joined the rest of the team, coming to the benches from the corner where she'd been sitting apart. Vesper's face was unreadable.

"Alright, you lot," she said quietly. "I meant what I said at breakfast. I don't want any distractions today. I want you all focused on the game. One foul, you deal with me. Wilkes and Higgs, watch your mouths. I don't want Madam Elsen to have any reason to favour Gryffindor today. I mean it."

Her team nodded solemnly.

Vesper looked at the clock on the wall. Ten minutes til game time. She could hear the rumblings from the stands and her heart rate began to pick up. This time right before the game was always the best and worst time.

She called Yaxley and Mel Avery over to her, and they began going over last minute tactics. Vesper smiled to herself. Her fellow Chasers were the best she could've asked for. She was confident in her team's ability to win today.

With five minutes to game time Vesper stood, and her team followed her onto the pitch. The noise reached nearly unbearable levels when they entered. The cheers from the Slytherin end were drowned out in the hisses and boos from the Gryffindor supporters, but Vesper didn't care. Her team ignored the noise and made their way confidently to the middle of the pitch, where Vesper and Potter came face-to-face, glaring at each other.

"I want a clean game, do you hear?" Madam Elsen called. "Captains, shake hands."

Vesper and Potter shook hands, but let go very quickly.

"Alright, teams, mount your brooms."

The game was fast-paced from the start. Vesper caught the Quaffle out of Elsen's hands and raced away down the pitch with it toward the Gryffindor end. She dodged their Keeper, Allan Johnston, and scored the first goal of the game. The Slytherin end exploded and with a smirk Vesper turned her broom around got right back in the game.

Quidditch was always fast-paced when Gryffindor was playing Slytherin, but today Sirius was having particular difficulty keeping his eye on the Quaffle. Vesper and her fellow Chasers were superb, and the Gryffindor Chasers were also of the highest caliber. The Quaffle changed hands so many times and so expertly that no one could follow. Even the commentator was having difficulty. Gryffindor was good, but Slytherin was better and the power of the first goal could not be ignored. Before long Slytherin led the game 100-40.

The Slytherin Beaters were ruthless. The Gryffindor players were barely able to evade the bludgers hit by Rosier and Nott, and Long and Manning, the Gryffindor Beaters, were lacking in the anger and ruthlessness that the Slytherins had. Though their hits were well aimed, they were rarely hard enough to reach their target. Slytherin's lead grew larger until they were leading by nearly 200 points, and it only got worse for the Gryffindors after that.

The Gryffindor fans watched in horror as one of Rosier's bludgers streaked toward Larry McCabe, one of Gryffindor's Chasers, who didn't see it in his focus on the goalpost. It connected with a sickening crunch, and McCabe fell from his broom to the ground hundreds of feet below. The Gryffindor supporters gasped and shouted in rage.

"This is a nightmare," Remus groaned.

"We're not gonna lose," Peter said confidently. "Prongs won't let that happen."

"He might not have a choice," Sirius replied, wincing as Vesper scored yet another goal and the Slytherin end erupted. "If the snitch appears he has to catch it. And we just lost a Chaser."

"He could stall," Peter countered.

Sirius shook his head. "Higgs is good. And Malfoy is scary. He won't want to make her angry, especially considering he's attempting to date her best friend. He won't fall for anything Prongs tries to throw his way to distract him."

"So what you're saying is-"

"Yeah. We're screwed."

And they were. The Slytherin team was on fire, and James' arrogance proved to be the Gryffindors' downfall. Potter caught the snitch, but it wasn't enough. Vesper, Mel and Cailean had never played better, and the Gryffindors were down a Chaser. Five hours after start time, the final score was 290-240 for Slytherin.

Vespers team landed on the pitch, looking elated, and headed to their changing room.

"Nicely done, everyone!" Vesper called, ecstatic. "There will likely be a party in the common room after dinner, so shower and get cleaned up and we'll all celebrate tonight! Good job, again!"

Vesper headed to her office, thrilled. Yes, it was only one win, but it was an impressive one. The scarlet-clad players on her wall glared down at her and her grin widened. She had never been so proud of her team. And even though Higgs hadn't caught the snitch, he had made an impressive effort and hadn't hazed the Gryffindors any more than anyone else. Vesper's legs hurt more than a little, after flying for five hours, but she ignored the pain. It was more than worth it.

Vesper left the change room after it had already been abandoned, and found an escort waiting outside for her.

"Impressive flying, Ves," Neil said, grinning widely as he joined her stride on her left side. Sev took her right and Kyler hurried to catch up with them.

"Thank you," she said, grinning. "It was a pretty good game, wasn't it?"

"It was."

The four walked in silence for a few moments, for which Vesper was grateful. She was pleased, though surprised, to see that Sev had waited with Kyler and Neil. He'd never really gotten on with her other friends.

"What did you think, Sev?" she asked him.

Sev looked surprised at being addressed, but recovered quickly and shrugged. "I'm glad we won. Potter would've been insufferable if we'd lost."

"Yes, he would've," Vesper agreed, grinning again. "And now we get to be insufferable."

"Vesper Malfoy, you wouldn't know how to be insufferable if you took a course," Kyler teased.

"That's all you know," Vesper replied teasingly.

The Gryffindor team entered the common room in low spirits, and James' best mates knew better than to try talking to him when he was in this kind of mood.

"It was a good game," Remus said quietly as the team trudged past them and huddled around the fire. "They just got cocky."

"Malfoy's gotta be a tough Captain," Peter agreed, shivering in fear. "I wouldn't want to disappoint her."

Sirius silently agreed. Malfoy didn't really have any friends on the team, and she didn't care about hurting people's feelings. She cared about winning, and she knew how to do that. James was more concerned than she was making sure people weren't hurt. And Sirius wasn't about to be the one to tell him to be more heartless. James was a good guy, and he wanted people to like him. Which, unfortunately, wasn't always conducive to being a Quidditch Captain.

"I think Prongs needs to care less about whether his team members like him, and more about whether they're winning," Peter said.

Sirius and Remus stared at him.

"You feel free to tell him that, Wormtail," Sirius said, indicating that Peter should go over to where James was sitting. "We'll sit here and watch. And possibly sell tickets."

Peter looked terrified at the prospect. "I-I-I..."

"Don't actually," Remus sighed. "I have a feeling James will ask our opinions. Do not tell him that that's what you think."

"I might, though," Sirius added thoughtfully.

"Don't," Remus pleaded. "The last thing we need is a pissy, controlling Prongs."

"But his pissiness and controlling tendencies won't be toward us," Sirius pointed out happily. "It's the poor saps on his team that'll have to deal with him."

"Right," Remus agreed. "And do you really think the females on that team won't tell us exactly what they think of our brilliant idea?"

"We don't need to tell them it was our idea."

"We'll tell them," Charlotte said, flopping down on the couch beside Sirius as Chloe sat in the empty armchair between Remus and Peter. "We heard that whole thing. If Chloe won't tell, I will."

"You're all heart, Char," Remus said darkly.

Charlotte grinned at him. "So. Abysmal game today, eh? Malfoy's gonna be insufferable after that."

"You're not helping, Charlotte dear," Sirius said snidely.

Charlotte shrugged, sending her blue hair flying over her shoulder. "I don't really care if I hurt your mate's feelings, Black. If he knew what was good for him he'd step up and stop being such a wuss and tell his team to GET BETTER!"

"FUCK OFF!" James shouted back as the rest of his team glared at Charlotte.

Charlotte grinned. "See? That got his attention. Now I think I'm heading to bed."

Chloe, the Marauders and the Quidditch team stared after her.

"Drama queen," Chloe muttered.

Sirius silently agreed, but knew that Charlotte had a point. If Gryffindor wanted to win the Quidditch Cup this year, they were gonna have to step up their game. And Charlotte's words may just have been the thing James needed to stimulate him to do that. He did not envy the Quidditch players in the next little while. James was gonna be working them pretty hard.