Disclaimer: Does anybody have a quarter I can borrow so I can buy myself a gumball out of one of those germ-infested machines?

A/N: Thanks to the following reviewers: fudge-butter, Claudita, -Jeisa-, SweetSummerx3, Brianna Katelyn Evans, CaramelBoost, Red-Devil15, -xAndromedaBlackx-, aj, Cristipotter, hermy permy, fishertowers, queen.of.queens, blendernizedbob, Morrisburger, Isolde Eris, pigs can fly, messyblackhair66, SweetSouthernGal, RandomObsessivePsychoFangirl, and MarisAlexia. REally, thanks a lot. Your reviews put a smile on my face. See? I'm smiling now! I know some of you got replies to your reviews, but I also know that some of you didn't. Sorry. I got really confused and I forgot who I already had replied to and who I hadn't. It really messed with my head. lol I'll do better this time around, promise!

Dang! I'm updating again! Yay! I'm on a roll! Tehe

ONE MORE WEEK OF SCHOOL! Holy toledo, I'm so excited! I love the summer...sigh...can't wait! Anyways, let's just get right into the story, how does that sound?

Chapter 8: Phase Two: Hit the Ball, Not Your Teammate

Everything was always peaceful out in the Hogwarts grounds at dusk. The air always held that sweet smell; the kind of smell that holds a hint of musty grass and muddy pond water. Though it sounded disgusting, it actually smelled…nice. In fact, the Hogwarts grounds were the only place where a person could really stop their busy lives and just breathe. That's one of the reasons James liked it so much. It was his time to just get away from his Head Boy duties, his Quidditch captain responsibilities, and his load of homework that was currently sitting under his bed.

James meandered over towards the Quidditch pitch, his feet automatically directing him there. He smiled as he thought about retrieving his broom from the changing rooms and taking a quick fly around the pitch. Flying always relaxed him.

And the grounds were always so peaceful.

That's why James almost had a heart attack as a piercing shriek shot up into the air and caused the hairs on his arms to stand up.

"What in the name of Merlin…" he said to himself, regaining his breath and approaching the Quidditch gates.

And what he saw almost made him die with laughter.

Lily Evans stood in the middle of the pitch, her back towards him and her feet firmly rooted to the ground as if she refused to move another step. Marlene, Dorcas, and Alice stood around her.

James saw, with amusement and slight befuddlement, that Lily held a broom between her legs.

"There's no way," Lily was saying, shaking her head back and forth so that her red hair bounced up and down against her back. "There's no bleeding way."

Hiding himself behind the stands, James poked his head around to watch what was going on. Lily had never shown any fancy towards flying, or brooms in general. In fact, he clearly remembered her swearing off of them after their first ever flying lesson back in first year. He hadn't known her then, of course, but he could still see the terrified look on the redhead's face after her broom had bucked her off. Sirius had even taken a blackmail picture.

"C'mon, Lily," Marlene coaxed, "this is the only way…"

"Screw bloody Potter, then," Lily shouted, her grip on the school broom lacking and it fell to the ground with a soft thud. "I'm through with this…it nearly killed me? Did you see that?"

Potter? What? What did he have to do with anything? And she had almost been killed? Had the broom attempted to flip her off again? Man, Lily and brooms really didn't mesh well together. Then, what the heck was she doing?

"You hadn't even gotten off of the ground. You tripped over your own feet, you git," Dorcas pronounced, scooping down and picking the broom back up off the grassy ground. James chuckled quietly to himself. "Now…hold it."

Lily placed her arms across her chest firmly, hiding her hands from view. "You hold it."

James heard Alice laugh. "Lily, you're being ridiculous."

"Why don't you ride it then," Lily retorted wildly, her eyes swiveling around to fix her friend with a harsh stare.

"I prefer to have support underneath my feet, thanks," Alice responded. The other two girls immediately slapped their hands to Alice's mouth to stop her from speaking again. She clearly wasn't helping Lily's nerves.

Should he step in? Interfere?

As he contemplated this thought, Marlene seemed to have decided to begin a different way of persuasion; bribery. Cold, hard bribery. "Lily, so help me Godric, if you don't get on this broom, I'll personally tell Potter—"

"—Go ahead! I don't care!"

Tell him what? He leaned forward in anticipation, hoping Marlene would finish her sentence.

"You'd have to kiss Snape though," Dorcas further pointed out.

Snivellus? He shuddered involuntarily. Okay, really, no one deserved that punishment. Just as Lily was about to retort, James decided to take action. He was the captain of Quidditch after all, and if Lily had to ride a broom—for whatever reason her friends had her doing it—then who else would be better at teaching her?

"Right, you're going about this all wrong," he said, stepping out from behind the bleachers and approaching the group of girls as if he'd just arrived on the scene.

Lily instantly paled. "Potter, what are you doing here?"

James grinned. "Am I not allowed to be here?"

Marlene, Alice, and Dorcas eyed Lily. They seemed to be trying to communicate with her…was he not supposed to know something that they did?

"Oi, Potter, perhaps you can get her on the blasted broom," Marlene suggested; Dorcas nodded enthusiastically and shoved the broom into his hands.

Lily glared. "I'm not getting on that…devil."

"Now, really, that's a bit harsh," James joked, taking a step closer towards Lily, switching the broom from one hand to the other. He watched her expression as he walked closer towards her; her eyes were following him nervously. Was he making her nervous? Or was it the stick in his hand?

"No, it's a bit harsh that it keeps hurting me!"

Yeah, it was the stick.

"You tripped for Godric's sake," Dorcas cried, waving her arms around.

"But I wouldn't have tripped if a stick hadn't been between my legs!"

There was a short silence. "That's it," Marlene said like a crazy woman, "that's it, I'm done. This is hopeless."

James merely stood, watching the semi-fight quietly, not really sure if he should intervene or not. If he did, one of two possible things could happen. One, he could say something stupid and all the girls would gang up on him. Or two, he'd say something smart and they'd still gang up on him. Girls were just weird like that.

However, it wasn't him who had to bring himself into the conversation. Dorcas was the one who dragged him in, apparently deciding he'd been too quiet. "Potter, you're a fairly good Chaser—"

"—Only fairly? Thanks, Meadowes."

"Lily, Potter's gonna take over."

And before he could even respond—like he would have denied helping Evans anyway—the three girls all winked at Lily and left rather quickly, all of them muttering about Quidditch-challenged friends as they scurried away. What the hell? Girls were so strange.

He looked back at Lily who was shaking her head slightly to each side, her eyes narrowed at her friends' retreating backs. She looked like she'd just sucked on a particularly sour lemon.

Would she hurt him if he said something now? She'd been pretty civil towards him the past couple of days…may as well give it a shot. "So, Evans, what's the problem?" he asked, breaking the silence.

For a moment, he thought she was going to start yelling at him; she had opened her mouth sharply and her eyes had darkened. But then, oddly enough, the tense lines in her forehead relaxed and her fists unclenched. She resembled the air of a person who had just lost miraculously at a game of wits.

"Brooms hate me."

James quickly turned his laugh into a cough. This was just too weird…"Pardon?"

"They hate me. It's like…I'm jinxed…or their jinxed…or something," she explained hopelessly, not meeting his eyes. "Don't you dare laugh," she shot at him as an after thought.

"Why are you even trying to ride one then?" he asked logically; he cringed at her glare.

"Are you implying that I'm incapable of flying?"

No—"

"—'cause I'm not!"

"—I never said—"

"—Give me that."

He spluttered helplessly as she wrenched the broom out of his hands and straddled it. She looked over her shoulder towards him. James looked blankly back at her, too shocked after that odd turn of events. Either Evans had just completely gone psycho, or he was a better persuader than he thought.

"Are you gonna help me, or not?" she asked quickly. Her hands were clasping the broomstick so tightly that her knuckles were turning white from the strain.

"Er…" he tried to hurry his brain along in order to get caught up with the current change of events. His mind was still dwelling on the fact that Lily Evans had just willingly got on the broom and was asking him for help. "Yeah…er—right."

"You're not helping."

"Will you just relax," he snapped at her suddenly, striding up to the left side of the broomstick and looking at her. "I'm trying to think."

Wait a second…relax. Yeah, that's what she needed to do. She needed to chill out. Her hands were about to fall off she was clutching the handle so hard.

"Hurry up before I lose my nerve," she said, her face set staring straight ahead of her, her jaw clenched resolutely.

"Alright, alright," he said. He observed her for a second. "Loosen your grip."

"What?"

"Loosen it. It's too tight."

"Are you trying to kill me?"

James rubbed a hand through his hair distractedly. Dear Merlin, this girl was so stubborn, but he already knew that of course. "You'll never be able to enjoy flying if you don't relax."

"Who said I want to enjoy it?"

"Just loosen your grip, Evans!" And before he thought better of it, he reached out and placed his rather large hand on top of her noticeably smaller one. He tried to ignore the warmness of her hand and the swooping sensation he was currently experiencing somewhere near his gut.

She turned her head a fraction of a centimeter to look at him out of the corner of her eye. "Loosen it," he said again, trying to massage her hand into relinquishing the impressively strong hold it had on the broom.

"I'm trying," she said, and James noticed that she was breathing rather quickly. And maybe it was a trick of the light caused by the now setting sun, but was she blushing?

"Look, I can feel your hand; it's not loose."

Her hand was squirming underneath his, unclenching and clenching over and over again. It was as if she was contemplating whether or not his pointers could be trusted or not.

She supposedly decided that he couldn't be trusted because she suddenly sighed angrily. "Your hand isn't making this any easier!" she finally said irritably, wrenching her hand out from under his, and the broom promptly fell from her grasp.

They both looked down at the broomstick on the ground between them. James glanced back up at her. She was watching him with a fixed stare, her breaths shallow and quick. She seemed torn between the desire to yell at him and the desire to show him that she wasn't a pansy when it came to Quidditch. He hoped she'd pick the last one.

"You're a horrible teacher," she said bluntly.

"Yeah, well you're a horrible student." She placed her hands on her hips and huffed loudly. "Look, maybe we should start over."

He bent down and swooped the broom up into his arms. "This," he said, holding it out to her, "is a broomstick."

"You're such an imbecile," she said, although James could have sworn the corner of her mouth twitched.

He immediately gained momentum.

"Here," he reached out and grabbed her wrist; she tensed but didn't pull away. He placed her hand on top of the handle and curled her fingers around it so that they were loose by his standards. "See? It's not so bad," he said, letting go of her wrist.

Lily grinned. "I'm still on the ground though."

"Yeah, well at least you haven't tripped yet."

She slapped him on the arm with her free hand and then swung her leg over the other side of the broomstick so she was sitting on it once again. Where her new sense of confidence had come from, James wasn't sure, but at least they were getting somewhere. Once she had maneuvered her other hand into a comfortable, and loose, position she turned her head to view James smiling approvingly at her.

"See? I'm not a total failure."

"Of course not," he replied, "now, kick off."

Her elbows stiffened and she turned her head so quickly that James could have sworn he heard a crack. "Excuse me?"

"You know, just push yourself off the ground."

Peering at him closely, she swallowed hard. "If I die…"

"—then I'll take care of the flower arrangements."

"Potter!"

"I'm kidding."

It was at this moment that James realized this was the longest conversation he had ever had with Lily that hadn't involved shouting, name calling, or hexes. He wondered slightly what was up with her. Hadn't she been talking about him earlier? Maybe—should he get his hopes up?—maybe, she was beginning to…like him? He shook his head, his messy hair flying everywhere.

"C'mon, Evans. I never knew you to be someone who'd be afraid of heights," he said, pushing her by his words. Doubting her skills had worked the first time; she'd gotten on the broom because of it. Maybe she just needed a reason to do it in order to prove somebody wrong. She was a very competitive girl; that's what made arguing with her so easy.

"I'm not afraid," she said indignantly.

Aha. He'd guessed right. He had to challenge her. So he did.

"Then do it."

She looked at him, her emerald eyes narrowed. "Trust me," James continued, nodding his head encouragingly.

Lily looked up at the sky, then to the grass, then to the stars again, and sighed. "I know I'll regret this."

And she kicked off.

OOO

Alright, breathe, Lily breathe.

She straightened her robes as Dorcas laced her arm through hers and held her tight. It must have been for moral support. Either that or Dorcas was afraid Lily would try to run away and hide in a broom closet…again. Marlene had found her the first time, unfortunately.

It felt like her heart was going to pump right out of her chest. Oh, Merlin, would she die if that happened? Oh, stupid Lily, that's not even possible. But, if she did, she wouldn't have to go to Quidditch tryouts.

Alright, so she had survived that first night of flying lessons with Potter. At least she knew she could at least get the broom off the ground. In fact, Potter had actually done the inevitable. Lily had actually enjoyed flying that night, and she wasn't half bad. He'd been so sweet, so funny; it had calmed her oddly enough. When she thought about it, it really was such a pity that this new side of James Potter was all for some stupid bet. Lily had to admit, she totally could fall for a guy with that kind of personality. Pity…

"Alright, so tryouts don't actually start until six, but I think we should get there early," Dorcas was saying as she dragged Lily along behind her.

Seeing Dorcas so nervous for her soothed Lily's butterflies in her own stomach, funnily enough. It was strange how stuff like that worked out, slightly ironic really. If someone was worrying for her, then she didn't have to. Weird logic, Lily realized, but it was true for her anyways.

"Dorcas, calm down," Lily said, using the arrival of her unexpected confidence to swallow her own nerves. However, her voice still shook slightly, like a badly tuned clarinet or something. "Loosen your grip on my arm, will you?"

Loosen her grip. Hm, yeah. That's all she had to do. Grip the broom handle, but not too tightly. No, that was bad. Loosen her grip. She could do this.

Dorcas, however, chose to ignore Lily's advice, and continued rambling random nonsense under her breath. She kept blurting out tips and facts all the way down the pitch. Instead of heightening her nerves as she would have expected, Lily actually found Dorcas's rambling quite comical so that when Dorcas said, "And make sure you hit the Bludger and not your teammate's head," Lily actually burst out laughing.

"Are you serious? I don't have that bad of aim."

And, just like that, she had jinxed herself. She should have known. Her lack of nervousness and jinx-ness had been too good to be true. Why couldn't she learn to just keep her mouth shut?

"Harley, get up to the Hospital Wing!" James bellowed from his spot up in the air. A crowd of ten hopeful people who had shown up at the tryouts circled the fourth year kid now descending with a bloody nose. In Lily's defense, at least it wasn't broken.

"Sorry," Lily grumbled, punching the air pointlessly.

"Just relax, Evans," James said, flying closer towards her. "You were doing fine."

She nodded and looked towards her friends in the stands, who were all huddled together, looking up at her. For a split second, she could have sworn she saw Marlene wave her wand and she could have sworn she felt something rush past her, like a spell of strong wind...

"Besides," James continued, assuming she needed further support, "Harley wasn't that great anyways. Probably would have ended up hitting himself with his bat if you hadn't done it."

Lily smiled grudgingly. Potter was being too nice. That fourth year was definitely better than herself. She knew it. Potter knew. Everyone knew it. Potter had been taken aback when he saw Lily amidst the crowd of Gryffindors wanting the Beater position. ("So that's why you needed to learn how to fly a broom!") Deep down however, Lily knew that he was dying to laugh at her.

Why was she doing this again?

The tryouts continued. James sent Mark Botley, one of the current Beaters, up with each of the contestants and let the Bludgers loose. Chaos ensued. The first kid hit the Bludger, but was totally off target. Lily looked over and saw James make a noticeable 'X' on his notes. The second and third guys had oddly disappeared right as James called out their names. Something funny happened to the fourth, fifth, six, and seventh competitors. Whenever they went to hit the Bludger, they'd lose their balance. By the time they regained their position, the Bludger had already attacked them and had flown off. The eighth guy was Harley, who was currently up in the sick ward. The ninth guy had trouble holding the bat for more than five minutes, his skinny arms not able to support the weight of the bat.

And then—

"Let's go, Evans," James said.

Lily's heart jumped to her throat, but she nodded determinedly. She had to do this, for herself and for the dare. And besides, she was determined to not hit any other person with her bat.

Okay. Loose grip? Check.

Firm stance? Check.

Bat in hand? Check.

Loose grip? Oops, she'd already checked that one off.

Double check.

OO

"Evans, welcome to the team," James congratulated, handing her a set of red and gold robes.

Grinning victoriously, Lily took them from him. "Thanks." Then her nose wrinkled in disgust as she smelt something funny. "Have these ever been washed?" she asked, holding the robes at arms length.

James looked at them closely. "Doubt it. Let's just say, you're much more…er…feminine than Amelia."

"You don't have to be feminine to know how to use some soap and water," she commented.

"No, but you do have to have some brains, and Amelia is currently lacking in that area."

Lily laughed and then caught the sight of her friends waving her over towards them. "Thanks, Potter," she said, touching him on the shoulder briefly before she went to join her friends.

She felt like a huge weight had just been lifted off her chest. Not only had she survived Quidditch tryouts and had won the spot, but she had also just completed phase two of her dare. She had to remind herself to berate Marlene later. It wasn't just ironic coincidence that those four other Gryffindors had failed one after the other at the tryouts. During the earlier practices, they hadn't been that bad.

Lily knew she had seen Marlene's wand at work. Besides, Marlene was unnaturally good at Charms.

And to cap things all off, Lily had decided something; Quidditch wasn't really all that bad.

Alright, you are all dismissed!

Woot, woot! Go Lily, it's your birthday! We're gonna party like it's your birthday! (Haha, I have a little dancing stuffed hamster that sings to that song) Dang, why am I so random? Anyways, hope you enjoyed it. Meh, I'm not such if I'm in love with this chapter, but it's alright. Thanks for reading!

And it'd be really nice if you just pressed that little button and left me a review. :) Oh, and a penny to anybody who can guess what phase three will be...oh wait, I don't even have a quarter to get a gumball...dang it! Man, I really do need a job.

Have a great week! And for those of you who are out already for the summer...I'm totally jealous! Hope you're having fun!

--HeyLookTheSnitch