Disclaimer: see any of the previous nine chapters.

A/N—for those that commented on this: the first quidditch match they had was against Ravenclaw, not Slytherin, so there's only been one game with Slytherin.

And let me say that I'm very very VERY sorry for not updating for like a gazillion years.

Since I was gone for like… hm… five months(?), I'll write a (very short) summary of the first nine chapters, because I know when authors don't update for a long time I forget what went on in their story.

Chapter one—First six years at Hogwarts, random little stuff, sets stage for later

Chapter two—James made Head Boy and Quidditch Captain, decides he doesn't wanna hold stuff over Lily's head anymore. Lily finds out about him being Head Boy, not Quidditch Captain.

Chapter three—James sends Lily anonymous note telling her who Quidditch Captain is (i.e. him) so she won't find out some other less pleasant way. There's Quidditch practice, and Lily's waiting for James to brag about captain.

Chapter four—There's a prefects meeting, but Lily gets pissed off by James, Snape, Bellatrix, er… just about everyone and ends it really abruptly.

Chapter five—Morning before Quidditch tryouts Lily bets James that he won't get up at 4:30 AM. They have a normal conversation for nearly an hour 'til Lily realizes who she's talking to and leaves. Tryouts were boring.

Chapter six—Lily and James get into a fight at practice. Take it out on each other at the game by refusing to pass. Sirius yells at them. At end of practice Alyssa (other chaser) tells them about masque party in Hogsmead.

Chapter seven—Masque party. Sirius and Kaye have a bet about which can find the other first. Prize is a kiss. Lily and James end up talking to each other the whole night of the masque, not realizing with whom they're talking. Sirius wins bet but doesn't claim kiss.

Chapter eight—Lily and James plan to meet (well change their plans) each other after masque (still don't know who they're talking to.) James apologizes to Lily about Quidditch game at Quidditch practice. Sirius and Kaye keep Lily and James from finding out about the masque. Marauders get James to admit he's in love with Lily.

Chapter nine—Lily and James run into each other in hall and Lily doesn't kill James for knocking down her stuff. Game against Slytherin. Lily and James get into another passing war and Sirius has to yell at them again. Gryffindor wins the game. Kaye has to keep Lily from telling "the knight" (James) her name when he owls her in the morning. Kaye decides to play matchmaker and resolves to enlist Sirius' help.

Oh yea, and I'm revamping all the chapters. No major changes will be made, but just changes in sentence structure, addition or elimination of details… etc. etc. etc.

P.S. If I use loads of run-ons, it's because I've been reading Dickens and well, he writes sentences that are paragraphs long.

CHAPTER TEN (finally) Matchmaker

Lily, Kaye, and Mel went down to breakfast soon after Lily had sent her reply to the knight via the knight's owl.

All during breakfast Kaye kept looking for Sirius. She needed him if she wanted to push Lily and James together. While Kaye had some pull with Lily, she had nothing with James, so therefore could not make sure that he wouldn't do something completely stupid (such as reveal his name to Lily.)

Finally, when they were almost done eating, the marauders came into the great hall and sat down with Lily, Kaye, and Mel. As the marauders began to eat, Kaye kicked Sirius under the table. When he met her eyes (with a rather confused look in them), she motioned with her head towards the doors very slightly and raised her eyebrows, praying that he would understand. For one agonizing second Kaye was worried that Sirius, who looked a bit confused, would say something stupidly obvious. Then a positively evil expression took over his face as he stood up.

"You owe me something," he said to Kaye, grabbing her wrist to make her stand up as well.

The indignation that Kaye demonstrated was not faked. "What!? No, I'm not—Sirius stop, this is stupid! Sirius!" Kaye protested as Sirius pulled her out of the hall. She was about to say 'that's not what I meant', but realized that that would lead to some strange questions from her friends, who were watching with interest in between bites of food.

When they got outside Sirius began to laugh. "I know that's not what you meant," he said, "but it was all I could think of."

"I hardly think that's funny."

Sirius grinned and shrugged. "So, what did you want? Because you know if you don't have something good, then I'll have no choice but to—"

Kaye interrupted. "Keep James from asking Lily her name."

"What?" For a moment Sirius was lost. "Oh! I didn't even think of that. I just thought it would be funny if they found out who they'd been talking to and then both had a seizure about it."

"That's what I thought, too. But you have to agree, they work together, as was proven at the masque. So now I'm going to make sure that they have a chance—er, that Lily gives James a chance," she stated. "And you're going to help."

Sirius raised his eyebrows. "What, play matchmaker? Look, I'm really bad at this stuff—"

"I'll do most of the thinking. Just make sure James doesn't do something stupid," Kaye told him. "Go eat, now." She turned and started to walk away.

"Wait," Sirius stopped her. "You do still owe me something."

This time it was Kaye who was laughing. "Later, Black." She smiled, turned, and walked away, leaving Sirius staring after her.

Sirius walked back into the great hall to find Lily and James in a discussion, not quite a debate, about Quidditch.

"You can't have three chasers all going after the person with the quaffle. Then, if they're fighting each other for the quaffle, you end up playing your own team," Lily said pointedly.

James understood to what she was referring. All their battling at Quidditch matches. "Yes, but if the chasers don't all try to—oh hey Sirius." James stopped in mid-sentence to inquire about the kiss that had supposedly taken place. "How was it?"

"What? Ah, no big deal," he lied.

"I'm sure," Lily muttered sarcastically. "I'm going to go find out what really happened." She stood up and began to leave, followed shortly by Mel (and followed by James' eyes).

James then looked at Sirius. "Nothing?" he asked in surprise. James had a theory that Sirius liked Kaye, but wouldn't tell about it. By 'nothing?' he meant, 'was there nothing there when you kissed her?'

Sirius lightly shrugged. He knew exactly what James was asking (and the reasons and theories behind the question.) "Nothing," he lied again, knowing that he was completely disproving all James' theories.

Just then the mail came in, and James' owl flew over to him with a scrap of parchment clutched in its claws. James took the parchment from the owl and let the owl fly away.

Do you play Quidditch?

That's all it said. The princess hadn't told him her name—in fact she'd completely ignored the question.

"What's that?" Sirius inquired, grabbing the parchment from James and reading it.

James snatched it back. "She didn't reply. I wonder… does she know something I don't know? Does she already know who I am?"

Sirius shook his head. "I don't think so. Just answer the question, and ask her something that's not her name."

"What is so wrong with knowing someone's name?" James demanded.

"She could lie. For example, you could very easily say you were me, and she wouldn't know the difference. And if she tells you her name, you'd have to tell her yours. And what if—"

"Okay, Sirius, I get it," James interrupted.

Sirius sighed internally. He really needed Kaye's help; he was not good at this at all. Though he had to admit it wasn't a bad idea what she was trying to do.

While Sirius thought, James scribbled down his answer.

Yes. Why? Do you?

He shoved it in his pocket to send later. As soon as the note was out of his hand, his mind became preoccupied with the conversation he'd been having with Lily. She had, not so subtly, made a point about their "battles" with each other, especially at Quidditch games. Was she mad at him for that still? He thought over recent Quidditch games and completely saw her point. It was mainly his fault. He was doing an outstanding job with this 'try to get Lily not to hate me' deal. Really. If possible, he was giving her more reasons this year to loathe him than he had in any other year, when he'd been trying to make her angry. He knew he had no hope, that there was no way in hell that she would look at him the way he looked at her, but he couldn't give up.

Lily and Mel went up to the dormitory hoping to find Kaye there. Kaye was sitting on her bed reading a book.

"So, Sirius didn't tell us anything useful. What really happened?" Lily demanded.

Kaye looked up. "Er, nothing. He had pity on me and made it fast."

"No tongues then?" Mel sniggered.

Kaye rolled her eyes. "No. Don't look so unhappy about it."

Later that night, Lily went down in the common room to get something she thought she forgot and found James sitting alone pouring intensely over Quidditch strategies and diagrams. She quietly walked over and looked over his shoulder, planning to throw an insult as a surprise and make him feel stupid.

"Hi, Lily," he muttered without looking up. She didn't have any idea (since he looked completely absorbed), but butterflies came alive in his stomach, and his concentration switched completely to her.

She glared and sat down. "Well I was going to surprise you with an insult, but you ruined it."

"Sorry," he said, fighting to keep his voice indifferent.

"So how long have you been working on all that…?" she asked him.

James glanced at the clock. "Er… two hours maybe?"

"Do you want help?" She offered, then added (after a strange glance from him) "I'm over the captain thing, you just look like you need help. I want the team to do well, too," she justified.

"I'm just, I mean… I thought about what we were talking about before, and I was trying… to…" he tripped over his words as she took one of the pieces of parchment, trying to explain that he had taken what she said into consideration. "Yeah, help would be good," he consented finally, giving up on his explanation.

Lily didn't really look at the parchment though. For some reason James' voice pulled a string in her memory… but she couldn't place it. She shrugged and figured that she'd only ever heard him when he was angry and it was strange to talk to him like a normal person. Though that made no sense, because she'd have had to have heard him talk like a normal person at least once in six and a half years…

"What's wrong?" James broke into her thoughts.

"What? Oh, nothing," Lily said. She hadn't realized she'd been frowning. "I thought… forget it. Anyway, Quidditch," she continued, mentally reaching for the correct subject.

"Um yeah." James paused for a second, turning his quill over in his fingers. "Look, I'm really sorry about not passing and getting into arguments with you at matches. And I'm really sorry for apologizing once and then doing it again at the next match."

Lily smiled, a bit surprised at his thoughtfulness. "Don't worry about it. Really it's as much my fault, too." She looked down at the parchment in her hands. Quidditch, she thought, I'm here to talk to him about Quidditch, because I want the team to do well. The diagram on the sheet gave her an idea.

"I have an idea," she told him. "Can I…?" she asked, motioning to his quill and a blank piece of parchment.

He nodded and handed them to her. She quickly sketched out another diagram and explained her idea to him.

"That's really good. I can't believe I haven't come up with something like that after two hours," he joked.

Lily laughed. "Thanks."

James took the parchment. "Can I have this?" he wanted to know.

A wave of déjà vu that Lily couldn't explain poured over her. Did he remind her of a character in a movie? Did his voice sound like one of her favorite singers? Did she have a dream about him that her subconscious mind was trying to remember… or something equally improbable? What was this?

"You look… pensive," James stated cautiously.

Lily looked up. "I had…" she wondered if she should tell him? "I just…" no, she wouldn't. "… was thinking about more Quidditch strategies."

"You've already helped a ton." James grinned. "I wasn't thinking straight before." Well, he wasn't thinking straight now, either, but for a different reason this time.

Again, Lily had the unsettling feeling of seeing James as a human where before he'd just been an adversary. It made her feel guilty. She looked at the boy sitting in front of her and realized that she had no real reason to hate him, as he obviously didn't hate her any longer. For the first time, she saw him as a potential friend. "Glad I could help."

"Lily!" a voice yelled. Soon, Kaye came into view.

"Lily, I need help with this homework—oh, hi James." The moment Kaye saw who was sitting across from Lily, she wanted to slap herself. What did she just interrupt? There were Quidditch diagrams all over the table, and neither looked angry, so they must've been having a real conversation. How could she get in the way like this? The situation looked like it had so much promise!

"Hi," James replied, as Lily said, "yeah, no problem. Which homework?"

"Um, it's upstairs. But we can do it later, if you're busy now…" Kaye tried to give Lily an opportunity to stay without turning around and bolting back upstairs (which she was very inclined to do at this point.)

"Ah, no, I sort of just sat down here without invitation anyway, so…" Lily trailed off, standing up. "See you later," she said to James.

"Yeah, bye," James murmured as Lily and Kaye walked away. He sat there with Lily's diagram in one hand, staring at it. He must've done something right, because they hadn't gotten into an argument. She had talked to him. Lily Evans had sat down at his table and talked to him, without either of them engaging in insults or arguments.

He was floating.

A/N—I am not sports-savvy. I don't know anything about strategy for normal games, so I don't want to act like a fool and try to do it for Quidditch.

And I'm very very very sorry at the shortness of that chapter. First I don't update for a gazillion years, then I update with a chapter that's very short and doesn't have much going on in it. I feel so bad. But I wrote this whole thing with a massive case of writer's block… ::cries:: I'm sorry.