Chapter 4.
A week later. The majority of the seventh-year contingent of the Gryffindor common room is gathered around a large table. Silence. Everybody is reading, or writing. Louisa yawns, buries her face in her book and groans.
Swift smiles from the rest of the table. No words.
Lily turns over a page in her book. Remus searches the desk for his quill, which seems to have disappeared. Without looking up, Sirius slides his own spare quill over the desk towards Remus. Mary opens her rune dictionary with a sigh.
Lou tears off a piece of parchment, screws it up and throws it at James. He looks up, distinctly relieved to be distracted from his essay.
"What?" he asks.
"Can we have a Quidditch practice? Tomorrow? We haven't practiced yet and we need to, and as much as I love books, I haven't read anything willingly for a whole week, and I really need to fly around and hit things."
James grins. "I'll put a sign on the notice board in a bit."
Lou smiles, closes her book decisively, and stands up. "Thanks. I'm going to bed."
Panic grips the whole group.
"Have you done the Potions essay?" asks James, almost accusingly.
"Yeah, it's easy once you get the main principle."
"What about the Defence Against the Dark Arts research?" asks Remus.
"Did it in my free period earlier."
"The Charms assignment?" Lily's voice is weak.
"I did that yesterday."
"I hate you," says James.
"I hate you, too," says Lou brightly, gathering up her books and leaving the common room.
She walks up the stairs almost jauntily - a hard week of intensive NEWT-level work after a whole summer of laziness drains the jauntiness from everyone.
She opens the door of the dormitory, and there she sees Kelly and Jess. Privately, she thinks of them as 'The Twins'. They're not, they're not even related, but Kelly Marks and Jessica Bateman are frighteningly similar. Kelly is dark and Jess is fair, but from their facial expressions to their immaculate make-up, from the way they style their hair to their opinions on everything, they are essentially the same person.
"Hi Lou!" says Kelly. "Have you had a good day?"
"Apart from the mind-numbingly difficult lessons, yeah, it's been great."
"But what have you done apart from lessons?"
"Nothing."
The Twins look at each other. Privately, they think that Louisa Reece is weird, crazy and odd. In reality, she is beyond their comprehension. They can't understand a girl who likes books, and Quidditch, and is friendly with boys she's not attracted to. And then there's the sarcasm, which goes straight over their heads. They're not stupid girls (Lou tells herself, with more kindness than conviction), they're just single-minded.
"I saw you were sitting next to Sirius in the common room," says Jess.
"Was I?"
"Are you going out with him?"
"Of course not."
"Do you think he'll go out with me?"
Lou considers Jess' appearance, and notorious lack of sense, and what she knows of Sirius' dating history. "Probably," she says. Never has such an innocuous word sounded so insulting.
Lou tidies her books and bids The Twins goodnight.
The next day, after lessons, Lou runs up to Gryffindor Tower, grabs her broom and runs down to the Quidditch Pitch. When the rest of the team get down there, she is already in the air, flying around, enjoying the wind on her face, hitting imaginary Bludgers with her bat.
"Lou!" calls James, and she speedily changes direction, landing in front of him smoothly. He grins.
"You must have ran so quickly to get down here."
"I did."
"Well, everyone else is getting changed, so shall we fetch the balls? Sirius and I are already changed."
Lou flicks her eyes suspiciously over James' shoulder. "Hi, Sirius. Why are you here?"
Before Sirius can answer, James speaks. "We need a second Beater, Sirius has agreed to help us until we find someone."
"Are you good?"
Sirius shrugs. "I can fly. And I like Quidditch."
"Brilliant." There's an accusation in her eyes when she looks at James.
"Actually," says James, "it only takes two of us to carry the balls. Come with me, Lou."
They walk off together silently.
"What?" asks James.
"I didn't speak."
"You didn't need to. What's wrong?"
"What do you think is wrong? This is Quidditch, it's important, it's not just something you can invite your friends to and have a good time. We need good players, not just people who you happen to like."
"Are you accusing me of…of nepotism?"
Lou smiles, despite herself. "No, James. I'm accusing you of being an idiot."
"I thought it would be easier, having a full team. I thought you'd appreciate another Beater."
"I would, it's just, is he any good?"
"Not especially."
"Then he's completely useless. I'm used to playing with people who are really good, and if I have to play with someone who's rubbish then it hinders my development and it does the team no good at all."
"Give him a chance. Just this once."
"Alright, but I'm not going easy on him."
Two hours later, Sirius staggers into the common room, accompanied by James, who tries - and fails - to hide his smile. Sirius rubs the back of his head, slightly dazed. "Never again," he says. "No way. Never again."
Remus, the only one of their group currently in the room, looks up from his essay. "Good practice?"
"No," says Sirius. "Louisa Reece tried to kill me."
"No she didn't," says James. "She just tried to prove your unsuitability as a Beater."
"By trying to kill me."
"By hitting Bludgers at you, Sirius. That's what Beaters do."
"I'm going, to…" Sirius gazes around, confused. "Lie down for a bit. If I don't wake up, get Pomfrey."
He walks away slowly. James is kind enough to wait until Sirius is out of sight before bursting into laughter. Remus chuckles too, and their laughter is interrupted by Lou sauntering into the room. She slides into a chair with a smile.
"What's funny, gents?"
"I've just seen Sirius," says Remus. "I think you've frightened him for life. Was he really not any good?"
"She didn't give him a chance to be good," says James.
"What, and you think other teams would? You think there's anyone on any team in this school who would be less aggressive than I was?"
James doesn't reply. Lou continues.
"In answer to your question, Remus, Sirius is a decent flier. He'd be a reasonable Chaser if we trained him up, but we've already got three great Chasers, we don't need anyone else. And he's just not cut out to be a Beater. He's got the strength, but he hasn't got the aim. And he dodges Bludgers, instead of trying to hit them."
"What are you going to do, then?"
"Hold trials," says James. "Hope for the best. Hope there's someone in this House whose playing doesn't send Lou into evil murderer mode."
"I resent that," says Lou. "You know full well that I only do what's best for the team."
James smiles. "I know, I was only teasing."
"Good. Anyway, there's one piece of good news for Sirius. I spoke to Kelly and Jess last night, and Jess was all," - Lou adopts a high pitched voice - "Do you think Sirius will go out with me? So even though he can't play Quidditch, he still hasn't lost his touch in seducing dimwits."
"I thought you were going to be nice to them?" asks Remus.
"Trust me, I could have called her a lot worse than that."
They laugh.
"I don't think Sirius will be that pleased about Jess, though," says James, thoughtfully.
"Why not? I thought he liked them stupid? Less brain cells than Jess and he'd be snogging a turnip."
"And that's nice?" asks James with a grin. Lou shrugs. James continues - "I don't know what's going through his head, to be honest. All Summer, he was surprisingly inactive. I mean, he was all for smiling at people so we could get cool stuff, but he never really seemed interested in anyone."
"Maybe he's sickening for something," says Lou.
"He's growing up," observes Remus, wisely.
James looks stricken.
"Don't be selfish, James. You've been growing up for ages, it's only fair to let Sirius do it, too."
"But he always said that adults were boring! He always said that he was never going to be anything other than adolescent and annoying."
"People change their minds. Maybe he's looking for something meaningful."
"But he always said -"
"Maybe meaningful isn't such a bad word to him anymore."
Silence, thinking.
The door opens, and in walks Lily. "Hi!" says Lou with a smile. "Where have you been?"
Lily steals a glance at James. "Meeting with Dumbledore."
James looks up, horrified. "Not the meeting? The meeting that he said we'd have? The important meeting? That was today?"
"Yeah."
"Why didn't you tell me last night when I agreed to arrange Quidditch for this afternoon?"
"I forgot, myself, until ten minutes before the meeting."
"What did he say? Did he say I'm the worst Head Boy ever? Did he say he'll take my badge from me? Banish me from the school?"
"I told him there'd been a scheduling problem, and your work as Quidditch Captain had accidentally coincided with the meeting. I told him you'd be along to apologise when you could, and that I'd recount the meeting to you."
"And he was okay with that?"
"He didn't seem to mind."
James leaps to his feet. "Thank you, so much. I could kiss you."
"I know," she says, softly, as he runs out of the room.
Lou raises her eyebrows, but Lily shakes her head and sits down. "How was Quidditch?" she asks pointedly.
Lou is confused, her mind's fully occupied with thoughts of the exchange she's just witnessed. "Oh, you know, okay," she says.
Remus glances at them both, smiles slightly, and stands up. "I'm going to go to the library," he says. "For…"
"Books?"
"Yes. Thank you, Lou. For books. Enjoy your conversation."
They watch until the portrait closes behind him, and then Lou looks intently at her friend.
"What was that? What happened?"
"What?" Lily is unconvincingly off-hand.
"You know what! You were nice to James. You made excuses for him. You volunteered to spend time with him. You looked wistfully at him."
"I was friendly. I have to be friendly because he's Head Boy and I'm Head Girl and friendliness is what we do. And I made excuses for him for the same reason. And we have to spend time together anyway. As for wistfully…I have no idea what you're talking about."
"You are not getting away with it that easily. This is huge. Do you like him? Do you actually, really like him, after all this time?"
"Don't be ridiculous."
Eye contact. Lou looks eagerly at Lily.
"I don't like him. Not in the way that you're thinking," insists Lily.
"But in some way?"
"Not especially. We have to work together. We are not close, there is no thing between us. I'm just being friendly. It's what's appropriate."
"I don't believe it."
"It's true."
"If it's true now, it soon won't be."
"What makes you say that?"
Lou grins. "The look in your eyes. There's no mistaking that, my friend. You like him, in some way, and soon enough you will like him more."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
Lou laughs. "Of course you don't, Lily. Of course you don't.