Unfair

The day was bitingly cold and horribly windy to boot; the inhabitants of Hogwarts had all clustered around the fireplace in their respective common rooms, squashed into comfy armchairs and sofas or squeezed around study tables, or were walking as briskly as possible through drafty corridors to their destinations, not lingering anywhere for too long. No groups of students commonly spotted in various gathering places throughout the castle were to be seen anywhere. The library was all but vacant, none willing to sit around in the large, freezing room any longer than they had to.

One lone figure was out and about outside the castle walls. One solitary boy clad in a thick, nondescript, black wool cloak was out on the Quidditch pitch, whipping around faster than could possibly safe in such conditions.

Twelve-year-old James Potter pressed himself flatter on his broomstick, not feeling the icy wind slapping his face as he angrily flew laps around the pitch. He'd just received the worst belated birthday present of his life.

He'd been so sure. There had not been a single doubt in his mind for the last two months. So confident had he been that he'd hardly bothered to actually practice anything. Sure, he'd gone flying a couple times with Brax - with Sterling watching faithfully from the stands with his feet firmly planted on the ground - but they'd done nothing more than fool around a bit and try to out-stunt each other.

How could this be happening?

When the sign-up sheets for Quidditch tryouts had been posted in the common room in early October, James Potter had been at the top of the list. And never, not for one second, had the possibility of failure crossed his mind. He felt so stupid. He whipped around a goalpost so fast he slid backwards on his broom. He corrected himself immediately, not the least bit unsettled.

He'd been flying almost longer than he could walk. He'd had more toy brooms than he could count - at one point, before his parents had donated them all to various charity organizations, the Potter household had held upwards of fifty toy brooms of various sizes and models between the three Potter children - and he'd gotten his first real broom at age seven. His flying skills could not possibly have come into question during the trials.

As if to prove this point to his non-present would-be captain, James slammed the broom into a steep dive, falling for almost forty feet before abruptly leveling out and changing direction. He left his seat momentarily as his momentum tried to continue carrying him forward, but again he corrected himself. His movements were instinctive, almost unconscious in how automatic they were. Anyone watching him would not have denied his talent was natural, inborn and already carefully honed at age twelve.

He should have made that stupid Quidditch team.

He'd heard Laryssa Heins say as much that morning when the roster had been posted in the common room. Laryssa was a fifth year and very pretty, and every boy in Gryffindor - and probably most of the male population of the rest of the school as well - knew she was a catch. James especially liked her hair - it was raven-black, fell in nearly perfect ringlets almost to her waist, and was always very shiny. More than once he'd been caught simply staring at the reflection of light from the fireplace on her hair as she sat in an armchair near her friends in the common room. And she was quite possibly one of the nicest people in school to top it all off.

She also happened to be the head Chaser for the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

"Adelle Mansen?" Laryssa had questioned - loudly - over the noise of the crowd clustered in front of the Quidditch roster posting. She'd glanced around quickly to see the seventh-year girl in question was not in the room before continuing. "Didn't know shagging was a ticket onto the team these days."

She'd looked straight at James, whose heart sank instantly, and those blue eyes that so captivated the males of Hogwarts had softened. If he hadn't been so devastated he'd probably have melted into a puddle right there.

"I'm sorry, kid," she'd whispered, squeezing his shoulder. "It should've been you."

James jerked his broom around in a terrifyingly sharp-angled figure eight around two of the goalposts several times before shooting off across the field again. He'd seen Adelle Mansen and Eawen Katerwall - the Gryffindor captain - after lunch, squashed into an armchair, not even attempting to hide their disgusting display of groping and snogging. And he'd been out on the pitch ten minutes later, testing the limits of his Bliksem as he'd never done before.

He was just so angry.

James Potter was not an angry person. He rarely got upset about anything. Happy was a normal mood for him - unless he counted the first hour of his waking day, which he didn't - and laughter was his default setting. He hated feeling angry or sad, so he just didn't feel them. Whenever Albus threw a fit about something, instead of getting upset with him or at him, James found a way to laugh it off. As such, his younger brother was often annoyed with him, but James rarely let it affect him. He was also rarely jealous - whenever Lily or Albus got a new trinket, he usually didn't care to feel jealous of them because chances were, they'd let him look at it or play with it if he just asked. But there were rare moments when something happened and he just couldn't control his emotions.

James had never felt so angry in his entire life as he did at this moment. He should've have gotten that spot on the team. He knew it. And so did the rest of the entire bloody house!

"Hey, mate, I'm really sorry," Paxton Beaker, a sixth year and the Gryffindor Keeper had said at lunch. "That was low of Katerwall to pick favorites like that."

"Low? It was downright disgusting," the girl sitting next to Paxton had cut in, sneering. "Everyone with eyes can see he only chose her because he's shagging her. She's a decent flyer, but she's nowhere near as good as Potter. Can't believe Katerwall's more concerned with his sex life than with winning the Cup. Ravenclaw is going to beat us again this year if he doesn't step up."

"You're surprised?" another girl asked, laughing. "The second she stepped on the field for tryouts, everyone could see the way they acted around each other. No way we're going to win. We'll be lucky if no one gets beheaded because Katerwall is too busy ogling our Seeker than keeping Bludgers away from his players."

James just sat miserably with Brax and Sterling at his side, trying to tune out the matter-of-fact discussion of his failure. His friends had tried to cheer him up, but nothing had worked, and after ten minutes of relentless joke-cracking, story-telling and verbal Slytherin-abusing, they'd given up and lapsed into silence for the rest of the meal.

Darkness was beginning to fall, and despite his desire to keep flying until he became an emotionless ice sculpture, James could no longer feel his hands, and his legs and back were beginning to ache. Reluctantly - and still not feeling any better about the horribleness of it all - he allowed his broom to drift downward at a leisurely pace. His toes were just barely skimming the frosty grass when his grip tightened and he suddenly rocketed upward in one last surge of fury.

He ascended at a nearly ninety-degree angle, and only the death grip he had on his broom handle kept him from going flying right off the end of it. Almost a hundred and fifty feet in the air - quite a ways past the normal scanning level for Seekers - James leveled out and hovered there, observing the miniaturized Quidditch pitch below him.

That was supposed to be his. Gryffindor's first match against Slytherin was in four weeks - training started tomorrow. And he was supposed to be there. It wasn't fair.

He glanced over at the castle, at the mass of glowing windows that was Gryffindor Tower. Now and then a shadow passed over one of them. James knew that in the common room, countless people were strewn about, warm in the crowded room on comfy chairs. The wind whipped his cloak around his shoulders, and he could feel for the first time that evening the sting against his cheeks. He realized he was freezing, and his teeth began to chatter. It was time to call it quits.

James pulled his broom around and dove toward the pitch in a much less death-defying dive than he'd been practicing most of the night. He landed quickly, ignoring the protest of his frozen stiff legs as he began jogging across the pitch, moving quickly now in his eagerness to get out of the cold.

He passed through the tunnel that led to the outside and stopped just beyond the entrance. He quickly shrunk his broom and slipped it into his pocket before setting off toward the castle at a fast jog.

When he stepped into the entrance hall, he was immediately doused in a wave of warmth, and a second wave of the most wonderful aroma washed over him, wafting out of the tall double doors of the Great Hall. He glanced at his watch. Supper had just started.

James's stomach growled, and he debated for a moment between going up to the now mostly empty common room and satisfying his hunger. His stomach finally won, and he headed in to the Great Hall.

Heads swiveled as he walked past - by now word had probably spread to the entire school that he'd been passed over as Seeker for the captain's girlfriend - but he looked straight ahead, searching the long Gryffindor table for his friends. He spotted Sterling's bright blonde head next to Brax's starkly contrasting dark one about halfway down, seated among their fellow year-mates.

They both grinned when he plopped down across from them.

"James!" Brax exclaimed cheerfully around a mouthful of potatoes. "We missed you!"

"Yeah," Sterling agreed with a smile. "Homework is no fun when you're not there trying to distract us."

James smiled involuntarily at this, and continued to do so as the meal progressed. Not once did anyone mention the newest Gryffindor scandal, and James very grateful for his friends and their ability to distract him.

He was still unhappy, but he figured, as he dug into his supper, that it probably wasn't the end of the world, and at least Adelle Mansen and Katerwall were both seventh years - he'd make the team next year for sure. Until then, he'd make sure those two had hell to pay for pulling such an awful stunt. He grinned to himself and made a mental note to write a letter to Uncle George later. He'd need a good supply of ammunition for the next several months.

A/N: I know I'm horrible. I haven't updated in over a month. But I'm super stressed right now and am just barely hanging on as the awful void of senioritis tries to suck me into its bottomless void. Seriously. It's bad. I've become such a lazy pile. I'm neglecting my homework right now actually. But I guess you guys get to benefit from that. Meh.

Poor James. Rejection sucks. Don't worry though, he'll make sure those two realize they should have known better than to mess with James Sirius Potter. I mean, just look at his name.

Review!