She thought her life was over – but fate gave her another chance, in a world of magic. Now, running around Hogwarts with James Potter and his friends, she's about to make choices that will change the future in ways she never thought possible…

Marauder's Phase

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Salamanders And Fireworks

I awoke on Saturday morning to find someone shaking my shoulder.

"Aurgh," I muttered, thinking I was back at 'home'. "Go away Samantha, I'm not doing your chores for you…" Samantha was always getting me to do her morning chores for me, with the promise that I'd 'regret it' if I told Mum.

"Wake up Emma!" Whispered a voice that was most certainly not my older sister, and I opened my eyes to see beautiful Angelique Jacobs, who was in her final year at Hogwarts, standing over my bed, already wearing her scarlet Quidditch robes and a look of impatience. "Quidditch tryouts – today!" She added, in case I didn't know; in case I'd missed James telling us fifty-two times yesterday. And everyone who wanted to try out for the Gryffindor team talking about it too.

"What?" I groaned, trying to find my pocket watch from around my neck. "Now?" Were my eyes playing tricks on me, or was it really six-fifteen in the morning? "As in now now?"

Angelique nodded firmly. "Yes now!" She marched away toward the door as I sat up, rubbing my eyes and yawning. "Now come on! James wants us out there at half past! And don't go back to sleep!"

She closed the door quietly, but not so quietly that Lily didn't wake up.

"What's going on, Ems?" She asked, as I slipped out of my nightie and went looking in my trunk for my own scarlet Quidditch robes.

"Quidditch tryouts," I replied, realising that I'd put the robes on inside out and hurrying to correct it. "Go back to sleep, Lils."

"Nah," She said. She climbed out of bed too and began dressing in her day clothes. "I might as well come too – I wanna see how James goes as Quidditch captain."

I gaped at her. "Lils – did I just hear you refer to him as James, not Potter?"

Lily looked slightly embarrassed. "W-well yes, I guess I did." She blushed.

"Ooh, I'm telling!" I said, bounding toward the door. "I'm telling James!"

"Don't you dare!"

***

"I like playing as reserve Seeker," I told Lily, as we made our way across the grass toward the Quidditch pitch, me with my broomstick in hand. "But I don't think there's any way that James would let me take over his role."

"I heard him say something about making you a Chaser now that Morris Bells has left," Lily confided in me. "But they're gonna have a hard time filling in Rains' position as Keeper if they do that…"

"Why do you say that?" I asked, as we arrived on the Quidditch pitch, and saw a cluster of red crowded beneath one of the goal posts, with black speckles within them.

"Because this year's lot is hopeless." Lily said bluntly, and I gaped at her for the second time that morning as we approached the group. "Well they are!" She defended herself.

"If you say so." I yawned – I'd had Astronomy last night – as the group turned and spotted us.

"Ah, Evans!" James said, striding toward her with a big grin on his face. "Come to see my fine skills as Quidditch team captain?"

She raised an eyebrow. "I've yet to see anything but your conceitedness, Potter."

James looked wounded. "Ah, but Evans, you should know by now that my skills on the Quidditch pitch aren't limited merely by the position in which I play!"

Lily and I stared at him in amazement. "God Prongs, you sound like a textbook." I told him. I glanced over his shoulder. Twenty-one people glanced back at me. "Umm…are all these people trying out?"

James nodded, glancing in the direction I was looking. "Yeah…since we have only two positions to fill in this year…"

"Three." I corrected him.

"No Ems," James shook his head patiently. "Two. I've already decided to make you the Gryffindor Keeper."

"KEEPER!!??" I shrieked, and a great silence followed my outburst. The hopeful candidates for the team all began whispering fervently.

I grabbed James' arm and dragged him away from them, with Lily following us.

I hissed: "James, I have seen no less than four Quidditch matches in my entire life! I have played in one Quidditch match in the same space of time, and that was as your reserve Seeker! I have seen what can happen to a Keeper in a game of Quidditch – do you want me to be turned into a polecat!?"

"Who's being turned into a polecat?" Asked Cara Markers, whose older brother Jiles Markers had been her fellow Beater until his graduation last term. Without waiting for an answer, Cara went on: "Are we starting now, Potter? Only they're getting a bit…restless…"

James nodded, and turned to me. "Look, I know you're going to make a great Keeper. Go with Angelique and Felicia now," He pointed to Angelique, who was standing next to Felicia Hales, a tall girl with chestnut brown hair and glowing brown eyes, who was Angelique's fellow Chaser. "And practice some moves, while I…"He grimaced. "Sort this lot out…"

"Yeah, good luck with that one." I told him, before mounting my broomstick and kicking off into the air, to the delighted 'oohs' of those people brave enough to come out to the stands at this hour to watch the tryouts.

***

Halfway through the tryouts, something very interesting happened.

Most people in the stands had gotten up and left for breakfast – those that had stayed seemed to be half asleep, as they watched us all zoom around on our broomsticks.

James was getting thoroughly annoyed – Lily was right, this years lot was hopeless.

And I was a hopeless Keeper, worse so than Ron Weasley at the start.

I had just managed to intercept an attempted score by Felicia, and even then I think it was only by chance, I passed it back to Angelique, and was just getting ready to try it again and see if I could do it a second time, when all three of us happened to look up.

One of the second years who had been trying out, whose name I didn't hear, was having some trouble with his broomstick and, as we all watched, he came off it, plummeting toward the ground at a sickening speed.

As people began screaming, and the kid who was falling did too, I shot forward on my broomstick, aware that I was the closest one to the kid and that, if he should get injured, then I would be the one to blame.

I angled my broom to fly downwards when I was still about fifty feet away from the kid, he was heading straight toward the ground and I was going at it diagonally almost, I leaned across my broom and reached out my hand…

I grabbed onto the kid's wrist, and his feet just barely skimmed the still dewy morning grass, as I set him down gently and he immediately collapsed to the ground in a dead faint.

I felt like doing the same thing, as sweat slid down my face. But I was smiling – that had been totally awesome.

***

"Lucky that kid's gonna be alright," Lily said, as she, the Marauders, the rest of the Gryffindor Quidditch team and I walked out of the hospital wing.

"Lucky Emma was there to save him!" Peter piped up.

I blushed. "Oh, come on, I just happened to be closest…"

"No, Wormtail's right," James spoke up, and everyone stopped talking to look at him. "Em, while your Keeper skills, umm…well, you…"

"I couldn't stop a Quaffle coming through if it was on fire and behind me was a row of Fire Salamanders holding Filibuster Fireworks in their mouths." I stated flatly.

James cringed. "Ah, yeah, you couldn't. But the point is…I may have to rethink the whole Seeker-Versus-Keeper thing…give me some time to work on it, okay?"

Everyone was looking really interested by now – everyone but me, that is.

I was feeling really sleepy, and wanted to go to sleep, but not in the girls dorms, because I wanted to actually get some sleep, and a dorm is not the place to do it during the day.

So, when I could, I stole away, and ran up to the corridor where the Room Of Requirement is. After thinking that I needed a place to sleep for a few turns, the doorway appeared, and I went inside and collapsed onto one of the beds with the down pillows, and fell into a deep but not entirely dreamless sleep.

--

In the dream, I heard a voice…a horrible, dark voice, was it was whispering to me…

"…so long…I've waited…for so long…come…come to me…"

The strangest part was…the voice sounded oddly familiar. Familiar…and yet strange…

--

When I woke up, and checked my pocket watch, it was four o'clock. Damn, I knew I wouldn't sleep tonight. Oh well, the Marauders and I could just sneak out again, I wanted to show them a few new tunnels that they didn't know about.

I left the Room Of Requirement (which vanished behind me) and went along the hallway, turning left and nearly running into Professor McGonagall.

"Ah, there you are Miss. Pax," She said. "I have been looking everywhere for you – your detention will be tomorrow night at six o'clock. You will be helping Professor Riberta clean the trophy room. Ah, without the use of magic, of course."

My heart sank. "What's Sirius doing?"

"He will be helping Mr. Filch clean the boys' bathrooms on the fourth floor." McGonagall said, and I cringed. "I trust you will not do something to warrant detentions like this again, will you Miss. Pax?"

I shook my head. "No, Professor McGonagall." Although her definitions of what warranted such a punishment were very different from my definitions…