MOMENTS

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Potters, Weasleys, or any other character you may recognize

Chapter 3:

The sky was mostly clear and very little wind. All and all it was good Quidditch conditions. Most captains won't start tryouts until next weekend but I like to get a head start on things.

I already bought out all of the Quidditch equipment, the captain badge was pinned to my chest, and I had my Lightning Bolt broom in my hand.

People started showing up before eight o'clock. I liked that. I'm looking for dedication. If you can't show up on time, then you don't make the team. If you aren't willing to miss breakfast, then you don't deserve to be on the team. I take Quidditch very seriously; therefore I only want the serious players.

At 8 o'clock exactly I had twenty-four hopefuls in front of me.

"Before we start I'm going to explain my rules and expectations. Just because you were on the team last year doesn't mean you'll make the team this year. I do not pick favorites, I don't care if we are related. If you are a part of other clubs or you have any obligations that you'll put before Quidditch don't even bother trying out. If you don't make the team, don't give up. I hold three practices a year. You might not be the best now, but if you keep training you never know what can happen. With that being said I am building two teams. Like professionals I like to have a main team and a practice team. I've read the Hogwarts rule book and it doesn't say you can't substitute players if a student gets injured. If you make the practice squad, I expect you to take it as seriously as you would if you made the main squad. Now I want you to split off into groups based on position."

I looked at the potentials there were ten chasers, six beaters, five seekers, and three keepers.

"You and you" I pointed to two keepers "Pick a side and guard it. You, you, you, you, you, you split into two teams. You got ten minutes from the time I throw the quaffle in the air to impress me, make it count."

Every ten minutes I would switch out players. After a while I added in beaters and seekers. Some people went in the air more than once, so I could get a second look.

After two and a half hours I gathered them all around.

"Girl with the pink thing in your hair, what's your name?"

A blonde fourth year wearing a pink bow replied "Sansa Wright."

"Congrats Sansa you make the team."

"Luce, you make the team again" I told my cousin Lucy. Lucy cheered.

"You," I pointed to a short kid, "Are you a first year?"

He nodded demurely. "You did good. You can join the practice team but I can't let you play against Slytherin. You're so small their beaters would focus on you and you'd be taken out within minutes. What's your name?"

"Colin Creevey" he replied.

The name was familiar. "Keep practicing, you'll make a good chaser one day. Guy with the weird shaped glasses, and other guy with the long brown hair you're welcome to join the practice squad. To all the other people who tried out for chaser, better luck next time."

There were some groans and complaints but I ignored them.

"Hu you're keeper. Jace, you're welcome to try out on the practice squad." I didn't even bother mentioning the last guy who tried he didn't save any goals.

"Roxy and the creepy guy holding her hand you both make the team. However if I catch you making out on the field then you're both off the team. There's no time for romance on my team. You, blondie, and you, scary looking guy you can be on the practice squad. Alright next is seekers."

I looked over my notes again. My brother Al plays seeker for Slytherin and he's fast. The problem is his eye sight, it's worse than dads.

"You, Laura" I pointed to a girl who was playing with the ends of her curly black hair.

"It's Lorelai" she replied.

"Lorelai, you're a decent seeker, but you're too slow to go against my brother Al. You should probably get a better broom. You can join the practice squad, and if you get a better broom I might let you play in the game against Hufflepuff. Their seeker, Cauldwell, is okay but plays half-heartedly when matched up against a girl. You, what's your name?"

"Jason Summers"

"Congrats Summers, you make the team. To everyone else if you didn't make a team I'm sorry. I have a lot of free time this year if you want to schedule in a private practice to help you get better let me know and I'll set that up. If you made the team or the practice team then I want a copy of your schedules before you go out to celebrate. I don't just schedule practices in the mornings and I need to know when your free times are."

"How'd tryouts go?" Fred asked as I entered our dorms.

"Hugo made the team he told me he was going to try out for beater but he must've changed his mind because he tried out for keeper."

"His mum probably talked him out of it. You know she didn't want him to play Quidditch at all"

"What? Why not? I thought Aunt Hermione liked Quidditch"

"To watch sure enough, but to let her little Hugo play, not so much."

Beaters are the only players who are allowed a weapon. If anything they're the safest players to play. I shrugged my shoulders and continued on "Roxy and Lucy are back too. You do realize that it's almost 11. Why are you still in bed?"

I went through my rucksack and grabbed a couple of chocolate frogs.

"Hungover" Fred muttered. "I woke up this morning with two sixth years clinging to me, no shirt, puke on my shoes, and a elderly house elf poking my face."

"Sounds like you had a good night."

"From what I remember," he muttered. "Do me a favor. Before you start analyzing your Quidditch playbook, brew me a hangover potion. It feels like there are pixies wreaking havoc in my brain."

"I'm shit a potions, but sure" I said. "Here have a chocolate frog."

I tossed him a frog before eating my own.

I ditched my school robes for normal dark blue ones. I looked around for a brush but then I remembered I'm not a girl and didn't need to use one. I ran my fingers through my hair. I'm the only one in the family with brown hair but its still Potter messy. It goes down to the tips of my shoulders but no matter how much I try to tame it, it always stays the same.

The door opened and my three dormmates came in: Fred, Jace, and Brendan.

"Here you are" Brendan said. "It's hot as hell outside and we challenged these birds to a water fight near the lake. You have to come."

"No can do" I told them.

"Where are you going, all dressed up?" Fred asked.

"I'm not dressed up" I replied automatically looking at myself in a mirror.

"I can smell your cologne from all the way over here" Jace said.

"Shut up!" I sniffed myself. I barely spritzed it.

"Whatever your plans are, cancel them. Lacey Greene, the Ravenclaw girl with the hug knockers is going to be there. I bet her swimsuit is skimpy" Fred said.

I rolled my eyes, Fred and his Ravenclaws.

"No can do" I repeated. "I have a date."

All three guys stopped changing into their swim trunks and stared at me.

"By 'date' you mean you're taking a girl to your favorite cupboard so you can snog her senseless?" Fred said.

"No, I mean an actual date."

Brendan walked over and grabbed my chin "No stars in eyes, doesn't feel feverish, I don't think you've been slipped a love potion, although it's hard to tell."

I shoved him away from me.

"She didn't slip me a love potion."

"Fine, don't come. That leaves more scantily clad girls for us" Jace said.

My invisibility cloak was stuffed into my robes along with the Marauder's Map and my money bag. Getting out of Hogwarts at this time of day is easy. Getting back in past curfew might be more difficult.

I went to the common room. Alison was talking and giggling with Charity Nelson.

"Thanks for the notes. I'll have them back to you by Monday" Ali said.

"No problem take your time" Charity spotted me "James" she sneered.

"Charity" she still held a grudge over the whole fat arse thing. "Hope you don't mind, but I'm going to be borrowing Alison for few hours."

"We were just finishing up" Ali rolled her eyes. "Catch up with you later, Charity."

"Have fun, Ali. James" Charity sneered my name again as she walked off.

"Charity is a generally nice person. What did you do to her that has her snarling?" Ali asked as we left the common room.

"Nothing, she asked for my opinion and I gave it" I shrugged.

"So where are we going?"

"You'll know when we get there" I replied.

"I don't like surprises."

"You'll like this surprise."

We headed down the first set of stairs.

"You know most people have picnics out by the lake."

"I'm not most people" I told her, "Besides right now there's a battle of the sexes water fight taking place by the lake."

We turned onto the fifth floor. I walked up to the statue of Gregory the Smarmy.

"Can you keep a secret?" I asked.

"Of course."

I tapped the head of the statue with my wand and it moved aside.

"Welcome to one of the secret passages out of the school" I told her as a path was revealed.

Alison looked surprised for a moment. "I can't believe there is a secret passage out of the school. When did you find out about this?"

"I found out about this one my first week of school" I told her as I lead her inside. The statue shut itself after us.

"This one? There's more than one?" she asked.

"There are at least seven. Some of them are caved in though. Quite sure McGonagall knows about the one beneath the one-witch statue. She was treating me suspiciously when she saw me in that area." Of course that was back in my second year before I found the Marauder's Map.

"You should know, I don't sneak just any girl out of school" I said as we came out of the tunnel.

The room was filled with stacks of boxes.

"Where are we?" Ali asked looking around.

"Weasley Wizard Wheezes. This place used to be a Zonkos before my Uncle bought it out. He doesn't mind when anyone uses the passage, as long as they don't steal anything."

I used a simple spell to rid our clothes of the dust and spider webs gathered from walking in the passage.

"Ready to see what Hogsmeade is like when it's not overrun with students?" I asked.

"Sure, let's go."

She linked her arm into mine.

We left the inventory room and was in the main part of the store. There were a couple of customers. I nodded at the clerk who knew I was still in school, but never said anything when I came through this way.

The Hog's head isn't the ideal place for a date. I don't really know the barmaid at The Three Broomsticks well enough to assume she won't report to the school. And there was no way I was going into Madam Puddifoot's. So I took her to Mia's Pizzeria, it's a new place just past Dervish & Banges.

Mia is a nice elderly Italian lady who likes to dote on me because I was her first ever customer.

"Jamise, it's so good to see you" Mia said and she grabbed my face and gave me a kiss on both cheeks."Oh, you bought a pretty lady friend."

Mia kissed both of Alison's cheeks as well.

"My name is Mia"

"I'm Alison."

"Pretty name, for a pretty girl" Mia said and she led us inside.

Mia's isn't a typical restaurant. The cooking section of the restaurant is the bigger part because Mia give's lessons on how to make pizza. That's what we were going to be doing today.

"You're my only customers at the moment so come on back."

Mia gave us both white aprons.

"We're making our own pizza?" Alison asked.

"I thought it'd be fun."

Ten minutes into it Alison groaned, "Why can't we do this the muggle way?"

She was having trouble with the simplest of spells. How hard is it to make a rolling pin roll out dough?

"Because the wizard way is faster" I replied.

"I've been trying to flatten this stupid dough for the past seven minutes with no luck and stop laughing at me."

I stopped chuckling. "Sorry, how about I roll out your dough for you? We'll even do it the muggle way."

I grabbed her hands and placed them on top of the rolling pin. We were incredibly close as I rolled the dough flat. I couldn't help but smell her hair, it smelled like strawberries. How was that even possible? I thought all shampoos were flower scented, at least the girly ones.

"See you got it."

"Yeah, doing things the muggle way is so much faster" she said.

"I think this is the only time that applies."

I set the tomatoes to chop themselves up while Ali cut up the garlic by hand. All together it took us thirty minutes to do something that normally only took five. Not that I'm complaining. It was fun watching Ali mess up and blunder around before she just gave up and did things the muggle way.

When our pizzas were in the oven we went out to the main part of the restaurant. There were more customers now. Mia was instructing two couples in the kitchen. There was a sad looking guy at the bar waiting for a to-go pizza.

We choose a corner booth seat so we were sitting side by side instead of across from each other.

"So how often do you come here?" Ali asked.

I shrugged, "Like every other month. Sometimes more. I've tried to convince the house elves to add pizza to their list but they don't make the menu, McGonagall does."

"Maybe we should send a pizza to McGonagall, let her know what she's been missing."

"That sounds like a brilliant idea. What do you think she'd like better olives or green peppers?"

"Neither pineapples."

I shook my head. I was surprised when she added pineapples to her pizza, it's a fruit for crying out loud. Why would you want to ruin a perfectly nice meal by tossing fruit into it.

"Only a girl would think to add fruit to a pizza. Next you'll be trying to toss in a side salad."

"What's wrong with having a little salad on the side?"

I just shook my head.

"Besides pineapples on a pizza is a lot healthier than bacon."

I added a ton of bacon to my pizza. "Pizza isn't supposed to be healthy, it's supposed to be good."

"Okay fine, when our pizzas get out of the oven we have to swamp a slice to see which is better. Deal?"

"Deal"

We shook on it.

Afterwards I placed my arm over her shoulder.

We sat drinking butterbeer until the pizza came. Mia offered wine but Ali wouldn't drink any since she's under age. I wouldn't drink if she wasn't.

Our pizzas came out and we swapped slices. Word of advice baked pineapples are horrible. I manfully swallowed my bite but was surprised Ali didn't.

"This isn't turkey bacon?" she asked.

I raised my eyebrow "No. Bacon comes from a pig" I said slowly.

She slapped my arm "Don't talk to me like that. I know where bacon comes from. It's just that pork is so unhealthy most people change it out for turkey."

"If bacon comes from a turkey then it's not bacon" I replied. I had never heard of such a thing. It's not like I eat a lot of pork, but bacon is the best thing to eat with eggs, sausage, and hash browns.

Ali rolled her eyes but didn't comment. She knew I was right.

We changed the subject to school. It had been such a long time since I went out on a real date. This was definitely different for the better. I think the last date I went on was when I was a fourth year. First hogsmeade trip of the year I asked this older girl out and she insisted we go to Madam Puddifoots. It was horrible. Not that I minded the snogging bit, it was the fact that everyone was staring. Rumors flew around Hogwarts faster than a golden snitch. Everyone began watching my every move. I couldn't so much as talk to another girl without my so called girlfriend getting jealous. It was ridiculous. After I ended things with her I guess I really stopped dating. I didn't see what the point was would be if they wouldn't trust me. Snogging in cupboards is much easier. At least then the girl knows that there's no strings attached, therefore no need to be jealous.

"What are you looking at? Do I have something on my face? You've been staring intently for the past five minutes" Ali asked.

"Nothing," I said trying not to blush.

After we left Mia's we went to Honeydukes. We got into a slight disagreement in the shop. I insisted on paying since it was a date. She was getting things for her friends as well and she didn't think I should have to pay for everything. It was considerate, I wondered if any other girl would do the same. But I guess Ali isn't any other girl. We settled it by me paying for her chocolate and her paying for her friends. After that we just walked around talking and eating chocolate until she realized how late it was. We snuck back into the school. It was pass curfew and Ali was in awe of my invisibility cloak; even more so than the map. Personally I think the map is way cooler.

I kissed her goodnight at the foot of her stairs, like the gentleman that I am. She whispered a seductive 'goodnight' and I knew I'd spend most of it thinking about her.

AN: Anyone who has ever read/saw Prince of Tennis I got the idea for James to hold tryouts after every match from them. I like how Seigaku holds their tryouts before every major tournament.