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The Match Against Hufflepuff


Jasper Odair came up behind Lily Evans and slid his palm over her eyes with one hand, “Guess who?” he whispered in her ear.

“Jasper,” she laughed.

“You’ve got it right,” he said, bringing the other hand about to the front of her with a small package wrapped in pretty paper and a bow. “Happy BIrthday, love.” He kissed her cheek and she laughed and opened her eyes and gasped when she saw the present.

Lily looked up at him, taking the pretty little gift from his palm. “Ohh, you didn’t have to get me anything,” she said, lifting it up.

“You’re my girlfriend, I wanted to get you something! You deserve lots of pretty things. And besides, I made it… so, I didn’t really get it...” He smiled as she tore open the paper and found a bracelet, braided from strips of leather with long tails to tie together. He’d burned words onto the leather strips and she moved it to read it - they were words in different languages. Seeing her reading it, Jasper explained, “One strand is the word Beauty in English, French, Latin, Chinese, Arabic, Garblegook, and Mermish…. The next strand is Bravery… Then Hope... This one is Knowledge… this one’s Kindness… this one’s Laughter… and this last one is Love. It’s all the words I hope for you to have all your life.”

“You’re incredible. Thank you, Jasper.” Lily smiled and wrapped the bracelet around her arm, tying it there and then turned around on her bench and wrapped her arms around Jasper’s neck and kissed him.
James came in the room then, already wearing his quidditch uniform, and he spotted them kissing and he stopped dead in his tracks. “C’mon,” Peter said, trying to pull James forward. But James didn’t budge, he just stood there, staring with disappointed eyes for a long moment -- until he started coughing and then he allowed Peter to drag him off down the table to the place they’d been sitting since the rift between James and Sirius had occurred.

“Meg threw a handkerchief at James as he sat down. “Are you going to make it, Potter?” she asked, half-concerned, half-laughing.

James nodded and covered his mouth with the handkerchief, still looking down the table, where Lily was excitedly showing Ali Prewitt her bracelet. Frank Longbottom was leaning across the table to see, too, and Remus and Sirius, who were just arriving, too, were both looking with interest as well. “I’m fine,” James choked out the words as he finally stopped coughing.

“Oh no,” Meg said, “You sound sick. Are you sick?”

“I’m not sick,” James said through a raw throat.

Meg looked at him warily. “Actually, you know, I’m going to go sit with Carly and them today…” she grabbed her plate and moved down the table, leaving Peter and James where they were.

Peter looked at James, “I told you that you sounded sick, you don’t listen. You look sick, too. Here c’mere, let me feel your forehead.” Peter knelt up on the bench and brought his hands up toward James, but James ducked away. “Sit still, will you? I’m trying to feel if you have a fever!”

“I haven’t got a fever!” James said in as stern a voice as he could muster, given that he could barely talk for the burn in his throat. “Blimey, get your paws off me, Wormtail.”

But Peter could tell even without touching him that James was probably burning up - he was flushed in a weird way, the rose of his cheeks bright and the T of his forehead, too, but the rest of him looked pale and his eyes were sort of watery and he had a slight sheen of whatever along the bottom of his nose by his nostrils. Plus, he’d bundled up in two jumpers and the only person that ever did that without being ill was Remus, but that was mostly because Remus was basically always ill anyway.

James took a bowl of porridge and dumped blueberries over it and started eating unenthusiastically. He wasn’t really hungry, but his stomach was upset (nerves, he told himself, it’s just nerves, because of the big game) and he figured the porridge would settle it. Plus being on the pitch with an empty stomach was a terrible idea. He was still staring along at Lily and Jasper, and Lily had turned to show Remus and Sirius the bracelet while Jasper leaned down and hugged her from behind again.

“You need to rest,” Peter said.

“I’ll rest when I’m dead,” muttered James and he looked away from Lily angrily, tears in his eyes as he shovelled the porridge in his mouth. It took about four bites before he started feeling nauseated and pushed it away, deciding that maybe an empty stomach was better than a belly full of porridge that was disagreeing with him.

“There’s bacon,” Peter offered him the plate.

James winced at the smell of it wafting up his nose, “No, thanks.”

Peter looked confused and surprised. “James Potter doesn’t want bacon?”

James shook his head.

“Blimey. You are sick. James, you can’t go playing quidditch when you’re sick like this - it isn’t safe,” Peter said.

“I’ll be fine and after the game I’ll see Pomfrey and get some Pepper Up Potion and it’ll be over with,” James replied. He started coughing again as he inhaled wrong and the breath caught in his lungs. He put Meg’s handkerchief over his mouth again and struggled to turn ‘round on the bench so he wasn’t facing the food. “I’m going to go out there and work on drawing up the first few plays for everyone,” he said thickly. “Bye Pete.”

“I don’t think you should play…” Peter muttered, but James was gone already and so he took hold of his plate and went to squeeze in beside Remus at the table.

Lily smiled, “Peter, look at the bracelet Jasper’s given me for my birthday!” and she explained the different strands as Peter looked over at it, smiling with her.

“I say it’s brilliant,” Sirius announced, “Jasper’s a smart bloke.”

“It’s very nice,” Remus said, nodding, though he didn’t sound anywhere near as insanely enthusiastic like Sirius did.

“Brilliant,” Peter agreed with Sirius, nodding.

Lily grinned and turned back to Jasper. “See my friends think you’re brilliant.” She pressed her mouth to his.




James made his way across the grounds to the team room by the pitch. He sat on one of the benches before the lockers and retied his flying boots so the laces were tighter ‘round his ankles and fastened on his quidditch cloak. He sat before the board they’d preserved with all of Derek’s last plays upon them and he stared up at it, the words and lines on it sort of blending together in his vision and he groaned as a pain went through his side and cupped his hands over his eyes as he doubled forward, labored breathing. “Merlin’s beard, Potter, pull yourself together,” he whispered, struggling to take deep breaths, a sort of rattling happening deep in his lungs. “You’re not sick, you’re not. You can’t be sick. You’ll will this away. It’ll be fine, you’ll be better in a second… Just breathe.”

He breathed.

He started coughing.

Next thing he knew, he was being shaken awake by Frank Longbottom, who was staring into his face, a concerned expression on his. “Potter?”

James looked about groggily. He could hear the commotion of the others in the other room by the lockers and he stared down at Frank, “Blimey,” he muttered, “I didn’t - I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” His throat had him so croaky now that the words barely came out.

Frank made a face, “Mate…”

“I’m fine,” James croaked. Then, “But if you want, you could go over the plays for me? I dunno if everyone will be able to hear me… I can’t get any louder than this… I think I may have allergies or something perhaps.”

“You’ve got laryngitis is what you’ve got,” Frank replied, but he stood up and took the parchment James held out of the plays and unrolled it, looking at them and went over to the new board and drew the plays out.

James folded down on himself miserably and stared at his toes. He couldn’t have laryngitis. He jus couldn’t. He had to play, he had to win. He had to beat Jasper Odair if it killed him… It was Lily’s birthday, she deserved to have her house team win for her birthday! And by Godric James was going to make sure that’s what she got! He’d give her the game-winning snitch, too, wrapped in a box and she’d fancy him for it and all would be happy and ---

“James?” Frank nudged him again. “You should go have a lie-in.”

James had fallen asleep again.

“No, no lie-ins. I - I have to play…”

Frank frowned, “I don’t think you being on a broom is real smart right now… I’m sure we could reschedule the game. Odair is fair, he wouldn’t want to make you fly if you’re ill. He’ll agree to a rescheduling…”

“I’m not rescheduling. We’re playing.”




Lily kissed Jasper outside the Hufflepuff team door as the other team members slipped by into the locker room. “You’ll do brilliant,” she said, smiling up at him, “Beat James Potter for me.” She clasped her fingers behind his neck.

“You know you’re rooting against your own house saying that?” Jasper laughed.

“Just because you’re from a place doesn’t mean you have to like the home team,” she said with a smirk.

Jasper laughed.

When she’d finished saying bye to Jasper, Lily ran up the stairs for the stands, wanting to get a good seat so she could see Jasper in action. This was the first quidditch game of the new term, the first time Lily would be seeing Jasper play since before they’d gotten together. She knew he was good (obviously, he’d heard himself the title of Captain), but she couldn’t recall if he really might have the skill to outfly James Potter or not. She nervously sat herself in the front row of the stands, settling herself down next to Remus, who was next to Sirius and Peter. “I didn’t think you lot would come to the game today,” Lily said.

“I didn’t want to,” Sirius said loudly. “These two made me.”

Remus said, “I wasn’t going to leave you alone back in the dorm and I wanted to come to the match.”

“Since when? You don’t even like quidditch. We could’ve been snogging or shagging or playing chess.”

Remus rolled his eyes, “Yes, shagging… or playing chess.” He looked at Lily with a smirk, “What’s sad is he loves chess so much I’m willing to bet those are equally exciting activities.”

“Nobody loves chess that much,” Lily said.

Sirius leaned back, throwing his feet up on the boards and closing his eyes, “Wake me up with the badgers lose.”

“They could win,” Lily argued.

Sirius yawned and braced his head with his arms.

“You really aren’t going to watch?” Peter asked, nudging him.

“I have no interest,” Sirius murmured. He didn’t say it mean, didn’t really mean it mean. He just really wasn’t interested.

Remus looked ‘round at Lily, who looked down at Sirius, “But it’s quidditch,” she said.

Sirius shrugged.

Lily looked at Remus with worry in her eyes. “You love quidditch, though.”

Sirius shrugged again.

“Well, I’m interested,” Remus said, trying to sound enthusiastic. He really didn’t care, either, other than for James’s sake. He’d never enjoyed quidditch as much as James and Sirius - except for when Sirius had played and he’d looked so bleedin’ hot doing it… Remus had rather gotten into quidditch those years. He looked ‘round at Sirius again and patted his leg gently. Sirius opened one eye to look up at him and Rey smiled at him and Sirius sort of half smiled and closed his eyes again. With a sigh, Remus rubbed his palms together and turned to Lily. “Are you rooting for Hufflepuff, then? I s’pose that makes sense, seeing as your sweetheart’s on the team, ey?”

Lily nodded and reached into her robes to pull out Jasper’s Hufflepuff scarf, which he’d given her to wear in the stands. She smiled and wrapped it ‘round her neck. Remus stared at her a moment as she waved her palm, “How do I look?”

“Like a Hufflepuff,” Remus answered with a smirk.

Lily laughed and they all turned forward to watch the game.




Admittedly, both teams did very well throughout the game. The players on Hufflepuff had trained together very hard - and they were neck-to-neck throughout the match. Ali Prewitt was by far the tar of the Gryffindor team, though, scoring a load of times on the Hufflepuff keeper. It was painfully obvious that James Potter wasn’t feeling well, even though he desperately tried to push himself. Multiple times throughout, Jasper Odair flew over and offered to call the game and take a raincheck, but James was so bloody stubborn... his eyes would flicker toward Lily Evans in the stands and he’d shake his head and he’d fly with gusto a few moments before he’d get nauseated from the movement and have to pause to regain control of his gut muscles and talk his belly out of evicting his five mouthfuls of porridge and blueberries…

They’d been playing an hour when the coughing fit occurred and James coughed so hard that he lost his grip from his broom and tumbled off it altogether, scrambling to catch the handle but missing, falling through the air.

“JAMES!” Lily screamed, standing up in the stands. Remus and Peter stood, too, and Sirius’s eyes popped open the moment Lily had yelled James’s name and he sat up hurriedly, looking over the board with a nervous expression on his face, searching the pitch for what happened and he saw James falling through the air and scrambled for his wand, patting himself down, trying to find which pocket he’d shoved it in - realized he’d been holding it and had dropped it at his feet, and grabbed it up, planning to do the arresto momentum to save his mate, but he was too slow.

Every student in the pitch gasped as James tumbled head over heels toward the ground.

“Oh he’s going to die, he’s going to die, somebody save him!” sobbed Vivian.

Protego!” tried Wally, but of course protego doesn’t stop a boy from falling through the sky and it didn’t do any good - but at least he’d tried.

Frank Longbottom shot forward on his broomstick - so did Meg and several of the Hufflepuff players… but all their brooms were too slow...

Jasper Odair shot through the sky - the player on the fastest broom on the pitch, he was the only one that ever could’ve had hope of catching James. And he flew himself at a perfect angle to meet James before he hit the ground, scooping out his arms and clenching his thighs about the broomstick dangerously, balancing so as to be able to catch James…. And with a whomping thump against his chest, he caught the Gryffindor captain cleanly and the stands went absolutely wild with relief.

Dizzy, James stared up at Jasper. “Odair,” he muttered.

And that was as much of the match as James Potter ever remembered.