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You Stupid Girl


James sat on the rail of the stands with his broomstick, legs hanging over the empty air before him, watching as Lily Evans flew about the pitch, warming up her broom handling. She wore Sirius’s number jumper on her back, her braid carefully fastened to her head to keep it from getting in the way, coiled about in a knot at the back. When he felt like she was ready, James slipped from the stands, catching his broomstick between his legs and flying forward quickly, carrying the quaffle. He flew a loop around her and tossed the quaffle to her, speeding ahead to block the rings as a makeshift keeper.

Lily caught the quaffle easily from his throw and spun about, having been going toward the south rings, she now followed him back toward the north rings and she played at dodging invisible obstacles, darting and sweeping left, right, up, down, spinning ‘round, and then approaching the rings, she aimed and let the quaffle sail right over James Potter’s shoulder.

“Excellent,” he said.

They played like that for some time - James chucking the quaffle away and Lily rushing to catch it. Every time she turned away from him to fetch the quaffle, she felt as though she simply must catch it, or else there wouldn’t be any hope of ever ---- Stop it, Evans, you can’t ever be with him anyway, so stop being so worried about it! And she would catch the quaffle and a couple times he cheered and Lily felt her heart swell up when he did it.

“YEAH, good one Evans!”

Finally, he waved her down to the ground and they landed, stumbling over the snow and coming to a stop at the foot of the northern rings. “Hey that was great,” James said as he leaned his broomstick over his shoulder, “Really great.”

“Thanks,” she said shyly, her face turning red.

“Yeah, of course.” He nodded for them to walk back toward the lockers and Lily followed. “I should’ve given you the position after try-outs,” James admitted.

Lily was undoing the gloves she’d worn out there. “You had to do what was best for the team,” she said.

“You playing would’ve been what was best for the team,” James admitted, “I was just being an arsehole.”

Lily said, “Well, I sort of deserved it. I’d been an arsehole to you.”

James laughed, “Yeah...well… I mean, I let you treat me like that. Might’ve even encouraged it at times. I just liked the snogging.” He held open the door of the locker room and waved her through first, following after.

“It was rather nice snogging we were doing,” Lily agreed.

James threw his equipment down on one of the benches and undid his cloaks from ‘round his neck, laying them next to the equipment. “It can only be so nice without feelings attached to it,” he shrugged and ran a hand through his hair. He looked her over a moment, then said, “I’ll step outside so you can change for lunch and all that. I’ll wait for you.” He headed for the door.

Lily turned to watch him go. She wanted to say something - something about the niceness of the snogging and the feelings and his stupid hair and how knotted up she felt when he messed it up like that… but the words were like a jigsaw puzzle, all jagged and hard to piece together, and the opportunity passed as the door closed behind him. She sighed and tugged Sirius’s jumper off, shoving it into the locker and putting her broomstick in with it.

“Stupid girl,” she muttered to herself, “You stupid girl.”

Outside, James leaned against the wall and he fished about in his pocket, producing his pack of cigarettes and he flicked his wand to light one up as he stood, staring up at the castle high above. He drew a deep pull off the cigarette and sighed as he stared up at the hospital wing windows, hoping that Sirius wasn’t suffering too badly up there… He blew a long stream of smoke from his mouth and watched it float away over the snow.

“James!”

He looked up and saw McKenna Alliston jogging down the path from the castle, her hair bouncing as she ran. James took another drag off the cigarette and stood upright, casting it down and smushing it with his Quidditch boot as she arrived. “James, hey,” McKenna said, smiling and touching his arm in greeting.

“Hey McKenna,” he answered back.

“Gosh, what a morning, huh?” she said, “Wow, are all your quidditch practices so exciting?”

James shook his head, “Well, no, not usually.”

“I’m so glad Sirius is alright. That looked like a mighty nasty hit he took. The bludgers are positively horrible.”

“Yeah,” James said. His heart was racing. Why had she come all the way down here? Just to talk to him? He felt important and a grin crossed his face as he realized this was an opportunity. “I mean, being beater is one of the harder positions to play in quidditch. You get a particularly violent pair of bludgers and it’s downright dangerous,” he added, “Which is why I’m going to have to take over for Sirius, because I’m the only one I dare risk that way…”

McKenna ate it up. “You’re so brave, James Potter.”

“Well, I mean, it’s my duty as Captain to do what’s best for the team, even if it means putting my own self at risk… it’s about that House Cup, about winning that cup for everyone - not just myself, for the whole of Gryffindor… for you.” He stared at her with those big round James Potter eyes and a sort of pouty little expression…

“For me? You wish to win the house cup for me?” McKenna asked breathily.

“Gotta win it for somebody… every great hero has a muse…” he answered.

McKenna smiled and stepped toward him, reaching out a hand to touch his chest, and he smiled down at her and licked his teeth, hoping his mouth didn’t taste like cigarette too much, and he leaned forward and kissed McKenna softly on the forehead and she laughed as she tilted her face up to meet his second peck at her with her mouth.

It didn’t occur to James that Lily was taking longer than she ought to have been.

Lily could see them through the window, and she hung back, watching them as they kissed, James’s hands on McKenna’s sides, her arms wrapping around his neck to twiddle with his hair at the back… She felt a little ill and she sat down heavily on the bench behind her and wondered at how disappointed Sirius would be when he found out that he’d gone and broken his elbow for Lily to not be able to put together the words to say when the moment had come for her to say something… and now James Potter was snogging the wrong girl. But at least he looked happy doing it, Lily thought. His face was flushing from it and his mouth curved upward and he moved his mouth feverishly against hers…




The stands were packed for the game. Everyone in the castle had heard about Sirius Black’s injury and the dramatic last minute replacement. They were all curious to see James Potter play a new position on the pitch - it was unprecedented, a single player having played at three different positions throughout his career on the team! And there were excited Ravenclaws who, despite the fact that it was their team the Gryffindors would be going up against, were talking statistics and facts about how the last time a single player had played three different positions during their quidditch career had been over a hundred years ago.

James Potter was set to be a great star if he could pull off playing as a beater and win the game.

There were girls chittering, too, because James had put Lily Evans in as Chaser, and there was a good deal of speculation about why, and whether James had done it because he liked Lily, but then James showed up to an early dinner with McKenna on his elbow and the rumors started flying that Lily and McKenna were fighting for James’s affections.

“Is it true that you and McKenna Alliston had a fist fight on the grounds over James?” Vivian Warshaw asked when Lily sat down at the Gryffindor house table.

“No,” Lily answered, “Bloody hell, where did you hear that?”

“Macy told me,” answered Vivian.

“Danae said she heard it from Divinia who heard it from Janis Darrens,” Macy informed Lily.

“For Merlin’s sakes,” Lily said, shaking her head.

The rumors spread about regardless, for somebody had seen Lily and McKenna shoving one another trying to get to Sirius earlier in the day when James had carried him up to the hospital wing and soon there was a good deal of people declaring to either be “Team Lily” or “Team McKenna” and Lily was getting pats on the back and words of encouragement as she walked out to the pitch with her broom.

James laughed when he caught her up close to the locker room entrance, “Did you hear, you’ve had a cat fight with McKenna over who’s going to snog me, love?” he was smirking, that lip on the tooth grin that he only seemed to give to her. “Bleeding ridiculous, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ridiculous,” Lily agreed.

James guffawed and pushed the door opened for her, holding his arm up so she had to duck under him to get inside. She turned to tell him that it was ridiculous more because it hadn’t happened yet than because it wouldn’t ever happen but James frolicked past her and jumped hyperactively at Frank - “FELLOW BEATER! Got any grand tips for me, my man?” he asked and Lily felt her cheeks redden as she went back for the jumper she’d left in the locker earlier, banging the door of it about in frustration.

Ali leaned against the lockers next to Lily and stared up at her with raised eyebrow.

“Stop,” Lily murmured.

Ali smirked, “I haven’t said anything.”

“I can feel you thinking it,” Lily explained.

Ali shrugged.

They headed out to the pitch for the match and all eyes were on James Potter as he held the beater’s bat and tightened his gear about him. He made sure to wear the elbow pads that Sirius had forgone for the practice. Madam Hooch flew out onto the pitch and James shook hands with the Ravenclaw captain and flew into position and Lily went forward to do the quaffle toss and the match began.

It was a terribly exciting match - a lot of impressive plays were made throughout, and James was quite good at beating. Lily Evans made three goals rather quickly and Ali did another two so that when Meg Johnson caught the snitch in seemingly record time, Gryffindor was already ahead and the win was quite a large one and the team flew together triumphantly, celebrating as the stands exploded with cries of excitement and clapping, people shouting that James Potter had just pulled it off and wasn’t he incredible!

Lily felt her guts wrench about when James collected a celebratory kiss from McKenna Alliston, who leaned over the rail of the stands to kiss him as he hovered there on his broomstick.

But she smiled just the same because really it was her own fault she couldn’t be with him… and didn’t James Potter deserve to be happy?