The Marauders: Year One | #Wattys2016

A Tie on the Pitch

A Tie on the Pitch

The night before the first Quidditch game of the season, Derek Bell had called everyone down to the common room for a pep talk. They sat 'round the fire, the whole house of Gryffindor, and Derek stood up on the little coffee table and looked 'round at the team members. "Tomorrow, we face off against Hufflepuff," he said, "Now, Hufflepuff historically doesn't have the best team, but they've got a couple of new Beaters that are rumored to be particularly good, so that means you two - Weasley, Longbottom - you'll have your work cut out for you keeping our chasers on their brooms. Lily, in practice, you've been a bit flighty about the bludgers. Be sure to keep out watch on them tomorrow - we don't need anybody falling off their brooms and getting injured tomorrow. Potter, you, too." Derek paced a moment, and took a deep breath. "I just know this team can win, alright, you lot? I know we can. I worked hard curating you all, and I want to include a majority of you on the All Star team for the match against Ilvermorny. But you've got to be spiffing during the season if I'm going to do that, so let's show Hogwarts who their Quidditch champions are! Let's rock that pitch tomorrow like they've never seen before!"

"Here, here!" shouted Bilius, raising a bottle of butterbeer, which Peter had knicked from the kitchens for the occasion of the pep rally. The entire house clapped at the words.

Derek turned, jumping down off the little table, and magicked a box onto it. It was a rather large box, and he opened it up and pulled out Lily and James's official game uniforms, their names sewn into the back over their numbers. "Wow," James murmured, running his palm over the letters - POTTER. He'd waited his whole life to see that jersey. He remembered the one that Charlus had from his own days playing on the team and he unfurled the jumper a bit to see the number. He was number 28. His dad had been 16.

Lily was inspecting hers, too. EVANS, 5. She beamed down at the gold letters happily.

When Derek had finished handing out their uniforms, he cleared his throat and sent the players to bed, saying it was important that they all get a good night's sleep as they would need their energy for the game next day. He stayed in the common room himself only long enough to shoo the other players off.

In the dorm, James quickly forgot the task of going to sleep and wriggled the Quidditch jumper on over his head. The sleeves were miles too long and the whole thing was a bit too loose. He shook his hands out of the ends of the sleeves and nervously looked at himself in the mirror, frowning. "It's too big," he complained.

Sirius snickered. "You're going to have a hard go of it if you can't catch the quaffle. Look at you."

"What's the spell to cut fabric? I need to cut these down," James asked, sounding borderline hysterical.

"Don't cut it," Remus said, "That'll look awful." He came 'round the end of the beds and took out his wand and tapped the sleeves of the jumper. "Diminuendo," he commanded. The whole jumper shrunk just a bit - just until it was snug as it should be. "There you are."

James beamed, "I swear, Remus, you really are a genius."

Remus shrugged, "Just a simple shrinking charm, not a big deal at all."

Next morning, James was nervous and could barely eat at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall. Biliius however kept shoving eggs onto him and Lily and insisting that they eat them. "Protien helps with the playing!" he persisted.

James looked about. "Where's Derek?" he asked, noticing the captain of the team was missing.

"Dunno," Bilius replied. "Reckon he's probably gotten up early to head down to the pitch ahead of us or something. He was already gone when Alex and I got up this morning."