The Marauders: Year Six #Wattys2017

You Stupid Girl

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.