Nose to the Wind // tomarry

Chapter 22: Give Yourself a Try

Somehow, Lily managed to find out about the altercation before Hogwarts let out the following week, and Harry couldn't decide if it was more likely that the Weasleys had told their parents and she'd heard from Molly, or that the Slytherins had written home and one of their parents had caught Lily at work. Either way, Lily told off James for starting the whole mess, but she seemed to be of the same mind as Severus, that since Harry hadn't killed anyone or broken any of their wands, he wouldn't have to suffer a grounding.

Harry half suspected it was a sort of attempt to reward him for moderation, but he didn't bother questioning the reason for his good fortune, just accepted it with silent gratitude.

The welcome home party was especially overdone that summer, as Sirius and James apparently decided to use it as an excuse for all of them to celebrate Hogwarts winning the TriWizard Tournament. Honestly, Harry was rather relieved that, when they happened to spot the Diggorys at the station, the pair of loons resisted the urge to do more than loudly congratulate Cedric. (Judging by the helpless sort of smile Cedric wore when he glanced at Will, he'd a pretty good idea of where he had got his particular brand of over-the-top exuberance.)

They'd scheduled a day for the Hogwarts students to unpack their trunks, then they were off to Gibraltar for a week and a half. Lily absolutely got her beaches, and they all had the chance to pick up a bit of muggle history and wander around the local sites. They ended up taking a day trip to Tangier near the end of the holiday, because Hermione and Remus had conspired to track down information about the ferry and sites to see across the strait, apparently attracted to the less-European architecture and the chance to see a bit of a new foreign country.

All told, it was a nice holiday with its own particular charm, but Harry was kind of glad to return to England. If only because he could visit the dark lord again. (Which he absolutely didn't do their first night back, no way.)

Once they were back in England, James set about dragging Harry – and Sirius, Will, and Chris, who had actually invited themselves along, usually with Peter or Remus to act as a third for apprating – around to watch various quidditch practices. Because he'd apparently decided that Harry wasn't going to continue his muggle education, since he was so set on a job in the magical world. (For his part, Harry was a bit torn about his future education, and had pretty much decided to wait until his GCSE results came in to settle on a course. Which he'd told both of his parents, and the tiredly amused look Lily offered him each time James declared they were going to watch a practice said that she, at least, remembered that conversation. Not that either of them made any attempts to get James to slow down.)

Unsurprisingly, James and Sirius – and Will and Chris, though they were less vocal, by far – were pushing for him to focus his efforts on Puddlemere United, and that was the team they went to see the first three visits. Ron, when he got wind of events – Harry blamed Will – was quick to insist Harry join the Chudley Cannons, while the twins wasted almost three hours on a loud row about which team would be the best option, eventually settling on the Holyhead Harpies. (Harry was convinced the whole thing was staged just to annoy everyone else, especially since the Holyhead Harpies was a women-only team. When Ginny had pointed that out, Fred had very seriously brought up a sex reassignment, at which point Harry had made a tactical retreat for the sake of his limited sanity.)

Harry didn't actually have a preference for which team he joined, other than it not being the Cannons, and he spent a lot of time rolling his eyes at everyone else. He'd almost resorted to getting Lily to talk to James about letting him look at other teams, but he ended up not having to, as the Puddlemere manager, Philbert Deverill, approached them during their third practice, two days before Harry's birthday.

"We usually scout new players through Hogwarts teams," Deverill said after James had introduced them and explained that Harry was looking at a possible career in quidditch, "which is something you're going to find true for most of the league teams, though you wouldn't be the first hopeful who either didn't attend Hogwarts, or never made it onto their house team. We'll usually run a little mock practice for those sorts at the end of the summer, see how they do on a broom and working with a team, and I'm happy to set something up for you, but we don't actually have any open slots on either the main team or the reserves, so it's very unlikely anything will come of it. I'm sorry."