She Said What?

Chapter 20: I Witness a Mad Victory

A/N: I know how tempting it is to want to shout at me, "C'mon, Zay, give us a plot now!" But I'm going to request you don't do that, because I refuse to believe that life really has a plot. All it is, is a series of events that lead us to a conclusion where, if we want, we can look for some kind of meaning. Some events are small and some are large; I am making room for the large ones by getting smaller ones out of the way first.

This entry takes place on November 15. I can tell you right now that the Christmas season does good things for L/J and January onwards is full to the brim with drama and teenage love affairs. Just trust me when I say I've got stuff coming. Okay?

For now, this is a Quidditch match and some info on Livvy/Russell. That's another side story I'm going to spend some time on.

Enjoy, I hope.

November 15

9:00 AM
Status: Excited

I know it's been a while since the last time I wrote, but there has just been so much going on lately, I really haven't had the time to catch my breath, sit down, and take a few minutes to note it all down. I have an hour now, though, so that's why I'm here.

Today – November 15 – has been a big day for a long time. Although I've failed to mention it, Livvy and James have been harping on and on and on and on and on about it for the past three weeks, because today is the day of the big Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff.

Oh, lord, the Quidditch match.

James has been completely insane over the idea of playing Hufflepuff for the first time. He apparently watched them practice once and demanded a greater degree of excellence from his own team. It was his first match and he didn't want to be too lenient – so he went the other way and worked them half to death trying to make them go harder, faster, stronger, better.

To his credit, James has done some incredible work on them. I find it hard to believe they won't win, because they've trained so much for so long that they are an unstoppable unit. The team knows each other quite well and trusts each other. They've bonded because every single one of them has in common the fact that James has annoyed the living hell out of them.

They have reason to believe this – Livvy made me and Alice sit in on a practice once to witness the horror firsthand – but I mean, it does bring them together.

A couple of days after I'd last written, James put the team through a practice that Livvy came back livid about. She was yelling and screaming and throwing curses around in the dorm with me and Alice for what felt like hours, because goddamn it, she was sick of this. After she'd had her rant, she begged me to please do something about him, because she couldn't take this anymore and I was his friend, I could help them.

I agreed to do so and I must say, I am very pleased with the tactic I used and the results I yielded. During a patrol, I told James a riddle that had stumped Alice and Livvy for a while and let him spend nearly the entirety of the patrol trying to figure out. He couldn't. I told him I'd tell him the answer and ease his pain if he could ease the pain of his Quidditch team.

He knew instantly that Livvy had sent me – apparently, she gives him a lot of dirty looks on the pitch – but he agreed to the deal. I told him the answer (he insisted it was the dumbest riddle he'd ever heard in his life, including those that Sirius had sprung on him in the past) and he, true to his word, calmed down during practice.

Livvy was happy to report the next day that not a single person had a new abusive nickname for James after the practice. I got a team-signed thank you card from them the day after in Charms. I think I've officially been dubbed Girl to Get Favors from James, but I don't mind. I actually think it's kind of funny.