"No. You told Remus that." Lily waved her shoe threateningly in his face. "All right, I'll stop!"
Lily settled back into the couch. "You said something about a rose in that letter you sent me. You also said you'd explain it. Shoot."
James grinned evilly. "Did you get it?"
Reaching into the pocked of her robes, Lily pulled out the flower she had received, looking a bit apologetic as she handed it over and a few petals fell off. "I did."
Taking the flower, James smirked. "Guess who sent it to you."
Lily raised her eyebrows. "The opinion of the girls in my dormitory is that Peter sent it. It's perfectly ridiculous, of course, but it was the only idea they had."
James picked a hanging petal off the flower. "His name starts with an S."
"An S? James, give me a real answer. Do you know how many people in this school have names that start with that letter-First or last name?"
James grinned. "First."
Lily frowned. "First name starts with an S?"
Sirius whirled around from his game of checkers with Miranda. "What about me?"
James waved to him to come over. "The rose thing."
"Oh." Sirius was grinning from ear to ear. "That." He swung himself over the back of Lily's chair and landed right beside her. "Tell her."
Lily was confused. "Tell me what?" She looked from James to Sirius in expectation.
James took something out of his pocket. "Recognize anyone in here?"
Pulling the piece of paper close to her eyes, Lily gazed at it incredulously.
It was a simple, but very well done sketch of herself; a depiction from her shoulders up. She was smiling in the drawing, with her eyes sparkling and a lock of red hair tucked behind one ear. She was wearing an earring of a dazzling green, which she recognized as one of a pair she had worn about a week before school let out for the Christmas holidays. Behind her, she recognized the bright and cheery walls of the Charms classroom. The drawing was done in coloured pencil, with a small black scribble of a signature in the bottom right corner. Lily accepted the small, not very strong magnifying glass Sirius handed her and studied the writing.
"I can read S-something. Don't you have a better magnifying glass?"
James smiled. "I have something better." He pulled his wand out. "Engorgio!"
Lily watched as the sketch grew to four times its normal size and had to be laid down on the floor for inspection. She slid down from the couch and sat on the carpet, next to the signature.
"S. Snape?" Her eyes widened. "Why-" She stopped in amazement.
James grinned. "Well, what do you think?"
Lily managed to recover herself. "I think it's very good."
Sirius waved that aside. "No, the fact that our dearly beloved Slytherin enemy, the hater of Muggle-borns, drew a picture of you and kept it in his pillowcase."
Lily started to laugh. "His-his pillowcase? What on earth�" Her voice trailed off.
Remus nodded. "His pillowcase. Although James and Sirius haven't revealed to me how they found it there�hint, hint." He punched Sirius lightly in the stomach, who immediately keeled over, coughing and choking.
"Please-no touch-no touch! -Sirius allergic to wolfies!"
Lily and James looked at each other in surprise, then burst out laughing along with Remus and Peter at the sight of Sirius curled up in a ball and scratching himself madly while rolling on the floor.
Recovering himself first, James rolled his eyes, catching a glimpse of the flurries of snow whirling outside the window. His eyes twinkled. "Sirius, get up. We're having a snowball fight!"
Half of the Gryffindors that had been in the common room made a mad dash for their dormitories in search of cloaks and mittens. Skillfully avoiding being stampeded, Lily wound her way upstairs through the throng.
She ran to her trunk, opened it, and burrowed through her things for a dark-green cloak with a hood, lined with black felt that her mother had sent her at the beginning of the holidays. Wrapped in the cloak were thick black gloves and a dark green scarf, which Lily threw on as fast as she could.
Eva followed her down the stairs, muffled in a pale blue cloak with white fur around the edges and collar. Her parents were rich, very rich, which had excited the envy of many of the girls. Quickly, they climbed out of the portrait hole, sprinting down the corridor as fast as they could.
For the first time in days, Lily stepped out of the front doors, gasping as she saw the amount of snow on the grounds. The lawns were covered in four feet of snow, and they had to fight their way through the drifts to get to a somewhat less snowy area underneath a weeping willow.
Eva and Lily cleared a sort of path to the willow, only ten feet long but surrounded on each side with snowy walls, as thick as they could make them. The path was made of snow that they had stamped and jumped on, till it was so thick that they couldn't have pushed a shovel through it. They were just erecting a sort of doorway at either end with the help of Vanessa, Amanda, James, Sirius, Miranda, John, and Remus when a roar from the castle gates announced the arrival of the rest of the Gryffindors. Most of them jumped off of the castle steps, landing in the soft snow and managing to sink halfway through it. The students who hadn't were fighting their way through the snow to the end of the pathway to the willow, where they were putting up a fort and packing ammunition together as fast as they could.
John conjured a megaphone, climbing on top of a pile of snow. "My fellow Gryffindors." The students fell silent. "We have invited the other Houses out here, and we're going to kick them into next winter, where hopefully they will fall into a snowdrift even larger than this one." The Gryffindors cheered. "So don't waste your snowballs on any of us."
He stepped down, made the megaphone vanish, and went to the other side of the willow to help Miranda and Lily conjure up a high snowy wall all around the tree's drooping branches.
By the time the rest of the participating school came outside, the Gryffindors had made a regular war fort out of their willow. There was no more willow to be seen; instead, a white half-circle a foot thick had been erected right next to the lake. Surrounding it was a wall seven feet high, and, as a finishing touch, an elegant doorway opened into the willowy, white grounds and a Gryffindor flag, stolen from the Great Hall, waved jauntily on the top of the half-circle. Practically everything was put up by magic, especially most of the dome, the banner, and the doorway. Inside the willow, the Gryffindors not helping with the fort were busy making snowballs. There were mounds of them stacked up near the back, and the grounds weren't even starting to look less white.
The rest of the school stormed outside, but no sooner had they made it down the steps but they were met in mid-jump by a shower of snowballs. The Gryffindors had made two tiny ditches near the entrance doors and ten of them were hiding inside the ditches with a large supply of ammunition. Taking advantage of the confusement and entanglement of the rest of the school, the scouts scurried back to the willow.
The victims, instead of separating, drew together in an attack towards the Gryffindors. Marching as an army would, with Malfoy and a Hufflepuff girl as captains, they surrounded the dome. There were no guards at the doors, so Malfoy entered first. He soon wished he hadn't.
Squeezed against the wall were about forty Gryffindors on each side, each armed and ready. Malfoy retreated, limping, with smarting red cheeks and his black fur cloak covered in snow. Stunned by the attack on Malfoy, the rest ran to retreat.
Lily, from her post behind the fort, grinned evilly as she guided a humongous, oversized snowball over the heads of the school. The diameter of the thing had to be thirty feet, and the constant Engorgio's were making it swell even larger. At the moment when Malfoy was running back, she was getting ready to release the cannonball from where it hung on its invisible hook. Lily flicked her wand, but never got past that as a huge weight fell on her from behind.
One of the Ravenclaw-Slytherin-Hufflepuff army had hung around the Forbidden Forest, watching the attacks and meaning to force his way in from the back of the willow. About to curse the snowy wall, he saw a figure, crouching, move towards his army with a breath-takingly large snowball held up in the air. He saw the figure raise its wand, and, making up his mind in a split second, he dashed forward, hurling himself on the Gryffindor.
Lily was lying on her stomach with her wand hurled far from her and an enemy on her back. Her wand was too far away for her to reach, so, using a trick she often put into practice when attacked like this at her old Muggle school, she kicked up as hard as she could. Her foot connected with her attacker and made him fall off, groaning in pain.
Lily jumped up, her wand too far away to reach, but her fists were doubled. She tried to inch towards her wand, but couldn't manage it with her opponent dashing at her every chance he got. Three feet away from her wand, her arm was pinned under her and the other arm was being twisted. She let out a scream, and almost immediately, a familiar voice came to her ears.
"Hey, get off her! Get off!" James had tackled the attacker after making the snowball land on the small army, hard. Trying to see if her hand would still move by itself, Lily crawled away, tearing her scarf away from where it had been wrapped around her face. She plunged her wrist in the snow, wincing.
James and his assailant were still fighting, his opponent clearly winning. He threw James off and rushed towards Lily, who got up off of her knees, shaking her hood back.
Snape stopped dead in his tracks. "Lily?"
Lily pulled her hair out of her collar. "I thought you were going to attack me. You're not doing a very good job of it."
Snape started to turn a bit red. He swished around and went for the entrance doors.
James came up to Lily, who had sunk back onto her knees, holding her wrist. "He'd better be glad he didn't hurt you too much, otherwise he wouldn't be retreating right now. He'd be having his face ground into the snow. C'mon. I'm taking you to Madam Pomfrey. She's pretty good; she should fix this up." Glaring at Snape's retreating figure, James took Lily up to the hospital wing.
Madam Pomfrey was very good. She fixed up the twisted wrist in about five seconds, then dried up Lily and James' clothes with a wave of her wand. She handed both of them a mug of watered-down Pepperup Potion, muttering on and on about the dangers of snowball fights, finally sending them downstairs to their common room, forbidding Lily to go outside again that day. They passed a rather comfortable afternoon in front of the fire, with James teaching Lily the finer points of chess and introducing her to his Hogwarts house-elf friend, Minky, who, among loud protestations of pleasure at meeting Lily, brought up a steaming pitcher of hot chocolate and two mugs. ("Minky is so pleased to meet miss. Minky does not know how Minky can express Minky's gratitude at being allowed to meet miss, indeed, Minky is honoured, miss.")
The Christmas feast was delicious, as usual, James said, a bit blas�, as he burrowed through mountains of treacle tart, chocolate pudding, and blueberry ice cream. The boys' plates were heaped, and even if they had wanted to, Eva, Lily, Vanessa, Amanda, and the girls on Gryffindor's Quidditch team couldn't have stuffed themselves full to the brim, since almost every time they reached for a piece of cake or a baked potato, they would have to pull their hands back quickly for fear of being cursed or hexed by one of the boys, who seemed to think that this whole feast was only theirs.
After having to content herself with a four-inch square piece of steak, a few cookies, the last baked potato, a thin slice of turkey and a tablespoonful of dressing, Lily was trying to keep her book from being spattered by chocolate pudding as she slowly ate the last few spoonfuls of the raspberry sorbet. The girls were alrather dissatisfied as they watched the Ravenclaw table, where several fifth-year girls were complaining about how much they had eaten.
"Matilda, do you know, I must have gained ten pounds just tonight."
"I don't see why you're talking. I had no idea that Yorkshire pudding had that many calories in it. I might have to stop eating altogether to make up for this."
"You don't have to do that. If you eat celery, celery cancels itself out."
"It does?"
"It doesn't taste all that good, but it'll work. It's better than throwing up after every meal."
Lily stared at the Ravenclaw girls. Normally, she would have been disgusted to listen to that kind of conversation, but tonight she was too jealous to care. They had actually eaten a good dinner.
Amanda was the first one to say what the Gryffindor girls thought as they shifted their gaze to Sheila and her friends, who were digging into chocolate candies Sheila had received as a Christmas gift. "You know what? We need to ask to be re-Sorted into Ravenclaw."
Eva nodded. "Better yet, let's go over there. Sheila knows me." She waved over to the Ravenclaw table. "Oy, Sheila!" The group turned around, curious. "We need to come over to your table."
Sheila raised her eyebrows as she shot a stream of blue sparks into the air, spelling out the word, "Why?"
Eva pointed to the boys, and Sheila laughed. "Enough said. C'mon over."
The rest of the evening, Lily had an unobstructed view of Snape, who kept looking over to the Ravenclaw table. She wasn't sure who he was staring at, since Sheila was sitting next to her, but it seemed that every time Lily met his gaze, his eyes quickly turned back to his plate.
The rest of the holidays passed rather quickly. James had given the picture Snape had drawn to Lily, who didn't really know what to do with it, so she stuffed it in the lining of her trunk. Snape had found out that James and Sirius had swiped it, so he had withdrawn into the Slytherin common room, obviously hoping to avoid the teasing James and Sirius were planning.
Far too quickly, the students came back and classes started again. Snow was whirling thickly outside, so every Herbology lesson that was scheduled with Professor Groves was cancelled, as people kept cutting class to avoid having to walk across the grounds in six-foot deep snow.
It was during one of those free periods that Lily found herself in the frosted window of her dormitory, playing with the elf-nymph necklace, which she wore around her neck, and staring into the midnight-blue pendant. She was passing her fingers along the thinly woven gold chain when her eyelids drooped and her head fell onto her chest, her hands clutching the necklace.
She had the sensation of falling, falling down into space, and was just wondering when and if she would ever stop when, abruptly, she fell into a wet, dewy substance. She shook her head violently, then, struggling out of the dew, which contained many watery plants, she managed to climb onto a rock close to her. Shivering a bit, she drew her wet robes close to her body. There was a splash near her, and when she opened her eyes to look at the thing that had made the noise, she almost fell off of her rock.
It was a creature that reminded her a bit of the pictures of veelas she had studied in Defense Against the Dark Arts, but in a way it was nothing like a veela. It-or, rather, she, had a sheet of silvery hair that hung down her back. Her snake-shaped eyes were a deep greenish silver, and her ears were pointed and long. She had unnaturally long fingers and unpainted silver nails. Her lips were the same colour as her eyes, and her skin was pale, pale as the crescent moon, with a silvery shine as she moved. Around her neck hung a silver necklace, thinly woven and delicate, with a dark green emerald clasped in silver talons. She didn't wear a shirt or robe; she had on what seemed to Lily to be the top of a bathing suit. Again, it was and was not anything like a bathing suit top; it was made of silver strands of light, which sparkled and glimmered in the glittering gloom around them.
The creature leaped out of the water, and Lily had to stifle a gasp of astonishment as she swam towards her; the creature had a long greenish-silver fish-tail, flowing and graceful as it glided through the dewy plants and the mists, reflecting the light and multiplying what little light hit it. Her tail was longer and more beautiful than that of any mermaid; she would probably have taken it as an insult if Lily had called her that. Coming up out of the dew again, she made her supple, sweeping way over to Lily's side. Her head only inches from Lily's, she reached slowly for the necklace Lily wore around her neck.
Lily started back, frightened, as she caught sight of her own normally emerald-green eyes, reflected in the pendant the creature wore. They had a silver gleam in the pupils.
She toppled backwards off of the rock and fell back down, down, until she hit the windowsill hard, opening her eyes with a start. Still frightened, Lily tore the necklace off and threw it into the bottom of her trunk, slamming the lid down. Breathing hard, she dashed towards the common room, frightened to be alone in the room with the necklace.
Downstairs, she ran towards Eva, who was finishing up some homework. "Lily, what's wrong? You look as if you've just seen a ghost!" Taking the shaking shoulders of her friend, she made Lily lie down on a couch. "What happened?" Lily gasped for breath, shivering. "Eva, I just saw an elf-nymph."
Eva looked at Lily as if she had gone insane. "You saw a what? How do you know?"
Lily shook her head, biting her lips till the blood came. "I don't know. I don't know."
Staring into Lily's eyes, Eva let out a small scream. "Lily!"
She started. "What?"
"Your eyes! They've got silver streaks in them!"
Both of them, leaping off of the couch, shot to the dormitory, which had a large mirror hanging on the wall. Lily peered at her eyes. They were shot with silver, rimmed and fringed with light, just as those of the elf-nymph had been.
Lily and Eva had never told anyone what had happened that morning, one of the reasons being that they had no proof. The silver light in Lily's eyes had gone out as soon as she had stared in the mirror, and Lily absolutely refused to try to get back to where she had been in that dewy gloom. She never spent a minute alone if she didn't have to, and during the cancelled Herbology lessons she was to be found in the library, burying herself under mountains of books. James and Sirius had quieted down a bit and weren't playing as many pranks on their teachers as they had been; they were spending the time that they usually passed in the common room of the Great Hall in the library or their dormitories, close-lipped and short-tempered if anyone interrupted them. Peter tagged along after them more than ever, causing their tempers to erupt more than once in the common room.
Remus� secret was well kept; only Lily, James, Sirius, and Peter knew about it, not counting some of the teachers. He had regained his old cheery sort of personality, despite having to go to the Shrieking Shack again, and he spent lots of his time urging James and Sirius outside, where the snow was melting. It almost knocked Lily off her feet when she heard that James was refusing to train for the match against Slytherin. Remus had given her the news when she was in the common room playing checkers with Eva.
�Hey, Lily, guess what?�
�Cows have wings and you just hooked up with Serverus Snape. I don�t know. Tell me.�
Remus scowled a bit. �That was uncalled for. You�re more likely to do that than me.�
�I am not!� Lily got up off of her pouf.
�I just meant because you�re a girl-calm down, for Pete�s sake.�
�Oh.� Pacified, Lily sat back down, moving one of her checkers. �Queen me.�
Remus was starting to get a bit impatient. �Lily! I�m trying to talk to you!�
Lily frowned. �All right, all right. Eva, I�m coming right back.� Hopping over the small table, she went to the window seat with Remus, who was looking rather worried. �What?�
�It�s about James.� Lily started. �Nothing serious-well, maybe it is. You know what a Quidditch nut he is, right?�
She raised one eyebrow. �Remus, this is James we�re talking about here.�
�Exactly. He�s never really liked his position as Seeker; he�s always wanted to be a Chaser. Well, he�s been promoted.�
Remus was interrupted by a beaming light flashing all over Lily�s face. �He has? Really? He never told me--�
�Of course he didn�t. That�s what I need to talk to you about.�
Lily frowned. �All right-shoot.�
�He�s refusing to train.�
�He is what?�
�We have a match on Saturday against Slytherin, and your stubborn boy-your stubborn friend is refusing to train. You�d better come talk some sense into him.�
�Of course I will. Where is he?�
Remus laughed. �This is so unlike James, but where else would he be?�
�Oh.� Lily assumed a rather determined expression. �Library, I�m guessing.�
And with that, she climbed out of the portrait hole with Remus at her heels, carrying James� bag with his Quidditch things.
When Lily came into the library, the first thing she saw were Sirius and James� heads bent over several books. She walked quietly towards them, the carpet helping to muffle her footfalls. Three feet behind their chairs, Lily caught sight of a picture on one of the pages in James� book. She coughed rather loudly.
�Ahem!�
Both of the boys started and turned around, each closing their books with a bang. James stood up. �What do you want, sneaking up behind people like that?�
Lily must have looked rather hurt, for Sirius punched James in the shoulder lightly. �Hey, don�t be so mean to her; it�s not her fault you�re in a bad mood.� He turned to Lily, putting his arm around her shoulders, casually. �What�d you come in here for?�
Lily shrugged his arm off. �I came in here to see him.� She pointed towards James with the toe of her shoe. �Remus told me you�re refusing to train. Why?�
James looked rather uncomfortable. �I-I-�
�You�re one of the most important members of the team. We don�t have any reserve Chasers.�
�I-I know, but�I�ve got work to do.�
�What are you studying? I know for a fact you don�t have anything for Transfiguration.�
�How?�
�Remus. So what�s that Animagi book doing on your lap? If you want to hide it, you�d better hold your robe over it.�
James blushed. �Nothing. I-we�re just interested in the theory.�
Lily gave him a disbelieving look. �Right. Anyway, James, you have to train. Think of the shame if Slytherin beat us!�
James shrugged, but his expression was a bit twisted. �We�ll live.�
Remus sighed. �See, I told you he�s sick.�
Lily set her mouth in a tight line. �James, I promise you, if you don�t go out there and make us win the Quidditch Cup, you�re going to regret it.�
He laughed. �Yeah, right. How?�
Instead of answering, Lily turned to Sirius. �Does he blush easily?�
Sirius smirked. �Depends on who�s around him.�
�Really.� Lily raised her eyebrows. �I didn�t want to have to resort to this. James, if you don�t get on that field right this minute, Eva and I are going to attack you tomorrow morning in front of the school at breakfast. I think she has some black and red lipstick.�
His eyes widened. Sirius and Remus were holding in laughter. Grabbing his things from Remus, he dashed out of the library, which echoed with peals of laughter.
Back in Gryffindor Tower, Lily was looking out of the common room window onto the Quidditch field, where the team members were rocketing around on their brooms, and, in John and James� case, trying to knock each other off of their respective brooms and earning a loud lecture from the captain, who was fed up with their fooling around. Lily could hear the shouting clear up to her window.
It looked as if, for the first time in weeks, James had shed a massive burden and was starting to enjoy himself. Lily realized that he hadn�t known how much he had missed his favorite pastime, and she felt glad that he was beginning to have fun.
They trained until the gloom began to fall over the field, when, exhausted and sweaty, the team trooped indoors, falling onto couches and upsetting a game of chess several sixth-year girls had left on a table.
Lily grinned. �Nice. Cora and Agatha are going to kill you for that.�
Miranda shrugged. �They�d have to catch me first. Oh, I saw you watching from the window-what�d you think?�
Lily started to pick up the chess pieces. �Very nice. Even better, since you have your Chaser back.� She elbowed James in the side. �I could tell how much you enjoyed that. Why were you refusing to practice before?�
�Oh�� He looked a bit embarrassed. �I don�t know. I was busy.�
�Buried under dusty tomes. I know how much fun you must have had doing that.�
�I had to study!�
�For what subject?�
�Er�Transfiguration. Yeah, that�s it. McGonagall�s class, you know,� he added at a disbelieving look from Lily.
�I thought Mr. I Know Everything She has to Teach Us didn�t need to study. You�re way beyond any of the other second years, and you know that.�
James grinned, heading to his dormitory. �I do know. I needed background information. You don�t exactly have to tell me that I�m way beyond any of you nutters,� he flung over his shoulder along with a fingernail-sized metal object. It landed on Lily�s robes and shrunk her to an extremely dissatisfied fox caught in a trap, shrieking madly at the now empty staircase and at the roaring common room.
It was the morning of the Quidditch match, and the first game James would have in his new position as Chaser. He was getting a lot of attention from the Gryffindors, who were convinced that as long as they kept him from the library or any of the books that he had checked out, they stood a good chance of winning. Many people had taken to surrounding him whenever he was on his way to the Great Hall, knowing that was the time when he usually went to the library.
Everyone was excited about this game: if the Gryffindors won this one, they�d have a winning streak for the Quidditch Cup lasting three years. Because of the heat, this match had been moved from the middle of April to February, which resulted in euphoria from the students.
The Slytherins were growing downright nasty; their team had tried to take over the field and ended up in the hospital wing, the Gryffindors having foreseen this and had been breathing down James� neck to get the latest jinxes he�d been working on.
Malfoy, the team�s manager, and Alton, one of the Slytherin Beaters, ended up in the hospital wing with hands so full of blisters they couldn�t hold their brooms, while two of their Chasers got caught in a storm of flying jinxes and were screened from view in the hospital wing owing to having sprouted a nasty foot fungus and firmly attached Marie Antoinette-style wigs; ones that towered two feet above their heads, were powder gray, and had entire landscapes built into them.
Lily was as excited about the game as anyone else, and finally had an occasion to pull out Remus� Christmas gift; the Gryffindor scarf, from her trunk. She refused to don the golden dress that she had worn to the last two matches, preferring not to be so ostentatious.
Eva was rather disappointed, as she had hoped that there would be a large conflict between James, Sirius, and Snape over Lily.
Lily had ridiculed that suggestion. �Eva, for the thousandth time, I�m not going to act like a silly boy-crazy nymph who has nothing better to do with her life. I�m there to watch the match, and that�s all.�
�But wouldn�t it be fun to see Sirius and James-�
�I SAID NO! Why would it be fun to plan to see my friends fight? Which they wouldn�t, anyway.�
�Lily, guys are never going to be interested in you unless you try to make them interested.�
�Fine. Then they won�t be.�
�What do you mean?�
�I won�t ever try to make them interested again.�
�Liar. You will, too.�
Lily picked up her Transfiguration book up from the floor. �I hereby faithfully swear never to dress up for any boy for the rest of my life. There.� She threw the book down. It made a loud slamming noise as it landed on the carpet. �Happy?�
Eva was aghast. She was the kind of girl who took swearing on books very seriously. �You did not just do that!�
Lily reached into her trunk and pulled out both brushes, hair ribbons, and curlers. �I did. Do you want these?�
Eva�s eyes opened, if possible, even wider. �You�re actually going through with this? Do you know what you�re doing? You�re throwing your future out the window!�
Lily nodded. �Exactly.� She went over to the window, and, without hesitating, threw everything into the lake, which was just under her window.
Eva sat on her bed, stunned. �You didn�t!�
Lily put on her scarf and pulled her hair back with a rubber band that had formerly held a bag of Bertie Botts� Every Flavor Beans. �I did.�
Aghast, Eva stared out the door at the retreating, too stubborn redhead.
Outside, the players were standing on the field when Lily took her seat on the bleachers next to Heather and Anne, the twins who slept in her dormitory and snored so loudly. Lily wasn�t all too excited about the seating arrangements, which grew worse when the twins stood up to cheer for Gryffindor as the teams took off and jammed Lily�s foot in between the boards of the bleachers. It took her ages to get it out, and when she finally managed it, Ashley Thomas and Miranda had scored two goals each, and James three. He really was good, Lily thought to herself as she watched him zoom around the goalposts, managing to confuse the Slytherin Keeper soundly and sending the Quaffle through the middle loop.
The Ravenclaw commentator was a bit more fired up for Gryffindor's win than he had been last time, though he was being watched closely by Professor Sinistra.
"And Slytherin's Chaser Gregson is flying towards their goal with the Quaffle�loops Gryffindor Beater John Winters-OUCH-gets caught in the stomach by the bat, purely by accident, I'm sure-oh, no, never mind, Slytherin penalty. Alton flies forward, aimes, -oh, that was a nice throw-da-Professor, I said darn it."
The Gryffindors were obviously having a bit of fun trying to inflict as many injuries to the Slytherin team as possible without being caught. It seemed they were keeping their own score, and Slytherin started to retaliate.
Miranda Shaw of Gryffindor in possession of the Quaffle�nice dodge there, Shaw-CAREFUL, THAT'S A BLUDGER! -another nice dodge-and mysteriously, Slytherin Beater Roderick Alton gets a purely accidental bloody lip by impaling himself on his own broomstick�oh, nice shot, Miranda!"
Miranda had scored. "Eighty to fifty for Gryffindor. Very nice. Couldn't have done it better myself. And the Quaffle's in possession of Slytherin Chaser Clive Allen, he gets a Bludger in the back of the leg-oh, and the Quaffle's taken from him by Gryffindor Chaser James Potter, who's just been promoted to his Chaser position; Anya MacGregor's the new Seeker-"
"Cooper, we'd like to know what's happening on the field."
"Right, just giving a bit of information to all those kids unenlightened of the switch, as I'm sure some of them must be, and-"
"COOPER!"
"Oh, right. Anyway, Potter's broomstick repels a Bludger towards Slytherin Keeper Cathryn Clarik, -that must have hurt, right in the stomach-but not a bad move from Potter, who's rushing up the field on that old-fashioned Milky Way 101, but still, not a bad player, even if his broom stinks-"
"Cooper!"
"All right, I give. Potter scores; score is ninety to fifty. Bright red bullet streaking for the teachers-wait-never mind-that's Anya, wonder what she's seeing-she has her hand around something-"
Anya had headed for a gleam of gold right above the teacher's tent. The Slytherin Seeker Edgar Hatcher hadn't followed her, and, a triumphant smile on her face, she reached for the fluttering Snitch.
The next minute, the stadium exploded.
