The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix Part Three

Lieu des Moutons Invisibles

"What a beautiful day for some quidditch!"

Jasper had his arm about Oliver, who was in his own Gryffindor team jumper, and thrumming with excitement - it exuded off the boy like a child at Christmas. 

Beside Oliver, Sirius Black held up Marlene McKinnon's old polyroid camera and snapped a photo of Oliver and Jasper, laughing as he shook the photo to develop. He grinned as the image came clear. "Odaaaaaair you are," he sang, holding it out to Jasper.

"My new favorite picture" Jasper said, smiling down at it as photo-Jasper hugged the laughing photo-Ollie.

Oliver smiled, too, "Nice one."

James looked over their shoulders to see the picture. "Oh that is a keeper."

"Actually it's a pair of Seekers," Jasper said and happily received Sirius's high-five. James laughed and shook his head as Oliver groaned and Jasper grinned broadly.

"Seek and ye shall find," Sirius said, grinning.

Oliver's eyes were wide, taking in all of the magic and excitement around him. He was borderline shaking from the exuberance as he looked all around. Ollie had never been to a professional match before, much less the World Cup, and absolutely everything was enthralling on another level. All around them were the flags of the two teams playing - England and France. 

A/N: Sorry to interrupt here but I just wanted to let you know that I totally forgot who I said was playing in this match even though I think James said it like a hundred chapters ago at some point to either Lily or Oliver and  - well - full disclosure, I just don't care about Quidditch as much as James and Oliver and Jasper and all the boys in this fic do and so I don't feel like searching through 151 chapters to see if James said which countries were playing or not. Honestly, I almost forgot to even have them GO to the match at all, and then I thought about it being something they talk about offhand afterwards and not actually show them there -- that's how much I dread writing Quidditch scenes. However, it's important for reasons you'll find out soon enough if you keep reading. But in the mean time, if these are different teams than I've previously said were playing, please excuse me, I do apologize, but it won't affect the plot any. Lots of love! H.G.M.

There were loads of blue, red, and white flags as the three stripes of France and the St. George Cross flags whipped in the wind. The pitch had been specially built for the occasion on the edge of the parc national de forêts, far to the east of Paris, where there was a collection of small wizarding villages. One of the villages, called Lieu des Moutons Invisibles, was the official host of the World Cup 1979. As such, the wizards and witches attending were allowed to be as raucous and uninhibited as they wished and so there was quite the celebration already underway as James, Sirius, Jasper, Oliver, and Frank all arrived together by official portkey for the World Cup celebration.

"What the fuck do you reckon they call it Lieu des Moutons Invisibles for?" Sirius asked, "The Place of Invisible Sheep? What the fuck kind of town name is that?"

"In anticipation of you asking that, I consulted the Remcyclopedia before hand," James said. "Apparently, it's called that because the entire village has very clever cloaking charms on it, similar to what they've done in Scotland with Hogsmeade, and as such the muggles have built legends based on claims that peoples sheep disappear without a trace 'round here - one moment they can see them and the next - poof! But they can still hear them bleating. Thus, the place of invisible sheep."

Sirius grinned. "I've never been more in love with an origin story in my life, have ewe? That is baaaaaad ass..." he drew out the "baahhh" part of badass, his eyes twinkling.