Chapter Thirteen
A cool breeze drifted lazily through the grounds and Lily smiled as she joined the stream of students heading down to the Quidditch pitch, their black and gold or blue and bronze banners streaming in the summer sun. Some of the less organised supporters had raided their wardrobes and grabbed the scarves which had been shoved in there since winter and these fluttered through the air like twisting dragons, diving towards the ground as they waved their arms around. This was the final match of the year and the outcome would decide the winners of the year's Quidditch Cup – if Ravenclaw won then they would win overall, something that the Gryffindors among the supporters couldn't bear, but if Hufflepuff won – as James Potter had explained to them all over lunch – then Gryffindor would win. He was at the head of the group of Gryffindors with Peter and Lupin on either side of him, his spirits flying higher than the flags in the air; he bounced along the path, his hands constantly grabbing for the snitch which hovered just in front of him, constantly catching it and releasing it, always letting it fly a little further out of his reach; between each grab that he made for it his hands would tangle themselves restlessly in his hair, always watched by the eager eyes of the girls around him but he was completely unaware of this, as per usual; he was only interested in the jokes which his friends were cracking as they strolled down the path and towards the stands and whether a particular red head would be coming out that afternoon.
About a hundred metres behind him Lily was laughing at Cassie as she bounded down the steps with hair flying everywhere and a maniacal grin plastered on her face; even though it was a Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw match Cassie was decked out in red and gold stripes all over her face and even Lily had eventually bowed to the pressure despite it feeling wrong to her. They climbed the stand quickly and made their way to the seats at the front which were, purely through tradition, reserved for members of the Quidditch team and their friends.
When he saw Lily sit down not far from him, just on the other side of Cassie, only a few people away, James grinned; however, before he had even managed to convince Remus, who was sitting beside Peter, to swap seats with him Cassie leant over and hissed, "Don't you even dare Potter. I want to enjoy this game without having to put up with you and Lily and your squabbles. Wait... where's Sirius?"
James smiled lazily and said, "Oh he's not coming, he managed to get himself detention a couple of days ago instead."
"Of course he did," she muttered.
"Won't you let me swap Jones?" he asked. "I promise I'll behave myself."
"No!" she cried. "I see enough of you the rest of the time, I can't handle any more." With that said she muttered in Remus' ear, entreating him not to listen to his friend and to provide the final barrier between James Potter and his target. With a little smile and another hurried whisper Remus agreed, chuckling as he whispered something to her under his breath. Not long after that the match began and the crowds erupted as the players began dashing about the pitch.
The players were transformed into blue and yellow blurs by their speed; as the Quaffle was flung from person to person James got more and more invested in the game, screaming along with the crowd whenever a pass was dropped or a particularly spectacular goal was saved – he was cheering at random, whenever anything interesting happened, but he was always fervently hoping for Hufflepuff to win so, when their lead increased by thirty points up to a comfortable difference of seventy between the two teams he felt himself grinning.
He was just staring into the distance and concentrating on not looking at Lily when he saw her lean forward in the corner of his eye before jumping up and shouting with glee, her coppery hair swinging in the air and bouncing around her shoulders as Cassie leapt on her and picked her up. Unconsciously mirroring her and everyone else in the stands he leapt to his feet and threw his arms up in the air. After a minute or two James tore his eyes away from her and turned to Remus. "What just happened?"
"Hufflepuff won," he replied with a smirk. "You are celebrating alongside us or did you just jump up for the sake of it?"
James sighed and ran his hands through his hair. "I don't know Moony, my brain just turned off for a minute there."
"Well you saw it didn't you?" he said. "You must've seen the catch."
James shook his head embarrassedly. "No... I missed it."
"It was amazing!" Peter cried as Moony sighed. "Of course you didn't," he teased, directing a knowing look at where Lily was giggling as she watched Cassie jump up and down, their entwined hands waving above their heads. "Well you really missed out," he added as they began to file out of their seats and head down to the grounds.
As they walked back towards the Gryffindor Tower Lupin pointed out that they had won the Quidditch Cup. "This'll call for a party," he said, already grinning in anticipation.
"Do we have the supplies?" James asked, pushing his glasses up his nose. "I thought we'd used them all up when we had that midnight feast last month."
"Yeah we did, we'll have to do a run into Hogsmeade just before. I've been wanting to pick up some more Chocolate Frogs and some of the Honeydukes' Classic for a while," Moony agreed. "If you start setting up I'll take the cloak and get the supplies."
"Nah you'll need two people to carry the stuff back," he said. "When we get back to the tower I'll just get everyone to pass it on and then we can take the hump-backed witch on the third floor; we should be ready by about eight then and we'll be able to celebrate properly. I have to make sure that you don't get too carried away as well; your love of chocolate is... worrying to say the least!" James rubbed his hands together, savouring the satisfaction, closely blended with ecstatic delight, which came with winning the Quidditch Cup in his first year as Captain. It had never felt quite as good as it did now and he knew that when Dumbledore presented it to him at supper and he hoisted it into the air – even when he was just a member of the team next to nothing could beat that feeling so he was sure that it would be an exquisite memory.
While the whole house sat at the Gryffindor table James whispered to the people on either side of him to pass on the information about the party; excited whispers rippled down the benches and the eyes of the Gryffindors lit up in anticipation. As Dumbledore stood up and silence fell, James felt a shiver of exhilaration ripple down his back and he couldn't fight his ecstatic smile.
"Good evening." Dumbledore's voice resounded through the hall and anyone who was still talking quietened down, a thousand interested faces turning to watch him. "As I am confident all of you know the final match of Hogwarts' Quidditch Cup was played today and it was a wonderful one if I may be permitted to say so. Anyway, as we have now reached the end of the competition it falls to me to award the cup to the winning house. Before I do so, however, I would like to commend you all on your healthy support of your house teams and the excellent playing of your team members over the year. So, without any further ado, here are the positions. In fourth place is Hufflepuff," Dumbledore paused to allow the lacklustre applause from the rest of the school to die down before continuing, "in third place is Slytherin." If anything the applause was even less enthusiastic than it had been for Hufflepuff – at least the Hufflepuffs had clapped with a smile on their faces. "In second place is... Ravenclaw-" A loud groan emanated from the Ravenclaw table and James chuckled to himself; Dumbledore was barely able to make himself heard over the cheers of the Gryffindor table as they jumped to their feet and screamed with happiness. Dumbledore's twinkling eyes beckoned James over and he stood up, strolling between the table to where the Headmaster stood, the shining silver cup between his hands. He handed it to James and shook his hand firmly, smiling behind his beard. "Well done Mr Potter," he murmured. "You've done very well. And made Professor McGonagall very happy which is an added bonus. Perhaps she'll hold off on the detention for a month or so next year."
"I don't really think she'll give me longer than a week," he replied with a chuckle as Dumbledore shook his head in amusement and said, "Well done," once more.
After supper he, Remus and Peter slipped away from the stream of people heading back to the tower and headed through one of the secret passageways into Hogsmeade, all three crouching under the cloak and slipping through various doorways. When they entered Honeydukes they began to grab things from the shelves; they took chocolate – Remus grabbed nigh on hundreds of bars, each one reducing him to a drooling puddle – both Chocolate Frogs and bars, sweets ranging from Peppermint Imps to Tangy Vampires, sour sweets which made you grow fangs for ten minutes afterwards, and from Exploding Popcorn to Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. When their arms were full James grabbed a basket and tugged it under the cloak and their collection of sweets tumbled into it right as Lupin hid the racket they made by subtly nudging over a haphazard pile of boxes which stood right behind a wizened witch in patchwork robes. The basket was already nearly overflowing and they continued to add more things to it, carefully piling the goods in and stacking them on top of others. When they thought that they couldn't fit anymore in, they snuck through the back door and headed down the stairs where they tipped it out onto the floor of the passage and Lupin started running food back towards the castle; while he did this, James and Peter filled the basket with more food, hurrying between the shelves before once again nipping to the cellar beneath Honeydukes and emptying the basket. When this was done James ran back upstairs and fished out seven Galleons from his pocket, placing them beside the till before running back.
As he and Peter, laden with sweets, walked back towards the castle, they made plans for more food. "If I leave it just inside the exit," James said, "then you can carry it all up to the common room while I go to the kitchens and get the house elves to make us up some more."
Peter nodded enthusiastically and agreed. "Yes, that'll work. This is going to be a fantastic party Moony!"
James just ruffled his hair and said, "I know. I want this one to outdo every other – it is, after all, the first time I've won the Quidditch Cup as the captain of the team."
"You'll never stop patting yourself on the back for this, will you?" Remus observed dryly.
"Why would I? I won us the Quidditch Cup," he laughed as he dropped the sweets he was carrying. "Right, I'll meet you back in the common room then." The three of them split up and James headed down the corridor towards the entrance to the kitchens. When he reached it he tickled the pear and ducked through the door, nearly tripping over the hundreds of house elves which were milling around.
"Ah Master Potter!" one cried. "How can we help you today?"
"I just finished making an apple tart!" another cried, a tea cosy made more of holes than material slipping over one of her eyes.
"Well that sounds wonderful," James replied, "but what I'm really looking for is food for the all of the Gryffindors, perhaps some tarts, pies and a couple of plates of cakes."
"Why are you all eating now?" one of them asked, his eyes widening sadly as his hands went to grab a ladle. "Did you not like our dinner Master?"
"Oh no!" James cried as he snatched the ladle away from the elf. "No we loved dinner, really! It's just that we're celebrating because we won the Quidditch Cup. There's really no need to punish yourself," he said, giving it cautiously to the grasping elf. "We just want more because we liked it so much."
The house elves all grinned simultaneously at him, their lamp-like eyes shining before they began to bustle around the kitchen, carrying various trays to him and offering him the food from each one. After about ten minutes of watching the trays, which completely hid the house elves carrying them, run about the room James decided that he had enough food to satiate all of the Gryffindors and he bewitched the trays to hover in front of him as he walked back to the tower.
In the common room Lupin was conjuring red and gold streamers and hanging them all over the room while Peter laid food out on the tables which they had placed along one wall; every so often his hand would shoot out and he would grab something to shove in his mouth. With a flick of his wand James directed all of the trays over to the tables; they hovered above them for a moment before settling down onto the surface and rearranging themselves between the other piles of sweets.
It didn't take too long for the room to be completely draped in the Gryffindor colours, with enormous banners that stretched from the high ceiling to the floor fluttering in the breeze which blew in through a window left slightly ajar. When it was finished James pulled out an old gramophone and flicked his wand, making the music it was playing erupt from the speakers, exploding through the room and bursting through Gryffindor Tower. As Lupin twisted his wand at it, trying desperately to turn it down, James ran to the bottom of the stairs and pointed his wand at his throat; when he had finished casting the Sonorus spell on himself his voice boomed through the Tower. "Good evening my fellow Gryffindors," he announced, "this is James Potter, Captain of the house Quidditch team. Today we won the Quidditch Cup and we will celebrate accordingly. This party will go down in history and it's starting now."
When his voice had faded away and the ringing in everyone's ears had stopped the three of them became aware of a deep rumbling which started from somewhere in the distance. At first it wasn't audible over the pounding music but suddenly it swelled and engulfed them as an excited crowd of Gryffindors tumbled down the stairs and into the common room.
As the students milled about the room, cheering and dancing, James saw Lily chatting animatedly with another girl; he was about to talk to her when he saw Sirius fall through the portrait and start, taken aback by the party inside. "What happened?" he asked as he shook his hair out and walked over to where James was dancing, his words almost inaudible under the music.
"Did you see the match Padfoot?" James cried.
"No, I had detention remember?" Sirius sighed, already eyeing up the tables piled high with food – he had missed dinner and was absolutely starving. "What happened?"
"We won!" James wrapped his arms around Sirius.
"We weren't play- we won? You mean-"
James brandished the Quidditch Cup above his head and waved it, instantly drawing the eye of everyone in the room. "Hufflepuff won the match so we won the competition!" he crowed as he kissed it and grinned dementedly. Everyone cheered and a plethora of fireworks burst overhead from their wands as Sirius nodded at James, now submerged in a sea of screaming girls, before moving away. The next time James saw Sirius he was desperately trying to flirt with Cassie and he smiled indulgently at the adoring look on his face; after so many years of being teased mercilessly about Lily Evans it amused him to see Sirius as stricken as he.
Ciao everyone! I got back from Switzerland yesterday (maybe having forgotten that I saved this as a draft so that I could post it halfway through the week...) so here's another update! As per usual please vote, comment, share etc. because it makes me happy :)