Chapter Forty Eight
“If I have to answer one more past question on Disillusionment Charms I am going to cry,” Lily muttered as she squinted at her textbook.
Alice smacked her head on the table and moaned, “Me too.”
Their N.E.W.T.s were well under way and the seventh years were divided between the common room, the library and the grounds. Everywhere they went, however, they were accompanied by stacks of books and could be seen to be muttering various phrases and spells under their breath; every day the library was filled with students scribbling in the gloom, their heads bowed over enormous books, and anyone talking in the common rooms was sharply told to be quiet. They had spent so long working up to this that, with each exam which passed, the summer went by disconcertingly quickly; it wasn’t long before they had finished and, instead of spending ever waking minute working, they lounged around and enjoyed their final summer at Hogwarts.
Nearly every day contained a conversation about how they were leaving soon and, although they were excited to leave, they also knew that they would miss Hogwarts a lot; in the back of their minds, above all, loitered the knowledge that when they left they would find themselves in the middle of a war. This knowledge was hardest to escape when one spent an extended amount of time with the Marauders, for whom nearly every day had a conversation which held a hint of what was to come.
“You’re looking forward to it,” Lily said straightforwardly when she overheard them talking about it again.
“Of course we’re not-“ Remus replied as the other three looked shocked.
“You are,” she rebutted, “James and Sirius haven’t even tried to deny it.”
“That’s because, Lily, much as I love you, you’re being utterly ridiculous,” James said.
“Oh, so you don’t see this as a chance to repeat your earlier stint filled with stunts in hallways? You don’t feel even a tiny thrill of excitement when you think about the danger you’re going to face when you leave? Because I know you James and I know how you think and, try as you might to argue, I know you’re looking forward to it.”
He ran his hands through his hair and looked at his friends. “Well you know Lil… it’s better to be prepared. And I wouldn’t call it excitement… it’s like - what did they call in that one Muggle Studies lesson we crashed? - adrenaline. Is that right?”
“Stop trying to impress me with your scientific knowledge,” she grumbled.
“Course we’re a little bit excited Lil,” Sirius said as he stood up, waltzing around her and grinning at her. “It is a little bit exciting, don’t you think?”
“No. I’m not particularly keen to throw my life away.”
“Hey we’re good duellers, you too; we won’t be throwing them away. We’ll come out of this alive, no problem,” he smiled.
“I think you’re seriously underestimating the abilities of the other side. Think what happened to the Joneses,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper. “You’re eighteen, they were trained Aurors in their forties.” Sirius scowled and muttered, “Come on Lily, work with us here. Of course we’re bloody terrified, we’re not mad… but Peter had this crazy theory that if we pretend to actually be less scared about it than we are then we might you know… feel better.” He raised his voice and instantly regained his cavalier air. “Trust me, dying straight out of school was never exactly on my list of favourite things to do.”
“Well really, who’d want to spend their whole life here?” James asked. “I love this place but it’d be miserable if we never got to see anything else…”
“You have no idea how grateful I am to whatever powers that be that you’re a wizard,” Lily sighed. He perked up and winked at her. “Why, ‘cause otherwise you’d never have met me?”
“No, because I have a strong suspicion that if you had to attend a Muggle school at least ten teachers would probably be dead now. If you were stuck learning History and Chemistry I have a feeling you’d blow the school up or something… and Muggles can’t even fix it with magic.” The other three Marauders laughed while James pouted and Lily rolled her eyes at him.
The seventh years couldn’t leave school early once their exams had finished and instead spent their time wandering around the grounds; one particularly sunny morning James received a letter at breakfast and, although this wasn’t a rare occurrence, his reaction was. “Merlin!” cried, his eyes still glued to the letter. “You’ll never believe what’s happened!”
“What?” Sirius mumbled around a mouthful of bacon as Remus and Peter echoed his question.
“Mum and Dad have got us tickets for the Quidditch World Cup this summer!” James crowed as the three boys’ mouths fell open and everyone who heard James’ announcement stopped talking.
“What like… the England group matches?” Peter finally asked. James grinned at him smugly and shook his head. “The final.”
“But they’re not even on sale yet,” Sirius replied. “I thought they didn’t go on sale for another month?”
“One of Mum’s friends is organising it I think,” he said, scanning the letter again.
“You lucky bastard,” Frank said. “I heard it’s going to be great - it better be, considering what happened at the last one.”
“I’ll never know what was the ICWQC was thinking with Idlewind…” George said. “Merlin I’m jealous James. My cousins went to the semi-finals last time and said it was great - they had pretty rubbish seats though. Mum promised she’d try and get tickets for this one as a reward for when I got on the Quidditch team; I was one year too late for the Syria-Madagascar match I think…”
“Who do you think will win this year?” Peter asked.
“Turkey are the favourites aren’t they?” Cassie said as she leaned forward and grabbed the jug of pineapple juice. “My dad says… he thought Moldova might win though…” She trailed off and everyone else fell silent as she swallowed the lump which grew in her throat. “Course Finland looks pretty good too and they utterly crushed Germany in their match.”
“Yeah, up until then I thought Germany might do quite well,” Frank agreed quietly.
“Australia has a good team this year too, don’t they?” Remus added. James nodded and said, “Yeah, their Seeker’s scarily good. I’d hate to go up against her in a match.”
“Who’s playing this year?” Alice asked. “I read it in the Prophet a couple of weeks ago but there are so many…”
“Turkey, Moldova, Finland, Australia,” George listed as Sirius rolled his eyes and whispered, “Obviously.”
“Er… Italy,” James added, “Egypt, India, Argentina, Switzerland, Latvia… Who else?”
“Thailand and Russia,” Remus supplied and James nodded. “Oh yeah, I always forget Thailand.”
“Denmark and Scotland are playing too,” Sirius said, “although I don’t think they’ll do very well. Can’t for the life of me remember what the other two are though.”
“Syria and Venezuela,” Lily said without looking up from her book; oblivious to the approving stares which she received from the boys around the table she turned the page slowly.
“How do you know that Lil?” Cassie asked. “I never thought you paid much attention to Quidditch.”
“Well I mean I love watching it but I’m terrible at keeping up with it. I’m better at supporting the house than the English teams,” she replied. “It’s too much effort and I don’t really care about any one team in particular. Anyway I read it in the Prophet, just like Alice. By the way, Venezuela beat Madagascar by twenty points last week, if you missed it. It’s the last match of the preliminary rounds; they were not happy. Well Venezuela was, obviously. It’s the first time they’ve ever got this far.” She returned to her book nonchalantly, chewing her toast as she read. After a minute of awed silence she looked up again and caught James’ eye. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Did I ever tell you how much I love you?” he asked.
“Once or twice I think,” she smiled.
“Lily Evans I love you so much that it hurts.” He all but leapt across the table and seized her in a hug, knocking her book out of her hands. Ignoring even his tie - which was dangling dangerously close to the jug of pumpkin juice - and the jeers which the other students shouted at him, he kissed her forehead. Sirius, put out that he was being ignored, smacked James and, when that elicited no reaction, he stood up, preparing to pull his friend’s trousers down.
“What is going on over here?” James let go of Lily and she sat back down as he turned to face Professor McGonagall. “Nothing Professor,” he replied, “I was just expressing my pleasure at Lily’s impeccable knowledge of Quidditch.”
McGonagall frowned, her eyebrows drawing together underneath her hat, and she smirked. “I noticed that much Potter and I’ll let that slide. What I was really referring to was Mister Black over here.”
“Me?” Sirius exclaimed. “Why me? I wasn’t kissing anybody.”
“Be that as it may Black, you were preparing to pull Potter’s trousers down. Although I’m sure that many of the girls here would love to know what kind of boxers he wears, I think we can stay safe in the knowledge that nobody else particularly wants to see his underwear.”
“Actually Professor, he doesn’t wear underwear,” Sirius replied as McGonagall scowled. “Detention Black.”
“Why?” he moaned. “I didn’t actually do anything!”
“Vulgar language is punishable Black and so is the intention to cause trouble,” she said as she swept away.
“That’s not fair,” Sirius muttered, “you were the one kissing Lily and I’m the one being punished! If you wore underwear I’d be free.”
“Hey you can’t blame it on me; I never asked you to tell her that,” James shrugged.
“Not like it’s even true anyway!” he complained, throwing himself back down in his chair as everyone else sniggered. “This is my first detention in ages.”
“I’m winning the competition now,” James said smugly as Sirius gasped and sat up, punching him in the arm. “You bastard you did that on purpose so that you’d win!”
“Er no, not even I’m that organised,” he scoffed. “You’re just stupid.”
“When was the last time you had detention?” Cassie asked curiously.
“Oh ages ago,” they replied breezily. “Can’t even remember now.”
“It was last month,” Remus replied, “so positively aeons ago. They threw everyone’s clothes out the window and then ran out of every lesson shouting ‘Master has given Padfoot and Prongs clothes! Padfoot and Prongs are free!’ It was amusing for everyone else but gave Peeves some ideas and… well seems a whole load of teachers thought they should punish them just in case.”
“Not that it ever helps, of course,” Peter chuckled.
Hey everyone, sorry about the long wait.. I've got a lot on at the moment and a lot of deadlines coming up (like for my 3,500 word English coursework essay and the plan of my prepared Italian speaking!) so I might not be updating for a while (but I'll try... I'm breaking up from school on Wednesday so I might be able to do some more...) Anyway please vote/comment/share etc.