Jily oneshots

Quidditch Club

Done by sunaprincess7 in fanfiction.net

James had to hand it to Sirius – he'd found a deserted park in London.

"And the muggles definitely don't use it?" He asked, eyes straining to see down to the end of the park, past the trees that Remus was currently kicking.

"Nope," Sirius confirmed, from where he was sprawled on the ground, staring up at the sky. "I've been here a few times – they don't pay any attention to it. But if you're worried we can just use a masking spell."

"Probably a good idea," James replied, turning his gaze across the park to the rusted gates where muggles and traffic passed outside. "I don't fancy getting pulled up before the Department over this."

The Department of Magical Games and Sports were already not James's biggest fan - not after the diplomatic incident he caused by bringing two animagi and a werewolf into Bulgaria during the last World Cup. So, his idea of running a Quidditch Club over the summer hadn't exactly gone down a storm.

However, having never paid much attention to what worried 'officials' thought during his school days, James wasn't about to start now.

"How did you find this place?" Remus asked sceptically, dandering back over to James and Sirius with his arms folded.

"I need somewhere in the city to run," Sirius shrugged, now star-fishing in the grass, "have to stretch out somehow. I found this park."

"So, basically, you've peed on every tree here, yes?"

"Yup."

"Ignoring that," James interjected hastily, "what do you think?" He asked Remus, clapping an arm down on his shoulder. It was Remus's approval for the idea that he wanted most of all as he was counting on Remus to handle all of the paperwork. Plus, he was his agent so technically James needed his permission before he took on any work, charitable or otherwise.

"I never actually thought he'd find a park," Remus sighed.

"The fact that you would doubt me…" Sirius protested dramatically from beneath them.

"Come on! It's a good idea," James bolstered, shaking Remus's shoulders.

In Remus's defence, they had tried this last summer, down in Dorset in between the end of the League and when Puddlemere would start training again. The club had gone very well up until the point a parent had asked Sirius if he thought their child would make it as a professional quidditch player. Sirius had given him an honest answer which the dad did not take well and the whole thing had ended in James on page 4 of the Prophet and having to explain himself to the Department, and his team's publicity branch, again.

"It was a good idea last year," Remus replied, surveying the park. "It's not the strength of the idea I'm worried about."

"This year will be different," James coaxed, kicking Sirius until he got off the ground. "Sirius will behave himself, we know what went wrong last year and given the press last week, this needs to happen more than ever."

James was referring to the stats released last week that showed the muggleborns were woefully underrepresented in the professional quidditch industry – a fact that many commentators had chalked up to the years of advantage children from magical families had when it came to quidditch practice.

"The only way we're going to get more muggleborns into quidditch is if we start training them before Hogwarts," he continued, knowing he was getting through to Remus when he saw a look of reluctant agreement appear on his face. "This is the best way to do that."

"Nowhere else is offering free training from professional players, Moony," Sirius chimed in pragmatically. "And I promise to behave myself – especially if it will take that look off your face."