The Marauders: Year Three | #Wattys2016

The Spill on the Pitch

The Spill on the Pitch

The last quidditch game of the season was scheduled for the first weekend in May and James was a nervous ball of energy. He would wake up in the morning, hours before breakfast, and drag Sirius out onto the dew-soaked grounds to practice, even though Sirius was half asleep and not helpful at all in trying to keep James's shots from going through the rings on the pitch. He ate, drank, slept, and talked Quidditch non-stop. "Eat your proteins!" James admonished Sirius, dumping a load of eggs onto his plate, or else, "I've got to service my broom before the game, I'll have to order some polish in...", or "Oi, Evans, if we win, will you kiss me then?" (The last was met with a hearty "bugger off Potter" every time).

Between being badgered by James to practice or eat extra eggs, Sirius was spending an awful lot of time with Marlene McKinnon. They would sit and joke about the courtyard for hours on end, shirking off doing their studies (which was very odd for Marlene, seeing as she was a Ravenclaw). They seemed to enjoy each other quite a lot, which was lovely for them, but less so for Remus, who felt as though he were being stabbed in the heart every time he saw them together. Especially the times when Sirius would be tucking the hair behind Marlene's ear gently or smiling at her with his eyes in a way that Remus wished so very much was how Sirius would look at him. But he never did.

Remus was spending a lot of time with Lily and her friends, just to get away from the whole Sirius and Marlene situation. He didn't mind listening to them prattle on and on about the boys they liked and who they hoped would ask them to go to the end of term party. But when Lily told them she was going with Severus Snape, Remus looked up in surprise, "You are?" he asked.

"Yeah," Lily said reluctantly.

"I didn't know you were still seeing him," Remus said.

LIly flushed, "Well... I think I'm going to be breaking up with him after the party... I don't think it's working out very well between us recently. I'm not sure what's changed, I just don't see him the same way as I did before."

"I don't know what you saw in him to begin with," Annalee said in a snobbish voice.

That night, the day before the big game, Remus went upstairs to the dormitory when he'd finished studying with Lily and Peter - though Peter had stayed down stairs to study a bit longer before going to bed, being quite nervous about the logic puzzles Kingsley had given them to sort through. James and Sirius were playing a round of wizard chess and James's knight was just hauling away one of Sirius's pieces when Remus walked in.

"Hey mate," James greeted him.

"Hey." Remus went over and started digging through his trunk.

James glanced at Sirius, who was concentrating on what to do for his next move. "C'mon, Black, on your feet, this is supposed to be an exercise in making fast strategic moves for the match tomorrow!"

"Chess is nothing like quidditch, Potter," murmured Sirius.

James sighed and flopped backward onto his bed. "You always take forever to make a move, Black, bloody hell."

"I just like to think through all my options," Sirius replied and he rubbed his chin.

James turned his head so he was looking over at Remus as he methodically did all the buttons on his pyjama top. "So how was studying with Evans tonight?" he asked.

"Good, we got a lot of work done," Remus replied.

"Right. Does she still smell all like strawberries and vanilla?" James asked hopefully.