The Marauders: Year Five #Wattys2017

Brunches and Balls

Brunches and Balls

Next morning, James was still feeling a bit blue for the loss, but it seemed everyone in the school who wasn't Slytherin had complimented him on his brilliant flying. It was hard not to feel better when there was so much praise coming his way as he walked down the hallway. One could almost watch his ego reinflating. Lily rolled her eyes when she overheard him telling a first year Ravenclaw a rather harrowing, and entirely fictional, dramatized version of his goals. The Hufflepuff boy questioned nothing of the grandness of the tale.

James, Peter, and LIly were just making their way across the entrance hall when a great hand clapped over James's shoulder and he turned about to find Horace Slughorn beaming at him, dressed in his tweed suit and tie, his robes left un clasped at the front, a sort of conspiratorial grin about his mouth.

"Mr. Potter!" Slughorn said, beaming, and he patted James's shoulder as Peter and Lily stopped walking as well to look at James and Slughorn standing behind. Slughorn said, "There he is. Just the man I was searching for!" He said this as though he'd been looking high and low all about the castle, rather than having just waddled out from the Dungeons a moment before.

"Well, here I am," James said lamely, and he held out his hands in a sort of ta-da!

Horace Slughorn smiled, "You're quite the man of the hour."

"Man of the hour?"

"Yes, yes," Slughorn replied, "Oh what a splendid job at flying you did yesterday at the pitch yesterday, such skill! But, then, you've always had excellent precision on a broomstick, haven't you, my boy?" He clapped James's back, beaming brightly.

James shrugged in a way that was somewhere between humble and bragging and a light flush went over his nose and he said, "Well, I, mean, I do my best and if that happens to beexcellent then..."

Lily rolled her eyes.

James caught her at it and his lips quirked into a grin and he winked at her.

"Why yes it certainly does, it does, my boy," Slughorn chuckled merrily and he put his arm 'round James as though they were old friends and he pulled him in to a sideways hug. "You know, you could very well end up a great Quidditch star, the way you're going! Captain of the Gryffindor team - and in your fifth year! Having such excellent skills as you do... alumni of the grand tourney team as well... Seeker then, weren't you? Chaser now?"

"Yes, sir."

"Excellent, excellent..." Slughorn smiled and started leading James toward the Great Hall, beaming. He spotted Lily and said, "And Miss. Evans, too, another of my favorites! That potion you brewed the other day - the Fairness Lotion, that was positively brilliant work. My two favorite Gryffindors." He scooped her up under his other arm and hugged her to him, too, as he walked.

Peter scrambled after them.

"Listen, I was thinking of putting together one of my famous brunches and you're both invited, of course!" Slughorn beamed. "We'll have a jolly grand time. Sunday morning, eleven o'clock. Do come hungry, I'm thinking of having the house elves whip up some lovely savory pancakes. Won't that be lovely? And have you seen Mr. Lupin about? I wanted to invite him as well! Heard he spent the summer with Mr. Newt Scamander, saving a Chakorais Bird! Very rare, those are, and their eggs are very powerful! Used in the making of one of the most incredible substances in the history of magic, they are... I must get a chance to speak to him."

"He's been under the weather, sir," James replied, "Probably upstairs sleeping it off still. I'll tell him you're looking for him."

Slughorn beamed, "Just invite him along to the brunch, will you? I'd love to find out more about that bird! You two enjoy your breakfast together," and he smiled, sending them off toward the Gryffindor table.