The Marauders: Year Six #Wattys2017

The Quidditch Try-Outs

The Quidditch Try-Outs

James got up before the crack of dawn and headed out to the Quidditch pitch with his broomstick, clad in his Gryffindor maroon and golds, and set to dragging out the trunk with the balls in them out to the pitch. He released the snitch and played about at chasing after it for some time to warm up his flying muscles and get some wind in his face. He caught the snitch several times over as he practiced - always feeling this deep sense of triumph when his fingers closed 'round the little gold ball with its fluttering wings.

It was after breakfast time when James hear somebody clapping when he caught the little ball and he turned his broom about to see in the stands the teal hair of Maryrose Jenkins, sitting about halfway up, smiling and clapping her hands for him. He swept through the sky, holding onto the little ball in his fist, and hovered just above her. "Hullo Maryrose," he said.

He was surprised to see her - for more than one reason. The very fact that Maryrose Jenkins was alive was enough to be surprising. It still surprised him to see her alive at all, and his heart would jump at the surprise of it - for the image he carried about of her was still the burned-in memory of her cold, pale bluish body that night, laying in the moonlight in the Shrieking Shack... Yet here she was, pink and teal haired and shiny-eyed, a great smile upon her face, and what looked like a bit of glitter beneath her eyes, a lovely shade of pink shadow dusting her cheek bone. He was surprised to see her, too, because of the way they'd broken up at the end of last term, a mutual understanding, a calm parting of the ways...

"You look chilled." She held up a cup of coffee she'd just produced and he took it and sipped it, appreciating the warmth of it as it fell into his stomach and seemed to spread heat through his limbs.

He smiled, "Thanks."

Maryrose smiled and watched as James drank, holding the mug with his palms, his thighs clenched about the broomstick to hold himself steady. "You were looking really good out there, James," she said. "Very Captain-y."

"I do what I can."

She laughed, "And you do it well."

"What are you doing out here, though? You know what the Gryffindors will say if they see you on the pitch, say you're spying on us, trying to get information for your team." He smirked.

Maryrose laughed, "Yes, I'm a great Hufflepuff Spy, am I?"

"That's what they'd say," he answered.

Maryrose stared up at him for a long moment, then said, with a shrug, "I just noticed you weren't at breakfast and I figured you'd be down here and I knew it was cold out here. Sort of damp and gross. Don't go making yourself sick. It wouldn't do to be flying about while you're ill."

"Yeah, I might fall off my broomstick or something," he murmured, thinking of the game from his own timeline, the game in which Jasper Odair had caught him from the sky... and his face clouded as the thought of Odair weighed upon him.

Far below, across the pitch, a herd of students were walking out onto the grass, carrying broomsticks from the locker rooms. "Well, here comes your new recruits!" Maryrose said, "I'll go, I just wanted to bring you coffee and wish you good luck."

"Thanks," he replied. He handed her back the mug - the coffee gone, his hands, belly, and heart warmed by it. "I really appreciated that."

She nodded. "Bye James." She got up and hurried away.

James sighed and turned to the pitch, flying down to the ground and dismounting his broom, jogging across the grass to where the others were waiting for him. He looked them over. The usual suspects were there - Frank Longbottom and Alice Prewitt, Meg Johnston, Jackson Maw. The expected Sirius Black stood grinning at him from one side, a smirk trembling over his mouth. And there was Wally and poor little Ollie looking sick to his stomach. A smattering of third and fourth years, rounded out the group, including Mary Macdonald, and then, Alice shifted her weight and James saw her.