Limited Edition (Sirius/OC)

Home Again

"At least he didn't cut me from the team," I told Marlene McKinnon, my best friend extraordinaire as I stepped away from the board. James Potter, our beloved Quidditch Captain, had only just put up the parchment declaring his team for the year, and despite my lapses in judgement last year I still made it. I decided not to acknowledge that another name, the one I'd been looking for first, hadn't made the cut.

I ignored the stink eye one of my younger housemates gave me when he saw I was still on the team.

"It's not like he has any choice," Marlene shrugged as she grabbed my arm.

"I can't believe she's back. What is he thinking?" I heard the same boy—Rufus McCane?—say to his friend. "Is he trying to lose?"

Marlene steered me away from the nasty gossipers that were looking at me like I just spat in their soups. "You and Potter are the best Chasers this school has seen in years. He'd be mad to kick you off the team," she reassured me gently. "They don't know what happened last year, and therefore they don't get to judge. You tried to bring your a-game, you tried, and you failed. It happens."

I gave her a pointed look as we exited the common room and continued down to the Great Hall. I'd heard this speech of hers before. She'd been giving it to me for two months now, through owl, over the phone and even face-to-face those four times we managed to meet up over the summer holidays.

We started our descent to the Great Hall, which all of a sudden didn't seem that far from our common room. It'd been like this for two weeks. Students I'd been friendly with before looked at me nastily, shouted things down the hall and distances I'd loathed to travel before seemed like peanuts now. It'd been four months since we lost the game, and I'm just now starting to realise it might take me twice as long to win my peers' respect back.

Marlene was silent for a while, but spoke up again two flights of stairs down. "So what if you lost us the Cup last year. Big deal. You'll make up for it this year. You'll have to."

"No pressure, right?" I scoffed.

Marlene put her arm over my shoulder, proving yet again that she was at least two heads taller than me. "You know you'll always be my little, tiny, small and favourite witch in the world, right?"

Could she have put any more adjectives marking me as a hobbit in there?

I shrugged her arm off with a nasty look. "Who are you calling little, you giant?"

We stared at each other ominously, halting in the middle of the staircase, before we grinned at one another and continued our way down without another word on the matter.

James, unlike the other Captains, had made quick work of assembling his Quidditch team this year. We'd been struggling last year and only made a full team somewhere around mid-October. Just before our first match, which we'd nearly lost because we'd only had four days to train our new Beater. Anita's great, but she's not a miracle worker and neither is James. He had seen potential in her back then and he, as per usual, was right. Anita's skills may not rival Sirius', but she was at least twice the Beater her predecessor was. Simon's ability to hit a bludger wasn't worth a knut.

"Jules," Marlene The Giant said cheerfully, because honestly nothing could keep that woman down for long, "you got this. He'll forgive you."

We were just about to enter the Great Hall when someone bumped into me.

"Hey!" I shouted, only to swallow my words when I looked up at an angry Potter. Why am I this tiny? Damn Marlene.

James Potter, messy black hair and often described as a six foot two spectacled menace by one Lily Evans, narrowed his eyes at me and took a deep breath. For a minute I was pretty sure he was going to have a go at me, but Sirius Black, our other Beater, and Peter Pettigrew grabbed his arms and steered him away before the steam could leave my captain's ears.