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“Are you sure you didn’t bribe McGonagall to put him on the team in his first year?” Sirius asked as he, James, Remus and Lily walked up the hill from Hogsmeade station towards the castle. “She’s such a softie.”
“No, for the last time, I did not bribe her. She recognised his raw talent!”
“Is it raw if you signed him up for the under-sevens as soon as he turned six?” Remus asked, but as James opened his mouth to say something defensive (probably), Remus had to stop so he could hack up half a lung, it sounded like. Sirius and Remus had both managed to pick up a cold from somewhere but while Sirius had lain in bed feeling sorry for himself for forty-eight hours, Remus was still sounding downright consumptive three weeks later. He insisted it was just a werewolf thing, compromised immune system, and there was nothing Healers could do for him, but it was Sirius’s job to worry.
Everyone stopped to exchange concerned glances as Remus recovered, to which Remus frowned and began walking again, a little faster as if to prove he was just fine. Stubborn git.
“He’s never played proper Quidditch though, with bludgers and such,” Lily said, and Sirius reluctantly conceded the point with a grunt. It didn’t make the talent raw.
Oh, who was he kidding. This was the most exciting thing that had happened in months. Sirius had tried to convince Harry to smuggle in his own broom, but Lily had caught him in the act and pointed out that Harry was already starting on the back foot for any of the teachers who had taught the Marauders in the past. He didn’t need to be branded a troublemaker immediately.
Sirius did not mention the dungbombs he slipped him at the station while Lily wasn’t looking.
They arrived at the quidditch pitch with plenty of time to spare (Lily had talked James down from arriving an hour early, but they still found themselves walking through the mostly empty stands half an hour before the first whistle). Sirius felt so weird going to the stand where the teachers and parents usually sat instead of his traditional place at the front of the Gryffindor section, even though it had been so many years since he’d left school. Honestly, the whole thing felt sort of surreal, but he was hardly going to turn down the chance of seeing Harry play in Gryffindor colours.
They had got themselves settled, Lily had pulled out the banner she and James had made (James had not stopped telling Sirius about “glitter glue” all afternoon when he had gone over the next day) and set it up, Remus securing one end and Lily the other. James had unpacked some of the snacks they’d made a detour to Hogsmeade to buy, and as Sirius ate his first chocolate quaffle it felt like he had travelled back in time fifteen years.
All four of them jumped when McGonagall appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.
“Nice to see you,” she said, a hint of a smile on her lips. “From what I’ve seen in practices, Harry’s shaping up to be quite a good seeker.” Her smile then disappeared, which put Sirius in mind of standing in her office, waiting to see how bad the punishment she would assign them would be. “I will have you know, however, that I will not hesitate to give you all detention if you distract my players or interrupt the match.”
There was absolutely no indication that she was kidding.
She didn’t wait for a response before leaving to sit next to the commentator’s box several rows above them, and there was a brief silence as everyone digested this news.
“Can she do that?” James asked at last.
“You know, I think you’re probably better off not risking it,” Remus said as he plucked the entire bag of chocolate quaffles out of Sirius’s hands.
Sirius and James looked at each other, and Sirius heard Remus sigh from his other side. McGonagall could try her worst.
Now, to be clear, James and Sirius never intended to cause anyone harm. They were children, after all — Slytherins, yes, but still children. They had morals. Besides, interfering would be like telling Harry they didn’t have confidence in his ability to win the game on his own talent, which he absolutely did. Took right after his father, in Sirius’s estimation, but perhaps with a little of Lily’s level-headedness. Not much of it, sure, but a little.
But it was Slytherin. They listened with approval when they discovered that none of the Slytherin team had known Death Eater relatives; a feat, given the company they kept, but certainly welcome. At first, the commentator (some Gryffindor boy that McGonagall always looked halfway to scolding, although Sirius saw her smile once or twice at the jokes he made) was perfectly capable of giving voice to the thoughts Sirius was having. Madam Hooch even caught most of the fouls, and it wasn’t like Sirius was going to start shouting that one of the Weasleys had definitely broken the rules. (They were sharp fliers, and more than once Sirius had seen something of Fabian and Gideon in the way they turned sharply or the way they threw their heads back and laughed after a goal. He was imagining it, of course — they had probably never met their uncles, or if they had they would have been far too young to remember — but it still made him find Remus’s hand and hold on a little tighter than the game warranted.)
Harry had a pretty quiet time until soon after the first goal, hovering out of the way of the action so he had a clear view of the pitch. Sirius had always privately thought that Seeker must be the most boring position, having to wait around but be on tenterhooks the whole time. He couldn’t deny that Harry was excellent at it, though — when he’d gone to see the little local children’s matches he played in, Harry often spotted the snitch faster than Sirius did. James had claimed Sirius was getting old and needed glasses. Sirius had retaliated and stole James’s, although he’d barely settled them on his nose before they floated right off again and into Lily’s waiting hand.
Maybe he did need glasses, though, because the first he heard of the snitch was the announcer asking if it had been seen, and Harry dove towards it, finally cluing Sirius into where it was, barely a speck of gold at this distance from the pitch. Remus had the binoculars and they hadn’t thought to bring more than two pairs between the four of them, for some reason.
James and Sirius were both on their feet before Flint even hit Harry, and as they collided sending Harry off-course Sirius thought he could hear even Lily swear under her breath. The Gryffindor stands erupted in angry shouting, and Hooch gave Gryffindor a penalty, which Spinnet neatly converted into another ten points.
If Sirius hadn’t been mostly focused on Harry, he probably wouldn’t have noticed. Play had moved on, and Flint was currently stealing the quaffle from one of the Gryffindor chasers — but Harry’s broom jerked as if he were some kind of puppet. At first Sirius thought he was seeing things, but it happened again — Harry was completely out of control and no one had even noticed.
Well, not no one.
“Harry! Harry — Pads, why is — Hooch, something’s wrong with Harry’s broom, why—” James’s voice was drowned out by the cheers from the Slytherin section as Slytherin scored, but Siruis’s eyes were still on Harry, slowly and eratically rising above the pitch.
At last, people began to notice, and as Harry slipped off the broom after a particularly violent jerk Sirius was dimly aware of James and Lily both leaving their seats. The Weasley boys flew up to try to get Harry off his broom and onto theirs, but they couldn’t get close — Harry just kept getting higher every time they tried.
It felt like it had barely been a minute before James was running onto the pitch (how had he even got there so fast?), arguing briefly with Madam Hooch before getting a broom from the storeroom and kicking off. Sirius looked around for Lily and found her talking to McGonagall, clearly furious.
Initially, James had the same problem as the Weasleys, unable to get to Harry before his broom carried him off, but after a few tries he hovered as close as he could and waved his wand in a way that Sirius was very familiar with. Harry dangled in midair for a moment by his ankle before James caught him, seating him safely in front of him on the borrowed broom. Harry’s broom continued jerking for about ten seconds before it lost all momentum and made the terrifyingly long drop to the ground.
When they reached the ground, the broom was in multiple pieces. Sirius wished he could hear what was being said on the pitch, but James’s big, angry gestures gave him a vague idea of what was going on. Hooch called a time out and one of the Weasley boys flew out of sight towards the castle.
“What the hell,” Sirius said at last, sitting back down. They had, of course, not brought any alcohol to this school quidditch match, but he was wishing they had. From the look on Remus’s face, he was thinking something similar.
“I’ve not been so convinced that a quidditch game was going to end in death since — Matthias Blenkins?”
“Mitchell Blenkins, I think,” Sirius said, pulling a butterbeer out of the bag they’d brought and pretending it burned on the way down. Perhaps it was just placebo, but he felt a little calmer. “Hufflepuff, with the bludger?”
“Yeah,” Remus said absently, still looking through his binoculars at the pitch. From what Sirius could see, Harry was listening to the captain give some instructions, which involved pointing at Harry a hell of a lot more than it probably had before the game.
Lily had once spoken of how quidditch was a barbaric sport to allow children to play. He’d laughed at her at the time, of course — a silly muggleborn, afraid of things like “falling out of the air” and “dying on impact” — but it wasn’t until it was Sirius’s own nephew that he became acutely aware just how ridiculous this game was. They were so high up.
As Sirius was dwelling uncomfortably on the mental image of Harry falling a hundred feet, Lily sat back down to Sirius’s left. “Minerva says there’ll be an investigation,” she said before taking a long drink of water. “Apparently brooms can’t be tampered with except by — well, by Dark magic, but that doesn’t — anyway. She promises she’ll look into it.”
“Good,” was all Sirius could think of saying. They sat in an uncomfortable silence until James returned, his hair even more of a mess than it had been before he went up in the air.
“Fred’s getting Lee Jordan’s broom from Gryffindor Tower, swears he won’t mind — it’s not a Nimbus Two Thousand, but it’ll be a sight better than the ancient thing I went up on. Felt like it steered like a mule,” James said as he slumped into his seat.
“You did well,” Lily said, kissing him gently. “He’s safe.”
“Yeah,” James said, sounding a little shaky. “I’ve never seen a broom act like that before. It’s not — not right, it shouldn’t happen.”
They fell back into silence, even as the crowd got noticeably rowdier the longer they had to await Fred’s return.
At last, the game started up again, things feeling almost like they had before Harry’s broom had started acting up. Gryffindor scored twice, then Slytherin three times, and just as Flint did a particularly egregious foul against Angelina Johnson which had even Lily on her feet yelling, Harry turned into a sharp dive. The Slytherin chaser, Pucey, was coming from the other end of the pitch, and while Sirius hadn’t spotted the snitch yet (they really needed to invest in that second pair of binoculars), he was sure there was no way he could make it.
Just before Harry hit the ground (pull up! The idea of a dive was to pull up, you numpty!), his hand went to his mouth as if he were about to vomit. Sirius thought it was something connected to the broom troubles from earlier as Harry hit the ground on all fours (mercifully at a sensible speed, so it didn’t appear he was hurt) and then seemed to… cough something up?
When he raised his hand, there was the glint of gold in it.
“Gryffindor wins!” Lee Jordan yelled gleefully. “Harry Potter catches the snitch and Gryffindor wins, a hundred and ninety to seventy!”
The roar from the crowd was deafening, and Sirius felt like his chest would burst with pride.
The Gryffindor team carried Harry off towards the changing rooms on their shoulders, whooping with joy, and Sirius, Remus, James and Lily slowly made their way down to wait outside. The laughter from inside was audible from behind the closed door, and it was like a timeturner — Sirius waiting outside for James to emerge, red-cheeked and grinning only to be tackled by the three other Marauders.
Ron Weasley and a girl Sirius didn’t recognise were hovering by the changing rooms already, and they both gave an awkward little wave. Lily and James asked how Ron’s parents were, and introduced themselves to — Hermione? Hell of a name. Sirius and Remus hung back, watching them. Ron was the spitting image of Gideon, and Sirius resolved not to think about it.
They were in a heated debate about which chaser was best (Sirius’s money was on Johnson, but Remus swore up and down that Bell would outshine everyone with another year under her belt) when Harry emerged. Ron hugged him first, then Hermione, before they suddenly seemed to realise that the four adults were waiting for them.
“Excellent game,” Sirius said as he hugged Harry, ruffling his hair for good measure. He had no idea how much longer Harry would tolerate getting hugged by his parents and uncles in public. Getting closer to a bratty teenager every day, and wasn’t that terrifying. “Knew you’d clobber those Slytherins.” Harry blushed a little, as if James hadn’t spent Harry’s entire life telling him he hung the moon and was the most incredible kid he’d ever seen.
“We’ll get you a new broom, of course,” James said, frowning slightly. “We’ll have to find out what made it act so strangely — what was it like?”
Harry told him, and Sirius listened with interest. It was weird, and in the back of his head he couldn’t stop thinking about Lily mentioning Dark magic, why anyone would want to do Dark magic to Sirius’s only and favourite nephew — but at least Slytherin wouldn’t be getting the cup this year.
Not if Harry had anything to do with it.