Comedy/Tragedy: The Story of a Doomed Existence

Chapter Sixteen: The Noble Sport of Quidditch

And another week passed - perhaps even more miserable than the last. Lily thought that maybe, by now, people would have grown tired of following her everywhere. But she wasn't that lucky; there was always someone to talk to, always someone who wanted to listen to Lily's problems. The redhead soon grew to wonder how many times she could hear 'what's wrong, Lily?' without exploding. She began to spend more and more time in the library; the strict Madam Pince liked her, but also would not tolerate any noise, so most of Lily's more exuberant 'fans' left her alone when she entered the large room.

While she enjoyed her free time, Lily wondered, briefly if James might retaliate to her shouting. But their conversation might as well not have occurred at all; he made no reaction that suggested to Lily he acknowledged her presence in the slightest.

The redhead also thought about her relationship with Alice and Lucy, and wondered about its resurrection. But the two girls remained as cool and distant as ever toward her; and, not even when they and Lily found sea slugs in their beds, did they speak to Lily.

So while the redhead tried to avoid the people who wanted to sit with her, the only people she wanted to sit with were avoiding her. Life went on, though Lily half-wished it wouldn't.

On Thursday, the fourth of November, Professor McGonagall ended the Double Transfiguration class with both an important announcement and an intriguing request.

"As I am sure that many of you know, the first Quidditch match of the season will occur this Saturday, at eleven in the morning. Gryffindor and Slytherin will, as always, start off the season. I am sure that you will all show up to show support for your preferred team." She glared around at all the Gryffindors, as if to say 'or else.'

Just as the bell rang, McGonagall held up her hand to prevent the students from rising.

"One more thing - would Miss Evans, Miss Suzuki, Miss Surrideo, Miss Thompson, and Miss Bones please stay afterwards? I would like a few words with the five of you. Everyone else, you are dismissed."

"I'll see you after class, Lily!" Amelia Hawthorne was one of the many girls who had taken to following Lily everywhere.

Lily nodded to her, as Lucy and Alice looked on in ill-disguised disgust and Leanna and Hana pretended not to notice.

"Girls, up here, please," McGonagall called from the front of the room. "You may take a seat." She indicated the empty desks of the first row. Once everyone was seated and comfortable, she began to speak again.

"So. We have been having some interesting occurrences in this first-year dorm, haven't we? The five of you have been involved in more accidents than anyone else, all year. Acne-inducing cream, boiling armadillo bile, curses, sea slugs, the fight that occurred between Miss Evans and Miss Suzuki..." Lily stared at her; she had hoped that Professor Sprout had not mentioned this to their head of house; nothing had been said of it for a long time. "...what is going on?" McGonagall finished.

"Nothing." Lily made sure she was the first to speak. Everyone in the room stared at her.

"Nothing, Miss Evans?" McGonagall looked very skeptical.

"Yes, nothing. Just a lot of coincidences," Lily told her, looking meaningfully into the teacher's eyes.

She had said that before, at the beginning of the year - the question was, would it work now?

"Well - if you're sure." McGonagall seemed surprised. "Girls? Is this truly what has been going on?"

Lily stared nervously at her roommates - what if they didn't catch on? But she was lucky; Hana smiled her disconcerting smile at McGonagall.

"All coincidences, Professor," she spoke in a sickly-sweet tone that so differed from the icy voice everyone else knew.

"Coincidences," Lucy echoed. Alice nodded.

"Very well, girls, if you all agree that those are the circumstances." McGonagall still looked dubious, but she seemed to find no further point to argue on. "You may go. I shall arrange a detention for the five of you, however. Coincidences they may be, but it is my job to make sure that no more of them happen."

And with this, the professor sent the five first-years on their way. The girls walked in somewhat of a group until they were a few floors up, at which point Leanna whirled around to face Lily and the two girls who were a number of steps behind her.

"So. You little 'three musketeers' decided to come up with some stupid story for McGonagall. Why?"

"We aren't the three musketeers," Lucy told her coldly, drawing level with Lily. "We aren't even friends. I don't know what Evans thinks she's doing, but it seemed a safe bet to go along with it - after all, you lot did." Lily spotted the sarcasm in her voice, and reflected with a pang that she herself was probably one of the only people in the school who would be able to recognize that Lucy's words were not meant; the tall girl did not want to jump on the bandwagon. Particularly when Hana was at its head

"Why, Evans?" Hana's cold voice broke through Lucy's comments and Lily's thoughts.

"I just - didn't want anyone to get into trouble, that's all," Lily said. She wasn't actually sure why she had done that, other than that she knew it had a possibility of working. Deep inside, she thought that maybe she was doing it to try to regain the friendship of Lucy and Alice, but they obviously weren't appeased, so she did not bring it up.

"A likely story. Whatever, you can act the chivalrous hero and not tell, but until you do, you're life is not going to be fun," Hana threatened.

"I'll look forward to it," Lily told her miserably - anything to distract her from the doom that was popularity.

"What?" the Japanese girl looked taken aback, but Lily ignored the curious expression on the girl's face and continued walking. She felt the eyes of all four of her dorm-mates' eyes on her back until she had turned down a different passage and was obscured from view.

Saturday morning dawned crisp and chilly. The rather warm weather they had experienced for nearly all of the school year had finally come to a close. When Lily walked out onto the grounds after breakfast, there was a nip and scent on the air that reminded her of rain. She reviewed yet again why she was attending this, for now it seemed completely unfortunate: she hated the way the teams were picked, she herself couldn't fly at all, and she would have to spend the whole time in a large group of twittering people. The only positive aspects of this sporting event were that Lily did not have to fly, it would get her out of the castle, and it might rain. Equally balanced pros and cons had brought Lily to her decision of attending, though she wasn't overjoyed about it.

She joined the throng of people making their way down to the stadium, only half listening as Amelia jabbered to her about something involving who was sitting with who for the match.

"Okay, okay, Lily, where do you want to sit?" The girl was practically bouncing up and down with excitement.

"Erm...how about up there?" She indicated the emptiest part of the stands.

"Oh - okay." Clearly Amelia was upset that Lily didn't want to sit in the middle of the Gryffindors, but she needn't have worried.

No sooner had Lily taken her seat in the chosen position than a large entourage of girls from their house arranged themselves around them, squealing shrilly whenever a boy walked by. James Potter winked up at them, causing even more shrills. Lily felt a pounding start in her head, and wondered why humans had been granted with the power of making that sound.

But, luckily, the noise died down as Sir Dasting strode onto the field, resplendent in wine-colored robes.

"He always wears those for the matches," the third-year girl sitting next to Lily whispered loudly. With a pang, Lily realized that she didn't even know the girl's name.

She turned back to the pitch to see Dasting let loose the Snitch, the Bludgers, and then toss a large red ball into the air - the Quaffle, LIly remembered.

"Aand...they're off!" a loud voice filled the stadium.

"Playing in today's match are Gryffindor and Slytherin; widely acknowledged as the worst team and the best team that Hogwarts has ever seen! Let's see how badly Slytherin beats the Gryffindors this time!" A large Slytherin boy was commentating the match.

"That's Avery...Slytherin sixth-year," the girl sitting next to Lily whispered. "He's got to be the most biased commentator Hogwarts has ever seen, never mind his own revelations about the quality of the teams..."

"But then again, we did lose pretty horribly last year," a girl in front of Lily swiveled around to speak.

"Don't even mention that..." Another girl had joined the conversation. She winced slightly.

"Worst defeat we've ever had; McGonagall removed it from the record books so that she wouldn't be so ashamed. Some weak excuse like 'the captain was ill.'" The girl on Lily's left snickered.

Lily nodded, pretending to be interested, then turned back to the game.

"And...Bullwinkle, latest edition to the sad mass that is Gryffindor team, takes the Quaffle. Bullwinkle flies forward - if you could call that flying, most would just say it is sitting on a broom in midair -"

"Avery..." Professor McGonagall was watching the commentator out of the corner of her eye.

"Right, Professor. So, Bullwinkle keeps sitting until - BAM, nice one, Lieberman! - Slytherin beater slams Bullwinkle onto the edge of his broom, that's got to hurt, ha, ha, ha!"

"Avery!"

"Well, it does...Slytherin Pucey retrieves the Quaffle - lucky he can fly! - and zooms toward the Gryffindor goalposts. Keeper Harris - another new addition, let's see if he's as awful as his comrade -"

"AVERY!"

"Sorry..." Lily wondered if it were possible for him to seem any less sorry, "Anyway, Harris dives, but he's never going to get that, his broom is too slow - SLYTHERIN SCORES!"

Loud cheers and laugher emanated from the section of the stands that held Slytherins.

Harris tried to get back into the middle of his hoop, but his broom seemed to be seriously malfunctioning. The Quaffle was placed at the center of the field with the Gryffindor Chasers, but it seemed only a moment before those on the Slytherin team were in possession again. One of their Chasers sailed toward the Gryffindor end of the pitch, leering unpleasantly at the Gryffindor Keeper. Harris' broom just couldn't get him up fast enough -

"SLYTHERIN SCORES!" Avery yelled again. "Take that, stupid Gryffies!"

"Avery..."

He didn't even bother to apologize this time; instead he just plowed onward with his biased comments.

"Gyffindor gets the Quaffle again, Hornby takes it out - he's sailing toward the Slytherin pitch - come on, where are our Beaters? Oh...oh yeah..."

The two Slytherin Beaters were busy trying to save their Seeker from being brutally murdered by the Bludgers.

"Hornby keeps flying, he's nearing the post, come on, Shlaki, save it!"

But the Slytherin Keeper flew too far, and the Quaffle fell easily into one of the goalposts. The Gryffindor-based cheers that had been absent for the game so far burst into existence as Avery continued his commentary,

"Gryffindor scores. Oh well, better luck next time, mate!"

"Do not coach the Slytherin team!" Professor McGonagall shouted angrily.

"Sorry, there, no need to shout." The large boy grinned at the expression on McGonagall's face. "Anyway, Slytherins take the Quaffle -"

Even Lily, who had never seen a game of Quidditch before, could tell that both teams were awful. It wasn't that the players on the teams were all that bad; it was simply that they did not trust each other, had no confidence, and seemed unable to work as a team. The game seemed to go on and on; both teams scored over and over. The Gryffindor Keeper was actually one of the better players on the field, but his broom seemed disinclined to move faster than a snail on holiday.

"Oh no!" Avery screamed into the magical megaphone as Harris, slow broom though he had, managed to complete a miraculous one-handed save. "That's all right, Gordon, we'll get back on our feet," he told the Slytherin Chaser in a soothing tone.

Professor McGonagall was not paying him any attention; her head was in her hands and she seemed to be trying to block out the game. Lily could understand why: the scoreboard read Slytherin: 280 Gryffindor: 250, and the game had only been going for two hours.

Lily let Avery's commentary wash over her, occasionally coming to attention as he let loose a vehement curse or a yelp of joy. This was very dull, she decided. Never one to find any particular interest in sports, Lily had enough reason to hate the game without Avery's biased commentary or the lacking teamwork of either House.

"The only hope we've got is the Seekers," Amelia whispered.

Lily glanced up at the two people sailing above the game. Both Seekers seemed too large for their position - they appeared to be simply too big for broomsticks.

"I don't fancy seeing them go into a dive," she told Amelia.

Apparently, the two boys did not fancy diving either. The two times that the Snitch did come into visibility, it was a hundred feet below the boys, and neither seemed keen to plummet toward it.

"Oh! And Gryffindor scores again," Avery moaned, sometime in the late afternoon. "The score is now 660 to 600 to Gryffindor...Come on, Slytherin!! We can do it, just keep playing your hardest, there's no way they will beat us!"

"Avery..." McGonagall moaned from where she was lightly banging her head onto the front of the stands. "If you can't keep an unbiased viewpoint..."

"Don't worry, Professor, I'm catering to the majority of the school!" a good amount of hisses came from the Gryffindor end of the pitch, but the Slytherins cheered.

Lily gazed into the middle of the playing field, eyes unfocused. She came to a start at the sudden noises and discovered she was very thirsty.

"Amelia," she whispered to the still-booing girl as she stood up, "I'm going to go find a water fountain."

"Oh, are we thirsty?" She stood up and made to follow the redhead.

"Well, I'm thirsty, but I think I'm capable of getting a drink by myself," Lily told her, laughing inwardly at the girl's antics. "I'll be back in a moment."

"You're lucky the teams just called a time-out," Amelia called after her as Lily hurried away.

"Yeah, lucky," Lily muttered sardonically under her breath as she stepped along the row.

She walked aimlessly down to the grass outside of the pitch and looked around - there was a drinking fountain right next to the Slytherin locker rooms. Glad to have the cool water on her face, Lily did not move for a few moments. It was as she bent over the serpent-shaped fountain that she heard voices behind her - Slytherin voices. She wasn't sure what they would think of a Gryffindor drinking from their fountain, so she did her best not to move.

"Come on, Bradley, this is ridiculous. The only reason they're winning is that we're using those stupid tactics Dasting gave us! If we would actually play, then we'd wipe the field with their -" the person speaking let out a long stream of curses that made Lily raise her eyebrows.

"I'm Captain of this team, I'll decide what happens!" the person who had been addressed as Bradley spoke.

"Come on...you know you want to win, like we did last year!"

"Dasting is not going to be happy about this," Bradley laughed as he and his teammate hurried back to the pitch. Glancing up from her position by the water fountain, Lily watched the seven burly members of the Slytherin team have a short conference, of which they all broke out of laughing raucously.

"At least it would bring some excitement to the game," Lily muttered to herself as she wandered past the Slytherin locker rooms and onto the sloping lawns. She was not keen on returning to the Quidditch match.

The redhead soon found that it was much more enjoyable to wander around the edge of the Forbidden Forest, smelling the rain on the air and doing her best to ignore the sounds of eight hundred students at their favorite sporting event.

Late afternoon quickly converged into evening. The sky darkened, though no stars could be seen through the now-invisibly overcast atmosphere. A few droplets of water hit the back of Lily's head at the same time that a voice called from behind her.

"Lily! What are you doing? Come on, hurry back, it's a disaster!" Amelia was leaping up and down and looking horrified.

Resolutely, Lily turned and walked back to the bouncing brunette.

"I didn't know it would take you forty minutes to get a drink," Amelia called to her reproachfully as she began to run through the now-heavy rain.

"I wanted to go for a walk," Lily told her, jogging to catch up.

But Amelia broke into a downright sprint, and in order to follow her Lily nearly dilapidated her lungs. That girl sure could run.

"Come on, hurry," Amelia told the wheezing Lily as she squeezed past the Gryffindors in the stands, a few short moments later.

The brunette sat down and peered down at the field, oblivious to the rain on her head. By now, Lily was fully intrigued by what Amelia had said. She leaned forward as well, though her breathing was still uneven.

Light posts as tall as the goals had illuminated the field, though there were some places that remained in gloom. Lily glanced up at the scoreboard and nearly fell off of her seat. The board now read Slytherin: 930 Gryffindor: 670.

"What happened?" Lily gasped.

"Slytherin started using this whole new set of tactics - watch -" someone, Lily couldn't tell whom in the darkened stands, answered.

And indeed they had. The entire team was playing a much rougher, more foul-inducing form of Quidditch, but it worked. They had joined as a team to bring Gryffindor down, which they most certainly were doing.

"Dasting isn't too happy," Amelia told her as she indicated the sopping wizard, who had just given Gryffindor a penalty shot because someone on the Slytherin team had scored a goal.

"I've heard he tells the teams what to do, so it's a big deal of Slytherin doesn't cooperate - a really big deal, because all the other teams have been taught to defend against certain tactics; if the tactics are changed, they don't know what to do." Someone else leaned forward from behind Lily and whispered in her ear.

Annoyed yet again for the way Quidditch was played at Hogwarts, Lily turned back to the game and listened to the commentary.

Avery was beside himself with glee over the fact that Slytherin had pulled ahead so much; he seemed to be announcing the score far more often than was necessary.

"Score is 930 to 670 to Slytherin, and Hornby doesn't even get a chance to score - that means the score stays the same, 930 to 670 to Slytherin - a nice Bludger hit right at him by Donahue, so the score remains 930 to 670 to Slytherin -"

"Penalty!" screeched Sir Dasting, his face easily as purple as his robes.

But it didn't matter; Gryffindor could not compete with the unusual and illegal antics of the Slytherins. As the score passed a four-hundred-point difference, Professor McGonagall stood up from where she had been huddled and shook her fist at the Gryffindor Seeker, McCormick.

"For the love of Merlin," she yelled in a most unProfessor McGonagall-like way, "catch the Snitch, McCormick, CATCH THE SNITCH!"

Apparently, the look on her face frightened the large boy into a dive toward the gold ball, which was now hovering at the foot of the Slytherin stands. His opponent dove as well, but the Gryffindor Seeker was heavier, so he sped faster and faster toward the ground and the Snitch, arms outstretched wildly into the rain.

BOOM.

McCormick hit the ground of the pitch with a resonating thud. Everyone in Gryffindor, as well as a good number of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, moaned. The Slytherins laughed loudly, jeering and pointing at the apparently unconscious McCormick. They were stopped, however, when their Seeker tried to pull his broom to a halt, but, not being fast enough, wound up falling to the ground with a less obvious, but still pronounced, thump.

As all of Hogwarts watched, the large Gryffindor Seeker extended his arm and opened one pudgy fist to reveal a gold, glittering object that, though tiny, was visible in every corner of the stands.

"Oh, why did he catch the Snitch?" Amelia asked desperately.

"Probably because he knew there was no way Gryffindor could catch up," Lily supplied.

"Yeah, that, and the look on McGonagall's face," someone else said, chuckling.

"Filthy cheats..." the girl in front of Lily muttered.

A buzzing noise rapidly grew louder in the stands, as everyone realized what had happened. The Slytherins cheered and laughed like mad, jeering at McCormick, who was still lying, immobile, in the mud. Gryffindors moaned, and the members of the other two houses laughed at the excitement of the game.

"Aaand Slytherin wipes their sorry a-"

"Avery..." Though still distraught over the match, McGonagall now had enough strength to tell off the commentator.

"The final score of the match is 990 to 830! Ha, ha, ha, take that you losers!" and he danced away, chased by the irate McGonagall. "Losers, losers, losers..."

"Well, you can't say it wasn't an interesting match," Amelia told Lily sadly as they walked up to the castle.

Lily coughed slightly.

"Perhaps you don't remember that it went on for - what, six or seven hours?" Lily told her, sarcasm coating her words.

"Hey, there's no need for you to get mean," Amelia told her, sounding hurt.

"Sorry," Lily said. She was fully aware that she sounded even less sorry than Avery's apologies to Professor McGonagall, but she didn't care. Remarkably, Amelia's acne-strewn countenance spread into a grin; she had not noticed Lily's lack of sincerity.

When they reached the Great Hall, anxious as everyone else to eat - no one had consumed anything since breakfast - Lily went out of her way to choose a seat in the midst of other people, so that Amelia would be forced to sit somewhere else. She smiled apologetically at the girl and turned toward her own food. She was not the sort of person Lily had any desire to be friends with.

Lily listened to the conversation of the people she had chosen to sit with: a group of sixth-year boys that included two members of the Gryffindor team.

"That was embarrassing, that was," one of the members of the Gryffindor team - a Beater, Lily remembered foggily - said sourly. "Losing by one hundred sixty points!"

"That's not so bad," one of his friends told him. "We still get to play, anyway! And maybe in their next match, Ravenclaw will beat Slytherin by over one hundred sixty points! Then we'll be even more back in the running!"

"No, there's no way Ravenclaw will beat Slytherin, not with the tactics Dasting gives them! They've got defense, but otherwise they're hopeless! And with Slytherin using the stuff they did today...Ravenclaw doesn't stand a chance." One of his friends told him, laughing in a quiet, almost satirical way. "We might be still in the running, but even if we do make it through the other matches, we'll have to face Slytherin in the end, and we'll lose!"

"But what about Huff-"

"Ha, Hufflepuff? They haven't won a match in nineteen years!" another boy laughed loudly. A few passing Hufflepuffs glared at him.

"We're doomed," his friend agreed, shaking his blonde head.

"Filthy cheats," the Beater echoed the girl from the stands. "Lowly scum."

"I agree with you on that, mate." His teammate clapped him on the shoulder. Lily remembered his face; this was Joseph Harris, the boy from the tryouts and who was now Keeper for the team. "I'd do anything to beat Slytherin. Anything."

While he and his friends glared across the room toward the smirking Slytherins, Lily stared down at her bowl of goulash. However, she wasn't the least bit interested in eating it. She felt instead as though an idea had raced through her mind, leaving a tantalizing trail of its substance, but disappearing fast enough that the curious first-year did not know what it was. The feeling was similar to that which she got when she had forgotten something important. She closed her eyes, thinking as hard as she could, but before she could place her finger on the subject that was teasing her tired mind, a voice cast these thoughts away, as though they had never been present.

"Oy, Lily," someone said. Lily looked up to see the blonde friend of Harris and the Beater gazing at her. She felt a stab of anger over the fact that someone she had never even spoken with knew her name. "The idea is that you eat the goulash, not stare at it."

He and his friends chuckled amenably. Lily glanced, uninterested, at the plate of goulash. Though still hungry, she had more on her mind than the food on her plate. Mainly to stop the boys from looking at her, she shoveled a few bites into her mouth. Satisfied, they turned back to a conversation of the newest broom; a Quicksilver.

As much as she tried to concentrate on the idea that had abandoned her thoughts, the constant shouting and laughing of the boys around her made this quite impossible. She hurriedly ate one final bite of salad before leaving the Great Hall.