"Romeo, Romeo, Who-foreart thou, Romeo?" Chapter 1

"The Quidditch Match"

"I can't believe the play is in three days." Lily Evans said to her boyfriend, James Potter and his three friends, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, and Sirius Black.

"Yeah, but first thing's first Lil." Sirius said with a grin, "We've got Slytherin asses to kick tomorrow in Quidditch. Right James?"

"Absolutely." James replied with a lightening grin, "And as soon as we've got the Quidditch Cup secured we can do the Romeo and Juliet thing." He smiled at Lily.

"I'm still surprised they're doing a muggle play." Remus put in.

"Yeah, but as Professor Dumbledore said, 'Shakespeare has a magic all its own.'" Lily quoted. "What do you guys think our chances for the cup are tomorrow?"

"We were looking really great at practice today." James began, and he and Sirius were off, filling Lily and Remus in on the upcoming match against their archrivals, while Peter sat muttering quietly to himself.

"Do you bite your thumb at me, sir?" He was preparing for his two-line roll of the servant Abram in the upcoming play. Suddenly Sirius clapped him on the shoulder.

"You'll be fine, Wormtail, old buddy! Besides you have the whole Quidditch match to memorize during. I mean, it must be pretty difficult: Do you bite your thumb at me sir? Twice!" Peter blushed a rosy red as the others dissolved into laughter.

"It is difficult! Getting the timing and everything right, I mean. What if I mess it up and the whole play is ruined?"

Lily got a hold on her giggles and placed a comforting hand on Peter's shoulder. "You'll be great Peter- we've all gone over your lines with you- and don't forget; there'll be cues from backstage about when you're supposed to enter and speak and everything."

"Yeah- cues given by Snape." Peter muttered darkly. "He'd like nothing better than to see me humiliate myself in front of the whole school."

"That's not true!" James said brightly, "He'd much rather see me humiliate myself in front of the whole school!"

"Yeah!" Sirius added, "You're just a much easier target!"

"That was sensitive, Sirius." Remus said sarcastically as Lily tried to comfort Peter.

"Just what I was going for!" Sirius shot back good-naturedly. "But seriously, Peter, don't worry. Snape will be much too busy trying to make the balcony fall on James before he climbs up it to worry about making you miss your cues."

"Hey!" James said indignantly, but they ignored him.

"Sirius is right, Peter." Lily began, only to be interrupted by James muttering "That's a first." This dubiously well timed comment caused a brief and furious fistfight between the two friends outside the portrait of the Fat Lady. Their three companions however, took no notice and sidestepped them to climb through the portrait hole.

"Honestly, those two!" Lily said shaking her head and laughing.

"You don't think they'll hurt each other do you?" Peter asked, glancing nervously behind him.

"On the night before the match for the Quidditch Cup against Slytherin? Nah. They both know that we're in no position to be maiming each other now. Besides, they're too evenly matched to each other serious harm." Remus spoke up.

"Right" Said Lily nodding firmly and leading Peter over to the fireplace past a group of third year boys playing Exploding Snap. Unbeknownst to Lily they gawked un-subtly as she passed, robes swishing, and unbeknownst to both Lily and the boys, James and Sirius had just climbed through the portrait hole. With a flick of his wand, Sirius (ever the defender of ladies' honor-- when it involved playing a prank) gave them all bunny tails. James seemed nonplussed as he quickly removed the tails with a swish of his own wand, and headed over to his girlfriend and Peter who was something of a bumbling Romeo for "Juliet" to practice her lines with. He kept losing his place in the script. Remus, the ever-dutiful prefect was busily chastising a Gryffindor team chaser and Sirius's fellow beater for painting a very -er- unflattering likeness of the Slytherin team captain on the stone wall.

All in all, the atmosphere in the room was jovial and anticipatory, but as the evening wore on it became more and more of the latter.

James, captain of the Gryffindor team, was dealing with the pressure surprisingly well. He sat, removed from the center of things, off to one side of the fireplace in a huge armchair with Lily curled up next to him, dozing, and Terence Wronski, the seeker, crouched in front of him discussing strategies.

Sirius dealt with the pressure of the upcoming match as he dealt with everything else- by being loud and boisterous and generally creating many explosions all throughout Gryffindor tower. He systematically blew up a rubber snake, which was wearing a strange name tag reading "Sal", his own Potions cauldron, Peter's cauldron, and the fourth year girls' dormitory. (Well, the contents thereof at least.) This last one finally got the desired reaction. Remus looked ready to throttle him; while half the girls ran to the room screaming about precious possessions and the other half seemed to think it was the most brilliant joke. That might have had something to do with it being played by one of the most eligible seventh year boy in Gryffindor house.

James often pointed out that the reason Sirius was so "eligible" was because no one could stand him for longer than three days at the tops (this was the record of Sirius' longest ever relationship with one Evelyn Abbott, the culmination of which had involved her dumping an entire pitcher of iced pumpkin juice down his front at the seventh year Halloween ball.).

When James glanced over at his friend, surrounded by a swarm of girls all at least a foot shorter than he was, Sirius mouthed to him "Five days." And pointed at a blond one. James shook his head and mouthed back "Five minutes, more like!" before turning his attention back to Terence who was three minutes into a detailed explanation of a complicated new maneuver he'd developed for capturing the snitch called the "Wronski Feint". James was nodding in all the right places, but it sounded as though Terence had already figured out exactly how best to use the new move and was only talking to James about it because he was the Captain and to relieve his own case of pre-match nerves. James glanced down at his enchanted watch and noticed that its single hand was pointed at "GO TO BED". He gently shook Lily awake and stood up, climbing on the end table next to the chair, thereby adding an extra four feet to his six foot - one figure. This immediately got the attention of the crowded room.

He said, "Team- it's time we got some sleep. Yes, Sirius, you too." (To the glare he got from his friend who had the blond fourth year on his lap.) Around the room seven people got to their feet and headed towards both girls and boys staircases. "I hope you all come to the match tomorrow to cheer Gryffindor on to the cup. 'Night!" With those words, the crowd gave a tremendous cheer and James hopped off the table, giving Lily a quick kiss on the cheek before hurrying after Sirius and guiding him away from the girl's staircase which he was following the keeper (Eliza Morrigan) up.

~

The next morning dawned cool and damp, with dewdrops crowning the grass on the Quidditch pitch. James woke early to find the sun peeking through the curtains of their dorm room and his dorm mates all fast asleep. He lay in bed for a few moments watching each of them in turn- Remus peacefully lying still and quiet; Peter snoring rhythmically; and Sirius muttering quietly with a suspicious grin on his face. James climbed out of bed and yanked a white tee shirt over his head before pulling a set of robes out of his wardrobe. As he opened the door of the wardrobe a feather pillow hit him in the back of the head. He whirled around and saw Sirius sitting on the foot of his bed, holding another pillow, which he flung at James. The latter however, having lived in the same dormitory as Sirius for seven years, ducked and then tackled his friend to the floor where they wrestled. It was practically a morning ritual. This was the scene that greeted Remus and Peter when they awoke.

Remus calmly stepped over them on his way to the bathroom while Peter watched from the safety of his bed. The "fight" was over as soon as it started and the four friends (after coaxing Peter out from behind his bed hangings) headed down to breakfast. They found Lily already at the Gryffindor table, reading over her lines for the upcoming play and visibly excited about the match. When James sat down beside her she looked up, her green eyes glowing, and shut her script quickly.

"You're late."

"Good morning to you, too, Lil." James said smiling at her and piling eggs on his plate.

"Yeah, morning sunshine." Sirius said, plopping down across from Lily, who stuck her tongue out at him.

"Well, you are." She said a bit peevishly. "Emily said you might just sleep through the match and we'd have to forfeit to Slytherin."

Emily Hobbs was a sixth year Hufflepuff, notorious for her paranoia, whom Lily had befriended in her second year out of pity. The two had become casual friends and Lily usually just let Emily's worrying roll off her back, but when she was nervous already it sometimes got the best of her.

"D'you honestly think Remus would let us sleep through the match? And even if he didn't wake up, you would have come and smacked us both upside the head to get us up." James pointed out between bites.

Lily smiled wryly, "True." She finished her last bite of toast and picked up her script again. "I'm going to run this back up to the tower before the match. Good Luck, you guys!" She kissed James on the cheek and hurried off.

After following her out of the great hall with his eyes, James let his gaze wander over to the Slytherin table, where their rival team was seated. They were in a group towards one end and looked tense. 'Good,' thought James, 'Let them get a good sweat going.' Sirius followed his gaze and said, "They look nervous." His voice sounded positively gleeful about it.

"Let them be." James said turning back to his friends with a grin, "They've got good reason."

~

Half an hour later the Gryffindor team was in the locker room, changing into their scarlet robes. Everyone seemed captivated by their own thoughts on the brink of this important game- it was against Slytherin, their biggest rival; it was for the cup- the last game of the year; and for many of them, their last game at Hogwarts- the seventh years were particularly quiet.

James pulled his Quidditch robes over his head, thinking about the many games he'd played on this pitch in the six years he had played for Gryffindor. He thought about how this would be his last one, and that no matter the outcome of the match, part of him would be sad to see it end. Sirius was sitting on the end of the bench in front of his locker, a picture of the Slytherins' captain in his hand. He was making strange faces and muttering rude comments about the boy's nose under his breath. Terence Wronski was bent over a piece of parchment on which he was perfecting the Wronski feint for any eventuality. Eliza Morrigan sat at the same end as Sirius, laughing at the antics of the picture he was taunting. And Jamie Preskenis and Abdul Patil, the team's only "couple" and James' fellow chasers, sat quietly in a corner discussing something that no one asked about.

Finally James looked up at the clock and realized that if he was going to say anything, now was the time. He cleared his throat and began: "You guys, you know we're ready for this- I know we're ready for this. It's many of your last times on this field and it's very appropriate that it’s against this team. Slytherin thinks they can beat us- well the only way that's going to happen is if we let them. Are we going to let them?"

The answer was a resounding "NO!!"

" We can beat them, but only if we all give it all we've got. Are we going to give this match everything we've got?"

"YES!!!"

"Okay, then. Let's go!" And with that, the Gryffindor team left the locker room.

~

About twenty minutes into the match, James had possession of the quaffle and put it through the towering hoop easily, evoking a roar from the crowd.

The announcer, Ravenclaw Justin Witherspoon, crowed into the microphone: "That beautiful goal from Gryffindor captain James Potter brings the score to Gryffindor 40, Slytherin 20!"

James circled the goalpost and then flew back towards the center of the pitch. Terence was about twenty feet above him, circling like a hawk, watching for the snitch. The Slytherin seeker seemed to be following him, but Terence was holding his own; besides, James reminded himself, that's what the Wronski Feint required.

Sirius, at the Gryffindor goalpost end, had just sent a bludger hurtling at a Slytherin who'd been about to score. The boy dropped the quaffle and veered off course to avoid the bludger, and Jamie Preskenis scooped up the red ball and began tearing off towards the other goals. She was dodging bludgers from both Slytherin beaters and when she came up to James she tossed him the ball. He took off to where Abdul was waiting, only a few feet away from the Slytherin keeper. James threw him the quaffle and Abdul put it through the hoop- 50 to 20. The Gryffindor section of the crowd went wild again as Justin shouted the news. Suddenly though, there was a collective gasp from the stands. Terence and the Slytherin seeker, Avery, has just gone into practically vertical dives, with Terence about a broom's length in front of Avery. The two were speeding towards the ground so fast it looked as though they would crash. At the last moment, Terence pulled out of the dive and rocketed upwards, but it was too late for Avery- he slammed into the pitch with a thud, as the Slytherins in the stands booed and groaned. Madame Pomfrey, who'd been waiting at the sidelines for just such a time as this rushed out to the fallen seeker and hastily mended his bleeding nose, muttering "Eneverate" at the same time. Soon the Slytherin seeker was back in the air, and Justin was still marveling over the loudspeaker at the fantastic new move from the Gryffindor seeker.

Terence flew over to James to give him a high-five when he suddenly spotted the snitch- the real snitch. It was perhaps thirty feet above them hovering, as though not sure which direction to take off in next. Terence took off after it and twenty feet below James, so did Avery. At the same moment, Bulstrode- on of the Slytherin beaters sent a bludger hurtling towards them, undoubtedly trying to hit Terence. His aim was a bit off, however, and the black missile, hit James in the back with a sickening crunch. As though it were in slow motion, James heard the crowd gasp and yell, he felt his grip on the broom loosen, heard a shriek from the crowd "James!", and heard someone above him say "Oh shit!" as he plummeted towards the ground. Then, everything went black.