Marauders Era Challenge: Day 14
Make a Marauders AU gifset/ graphic/ drabble.
**This was inspired by the current World Cup craze**
It was worth it, Lily thought to herself as she looked up into James’ face. It had all been completely worth it.
Planning had started over six months in advance. She and James had only been dating for a month and a half, but Lily knew, even then, that this would be one for the record books. She had enlisted Sirius’ help in her master scheme. He had only expressed disappointment that he hadn’t thought of it himself.
Step one had been saving. Lily needed a lot of money to make her plan a reality. Remus had tried to contribute what little he had. Peter had attempted to sneak a galleon or two into her bag. Sirius had practically chucked a bag of galleons at her when she was studying in the library. But Lily refused to take money from any of them. This was her gift to James.
Step two of the plan had been distraction. Lily needed Sirius to make sure James would not get his hands on his gift for himself. She knew he would be counting down the minutes until tickets for the Quidditch World Cup became available and Lily needed to make sure he didn’t get them. Sirius did his job perfectly. James missed his father’s owl asking him if he wanted tickets and by the time James read the message, James’s dad had been informed that it was already taken care of.
Step three was luck. Lily had some connections through Slughorn but there was no guarantee she would get two such great tickets. She knew she’d be sending Slughorn his favorite crystallized pineapple until she was eighty years old to pay him back for the strings he pulled for her but James was worth it.
Step four was sheer providence. Everyone had placed bets that the Cup would be between Egypt and Germany. No one had expected England to come from behind and rank in the top two teams, set to play the final match against Egypt. And the fact that the cup would be held just outside of Paris was the icing on the cake for Lily. She had always wanted to visit.
Step five was joy. James’s face was beautific when he opened the small present on his birthday, revealing two tickets in the top box to the greatest game he could imagine seeing. Lily couldn’t remember a better kiss than the one he gave her in gratitude. Perhaps because neither of them could recall ever smiling so much.
Step six was mild disappointment when James’s favorite player, Chaser Aiden Hawksworth, became injured and was going to be unable to play.
Step seven became frustration as Lily tried to learn the easy rules and increasingly complicated fouls in Quidditch. She had never been truly interested in Quidditch and had only come to the games at school to be with friends and support Gryffindor. But she learned them, if only for James’s excitement when she finally grasped why it was important for stooging to be declared a foul to protect the Keeper and discourage unnecessary roughness.
Step eight was courage and restraint as James and Lily went on their own to the site of the 418th Quidditch World Cup just outside Paris. Neither of them knew the area and getting swept up in a crowd of avid Quidditch fans was dangerous work. Lily was nearly trampled and James had to rein in his temper to avoid setting fire to a few of Egypt supporters’ more colorful mockeries of England’s players on their tents.
Step nine, however, was perfect happiness as Lily and James climbed to the top box and took their seats next to a young man sitting alone. A quick conversation with their seat-mate revealed that he was (as James had suspected) Aiden Hawksworth, James’s favorite Quidditch player.
Lily looked up at James’s face during the first release of the Quaffle, Bludgers, and Snitch and smiled. All the hard work, the favors she had called in, and the frustrations and worries to get here had completely and utterly been worth it. James took his eyes off of the game for a moment to look back down at Lily, entirely contented with his lot in life, sitting between the woman he loved and the quidditch player he admired, watching the game he adored played by the team of his choosing. Life was complete perfection.
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