"What a beautiful day for some quidditch!"

Jasper had his arm about Oliver, who was in his own Gryffindor team jumper, and thrumming with excitement - it exuded off the boy like a child at Christmas. 

Beside Oliver, Sirius Black held up Marlene McKinnon's old polyroid camera and snapped a photo of Oliver and Jasper, laughing as he shook the photo to develop. He grinned as the image came clear. "Odaaaaaair you are," he sang, holding it out to Jasper.

"My new favorite picture" Jasper said, smiling down at it as photo-Jasper hugged the laughing photo-Ollie.

Oliver smiled, too, "Nice one."

James looked over their shoulders to see the picture. "Oh that is a keeper."

"Actually it's a pair of Seekers," Jasper said and happily received Sirius's high-five. James laughed and shook his head as Oliver groaned and Jasper grinned broadly.

"Seek and ye shall find," Sirius said, grinning.

Oliver's eyes were wide, taking in all of the magic and excitement around him. He was borderline shaking from the exuberance as he looked all around. Ollie had never been to a professional match before, much less the World Cup, and absolutely everything was enthralling on another level. All around them were the flags of the two teams playing - England and France. 

A/N: Sorry to interrupt here but I just wanted to let you know that I totally forgot who I said was playing in this match even though I think James said it like a hundred chapters ago at some point to either Lily or Oliver and  - well - full disclosure, I just don't care about Quidditch as much as James and Oliver and Jasper and all the boys in this fic do and so I don't feel like searching through 151 chapters to see if James said which countries were playing or not. Honestly, I almost forgot to even have them GO to the match at all, and then I thought about it being something they talk about offhand afterwards and not actually show them there -- that's how much I dread writing Quidditch scenes. However, it's important for reasons you'll find out soon enough if you keep reading. But in the mean time, if these are different teams than I've previously said were playing, please excuse me, I do apologize, but it won't affect the plot any. Lots of love! H.G.M.

There were loads of blue, red, and white flags as the three stripes of France and the St. George Cross flags whipped in the wind. The pitch had been specially built for the occasion on the edge of the parc national de forêts, far to the east of Paris, where there was a collection of small wizarding villages. One of the villages, called Lieu des Moutons Invisibles, was the official host of the World Cup 1979. As such, the wizards and witches attending were allowed to be as raucous and uninhibited as they wished and so there was quite the celebration already underway as James, Sirius, Jasper, Oliver, and Frank all arrived together by official portkey for the World Cup celebration.

"What the fuck do you reckon they call it Lieu des Moutons Invisibles for?" Sirius asked, "The Place of Invisible Sheep? What the fuck kind of town name is that?"

"In anticipation of you asking that, I consulted the Remcyclopedia before hand," James said. "Apparently, it's called that because the entire village has very clever cloaking charms on it, similar to what they've done in Scotland with Hogsmeade, and as such the muggles have built legends based on claims that peoples sheep disappear without a trace 'round here - one moment they can see them and the next - poof! But they can still hear them bleating. Thus, the place of invisible sheep."

Sirius grinned. "I've never been more in love with an origin story in my life, have ewe? That is baaaaaad ass..." he drew out the "baahhh" part of badass, his eyes twinkling.

"Picture the poor muggles wondering where their blasted sheep got off to, though," Frank said, laughing. He nudged Sirius in the elbow, but Sirius didn't respond.

Instead, Sirius turned to Jasper, "Can you imagine the poor muggles wondering where their sheep got off to, Jaz?"

Jasper glanced at Frank, whose lips were pursed, and he said, "I dunno, Sirius, perhaps you should ask Frank if he can imagine it."

Sirius glanced at Frank, but didn't say anything, just plowed on ahead of the lot of them, now singing loudly, "Hopelessly passing your time in the grassland away, only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air... you better watch out... there maybe dooooogs about!"

Frank sighed. James patted his shoulder. "He'll come 'round mate," he said.

"Yeah, maybe," muttered Frank. He paused, "Hey I'm going to go check in with the Prewetts." 

"Thanks for letting us hitch a ride with you on your port-key mate," James said.

"'Course. Next time I leave Sirius in England, though, if he's going to be a jackass."

"Don't blame ya a bit," James said.

Frank disapparated away and James hurried to catch up with Jasper, Oliver, and Sirius, who were a ways down the path, headed for a large sign that said Camping Parties This Way! with a picture of a pointing house elf. Sirius was still loudly singing, though he'd changed from one song to another by the time James had caught up to them.

"Hey asshole," James said, tossing his arm about Sirius's shoulder, just incase there was any doubt who "asshole" was. Sirius slacked up and looked at James. "Be nice to Frank, hey?"

Sirius looked around and saw Frank was gone. "You mean the Traitor?"

"No, I mean Frank - one of our very best mates who was only doing his job and you're still being an asshole about it several months later."

"Always on his side," Sirius accused, though he wasn't as vicious as someone might think if they didn't know him well. James could tell the correction he'd made had softened Sirius a bit. Sirius sighed as James squeezed his shoulder and raised his eyebrow. "Alright, I'll be nice," Sirius said.

"Thank you," James answered.

"But if he ever arrests me again --"

"Maybe don't do anything that calls for arresting?"

"I didn't the first time!" Sirius protested.

"I know," James said, "I'm just saying. Because let's face it, of everyone I know, you're the one most likely to do something worth getting arrested over."

"Am I?" Sirius asked.

"Yes," Jasper called over his shoulder.

Oliver laughed.

James smirked as Sirius gave Jasper the finger playfully.

They'd walked quite a ways by then and come to a spot where a couple of wizards were doling out camping assignments - a large field was positively covered with tents and small roped off areas, labeled by little signs giving their numbers. 

"Bonjour monsieur!" Sirius called, stepping out from under James's arm and 'round Jasper to greet the wizard, "Réservation pour Potter."

"Ah, oui, monsieur! Potter... Potter... Oui. Te voilà! Numéro deux cent trente-quartre." He pointed far off across the field to the left and bowed, handing Sirius a bit of paper with the number 234 in big bold letters.

"Brillant! Merci." Sirius grinned and took the paper, turning 'round to the other three. "Good thing you lads brought me along to parle français, eh?"

"Oui," said Oliver.

James and Jasper looked at Oliver in surprise.

"That's all I know," Oliver shrugged and they all laughed as Sirius waved for them to follow him as he pranced off amongst the already erected tents dotting the field surrounding the huge pitch that stood looming over their heads, French flags flying from the parapets of half the stands and the St. George Cross on the other half.

As they walked through the camp sites, they passed loads of fancy tents with all kinds of magical properties applied onto them - tents that glittered and tents that glowed, tents made with comically bright patterns, and some that were shaped like small castles or houses, interspersed with normal looking tents whose doors were pinned open to reveal quite fancy interior spaces.

They'd brought along the tents the Marauders used during full moon nights - relatively small tents with one-room interiors that were set up like studio apartments but did, at least, have the luxury of magically-running water for the loos to work properly. James and Sirius set the tents up, since they had the most experience, while Jasper and Oliver magically started a fire and made chairs and tea so that when James and Sirius had finished they all four sat and had a cuppa together, talking about the match and the excitement of the night ahead.

To make things easy for everyone to arrive and get to their seats, the pitch had been set up so that witches and wizards were given entry times on their ticket and they would simply disapparate to their assigned sea at the given time. The match was set to start just after breakfast the next morning, with disapparation times ranging from 10:00 in the morning until fifteen minutes before the quaffle drop at 12:30. James had managed at getting them an okay entry time of 11:45, thanks to Mr. Underhill, who had connections in the Department of Magical Games and Sports.

When they were finished with tea, Jasper and Oliver went to the souviners booths and got pairs of omnioculars and programs, Oliver also purchased a special edition of Quidditch Through the Ages, which featured an extra section on the history of the English and French rivalry, which he found extremely interesting. Apparently, the rivalry had begun many years before during an inter-school tourney similar to the one that would be played at Hogwarts with Uagadu in the Spring - except that one had been Hogwarts against Beauxbatons. Beauxbatons had won - but only barely - and there was question whether they'd played fairly as they had a half-veela on the team who had supposedly glamoured several of the Hogwarts team members and caused their play to be less than top notch. Thus, some of the players at Hogwarts had accused Beauxbatons of cheating. The captains of each team never quite got over their grudges, the article said, and, ironically, those captains were the very captains heading up the two international teams for the World Cup.

"What's a veela?" Oliver asked Jasper, looking up from the article, which he was reading even as they walked back to the campsite, where they'd left James and Sirius.

"A veela is a very beautiful nymph," Jasper said, "Who enchants men. They have moon-silver hair and make your mind turn funny with desire."

"Have you ever met one?"

"In third year, when I met your m-- when I met Meg, I mean -- on the Ilvermorny team there was a part-Veela, I'm not sure what her percentage was, though. Her name was Dawn." 

Oliver was quiet a moment, thinking about that, and the he said, "I dunno what to call you lot, either. You and Meg, I mean."

Jasper came to a stop, and they both stepped off the path, letting other people pass by. Jasper had been worried about this being an issue and he rubbed his nose as he thought about how he wanted to go about addressing it. He drew a deep breath.

"I mean," Oliver cut in before Jasper could say anything, "I mean only because, like, I'm not that much younger than you, really, and I knew you - you know, before - in school... a little bit, anyway. Because of Edgar." Oliver bit his lip.

"If you don't feel comfortable calling us Mum and Dad, or even thinking of us that way, that's quite alright, Oliver," Jasper said. "I totally understand, I get it. If we're just like older siblings to you, that's fine. We'll be alright. I mean, yeah, you're only a few years younger than me, I'm not old enough really to be your Dad. Biologically, I mean, even, but --" he smiled a little and said, "I sure do love you enough to be one for you if you do want me to be."

Oliver considered this, and he said, "You know, Edgar said once that you were more of a father to him than --" Oliver hesitated.

"Than our real father was?" Jasper asked, a sad laugh to his voice.

"...yeah," Oliver admitted.

Jasper nodded and looked away. Oliver could see there was intense emotion in his eyes, and he swept the heel of his hand over his eyes before he looked back to Oliver. He met Oliver's eyes, then glanced about and saw a couple of boulders a ways off, tucked into the edge of the line of trees where the forest began. "C'mere, let's talk a second," Jasper said, and he waved for Oliver to join him.

They ducked away from the crowd, Oliver carrying the bag of things they'd gotten at the booth. Together, they sat down on the boulders, shaded by the trees whose branches reached out, heavy with orange and yellow leaves as autumn foliage had seemed to burn the branches into breath taking color. 

Jasper stared across the campsites dotting the field and the witches and wizards crowding about, walking between the booths and tents, wearing jumpers for their favorite teams, some even wearing the flags about their necks like caps that flapped behind them. Faces painted red, blue, and white were everywhere about the crowd and one wizard was walking about with his whole bulbous belly painted with the French flag. Some people had started a pick-up game of quidditch and shouts could be heard echoing over the crowd, a quaffle flying about, and Oliver even caught the faintest glint of a golden snitch against the clouds.

"Do you know a lot about what happened - when our father was killed, I mean?" Jasper asked.

Oliver shook his head. "Only a bit about it from what was in the paper. Edgar never wanted to talk much about it. I think he talked more about it with Dexter than the rest of us... him and Dexter were really close. I felt bad that I hadn't been a better friend after he left Hogwarts..."

"You were a good friend," Jasper reassured Oliver. "He talked about all of you quite a lot."

"I should've stayed friends after he left Hogwarts, though, I could've wrote him owls."

"It seems like you were going through quite a lot yourself, though," Jasper said gently.

Oliver looked down at his feet, at the trainers that Jasper and Meg had gotten for him when he'd gone to live with them, and he nodded.

"We have a lot more in common than you realize, Oliver."

Oliver looked up at Jasper and their eyes met as Jasper drew a deep breath... and began the story.