The grandstands were full to overflowing, noisome and drumming with cheers and tramping feet, as James took his place on the field for the pre-game captains’ handshake.
The match that followed was hard fought and mostly textbook.
The air was clear beneath a bright grey sky, allowing for perfect visibility and offering almost no cross-breeze. James banked and swooped in search of the Snitch, keeping one eye out for rogue Bludgers as well as George Muldoon, who played Seeker for the Ravenclaws. As James swooped low over the Ravenclaw stadium, with the sun setting just beyond the streaming banners overhead, he spotted Edgar Edgecombe and his cronies, Ogden and Heathrow, seated in the front row, calling jeers through cupped hands. Dimly, James realized that he hadn’t thought of them in weeks, and was very glad of it. Perhaps, he mused, he had heard the last of their petty, pointless antagonism. Even as he swooped on, however, he expected this was too much to hope for.
Gryffindor maintained a thin but persistent lead over Ravenclaw throughout the match, but nowhere near enough to secure a victory.
James knew that the extra few points on the scoreboard would come to naught if Muldoon spotted and snagged the Snitch before he did.
Suspense tightened in his chest like a noose as the sun dipped low over the grandstands and the match grew tense, feverish with anticipation.
James had not seen the Snitch the entire match, and knew that it simply must make an appearance sometime soon. He scanned the wild fracas of players, watched the wallop of Bludgers and the lob of Quaffles toward glinting rings. He heard Lily grunt with effort, managing to knock back shot after shot. Gritting his teeth, he waited and searched, straining his eyes so hard that they ached behind his glasses.
And then, with a glimmer of sunset gold and a streak of fluttering wings, there it was: the Snitch bobbed behind Ashley Doone as she hovered before the Ravenclaw goal rings. Then, it formed an arc of bronze as it dipped, banked, and zipped across the pitch, heading straight toward him.
James watched it approach, his breath caught in his chest.
Surely, it wouldn’t be this easy. And of course, it wasn’t. The Snitch zigged in the air, angling away into the setting sunlight, and James hunkered over his broom, launching forward in pursuit.
From his peripheral vision, he tried to see if Muldoon was giving chase as well, but the sunset light made it impossible to tell. Eyes locked onto the fluttering golden ball, James twitched and banked through the melee of players, ducking under Bludgers and doing a full barrel-roll beneath Stebbins, Gryffindor’s lead Beater.
“Go James!” he heard Graham call, followed by a surprised whoop from Deirdre as he blew past her. The crowd bellowed with a surge of excitement, and James knew that Muldoon must have joined the chase now as well. The match was likely only seconds from being over.
Suddenly, Ashley Doone was in front of James, careening straight into his path as she abandoned her post at the goals, attempting to block his course. He ticked his broom to the right and dipped his head, careening so close beneath her broom that its tail bristles combed his hair. When he glanced up again, Muldoon was swinging up alongside, his brow lowered, his face set in a grim scowl.
But he was too late, and James knew it. He exulted in it. As Mudoon struggled to catch up, James stretched out his hand, saw his shadow flicker over the swooping shape of the Snitch, and caught it.
It was like catching an apple out of a tree in Grandma Weasley’s orchard; just as natural and easy as snatching a dinner roll from a plate.
He blinked at his own fist and the golden wings that fluttered against his palm. As he looked, the wings stilled. The match was over.
Amazed and grinning with delight, he glanced aside at Muldoon, who tugged his broom to a disgusted halt and dropped his chin to his chest, his sweaty hair falling over his face.
The grandstands erupted into deafening applause.
“And thanks to some solid flying and the eagle-eye of James Potter,” Josephina Bartlett cried from the announcer’s booth, “Gryffindor plucks a second-place standing from the grasp of tonight’s rival, Ravenclaw!”
Firework charms popped and sizzled all around as the rest of the team piled around James, hooting with delight and boosting him up between them.
Lily threw an arm around James’ shoulders in mid-air, and James decided, then and there, that he could forgive her for blaming him for their earlier loss against Slytherin. Apparently, sport could be both the greatest divider and the strongest unifier. None of it may be especially important in the long run, but for the moment it felt like the only thing that mattered in the whole world.
Until, moments later, as James was descending to the pitch, circling like a dandelion seed with the rest of team Gryffindor still hollering and congratulating each other all around him.
Seated in the second row of the Gryffindor grandstand was James’ father, the unmistakable and legendary Harry Potter. He was smiling with pride, but not cheering. On his right was James’ Uncle, Ron Weasley. And next to him, resplendent in her scarlet and gold scarf and bushy brown hair, was his Aunt Hermione. They were all three watching him, smiling tightly, and yet there was something in their eyes that said that they had not, in fact, come to Hogwarts, strictly speaking, for the evening’s Quidditch match.
Rose was waiting next to the grandstand as James touched down and collected his broom.
“You saw?” she said, reading the sudden ashen look on his face.
He nodded. “Have you talked to them already? What are they here for?”
“Let’s just say,” Rose said, pitching her voice low and offering him a meaningful look, “that none of them really think it was a boggart that showed up in London the other night.”
The plan, according to Rose, was to meet up in Hagrid’s hut at nightfall. She hurried back to the castle in order to Duck the message to Ralph while James retreated to the locker area and changed out of his Quidditch gear. He could barely bring himself to wait until that night to know what the meeting with his dad, aunt, and uncle was about.
Worry and alarm fanned out in his veins like cold acid, infusing him with low dread, but there was nothing he could do about it. In the wake of the Quidditch match, the three grown-ups were scheduled for a private dinner with Headmaster Merlin and several teachers, ostensibly to discuss the continued disintegration of the Vow of Secrecy and theories about how to shore it up in the short term. James had the distinct idea that this was only a ruse meant to throw off suspicion. The real reason for their visit would be illuminated later that night in Hagrid’s hut, for a much more select group.
He showered, hurried to dinner, and couldn’t bring himself to eat. His stomach was in knots at the thought of what might be to come.
What did his dad know about the Norberta debacle? Was Hagrid going to be sent to Azkaban? Had the Daily Prophet been fed a deliberately sanitized version of the story? Perhaps Norberta was even now continuing to tear a ravenous swathe of destruction across London! But how could such a thing possibly be kept quiet?
Finally, desperately, he confided his worries to Rose as they left the Great Hall.
“That’s idiotic,” she said with a patronizing sniff. “But I’m glad you’re at least taking the thing seriously now.”
“I’ve always taken it seriously!” James exclaimed, albeit in a low rasp, “I just hoped that the problem had gone away by itself. Can’t blame me for being optimistic, can you?”
“There’s optimistic and there’s irresponsible,” Rose said with a shake of her head.
As they neared the stairs, Ralph huffed toward them, his Head Boy badge glinting in the evening light. “What’s this all about, your parents coming here and arranging some secret meeting at Hagrid’s?” he panted. “Are we doomed? We’re completely doomed, aren’t we?”
“Cool your cauldron,” Rose said, “If it was as bad as that they would have carted us all off the moment they got here, not waited to meet all quiet-like under cover of darkness.”
“I
told you it was a massive mistake,” Ralph grumped, leaning against the balustrade to catch his breath. “No more of this! We tell them everything. Agreed?”
“Maybe,” Rose hedged, raising a placating hand.
“And Merlin, too,” Ralph insisted. “And not just about this whole dragon affair. About everything. Petra, Odin-Vann, the Crimson Thread, the whole thing.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” James hissed, tugging Ralph, with considerable effort, into a dark corner beneath the stairs. “Not a chance!
Are you completely mental?”
“I’m the sanest one of all of us,” Ralph protested, keeping his own voice low but clearly resenting it. “We’ve made the mistake before of not trusting Merlin and our parents! But this is too big for us to make that same mistake again!”
James opened his mouth to object, but Rose spoke before he could. “Merlin and our parents are sworn to capture Petra by any means necessary, not to help her. You know that, Ralph. You saw what happened when Merlin and Petra clashed in the World Between the Worlds.”
Ralph ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “Has it occurred to you two that maybe they’re right to try to stop her?” He glared at them each in turn, and then shook his head, overruling their objections. “Look, I trust Petra as much as I trust either of you. I believe she thinks this is the only plan that will work. But just because Petra has awesome powers doesn’t mean she’s always right. And don’t even get me started about Odin-Vann. He’s as dodgy as a rubber galleon. I trust Merlin and our parents ten times more than I trust that skinny prat. We need their help, and you know it.”
Rose merely gave a hard sigh and turned to look at James.
Clearly, she had been struggling with this very dilemma.
And it was only in that moment that James finally understood his biggest reason for keeping Petra’s plan a secret. The weight of the realization chilled him all the way to his heels. Rose saw it on his face, as did Ralph, who blanched a little himself.
“What is it?” he asked, dropping his voice to a whisper. “What do you know?”
James shook his head slowly. “It’s not what I know,” he breathed, leaning against the wall and sliding down into a weak crouch.
“It’s what I’m afraid could happen. What will happen, if we tell Merlin and our parents.”
Ralph hunkered down as well. Rose knelt and smoothed her skirt over her knees. “They’ll try to reason with her, won’t they?” she said reasonably. “If they can get her to listen, they’ll try to talk her out of her plan.”
James shook his head again. “But they won’t succeed. Petra is completely committed. She’s made a Horcrux just to assure she can carry out her plan. No way that Merlin and our parents will be able to talk her out of it. That means they won’t have any choice but to try to stop her however they can.”
Rose’s face paled now as she nodded, beginning to understand.
“And if they oppose her by force…”
Ralph’s shoulders slumped. “People will end up getting hurt.
Maybe even killed.”
“But not Petra,” James whispered. “That’s the whole point of the Horcrux. They may resort to trying to cut her down, but it won’t work. And then…”
“She will attack them,” Rose said in a small voice. “Petra will kill anyone who stands in her way.”
James felt cold to the bone as he nodded. “She’ll do it because she thinks it’s the only way to save the entire world. She’ll hate it. But she will do it. Because she believes she is strong enough to make the hardest choice of all.”
Rose added, “And because her soul is already stained with one death.”
Ralph stared down at the floor between them, apparently thinking hard, mulling over the cold truth of their words. “So,” he muttered, “if we tell Merlin or our parents, they may end up dead. And it would be partly our fault, because we set them up to oppose someone they can’t possibly defeat.”
None of them responded. After a long moment, Ralph raised his head again.
“Not even Merlin?”
James looked at Rose, then Ralph. “Merlin would be our best hope. But remember what happened when he confronted Petra at the parade in New York, on the Night of the Unveiling. He tried to stop her. He used his staff on her. And it didn’t even stun her. He was nothing to her.”
Ralph frowned, still struggling with the idea. “But the city is her element! It’s the source of her power! Sure, she was more powerful than him there. But maybe next time…”
With a deep sigh, Rose said, “If there’s a next time, Petra will make sure the odds are stacked in her favor again, just like they were in New York. She knows Merlin’s weakness. She won’t let him have any advantage over her. She will defeat him. And when she does, he won’t ever come back.”
Ralph simply scowled and stared at the floor again. He didn’t like it. James could see that. But neither could he argue with it.
Without a word, the three went their separate ways. They didn’t see each other again until nearly nine o’clock, as they congregated in the entrance hall and slipped out into the cold of the night.
Hagrid’s hut glowed with yellow light. A ribbon of grey smoke issued from its stone chimney, just like always, and yet James had never felt less welcomed by the familiar hut than he did now. He was mad with suspense about what was to come, but also trembling with trepidation that he might be about to get into the worst trouble of his life.
A noise suddenly wafted across the blue evening glow of the lawns, stopping James, Rose, and Ralph in their tracks. It was faint but unmistakable, and it was the last sound they expected to hear coming from the depths of the hut.
It was laughter. Several voices, all different timbres, were laughing in unison, forming a melody like an old song, long forgotten.
James glanced aside in alarm and met Rose’s puzzled gaze.
Ralph gulped audibly.
“Is that a good sign,” he whispered, “or a bad sign?”
Rose shrugged uncertainly, and then, more slowly, resumed her short trek across the lawn. James and Ralph followed tentatively.
The laughter came again, growing louder as the three approached the hut. Rose raised her small fist and knocked once, softly, almost as if she hoped not to be heard. The hut went immediately silent. Several seconds later, the door budged open and the shaggy bulk of Hagrid’s head peered out. His dark eyes flicked over the three students, then he nodded and stepped back, tugging the door open with him.
James followed Rose and Ralph inside and glanced around.
Seated around the huge table, their faces illuminated in the glow of a single lantern, with the dishes of a late tea scattered between them, were Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and his wife Hermione. They were dressed in dark jeans and heavy sweaters, their faces merry but quiet as they looked up at the newcomers, as if reluctantly prepared to get down to the business of the night.
Hagrid shut the hut door with a clunk and gestured toward the table. “We was just discussin’ old times,” he acknowledged. “Lot o’
memories with these three. Not all of ‘em good, but definitely more of ‘em than not.”
Hermione nodded and pointed to a small chair beneath the window. “I remember you sitting right there, Ron,” she commented, “vomiting slugs for a good quarter hour. Is that one of the good memories or the bad ones?”
James’ father tried not to grin. Ron rolled his eyes and shook his head. “You’re a laugh riot, Mrs. Weasley. If you recall, that was a result of me trying to defend your prodigious honour.”
“And failing admirably,” Harry agreed. “But it’s definitely the thought that counts.”
Hermione put an arm around her husband and dipped her head to his shoulder. “I do remember,” she said warmly, “And I’ll never forget it.”
“Nice catch out there today, James,” Ron nodded, turning to James with a crooked smile.
James moved into the light of the table, looking from face to face for some
sign of what was going on. His father saw the question on his face and gave a brief nod.
“We know about Norberta,” he admitted. “And before you give Hagrid any grief, no, it isn’t because he told us.”
Hagrid raised both of his slab-like hands as he settled back into his chair. “Didn’t utter nary a word. Not this time.”
Rose narrowed her eyes, moving to budge onto the chair next to her mother, who shifted to allow room. “So, how do you know, then?” she asked, looking cagily around the table. “And, er, what do you know?”
Her father spoke up then, raising a hand to tick off points on his fingers. “We know about the plan to steal off to London to facilitate transport of a certain unregistered Norwegian Ridgeback whose living arrangement with the giants had become tenuous, at best. We know that the plan, such as it was, went terribly awry, leading to said dragon’s escape into the city proper, causing hundreds of poor Muggle Londoners to soil their britches in mortal terror.”
“Ronald,” Hermione clucked her tongue in disdain.
“And,” Ron went on, not missing a beat, “we know that, fortunately for everyone involved, said dragon—a certain female named, through no fault of her own, Norberta—quickly went to ground, hiding herself away somewhere within the confines of the city proper, and is apparently still there, scared and waiting until such time as she is discovered, or becomes hungry enough to have to go hunting for food.”
James sagged into the last empty seat at the table, weak with a mixture of relief and embarrassment. To his father, he asked, “How did you work all of this out?”
“Simple,” Harry said, taking off his glasses and wiping them on his sleeve. “It’s my job to work things out.”
“We looked up the records of every registered dragon in a hundred mile radius,” Hermione explained. “It’s not exactly a long list.
James Potter and the Crimson Thread Page 42
