“Hey, really,” Zane said awkwardly. “I’m sorry about how things worked out. I didn’t know it was that important to you. Really.”
James stood still for several seconds, staring into the fire. Zane’s expression of regret struck him deeply. His heart ached. His face heated and his eyes burned. He blinked and looked away.
“It wasn’t that important to me, really,” he said. “It was just really, really important.”
As the door closed behind James, he heard Ralph say, “So who was it important to?” James walked slowly, his head down. His clothes were still damp, and his body ached from the jolt of Ralph levitating him at the end of his long dive, but he barely noticed those things. He had failed. After the victory of becoming a Gryffindor, he’d been cautiously confident that Quidditch, too, would work out. Instead, he’d ended up looking like a complete fool in front of both the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws. Far from the spectacular aerobatic displays his dad had legendarily performed, James had to be rescued from killing himself. There was no surviving this kind of failure. He’d never live it down. Nobody was making fun of him now, at least to his face, but what would they say next year when he showed up for tryouts again? He couldn’t even bear to think about it.
How would he tell his dad? His dad, who would be coming at the beginning of next week to see him and hear of his exploits. He’d understand, of course. He’d tell James Quidditch didn’t matter, that the important thing was for him to be himself and have fun. And he’d even mean it. And still, knowing that didn’t make James feel any better.
Zane had made the Ravenclaw team, though. James felt a stab of bitter jealousy at that. He felt immediately sorry for it, but that didn’t make the jealousy go away. Zane was Muggle-born. And an American, to boot! Quidditch was supposed to be a baffling mystery to him, and James was supposed to be the instinctive flyer, the rescuing hero. Not the other way around. How could things have gone so totally wrong so fast?
When he reached the Gryffindor common room, James ducked around the edge of the room, avoiding the eyes of those gathered there, laughing with their friends, listening to music, discussing homework, snogging on the couch. He ducked up the stairs and into the sleeping chamber, which was dark and quiet. Back in his dad’s day, the dorms had been separated by year. Now James was glad that he shared the room with some of the older years. They usually brought reassurance that all of this was survivable. He needed some of that reassurance now, or at least someone to notice his misery and validate it. He sighed deeply in the empty room.
James washed up in the little bathroom, changed, then sat on his bed, looking out into the night. Nobby watched him from his cage by the window, clicking his beak from time to time, wanting to get outside and find a mouse or two, but James didn’t notice him. The rain had finally exhausted itself. The clouds were breaking up, revealing a great silvery moon. James watched it for a long time, not knowing what he was waiting for, not even really knowing he was waiting. In the end, what he was waiting for didn’t happen. No one came upstairs. He heard their voices below. It was Friday night. Nobody else was going to bed early. He felt utterly lonely and bereft. He slid under the covers and stared out at the moon from there.
Eventually, he slept.
James spent most of his weekend moping about in the Gryffindor Common room. He knew that neither Ralph nor Zane could get into the common room without the password, and he was in no mood to see them or anyone else. He read his assigned homework chapters and practiced some wandwork. He was particularly annoyed to discover that he couldn’t get his practice feather to do any more than scuttle pathetically around the table. After twenty minutes, he grew exasperated, growled a word his mother didn’t know he knew, and slammed his wand onto the table. It shot a stream of purple sparks, as if surprised at James’ outburst.
Saturday night’s detention with Argus Filch came. James found himself following Filch around the corridors with a bucket and a giant, stiff-bristled scrubbing brush. Occasionally, Filch would stop and, without turning, point at a spot on the floor, the wall, or a detail of a statue. James would look and there would be a bit of graffiti or a patch of long trodden-upon gum. James would sigh, dip the brush, and begin to scrub with both hands. Filch treated James as if he was personally responsible for each bit of defacing he scrubbed. As James worked, Filch muttered and fumed, lamenting about the much better sorts of punishments he had been permitted to mete out in years past. By the time James was allowed to return to his rooms, his fingers were cold, red and sore, and smelled of Filch’s ugly brown soap.
On Sunday afternoon, James went for a moody wander around the grounds and ran into Ted and Petra, who were lounging on a blanket, ostensibly working out star charts on sheets of parchment. “Now that Trelawney’s sharing Divination class with Madame Delacroix, we have actual homework,” Ted complained. “Used to be we just had to look at some tea leaves and make up doom and gloom predictions. That was kind of fun, actually.”
Petra was leaning against a tree, shuffling maps and charts on her lap, comparing them to a huge book of constellations that lay open on the blanket. “Unlike Trelawney, Delacroix seems to have the quaint notion that astrology is a hard science,” she said, shaking her head in disgust. “How a bunch of rocks rolling around in space know anything about my future is beyond me.”
Ted told James to stick around and keep them from getting too much done. Sensing that he wasn’t interrupting anything personal, and that neither Ted nor Petra were going to bring up James’ disastrous Quidditch tryouts, James flopped onto the blanket and peered at the book of star charts. Black and white drawings of planets, each emblazoned with names and illustrations of mythical creatures, circled and spun slowly on the pages, their orbits drawn as red ellipses.
“Which one of these planets is the Wocket from?” James asked drily.
Petra turned a page. “Hardy-har.” James turned the enormous pages of the constellation book slowly, examining the moving planets and other-worldly astrological symbols. “So how do Professor Trelawney and Madame Delacroix get along, then?” James asked after a minute. He remembered Damien implying there would be some friction between them.
“Oil and water,” Ted replied. “Trelawney tries to make nice, but she obviously hates the voodoo queen. For Delacroix’s part, she doesn’t even pretend to like Trelawney. They’re from two different schools of thought, in every sense of the word.”
“I like Trelawney’s school better,” Petra muttered, scribbling a note on her parchment. “We all know what you think, dear,” Ted soothed. He turned to James. “Petra likes Trelawney because she knows that, at its heart, divination is really just a set of random variables that you use to order your own thinking. Trelawney thinks it’s all mystical, of course, but she still knows it’s just a bunch of totally subjective mumbo-jumbo. Petra is a facts girl, so she likes that even if Trelawney takes all this stuff seriously, she doesn’t try to make it, you know, rigid.”
Petra sighed and clapped her book shut. “Divination isn’t science. It’s psychology. At least Trelawney gets that in practice, if not in belief. Delacroix…” She threw the book onto the pile next to her, rolling her eyes.
“We have a test this week,” Ted said mournfully. “An actual Divination test. It’s all about some crazy astrological event that’s happening later this year. The linings of the planets or whatever.”
James looked quizzical, “The linings of the planets?” “ Alignment of the planets,” Petra said patiently. “Actually, it is a pretty big deal. It only happens once every few hundred years. That’s science. Knowing what silly mythical creature each planet represents, what it was a god of to some bunch of dotty primitives, and what it means to ‘the harmonics of the astrological precognition matrix’ isn’t.”
Ted looked at James and frowned. “Someday, we’ll get Petra to reveal her true feelings about it.”
Petra smacked him over the head with one of the larger star charts. Later, at dinner, James saw Zane and Ralph sitting
together at the Ravenclaw table. He saw Zane look over once, and was glad that he didn’t try to come over and talk to him. He knew it was extremely petty of him, but he was still sick with jealousy and the shame of his embarrassment. He ate quickly, and then wandered out of the Great Hall, unsure where he would go.
The evening was pleasant and cool as the sun dipped behind the mountains. James explored the perimeter of the grounds, listening to the song of the crickets and throwing stones into the lake. He went to knock on the door to Hagrid’s cabin, but there was a note on the door, written in large, clumsy letters. The note said that Hagrid was up in the forest until Monday morning. Spending time with Grawp and Grawp’s lady giant friend, James figured. It was beginning to get dark. James turned and headed dejectedly back in the direction of the castle.
He was on his way up to the common room when he decided to make a side trip. He was curious about something. The trophy case was lit with a series of lanterns, so that the cups, plaques, and statues each glinted brightly. James walked slowly along, looking in at the team photos of decades-past Quidditch teams, their uniforms outdated, but their smiles and expressions of hearty invincibility eternally unchanged. There were gold and bronze trophies, antique Snitches, game Bludgers strapped down with leather belts, but still wiggling slightly as he passed.
James stopped near the end and looked in at the Triwizard Tournament display. His dad smiled the same uncomfortable smile, looking impossibly young and unruly. James leaned in and looked at the picture on the other side of the Triwizard Cup, the one of Cedric Diggory. The boy in the picture was handsome, guileless, with the same expression on his face that James had seen in the old Quidditch team photos, that expression of perpetual youth and seamless confidence. James studied the photo. The expression was what had kept him from making the connection the first time he’d seen the picture.
“It was you, wasn’t it,” James whispered to the picture. It wasn’t really a question.
The boy in the picture smiled his smile, nodding slightly, as if in agreement. James hadn’t expected an answer, but as he started to straighten up, something changed on the plaque below the Triwizard Cup. The engraved words sank into the silver plaque, then, after a moment, new words surfaced. They spelled out slowly, silently.
James Potter
Harry’s son
A shiver thrilled down James’ back. He nodded. “Yes,” he whispered.
The words sank back into nothing. Several seconds went by, and then more words drifted up.
How long
Has it been
James didn’t understand the question at first. He shook his head slightly. “I… I’m sorry. How long has it been since what?”
The letters receded and spelled again, slowly, as if they took great effort.
Since I died
James swallowed. “I don’t know, exactly. Seventeen or eighteen years, I think.”
The letters faded out very slowly. No more formed for almost a minute. Then:
Time is so strange here
It feels longer
Shorter
James didn’t know what to say. A sense of great loneliness and sadness had crept into the corridor, filling the space, and James himself, like a cool cloud. “My--” James’ voice caught. He cleared his throat, swallowed, and tried again. “My dad and mum, Ginny, used to be Weasley… they talk about you. Sometimes. They… they remember you. They liked you.”
The letters faded, surfaced.
Ginny and Harry
I always knew
There was something there Cedric’s ghost seemed to be seeping away, leaking out of the air of the corridor. The letters faded slowly. James had wanted to ask more questions, had meant to ask about the Muggle intruder, how he was getting in, but now it seemed unimportant. He just wanted to say something to lessen the pall of sadness he’d sensed in Cedric’s presence, but he couldn’t think of anything. Then the letters came once more, spelling out very faintly and slowly.
Are they happy
James read the question, considered it. He nodded. “Yeah, Cedric. They are. We are.” The letters evaporated as soon as James spoke, and there was something like a sigh all around him, long and somehow exhausted. When it was over, James glanced around the corridor. He could tell he was alone again. When he looked back at the plaque below the Triwizard Cup, it had reverted to its normal state, covered in elaborate, engraved words. James shivered, hugged himself, then turned and began to walk back toward the main hall. The ghost had finally spoken, and it was Cedric Diggory.
We are happy, James thought. As he climbed the steps to the common room, he realized it was true. He felt a little silly about the way he’d mooned around all weekend, stirring his jealousy and sense of failure like a stew. At this moment, it all seemed unimportant. He was just glad to be here, at Hogwarts, with new friends, challenges, endless adventures before him. He ran along the hallway to the portrait hole, wanting nothing more at that moment than to spend the last couple of hours of his first weekend at Hogwarts having some fun, laughing, forgetting the silliness of the whole Quidditch disaster. He realized, reluctantly, that on some level, it was even a little funny.
As he entered the common room, he stopped and looked around. Ralph and Zane were there, sitting with the rest of the Gremlins around the table by the window. They all looked up.
“There’s our little alien,” Zane said happily. “We’re trying to work your broom-handling skills into the routine. What do you think of a Roswell crash kinda gig? Ralph’s got his wand all ready to catch you.”
Ralph wiggled his wand and smiled sheepishly. James rolled his eyes and went to join them.
James awoke late Monday morning. He ran into the Great Hall hoping to grab a piece of toast before Transfiguration class and met Ralph and Zane, who were just coming out.
“No time, mate,” Ralph said, hooking James’ arm and turning him around. “Can’t be late to first class. McGonagall teaches it and I’ve heard bad, bad things about what she does to tardy students.”
James sighed and trotted along with them through the noisy, busy corridors. “I hope she doesn’t do terrible things to students whose stomachs growl during class as well.” Zane handed something to James as they walked. “Check that out when you get a chance. I already showed it to Ralphie and it blew his mind, didn’t it? I’ve marked the spot for you.” It was a thick, bedraggled book. The cover was clothbound in frayed fabric that had once probably been red. The pages were yellowed, threatening to fall out of the binding in chunks.
“What is it?” James said, unable to read the embossed title, which was ghostly faint with age. “Between Jackson and Flitwick, I’ve got enough reading to last me until next term.”
“You’ll be interested in this, believe me. It’s the Book of Parallel Histories, Volume Seven,” Zane said. “I got it from the Ravenclaw library. Just read the section I marked.”
“Ravenclaw has a private library?” Ralph asked, struggling to wrestle his Transfiguration textbook out of his overstuffed backpack.
“Do you Slytherins have dragons’ heads on your walls?” Zane shrugged. “Sure. To each his own.” As they filed toward the Transfiguration classroom, they passed through a cluster of students standing beside the door. Several of them wore the blue ‘Question the Victors’ badges. More and more students seemed to be wearing them as the days went by. Signs on some of the bulletin boards had identified the badges as the mark of a club called the ‘Progressive Element’. James was dismayed to see that not all of the students wearing them were Slytherins.
“Your dad’s coming today, eh, Potter?” an older boy called out, smiling crookedly. “Going to have a little meeting with his cronies from the States?” James stopped and looked at the speaker. “He’s coming today, yeah,” he said, his cheeks going red. “But I don’t know what you mean about his ‘cronies’. He hasn’t even met the Americans before. Maybe you should read a little before you open your mouth.”
“Oh, we’ve been reading
, believe me,” the boy replied, his smile disappearing. “More than you and your father would like us to be, I’m sure. Your kind can’t hide the truth forever.”
“Hide the truth?” James said, anger overcoming his caution. “What’s that supposed to mean?” “Read the badges, Potter. You know exactly what we’re talking about,” the boy said, hoisting his backpack and moving casually down the hall with his friends. “And if you don’t, you’re even stupider than you look.” He turned his back on James.
James blinked in anger and amazement. “What was that all about?”
Ralph sighed. “Come on, let’s get a seat. I’ll tell you, although I don’t understand much of it myself.” But they had no time to discuss it before class. Headmistress McGonagall, who had taught Transfiguration to James’ mum and dad, taught it still, and with apparently the same degree of businesslike briskness. She explained the basic wand motions and commands, illustrating by transforming a book into a herring sandwich. She even asked one of the students, a boy named Carson, to eat a portion of the sandwich. Afterward, she transformed the sandwich back into the book and showed the class that the book still bore the bite marks Carson had made. There were sounds of awe and amusement. Carson looked at the bitten chunks and pressed his hand to his stomach, a look of thoughtful dismay on his face. Near the end of class, McGonagall instructed the students to produce their wands and practice the motions and commands on a banana, which they were to attempt to transfigure into a peach.
“ Persica Alteramus, emphasis on first syllables only. Don’t expect to make much progress your first time,” she called over the noise of the students’ attempts. “If you produce even a banana with a hint of peach fuzz, we will consider that a success for today. Do be careful, Miss Majaris! Small circular flicks only, please!”
Zane stared furiously at his banana and flicked his wand at it. “Persica Alteramus!” There was no apparent change. He pressed his lips together. “Let’s see you try, James.”
Shrugging, James raised his wand and flicked it, speaking the command. The banana flopped over, but remained decidedly a banana.
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