“I’d tell him not to sweat it, but that’d be taking away his fun, wouldn’t it?” Harry said, watching Ted depart. James grinned. They both began to fill their plates from the steaming platters along the table. As they began to eat, James was pleased to see Ralph and Zane enter. He waved them over enthusiastically.
“Hey, Dad, here’re my friends, Zane and Ralph,” James said as they piled onto the benches, one on either side. “Zane’s the blond one, Ralph’s the brick house.”
“Pleased to meet you, Zane, Ralph,” Harry said. “James tells me good things about both of you.”
“I’ve read about you,” Ralph said, staring at Harry. “Did you really do all that stuff?” Harry laughed. “Straight shooter, isn’t he?” he said, raising an eyebrow at James. “The major points, yes, those are probably true. Although if you’d’ve been there, it would have seemed a lot less heroic at the time. Mostly, me and my friends were just trying to keep ourselves from getting blasted, eaten, or cursed.”
Zane seemed uncharacteristically quiet. “Hey, what’s the deal?” James said, nudging him. “You’re a little too new to all this to have an idol complex about the Great Harry Potter.”
Zane grimaced, and then pulled a copy of the Daily Prophet from his backpack. “This stinks,” he said, sighing and flopping the paper open onto the table, “but you’re gonna see it sooner or later.” James leaned over and glanced at it. ‘Hogwarts Anti-Auror Demonstration Overshadows International Summit’, the main headline read. Below it, in smaller type: ‘Potter Visit Sets Off School-wide Protest as Magical Community Re-evaluates Auror Policies’. James felt his cheeks flush red with anger. Before he could respond, however, his dad placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Hmm,” Harry said mildly. “That’s got Rita Skeeter’s name all over it.”
Zane frowned at Harry, then glanced at the paper again. “You can tell who wrote it just by the headline?” “No,” Harry laughed, dismissing the newspaper and digging into a slice of French toast. “Her name’s on the byline. Still, yeah, that is pretty much her typical brand of tripe. It hardly matters. The world will forget it by this time next week.”
James was reading the first paragraph, his brow furrowed furiously. “She says that most of the school was there, protesting and shouting. That’s complete rubbish! I saw it, and if there were more than a hundred people there, I’ll kiss a Blast-Ended Skrewt! Besides, most of them were just there to see what was going on! There were only fifteen or twenty people with the signs and the slogans!”
Harry sighed. “It’s just a story, James. It isn’t supposed to be accurate, it’s supposed to sell papers.”
“But how can you let them say things like this? It’s dangerous! Professor Franklyn--” The look Harry gave him stopped him from going any further. After a second, Harry’s expression softened. “I know what you are worried about, James, and I don’t blame you. But there are ways of handling these things, and one of those ways isn’t arguing with people like Rita Skeeter.”
“You sound like McGonagall,” James said, dropping his eyes and jabbing at a chunk of sausage.
“I should,” Harry replied quickly. “She taught me. And I think it’s Headmistress McGonagall to you.”
James poked at his plate sullenly for a moment. Then, not wanting to look at it anymore, he folded the newspaper roughly and stuck it out of sight.
“First Quidditch of the season tonight, then, right?” Harry asked, waving his fork at the three boys in general.
“Ravenclaw versus Gryffindor!” Zane announced. “My first game! I can hardly wait.” James looked up and saw his dad grinning at Zane. “You made the Ravenclaw team, then! That’s very cool. If I can finish early enough, I plan on coming to the match. I look forward to seeing you fly. What position will you play?”
“Beater,” Zane said, pretending to swat a Bludger with his fork.
“He’s pretty good, Mr. Potter,” Ralph said earnestly. “I saw him fly his first time. He just about made a crater in the middle of the pitch, but he pulled up at the last second.”
“That takes some serious control,” Harry acknowledged, studying Zane. “You’ve had broom lessons?”
“Not a one!” Ralph cried, as if he were Zane’s public relations agent. “That’s the amazing bit, isn’t it?”
James looked at Ralph, his face grim, trying to catch his eye and warn him off the topic, but it was already too late. “He probably wouldn’t have figured it out at all,” Ralph said, “if he hadn’t taken off after James when he did the big outta-control-like-a-bottle-rocket-rumba.” Ralph squirmed on the bench, mimicking James’ inaugural broom flight.
“But you’ll be supporting the Gryffindors, of course!” Zane interrupted suddenly, planting his palm on Ralph’s forehead and pushing him backwards.
Harry glanced around the table, chewing a chunk of toast, a quizzical look on his face. “Er, well, yes. Of course,” he admitted, still looking from boy to boy. “Yeah, well, that’s cool. I understand completely,” Zane said quickly, waggling his eyebrows at Ralph who was sitting there looking nonplussed. “Be true to your school and all that. Whoo. Look at the time. Come on, Ralphinator. Classes to get to.”
“I have a free period first,” Ralph protested. “And I haven’t had any breakfast yet.”
“Let’s go, ya lunkhead!” Zane insisted, coming around the table and hooking Ralph’s elbow. Zane could barely move Ralph, but Ralph allowed himself to be tugged along. “What?” Ralph said loudly, frowning at the meaningful look Zane was giving him. “What’d I do? Did I say something I wasn’t--” He stopped. His eyebrows shot up and he turned back to James, looking mortified. “Oh. Ah,” he said as Zane pulled him toward the door. As they rounded the corner, James heard Ralph say, “I’m just a big idiot, aren’t I?”
James sighed. “So yeah, I stink at Quidditch. I’m sorry.”
Harry studied his son. “Pretty bad, was it?”
James nodded. “I know,” he said. “It’s no big deal. It’s just Quidditch. There’s always next year. I don’t have to do it just because you did it. I know, I know. You don’t have to say it.” Harry continued to stare at James, his jaw moving slightly, as if he was thinking. Finally he sat back and picked up his pumpkin juice. “Well, that’s a load off my chest, then. Sounds like you’ve done my job for me.”
James looked up at his dad. Harry looked back at him as he took a very long, slow drink from his glass. He seemed to be smiling, and hiding his smile behind the glass. James tried not to laugh. This is serious, he told himself. This isn’t funny. This is Quidditch. On that thought, his composure cracked slightly. He smiled, and then tried to cover it with his hand, which only made it worse.
Harry lowered his glass and grinned, shaking his head slowly. “You’ve really been worried about this, haven’t you, James?” James’ smile faltered again. He swallowed. “Yeah, Dad. Of course I have. I mean, it’s Quidditch. It’s your sport, and Granddad’s, too. I’m James Potter. I’m supposed to be excellent on a broom. Not a danger to myself and everybody around me.”
Harry leaned forward, putting his glass down and looking James in the eye. “And you may still be great on the broom, James. Merlin’s beard, son, it’s your first week and you’ve not even had your first broom lesson, have you? Back when I started here, we wouldn’t have even been allowed to get on a practice broom without lessons, much less try out for the House teams.”
“But even if you had,” James interrupted, “you’d have been excellent at it.” “That’s not the point son. You are so worried about living up to the myth of who I was supposed to be that you aren’t giving yourself a chance to be even better. You’re defeating yourself before you even start. Don’t you see that? No one can compete with a legend. Even I wish I was half the wizard the stories make me out to be. Every day, I look in the mirror and tell myself not to try so hard to be the Famous Harry Potter, but just to relax and let myself be your dad, and your mum’s husband, and the best Auror I can be, which sometimes d
oesn’t seem to be all that great, to tell you the truth. You have to stop thinking of yourself as the son of Harry Potter…” Harry paused, seeing that James had really heard him, perhaps for the first time. He smiled a little again. “And give me the chance to think of myself simply as James Potter’s dad instead. Because of all the things I’ve done in my life, raising you, Albus, and Lily, are the three things I am proudest of. Got it?”
James smiled again, crookedly. He didn’t know it, but it was the same crooked smile he so often saw on his dad’s face. “All right, Dad. I’ll try that. But it’s hard.”
Harry nodded understandingly and sat back. After a moment, he said, “Am I always that predictable?” James broke into a knowing grin. “Sure, Dad. You and Mum both. ‘You aren’t going outside wearing that, are you?’” Harry laughed out loud at James’ impression of Ginny. James went on. “‘It’s cold in here, put on a sweater! Don’t say that word in front of your grandmum! Stop playing with the garden gnomes or you’ll get green thumbs!’”
Harry was still laughing and wiping his eyes as they said goodbye, promising to meet that evening at the Quidditch match.
7.Broken Loyalty
James’ first class, ironically, was Basic Broom. The teacher was a giant slab of a man named Cabriel Ridcully. He wore a fawn-colored sport cloak over his Quidditch official’s tunic, which displayed his enormous forearms and calves.
“Good morning, first years!” he boomed, and James guessed that Cabe Ridcully was one of the world’s great morning people. “Welcome to Basic Broom. Most of you know me already, having seen me at the Quidditch matches and tournaments and whatnot. We’ll be spending this year getting familiar with the fundamentals of flight. I believe in a very hands-on approach, so we’ll all be jumping right into essential broom-handling and control. Everyone approach your brooms, please.”
James had been dreading getting back onto a broom again, but as the class progressed, he found that, with proper guidance, he was able to manage getting his broom to levitate and support him, and even control its altitude and speed in very small formations. He realized that there were subtle variations in how the broom responded, based on speed and inclination. If the broom was merely hovering, leaning forward on the broomstick pressed it forwards, while pulling up drove it backwards. Once the broom was moving, however, those same controls began to also manage height. The faster the broom was moving, the more James’ posture controlled altitude instead of speed. Finding the fine difference between a speed-lean and an altitude-lean was dependent entirely on the velocity of the broomstick at any given time. James sensed that the slightest panic would cause him to lose even the tiny degree of control he had already learned, and he began to understand why he’d been so dreadful during the Quidditch tryouts.
As pleased as James was at his own tentative control of the broomstick, he still felt a shudder of jealousy when he saw Zane managing his broom through elaborate, effortless swoops and banks.
“Let’s avoid showboating, Mr. Walker,” Ridcully called reproachfully, and James couldn’t help feeling a petty surge of gratification. “Save it for the match tonight, why don’t you?” Ralph’s entire body was tensed as he struggled to stay atop his broom. He’d gotten it to float about four feet off the ground and seemed to be stuck there. “How do I get it to swoop like that?” he asked, watching Zane.
James shook his head. “I’d just worry about staying right-side up if I was you, Ralph.” The rest of the morning’s classes were far less interesting, with Basic Spellwork and Ancient Runes. At lunch, James explained to Ralph and Zane the happenings of the night before. He told them about Franklyn’s Daylight Savings Device, and the dinner conversation involving Madame Delacroix’s voodoo powers. Finally, he explained the conversation he had heard between his dad and Professor Franklyn, and how it fit in with the Austramaddux story about Merlin’s predicted return.
“So,” Zane said, narrowing his eyes and staring thoughtfully at the wall behind James’ head, “I am to understand that your dad has a cloak… that makes anyone who wears it invisible.”
James moaned, exasperated. “Yes! That’s hardly the point, though, is it?”
“Speak for yourself. I mean, forget x-ray specs. Just think what a guy could do with an Invisibility Cloak. Is it steam-resistant, do you think?”
James rolled his eyes. “I don’t think that the wizard who spent his lifetime creating the world’s most perfect invisible garment did it to sneak into the girls’ showers.”
“But you don’t know that, do you?” Zane said, undeterred.
Ralph chewed slowly, thinking. “So Franklyn told your dad that there were wizards in the States who were pushing for the same thing as the Progressive Element? Muggle and wizard equality and all that?” James nodded. “Yeah, but it’s all just a sham, isn’t it? I mean, since when have Slytherins really wanted anything nice for the Muggle world? All the old pureblood Slytherin houses have always been for going public, but just so they can take over the Muggle world and rule it. They think Muggles are an inferior species, not equals.”
Ralph looked oddly troubled. “Well, maybe. I don’t know. Most of the people out in the courtyard the other day weren’t even Slytherins, though. Did you notice that?” James hadn’t, actually. “Doesn’t really matter. It was the Slytherins that got the whole thing started, with the Progressive Element slogans and badges and stuff. You said so yourself, Ralph. Tabitha Corsica was handing the badges out to all the Slytherins. She’s behind the whole thing.”
“I don’t think she’s in on it like you think she is,” Ralph said, “with this whole bringing-Merlinback-from-the-dead plot and all that. She just thinks we should be fair to everybody, Muggle and wizard alike. She’s not trying to start a war or anything stupid. I mean, really, it doesn’t seem fair that we shouldn’t be able to work in the Muggle world, does it? Or compete in Muggle games and sports? Just because we have magic on our side, doesn’t make us outcasts.”
“You sound just like one of them,” James said angrily. “Well?” Ralph said suddenly, his face going red. “I am one of them, if you haven’t noticed. And I don’t appreciate the way you’re talking about my house. Things are a lot different now than they were when your dad went here. If you’re so worried about truth and history, you should be all for debate on the subject. Maybe Tabitha’s right about you.”
James sat back, his mouth dropping open.
Ralph lowered his eyes. “She wants me to be in the first school debate with Team A. I assume you know the topic. They’re calling it ‘Re-evaluating the Assumptions of the Past: Truth or Conspiracy’?”
“And you’re going to be on the team, then? You’re going to argue that my dad and his chums made the whole Voldemort story up just to scare people into keeping the wizarding world a secret?”
Ralph looked miserable. “Nobody believes your dad made it up, but…” He didn’t seem to know how to finish the sentence.
“Well!” James cried, throwing up his hands. “Great argument, then! I’m speechless! Tabitha sure has a great partner in you, hasn’t she?” “But maybe your dad wasn’t on the right side after all!” Ralph said hotly. “Has that ever occurred to you? I mean, sure, people got killed. It was a war. But why is it that when your side killed people, it was a triumph of good, but when their side killed, it was an evil atrocity? The victors write the history books, you know. Maybe the truth of the whole affair has been skewed. How would you know? You weren’t even born yet.”
James threw his fork down onto the table. “I know my dad!” he shouted. “He didn’t kill anyone! He was on the right side, because my dad is a good man! Voldemort was a bloodthirsty monster who just wanted power and was willing to kill anyone who got in his way, even his friends! You might want to remember that, since you seem to be choosing to side with people like him!”
Ralph stared at James and swallowed. James knew, in some small, distant part of his mind, that he was overreacting. Ralph was Muggle-born: everything he knew about Voldemor
t and Harry Potter, he’d only read in the last two weeks. Besides, Ralph was being fed all this by his housemates, who he was desperate to get along with. Still, James was furious to the point of wanting to hit him, mostly because he didn’t dare hit any of the Slytherins who were directly responsible for the malicious, self-serving lies about his dad. James broke eye contact first. He heard Ralph gather his books and backpack.
“Well,” Zane said tentatively, “I was going to see if you two wanted to meet after the match tonight for Butterbeers with the Gremlins, but maybe I’ll just take a rain check, eh?”
Neither Ralph nor James spoke. After a moment, Ralph walked away.
“You were pretty horrible to him, you know,” Zane said evenly.
“Me?” James exclaimed.
“Before you defend yourself,” Zane said, raising a hand in a conciliatory gesture, “just let me say, you’re right. Of course, it’s all a load of crap. But it’s Ralph. He’s just trying to get along. You know?”
“No,” James said flatly, “not when ‘getting along’ means talking up a bunch of lies about my dad.” “He doesn’t know they’re lies,” Zane said reasonably. “He’s just a guy hearing all this for the first time. He wants to believe you, but he also wants to fit in with his house. Too bad for him they’re all a bunch of wacked-out, power-crazed lunatics.”
James felt slightly mollified. He knew Zane was right, but he still couldn’t quite regret his outburst against Ralph. “So? You’re just a new guy hearing all this for the first time, too. Why aren’t you running off to join the Progressive Element and chant slogans?”
“Because lucky for you,” Zane said, throwing an arm around James’ neck, “I got sorted into Ravenclaw, and they all hated Old Voldy just as much as you Gryffindors. Besides,” he looked slightly wistful, “I happen to think Petra Morganstern is, on the whole, just a little bit hotter than Tabitha Corsica.”
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