James simply looked aside at the professor, speechless. Less than a minute later, the final whistle blew and Sanuye raised his wand, summoning the Clutches. Bigfoot team had lost the match by a score of forty-eight to thirty. Both teams broke up and circled around, heading toward their respective gantry platforms while the crowd cheered and jeered amiably from the grandstands all around.
James stepped forward, took his skrim from Professor Wood, and without waiting for his teammates, began to tromp down the stairs to the locker room below.
“But magic is allowed in Clutchcudgel!” James exclaimed some hours later, sitting in the corner booth of the Kite and Key along with Ralph, Zane, and several of his fellow Bigfoot teammates. “What’s Wood want to hobble us for by banning us from using something that’s legal?”
“Expelliarmus spells aren’t legal,” Jazmine Jade grumped, her chin resting on her forearms.
“Yeah,” Norrick agreed. “And we do use some magic. Wood used Impervius charms on our goggles, for one.”
“We’re allowed to use Gummy-Glove Charms when we’re carrying the Clutch,” Harold Gobbins added. “And Slipstream Hexes to keep our skrims steady on the course.”
“Those hardly count at all,” James insisted. “Team Igor was using serious spellwork out there tonight! Some of that stuff I’ve never even heard of!”
Jazmine sat up. “Makes sense. They have their own sport-magic coach whose job is to come up with all new Clutch spells. They have to get approved by the match official, but they pretty much always get a pass, so long as they don’t hurt anyone.”
“It’s true,” Zane said. “Team Zombie’s magic coach came up with a new one last year that froze a player’s skrim in midair. Granted, the player was probably going to fall off once his skrim jerked to a stop beneath him, but that wasn’t the spell’s fault. We got away with it until that playoff match where half of the players from both teams got into a pileup crash around a frozen skrim. It was hilarious!”
James narrowed his eyes in disbelief. “Hold on. You mean if I had just told Sanuye before the match that I wanted to use an Expelliarmus spell for defense, it would’ve been legal?”
Wentworth Paddington frowned and pushed his large glasses up on his nose. “The official Clutch commission doesn’t like players using dueling spells during matches,” he said with a sniff. “But there are ways to get around it. There’s the Knuckler, for instance.”
“Makes the opposing player’s hand spasm and drop anything they’re holding,” Jazmine explained. “Works on wands, Clutches, whatever.”
Zane nodded enthusiastically. “And don’t forget the Bonefuse Hex. Works just like Petrificus Totalus, but only on selected areas of the body. Aim for the other guy’s arm and he won’t be able to do anything with it for five minutes, at least.”
James was shaking his head in exasperation. “So basically there’s a Clutch-approved version of any sort of spell, with new ones being created all the time. Is that it?”
Jazmine pressed her lips together and nodded. “Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”
James flopped back in the booth seat. “So who’s the Bigfoot magic coach, then? I want to have a word with him.”
“Wood, I guess,” Wentworth answered uncertainly. “Anyone want the rest of my Butterbeer? I can only drink half or else I get the hiccups all night long.”
“Right here, Went,” Gobbins announced, sitting up in his seat and reaching for the smaller boy’s bottle. “I’ll teach you how to put away a drink.”
Wentworth looked offended. “I can put away a drink just fine. It’s Butterbeer I can’t take much of. I’m on a special diet, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Norrick sighed, rolling his eyes. “We know all about it. Yeats hasn’t cooked an onion in the mansion ever since you arrived. Makes liver night pretty pathetic. That’s why everyone eats in the caf on Fridays, even the upper classes.”
“I can’t help it,” Wentworth mumbled, crossing his arms. “Onions break me out in hives. Garlic’s even worse. You don’t have to rub it in.”
“Maybe rubbing it in would cure you,” Ralph suggested, raising his head. “Have you ever tried it? Rub some onions and garlic all over you, sort of like a vaccination!”
“Add a little butter and you got yourself a new Friday night dinner option,” Zane nodded. “Grilled Pastington patties for all!”
“Hah hah,” Wentworth said dourly. “It’s a serious medical condition. You don’t even know.”
James finished his Butterbeer and stood up, announcing his intention to go have a talk with Wood about the team’s woeful lack of a magic game. On his way toward the door, he saw Albus and Lucy seated at a nearby table, watching a group of older students play an incomprehensible table game called Wizard Foosball. Tiny ceramic men spun on metal rods embedded into the sides of the recessed table, operated by leather-wrapped handles. A small white ball bounced and clacked over the field encased in the table’s walls, kicked by the spinning figures. As James passed the table, one of the players spun the rod violently and the ball popped up out of the table. James caught it deftly.
“Nice catch, Cornelius,” one of the upperclassmen players called out. “Still got your game face on, eh?”
James glanced back at them and saw the young men smiling at him amiably, nodding with something like grudging approval.
“Give the ball back!” one of the tiny ceramic players cried in a squeaky voice. The others joined in, jeering raucously. James tossed the ball back to the man who’d spoken to him. The man caught it easily but didn’t turn away.
“You did good out there tonight, Potter,” the man said. James noticed that he was wearing the orange and blue striped sweater of a Bigfoot college student, most of whom lived in the rowhouses behind the theater. “Don’t let Wood hold you back, eh?”
James tilted his head at the older boys. “Any of you know why Wood doesn’t use any serious magic in the Bigfoot Clutch matches?”
The college students exchanged glances, smiling crookedly. Finally, the one in the Bigfoot sweater said, “Wood’s a decent guy, don’t get me wrong. Word is, he left his guts back on the Quidditch pitch in jolly old England, that’s all.”
The other men laughed and shook their heads. A moment later, they returned to their game.
“I’m sure that’s not true,” a voice said softly nearby. James glanced aside and saw Lucy and Albus moving next to him. “You came close to winning tonight, even without all that fancy magic.”
“Nice flying out there, big brother,” Albus agreed reluctantly. “I tried out for Team Werewolf, but they just laughed at me. Said that only true-blood Americans get to fight on behalf of Werewolf House.”
“That’s awful,” Lucy frowned. “And against school policy.”
“Not when it comes to Clutch,” Albus shrugged. “Every house gets to make their own rules about who can be on the team as well as how often they practice, what gear they wear, all that kind of thing. I did sneak out to the field and try out one of those skrims. Let’s just say I won’t be pushing the issue with my new mates. I did make the Werewolf Quidditch Team, though, mainly because they were a man short after their best Beater graduated last year. I’ll be facing off against your mate Zane this coming Thursday night. Mum, Dad, and Lil are coming.”
James glanced at his brother as they drifted toward the rear entrance of the Kite and Key. “Did you see them tonight?”
“Yeah, didn’t you?” Albus replied. “They sat with me in the Werewolf grandstand. Mum covered her eyes most of the time, saying she couldn’t bear to look. Dad had his wand in his hand through the whole match, twitching it every time you went through the intersection, like he was ready to jump up and levitate you at any moment if you decided to fall off your skrim. He was grinning, though, that mad grin he gets when he watches Quidditch matches back home. You know. Like part of him wants to put on the pads, grab a broom, and jump out there with the team.”
James couldn’t help smiling at the thought. �
��I know what you mean. Are they still here?”
Lucy shook her head. “Your father got some sort of message through his own Shard. His is smaller. He keeps it wrapped up in his robes all the time, just so he never misses anything. After he got the message, he and Aunt Ginny and Lily left right away. They asked me to tell you hello and that they are proud of you.”
“They asked me to tell him that,” Albus said, turning to Lucy, who avoided his eyes.
“There’s this thing called double redundancy,” she explained carefully. “They thought you’d forget.”
Albus rolled his eyes. “I didn’t forget. I just didn’t remember it until you brought it up. Nobody can blame me if you beat me to it.”
“I’m heading back to my house,” James announced, pushing open the heavy wooden door. “I’m completely beat.”
Lucy followed him out into the misty darkness. “I’ll walk with you for the first bit,” she said. “I’m heading back to the castle. I have Magi-American History in the morning, and I still have some reading to do for it.”
James grunted amiably and struck off along the footpath next to Lucy. After a moment, she spoke again.
“For a giant, that Professor Bunyan is one sharp bloke, isn’t he?”
James shrugged. “I guess. Seems like he comes from a completely different tribe of giants, doesn’t it?”
“He says he isn’t part of a tribe at all. He says he just grew big because when he was a lad he ate twenty chickens and fifteen dozen eggs a day.”
“And drank the milk of ten cows and swam laps around Lake Erie for exercise until the whole lake turned into a giant whirlpool,” James nodded, smiling. “You believe any of that?”
Lucy shook her head. “I think those are what the Americans call ‘tall tales’. They’re sort of like a mix between a myth and a legend.”
“I like the one about the magic fog that sprang up around George Washington and his little army of farmers and kids back during the war for independence; the one that hid them from all those huge British warships that were looking for them.”
“I think that one was true,” Lucy suggested uncertainly. “Although it’s hard to know what’s myth and fact about the Americans’ history. So much of it seems so… unreal.”
James raised his eyebrows in the darkness as they walked. “I don’t know about history, but it still feels pretty unreal to me, even now.”
Lucy laughed, but there was something odd about the sound of it. James glanced aside at her.
“What’s up with you, Lu?” he asked.
She looked at him, and then glanced quickly away. “Nothing. What do you mean?”
James looked out over the campus. “We passed the footpath to Erebus Castle back there by the Octosphere, you know.”
Lucy gazed back the way they’d come. “You’re right,” she agreed. “Silly me. Er, I guess I’ll head back then. Goodnight James.”
James watched as Lucy smiled at him in the darkness, and then turned and ran back along the wet footpath. Her black hair bounced around her shoulders and shone in the light of a nearby lamppost. When she reached it, she glanced back, saw him watching, and stopped.
“You did really well tonight,” she called out after a moment’s pause. “I was proud of you for trying to use magic even if it did get you into trouble.”
James blinked at her. He opened his mouth to thank her, but before he could, she spun on her heels and ran into the darkness, following the narrow flagstone path to Erebus Castle. James closed his mouth again and watched Lucy’s silhouette vanish into the shadow of the trees. What in the world had gotten into her? Shaking his own head, he turned and walked the rest of the way to Apollo Mansion.
He was exhausted and a little frustrated, but he was also filled with a certain giddy contentment. He had done well tonight. His mum and dad were proud of him. And he had succeeded in playing for his House Clutch team while Albus had not. That last was a petty satisfaction, but it was satisfaction nonetheless. All that remained was the perplexing mystery of Professor Wood’s reluctance to use serious magic in Clutch matches, but James thought he could probably work that out. Even now, remembering the conversation he’d had with the professor some days earlier, he thought he could begin to grope around the edges of it. It was still hazy, but it had something to do with earning the respect of his dead parents, and maybe even himself. It was complicated, and a little mad, but it made a certain backward logic. If using battle magic had earned Wood the shame of his parents, then perhaps he felt that avoiding it now, even in something as basic as a Clutch match, would help him regain their ghostly approval.
James shook his head. Being a grownup was such mad, complicated business. He was glad that he was still, technically at least, a kid.
Over the course of the following weeks, James never did speak to Professor Wood about the flaws of Team Bigfoot’s Clutchcudgel magic game. Instead, he studied the small grey rulebook that Wood had given him for his line-writing assignment, particularly the chapter entitled Offensive and Defensive Spellwork Fundamentals. There, he learned the essential magic associated with the game, including much of what he’d seen during the year’s first match against Igor House.
As the season progressed, James studied the magic games of the other House teams and found that each house approached their Clutchcudgel magic in a distinct and different manner.
The Igors’ team, for instance, used conventional Clutch spells most of the time, but occasionally surprised everyone with a spectacularly creative magical effort, often involving several players working in tandem. Such attempts failed as often as not, but they were always exciting to watch and the crowd always cheered the Igors’ bloody-minded grandiosity.
Team Pixie, on the other hand, relied on endless variations of entirely original sport magic, mostly designed by Mother Newt herself. Pixie Clutch magic was almost always pretty, sparkly, and effectively devastating, such as when the team captain, a girl named Ophelia Wright, enchanted the tail of her skrim to produce a stream of tiny rainbow-coloured butterflies. The butterflies were admittedly beautiful, if rather fat and clumsy, so that as the opposing players flew into Ophelia’s wake, they found themselves peppered with hundreds of splattering, colourful collisions, mucking up their uniforms and pasting over their goggles.
James spent an inordinate amount of time in the campus library, looking up classic Clutchcudgel magical strategies, often with Zane and Ralph alongside him. Secretly at first, James began to practice the offensive and defensive spells he was learning, using the bust of Sir Pepperpock in his dormitory room as a target. Often, Rose, Scorpius, and even Damien Damascus and Sabrina Hildegard would watch James’ efforts via the Shard on the back of his dormitory room door.
“You’re still emphasizing the second syllable of the Lanyard Charm,” Rose announced critically on one occasion. “It’s causing it to pull short too soon.”
“And more twist in the wrist,” Damien added, mimicking the move with his own wand on the other side of the Shard. “See? You’re looking for a nice spiral. Keeps your aim true.”
James ran his forearm across his brow. “Don’t you lot have homework to do?”
“You forget that it’s a lot later here,” Rose sniffed. “We’re only staying up because you’re so endlessly entertaining. It’s better than telly.”
“Do the gravity well again,” Sabrina suggested brightly, the quill bobbing in her hair. “I read that people who are really good at it can make one so strong that even light can’t escape it! It’s like a little miniature black hole!”
Ralph was lying on his bed surrounded by a collection of quills, parchments, and snacks. Glancing up from his Magi-American History textbook, he asked, “How do you all know so much about Clutchcudgel anyway?”
“Library,” Rose shrugged. “There’s not a whole lot there, but we found a few old magazines that talk about it. Apparently, there is a Clutch league in England, although hardly anyone’s ever heard of it. I read an interview with the man who
runs the league. He’s rather… intense. But there was some good discussion of the basic magic that goes along with the game. Have you been practicing that Whistle-Whoopsie Hex Damien came up with?”
“I told you,” James said, lowering his wand, “we’re not allowed to use spells that hurt other players. Making the referee swallow his own whistle is a pretty obvious penalty.”
“Can’t be a penalty without a whistle blow,” Zane mused from his lounge on James’ bed. “Right? If a foul is committed but there’s no whistle to call it, is it really a foul?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to say!” Damien exclaimed from the other side of the Shard.
“Forget it,” James announced firmly. “I’m not risking getting put in the dock again.”
“You mind if I steal that Whistle-Whoopsie bit, then?” Zane asked brightly. “I bet Warrington could put it to good use.”
James rolled his eyes. On the other side of the Shard, Damien Damascus pointed a finger. “I’ve got patent pending on that one, Walker! Don’t you go stealing it and calling it your own!”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Zane said in a wounded voice.
By the third match of the season, James had finally grown confident enough to attempt some real Clutch magic during the game. He waited until the fourth quarter of the match against Vampire House and, when he was sure Professor Wood was busy calling out formations, attempted a Lanyard Charm on the Vampire Clipper ahead of him. It worked perfectly. The Clutch popped instantly from beneath the boy’s arm and bobbed backwards in the air. James caught it against his chest, surprised and delighted at how simple it had been.
The crowd responded with a rather surprised cheer, and as James zoomed through the intersection and around the Bigfoot platform, he saw Wood glancing around curiously, looking to see what the crowd was applauding. As James neared the end of his requisite three laps, he saw that two of the Vampire Bullies had assembled ahead of him, preparing to fall upon him and force him out of the course. James narrowed his eyes and raised his wand.
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