“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.