“Merlin will cast a new unplottability charm over the grounds,”
Rose said impatiently, turning to tramp up the stairs. The rest followed her, sensing that the show, as it were, was mostly over. “The only reason those people got through is that no one knew how weak the old boundary had finally gotten. There’s no way to test these things, really.”
“Makes me wonder, though,” Cameron said, taking the steps two at a time to catch up to Rose and James. “That Muggle reporter you told me about from your first year, James? Martin Prescott? Maybe that’s partly how he was able to get through to the school. He followed the signal from Deedle’s gaming device, but maybe the unplottability spell was weak even then, letting him through?”
James didn’t want to think about that particular adventure.
Martin J. Prescott was still presenting news stories on Muggle television, still working for a program called Inside View which seemed to specialize in celebrity gossip and dubious tales of two-headed bat babies or faces of saints being miraculously burnt onto toast. James didn’t want to admit it, but he was quite certain that Prescott had gotten through the school’s unplottability by a technological loophole and sheer bloody-mindedness, not any weakening of the school’s ancient secrecy spells. No, the weakening was part of the chain-reaction caused when Petra Morganstern, with the help of her sister Izzy, had broken the veil of secrecy in Muggle New York almost three years earlier.
He glanced aside at Rose and saw the same thought on her face.
She understood the magic of it all even better than him. The baseline power of all secrecy spells was the fact that Muggles didn’t want to believe in magic, not deep down. It was too shocking and weird. It upset the comfortable house of cards that their perception of the world was built on. And that, unfortunately, was what Petra had changed.
She had thrust a new reality on them, if briefly and in part. And now, bit by bit, the Muggle world was waking up to a new reality. The spells of secrecy were weakening because, for the first time in a thousand years, and perhaps not even by choice, the Muggles were willing to believe.
Allowing Cameron’s conjecture to hang unanswered in the air, James followed Scorpius and Rose through the portrait hole and into the waiting common room, which, despite the strange events of the evening, was as boisterous and cheerful as any other First Night. Unsurprisingly, the bust of Godric Gryffindor bobbed and swooped through the upper recesses of the room like a drunken bumblebee, propelled by the wands of several competing students in a game of Winkles and Augers. Cheers and jeers rang out jovially. Illicit bottles of butter beer and platters of Honeydukes’ sweets (compliments of George Weasley, as per recent tradition) decorated every table. The crackle and glow of the fireplace warmed the crowded room as James threaded his way in, breathing a deep sigh of relief. In a constantly changing world, he thought, the Gryffindor common room, at the very least, was always the same.
“See you in an hour?” Rose said quietly, sidling close to James and Scorpius. “Same place as usual?”
James nodded.
Scorpius shrugged noncommittally, reaching for a bottle of butter beer on a tray and drifting toward the gathering of Winkles and Augers players.
It had become rather a ritual on First Night for the past few years, the secret little midnight summit wherein James and a few trusted friends reported and discussed any important clandestine happenings over the summer. None of them referred to it as such, but James had begun to think of it as a pale, yet somehow significant, shadow of the old Order of the Phoenix. He didn’t know if he looked forward to the annual meetings, exactly, but this year, unlike the last two, he thought he might finally have something interesting to report.
That would come later, however. For the moment, he threw himself into the happy noise and welcoming familiarity of one of his favorite places.
Next to the fire he spotted his sister Lily with her constant cadre of friends, Chance Jackson, Marcus Cobb, and Shivani Yadev. Shivani’s brother Sanjay, who had just been sorted into Gryffindor house thirty minutes before, hovered nearby, glancing around with nervous happiness. Beneath one of the night-dark windows, 6th and 5th years Walter Stebbins and Xenia Prince, who had begun dating late last term, sat nearly nose to nose on the sofa, smiling and batting eyes at each other in low conversation, barely noticing the Winkles and Augers match waging furiously over their heads. And seated on either side of one of the study tables near the girls’ dormitory stairs, Graham Warton and Deirdre Finnegan were heatedly debating a list of names on a parchment between them.
James knew without asking that the list was a potential lineup for this year’s Quidditch team. He drew a deep breath, grabbed a butter beer of his own from a nearby table, and decided to join them, knowing what was to come.
“And there he is,” Deirdre glanced up pointedly. “First, we’ve got Muggles in the Great Hall. And now, James Potter’s name on a Quidditch roster. Could things get any stranger?”
“What will it be this year?” Graham cocked his head as James plopped onto a chair. “Are you expecting to get inducted into the Harriers the night before tryouts? Or do you have a conflicting follow-up interview with Rita Skeeter and maybe the Minister of Magic?”
James rolled his eyes, knowing he had no choice but to endure Deirdre’s and Graham’s derisive ribbing. “None of that will happen this year. I promise.”
“You promised the same thing at this very table last year,”
Deirdre said, drooping on her chair. “What was it then? Dragon pox?”
“Scrofungulus, if you must know,” James sighed. “Caught it on Hagrid’s field trip to see the swamp mokes. Couldn’t move my neck or swallow anything larger than an Every-Flavour Bean for a week. It was miserable, thank you very much.”
“And the year before that?” Graham said, frowning and rubbing his chin in mock consternation. “You actually made it to the tryouts, if I recall, but you…?”
“Crashed your broom into one of the goal rings,” Deirdre nodded.
“I’d broken my glasses,” James interjected defensively. “I did my best anyway! It’s not my fault I can’t see for distance without them.”
Graham sighed and raised his chin to peer across the room. “It’s a good thing that we’ve got that sister of yours as Keeper. It would be terrible bad luck not to have a Potter on the Gryffindor team. Do you suppose she’ll make tryouts this year, Deirdre?”
“She’s never missed one so far,” Deirdre answered. “Not that there’s any question she’ll be on the team again, same as the last few years. She’s a natural.”