James Potter And The Morrigan Web (35 page)

“All right, Lil,” he said, taking his sister by the shoulders. “Stay right behind me, and keep the invisibility cloak over you the whole time. Don’t take it off for any reason. All right? We’re just going to peek outside and see what’s what. It’s probably nothing. It’s probably just Scorpius Malfoy getting up to no good with some Slytherin mate of his.”

“I knew it!” Lily suddenly grinned, covering her mouth with her hands. “Sneaky Slytherins, just like in Dad’s time! And a Malfoy in the middle of it! Ooo! This is so exciting!”

James sighed. He gestured impatiently and Lily pulled the cloak up over her head, vanishing completely.

With a nod, James turned and crept toward the rotunda entrance. A smaller, human-sized door was set into the much larger door on the right. James unlatched it and a gust of wind pushed it open against him, bringing with it a rainy mist and the sounds of the stormy night. Lily clutched James from behind, hard.

Again, a sense of cold dread fell over James. He swallowed it, and then stepped through the door into the dark, Lily on his heels.

The rain had diminished to a heavy patter. Shimmering curtains fell from the ramparts and roofs all around, but once the two stepped out into the courtyard the drops were fat and sparse. Wind pushed across the walled yard, ruffling the weeds and moaning in the unseen trees of the Forbidden Forest. James looked around, straining his eyes against the dark. There, far off to the right, a flicker of wandlight bobbed and vanished, as if hooded in the bearer’s sleeve.

“This way,” James muttered, tugging Lily along behind him. She stayed close as they wended their way toward the low stone wall and through the open gate. A flash of lightning lit the clouds, turning the black landscape into a pale photograph. In the distance, Hagrid’s barn stood stark against the night, framed against a tableau of dripping trees. A split second later, darkness engulfed it again, even thicker than before.

“Where are we going?” Lily whispered, her feet squelching in the grass.

James shook his head, straining to see through the darkness without his glasses. There were no more flickers of wand light in the distance but the occasional flash of lightning showed that they were nearing the Quidditch pitch.

Lily should not have come with him. The certainty of this sank into James like an icicle. It was too dangerous for her. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew. It was his job to protect her. That’s what his father had said. And yet, here they were, out after dark on a stormy night, following a pair of mysterious figures into the unknown.

“You shouldn’t have come along,” James muttered. “It’s too dangerous. You should have stayed back where it was safe.” He shook his head dourly. “I should have stopped you, Lucy.”

Lily suddenly stopped walking. There was a shuffle as she tugged the cloak from over her head, revealing her strawberry-blonde hair and pale face in the darkness. “What did you just say?” she asked, her voice hushed.

“I said you should’ve stayed where it was safe!” James repeated impatiently, turning back. “It’s too dangerous. I shouldn’t have let you come along.”

Lily merely looked at him in the darkness, and James knew why. He just didn’t want to admit it.

He had called her Lucy.

He stepped back toward his sister and raised the cloak back up over her head. “Stay hidden,” he said brusquely. “We’ll just go back. Together, all right? This was… a mistake. Besides, it’s probably nothing.”

As if to counter this statement, behind James, a loud clunk echoed out of the darkness. There was a sudden babble of low voices in the near distance, indistinguishable against the wind and moaning trees.

“There are more of them!” Lily gasped, battening onto James’ arm in fear. “There’re over there! On the Quidditch pitch!”

James nodded, turning, his eyes wide. He wished for another flash of lightning to illuminate the pitch and reveal its secrets, but the storm was abating and the night was seamlessly black. Unconsciously, he began to inch forward again, bringing Lily with him. He sensed the house grandstands looming over him now, heard the snapping flutter of their banners high above.

From the centre of the pitch, more voices came on the wind, hushed and strangely excited. There seemed to be several of them, almost a small crowd. James crept close to the nearest grandstand and strained his eyes, fancying he could see a dark blot of robed figures milling in the grass of the centre line. Another dull clunk sounded. A hushed laugh. A rustle and flap of fabric.

A sudden green light lit the robed crowd. It rocketed upwards like a firework, or like a spell shot from a wand. Its light spread dimly over the pitch, illuminating no less than twenty robed figures, most carrying brooms, all craning their heads back to watch. Icy dread settled over James as the greenish light fired higher into the air. He reached instinctively for Lily, gathered breath to tell her to run, to run as fast as she could back to the castle.

Before he could speak, however, something poked him in the back, a wand, held firm and steady.

James spun around, knocking the wand away with his elbow. He brandished his own wand wildly, pushing the invisible shape of Lily aside and tripping backwards onto the mushy field. Lightning flickered once more, bathing the pitch with its bony light, and James found himself wand to wand with one of the robed figures, James on his backside on the grass, his right arm pointed up and out, ramrod straight, wand in fist. The robed figure’s head was uncovered, showing a length of wavy blond hair and an unexpectedly familiar face.

James boggled up at him as the lightning flickered, not sure if he believed what he was seeing. “
Zane
?” he barked.

The blond boy rolled his eyes and pocketed his wand. “It’s about time you found us,” he said. “I was beginning to think you’d never catch on. And your guys
really
need some fresh blood. It’s stopped being any challenge at all.”

“Keep talking, Walker,” a female voice called from the pitch. “If only you were as good on a broom as you are with your mouth.”

“Is that Willow?” James asked, confusion slowly replacing dread as he climbed back to his feet.

“Is that James?” Willow Wisteria called, approaching out of the darkness. “About time you showed up. I was beginning to think we’d need to leave you an engraved note and a trail of breadcrumbs.”

“I don’t…” James stammered, looking around as more students gathered around him, shaking their heads with wry amusement. “I thought… the green light! I thought it was…! What are you…?”

Scorpius Malfoy approached James, his head cocked to one side and a sardonic grin curling his lip. “You thought we were old school Deatheaters, perhaps? Firing off the dreaded Dark Mark for kicks and grins?”

There was a scattering of hushed laughter. Above the heads of the gathered students, the greenish light bobbed and zoomed, trailing a faint tail of sparks. James looked up at it and finally saw it for what it really was. It was a Golden Snitch, its tiny wings enchanted with green light, glowing like a hyperactive lightning bug against the dark clouds.

“Well, Potter, you’ve finally found us out,” Scorpius said, obviously enjoying James’ complete confusion, “and therefore you may officially join us. If you dare. And if you are good enough. Welcome,” he announced, spreading his arms, “to Night Quidditch.”

Next to James, a sudden rustle of fabric revealed Lily’s head, her eyes boggling with delight, her reddish-blonde hair mussed into a strew around her flushed face. “
This,
” she exclaimed in a barely hushed squeal, “is the coolest… thing…
ever!
”

6. THE NIGHT LEAGUE

Zane gave James a quick rundown of how Night Quidditch worked.

“Basically, it’s three parts Quidditch, one part Clutch, and a dash of complete insanity,” he said, leading James toward the centre of the dark pitch. An open trunk bucked slightly on the grass as three dully glowing Bludgers strained at their straps. In the middle of them, an old leather Clutchcudgel ball shimmered with pale purple light.

“Night Quidditch only fields five people per team-- two Chasers, one Beater, a Keeper and a Seeker. We play with three Bludgers, though, just to keep it interesting,” Zane pointed out, indicating the trunk. “Scoring is done with a Clutch, which is a little smaller than a Quaffle and lots easier to carry in the dark. You can use any duelling spells you want on your opponents, which sounds worse than it is, since it’s too dark to aim properly and you’re just as likely to hit your own teammate as anyone else. And most importantly, the Snitch is only worth fifty points.”

“What?” James exclaimed, his head spinning as all around him, robed players began to lift off into the air, their black robes flapping wetly in the wind. “Why only fifty points? That’s a hundred points less than regular Quidditch!”

“Exactly,” Zane nodded firmly. “In regular Quidditch, the whole match rides on the Seeker. The rest of the team can rule the day, score up a storm of ringers, but if the other team’s Seeker grabs the Snitch, it barely even matters.”

“But that’s where strategy comes in!” James insisted. “That’s why the leading team’s Seeker prevents the other Seeker from grabbing the Snitch until the score is high enough to prevent a win! It’s just basic Quidditch tactics!”

“Night Quidditch isn’t about strategy,” Willow Wisteria chided, bumping James playfully with her elbow. “It’s about bashing as many goals home as possible and not getting your teeth knocked out in the process. You up for it, or do you maybe have a pressing appointment in New Amsterdam? We could always go wake Lance Vassar, see if he wants to play.”

James looked at her in confusion. “You mean you want me to play? Like, tonight?”

“I wouldn’t say we
want
you to play,” Willow shrugged, kicking off into the dark air. “But Aloysius took a Bludger to the wrist last match. He’s still too sore to hold onto a bat. We need a substitute Beater for the night. Are you in or not?”

James blinked. Everything was happening so fast, and so wildly different than he expected. “I… sure! I just… I’m not really dressed for it. And I don’t have my broom with me or anything.”

“Hey Arnst!” Willow called softly across the pitch. “Hand over your robes and bat to James. He’s in for you tonight.”

Still on the ground, Aloysius gave an affronted look, magnified by his thick spectacles. “What? No chance! I can still play! I’m ambidextrous! Look!” He swung his bat wildly with his left arm, nearly bashing himself in the ear with it.

Willow shook her head firmly. “Sorry, Arnst. Let’s see what James can do. If he can’t hold up, we’ll sub you in later.”

“Fine,” Aloysius spat angrily, stripping off his robe and revealing a set of burgundy striped pyjamas. “But he can’t have my broom! I’ve got it tuned just the way I want it and I don’t want him getting it all out of balance.”

James accepted the boy’s robes and began to shrug into them. They were much too large and seamlessly black.

“So what am I going to ride?” he asked, his voice muffled as he struggled into the robes. “I can’t sneak back and get my Thunderstreak. Filch is on the prowl tonight, just looking for someone to drag to the headmaster.”

Zane sighed. He looked at James appraisingly, and finally said, “This is against my better judgment, you know. After all, you’re on the other team. And I’m still pretty peeved at you.”

James frowned. “I know. I wanted to talk to you about that--”

Zane stuck up a hand. “Not now. And I’m not sure talking will fix it anyway. I don’t know what your problem with Nastasia is, but my advice is that you just keep it to yourself from now on. We’ve been through a lot, James. But Nastasia’s my girl.”

James shrugged, his cheeks heating with a mixture of anger and some other, unidentifiable emotion. “I’m not sure she’s anyone’s girl, if you ask her.”

“What?” Zane asked, raising his eyebrows provocatively.

“Nothing. Nevermind. Night Quidditch, remember? What am I going to ride? You have a spare house broom lying around or something?”

Zane narrowed his eyes and pressed his lips into a thin line. A moment later, he turned and stalked away.