James enjoyed becoming more confident on the broom, but he was surprised to discover that he loved football. Tina Curry had divided all of her classes into teams and arranged a casual game schedule for them to play against one another. Many students had grasped the essential concepts of the game and being competitive at heart, had worked to make the class-time matches interesting. Occasionally, a student would forget the non-magical nature of the sport and would be seen frantically searching their pockets for their wands or simply pointing at the ball and yelling something like 'Accio football!', resulting in a general breakdown of the match while everyone laughed. Once, a Hufflepuff girl had simply grabbed the ball in both hands, forgetting the basic rules of the game, and charged down the field as if she were playing rugby. James discovered, rather reluctantly, that Professor Curry's assessment of his skills had been fairly accurate. He was a natural. He could control the ball easily with the tips of his trainers as he zigged and zagged down the field. His ball-handling was regarded as among the best of any of the new players, and his scoring rate was second only to fifth-year Sabrina Hildegard, who, like Zane, was Muggle-born and unlike Zane, had played on Muggle leagues when she was younger.
James and Ralph, however, barely talked. James' initial anger and resentment had simmered down to a stubborn aloofness. Some small part of him knew that he should forgive Ralph, and even apologize for yelling at him that day in the Great Hall. He knew that if he'd kept his cool, Ralph probably would have seen the error of siding with his Slytherin housemates. Instead, Ralph seemed to feel it was his duty to support the Slytherins and the Progressive Element as earnestly as he could. If it wasn't for the fact that even Ralph's enthusiastic support was rather weak-willed and doleful, James would have found it easier to stay angry at him. Ralph wore the blue badges, and he attended the debate meetings in the library, but he did so with such a dogged attitude of obligation that it seemed to do more harm than good. If any of the Slytherins actually spoke to him, he'd jerk upright and respond with manic eagerness, then deflate as soon as they turned their attention elsewhere. It hurt James a little to watch it, but not enough to make him change his attitude toward Ralph.
In his room at night or in a corner of the library, James would study the poem he and Zane had seen on the gate to the Grotto Keep. With Zane's help, he had written it down from memory and was confident it was accurate. Still, he couldn't seem to make much of it. All he knew for sure was that the first two lines referred to the fact that the Grotto Keep could only be found by moonlight. The rest was a puzzle. He kept fetching up on the line that read 'Did wake his languid sleep', wondering if that could refer to Merlin. But Merlin wasn't asleep, was he?
'Makes it sound like he's Rip Van Winkle,' Zane whispered one day in the library. 'Snoozing away a few hundred years out under a tree somewhere.' Zane had had to explain the fairy tale of Rip Van Winkle, and James considered it. He knew from hearing his dad's conversations with other Aurors that much of Muggle mythology came from long, distant encounters with witches and wizards. Stories of wizarding lore made their way into Muggle fairy tales, became stylized or altered, and grew into legends and myth. Perhaps, James mused, this story of the long sleeper, who awoke hundreds of years later, was a Muggle echo of the story of Merlin. Still, it didn't get James or Zane any closer to figuring out how Merlin could possibly return after so many centuries, nor did it offer any clues as to who might be involved in such a conspiracy.
At night, as he was drifting to sleep, James often found his thoughts returning, strangely enough, to his conversation with the portrait of Severus Snape. Snape had said he'd be watching James, but James couldn't imagine how that could be. There was only one portrait of Snape on the Hogwarts grounds, as far as James knew, and it was up in the Headmistress' office. How could Snape possibly be watching James? Snape had been a powerful wizard, and a potions genius according to Dad and Mum, but how would either of those things allow his portrait to see around the castle? Still, James didn't doubt Snape. If Snape said he was watching him, James felt confident that, somehow or other, it was true. It was only after two weeks of mulling over the conversation he'd had with Snape that James realized what struck him most about it. To Snape, unlike James and the rest of the wizarding world, it was a foregone conclusion that James was just like his father. 'Like Potter, like son,' he'd said, sneering. Ironically, though, to Snape, if no one else, this was not precisely a good thing.
As the leaves in the Forbidden Forest began to settle into the browns and yellows of autumn, the blue Progressive Element buttons were augmented by the posters and banners for the first All-School Debate. As Ralph had predicted, the theme was 'Re-evaluating the Assumptions of the Past: Truth or Conspiracy'. As if the words themselves weren't enough, the right side of each banner and poster bore a drawing of a lightning bolt that was enchanted to shift into the shape of a question mark every few seconds. Zane, who, according to Petra, was quite good at debate, told James that the school debate committee had argued for quite some time about the topic of the first event. Tabitha Corsica was not on the debate committee, but her crony, Philia Goyle, was the committee chair.
'So in the end,' Zane had reported to James, 'the debate team turned out to be a great example of democracy in action: they argued all night, then she chose.' He shrugged wearily.
The sight of the signs and banners, and especially, that very unambiguous lightning bolt, made James' blood boil. Seeing Ralph on a ladder finishing hanging one of the banners just outside the door to Technomancy class was more than he could take.
'I'm surprised you can reach like that, Ralph,' James said, anger pushing the words out, 'what with Tabitha Corsica's hand so far up your backside.'
Zane, who'd been walking next to James, sighed and ducked into the classroom. Ralph hadn't noticed James until he spoke. He glanced down, his expression surprised and wounded. 'What's that supposed to mean?' he demanded.
'It means, I'd think by now, you'd have gotten sick of being her little first-year puppet.' James already regretted saying anything. The guileless misery on Ralph's face shamed him.
Ralph had the mantra down well, though. 'Your people are the puppetmasters, preying on the fears of the weak-minded to maintain the demagoguery of prejudice and unfairness,' he said, but without much conviction. James rolled his eyes and walked into the classroom.
Professor Jackson was absent from his usual spot behind the teacher's desk. James sat next to Zane in the front row. As he sat down, he made a point of joking and laughing with a few other Gryffindors nearby, knowing Ralph was watching through the doorway. The mean pleasure it gave him was hollow and raw, but it was pleasure nonetheless.
Finally, the room hushed. James looked up and saw Professor Jackson entering, carrying something under his arm. The object was large, flat, and wrapped in cloth.
'Good morning, class,' he said in his usual, brusque manner. 'Your last week's essays are graded and on my desk. Mr. Murdock, would you mind distributing them, please? On the whole, I am not terribly disappointed, although I think most of you can be relieved that Hogwarts does not generally grade on the curve.'
Jackson carefully set his parcel on the desk. As he unfolded the cloth from around it, James could see that it was a stack of three rather small paintings. He thought of the painting of Severus Snape and his attention perked up.
'Today is a day for taking notes, I can assure you,' Jackson said ominously. He arranged the paintings in a row along the shelf of the chalkboard. The first painting was of a thin man with owlish glasses and an almost perfectly bald head. He blinked at the class, his expression alert and slightly nervous, as if he expected someone, at any moment, to jump up and shout 'Boo!' at him. The next painting was empty but for a rather bland wooded background. The last showed a fairly ghastly clown in white face with a hideously large, red smile painted over its mouth. The clown leered inanely at the class and shook a little cane with a ball on the end. The ball, James noticed with a shudder, was a tiny version of the clown's own head, grinning even more insanely.
Murdock finished handing back everyone's papers and slid back into his own seat. James glanced down at his essay. On the front, in Jackson's perfect, left-slanting cursive, were the words,
