JAMES POTTER AND THE VAULT OF DESTINIES

castle.'

       James shook his head. 'It's Lucy,' he said. 'I don't need to trick her or anything. I'll just ask her. Of course she'll say yes.'

       Zane shrugged and leaned back in his chair. 'Have it your way. Me, I'd want a little insurance. I hear she was pretty put off by all the touchy-feely that went down between you and Petra over Christmas.'

       James' face heated with mingled embarrassment and surprise. 'What? That's ridiculous! Nothing happened at all!'

       Ralph grimaced uncomfortably. 'I saw the two of you holding hands in the parlor,' he admitted. 'So did Lucy. She pretended not to be bothered by it, but she hid in her room for awhile afterwards.'

       It wasn't like that,' James sighed. 'We were just talking. In fact, we were talking about how we're going to try to clear her name.'

       'Seems to me you should have been talking to Lucy about that,' Zane chided. 'She's the one whose go-ahead we need to get into Erebus Castle.'

       'Look, Lucy isn't Cheshire Chatterly and I'm not you,' James said, throwing a look at Zane. 'I can't trick her like that.'

       'There weren't any tricks involved with me and Cheshire,' Zane replied a bit defensively. 'I got us the key to the Archive and Cheshire got to dance with me at the Halloween Ball. It was a win-win for everyone.'

       James crossed his arms on the library table and rested his chin on them. 'It's different for you. Cheshire wasn't… sweet on you to begin with.'

       Zane frowned thoughtfully. 'She was afterwards,' he replied with a shrug.

       'Maybe Ralph can do it,' James offered, sitting up again. 'How could anyone say no to that face?'

       Ralph glanced from Zane to James, his brow knitted.

       Zane shook his head. 'It's your ballgame, James. Unless you know any real-life vampires, Lucy's our only in. Do it however you want, but you'd better do it quick-like. That Keynes guy won't take forever to make his judgment about Petra.'

       James knew that Zane was right. He also knew that they were probably making a much bigger deal out of the task than it deserved. Lucy was his cousin, after all. Still, her apparent infatuation with him tended to complicate matters in ways he couldn't predict. To be safe, he determined he would ask her after the next Clutchcudgel match. Team Bigfoot was scheduled to face off against Vampire House again and the odds were that despite James' best efforts, the Vamps would win handily. This would put Lucy in a good mood, rendering her more receptive to James' request. Having decided this, James dismissed the matter for the time being.

       Friday evening rolled around and James made his way to Pepperpock Down. There, he suited up in his Clutchcudgel gear alongside Jazmine, Gobbins, Wentworth, and the rest of Team Bigfoot.

       'Nice new gauntlets,' Jazmine said appreciatively. 'Christmas present?'

       James nodded proudly. 'Yeah, from my dad.'

       'All I got was a bunch of hair potions and a box set of Remora's awful novels,' Jazmine said, frowning. 'My mother is just crazy about them. She was hoping that I'd end up in Vampire House, or even Pixie. She says Bigfoot isn't very 'Veela-like'.'

       James didn't know how to respond to that. 'One of my aunts is part-Veela,' he ventured. 'For what it's worth, I prefer you to her most days.'

Jazmine smiled at him as she strapped on her shin pads.

       'Let's go, team,' Wood called from partway up the gantry stairs. 'I hope you all wore your long underwear. It's right frigid up there tonight.'

       James grabbed his skrim and followed the team as they tramped up the steps into the windy evening. The sky over the gantries was cloudless, darkening toward sunset with a dusting of stars just beginning to twinkle high above. All around, the parapet grandstands were filled with cheering and jeering students, most waving the red and black banners of Vampire House.

       'We're the goats for tonight's match,' Wood called over the noise, hunkering in the center of the huddled players. 'If the Vampires win tonight, it knocks us clean out of the playoffs and seals their standings. Most of the people here tonight want to see a Werewolf-Vampire championship match, so sentiment is stacked pretty heavily against us. You've played excellently this year, team, even though there's been a lot more offensive magic than I am, frankly, comfortable with. No matter what, we can walk away from tonight's match with our heads held high. As always, let's keep it clean out there and do our ruddy best. All right?'

       The team rumbled their agreement and piled their hands atop Wood's outstretched fist for the traditional rallying cry. 'GooOO FEET!' they shouted in unison, and then broke apart, lining up along the edge of the platform.

       'I don't know about you,' Norrick muttered to James, 'but I don't plan to let the Vampires have this one without a fight.'

       James nodded. 'You been practicing up on that Solarflack bit that Wentworth came up with?'

       'Spent half my Christmas break on it,' Norrick replied with a grim smile. 'In this darkness, it'll blind anybody who tries to ambush me from the rear and maybe force one or two of them to drop the Clutch if they try to pass me.'

'Nice,' James agreed. 'At least we've already gotten one tie game under our belts this year, eh? If it hadn't been for that, I bet half of these people would have stayed home tonight. Now they know that we'll be making those Vampires work for it.'

       In the air between the gantries, Professor Sanuye drifted like a dandelion seed on his official's broomstick. He blew a sharp blast on his whistle and James saw Jazmine kick off the platform, angling toward the center ring. The rest of the team followed, falling into position.

       'Here goes nothing,' Norrick grinned. 'Into the breach!'

       A moment later, both boys launched from the platform, leaning into the cold wind and squatting low over their skrims.

       Sixty seconds later, after a single tense warm-up lap, Sanuye blew a long note on his whistle. James lunged forward on his skrim, launching it into a rocket-like acceleration, and immediately passed two Vampires. He darted through the center ring and, before he knew it, had captured one of the Clutches. He tucked it under his left arm and produced his wand from its sheath.

       'Potter!' Gobbins called from behind him. 'Two Bullies at twelve o'clock, dropping fast!'

       James ducked on his skrim and pulled back, decelerating so quickly that the Clutch tried to squirt from beneath his arm. Almost instantly, two Vampire players dropped out of the darkness ahead of him, colliding with one another and bouncing out of the course. James leapt upwards, pulling his skrim with him, and somersaulted over the Bullies, barely passing through the nearest ring.

       Artis Decerto, he thought to himself with a grin. Who'd have thought it'd come in handy on the Clutch course? I'll have to start teaching that to the team as well.

       Still accelerating, James dodged through the course, completing his requisite laps before lobbing the Clutch through the goal ring. As soon as he released the Clutch, however, he jabbed his wand at it.