JAMES POTTER AND THE VAULT OF DESTINIES

       'Diplicitous!' he cried, and there was a flash of purple. Out of the flash, three Clutches seemed to spin toward the goal instead of one. The Vampire Keeper hesitated for only a moment, and then swatted her Cudgel at the middle of the three balls. The Cudgel passed right through the phantom Clutch, however, allowing the real Clutch to flash through the goal ring behind her. A roar erupted from the crowd as James flew on, his hair whipping in the cold wind, and he couldn't tell if the spectators were cheering or booing, nor did he care.

       By halftime, James was stunned to realize that the Vampires were leading Team Bigfoot by only four points. The Bigfoots were greatly heartened by this fact and entered the second half of the match with a steadfast determination to at least end the game in a tie. It would still result in a technical victory for Vampire House, but at least the Bigfoots could go home feeling that they had achieved a symbolic victory, if nothing else.

It was very hard to keep track of the actual score while the match was in progress since there were, at any given time, three Clutches in play. James glanced up at the scoreboard occasionally and saw that by the fourth quarter, the Bigfoots had, in fact, matched the Vampires almost exactly throughout the second half of the game. The score hovered at forty-six to forty-five, with Team Vampire clinging to a very fragile lead.

       'Jazmine has a Clutch!' Norrick called, swooping alongside James. 'You make sure she gets to the goal! The rest of us will drop on their Clippers like a ton of bricks, all right?'

       'Got it!' James called with a curt nod. He glanced aside and saw Jazmine ducking through the course behind him, her cape flashing orange in the stadium lights. James dropped to one knee on his skrim, grabbing the nose with both hands as the board ground to a halt beneath him. Jazmine circled around and saw him waiting. She nodded her understanding.

       'Time to mow the lawn,' James announced, launching to full speed again and moving directly in front of Jazmine. He produced his wand and trained it on the Vampire Bullies ahead. A quick gravity well sucked them both out of the rings, allowing James and Jazmine to soar past without so much as a dip in their course. The rings flashed by and James aimed again, using a Lanyard Charm to twitch the end of another Vampire's skrim, causing him to lose control and veer out of the rings. James glanced up in time to see that Norrick had succeeded in forcing one of the Vampire Clippers out of the course using his Solarflack Hex. Bursts of stunning light still sparkled in his wake as he pumped his fist triumphantly in the air.

       'We're nearly there, Jazmine!' James called back. 'Nail the shot and we might just knot this match!'

       James circled around the last length of the figure eight course and prepared to drop out of the way, giving Jazmine room to aim. As he dipped, however, a shadow flickered over the end of his skrim. Glancing up, he saw that the second Vampire Clipper had caught up to Jazmine. The Clipper raised his own Clutch overhead, preparing to shoot for the goal at exactly the same time as Jazmine. Without thinking, James raised his wand once more, calling out his spell at exactly the same moment that both Clippers released their Clutches.

       What happened next happened nearly too fast to watch, and yet, in James' mind, it seemed to take hours. He saw Jazmine's Clutch arc through the air, tracking alongside the Vampire Clipper's shot, but Jazmine's aim was too low; her Clutch was going to miss the goal entirely. James' Lanyard Charm, however, neatly caught the Vampire's Clutch. With a flick of his wand, James twitched the opponent's Clutch downwards, forcing it to dip and then bob up again. The Vampire's Clutch collided in midair with Jazmine's, altering its course. A split second later, both Clutches soared through the goal ring, past the two Keepers, who had moved aside in an effort not to accidentally block their own team's shot.

       James rocketed beneath the goal ring into sudden silence. He glanced back, saw Jazmine's look of stunned disbelief, and then startled as the grandstands exploded into wild, deafening cheers all around.

       'We scored a knockpoint!' Jazmine cried in amazement, catching up to James and smacking him on the shoulder. 'A knockpoint, James! I can't even remember the last time that happened!'

       'What's a knockpoint?' James called over the noise of the crowd. The rest of the team was catching up to them now, forming a midair dog-pile all around him.

'You knocked our Clutch against theirs and put them both through the goal!' Jazmine yelled, laughing. 'That makes both points ours! We get double the score, James!'

       'You mean,' James said, buffeting as the team collapsed around him and Jazmine, 'we won?'

       'We won!' Norrick hollered, laughing. 'Holy hinkypunks! We won!'

       The rest of the team joined in the shout, proclaiming their victory and pushing James and Jazmine upwards between them. As one wild, bobbing bunch, the team drifted toward their platform and broke apart on top of it, roaring with triumphant delight.

       'And in a shocking, record-breaking upset,' Cheshire Chatterly's voice cried, echoing from the announcer's booth, 'Team Bigfoot snatches their first victory in nearly twelve years with an amazing game-winning knockpoint goal by the combined efforts of team captain Jazmine Jade and newcomer James Sirius Potter! With that, Team Vampire's playoffs hopes are put on hold for at least one more match while Team Bigfoot refuses to be bumped out for the season. What a match, folks! What… a… match!'

       Out of the darkness of the platform, a figure nearly bowled James over, calling his name. 'James! You big genius, you! A knockpoint win! How'd you do that!?'

       'Zane!' James laughed, struggling to stay upright. 'I don't know! I didn't even know what a knockpoint was until it happened! How'd you get up here?'

       'Me and Ralph came up ten minutes ago when we thought you were just going to tie the match,' Zane replied excitedly.

       'Wood said we could watch the rest of the match from up here,' Ralph added, grinning. 'What a party, eh?'

       'First victory in over a decade,' Gobbins announced, clapping James heartily on the shoulder pads. 'Thanks to our new magic coach, James Potter! Come on, everyone! Victory party at the Kite and Key in twenty minutes! Let's see if we still remember how to do it, eh?'

       With raucous whoops of delight and a great tramping of feet, Team Bigfoot clambered down the steps to the locker cellar, singing the Bigfoot House anthem and virtually carrying James and Jazmine on their shoulders.

       It wasn't until an hour and a half later that James remembered his intention of asking Lucy about getting a tour of Erebus Castle. He was just leaving the Kite and Key when he spotted her at a table populated by a gaggle of morose-looking Vampire students. He didn't think anything of it— after all, Vampire students made quite a show of being morose at nearly every moment—until she got up and met him near the door.

       'Congratulations, cousin,' she said a little stiffly. 'You wanted to talk to me about something?'

       'Yeah,' James nodded, remembering that he had asked her to find him after the match. 'Er, are you heading back to the castle now? We could walk together.'

Lucy studied him for a moment, and then nodded somberly. James pushed open the back door of the Kite and Key, letting in a gust of wintry air and sand-like snow crystals.

       'Er,' he said as the two of them walked into the darkness of the campus, 'this is a little awkward. I hadn't exactly expected to win tonight, you know.'

       'You did very well,' Lucy said coolly. 'A knockpoint. The Vampires say that that hasn't happened in forever. They say you just got lucky, but I stuck up for you. I told them you're very talented in a lot of ways.'

       James was glad that they were walking in the darkness. He felt extremely awkward all of a sudden.