JAMES POTTER AND THE VAULT OF DESTINIES

Weasley, who was notoriously ticklish, struggled to pay attention as a large white feather darted around him, occasionally pecking at him and making him convulse with angry laughter.

       James was about to shoot for goal when a voice cried out next to his ear. 'Yargh! Leggo the ball! Get 'im!' Shadows fell over him and hands grabbed at his hair and cloak. James tried to bat them off without looking, but it was no use. His younger cousins, the twins Harold and Jules, circled around him on toy brooms, grabbing at him and chomping their teeth like airborne piranhas. James glanced up at them in exasperation, tripped over his own feet, and went down into the grass like a sack of bricks. Harold and Jules glanced at each other for a moment and then dove into the grass to continue their attack. The football rolled to a stop nearby as George ran forward to kick it.

       'Barricado!' James cried, stabbing out with his wand as Harold grabbed double fists of his hair.

A tiny brick wall suddenly erupted out of the ground next to the football, a split second before George Weasley's foot came into contact with it. The ball sprang off George's foot, immediately struck the tiny wall, and shot up into the air, arcing high over George's head. He craned his neck to watch. With a dull thud, the ball bounced between the rocks behind him.

'Goal!' James shouted, throwing both of his hands into the air.

'Cheat!' Harold and Jules called out, falling on James again and driving him to the ground.

       Rose ran past James and George, reaching to scoop up the football. 'The first rule of wizard football is that there are no rules,' she reminded everyone, raising her voice. 'James scored that one with a Barricade Charm, and I had the assist with a transfigured banana peel. That's five more points for Team Hippogriff.'

'Five points!' Albus cried angrily, trotting to a stop nearby. 'How do you figure that math?'

       'One point for the goal,' Rose sniffed, bouncing the ball on her right palm, 'two points each for magical finesse.'

'Those were one-point spells,' Albus argued. 'I could have done those in my sleep!'

       'Then maybe someone should throw a Nap-a-bye Charm on you,' James said, finally shooing his cousins away. 'Maybe you'll play better in your dreams, eh?'

       'At least I don't need any stupid baby brick walls to make my goals for me,' Albus groused, producing his wand. 'I have this crazy idea that goals are made with my feet!'

       'Too bad they're so busy getting stuck in your mouth,' James countered, obviously pleased with his turn of phrase. 'But I can help you with that!'

       Albus saw James' intention a moment before it happened. He scrambled to raise his own wand and both boys called the incantation at the exact same moment. Two bolts of magic crossed over the sunny hilltop and both Albus and James spun into the air, pulled by their ankles.

       'What is going on here?' a female voice cried shrilly, wavering on the edge of outright fury. All eyes spun guiltily. Ginny Potter, James and Albus' mother, was striding purposely across the hilltop, approaching the gathering, her eyes blazing. Young Lily Potter followed in her wake, hiding a delighted grin behind her hands.

       'I've been looking all over for the lot of you!' Ginny exclaimed. 'And here I find you out in the grass making messes of yourselves in your dress robes! Ronald Weasley!' she cried, suddenly spotting her brother, who shrank away. She balled her fists. 'I should have known!'

       'What!' Ron cried, raising his hands. 'They were bored! I was bored! I was… overseeing them, making sure they didn't get into trouble! Besides, George is out here too, if you haven't noticed!'

       Ginny exhaled wearily and shook her head. 'You're both as bad as the children. All of you, back to the castle this instant. Everyone's waiting. If we don't hurry we'll be late for the ceremony.'

A meter above the grass, James hung upside down across from his brother. Albus met his gaze and sighed, his black hair hanging lank from his head. 'I'll do you if you do me,' he said. 'On three.'

James nodded. 'One…'

       'Liberacorpus,' Ted said, flicking his wand. Both boys dropped out of the air and tumbled messily to the hillside. 'You're welcome,' Ted grinned, pocketing his wand. 'Come on. You don't want to keep your mum waiting.'

       The gathering trotted to catch up to Ginny as she stalked back toward the castle gates, where a small throng had gathered, dressed, as was she, in colourful robes, hats, capes, and cloaks.

'How do I look?' James asked Rose as they crossed the lawn.

       She eyed him critically. 'Good,' she said mournfully. 'Your rolling in the dirt is no match for your mother's Laveolus Charms. Not so much as a grass stain.'

       James cursed under his breath. 'I don't see why we need to wear these stupid dress robes anyway. Nobody even knows if a giant's wedding is a formal affair, do they? Hagrid says we're the first humans to see such a thing in forever. He doesn't even know how we're supposed to dress for it.'

       'Better safe than sorry,' Ralph commented, adjusting his high, starched collar. 'Especially with blokes big enough to swat you like a flobberworm.'

       James shook his head. 'Grawp and Prechka are our friends. Er, more or less. They wouldn't hurt any of us.'

       'I'm not worried about them,' Ralph said, his eyes widening. 'I'm talking about all their family. And that King of theirs! Relations with the giant tribes are ticklish even at the best of times! You told me they even laid into Hagrid once!'

       Rose shrugged. 'That was a long time ago. Buck up, Ralph. I bet it's considered poor taste to kill the friends of the bride and groom.'

'At least during the wedding,' Lucy added reasonably.

       As they neared the waiting witches and wizards by the courtyard gates, James saw that his dad, Harry Potter, was standing near Merlinus Ambrosius, the current Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The casual observer might have assumed that the two men were merely waiting, passing the time with idle banter, but James knew his dad better than that. The eldest Potter and the Headmaster had been spending a lot of time in discussion since yesterday evening, their voices low, their eyes roaming, watching. There was a secret sense of weighty matters and carefully unspoken fears in the air between the men, even when they were smiling. James knew what some of it was about although he didn't understand any of it very much. He only knew that whatever it was, it was the reason that everything in his life had suddenly, messily, been turned on its head, like the world's most indiscriminate Levicorpus jinx. He sighed angrily and looked up at the castle, soaking in the sight of it. Sunlight glimmered from the windows and glared off the blue slate of the highest turrets. Lucy fell in step next to him.

'It really is a shame, you know,' she said, as if reading his thoughts.

       'Don't remind me,' he muttered darkly. 'Tomorrow's the first day of school. We already missed the Sorting yesterday. Someone else has probably already claimed my bed in Gryffindor Tower.'

       'Well,' Lucy replied carefully, 'I hear that your bed still has the words 'whiny Potter git' burned onto the headboard, even though they don't glow anymore. So maybe that's not such a bad thing, is it?'

James nodded, not amused. 'It's easy for you. You won't know what you're missing.'

Lucy shrugged. 'Is that better, somehow?'

       'Forget it,' James said, sighing. 'We'll be back soon enough. Probably after Christmas holiday, like my dad says.'

       Lucy didn't reply this time. James glanced at her. She was two years younger than him, but in some ways