JAMES POTTER AND THE VAULT OF DESTINIES

grinning.

       Scorpius rolled his eyes and climbed to his feet on the other side of the glass. 'I have Runes homework,' he stated in a bored voice, walking away.

       'You're all idiots,' Rose fumed, crossing her arms and refusing to make eye contact with the boys in the mirror.

       'That may be,' Zane nodded, still grinning, 'but we're perceptive idiots. Aren't we?' He glanced back at James and Ralph. Ralph shook his head.

       'I have Mug-Occ homework,' he said, turning to his bed, which he threw himself on.

       'See you later, Rose,' James smiled. 'I expect Scorpius could use some help with his Runes.'

'Scorpius does just fine on his own,' she muttered, standing up. 'Let me know what else happens there, all right? And bring Lucy with you the next time you pop on. Maybe we'll get some intelligent conversation out of her.'

       As the final day of Ralph and James' first full week at Alma Aleron finally came around, James found himself looking quite forward to the weekend. Now that Merlin and Professor Longbottom had gone home and his parents and sister were busy getting themselves settled into their new flat, it was going to be James' first chance to enjoy a few days of freedom. There was still quite a lot of the campus that he had not explored, including the inside of the Tower of Art, the strange ruin at the northern end of the campus, the massive sports stadium (known as Pepperpock Down), and the endless statues, fountains, and odd magical landmarks that dotted the grounds.

       Lucy had promised to take the boys on a tour of Erebus Castle, home of Vampire House, but James was rather less interested in that, having already had Cursology class in the large glassed 'moonroom' of the castle and not particularly liking what he'd seen. Hogwarts castle was the real thing, of course. By comparison, Erebus Castle felt a bit like a Muggle movie set, with baroque chandeliers crammed into every available ceiling space, enormous, morbidly detailed tapestries hung from every stone wall, and far too many suits of armor, gaping fireplaces, and looming staircases. For her own part, Lucy seemed to have quickly come to love her house and her fellow Vampires, even befriending some of the girls whom they had first encountered aboard the Gwyndemere.

       'Sure, they're all a little melodramatic and morose,' she conceded at breakfast on Friday morning, 'but they're really imaginative and intelligent. Felicia Devereau makes charcoal rubbings of the gravestones in the campus cemetery. And Druzilla Hemmings writes poetry. It doesn't rhyme or anything, but that just means it's really good poetry. Very grown-up.'

       'Yeah,' Zane nodded critically. 'And I hear the whole lot of them are making some new clothes for the emperor.'

       Lucy blinked at Zane, and then shook her head derisively.

       'Wait a minute,' Ralph said, frowning. 'America has an emperor?'

       The last class of the morning turned out to be Theoretical Gravity, which was apparently a strange mix of levitation, flight, and anything else that dealt with getting things off the ground. The class met in the center of a grassy quadrangle between the Tower or Art and the Administration Hall and James was delighted to see the Trans-Dimensional Garage pitched nearby, its canvas walls flapping in the breeze. The flying cars sat inside, their chrome glittering as the sun angled into the tent's open front.

       'Is that the permanent home of the American side of the Garage?' James asked Zane.

       Zane glanced back at the tent-like structure. 'Yeah, I think the other side is somewhere in Pakistan right now. There's a team of wizarding archeologists there, digging up some old magical city. Professor Potsherd is always dragging his students all over the world, scratching around in the dirt like a bunch of beetles. In fact, beetles are all they brought back with them last time. Scarabs, actually, from Egypt. Pretty cool, now that I think of it. They're up in the museum on the top floor of the Tower of Art.'

As Zane spoke, a figure strode out from beneath the huge trees at the edge of the quadrangle and James was surprised to recognize Oliver Wood, dressed in a short cape and boots with a pair of goggles pushed up over his eyebrows.

       'Greetings students,' he proclaimed, summoning them to gather around him in the sunlight. 'Professor Asher is feeling a bit under the weather today, so I've been asked to fill in. I am given to understand that you are currently working on intermediate airborne traffic regulations, yes?'

       There was a collective moan as the students slumped.

       'Come on,' one of the Igor boys complained. 'Asher's sick. Can't we do something other than aerial right- of-way drills? Let's do a collective levitation!'

       'Nosedive recovery practice!' a Zombie girl called. 'From a thousand feet! It's clear enough today!'

       The class broke into a babble of unruly voices as Wood shook his head and raised his hands, palms out.

       'Look, you lot, just because your professor's sick, doesn't mean we can just ignore the curriculum. He'll be back next Friday… er… probably. Actually, maybe not, now that you mention it…'

'What's he got?' the Igor student asked.

       'I hear it's witherwart,' a Vampire girl called out from the rear of the gathering. Everyone turned to look back at her. She blinked at them. 'At least, that's the rumor that's going around. I don't know anything about it. It isn't like I cursed him with it just to put off my UP-DWN examination. Er, none of you can prove anything.'

       'Either way,' Wood said, trying to regain control of the class, 'it may, in fact, be that the professor could be absent for a few weeks. So…'

       The class broke into a babble again, begging to be given a holiday from the regiment of flight regulations they had apparently been studying. Wood glanced over the students a bit helplessly, and then grinned.

       'Fine,' he called out, silencing them nearly instantly. 'We'll run some laps on the Clutch course, just to warm up. After that, we'll go over passing streams and confined space landing techniques.'

       'Excellent,' Zane enthused as the class cheered, drowning out the second half of Wood's statement. 'We can get a little speed behind us up in the rings. It's good timing too. The first Clutch match of the season is only a week away.'

       'So what is Clutch anyway?' Ralph asked as the class followed Wood across the quadrangle, heading for the stadium parapets which were just visible over the roofs of Faculty Row. 'Is it anything like Quidditch?'

'Not really,' Zane answered, cinching up the corner of his mouth thoughtfully. 'Clutchcudgel is sort of a cross between broom racing and rugby. Basically, you have a series of floating rings that form a big figure eight in the air over the field. The point is to catch one of the three Clutches, which are just flying leather footballs, and then zoom three times through the course as fast as you can. On the last pass, you toss the Clutch through the goal over the middle ring.' James shrugged. 'Doesn't sound too hard.'

       'Nope,' Zane agreed. 'Except for the Bullies. They're the guys on the other team whose job is to force you out of the rings and make you forfeit the Clutch.'

       Ralph nodded. 'All right. But still, assuming you get past them, it's just a straight shot to the goal, right?'