The semester unrolled like a carpet.
James spent a few nights each week teaching Clutch magic to his new friends under the canted ceiling of the attic common room. Bump, the house poltergeist, was quite different than what James had expected. Unlike Peeves, whose gleeful mischief and imp-like appearance were Hogwarts legend, Bump was barely a wisp of human-shaped smoke and a vague scent of mold. His primary method of communication was a variety of sneezes, wheezes, annoyed moans, and the occasional hacking cough.
'Sounds like the ghost of someone who died of the sniffles,' Ralph had commented, a little put off by the roaming, cranky specter.
'It's a good theory,' Wentworth agreed. 'We thought the same thing, so we had him tested. Some teensy old lady from the Medical College came over and took an ecto-sample. According to her, Bump's a poltergeist, through and through.'
'She sure
Gobbins poked his wand toward Bump, who moaned irritably and snaked off toward the bookshelf. 'She said that there wasn't much point in checking, really,' he added. 'She said that there hasn't been a real, bonafide ghost at the Aleron for decades.'
'Really?' James asked, curious. 'Hogwarts is full of them. One of them used to be our History teacher. Why aren't there any here?'
Wentworth shrugged where he sat by the door in an old high-backed easy chair. 'Nobody knows. Maybe because of the Timelock. Maybe ghosts just can't keep up with the way the campus roams all over the centuries every day.'
'But there
'So what happened to all the ghosts then?' Ralph asked.
Jazmine shook her head. 'Like Went said, nobody knows for sure. Maybe they just don't make ghosts like they used to, eh?'
Mukthatch grunted and barked, anxious to get on with the lesson.
Things went well enough and James' initial concerns began to wear off. The third time the group met, however, Norrick appeared in the attic common room, having heard about the Clutch magic practices that were secretly taking place there. Grudgingly, James allowed him to stay, so long as he kept the lessons a secret. By the next week, however, two more members of the team had appeared on the long couch beneath the room's single window, grinning eagerly, their wands in hands.
'I didn't tell anyone!' Norrick said defensively as James glared at him. 'It's all over the house now. You can't keep secrets very long around here. I even heard Heckle and Jeckle arguing about it downstairs. Heckle thinks we should be learning some tandem spells, by the way, just to mix it up a little.'
James sighed. The truth was that he didn't really mind. Team Bigfoot's Clutch magic was coming along slowly but surely, even if it was fairly standard stuff. James sensed that Professor Wood was still somewhat uncomfortable with it, but he had not yet said anything about it. Perhaps this was because the team had not yet won a match, even though the final scores were growing increasingly close. The last match, in fact, had ended in a tie. James had been disappointed to learn that, according to the rules of Clutchcudgel, a tie game translated to a win for whatever team had had the best record coming into the match, thus giving Team Pixie a technical victory. It had been a moral win for the Bigfoots, nonetheless, and there had been raucous celebration in the locker cellar following the match.
As the team carried their good cheer with them back to Apollo Mansion, James recalled his dad's stories about Quidditch at Hogwarts and felt, for the first time, a deep sense of pride that he was living up to his father's image. In fact, according to the old stories, Oliver Wood himself had been quite the formidable player and had been madly passionate about winning. Perhaps Wood's reluctance to use offensive and defensive magic—whether or not it was rooted in his insecurities about his deceased parents and their disapproval of his participation in the Battle of Hogwarts—was held in check by his much older love of sporting victory. James hoped so. He still had more things he wanted to try.
'All right, you lot,' he said, now speaking to slightly more than half of the entire Bigfoot Clutch team, crammed uncomfortably into the attic common room. 'That's everything I know. Time for us to get a little creative. Your homework over the weekend is to research something new, something that the other teams will never expect us to know, and come back Monday ready to teach it to the rest of us. Got it?'
There was a rumble of eager excitement throughout the cramped space. Bump lurked by the bookcase with a large encyclopedia in his wispy hand, as if he couldn't choose who to throw it at.
Across the campus, the leaves had all finally drifted from the trees, carpeting the lawns with orange and yellow. The trees scratched their bare branches at the sky as winter settled slowly over the campus, bringing gusty winds and an increasing chill. James broke out his heavy cloak and began wearing it to classes, buttoned dutifully beneath his chin, its stiff collar sticking up around his ears.
'Very dashing,' Lucy had said on one grey day, smiling crookedly at her cousin as they made their way toward Administration Hall for lunch. 'You'd fit right in at Vampire House. Cloaks are all the rage this year.'
'Along with plastic fangs and black hair dye,' Albus grumped next to her, walking with his hands stuffed into his blazer pockets.
Lucy clucked her tongue. 'You're just mad because you lost the Quidditch tournament to us.'
'The tourney's not over yet,' Albus countered stridently. 'And
Lucy shrugged as if she didn't care. 'May the best team win, of course.'
Albus bristled but didn't pursue it any further. James knew that his brother's experiences in Werewolf House were mixed and this was contributing to his natural moodiness. Sometimes, Albus spoke very highly and proudly of life in Ares Mansion. Other times, he seemed sullen and dejected, slinking over to sit with James, Zane, and Ralph in the corner booth at the Kite and Key, rather than joining the long table near the fireplace where the rest of the Werewolves often gathered. Once or twice, James tried to question Albus about his new mates, but Albus always replied defensively, claiming that nothing was wrong, he loved his house, and couldn't a bloke come and sit by his brother every now and then without being grilled about his personal life? Eventually, James gave up asking about it.
Petra still appeared regularly in Professor Baruti's Potion-Making class and James was glad to see that she generally seemed to be in good spirits. Apparently, Izzy was settling in well at the small campus grade school, which was mostly attended by children of other teachers and administrators. The two of them lived in a small apartment on the top floor of one of the houses on Faculty Row. James saw them occasionally at dinner in the cafeteria and sat with them whenever he did.
Strangely, those were the times when he felt the most homesick for Hogwarts, even more so than when he talked to Rose, Scorpius, and the rest via the Shard. Sitting with Petra and Izzy, Ralph, and Zane, laughing and talking, reminded him almost painfully of his days in the Great Hall and the Gryffindor common room. Sometimes, on these occasions, he felt the strangest feeling of loss and worry, as if he might never again return to those halls, might never again see all those familiar people and places. It was silly, of course. He'd be returning soon enough. Still, the feeling lingered, and sometimes, especially late at night, he'd find himself thinking of his last conversation with Professor Trelawney. He'd recall her distant, haunted eyes, and her frightening words:
Occasionally, James saw his mum and dad and sister Lily. They came to some of his Clutchcudgel matches, although not as many as they wanted to, according to his father. Harry Potter's work was becoming more and more hectic, he said, and James could see it in both of his parents' faces. There was a quiet tension there, and an unspoken worry. No outside newspapers made their way onto the campus of Alma Aleron, but James sensed that things were not at all well in the outside world.
