The terrace at the top of the Astronomy tower was deserted.
Red breathed a sigh of relief as she crept through the door, trying not to let it creak as she pushed it closed behind her. She crossed to the edge and rested her elbows on the stone battlements, her gaze drifting out over the valley below her, the fat, round moon reflecting perfectly on the glassy black Loch. The sky behind her was still a wash of inky darkness. In front of her was a world made only of swatches of blue, grey and black, so simple and melancholic it made her heart hurt. The air smelt cold, like frost, and she realised that her breath was fogging in front of her. She hugged the blanket closer around her, wishing she was wearing more than just jeans and a t-shirt against the icy night.
"Cold?" came a voice from behind her.
She jumped around, her wand out in a flash. A head materialised out of thin air, a head with messy black hair, soft brown eyes and a devilish grin. The head was quickly followed by a hand held up in a peace-like gesture.
"James!" she growled, turning back to the wall and stuffing her wand back into her pocket.
"Did I scare you?" he teased, coming to stand beside her.
"Surprised me," she corrected, not looking at him. She was embarrassed at being caught unawares.
"I'm good at that," he replied. "I figured someone was up here."
Red carried on pretending to stare at the sky. "How did you manage that?"
"I put an alarm spell on the tapestry," James replied nonchalantly.
"You've been following me?!"
He shook his head quickly. "Of course not! I didn't know who it was, that's why I was wearing the invisibility cloak. I just made it so that if anyone went through the shortcut, it'd make my phoenix sing."
If she felt any awe at his advanced spell-casting skills, she chose not give him the satisfaction of showing it. Instead she snorted: "Make your phoenix sing? That some kind of innuendo?"
"You wish you could make my phoenix sing," he grinned. She batted at his shoulder with the back of her hand but instead met something very solid.
"Ouch!" she yelped, grabbing her own hand. James lunged towards her, his face full of concern. As he did so, the remainder of the invisibility cloak slipped off, revealing two brooms held in the crook of his elbow. All thoughts of her injured hand disappeared as she watched them topple off his arm and towards the side of the tower. She lunged forwards, catching the brooms before they could splinter on the stone a hundred feet below.
"Thanks," said James but she could barely hear him: she was staring, open mouthed at the broom clutched in left her hand. She hastily thrust the other one back at him and lifted the first for a better look: the many-times polished mahogany handle; the still-neatly trimmed bristles; the golden lettering sparkling with its own incandescence in the half-light… It couldn't be…
"This is a… Firebolt…" she said, daring James to tell her she was wrong.
"Yeah," he said, with a hint of pride, "It's my dad's old one."
At this her face broke into a grin. "I'm holding Harry Potter's Firebolt?" she laughed, "His school broomstick?"
"Ah… no," James said, "His school one got destroyed by the Death Eaters at some point but he bought a new one after the Hogwarts Battle, even though there were loads of better models. Said it reminded him of his godfather, Sirius."
"Sirius Black?" she asked, the name ringing a bell.
James nodded. "Yep. I'm named after him. My middle name, that is."
Red was still staring at the Firebolt, one finger gently resting on the handle.
"Why are you so excited about a broomstick?" James asked. She looked at him incredulously.
"Because. It's Harry. Potter's. Firebolt."
"Didn't get this excited when you met me, and I'm his son," James muttered.
"Well…" she shook her head at him. "Well, you're your own person, you know? And it's not so much that it's your dad's, though that's pretty cool. It's just that its a Firebolt. I love Firebolts."
"You want to fly it?" he asked tentatively.
"What do you think?!" she laughed and jumped onto the battlements, shedding her blanket as she made to mount the broom. With one leg almost over she stopped, put her foot steadily back on the wall and turned to face James.
"You knew it was me up here, didn't you?"
He shook his head slowly and stepped towards her. "Nope," he said, "But I'd hoped it was."
His face, a foot above hers normally but now a foot below, was awfully close. And getting closer.
"Stop," she said quietly and he did, frowning. She moved her head towards his but avoided his mouth, stopping instead beside his ear.
"Don't ruin it," she whispered, straightened and stepped backwards off the wall.
The last thing she saw - with a wicked jolt in her stomach quite unrelated to her backwards fall - was James's shocked face, soon lost behind the battlements. She fell for 50 feet or so, the wind rushing past her ears and whipping her hair painfully against her face. I wish I could fall like this forever, she thought, the blur shooting past her and the somersaulting in her stomach overwhelming all other thoughts. But quickly, instinct kicked in and she flipped in midair, one hand already grasping the Firebolt and the other snaking out to catch it. She opened her mouth and let the rushing air fill her lungs, screaming 'UP!' as she clasped her legs around the handle. For one awful moment the broom didn't respond, the ground still racing up to meet her only 100 - 80 - 50 feet away… And then momentum was defied, the broom shot forward under her touch and she was doing what she did best – she was flying.
She felt an intense thrill as the Firebolt responded effortlessly to her every touch: just a light tilt forward and it sped up; a lean to the side and it turned smoothly. After playing around in the air above the courtyard for a while, she set her sights on the Great Lake and leaned flat against the broom, whizzing through the air like an oversized arrow. She had never felt such speed, and to be in control of it was beyond exhilarating. She leaned right and barrel-rolled, over and over until all she could see was a whistling corkscrew of all the colours of night, coming to a sudden stop that would have thrown any other rider off their broom. She was upside down now and a hundred feet above the gently rippling surface of the lake. She aimed the Firebolt downwards and straightened up a few feet above the water, still clinging to the broom like a sloth. Checking her ankles were locked tightly together, she let go with her hands and let her body hang there, her fingers just dipping into the cold water, ripping through it so fast each tip left its own wake. Laughing, she hauled herself back onto the broom and spun back to an upright position.
She had turned back in the direction of the castle, now a dark mass almost a mile in the distance, when she felt it: a light tingling in her fingertips. She shook her head, telling herself it was just her imagination, or maybe from the cold of the water and the night air. No such luck: a glow began to rise in her fingertips, like light beneath her skin, spreading from her fingernails to her first knuckles and further. By the time it had reached her wrists, crackles of electric blue had begun to spark around her hands and her gut was filled with panic.
"No…" she said through gritted teeth, "Not now… No!". She gulped in lung-fulls of freezing cold air in a desperate bid to calm herself down. She looked on in horror as the blue crackles began to make their way up to her elbows. With a horrible and familiar sense of inevitability, she felt her breathing losing control and her limbs begin to stiffen. With a sudden scream, her head snapped back and the blue glow enveloped her, the crackling tendrils of light whipping, snakelike around her convulsing body. Her vision filled with tears that blurred and smeared the moon and stars above her and she felt herself lurch backwards, off the broom and down, down until the water met her with a fierce smack, leaving all the world to go dark.