Chapter Twenty-One: Out of Our Hands

The day had finally come, April 27th. Today it would be decided whether Gryffindor would go to the Quidditch Cup Finals against Hufflepuff, or if they would have to play Slytherin for that honor. And there was nothing that the Gryffindor Team could do to change or impact the result. It was out of their hands now, and it would come down to a Matchup between Ravenclaw and Slytherin.

Though he didn't say it to anyone, it was also James Potter's 12th Birthday, and he was hoping that his friends in Ravenclaw would give him a nice present by beating Slytherin and sending Gryffindor straight to the Finals against Hufflepuff.

Though James didn't say it to anyone, his Dorm-Mates knew him far too well to forget that it was his birthday, and they were going to make sure it was a memorable one regardless of what happened on the Quidditch Pitch that day. Of course, there were plenty of other adjectives that James could think of to describe being awoken by having a large bucket of ice cold water dumped over his head, which the others had thought would be the best way to wake him up.

Once they'd dried him off though, the morning got considerably better, as Jeremey Andrew and Zach had chipped in to get a set of four small gold bracelets. James was not big on jewelry, but he knew that he was going to wear this one. In fancy lettering, it read:

Gryffindor Class of 2023

James Potter

Each of the bracelets contained a small glyph: James' represented courage, Jeremey's was loyalty, Andrew's was trust, and Zach's was friendship. When the four bracelets came together, the Glyphs would melt away and converge to form a Gryffindor Lion. It was so corny, but at the same time it was the best gift that James had ever received.

"I think we may have just started a new school tradition." James said, waving his arm in the air, causing the bracelet to shake around in the light.

"Nah, don't go telling people." Jeremey said, "This way it's unique, we're unique. It's something just for us, and not for anyone else."

James understood what he meant, it was doubtful that any other group of Dorm-Mates in Hogwarts' long history had ever been as close as those four were. They were inseparable, and each of the boys was as a brother to the other three. Now, because of the bracelets, they would always be a part of each other. No matter what happened.

The Slytherin Players in the Great Hall were just as nervous as the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff Players had been the month before, for them this game was their last chance to stay alive. The Ravenclaws, on the other hand, were calm and collected, and they were laughing with the rest of their Housemates.

Unlike the others, this game was all but meaningless to Ravenclaw House, which had no chance of winning the Quidditch Cup anymore. Their only incentive to do well would be to ensure that Slytherin did not win. In James' mind that was a worthy goal to pursue, but would the Ravenclaw Players think so?

James trudged to the stands with the rest of Gryffindor House, keeping his fingers crossed that Ravenclaw's newly revamped (again) roster was able to work some magic against the Slytherin Team, and pull out a win.

Either way, they would find out soon enough, as the Quaffle was released to start the game. Three-Quarters of the crowd was fully engrossed in the game, only the Hufflepuffs did not have anything vested in this game. The Hufflepuffs knew that it would be no easier going against Gryffindor than Slytherin, or vice-versa. Their ideal scenario was a Slytherin victory, which would force a tie-breaker between Gryffindor and Slytherin. As it was sure to be a brutal game, the winning team might be so battered that it would not be able to put up much of a fight against Hufflepuff.

However, very few of the Hufflepuff supporters subscribed to this line of thought, and so the sections of the crowd wearing yellow followed the game with a respectful interest that was far below that of the remaining three-quarters of the crowd.

Though the win would not help them advance any further, the Ravenclaw faithful still wanted to see their team pull off a win, which they had not been able to do so far that year. And if James knew anything about Jason, he knew that the boy would not sit idly by as Ravenclaw coasted to its first victory-less season in over a century.

James' assumptions proved to be correct, as Jason turned into an absolute monster early on, knocking Slytherin Seeker Remington Parker off his broom twice in the opening minutes with two well-placed Bludgers. This success lead to a grand round of applause from the supporters in Blue and Red, both because he had winded the opposing Seeker, and because most people just did not like Remington's nasty violent ways.

The game was much slower than most of those that James had either witnessed or taken part in, the Beaters of both sides relentlessly pounding the opposition until offense had slowed to a trickle. After the Match had been going on for nearly an hour, the score was only 30-40.

While James followed the Match, he trusted Jeremey to keep him updated on the movements of the Seekers, and the Snitch. In fact, so well trained was Jeremey's Seeker Eye that no fewer than three times he pointed out the Snitch when neither Seeker had noticed it.

Finally though, Remington Parker caught sight of the Snitch near ground level. He turned to chase it, but Justin Shindler was already two broom lengths ahead of him. Despite Remington's desperate attempts to coax more speed out of his broom it was no use…Justin simply had too much of a lead to be overcame. Justin pulled out of a dive with the Snitch caught between his fingers, and it was over, Ravenclaw had won!

200-40 was the final score, and Paul and Jason's exceptional work as Beaters had been a big part in Ravenclaw's victory against Slytherin. It took James some time after the Game had ended to remember why he had been so obsessed with the Match's outcome. At first, he had been too busy singing his friends' praises, but once he had stopped, he realized what the Ravenclaw win had meant.

"Oh my god!" James exclaimed, "Jer! We're going to the Finals!" he yelled, high-fiving his friend as they descended from the standings.

"We've gotta throw those guys a party." Jeremey said as they left the Pitch, "A real one, those Ravenclaws don't know how to throw a good Party, only us Gryffindors know what a real Party looks like!"

James was, of course, in agreement as everyone knew that Gryffindors threw the best Parties, but such a thing was unheard of. Where were they going to do it?

Finally, they decided to let the guys enjoy their Ravenclaw-Party, and whatever fun that might have been, and then they'd have a proper celebration the next morning on the grounds.

"What'd you guys do, have group study time?" Andrew asked when Jason, Nick, and Paul arrived at their meeting place the next morning, wearing the telltale signs of someone who had been up all night partying.

"No, better." Paul said sarcastically, "We reviewed each other's Potions Essays, and then to be really crazy we decided to have an entire night without any reading at all!" Whistling as though he could not believe that they had actually gone through with such an insane plan, he added "It was hardcore man, hardcore!"

Since it would have been rather pointless to throw another full party the next day, they had decided instead to just have a get together, toast Gryffindor and Hufflepuff's chances in the Finals, and just talk. They were a much smaller bunch, just the Quidditch Players: James, Jeremey, Jason, Nick, Paul, Christian, and Dwayne. And, of course, Jeremey and James had insisted that Andrew and Zach come along anyway, because it just wouldn't have felt right without the other half of their Dorm there.

They had, naturally, talked about the one thing that was on everyone's mind that day: the upcoming Quidditch Cup Final that was to be played between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff.

"I'm sorry James, but you guys are gonna get thrashed again. Christian's just too good between the hoops, and I hate to say it Jer, but Billy just totally upstages you." Jason said, brutally honest with his opinions as usual.

"There's no way in hell I'm losing to the same guy twice!" Jeremey replied, shaking his head in disgust. "I made a fundamental mistake, I hesitated, and that's not going to happen again."

"I've gotta side with Jeremey on this one," Paul interrupted, "I just don't see how they're gonna let the same thing happen again.

"Let?" Nick said, laughing as though Paul had just said something extremely childish, "It's not a matter of what they're going to 'let' happen, it's a matter of how badly they're gonna get wrecked!"

"Is any of this really necessary?" Christian asked, growing red-faced at all of the conversation concerning him. For someone who had emerged as such a star on the Quidditch Pitch, Christian was very reluctant to have attention lavished over him…it made him very uncomfortable.

Ignoring him, Jason agreed with Nick saying "He's right. Look at it this way, no one at Hogwarts is in the same league as the Nash brothers; and Jay and Alex are not very good Beaters by any standard. So Hufflepuffs got far better Beaters. Christian wipes the floor with Brittney any day of the week, so they're better in goal too. Up front, I'd say Paige and Dwayne are both better than anyone Gryffindor can field, and Lindsay's up there too. So Offensively Hufflepuff wins out. And in terms of Seekers, it's a close one, but Jeremey you just don't have Billy's experience. So Hufflepuff's got better players at every position!"

Of course, this had lead to a fair bit of arguing from James and Jeremey about how their players were far better than those of the Hufflepuff Team, tactfully not mentioning Dwayne and Christian, both of whom were present.

"Alright, so they've got Dwayne and Christian, so what?" James said, "That's two good players, we've got seven! And I think you're seriously overrating some of their guys. Like Paige, she couldn't catch the Quaffle if it had a handle on it. And I think Billy just got lucky last game, he's not beating my boy Jeremey next time!"

Jeremey had chosen this moment to cut in and say "Plus, our Chasers are good enough to stay away from any Bludgers that the Nash's hit at them. Doesn't matter how hard they're hitting the things if you can't hit anybody.

"Aw, that's a load of rubbish!" Dwayne argued, "I've seen your Chasers practice, and other than James they're not that good. I'm not ripping on Teddy or anything, but he'd just not as good as you guys give him credit for being.

And so it went back and forth for some time, with the boys good naturedly teasing each other's abilities once they got tired of discussing the Match itself. James in particular had been the butt of a large number of the jokes, which may have been in part due to the fact that some of them were coming from his own Teammate.

"You're only supposed to rip on them!" James had protested, too busy laughing to really care all that much. "Not me." To which Andrew had shrugged and replied "But you're a lot more fun to have a go at."

"Yea, but I know where you sleep Andrew," James retorted, "and if you keep this up you're not going to be sleeping all that well tonight. At least, it would be in your best interests not to." James' hollow threat had lead to a fresh round of laughter before Christian found a remark that would suit the situation.

By the end of the night, even James was fresh out of jokes, and the boys had managed to go through at least two dozen bottles of butterbeer between the nine of them, an accomplishment which Zach said that they should all be proud of.

However, for James, the most interesting thing to happen that day, came at around nine o' clock that night. Upon returning to the Boy's Dormitory, he had found that Stella had left him a letter while he had been out all day. Hastily scrawled on the parchment was:

James,

I haven't seen you in over a month now, why don't you come down for tea next Saturday? We can catch up, and there was something that I've been meaning to tell you.

Hagrid

Folding the letter in half and tossing it back into the indiscernible disaster area on top of his dresser, James rolled over under his sheets and wondered what it was Hagrid so needed to tell him. Maybe it was something about the MHM! Even if not, he could always ask Hagrid about the Battle of Hogwarts while he was there, see if he could get any clues about what it was that they were looking for.