Cold, driving wind blew icy needles into every inch of exposed flesh, and sent frozen fingers grasping down collars and up sleeves. Persistent rain slanted in across the pitch. First one way, and then another, caught and blown hither and thither on eddies of the gale that became frantically trapped within the confines of the stadium. Far out above the pitch, away from the relative shelter of James' seat in the stands, figures darted and whipped through the winds, looking little more than leaves scattered on a whimsical breeze.

With hands tucked firmly into armpits, James squinted through the rain-haze. The intricacies of a Rain-Repelling Charm were far beyond the fifth-year curriculum, and even Cassie's best effort had begun to wear thin, as the small puddles pooling at James' feet could attest to. Beside him, Fred yelled something, followed closely by a groan. James winced, as a bone-jarring collision played out at midfield. The dark smudge of the falling Quaffle was soon lost to a thick veil of falling rain.

To James' left, Al was busy trying to conjure up a bluebell flame to keep the chill away. But everything he managed just hissed and sputtered in the rain, and danced and skipped chaotically beneath the gusting wind, clouding their eyes with acrid smoke one moment, and threatening to catch their sneakers alight the next.

The three of them had a whole section of the stadium to themselves, so poor was the match attendance. The sudden storm that had hurtled down from the mountains to the north had kept all of the "sensible" students indoors, as Cassie had firmly put it, when James offered her to come along. Although now, with a big, fat raindrop sliding suddenly down the neck of his collar, James was beginning to see her reasoning.

And if he thought she'd have let him get away with anything other than a gruelling study session, he might have joined her and Clip in a cosy corner of the library. Then again, he'd managed to spy them holding hands as they retreated off up the Grand Staircase that morning. They were far less surreptitious than they gave themselves credit for. Perhaps it was set to be one "study session" that he really didn't want to be privy to.

He certainly hadn't needed to think too long about joining Cat going flower picking down near the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Cassie had warned her at length of the dozen or so chills she was likely to catch. Fred called her a whole suite of unflattering names when she couldn't hear, but Rain had decided to join her. The weather, weirdly, seemed to cheer her up immensely.

And so, only Fred and Al had decided to join him. Fred had spent the whole trip down to the pitch giving James pointed looks and secret smiles, and filling in an otherwise-oblivious Al on all of the dramas of James' break-up with Odette.

They were, after all, watching Slytherin play Hufflepuff. And the significance – if there even really was any significance – was not lost on Fred.

'Everyone's talking about you and Ava, mate,' Fred turned and yelled at James. Under any other circumstances, James would have told him to put a sock in it, but as they were the sole inhabitants of this section of the stand, and James could barely hear him anyway, he decided to let it slide.

'There's nothin' to talk about!' James yelled back.

'You're stuffing what?'

'I said– oh, never mind.'

Annoyingly, Fred flashed James a wink and a thumbs-up.

Out on the pitch, a golden-clad figure swooped past their seats, mesmerizingly fast. James gasped as a Bludger roared out of the gloom, but the figure executed a perfect sloth-grip roll and ducked underneath it. James caught a flash of red hair – it could have only been Ava – and then a faint cheer, as if from a great distance. Goal to Hufflepuff.

A sudden gust of wind drove the rain sideways into their faces, and the last gasp of Cassie's Rain Repellent Charm gave out. James was almost instantly soaked.

'Bloody wet,' he growled, gesturing out at the pitch.

'Quit bragging!' Fred yelled back.

In a desperate attempt to steer the conversation away from his non-existent love-life, James turned to Al.

'What about those Ravenclaw birds who were following you around, mate?' he asked.

Apparently able to hear this without any difficulty whatsoever, Fred shuffled over to join in.

'There were three of them, weren't there?'

'Five,' Al corrected, yelling into the wind.

James nearly swallowed his tongue.

'You git!' Fred laughed. 'And I have a hard time trying to hold down one!'

'That's because they all think you're as likely to set fire to them as you are to give them a cuddle.'

'Once,' Fred scowled. 'That happened once. And everyone should know, you don't grab the arse of a man who's lighting fireworks!'

James could only shake his head. He'd seen the poor girl, scorched hair and all, sprinting off across the castle grounds with tears in her eyes. Admittedly, Leah Ridley and Rosalie Gardner had troubled James and Fred much less, after that.

'So where are your lovebirds?' James asked, making a show of looking around the stand. 'They weren't up for a romantic afternoon in the sleet?'

Al shrugged, a little shyly. 'They sort of don't talk to me so much any more.'

A ragged cheer drifted their way. James turned and squinted out on the pitch, sheltering his eyes from the worst of the rain. Slytherin had just scored a goal. The time had long since passed when James had been able to keep track of the score. He could hardly even see one end of the pitch.

'The shine's worn off the old Quidditch stardom, has it?' Fred joked.

'Not exactly…' Al shrugged, suddenly recalcitrant. Annoyingly, the Rain-Repelling Charm he had had cast upon him was still working fine. James was starting to think Cassie had done it on purpose.

'Do tell,' Fred said with an eager grin.

'We spent a night last week in an unused classroom together–'

'O-ho!' Fred roared.

'You what?!' James yelled.

'Relax,' Al said, holding out his hands in a placating gesture. 'Nothing happened. We just sort of… hung out. Rose had filled me in on what I was supposed to do. She said that under no circumstance was I to try any "hanky-panky" she called it. And that maybe, if one of them approached me, then I could… you know… but only one, that was it.

'But I didn't know which one! They were all so nice…'

Fred was just shaking his head in despair. 'You're a clot. You're a total, utter pillock, Albus Potter. Do you know that?'

'Hey! I got an "O" on my Charms test last week.'

'Let me rephrase. You're an idiot where it counts, then. The first rule of engagement is that you don't ask a girl advice about other girls! That's like… like asking a fish how to cook a fish. They're going to tell you to leave it in the ocean!'

'I'm not sure the validity of this analogy. I'm not going to be eating any of them…'

James just smirked. 'Boy, have I got a book for you…'

Fred and Al continued to banter back and forth, but James turned his focus inwards for a moment. Inaction. It had cost Al his chance with the Ravenclaw girls. It was the other side of Renshaw's sword. And, perhaps, it cut even deeper. The consequences of inaction were often worse, and more permanent than those of acting decisively. He would be chained to those decisions he didn't make, just as surely as he would be to the ones he did. At least, James thought, if he did act, he could feel like he was influencing matters himself, instead of this constant feeling of being pulled along in a current, and whilst everybody else had boats, he was struggling to keep his head above water.

He just needed to figure out which course of action was the right one.

Thankfully, Fred eventually snapped James out of his dreary reverie with a most excellent suggestion.

'Hey, let's move back a few rows. These charms are all but gone, and I'm soaked.'

The three boys turned their back on the pitch for a moment, and welcomed the relative calm of the seats near the back of the stand. The view wasn't nearly as good, but there was almost no rain pelting them, and the worst of the wind did little more than gently stir the hairs on their heads. Fred relaxed with a big sigh and leaned back, resting his feet on the seat in front. Al, obviously deciding he couldn't see the match sufficiently well to warrant straining his eyes, pulled out a book and made as if to start studying.

'I've got a question,' James suddenly blurted out.

'Fire away,' Fred said.

He had to force his mind to catch up with his words, as he struggled to find a way to phrase what he wanted to say without alerting either of them. Eventually, he took inspiration from his surroundings, and cleared his throat to speak.

'What do you two think I ought to do if… if I had a suspicion that somebody was sneaking into the spare broom shed behind the pitch and Hexing some of the brooms?'

Al snapped his book closed with a whump. Fred sat bolt upright, suddenly paying full attention.

'Who was it?' Al asked.

'A Slytherin, no doubt,' Fred growled.

'Hypothetically,' James stressed, holding up his hands. 'What should I do?'

'Hold them down and stuff enough incendiaries down their trousers to send them to Jupiter,' Fred urged, flashing a handful of such devices, summoned from nowhere, to go with an evil, calculating grin.

Not entirely helpful, James thought. He decided to give them a little more prodding.

'What if I'm not sure, right now? What if… I know who the person is, I've seen them skulking around the broom shed with their wand out, but I'm not entirely sure that they are Hexing the brooms. They might be… cleaning them.'

Fred gave James a level stare. 'You and I both know that those brooms haven't been cleaned since we started Hogwarts. Probably not since the last war. What's this really about?'

'Just… answer the question,' James urged. 'Hypothetically.'

Fred crossed his arms. 'I'm assuming you can't hypothetically force this person at wandpoint to saddle up on one of these brooms and try it out for themselves?'

'Hypothetically not.'

'Then you need to find out just what it is they're hypothetically doing in that broom shed, and fast.'

'And if they are Hexing the brooms?'

'I'm assuming the incendiaries option is still off the cards?'

James stared back flatly. But it was Al, not Fred, who replied.

'I'm not quite sure I'm up to speed on just what you two are hypothesising about, but if you ask me, James, you need to do something about it. I think you would need to go and tell a professor. Longbottom, or Miss Meadows, perhaps. I know you fancy her.'

'Oi, you git. Do you not think I should confront her– them. Confront them. Nobody wants to be known as a tattler.'

Al was quiet for a moment. He rubbed at some non-existent fluff on his chin while he thought.

'No,' he finally said, with certainty. 'I don't think you should. Hexing broomsticks is serious business, James. People could get hurt. We all know the story about Dad when he was in first year. It's about keeping people safe, James. It has to be. How you feel about your reputation doesn't really matter, in this instance. And if all you do is confront them, what's to stop them turning around and doing it again behind your back? The only time I'd take that option, was if I knew that I could trust this person entirely.

'Can you do that, James? Can you trust this person?'

James looked away, seeing the truth reflected back at him in Fred and Al's mirrored gazes. 'I don't know,' he whispered softly.

Mercifully, a commotion from the pitch put an end to any further hypothesising. A brief lessening of the rain had peeled back the curtains and revealed much of the scene below. James could see, down near midfield, a streak of green diving towards a spot mere inches above the turf. A golden streak from the opposite end of the pitch was the Hufflepuff Seeker, joining in the chase. Bludgers flew. Odette dodged one gracefully. A second splattered harmlessly into the mud over the Hufflepuff Seeker's shoulder.

James winced, anticipating the collision of bodies a moment before it occurred. There was a wet sort of thud that echoed even over the sound of the wind and rain, and both Seekers collapsed into the ground, motionless.

James couldn't stop himself. He darted to the edge of the stand and gripped the railing, peering down at the green and gold figures. His sigh of relief came, not when the Hufflepuff Seeker eventually sprung up, waving the Snitch above her head enthusiastically, but when Odette eventually pushed herself up on shaky legs, and staggered off in the direction of the Slytherin lockers.

'Hufflepuff will be hard to beat this year,' Fred said. 'They might go back to back.'

James gave a non-committal noise from the back of his throat. As much as he hated to admit it, Fred was probably right. He contented himself by leading the group off down the stairwell, already planning on locking himself away in a quiet room to do a lot of thinking and soul-searching.

But it was going to have to wait.

'There he is! James, get over here, you wonderful human!'

'That's our cue to leave,' Fred muttered, as Ava Adams bounded in from the pitch, dripping wet and splashed head-to-toe with mud.

Al just gaped, pointing listlessly between James and Ava. 'Are you really…'

'No,' James growled, and the same time that Fred smirked and said 'Yes!'

The both of them disappeared, with Fred throwing his arm over Al's shoulders and promising to fill him in on "the rest of it" on their way up to the castle.

'You came to watch!' Ava squealed, wrapping James up in a very impromptu – and very muddy – hug.

'Er, yeah,' James said lamely, wiping a smear of turf from his cheek. 'You know, got to keep an eye on the competition, and all.'

'And how did we look?' Ava asked with mock-seriousness, striking a heroic, mud-streaked pose.

James, forgetting himself, only mumbled, 'You look amazing.'

'What's that?'

'Nothing. It was an, erm… close game. I think?'

'How fantastic is wet-weather Quidditch?' Ava asked, beaming.

'Err…' James eloquently replied.

'We were a little soft in defence on the left wing. We played the coverage too tight, and their Chasers are too big and burly for us, they kept muscling us off the Quaffle.'

James nodded, and finally managed to find his voice. 'The trick is actually to cover them even tighter. They're big and burly, but none-too-bright. Get up in their face and they get all mad and flustered, then they couldn't toss a Quaffle through a barn door.'

'Ugh, I tried that. Look what they gave me for my troubles.'

Ava rolled up a sleeve of her robe to reveal – somewhere beneath the thick coating of mud – a massive purplish bruise.

'Ouch.'

'You betcha. Aaa-anyway, I bet you're wondering why I'm so happy today?'

'Honestly, I just thought you were happy all the time.'

'Heavens, no! Have you heard the news? Tristan's back on the team! I had him sit out this match, while he gets familiar with the playbook, but next game he'll be back in business!'

'Excellent!' James smiled. 'Hold on a minute, don't we play you next?'

'Sure do!'

'Great.'

Ava flashed him a bright, toothy smile, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet excitedly. James had to force himself to maintain eye contact.

'Thanks, James. For everything. I couldn't have done it without you. And you were right, about what you said, with the Quidditch. Nobody can take that away from me.'

'Would that I could for your next match against Gryffindor.'

Ava smiled again. 'The girls were extremely jealous of my James Potter adventure, by the way.'

'I do have the best adventures.'

This time, Ava's smile was a flighty, nervous thing. There and gone before James was sure he'd even seen it.

'P-perhaps there'll be another adventure, sometime soon?'

James smiled, as a feeling in his stomach a little like vertigo swooped over him. 'I'll start making the plans right now.'

Ava laughed, and darted in for a final, quick hug. But James had less than a second to enjoy it before a green-clad figure rounded the corner ahead of him and planted fists on shapely hips.

'Ava Adams,' Odette drawled. 'How very unsurprising to catch you here, rubbing your tits all over Potter.'

Ava stepped back, calmly folding her arms and staring quite pointedly at Odette's chest.

'Well, I suppose somebody has to show him what it feels like, for a change.'

'Why, you–'

'Bye, James!' Ava giggled. 'See you later.'

And with that, Ava skipped off, back out into the downpour, as if it wasn't even raining at all.

'I assume you're seeking me out for a reason, Odette,' James said flatly. 'And not just to start a fight.'

Odette made her way over to him. An act that was far more drawn-out than usual, owing to the severe limp she was currently sporting. If anything, she was even more dishevelled than Ava, having fallen face-first into the mud-soaked pitch not ten minutes prior.

'Which one of us did you come to watch?' Odette finally asked, resting on a nearby wall for support.

James sighed heavily. 'I'll tell you the same thing I told Ava. I was coming purely in my capacity as the Captain of Gryffindor team. I need to understand the competition. It was you who taught me that, after all.'

Odette gave a mud-streaked smile. 'You're lying to one of us, then. And, if you believe that nonsense, to yourself as well. No matter. It doesn't bother me at all.'

'Good.'

'Good.'

There was an awkward pause. Odette tried to shift her weight, but gave a gasp of pain, and leant more heavily on the wall.

'Do you want me to…' James started, half raising a hand.

Odette shook her head, pale beneath the dirt streaking her face. Eventually, she got her pain under control and the mask fell into place once more.

'I got offered the position. I thought I'd let you know. With the Magpies. I accepted, too. Training camp starts a week after term finishes. I'm going to be the only Seeker on their roster, and they're paying me one-hundred-and-fifty Galleons per match! The older players get more, but if I play well, they could increase it to two-fifty for next year.'

James would have had to have been blind and deaf to miss the way Odette's excitement was bubbling over. She'd even gone so far as to push aside their enmity to share the joy with him.

'Congratulations, Odette. I'm happy for you.'

'I- wait. I thought you didn't want me to do it?'

'I didn't. But maybe you were right, maybe I was just being selfish, not wanting to lose you to the League. Either way, it's no longer my place to say, so I hope it brings you happiness.'

The shock was writ plain on Odette's features. James didn't take any pleasure in it, he simply noted that it was there.

'Th-thanks, James. It will.'

There was another awkward silence. This one, though, didn't feel as if it had been scripted by Odette. James had the feeling that she was genuinely at a loss.

'We had a good run, didn't we, James,' she finally said in a very small voice.

James pressed his lips into a thin line, trying not to let emotion show on his face. He didn't want to let on how her words twisted the knife within him. He couldn't afford to pick at a wound that hadn't yet healed.

'We did.'

'Maybe we were right to end it. We were little like a car with no brakes, you and I. We sped down a hill, faster and faster, and boy, if it wasn't the most exhilarating thing in my life. But I think we always knew – and that added to the thrill – that it had to end. And that the longer we left it, the messier the crash would be. Perhaps it was the right decision, after all.'

James didn't speak. He didn't trust himself to. He only gave a small, affirmatory sound, and a nod of his head. But as Odette stood there, bloodied and bruised, her mud-soaked hair matted to her scalp, and her shoulders slumped in defeat, James knew that she was no less gorgeous than she'd ever been. And he wasn't sure if, again, he was lying to the both of them.

'I'll see you around, Odette,' he said, needing to get away.

Odette shrugged. 'Maybe.'

She turned and limped off. James stood a long time and watched her leave. He thought long on the choices he'd made to bring him to this point. He mused on decisiveness and conviction. And he decided that he needed to set this paralysis aside, and act.

He looked off in the direction that Ava had headed a few moments ago. He needed to act on multiple fronts.