Summer in the Caribbean

Harry Potter awoke with a jolt. His heart was racing, though nothing exciting had happened to him at all. He looked around at the unfamiliar hotel surroundings and sighed. Harry's two best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, were both sound asleep, and the luminous alarm clock on the bedside table told Harry why. Sadly, and knowing that it would be at least three hours until his friends woke, Harry made his way to the bathroom, where he slammed the door shut and opened the window. He had only done this to stare at the moon, which had become a keen interest of his by now.

"Yo, ho, yo ho . . . A pirate's life for me . . ."

Harry jumped up. Hermione was standing in the doorway, her bushy brown hair set in a ghastly position around her face; her almond-shaped eyes staring into Harry's. She was whispering a gentle song, which normally would have been loud, and her voice was very calm and ginger as she did so. Harry ran fingers through his shaggy jet-black hair and said irritably, "Don't do that! Do you know how much you just scared me?" He paused. "And what exactly were you just singing?"

"Everyone knows it," she said simply, her ghastly aura slowly slipping away. "It's the song of Captain Jack Sparrow, you should have picked that up by now. It's been all over the books I've checked out from the library - the stories, the songs, the myths and legends . . . and especially this particular song. It's practically the trademark of the Caribbean. Ask anyone - I bet even Ron would know about it by now."

"Well it certainly is creepy enough, isn't it then?" Harry said, laughing slightly despite himself.

"Quite," said Hermione mystically. She hesitated and muttered beneath her breath, "No, no, they're only myths."

"What are only myths?"

Hermione's coconut eyes lit up but she did not speak. She paced around the hotel room for a few moments then flopped down on the cushy bed near the window, followed shortly by a reluctant Harry. At length she turned to him. "The legends of Jack Sparrow, of course," she said. "Rumour is, he was once the captain of the legendary Black Purl, but was mutinied almost instantly. He made his way across the ocean, earning riches, until one day he embarked upon a quest to rid the curse of all the jinxed crewmates of the Black Purl and save two unlikely future pirates; Will Turner and Elizabeth Shaw. After this, he teamed up with Will and Elizabeth (after their marriage) and has been lost ever since. No one knows where his ship is anymore. But that song was certainly the near copyright of Captain Jack Sparrow."

"Didn't this all happen in Colonial times, Hermione?" Harry said disbelievingly.

"Yes, yes, but pirates have their secrets. . ." she whispered. "Very strange secrets indeed."

"Well, I'm not to get mixed up with that," said Harry a little indignantly. He crossed the room and sat down on his own bed, which he was sharing with everyone else's suitcases. Mr Weasley gave a loud snore from the other side of the room but did not wake up. "Listen, Jack Sparrow is a stupid bloody rumour. Besides, who ever said pirates existed anymore? They were probably all wiped out whenever those Salem Witch Trials were going on anyways."

Hermione gave Harry a very dire look. "The Salem Witch Trials had nothing to do with pirates, Harry," she said, quite angrily. "Whomever judged them only convicted possible Wiccans or pagans, not pirates. Besides, this was in Salem, Massachusetts, over three hundred years ago, and pirates wanted nothing to do with America during that time. Their main focus was on masquerading about, stealing ships and goods, and occasionally getting wasted on islands around where we're staying, and definitely not getting accused of witchcraft." She opened the blinds and looked out at the moonlit royal-blue sky, which hovered over an amazingly azure-looking ocean. Harry stood next to her but did not say anything.

"MUSHROOMS!" Ron yelped as he bolted up in bed, staring blankly around the room at Harry and Hermione. His face relaxed but still held the feeling of altogether embarrassment. "Oh . . . Sorry . . . Hey, what're you two doing up anyways? Have you been -?"

"We've been talking," said Hermione, "about Captain Jack Sparrow."

"Pirates," Harry corrected her. "Not just him."

"Whatever suits you then," she said, sticking her nose up in the air. "Well, we were talking mainly about pirates, then, just because Harry had some dream that he still hasn't told me yet." She looked at him and back at Ron, who was still sitting dumbfound in his pinstriped pyjamas.

Harry hesitated. Should he really tell them? What use would it be anyway? They probably wouldn't even care. He'd had so many 'visions' that no one really took it as much of a big deal anymore. He took a deep breath. "It was about my father." No one spoke; Hermione and Ron seemed to be holding their breaths as well. "He was swimming in the ocean around where we are . . . he was there to rescue my mum." Now the tension was so large that anyone within a mile could've smelt it. Harry continued. "She was lying at the bottom of the floor. He brought her back up to surface on some boat called the Aysel, and then her apparent mother came and told her not to go mixing with that James Potter again. Oh, and this was when they were about seven or eight, I'd expect. Anyways, she got dried up, but she kept stealing glances at James, and he tried to call out to her but he apparently didn't know her name. This must've been their first meeting."

Ron and Hermione exchanged glances.