A/N: Thank you for all your reviews, I really, really appreciated them. I agree with those of you who liked the way I built up the time at Malfoy Manor only to have nothing happen (modest, aren't I?). I believe that you would have to be that alert in a wartime situation, whether you're attacked or not, and the chances are that you wouldn't be. For those of you who are interested, if I continued to follow my present plan, the actual romance should begin in approximately . . . . well, maybe I shouldn't tell you that - I'm building up to it slowly so that its hopefully believable and I can work my plot in.
James was woken far too early the next morning when someone emptied a bucket of cold water on him.
"G'way Draco," he said, pulling his pillow over his head. "'s too early to train."
"Unless you want me to start shoving ice cubes down your back, I'd at least open your eyes," Draco said, obviously hoping James chose to ignore this well-meant advice.
James groaned and pulled himself upright, scanning the room to check no one else was there.
"How'd you get in here?" he asked, his brain still not quite awake.
"The Floo, James, that's the one with the green flames that you threw up on, remember?"
"I know what the Floo is. I do ward my chambers though."
"I'm keyed into the Floo network - free access to everywhere. It's one of the perks of being in the Order of the Phoenix. And before you ask, since everyone knows I am, I don't need to be secretive about it. Are you going to get up now, or do we need to continue with giving you an incentive?"
"I'll move. What time is it anyway?"
"Oh, about seven o'clock. Albus wants a staff meeting before lessons this morning - probably between half seven and half eight."
"Why did I take this job?"
"Beats me. You could have been getting up at five to do Quidditch training but instead you choose the soft life. We were most disappointed."
"Push off Draco, I'll see you upstairs."
When he was quite sure that his friend had left his rooms, James rolled out of bed, untangled himself from his blankets and started looking around for decent robes to wear. He had been very glad to receive his letter but it would have been nice if he was able to make up for the sleeping time he'd lost. The whole idea of having staff meetings before dawn was horrific, something that had certainly not been in the job description. If Albus had only decided to hold it in the first period, not only could he have slept in and still attended the meeting but he would also have not had to taught his 5th year Gryffindor-Slytherin Defence class.
At last, dressed fairly respectably in forest green robes, he called a house elf. One of the multitudes appeared in his rooms - not one he knew by sight.
"I'd like a panini and a croissant as quickly as possible please."
"Is that all?" the house elf asked, sounding horrified. James winced inwardly.
"I just need breakfast, something I can carry with me and eat on my way to the staff meeting."
"Very well Professor, one moment."
A minute or so late, the elf was back holding a cleverly contrived bag that would provide a lining for the huge pockets of his robes. In it appeared to be at least three croissant, various pieces of fruit, a thermos flask - where the house elves had found one of those he had no idea - presumably of coffee and a cheese roll containing what appeared to be the goat's cheese that he liked.
"Thank you," he said, being careful not to go over the top and letting this sound like a dismissal as well -he knew all too well how touchy elves could be. The house elf seemed satisfied, bowed very deeply and vanished.
As he left his chambers, he met Severus in the corridor, looking a little haggard.
"Tomorrow," he muttered, "I am either putting up silencing charms or moving them into their own suite. I take back whatever I said about the boy being a nice baby."
"And how Draco manages to be so bouncy is beyond me," James said, remembering times from their university days when they'd gone to bed at around two and Draco had bounced back up again at six without a care in the world. "Have you eaten?"
"No time, I'll go to the kitchen after the meeting for some coffee."
James thought for a second: should he sacrifice his own precious stash of caffeine for this obviously needy friend or keep it to himself. It was an easy decision as conditioned Gryffindor responses came into play.
"Here," he said, handing over the thermos. "I got the house elves to get me breakfast. There's some fruit and croissant if you want it."
"Don't even think about a job change," Severus said, gulping down the steaming hot coffee without even appearing to burn himself. As they passed the Great Hall, he seemed to be almost back to his normal self. By the time they reached the staff room, his glare was back in place for the other members of staff and both of the Slytherin teachers were ready to start the day.
They were among the last to arrive, as usual, having had the furthest to come. In addition to the staff were a few other familiar faces from the Order. Draco and Blaise were there, obviously, as were Ron and Hermione and, surprisingly enough, Fred and George Weasley. When they had taken their seats, Albus stood up in his place at the head of the table.
"Thank you all for coming here at this early hour. As you know, the Death Eaters are rising again and we must consider the defences of the school and what measures must be taken. For this reason, I have invited Ron, Hermione, Fred and George here, since they probably know the school better than many of us teachers and have perhaps more experience with various traps.
"As always in this situation, our first consideration must be who it is that will be keyed into the wards, to hold them in the case of my demise. Minerva has taken that duty during Voldemort's two risings, but she has informed me that she no longer feels her power reserves are up to such a task. Most of us are quite advanced in age, the only ones I feel to be young enough to bear the wards are Severus, Irene and James. Irene, what would your feeling be?"
"Have you completely lost your mind, Albus?" Professor Sinistra asked. "My speciality is Astronomy, not Charms or something of that ilk and I'm not magically powerful either. Let one of the others do it."
"Very well. Severus, James, its up to you."
"My inclination would be towards James," Severus said smoothly. "I, like many members of the Order, am already seen as a target and, while I will do my best to survive, it is possible that I will be taken down early in the assault. He is also the most powerful of us here and perhaps the best trained for the accompanying title. It is 'Defender of Hogwarts', is it not?"
"Any objection James?"
"What exactly does this involve?" he asked, Abe not having remembered to send him any information.
"Minerva might be better to talk to but essentially we key you into Hogwarts' wards and identify you as my successor should I die. At that instant, instead of falling, the wards will immediately divulge upon you and you will continue to hold them until a new Headmaster is chosen or until your retirement, depending who is appointed. Should nothing happen to me, it will affect you very little."
James considered it for a moment, the others in the room watching him in silence like a bug under a microscope. There was certainly no harm in it, if Headmasters had been holding this wards for centuries, and Minerva had been keyed to them herself and seemed to have had no ill effects. Someone would have to do it anyway, and he was probably stronger than Severus in terms of sheer power . . .
"I'll do it," he said, and the room breathed a sigh of relief.
"Thank you, dear boy," Albus said. "Now, on to the other defences. You say you know the locations of all entrances into Hogwarts itself."
The four Weasleys looked at each other and one of the twins - James thought it was Fred - spoke up.
"We know all of the ones that were there during our time at school. We never found the Marauders Map, so it's hard to know for sure, but we will have a good look for any new ones. When the wards are up, entrance above ground is only possible via the main school gates and by the Apparition point located just outside the grounds beyond the Quidditch pitch. It is also theoretically possible to cross the lake and enter that way but with the Giant Squid in the way, we decided that was impossible. Hermione had a few ideas for security."
At that point, he stopped and Hermione took up the thread.
"Muggles have things called security cameras that act a bit like a portrait. You set up a screen in your office for instance, and the picture shows what is happening at a certain point. Ron and I think we could probably come up with some way of finding a magical alternative for each site. Fred and George are ready to start closing off the tunnels with one way portals. Some of the tunnels are already blocked by cave-ins and the like, but the others will be set up with as many Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes products as they can hide. We're also looking at a one way portal but that hasn't passed the experimental stage."
"So we can expect to be seeing you around the school during the next few weeks?"
"Well, Kingsley seconded me to the school anyway," Ron said with a grin, "and of course the twins will be along whenever they feel like it. We'll try not to be too disruptive to lessons."
"It would be appreciated. Mr Malfoy, will you be staying with us for a while?"
"Its not like we have a choice," Draco said, scowling slightly.
"We have a few options. You could either remain in Severus' quarters, take rooms of your own or move into a safe-house."
Draco and Blaise looked at each other for a moment. A silent decision was obviously made.
"A safe house might be best," he ventured.
"That's just what I thought. We have a few properties that could work, owned by the Order or by Order members. The ideal place would be this one, a Potter legacy. Unfortunately, Harry never found this place, I'm not sure he even knew it existed, and he didn't write a will. However, I feel certain that he would have been happy for you to use it."
Draco and Blaise scanned down a sheet of parchment.
"I never knew Potter owned a castle!" Draco exclaimed a moment later.
"Ah yes, as the sole descendent of Godric Gryffindor, through the Potter line, Harry would stand to have inherited this place on his 17th birthday. The Potter family had long since vacated it in favour of their holdings at Godric's Hollow, which were in a wizarding neighbourhood and with a more modern design. Technically, the heir of Slytherin would hold it jointly with him, since the Gryffindor and Slytherin family were allies, but we have been unable to determine the senior line, or even if there is a remaining branch of the family."
"The problem?" Severus said, telling something was amiss.
"Well, we haven't actually been able to locate the building, and unless we do, I'm afraid it is, for all purposes, useless to our cause."
"Ah, may I take that Draco?" James asked, wondering how he could phrase it. "I'm not sure of my lineage but I'm told I'm of Slytherin's line, so I might as well do some research into it. Perhaps if Mrs Weasley has time, she could assist me."
The other staff members looked at him with some surprise, especially Herimone. James could see the wheels turning in her head. He was undoubtedly Gryffindor's heir, Slytherin's heir in power and possibly senior heir also . . . No wonder he was powerful.
The meeting continued, all of the proposed safe houses being discarded for one reason or another: Lucius Malfoy might have known of those belonging to Severus, they'd used those ones before . . . At the end of the meeting, Hermione came over.
"You'd like to meet up this weekend then?" she asked.
"You'll help me then?"
"I'm not sure I'd trust you alone in a library."
James laughed as they slipped back into the familiar banter of their schooldays.
"Do you think we should start in the Hogwarts library?"
Hermione pursed her lips and thought about it for a moment.
"We'll be tracing the ancestral home of the founders of Hogwarts. I'd have thought that most of the comprehensive texts about them would be here, so yes. Would about three o'clock on Saturday suit?"
"Fine by me."
"What do we know already? I could maybe do some preliminary research at the Ministry. . . "
"It's a castle that, before Hogwarts was founded, was occupied by the combined Gryffindor and Slytherin forces - they were allies - supposedly located in Scotland somewhere. When the Slytherin line declined into Squibs who left for Muggle settlements and the Gryffindor family had a smaller manor house built near the village of Godric's Hollow, the castle was abandoned. It is said that only someone who is a member of the family or keyed to the wards can enter or find it. That's about all, but it does sound ideal for Draco."
She grinned at him and pulled a Muggle-style notebook out of her robes, scribbling down notes already as she began to think about the best sources of information. Ron looked over to see where she was, then smiled indulgently as he caught sight of the expression on her face.
On Thursday evening that week, James pulled on his Quidditch robes, took his broom out of the cupboard and made his way to the Quidditch pitch, where he had agreed to help out with the Slytherin team's try-outs.
When he arrived, Archie Alderton, the Slytherin team captain, was already on the side of the pitch with the rest of the existing team. They had four players already but needed to fill vacancies for a Seeker, Chaser and Beater. All of the potential players were already in the air warming up, and the stands were beginning to fill with various supporters and friends, although it was clear that a few of the older Slytherins had taken it upon themselves to prevent entry from any of the other houses.
"Professor Evans!" Archie called. "We're just about to start."
James jogged over.
"What do you want me to do?"
"We've got huge numbers of candidates, so we're doing the positions one at a time. They can try out for more than one but we've advised against it. We're starting with the Chaser position but we were wondering if you could get the Seekers over to one side and check their brooms and stuff since we're doing them next. None of us know so much about Seeking, so that's where we're likely to need the most help."
"Certainly," James said. Unless they had other plans for him later, this wouldn't be too hard. "Sonorus! Could all Seekers not also trying for Chaser come over here please!"
About five people separated from the swarm of maybe twenty five and landed. There were four boys, one girl, and they had a good spread of ages. The youngest two boys had just started their second year while the oldest was one of James' star Defence Against the Dark Arts students. It was interesting that there were so many candidates - the position of Seeker was known to be the hardest and most dangerous and there weren't many with the guts for it.
"Do you know if anyone else is trying?" he asked. No one seemed to know of anyone, so he continued. "I'm just going to start by checking over your brooms. Of course, the make of your broom won't be a deciding factor, but if one of you was flying a Shooting Star and another a Firebolt XL, we'd have to take that into account.
Looking at them, James saw a nice mix of decent brooms: mostly Nimbus 2000s and 2001s but one obviously prized original Firebolt. One, belonging to a third year boy, was in quite bad condition, not because of its age, but because of bad maintenance. He had a reputation for carelessness and, while a cheerful enough kid, was notoriously lazy.
"Is this your own broom?" James asked sternly.
"Yes sir," the boy replied, obviously ignorant of what he'd done wrong.
"How long have you owned it?"
"My father bought it for me last May sir."
"And you've managed to let it get into this condition? I'm afraid that its doubtful you'll get onto the team this year, whatever your ability. The first rule of Quidditch is to take care of your equipment. See if someone can get you a broomstick servicing kit for Christmas and I'll show you the best ways of using it. There's a knack to it that can be tricky to pick up."
Maybe the incentive of possibly getting onto the team would be enough to make him work at it - he was clearly proud of owning a broom.
"If anyone else wants advice, come and see me," he added, not wanting to be seen to be showing favouritism. "Now, put your brooms on the floor, take one step forwards from the front of the broom and call it to you."
A few of them looked at him, obviously puzzled, but they all followed instructions. James had found that almost anyone, with practice, could call a broom to their hand as they had in their very first flying lesson. More challenging was summoning it a short distance, since it testing the way they blended their magic with that of the broom's and was a good indication of how strong their control was. As they all managed this, he urged them further and further from the broom. At last, they reached a point where two of them - one of the second years and the fourth year girl - managed it and failed on the next step. James had to admit he was impressed. His own preliminary ground-based tests now completed, he allowed them to take a seat on the grass and watch the Chasers.
There were fifteen flyers up there, of very differing standards. Archie was going through what was clearly a pre-agreed routine, checking their broom handling, team work, strength and accuracy. He then had them shooting goals against the team Keeper while he and the other existing Chaser observed.
After about twenty minutes, he blew on a coach-style whistle and the Chaser candidates left, bar those also trying out as Beaters, who took seats in the stands until they were called. The new Chaser would be decided after this in a meeting where the skills and weaknesses of each was carefully discussed and their compatibility with the rest of the team discussed. If there was a particularly strong showing, one or two of the younger ones might be chosen as 'reserves', participating in training so that they could be prepared for when vacancies in the team came up and prevent such a large changeover the next year.
The Seekers were then called over, their names and years taken down and James was invited to run the tryout himself after they'd been taken through broom handling skills. He didn't release a snitch - that could have them all out there for hours trying to hunt it down - instead he started by throwing yellow painted golf balls for them to catch, watching how fast their reaction times were and how accurate their catching. Finally, he levitated one ball and allowed them to go against each other in a mock seekers' competition while he moved it randomly around the pitch.
That exercise left a clear leader - Davis, smaller of the two second years - and when the seekers were dismissed, James was decided that the boy would be the one he recommended to the team. While he was young (James forced himself to remember that he had been over a year younger when he was first admitted to the team), his grasp of the rules was good, his broom handling excellent and his reflexes good. His tactics could be better, but that came with practice that he would have time to acquire. He was also a good two years younger than any of the existing team members, spreading the team's age and decreasing the chance of having a mass departure. If the chosen players for the Chaser and Beater positions were as good, Slytherin would be in for a chance even against the admittedly strong Gryffindor players.
A/N: there, the Quidditch team try outs. During the story, we'll have their matches coming up as well. Now, did you like it? Are there any questions you would like me to answer? Press the pretty purple 'GO' button on your bottom right and tell me.