thanks so much for the support everyone! i really appreciate it! please continue to help me through this!

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"Worst first day ever!" James exclaimed as he walked as quickly as he could into a courtyard with Henry.

"Yeah." Henry said. "I'm glad classes are over. They'll get more interesting later into the year."

"You wanna come to quidditch practice with me today?" James offered.

"No it's okay." Henry said. "I'll just hang out with Will today. Plus, we have detention today with Damek."

James grinned. "You want to skip it?"

"Not Damek's detentions." Henry folded his arms. "I'm fine with skipping other teacher's detentions, just not Damek's."

"Okay." James held out his hand. "See you at dinner."

They exchanged a high-five and parted ways.

James ran up to Gryffindor common room and changed as quickly as he could into his practice quidditch robes. His new racing broom, an Orion, was probably one of the fastest brooms in circulation and a gift from his father a year ago when he had started his second year. He grabbed his Orion and hurried towards the foyer in front of the great hall, where the team was going to meet.

Blake, holding a heavy trunk, was already there. He greeted James with a hard punch to his shoulder.

"Hey, Potter!" He was smiling from ear to ear.

"Hey, Blake." James replied warily as he rubbed his shoulder.

Other members of team were arriving one by one. Blake's fellow beater, Edward Benton arrived next, followed by the keeper and lastly the three chasers, who were out of breath from running as fast as they could.

They followed Blake outside towards the open area next to the lake. A practice quidditch pitch had been set up there a couple years ago. It was about half the size of the actual pitch, but it had three goals on either side, along with a few benches for the players.

Blake dropped the trunk to the ground and it made a loud 'thunk.' The beaters inside rattle noisily, as if annoyed by their drop to the ground. He knelt down and opened it. Blake pulled out a small, golden ball and handed it to James. "You know what to do."

James smiled and threw the snitch high into the air. He closed his eyes and counted to ten. Then he mounted his broom and pushed off into the sky.

He was already zooming around, looking for the snitch, as Blake was releasing the bludgers and setting the quaffle into motion.

At quidditch practice, each unit of the team practiced by themselves. The chasers practice attacking formations and took shots against the keeper. The beaters flew around, knocking bludgers away from the chasers and the seeker. All that the seeker had to do was release the snitch, catch it, and then release it again. James saw a glint of gold hovering by chaser Teresa Grant's left foot. He charged towards the little snitch, which darted away as soon as he came within ten feet.

James followed it up higher into the sky, where it weaved between both beaters before diving towards the ground. James followed it almost perfectly, though he had some trouble getting past Blake's large, muscular body.

James was close to the ground, pursuing the snitch one-on-one. He pushed his Orion to its limit and he extended his arm. The snitch was just out of reach. He shut his eyes for a moment. Sowly, a mental image of his father in the same place that he was developed in his head. Harry was smiling and reaching for the snitch. Suddenly, Harry dove off his broom, and closed his hands around the little ball before falling to the grass below him.

James opened his eyes. He knew what he had to do. He took a chance and dove from his broom, just like his father had in his mind. He fell to the ground and rolled over. James shook his head vigorously as if to shake off his body's shock. He slowly opened his hand; sitting in his palm was the snitch.

---

"How did it go?" Henry asked when James took a seat next to him at dinner.

"Awesome." James replied as he tore off a drumstick from the massive turkey in the center. "I got this…like…crazy dream of my dad playing quidditch. I just did what he did and bam! I caught the snitch.

"Hmm, interesting." Henry obviously didn't care.

Dinner was over all too soon. As all the other students headed back to their house common rooms, James and Henry went the opposite way to Professor Damek's classroom.

"Professor Damek?" Henry called as he entered the classroom. His voice echoed through the vast, empty room.

"I'm in my office." A voice called back. They followed the source of the voice and found that Damek's office was a smaller room connected to his classroom. He was sitting at a large desk with several papers in front of him.

"Boys." He said as they stood before him. "Your job is to clean my class room and my office. And feed those." He pointed to a large cage behind him in which many mice were scurrying around. "I'm going to be meeting with some other teachers. If I hear that you did anything that may tick me off…you're both in detention for another week. Got it?"

They nodded.

"Good." Damek stood up and walked out. They heard the door of the classroom slam behind him.

Henry found a jar of sunflower seeds and dumped a handful into the cage. The mice jumped on each other, fighting for their dinner. He grimaced as he watched the brawl. "Must suck to be a rodent…"

James was pouring over Damek's desk. "I wonder what it was he was looking at." James picked up the piece of paper on the center of the desk and read it out loud.

Professor Damek,

Thank you for all your work. It's been a great help to me.

Please continue your surveillance and report to me…

Before James could read anymore, he felt something snatch it from his grasp. He looked up; it was Damek.

"I forgot something." He sneered and placed the letter inside his robes before storming away.

Ass soon as they were alone, James rounded on Henry. "That letter!" He exclaimed. "Damek's spying one someone! A student, a teacher…anyone!"

"Yeah." Henry nodded. "He's been spying on this person for a while too."

"Something really messed up is going on here…"