Chapter Twelve: A Question of Quidditch Players

As January progressed, the snow melted - it began to rain again and soon enough it was time for the next full moon. Drizzly January turned into a freezing, foggy February and that in turn became a rather blustery March. Each full moon came with another werewolf attack - another death, and the descriptions became more lurid and grizzly every time and the accompanying articles became more hysterically anti-werewolf in their tone. Fortunately for the boys, however, there were no more attacks around Hogsmeade.

And there was still an alarming number of regular disappearances. At least one a week. And there seemed to be very little rhyme or reason to them, very little pattern to who was being taken. But, by now, enough witches and wizards had vanished that it was starting to filter through the school.

Petra Linehan's Uncle Ciaran had been one of the first to go missing, over a year ago, but Petra was no longer the only one whose family had been affected. In their year alone, Erwin MacNulty of Hufflepuff had lost his grandfather - and Ravenclaw, Tulip Khan, had not had any word from her Aunty in over three months - and people were starting to fear the worst.

'What is happening to them all?' Sirius asked, as he and Remus worked on the newspaper's crossword one night. 'Every day there seems to be another story - always the same … and have you seen the Op-ed by Abraxas Malfoy, today?'

'Are you related to the Malfoys?' Remus asked him.

Sirius snorted. 'Of course I am. Only my family is even worse. But they'll agree with every word he's written. No doubt they'll have him over for drinkies, one evening, so they can discuss all the disgusting stuff he says.'

Mr. Malfoy's piece in the paper was made of pretty strong stuff. In fact, Remus was a little surprised they had agreed to publish it. But then - with the type of gold the Malfoy's had, no doubt they had simply bribed the editor.

We Must Stand Fast Against This Attempt to Override our Traditions.

Abraxas Malfoy had written. 'What traditions?' Remus asked.

'My mum's cousin, Araminta Meliflua, once tried to pass a bill to make muggle-hunting legal. Like nogtail hunting - but with muggles. She wanted them to do the horns and the blooding and everything. I bet that's a tradition old Abraxas could get behind.'

'That's sick,' he felt a twist of anger in his stomach when he thought of his mum - and his Grandma and Grandad Howell.

'Yeah - I'd say my mum has the worst cousins in the world, except I have Bellatrix.'

'I've not heard of her before.'

'Lucky you - I hope it stays that way. She's 'Dromeda's older sister - she married a right slimy git, Rodolphus Lestrange … She didn't get blasted off the family tree.'

They went back to their reading:

As we all know, we wizards were forced into hiding in the late 17th century by the vicious and barbaric treatments we suffered at the hand of the cruel muggles. Though muggles are below us in intellect, inferior creatures (perhaps - not entirely human?) their savagery and their great numbers was enough that - despite our clear superiority - we realised it was best to separate ourselves completely from their world.

And so it has been for the past 300 years, and I'm sure we all agree it is for the better that we remain cut off. Our lives are safer, happier and more productive than if we were still as one with our inferiors, being expected to use our magic to serve their needs - as if we were the serfs and they the masters.

And in these three centuries we have - of course - developed our own way of life; our own culture, our own beliefs and political systems and traditional values that separate us completely from the other, lesser world. Hidden away - and with magic on our side - we have created a world of beauty, of harmony, of magical exploration - we have expanded the horizons of our knowledge and power … and left the muggles grovelling in the dirt.

Yet - for all our noble pursuits of the mind - there is always the other world grasping at us, trying to drag us back down into the muck with them. And with each generation there is a growing incursion - an invasion - of their kind into our world, diluting our blood and polluting all we stand for.

I speak, of course - of the muggleborn. For every year, children with magic blood are born to families of those barbarous apes, brought up in their backwards, narrow minded and dirty world of sweat and toil and mundanity … and then they are, without fail, accepted into Hogwarts School - welcomed with open arms and taught alongside your children as if they are equals.

But they do not know our ways, they do not know our values. In short they bring their own world into ours. They make us lesser by being here. It cannot have escaped your notice, dear reader, that their influence is growing. The pernicious spread of their thoughts and ideals are seen among the youth as something to aspire to - as demonstrated with the popularity of the so-called "Rock and Roll Music" that the self- proclaimed muggleborn band, The Kneazles, are polluting the airwaves with.

Soon, our children will not only be listening to music like muggles, but they will be dressing like them, acting like them - thinking like them. For when the muggles are made to seem desirable, made to seem exciting and exotic and innovative by those who have invaded our world from that one, then believe me your children will find themselves susceptible.

Children - I'm sure you will all agree - need the firmest hand when it comes to guiding them, to shaping them into the adult you wish them to become. And allowing them to mix with muggleborns, to interact with ideas and objects from the muggle world, is a sure fire way of turning them into muggles themselves. Oh perhaps not your own child - magic cannot be lost from an individual - but if they marry a muggle, what of your grandchildren? Or great grandchildren?

Even the noblest and most ancient family …

'Oh, he's talking about you lot, Sirius.'

Sirius hit him.

…could find itself magicless - a family of common muggles - just a few generations down the line, if you allow your children to heed this mania - if you let them tread a path that could see them mating with the other kind. And surely that is a thought that fills us all with horror - we cling proudly to our magic, our ways and our blood … to diminish our numbers and pollute our bloodline is to aid in the destruction of our entire world.

And so I call upon you all to reject this pernicious spread of muggle sentiment creeping into our society. I call upon you all to stand fast and true and guard the magical bloodline of your family and not let these muggleborn interlopers, who know nothing of our ways, destroy the world we have built for ourselves these past 300 years. We are nothing without our values - and I say now is the time to cling to them.

'Everything in this is just disgusting,' Remus said.

'But I bet my mum and dad are lapping it up. And Reg and his mates will be too, down in their common room. People all around the country will be agreeing with it - idiots who like to think they're special will be nodding their heads and thinking it's time we start checking blood status before we let people into Hogwarts. You know they don't let muggleborns into Durmstrang?'

'So I've heard. But as long as Dumbledore is headmaster …'

'How long before Abraxas Malfoy is calling for Dumbledore to be sacked, though? They're getting bolder - by the day. And I think how popular those bloody Kneazles are is only making them angrier.'

'Are you two not done with the paper yet?' James asked, looking up from his game of wizard's chess. 'Honestly - you spend hours on that thing - every day, when we could be getting into trouble. It's such a waste of our precious time.'

'We're looking at this,' Sirius said, chucking over the paper, open on Malfoy's Op-ed so James could read it. James scanned it - his face grew darker the more he read.

'This is sick … I'm going to put it somewhere FlatuLily can find it.'

'What? Are you mental?' Remus asked. 'You can't show Lily that! It's horrible.'

'It's in the paper - there's no point in hiding it, she could find it anyway. But I want her to see exactly what it is Old Snivelly really thinks of people like her.'

'That's cruel.'

'I'm being cruel to be kind, then. She needs to know.'

…

Lily marched her way to the library, the newspaper clutched in her hand, She was not in a mood to be trifled with. She stormed down the corridors, ripping aside the tapestry that led to a shortcut, barging through a door that was disguising itself as a stretch of solid wall, and didn't even give Peeves a second glance, when she walked past him juggling walking sticks down the Charms corridor.

'Why, it's Farting FlatuLily Evans,' he cried with wicked delight when he spied her.

She told him to go do something very rude indeed and carried on walking. He floated behind her for a while, blowing loud raspberries and saying 'Excuse You' after each one. But she ignored him until she reached her goal, and then slammed the library door closed in his face.

…

Severus was in the library, researching jinxes for his Defence Against the Dark Arts homework. He was supposed to be researching the most effective general counter-jinx, guaranteed to cure any low level hex. But looking up the jinxes themselves was far more interesting, and he pored over the books - his nose less than an inch from the page.

'Sev, can I talk to you?'

'Lily.' He flushed with pleasure and snapped the book shut. 'What is it?'

In reply she threw down the newspaper, open on the page of Abraxas Malfoy's Op-ed. 'Is that what you think?' Her voice was shrill and there were round, red patches on her cheeks. 'You and Mulciber and Avery and that Perell girl? Is this what you're talking about when you say things are changing?' The flat Midlands twang of her accent was far more pronounced when she was angry.

He frowned, his eyes darting back and forth across the opinion piece. 'Where did you get this?'

'It's in the paper.' Her voice was withering. 'Answer my question.'

'Lily -' he flushed again, only this time it was a deeper and uglier red. 'You have to understand - the muggles are different to us…'

'You mean, this is what you think about my family. About me. That I shouldn't be here.'

'Of course I think you should be here! You have loads of magic. I'm the one who told you about being a witch, aren't I? Why would have I told you about Hogwarts if I didn't think you belonged here?'

'You just wanted another magical friend…'

'Why would I be friends with you if I thought you shouldn't have magic? We're best friends, Lily, we understand each other - of course I want you here.'

Lily was starting to look a little mollified. And Severus decided to press home his advantage. 'Look - you're a witch. A really powerful one. And no one who has seen what you can do could doubt where you are supposed to be. But this -' he gestured to the newspaper, 'is what I'm warning you about. You belong - but you need to fit in.'

'But isn't there room for us all to fit in in our way? Do we all have to do everything the same?'

'Well that's what people like Mr. Malfoy want. And he's powerful. And the wizard that he follows …'

'Who does he follow?'

Severus looked awkward. 'No one - forget I said anything. Just … be careful, alright?'

She hesitated for a moment and then nodded. 'Alright.'

She walked away, and Severus breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn't quite sure how he had managed to talk his way out of that one.

Mulciber came over from the shelves and sat down, putting his feet up on the table - resting them on the newspaper Lily had abandoned. 'What did the filthy, little mudblood want?' he asked.

'Nothing. She just needed help with her Potions homework.'

''Course she did. Bloody muggle. She shouldn't be here. That Dumbledore is such a mudblood loving fool.'

'Things will be different soon enough,' Severus said.

…

Lily was feeling a bit more cheerful as she made her way towards Gryffindor Tower. She had been so afraid of what Sev might really think of her, when she had seen the newspaper. She wasn't an idiot, she knew what Petra and the others thought of him and how they didn't understand why she would be his friend. But they didn't know about Sev's dad, they didn't know what it was like for him at home.

Sev needed her, and she would always be there for him.

But when she had seen those ugly words in the paper, calling her and her family such terrible names, she had been afraid that Sev was taking her for a fool; using her to make himself feel better and then laughing behind her back at the stupid, little mudblood.

Now she felt a little guilty that she could ever think something so terrible of him. Of course Sev was her best friend in the whole world and would never say such horrible things about her.

She walked back down the Charms corridor to find that Peeves had stopped juggling his walking sticks and was now using them to beat Gryffindor Chaser, Morgana Murrows, around the kneecaps. Morgana was on the floor - one particularly loud whack later, and she howled in pain.

'What are you doing?' Lily cried. ' Oppugno! '' (She had learned that one from Black, last year; it was an OWL level curse.) She pointed her wand, sparks shot out and the walking stick leapt out of Peeves' hand and started beating him around the head. He zoomed off, cursing loudly, being chased by his own walking sticks.

'Are you alright?' She tried to help the older girl to her feet. But Morgana was still howling in pain, and limping. 'Come on - let's get you to the Hospital Wing.'

…

The weather was so blustery and cold, the next Saturday, as the boys got ready for the Slytherin vs Ravenclaw Quidditch match, that they all pulled jumpers on over their robes. But even with the extra layer, their cloaks, and scarves, it was still not enough to ward off the nip of the chilly wind. Especially for Remus, who wore the jumper his mum had knitted him and which now didn't come down past his elbows. He could barely move his arms in it.

'I can't wait until it's me up there,' James sighed, watching the match through the omnioculars Sirius had taken apart and put back together again. Even James had to admit he had done a good job, and they worked as good as new.

He sighed again as he watched the seekers swooping overhead. 'I can fly ten times better than anyone up there. I practised loads over the summer hols - I can do all sorts of tricks.'

'It'll be you soon enough,' Remus told him. 'Henry Bell leaves at the end of this year. You'll be a third year - you'll be a shoe in.'

'Yeah but - loads of third years make the team. I wanted to do it when I was still only second year. Even better if I'd made the team last year - do you know a first year hasn't made a house team for nearly a hundred years?'

Remus smiled, 'and it'll be another hundred years before another one does.'

The match did not last long; Slytherin drove Ravenclaw into the ground and - feeling dispirited - the boys made their way back up to the castle.

The Slytherin boys, on the other hand, were in very high spirits. And, when James made a rude hand gesture at them, they whipped out their wands and hit the Gryffindors with the jellylegs jinx. They howled with laughter, as the four of them wobbled around and tried to unjinx each other (though they struggled to aim on their uncontrollable legs).

'God you're pathetic,' Mulciber sneered at them. 'Filthy blood traitors. No wonder you're useless with your wands. You're too busy muggle-loving to learn proper magic.'

'Sod off!'

'And him - the half muggle,' he spat in Remus's direction. 'Nice jumper - mummy knit it?'

'Yes.'

The Slytherin boy gave a very condescending laugh. 'Well, it's too small. Can't she measure, your dumb, muggle mother? That ratty old thing doesn't fit. Get a new -'

He was cut off by Sirius thumping him as hard as he could. He fell to the floor, his lip cut and bleeding. 'You'll pay for that, Black.'

But Sirius swung his boot at Mulciber's face, grabbed the others and shoved them in the direction of the castle.

'That bastard !' His face was so twisted in anger that, for a moment, he did not look remotely handsome any more. 'We need to go back to the Restricted Section, James; we need to learn all those curses we decided we were too nice to use.'

They made their way back to Gryffindor Tower and went up to their dormitory to take off their outdoor things.

With a little difficulty, as it was so tight, Remus pulled his jumper over his head. He looked at it for a long moment, sighed rather sadly and then folded it up and put it in his trunk. 'I suppose I need to get a new one.'

'Don't listen to that berk, Mulciber.'

'No - he's right. It doesn't fit anymore. I shouldn't still be wearing it… I'll have to ask my dad to buy me a new one.'

'He'll be able to afford it though, won't he?' James asked.

Remus's ears went red. 'Yes - yes. I'm sure he can stretch to getting me a new jumper. That's not…' he trailed off, shook his head and closed up his trunk.

…

'So what is the problem?' James asked later - when Remus had opted to stay upstairs by himself, reading (or so he said).

'Isn't it obvious?' Sirius looked up from where he had spread out all the parts from Remus's camera across the table, in front of him, and was examining each part closely in turn. 'His mum knitted it for him. And now it's too small and he can't wear it any more and - well - she won't be knitting him another. It's just another part of her that he's lost.'

James bit his lip and looked thoughtful - and that night, when all the other boys were asleep, he took out his invisibility cloak and sneaked out to the owlery.

…

A couple of days later, Remus was surprised at breakfast, when Archimedes separated himself out from the other owls and fluttered down to drop a package in front of him.

'I think you've delivered wrong,' he told the owl. He handed the parcel across. 'Here you go, James.'

'No - it's for you.' James didn't even look up from where he was spooning sugar onto his porridge.

'What's going on?' Sirius asked. 'Has your mum had enough of having a scrawny, speccy git who's constantly getting into trouble for a son, and decided to adopt Remus instead? … Can't say I blame her.'

'Ha ha.'

Remus was frowning in a puzzled sort of way, as he untied the string from his parcel. He folded back the paper, and then took out a brand new, home-knitted jumper. A note fell out of the wrappings;

Dear Remus,

I know it's not the same as one knitted by your mum, but it was knitted with love all the same. Let me know when you grow out of this and need a new one.

Love,

Mrs. Potter

Remus bit his lip. 'Thanks, James,' he said quietly.

…

They had a flying lesson that afternoon and - as that week was James' turn on the school broom - he had to stop by the broomsheds to pick one up.

The other three made their way to the pitch, ahead of him, carrying their brooms over their shoulders (Peter had the Silver Arrow, Sirius had Remus's Cleansweep 4 and Remus was on Peter's Comet 180, which wasn't quite as good as his own - but was far better than a school one) and they milled around the field waiting for Madam Hooch to blow her whistle. Though they were kept waiting, as she ignored the class in favour of conducting a serious looking conversation with Gryffindor Captain, Henry Bell.

After a while, Henry nodded and went to sit in the stands, and Madam Hooch returned to the second years just as James and Lily arrived with their school brooms.

'Alright, everyone. Up in the air, on my whistle and three times around the pitch. No cutting corners. 3, 2, 1.' The whistle blasted, they mounted their brooms and they were off. Peter yelped as the Silver Arrow accelerated to 60mph in 3 seconds, and he shut his eyes and clung on for dear life while it careened around the pitch at breakneck speed.

On more evenly matched brooms, Sirius and Remus raced each other the whole way around. The Cleansweep 4 was the superior model but Remus was the superior flyer, and he leaned flat against the handle, making himself as aerodynamic as possible and swerving to cut Sirius off.

Dawdling in the rear, on his school broom, James didn't even bother trying to keep up with the rest. He flew too high, so the broom drifted to the left. And then he divebombed his fellow dawdler, Lily. She yelped. He tried to swerve at the last minute, using one of the tricks he had honed to perfection over the summer.

But he was not now on his Silver Arrow; this broom was clumsy and useless and the pair of them collided mid air. Lily shrieked. James swore. They both nearly fell … and by this time everyone else was half way round their second lap while they had not yet finished their first.

'Alright, alright, gather round.' As the rest of the class finished up, they flew back down to Madam Hooch. James and Lily were still huffing and puffing their way around the pitch.

'Now, we're going to be practising quaffle passing for starters, so pair up. On the second blast of my whistle, I'll be releasing the bludgers.' And she blew her whistle again and they split into pairs.

Remus and Sirius were together and Mary and Petra paired up, leaving Mandy with Peter. James and Lily were still crawling their way around the third lap - and James was not helping speed up the process, as he kept lunging at her and then laughing his head off.

Sirius hurled the quaffle as hard as he could right at Remus's head. Remus's hands flashed out and snatched it from the air, catching it by the tips of his fingers before it could collide with his face - and then threw it back in a much more controlled pass.

The second whistle blew, and now the bludgers were rocketing around, trying to knock them all off their brooms. Sirius threw the quaffle again - but it was a wild throw and overshot by several feet. Remus, however, managed to reverse his broom back at top speed and caught it before it could fall.

James and Lily had now picked up their quaffle, though neither were looking particularly pleased with having each other as a partner. Lily threw the ball first. James just watched it fly past him, without even bothering to move. 'You throw like a girl.'

She tutted, zoomed (as fast as one could zoom on a school broom) back to earth, retrieved the quaffle and then threw it as hard as she could at James - while he wasn't paying attention; knocking his glasses askew.

'Ow!'

'You get hit in the face like a boy.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'What's "throw like a girl" supposed to mean?'

He at least had the grace to look embarrassed. 'Nothing.'

A short distance from their sniping, Remus threw his own quaffle to Sirius. It was a careful aim, but Sirius almost fumbled it. 'That was an easy one, how did you nearly miss that?'

'I wasn't looking!'

'Well whose fault is that?'

Sirius hurled it back, just as a bludger came flying at Remus. He swerved it, swerved it again and then rolled his broom so he was upside down mid air. The bludger hurtled past, but the quaffle was now plummeting to earth. Remus righted himself and then nosedived after it, grabbing it by the tips of his fingers just before it hit the ground. He pulled out of the dive and returned to Sirius.

Madam Hooch blew her whistle. 'Alright alright, goal scoring practice. Slytherins - in a group and over to those goalposts, now. Gryffindors you split into two teams. Lupin and Black and McDonald and Linehan vs the other four. There we go - nice and equal…'

Or so she said. But with James and Lily on the school brooms and Peter unable to control the Silver Arrow, they got completely trounced by the other team. And it was Remus who scored most of the goals.

The whistle blew for the end of the lesson and they all headed back inside.

'God that Potter is such an arse' , Lily complained to her friends.

'Merlin, the best thing about not having the school broom is not getting stuck with FlatuLily,' James said to the boys. 'Honestly, she's a complete 'mare. At least next week I can get a decent partner.'

…

Remus was surprised, later that night, when he found himself cornered by Henry Bell just as he left the library. 'Lupin, I wanted to talk to you.'

'...Er…' He blinked in polite bemusement.

'I don't know if you know - but Morgana's out with injuries at the minute, she got whacked around the kneecaps… it's a long story, anyway - she might not be fit for the match next week.'

'...Er…' He blinked again, wondering what on earth this had to do with him - and why Bell would have looked for him specifically to tell him this.

'Hopefully she'll be fit - but a hairline fracture is harder to fix than a break. And I need to face facts… I might be a chaser down. I was watching your flying lesson earlier. You're good, Lupin - really good. I think you'd actually be better suited as a seeker - something for you to think about when Jenny Price leaves. But it's a chaser I'm short of. I want you to be the reserve - in case Morgana can't play.'

Remus's eyes widened in horror - he completely overlooked the praise that had been heaped on him, or the honour of being asked to join the team so young, and instead focused on two glaring problems. One was that the next match was only two days before the full moon, and he would not be feeling half as fit as he was today. And then the other - far more serious problem…

'It's not me you want.' He told Bell. 'You want James. James is the Quidditch player.' He'd rather die than take James' spot on the team.

But Bell was frowning. 'Potter? I saw him - he was mucking about, more interested in knocking Evans off her broom than he was in Quidditch. He's not serious about the game.'

'But he is!'

'So why does he fly a school broom? - What've you got? A Comet 180 was it?'

'That's Pete's - mines a Cleansweep 4.'

'Even better! That's a good, competitive broom. If Potter was serious about the game he wouldn't be riding a school broom.'

'But that's not his! His is the Silver Arrow - we just swap brooms every week because Sirius doesn't have one. James was only mucking around because the broom was so naff. He loves Quidditch. He practises all the time - and he's a far better flyer than me. And has a far better broom. Really, Henry, it's him you want - not me.'

'I don't want an idiot that mucks around and doesn't take things seriously. I don't care if he's the next Molly Prewett. I need a team player.'

'Just give him a chance - give him a try out. You'll see. Not for his sake - for Gryffindor's!'

Henry considered this for a moment, he looked at Remus with a calculating expression. 'Well - alright. I'll give him a try out. There's not many kids that would refuse a place on their house Quidditch team so their friend could have it instead. Especially not when you'd be the youngest Gryffindor player since Fabian and Gideon started out. He must be something really special, this Potter - for you to do something like that for him.'

'He is!' Though he was not entirely talking about James' Quidditch skills.

'Alright - but if I don't like what I see, then I'm putting you on the reserve list and you can like or lump it,' and he walked away before Remus could argue.

Remus took his books up to the dorm to put them away and get his textbook and telescope ready for Astronomy later that night. When he came back to the common room it was to find an ebullient and thoroughly over-excited James, bouncing on the armchairs.

'You'll never guess what's happened!'

'You've learned how to transfigure the chairs into a trampoline?'

'What?' He glanced down at his bouncing feet. 'No! This is serious.' He jumped one final time and landed so he was sitting down - and then he wriggled and kneeled back up. 'Henry Bell just spoke to me! I'm on the Quidditch team! Well … I'm a reserve, for if Murrows isn't fit … Well, I have a try out to be a reserve, for if Murrows isn't fit. But that's just a technicality. When he sees what I can do … I'm surprised he even asked. He was watching our flying lesson, apparently - looking for talent. And there I was, mucking around with FlatuLily. She could have cost me my place! But he must have seen something of what I can do, even when I wasn't trying - and when I was on a school broom. He could just recognise raw skill when he saw it in the wild.'

Remus smiled to himself. 'That must have been it. Well done.'

…

James aced his trial - which came as no surprise to anyone, apart from maybe Henry Bell. 'You were right, Lupin,' he said, later in the common room - as James stood in the middle of the room grinning like a maniac while Bethany Elshaw and Jennifer Price tried to hold him still long enough to alter a set of old Quidditch robes to fit him ( for he was a good deal smaller than anyone else who had ever made the team). 'I've not seen anything like it. He could be world class if he just calms down and learns some discipline - but don't forget what I told you about trying out once Jenny leaves. The fact that Potter's a prodigy doesn't stop you from being really good as well. Gryffindor will need you.'

Remus smiled and nodded and assured Henry he would try out when the time came - feeling very glad that the older boy would be long gone by then, and no one would remember that Remus was any good. He couldn't be on the team - no matter how good he was (and he really wasn't sure he was that good anyway, probably no better than average). He would miss far too many practices and games with his transformations. His secret would not be a secret for long, if all of Gryffindor were paying attention to him.

James was walking on air for the next few days - and came back from his first practice glowing with pride and excitement. He talked the other boys' ears off about everything that had happened: every swerve, every dodge, every feint, every pass and every goal he scored.

He was so wrapped up in the wonderment of being on the house team that he barely listened to the Quidditch match on the WWN on Wednesday night - even though the Falcons and the Harpies were now within two places of each other in the league and everything was heating up.

And he didn't even squeak when The Kneazles released their new song right before broom up - and every Gryffindor girl went into a twittery meltdown. And though everyone was singing 'Hard Spell to Learn,' the next day and saying it was the best song yet, he didn't so much as tut.

But then on Thursday evening he received some unwelcome news. Henry Bell approached the four of them, as they sat writing their Herbology essays on the origins and native habitats of Venomous Tentaculars, and told James that Murrows was fit and would be playing on Saturday after all.

'Oh …well … good.' Though he looked like he had a stomach ache. 'Thanks for letting me know.'

'I'm sorry, mate,' Sirius said quietly.

'It's fine. Really.' He suddenly scowled in disgust as the WWN squawked on and the strains of The Kneazles drifted across the room.

It's been a hard spell to learn, my mind feels like a fog.

It's been a hard spell to learn, turning people into frogs.

But now I'm done with my Charms, I'll hold you tight in my arms

And I know I'll be alright.

'I'm going to bed,' he said - and he stumped up the stairs without a backwards glance.

Saturday dawned sunny and bright - excellent conditions for Quidditch - but James remained glum. He watched the match, but never once cheered - and he sighed loudly when Morgana dropped the Quaffle and the Hufflepuff chaser caught it and scored.

'Maybe next time,' Sirius said to him.

'Maybe.'

Remus smiled sympathetically. He was just glad it was not him up there. He was achy and shivery and wanted the match to be over so he could go to bed. There was no way he could have played like this.

Gryffindor squeaked a win … but they would have to win the final against Slytherin by a margin of 160 points if they were to get the cup. 'I could've won us more points,' James told the others gloomily.

…

The full moon was on Monday. Which was awkward as it meant that everyone would notice Remus was missing from Astronomy. And they could hardly fail to notice the full moon - as they would be staring at it, for a full lesson, through their telescopes.

'Don't worry about it,' Sirius told him. 'I'll use the leg locker curse on anyone who asks where you are. That should give them something else to think about.'

Remus laughed - and left it in the hands of his friends to cover for him, and went off to the Hospital Wing with barely a care in the world (other than his incipient transformation into a great, hairy monster).

But when he returned to the common room on Tuesday evening, he found his friends looking grim faced again. They showed him the paper.

Torn Apart In Taunton!

'But there's already been an attack in Taunton,' he said. 'The first one …'

'We know,' James said. 'Which means whoever is behind these is covering old ground, going back to places they've been before. Which means …'

'There might be another attack in Hogsmeade,' Remus realised. 'And the Minister will want to blame me.'