The Curse of the GateKeeper (James Potter #2) (3 page)

"It matterssss not!" the portrait of Voldemort cried. "The Gatekeeper isss descended! The work of our forefather is at hand! Vennngeance!"

Gregor seemed hopelessly at a loss by this sudden change of events. "But… but how will we find it, my Lord?"

"Weeee will not…," the portrait hissed. The sound of its broken voice flapped a shred of the canvas. Forge dreaded the sight of the horrible thing, dreaded what they were going to make him do to it. But he dreaded most what he knew it was going to say next.

The painting sighed deeply and said, on the exhale, "It will find ussss…"

"C
ome on, James!" Albus cried, hopping impatiently. "Let me give it a try. Nobody will tell!" "You know I can't, you Skrewt," James replied calmly, swinging a leg over his Thunderstreak. "You're underage. You'll just have to learn in school like everybody else does." He kicked off, leaning forward so that the broom rocketed out over the garden.

"You just want me to look as much a fool as you did on a broom
your
first year!" Albus called, running after his brother. "It won't work! I'm gonna be brilliant! I'll fly circles around you, you watch!"

"About time, Potter," Ted called, swinging in next to James on his old but well-maintained Nimbus 2000. "Three-on-three is hard enough, even with experienced players. You'll need to play Beater and Seeker. Just keep an eye on Angelina. She'll let you think she's delicate as a flower until she drafts you into a tree. George is playing Beater and Keeper as well, so he'll be plenty busy, but his long-range Bludger will still find you if you don't watch it. But the one you've really got to keep an eye on is—"

Something red and green roared between Ted and James, forcing them into opposite tumbles. James gripped his broom and swung it around, craning to look. His mum spun to a stop and drifted gently over him, grinning, her cheeks flushed and her hair pulled back in a neat ponytail. She was wearing her Holyhead Harpies tunic.

"What do you think, James? Still fits!"

James heard the sound of an appreciative whistle behind him. He looked and saw his dad smiling at Ginny, pulling his broom into position thirty feet away.

"Dad! Mum!" James reproached, stifling a grin. "Quit it! You're both an embarrassment!"

Ginny blew a stray hair out of her face. "You just watch your back out there, love. I may be your mum, but that doesn't mean I won't broadside you to get to the Snitch." She grinned at him, and then spun on her broom and zoomed to the opposite side of the pitch.

"She's not serious," James said, turning to Ted.

"You better hope not," Ted answered, watching Ginny fly off. "I've played against her before, and I tend to think your only hope is that she won't Bludger her own son in the back of the head."

"You're a great help," James said, but Ted had already dropped back into formation.

"Knock James off his broom, Mum!" Albus yelled from below. James glanced down and saw him standing at the edge of the orchard. Nearby, Lily, Rose, and Hugo sat on a huge tartan blanket, grinning and squinting up into the sunlight. Charlie's twins, Harold and Jules, were perched in a gnarled old oak tree by the barn.

Rose nudged Lily with her elbow. "Go for it, Aunt Ginny! Knock him flying! You can always have another kid! One with better manners and less stinky feet!"

"I heard that!" James called down.

"I should hope so," Rose said primly, putting her fists on her hips and smiling coquettishly. Lily giggled.

"Enough, Rose," Aunt Hermione admonished from a deck chair at the edge of the garden.

"I'd play on your team, Harry, if I could," Ron yelled from the chair next to her. "But three-on-three's the tradition. Maybe somebody will get hurt enough not to play and I'll be able to sub in, eh?"

Hermione grimaced and scowled at him.

"What? A guy can hope, can't he?" Ron protested. He looked back up at Harry. "Looks like we'll have to host an all-out tournament by next year!"

Harry nodded. "None of us were kidding when we said we wanted to have enough kids to make a Quidditch team, were we?" he called back.

Charlie stood in the center of the garden, below the players. He had one foot on the family's bedraggled old Quidditch trunk. He held a Quaffle, yellow with age and grass-stained, in his right hand.

"The Annual Weasley Family Quidditch Match is now underway!" he boomed, grinning. "I want to see a mean match. I want to see plenty of blagging, loads of bumphing, and a good bit of blatching. Any player not bloody by the end of the match will be deemed unfit to remain a Weasley and will have to defect to the Potters. Understood?"

"Throw the Quaffle or get on a broom, Freckles!" Harry yelled, resulting in a round of laughter and catcalls. Charlie grinned crookedly.

"Ball up!" he shouted, lobbing the Quaffle and releasing his foot from the Quidditch trunk. The lid exploded open and the balls soared into the air.

James gulped, gripped his broom, and lunged into the fray.

Technically, it wasn't James' first Quidditch match. He'd played several matches over the summer with whoever happened to be around. Granted, most of them had been two-on-two matches, sometimes using 'ghost players', which Ted provided from a small box he'd bought from George. Apparently, it was a Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes test product. When the tiny wooden box was opened, it released four Boggarts, all of which had been specially hexed to only take the shapes of famous dead Quidditch players. They looked extremely convincing even if they were a bit transparent. The problem was that the Boggarts didn't have the slightest idea how to play Quidditch; thus, despite their impressive appearance, they tended to simply swoop randomly over the pitch, their arms in the air, making ghostly noises. Also, Bludgers flew right through them.

"Still," George had concluded, "they do add a certain something to a match lacking the right number of players, don't they?"

None of the matches James had taken part in that summer compared to this, however. Not only did the Weasleys tend to be fiercely competitive, but all the players knew each other eerily well. This was sometimes a benefit, such as when George ducked beneath a Bludger and lobbed the Quaffle over his head, knowing Angelina would be directly behind him to swat it into the goal with her Beater club. It was also sometimes a dread drawback, such as when Ginny predicted Ted's favorite maneuver and plucked the Quaffle from beneath his arm the very moment he swooped to score. Despite the fervor of the match, there was plenty of laughter and hearty encouragement on all sides. James knew he'd probably influence the match very little. He was mostly concerned with staying on his broom and not letting his own mum make a complete fool out of him in front of Rose and the rest. To his great pleasure, however, he did manage a few lucky swats with his club, sending the old Bludgers careening into the fracas and even occasionally striking their marks. One of them caromed off of George's broomtail, sending him into a wild, momentary spin. When he recovered, he glanced back at James and gave him a huge, toothy grin.

"Look at James!" he called to the other players. "Giving the 'old guard' a warning shot! Next one will be my head, eh, James? Nice shot!" And he dove back into the melee.

Ron couldn't help jumping up and down at the edge of the pitch, shouting instructions and warnings through cupped hands.

"Dragon formation!" he bellowed furiously. "Dragon formation, George at the wing! Harry's left is weak since that hit with Angelina! They've no defence against it! Ginny, you're drifting to the right! Fix your tail! Your tail! Oh, come down here and give me your broom!"

Right next to him, Albus matched him shout for shout, sometimes shoving his uncle aside with both hands. "They're planning a Waterloo Skidoo, Dad! Stack up and plow the center! Ted! Mum's stopped to fix her broomtail! She's exposed! Forget she's a girl and Bludger her back to the Stone Age!"

Hermione had moved to the blanket to sit with Fleur. The two of them were pointedly ignoring the match, lost in their own animated conversation.

And then, just as the sun was beginning to redden, James caught a flash of gold flickering near the fifth story of the Burrow. He glanced around, opening his mouth to alert the Seeker, and then remembered
he
was playing Seeker. His heart trip-hammered and he lunged forward, touching his chin to his broom handle. He shot forward, banking around Angelina and a wildly spinning Bludger. The rickety walls of the Burrow swayed in front of him, its windows winking daggers of burnished sunlight at him, half blinding him. There it was again, the flash of gold, darting through a stand of birch trees at the corner. James leaned, and the Thunderstreak responded with perfect control, ticking down and to the right, homing in on the Snitch. He strained forward, nearly climbing off the end of his broom, and reached for the tarnished golden ball.

The Snitch suddenly bobbed upwards, just over James' reaching hand. He shot under it, swore loudly, and then tucked his head as he whipped through the branches of the birch trees. They tore at him, but he barely noticed. He leaned so hard that he nearly fell off his broom, slewing to a halt and craning his head back to find the Snitch. The setting sun dazzled his eyes. James squinted and saw the tiny golden form of the Snitch. It hung in the air near the corner of the Burrow's roof, bobbing in the air like a bumblebee. A darker shape appeared behind it, blocking the sun. It was Ginny. She saw the Snitch, and then saw James. She grinned, and hugged her broom, rocketing forward.

"Oh no you don't!" James growled. He lunged, forcing himself to keep his eyes on the Snitch and not to check to see where his mum was. The Snitch seemed to sense the pursuit. It zigged out over the pitch, threading through the players. James hugged his broom, willing it to go even faster, and was suddenly reminded that the Thunderstreak was equipped with a rudimentary ability to read its owner's mind. It leapt forward, faster than James had ever gone before. He dipped under Ted and his dad, who had noticed the Snitch flash past them. James heard them cheering him on raucously. A shadow fell over the end of his broom and James couldn't help glancing up. His mum was directly over him, swooping toward the Snitch, her tunic flapping. James did the first thing that occurred to him. Suddenly, wildly, he steered to the left, away from the Snitch, still reaching forward as if to grab it. Instantly, he corrected and threw himself forward on his broom. It had worked! He sensed the movement over him as Ginny feinted left, believing James had seen the Snitch move aside. She'd been watching him rather than the Snitch itself! The Snitch didn't dodge away from him this time. He strained forward, brushed it with his fingers as it flew, and then clamped his hand on it. The wings buzzed against his palm for a moment before going still. The game was over.

James turned on his broom exultantly, holding the Snitch over his head. Far behind him, Harry and Ted threw their hands into the air. They were shouting at him. A second later, James realized they weren't celebrating. They were making warning signs. James hadn't stopped his broom. He whipped around to see where he was going just as the gnarled apple tree at the back of the pitch loomed over him. The breath socked out of him as a branch swept him from his broom. There was a sickly sensation of weightlessness, and then he thumped to the ground.

"Ooh," he moaned. Running footsteps approached and a moment later his mum was kneeling over him.

"James! Tell me you're all right!" she commanded. Lily peered in next to her, her eyes wide.

"He's all right, everybody," Ted said as he landed nearby, laughing. "He only dropped eight feet. Besides, all those rotten apples broke his fall."

James sat up and felt the sticky mush of a dozen rotten apples plastered to his back. He moaned and shook his head, flinging gobbets of apple pulp from his hair.

"Gah!" Lily cried, sputtering. "Warn me next time you do that, idiot!"

Suddenly, James remembered the Snitch. He glanced down at it in his hand, and then showed it to his mum. A huge grin broke out on his face.

Ginny smiled down at him crookedly. "Nicely done, son. Just don't expect to beat me twice."

"Did we win, then?" James asked as Ginny gave him her hand and pulled him to his feet.