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"Follow me!" Zane shouted over the wind as he swooped by.
The other figures resolved as they centered on James. He saw Ted and Ge
There was a horrible jolt. James squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to hear the sound of his body hitting the ground. There was no sound. He risked opening his eyes just a tiny bit, and then looked around with relief and surprise. He was hovering five feet above the center of the Quidditch pitch, still straddling his broom, but not holding on. Rain hissed all around him as the Ravenclaws and Gryffindors stared at him. Zane, Ted, and Ge
Ralph stood on the edge of the field, his robes soaked through and sticking to him, an umbrella lying abandoned at the edge of the grandstands. Every muscle in Ralph's body seemed to be tensed, straining, as he held his ridiculous, enormous wand straight out, pointing it at James. He was trembling visibly. Rain streamed down his face, matting his hair to his forehead.
"Do I have to keep this up?" he said through gritted teeth. "Or can I let go now?"
5.The Book of Austramaddux
"Don't think of it as looking like a miserable failure on a broomstick," Zane said afterwards as they all sat in the Ravenclaw common room. "Think of it as giving Ralphie here a chance to look positively brilliant!"
James said nothing. He sat slumped at the end of the couch, his head propped miserably on his hand.
"Besides, if I hadn't hopped on my broomstick and took off after you, I don't think I'd have been able to figure it out at all. It was just a matter of not thinking about it, really."
"Spectacular stuff out there, Walker," an older student said as he passed the couch, ruffling Zane's damp hair.
"Yeah," another one said from across the room. "Normally, first years tryouts are just for laughs. With you, we get the laughs and the skills." There was a round of laughter and scattered applause. Zane beamed, soaking it up.
"Seriously, though," Ralph said from where he sat on the floor, his back to the fire, "how'd you do that? Flying is supposed to be pretty tough to master."
"I du
Ralph blinked thoughtfully, and then picked up his wand from where it lay on his wet cloak. It was just as huge and ridiculous as always, still with the tip whittled down and painted lime green, but nobody was laughing at it anymore. "I don't know. It's like you said, isn't it? I just didn't think about it. I saw James falling and I thought of the feather in Flitwick's class. Next thing I know, I'm pointing my wand at him and yelling--"
Several students, including Zane, ducked and called out as Ralph flicked his wand ahead of him. Ralph smiled sheepishly. "Get a grip, everybody. I wasn't go
"Ralph, you're the real deal, mate," Zane said, recovering. "You went from floating a feather to a human body in one class, you know? My boy's got talent."
James stirred. "If you two are done congratulating yourselves, I'm go
"Hey, I'll bet Grawp's girlfriend has room in her cave," Ralph said. Zane did a double take at Ralph, open-mouthed.
"What?" Ralph said. "It'll save him some time looking!"
"He's joking," Zane said, glancing at James. "I couldn't tell at first."
"Congratulations on making the team," James said quietly, standing and collecting his cloak from a hook by the fire.
"Hey, really," Zane said awkwardly. "I'm sorry about how things worked out. I didn't know it was that important to you. Really."
James stood still for several seconds, staring into the fire. Zane's expression of regret struck him deeply. His heart ached. His face heated and his eyes burned. He blinked and looked away.
"It wasn't that important to me, really," he said. "It was just really, really important."
As the door closed behind James, he heard Ralph say, "So who was it important to?"
James walked slowly, his head down. His clothes were still damp, and his body ached from the jolt of Ralph levitating him at the end of his long dive, but he barely noticed those things. He had failed. After the victory of becoming a Gryffindor, he'd been cautiously confident that Quidditch, too, would work out. Instead, he'd ended up looking like a complete fool in front of both the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws. Far from the spectacular aerobatic displays his dad had legendarily performed, James had to be rescued from killing himself. There was no surviving this kind of failure. He'd never live it down. Nobody was making fun of him now, at least to his face, but what would they say next year when he showed up for tryouts again? He couldn't even bear to think about it.
How would he tell his dad? His dad, who would be coming at the begi