Work Text:
Tuesday. December 17, 2019
"Alright, you sons of witches. I'm gonna show you a real sport."
Evan stood on the frozen surface of the Hogwarts Lake, arms crossed, glaring at his two best friends. He had discarded his school robes for the trousers and jacket that he wore underneath. However, James was focused on his feet.
"I'll admit, attaching knives to your shoes does look kinda badass."
"Do you use them to—HIYA!" Gavin, the last member of their trio, made a high kick in the air "—cut off the other team's heads or something?"
"No, the refs tend to frown on that. You use them to skate on the ice. Watch."
Evan started to skate. James tried not to look mystified as he watched. In a way, it just looked like anyone trying to walk on a sheet of ice—like he was slipping uncontrollably, doomed to fall on his face like an idiot. This would have been hilarious, but instead, Evan actually did seem to have control, turning in a huge loop and then coming to a sudden stop in front of them with a spray of ice.
It looked almost like flying felt, James thought. That heady feeling of control in the midst of something inherently chaotic.
"Not bad," is what he said. "But it's still on the ground."
"Yeah," Gavin agreed. "We already knew that you can walk, mate."
The pair grinned and bumped their fists together. It was a hobby of theirs, making fun of how crap Evan was on a broom. Early in their first year this could have been excused, since he was Muggle-born and hadn't grown up flying like them. But as time went on and the other Muggle-borns improved, it had become clear that no, Evan really was just crap at it, while James and Gavin were both players on the Gryffindor Quidditch team.
It was especially funny, because Evan insisted that he was good at sports. Just not the Wizarding kind.
The fact that he was smirking just then made James a bit nervous.
"You think it's easy? Then put on a pair of skates and let's see you on the ice."
James and Gavin exchanged a look. Gavin looked confident, which, James thought, was probably another bad sign.
They sat in the snow, took off their boots, and began to pull on the other pairs of blade-boots. James tied his laces, climbed to his feet—
—and immediately landed facedown in the snow.
Gavin burst out laughing. James climbed onto his hands and knees and gave him a venomous look. Then he stood again, holding out his arms for balance, and tried to walk onto the ice. The thin blades made him completely off-balanced, like he was tiptoeing the whole way.
"Alright," Evan said, when James and Gavin were both standing shakily on the ice. "Now, let's see if you can glide without a broom. We'll start with something easy."
He skated a few feet away, came to another sudden stop, and turned back to his friends, spreading his hands as though welcoming them to join him.
James looked down at his feet, which shuddered from one side to the other as he worked to keep his balance. He tried to imitate Evan, shooting one foot out to slide across the ice.
"OOF!" he yelled, as he landed painfully hard on his stomach. He "OOF!"ed again when Gavin landed on top of his back.
"James?"
James, lying breathless on the ice, looked up. His little brother Albus, a third-year, was standing on the shore, accompanied by their cousins Rose and Hugo.
"Are you allowed on the lake?" Rose asked with a scowl.
"Probably not," James groaned, shoving Gavin off of him. "Very few things that we do are allowed."
"I think it's okay," said Hugo, "because they're on the surface of the lake, which has to be allowed because we took the boats to the castle. Technically there's a rule saying that we can't do into the water, though, because that's the merpeople's territory. But that rule is dumb, because otherwise how are we going to foster interspecies fellowship and greater appreciation of our disparate cultures?"
Albus gave him a look. "Is that necklace you're wearing made of seaweed?"
"What necklace?" said Hugo, stuffing it under his robes.
"The ice seems solid enough, and I reinforced this whole area with Freezing Spells. It's safe as long as we stay near the shore."
"Why would the ice be unsafe?" Gavin asked.
"Because it might be too thin, stupid. Then it would break under our weight, and we'd die of hypothermia before we even had a chance to drown."
"Hmm," said James. "That does make it sound more interesting. But still not as good as a real sport."
"It's not a fake sport just because you're bad at it," said Evan, a rare note of anger intruding on his usual sarcasm.
"You know what I mean. Not as good as a Wizard sport. I'm not trying to insult Muggles, I'm just saying, they come up with stuff like this to make up for the fact that they can't fly."
"I know how to fly and skate," Rose said witheringly.
"Me, too!" said Hugo.
"But he's bad at it."
"I am not! I'm good at everything!"
"But you prefer flying, don't you? I bet you wouldn't have bothered learning if you didn't have Muggle family."
"Rose taught me to skate too," said Albus. "Kind of. It's pretty fun."
"Well, then!" Evan said, clapping his gloved hands. "You want to help me show up James and Gavin?"
"DO I?" said Hugo, rushing to grab a pair of skates. Rose hesitated, because she was sure that skating on the lake would be against the rules, but she and James each had a competitive streak, so after a moment she followed suit. Albus came last, looking reluctant.
James rose back to his feet as Rose flew easily by. "Not bad," Evan praised.
"Thank you," she said, though she was looking mockingly at James.
He smirked nastily. "Just proves my point, doesn't it? It's a good hobby for people who can't play Quidditch."
That got to her. Other than James, Rose was possibly the most ardent Quidditch fan out of all the Weasley-Potter cousins. Earlier that year, she had tried and failed to earn a spot on the Ravenclaw team—which must have rankled more, as Albus (who was now cringing in the background) made it onto the Hufflepuff team. Meanwhile, James and Gavin had been Quidditch stars before they even got to Hogwarts.
As Rose's face grew red, and she opened her mouth to retort, Evan slid between them with a cocky smile on his face.
"Who says you can't play Quidditch on the ice?"
"I don't know if anyone's ever said it," Hugo replied thoughtfully. "It just seems kinda obvious, because by definition, Quidditch is played in the sky while OOF!" He had fallen onto his backside. "This is harder to do in robes."
"We're going to play hockey," Evan said. He looked around. "Any of you know what that is?"
Nobody did, including Rose or Hugo. "Well, if you simplify the rules a bit, it's basically the Quaffle parts of Quidditch. Not so popular here, but I played it a lot when I lived in Canada. Let's see..."
They found a pinecone for the Quaffle ("puck") and chose two opposite ends of the lake for their imaginary hoops ("goals"). They also got some branches to serve as "hockey sticks."
"Each side needs a goalie," he continued. "Like a Keeper. Goalies are supposed to have special skates, but we'll have to do without. I'll be goalie for one side. Who wants the other?"
"I'll do it," said Rose, as she preferred to Keep in Quidditch. After some negotiating, they put Albus and Gavin on her team and James and Hugo on Evan's. "That way the competence is divided evenly," Evan quipped.
"Yeah. One athlete" James pointed to himself and Gavin "and one amateur on each team."
Albus—who had already won his first game for Hufflepuff—scowled. Hugo just blew a raspberry in James' direction.
Of course, James wasn't stupid—he knew that he was walking into a trap. But he wasn't going to back down. And even though he could barely keep his balance on these kind-of-cool-but-ridiculous ice skates, he hoped to get the hang of them faster than the others. He doubted that Albus or Hugo could actually be that competent at this stupid sport.
As it turned out, neither of them had even close to Evan's skill—Albus could mostly stay upright, but only by moving slowly and cautiously, while Hugo had the opposite problem, trying so hard to zip around that he constantly slid out of control. Rose, however, was legitimately good. Her Keeper duties gave her a limited range of movement, but she skated both quickly and efficiently, blocking both of James' shots in the first few minutes.
It should be noted that James fell after both of these shots, earning laughter from everybody else.
(Gavin fell so much that he eventually stopped trying to get back up, choosing to just lie on the ice and watch his friend fume.)
The thing was, James was starting to get better—as they played, he went from inching along with shaky strokes to moving about as well as Albus. At one point Hugo ran into him and he actually managed to stay upright.
So far, neither team had scored, and the "hockey match" was more just everyone floundering around after the pinecone-Quaffle-puck. But James was determined to at least get one shot past Rose before they had to turn in for dinner.
Once he got possession of the pinecone, he came up with a brilliant idea. He aimed, shot it toward Rose, then whipped out his wand and called "Wingardium leviosa!"
He had just enough time to finish the spell before Rose would have blocked it; instead, it shot up several feet above her head, then dropped down to the ice behind her.
Gavin hooted as Rose looked behind her, sputtering indignantly.
"James!"
"That's cheating! Which I object to, even though we're on the same team!" Hugo said.
James stopped and shrugged, which almost made him topple over. "We never said no magic."
"Oh, really?" said Rose, drawing out her own wand. "I hadn't realized."
"Alright, let's be—" Albus began, but fell as he tried to skate between them. James barely had time to grin about this before he suddenly fell, too, because Rose had flicked her wand at his skates and caused them to slip out from underneath him.
"Hey!"
"FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!"
"Gavin, shut up," said Evan. "You two, save the aggression for—"
But James had climbed to his feet, almost slipped again, and then, before he was fully upright, waved his wand at Rose with a cry of "Locomotor Mortis!"
"Flam—"
Later, Rose would explain that she had been trying to create Bluebell Flames. She figured that shooting James with fire when they standing on the ice would be a good way to scare him, but without posing any danger, since Bluebell Flames were cool enough to hold in your hand. Worst case scenario, his robes would have been a bit singed before he was able to extinguish them.
Unfortunately, James' Leg-Lock Curse knocked her down before she could say the incantation properly, while also destroying her concentration.
All anybody saw was a certain waviness in the air, and all that James felt at first was a blast of heat below his knees.
Then there was a cracking sound.
James raised his wand again, but Evan screamed, "STOP!"
As previously mentioned, Evan's usual tone is that of a detached raillery, so the sudden panic gave his friend pause.
"What's the—" he began, before the ice shattered beneath him and he plunged into the icy lake.
At first, all James felt was the sudden shock of falling, followed by the sudden shock of being very wet. Then the cold hit him. And it was very cold. So cold that he gasped out loud and swallowed a mouthful of water, which burned icily in his throat.
Instinctively, he let go of the branch that he'd been using as a hockey stick and waved his arms wildly, his movements hampered by his robes and thick cloak. He kicked with feet that were impeded by bladed shoes. A horrible panic choaked his chest, combining with the stabbing cold and lack of air—
And then, just as suddenly, he shot out of the water like a cork from a bottle. It wasn't perfectly aligned with the hole that he fallen through, so his shoulder slammed into the ice and, he would later find, lost a good chunk of skin. But he had half a second to suck in air before he collapsed onto the ice, gasping and spitting and shivering more than he had ever shivered before. He kept his eyes firmly closed; the light breaking through them was painful.
He could barely process all the people who were around him, shouting in panic.
"—mean for that to—!"
"HELP! HELP!"
"He went into the water! Do you think the merpeople will be mad?"
"GAVIN! Hot Air Charm, now!"
"Crap, how do you—?!"
The next thing James knew, a sudden warmth had cut through the coldness like a knife. A very pleasant knife. But he still couldn't stop shivering, even as more streams of hot air began to hit him from different sides. Someone even peeled his clothes away from his body and shot it right down the collar of his robes. The warmth against his chest only made the ache of his lungs seem worse.
He tried to say something—mostly words that shouldn't be repeated—but his teeth were chattering too hard and he felt too sick and confused to speak.
"It's okay, James!" a panicky Albus said from a spot at his side. "It's gonna be okay."
"We have to get him to the castle. Everybody keep warming him up. Mobilicorpus!"
"UGH!" James groaned as his body was jerked into the air. He floated in the air, tried to thrash for a moment, then gave up, because moving was painful to his frozen joints.
"Can it, mate, we're saving your life," Evan grumbled, before the group moved quickly back toward the castle.
"ACHOO! Ugh..." James laid back down in bed. "Why does sneezing hurt so much?!"
Hannah—or Madam Longbottom, as she was called at school—patted his head vaguely. "Try another Pepperup Potion."
"I'm sick of Pepperup Potions!" he said, as she walked away. "I'm not dying anymore, I'm just—ACHOO!"
"Don't talk about dying," Albus snapped. He was sitting by his brother's bedside, looking pale. He was the only visitor left after Evan and Gavin were taken to McGonagall's office. James was now dry, dressed in pajamas, and covered with blankets. A collection of Bluebell Flames, properly cast, floated in the air around his bed.
Albus fiddled nervously, then said, "You have to admit...this 'hockey' thing turned out rougher than any Quidditch match we've every played."
"I'd better not be stuck here over Christmas," James growled. "Or my birthday! In case anyone's forgotten, that's the day after tomorrow, and if I'm stuck in the Hospital Wing, I swear that I will be completely insufferable about it! And when I get out," he added, settling moodily onto his pillow, "I'm turning Rose into a—I dunno. Platypus, or something!"
"James—"
"Tries to drown me, just because I scored against her, fair and square!"
"It was an accident, and you did not."
"Did so!"
"If both of you hadn't been so stupid—!"
Hannah came back into the room, checking her watch. "Al, sweetie, I'm afraid it's time to go. Curfew's in a bit, and your well-intentioned attempts to calm James down are not working. Don't worry," she added, putting her hand on his back as he walked toward the door, "He'll be out tomorrow morning, most likely. Honestly, out of all the times he's been in here, this is the simplest to deal with."
"Alright. Thanks, Hannah. Goodnight, James. I'm really glad you didn't drown or freeze or anything."
"If you see Rose, tell her that I swear revenge!"
"I'm not going to do that," he said as he slipped out of the Hospital Wing.
Rose was in the corridor outside, pacing and wringing her hands. As soon as Albus appeared, however, she stopped and crossed her arms defiantly.
"How is he?" she asked, in a tone that was more irritated than worried.
"Alright, I think. He's got a cold now. He's always really whiny when that happens."
"Well. Serves him right! Cheater."
"Rose," Albus said crossly.
"I didn't do it on purpose!"
"I know. But still. He almost died, and you're mad about a stupid game?"
She let her facade drop, if only a bit. "Is he very angry?"
"I don't think so," Albus said, eyes daring back toward the door. "He knows it was an accident. And—"
"Are you talking to Rose out there! I swear revenge, Rose! You hear me?! Next time we play Quidditch—!"
Rose's face turned hard as he continued to rant, and Albus sighed in annoyance.