Children of Sin

Chapter 36

As the champions ran into the maze, the audience was made to watch the hedges.

"They literally forgot about the audience when they planned these events," Damian shook his head, "how long do you think this one is going to take?"

"No idea," Rolf groans. After a few moments of hesitation, Rolf spoke again. "Damian, I have a question for you?"

"Hit me with it," Damian replies, giving Rolf a small smile.

"Why did you ask Potter to play quidditch with you in order to decide if you were going to forgive him?" Rolf asked. "I doubt you were cocky enough to think that you would obviously win; you knew there was a chance that you would lose. So the game wasn't "rigged". You were genuinely depending on the outcome of a quidditch match to make the difficult decision of forgiveness. Why?"

"That's actually a very good question," Lily agreed with Rolf's line of thinking, "I'm glad the two of them worked it out, but why a quidditch match?"

"I think I have an idea," James suggested, "I think it has something to do with character. You can tell a lot about people based on how they behave in a game."

"Not bad thinking," LIly begrudgingly admitted. She had thought him a total airhead, only willing to use his brains for ridiculous pranks and jokes. She would never have expected him to be good at reading people's intentions. She quickly brushed those thoughts away; he could be wrong. After all, the vision had yet to divulge the reasonings of the boy.

"Have you ever read a fantasy novel?" Damian asked suddenly, confusing Rolf.

"Sure I have," Rolf responded, "but what does that have to do with anything?"

"In fantasy," Damian began, "especially medieval fantasy, there are things like gladiator contests, fencing duels, magic competitions, and many other forms of games. In many cases, these games are used to choose knights, son-in-laws, kings, and other positions of sorts. Contests are a great way to gauge someone's character and abilities. You can learn things such as: do they play by the rules? Are they honorable? How do they handle it when things don't go their way?"

Damian paused for a moment to see if Rolf was keeping up. Once he saw that he had, he continued. "I used the same principle with Potter. I wanted to see if he'd accept my challenge, far-fetched as it was. Accepting it would prove that he is someone who genuinely cares about people: he's willing to go out of his way to try and earn forgiveness. Once he accepted, the next thing I wanted to see was his valor: would he give it all with no cheating? Would he try blocking me, use magic to slow me, or other things. I never said he couldn't; I wanted to see if he would. He was honorable; he didn't use underhanded tricks and would have been willing to accept defeat. After seeing and processing it all, I held up my side of the agreement. He proved that he was a genuine person who meant no harm in the matter of the stone; he earned his forgiveness."

"I knew it," James grinned, "I knew it was something like that."

Lily stared at James. Was he truly this excited about having predicted something? She watched as Sirius high-fived him, Remus sighed fondly, and Peter clapped. James was the one who had brought these people together. The four of them were so different; how did they all get along? Remus was too good for them; he was a smart and responsible student. Sirius and James may have the grades that Remus did, unlike Peter, but they were nowhere near as responsible and mature as him. How did such people not clash?

"What are you staring at?" Marlene asked cheekily, startling Lily, "James?"

"No," Lily said hastily, a slight blush on her cheeks. She quickly composed herself, before asking, "Don't you think their friendship is rather strange?"