James Potter and the Crimson Thread

The Quidditch Tryouts

                          When they arrived at Hogwarts, by themselves, Merlin came to greet and escort them to the castle.
"Greetings, students. Your late arrival is well known to faculty and staff, and it is also known for what reason."
"Headmaster, who's our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" Rose asked.
"In time, you will see."
As they began walking to the castle, James noticed a few changes in the place. The greenhouses, rather than being all moldy and dirty on the inside and outside, were completely spotless. James wondering wether Merlin charmed them to be clean eternally. The grass was leveled, steps were improved. Hagrid's hut wasn't a hut anymore. It was a nice villa just out the Forbidden Forest. Other than that, just small tiny details were altered. The place looked better. Merlin interrupted his thinking with a ghastly notification.
"James, I'm sorry to say there will barely be any Quidditch ."
"Why is that?"
"It is because of another event, and it is much more costly."
"I understand, Headmaster."
"Good."
                      

                    When James and Rose got to the Gryffindor common room, there was a huge surprise.
"SURPRISE!!!"
James felt as though his nickers were ripped off. He was as scared as a house elf was of freedom.
"What's this all about," James yelled.
"Your fight against the W.U.L.F.  , dimwit." Scorpius walked out of the crowd with his reading glasses and his book.
"Oh, well thanks everyone, now go back to your everyday stuff." James shooed people away from him. Then he noticed a new face, but she was also a fifth year. Could she be a transfer student? He remembered the face from somewhere. He walked over to her.
"Hi, I haven't seen you around Hogwarts before, are you a transfer student?" James asked.
"Yeah, I'm from Alma Aleron."
"So that's where I think I know you from, even though I don't really know you."
"You must be that James guy, the friend of Zane?"
"Yeah. Zane's here too, he's in Ravenclaw."
"Oh, cool."
"What's your name by the way?" James asked.
"Oh, my name's Kerry Fablehaven."
"James Potter, nice to meet you." They shook hands, and went off in their separate ways. James noticed, happily at that, blonde and brown hair out of the corner of his eye. It was none other than Zane's "girlfriend".
"Nastasia!" James ran to hug her. Nastasia gave a hug back.
"You call that a welcome hug?"
She gave him a full on kiss on the lips. He kissed her back.
"Now that's a welcome hug!" They pulled apart from each other, just as Rose Weasley was coming over.
"Hey Rose, how are you." They gave each other a friendly hug.
"I'm good. And I'm glad to see you're in Gryffindor!"
"Yeah, the Sorting Hat was going crazy! It kept getting mixed up on whether to send me to Slytherin," she made a quick glance at James and he nodded, " or Gryffindor. But I'm glad I ended up here." James felt a little tired.
"See you guys, I'm going to catch a few Z's, if that's what you Americans refer to as sleeping."
"We actually do." Nastasia confirmed. James was so happy her multiple personalities were dead. He was happy that he had just the one Nastasia back.  James crawled under his bedsheets, and drifted away to a land called peaceful sleep, at least until Damien Damascus, Sabrina Hildegard, Hugo, Rose, Albus, Ralph, Zane, and Nastasia picked his bed up and flipped him over.
"What the BLOODY HELL!!!" James screamed.
"Gremlins, you sodding idiot," Ralph said from behind the sleep killers.
"Well, you could've woken me up normally, you know."
"But then it wouldn't be fun," Sabrina pouted.
"Fine. Before we leave, as leader of the Gremlins, I am bringing in a new recruit. Her name is Kerry Fablehaven, Nastasia you know her, can you bring her from the girls dormitories?"
"Yeah, sure, whatever you say, Captain O'Reily."

                   As they all gathered around the witch that led to a secret passageway into Honeydukes in Hogsmeade, James pulled out a parchment. The Maurauderer's Map.
"Today, this will be our task; we will re-draw the Map."
"That can't be possible, we're not the Messrs." Damien noted.
"Which is why we are changing the creators. But what's the Maurauderer's Map with out nice nicknames? So any one has in mind a nickname. Remember you can't make your own nickname, someone has to make one for you." It took a few minutes to finally get someone to talk.
"Ralph's name definitely can't be Ralphinator, it's too obvious... How about... Potbelly!" Rose said.
"What do I look like to you? A hobgoblin? Screw that name." Ralph was pissed off, but chuckled along with the others.
"OK, OK. No insulting names. Ralph how is... Professor Wisely?" James stated seriously. Ralph thought for a bit, then he agreed.
"OK, that's one down, eight to go." Hugo said while writing it all down on a parchment.
"Hugo, your nickname should Chief Timelock," said Sabrina.
"Correction, two down, seven to go." Chief Timelock corrected himself. After the lot of them took five minutes to brainstorm, they began giving away their ideas.
"James, you should be Prongs! Just like your grandfather before you." Zane said.
"True, I'll take it." James agreed.
"Zane you're Raven." Damien said. Everyone turned to look at him.
"How'd you figure that one out?" Zane said with a screwed up face.
"You know, Raven, Ravenclaw. Get it?" There was a round of Ohhhh, I get it's.
"Four down, five to go." Timelock noted.
"Nastasia, you're Nytemare." James suggested.
"I like it! It's mine, dibs."
"OK, four left. What do we have for Al here?" James asked.
"How about...  Hog Ryder?" Rose suggested.
"Hmm... I'm taking a liking to it. I'll take it, thank you very much."
"Damien, if your name isn't DoubleTrouble, I don't know what I'd do." Sabrina said.
"Alright fine, I give in, write the bloody name down."
"Now we only have Sabrina and I." Rose stated.
"Sabrina gets Dæmon, and you get Mastermind. Done?" Rose and Sabrina nodded, and Hugo continued talking,"so, who has the artistic skill here? Well, I'm pretty sure it's obvious. I'll do it. I'll redraw the Map. See you later, Messrs." As the group parted, James walked off to the common room with Nastasia, Sabrina, Damien, and Rose.
"So I heard that Judith's been given the Kiss," Damien whispered.
"Yeah, we're looking at a trouble-free year." James said.
"And isn't the leader of W.U.L.F. also dead? I read it on your newspaper." Nastasia asked.
"Yeah, but word is that they have a new one and they're interfering with a major event this year." Sabrina told them. James looked at the time, just out of curiosity, and realized it was six o'clock. Dinner was starting in fifteen minutes. The group turned around and ran to the Great Hall.

                        They had made just in time, for the Headmaster stood upon the riser. And began his notifications.
"Good evening students, and welcome to another school year!" At this there was applause everywhere. "Although this is a school, this year will barely be about learning, for there will be no classes." The students went wild, some blasted fireworks from their wands. Others threw away parchment. And the chaos settled down when Merlin clapped twice.
"We, at Hogwarts, are very proud to be hosting another... TRIWIZARDS TOURNAMENT!!!" Once again chaos erupted and Merlin allowed for a few minutes the clapped again.
"And, of course, we will be hosts to several schools, for this tournament allows ten competitors, two of each house of the age of sixteen and older." He paused and allowed the crowd of students to rejoice, then cut them off again.
"The schools are arriving and entering our Great Hall as I call them out." He paused.
"Beauxbatons!" And the doors opened as the group of girl students entered. Their dramatic flair and swift entrance knocked half the boys off their feet. Metaphorically, of course. As the group of girls divided but those who chose to sit at the Ravenclaw table, and the Hufflepuff table.
"Durmstrang!" A group of barbaric boys boys walked in with scepter doing acrobatics and used enchanted Greek Fyre to make animals. They all sat down among the Slytherins. Albus and Ralph winked over to James as though feeling pity for him.
"Volgrad, School of Magick!" The doors banged open. A single person walked through. It was Majedovic! He used his gold scepter, swung at mid-air, creating Persian Fyre. When the fyre dissolved there stood, in lines, boys and girls looking like gods and goddesses, with their perfection. They were walking towards the Gryffindor table. Majedovic sat right in the gap between James and the Gremlins, and some burly seventh years.
"Hello," Majedovic said in a perfect British accent.
"Hi. I can't help but notice, you spoke with a British accent?" James worried whether he said something wrong.
"Do not worry I won't eat you, if that's what you're afraid of." He chuckled some of his friends joined him. "In Volgrad, we use the British methods to learn English. If any one came up with the idea to use American methods, I would've sent two of my own created curses at his face. We despise Americans." Sadly that last sentence, Nastasia overheard.
"The reason you idiots hate us is because you're scared of our freedom!" Nastasia yelled.
"Scared?!? Pah, you fat idiot Americans. If I poked one of your security men it would take them a lifetime to walk a meter. I'll show you scared. A nuka, ti tam! Zatupi eyo!" He yelled at a a crony of his. The crony sent a Langlock Jinx on her mouth, while another behind him sent a Tongue-Tying Jinx at her.
"Now that an American pest has been tied up, I must ask you a very serious question. How do you sign up for Quidditch here?" James didn't like the way he forced cronies to jinx Nastasia, but he admired his sense of pride and self-defense. And he was interesting in serious twisted way.
"Well, you'll have to talk to me then, and by the way, welcome to the Gryffindor Quidditch team." James said. He looked over to Zane, who he know was listening in on this, and gave him a toothy smile.