"Sheesh, sorry," Zane mumbled. "Just don't point that crazy snowman log at me. I wanna keep the same number of arms and legs."
"Forget it," James soothed as they started walking again. "Flitwick's right. Who cares where your wand came from? You really got the feather to levitate?"
Ralph allowed a small grin of pride. "All the way to the ceiling. It's still up there now! I got it stuck in a rafter."
"Nice," James nodded appreciatively.
An older boy in a green tie bumped James, knocking him off the path and into the grass of the courtyard. He bumped into Ralph as well, but Ralph was as tall as the older boy, and rather wider. The boy bounced off Ralph, who didn't budge.
"Sorry," Ralph muttered as the boy stopped and glared at him.
"Watch where you're going, first years," the boy said coldly, glancing from James to Ralph. "And maybe you ought to be more careful who you allow yourself to be seen with, Deedle." He stepped around Ralph without waiting for a response.
"Now, that's the Slytherin spirit you told me about on the train," Zane said. "So much for 'I expect we'll all be friends.'"
"That was Trent," Ralph said morosely, watching the boy walk away. "He's the one who told me my GameDeck was an insult to my wizarding blood. Didn't take him long to borrow it, though."
James barely heard. He was distracted by something the boy had been wearing. "What'd his badge say?"
"Oh, they've all started wearing those," Ralph said. "Tabitha Corsica was handing them out in the common room this morning. Here." Ralph reached into his robes and produced a similar badge. "I forgot to put mine on."
James looked at the badge. White letters on a dark blue background read 'Progressive Wizarding Against False History'. A large red 'X' repeatedly slashed itself across the words 'False History', and then faded out.
"They don't all say that," Ralph said, taking the badge back. "Some of them say 'Question the Victors'. Others have longer sayings on them that didn't make any sense to me. What's an Auror?"
Zane piped up. "My dad got called for 'Auror duty' once. He got out of it because he was on a shoot in New Zealand. He says if 'Aurors' got paid more, we'd get better verdicts."
Ralph looked bewildered at Zane. James sighed. "Aurors," he said slowly and carefully, "are witches and wizards who find and catch dark witches and wizards. They're sort of like wizarding police, I guess. My dad's an Auror."
"Head of the Auror Department, you mean," a voice said as a group passed. Tabitha Corsica was at the head of the group, looking back at James as she swept on. "But do pardon my interruption." The others in the group looked back at James with unreadable smiles. All of them were wearing the blue badges.
"Yeah," James said, loudly but rather uncertainly, "he is."
"Your dad's chief of the wizard cops?" Zane asked, glancing from the departing Slytherins to James. James grimaced and nodded. He'd had a chance to read another of the badges. It read 'Say No to Auror Fear Mongering; Say Yes to Freedom of Magical Expression'. James didn't know what any of it meant, but he had a bad feeling about it.
Zane suddenly turned and nudged Ralph with his elbow. "Better get that badge on, mate, or your house buddies will think you've gone all soft on False History and the Auror Imperialists or whatever."
James blinked, finally registering something Ralph had said a minute ago. "Did you say that your roommate borrowed your GameDeck thing?"
Ralph smiled humorlessly. "Well, maybe not him. Somebody did. Not that many people knew about it, though. Unless they talked it up behind my back. All I know is it went missing from my bag right after I showed it to you guys. I suppose my housemates were just purging the room of counterfeit magic." He sighed.
James couldn't shake the nasty feeling that was cooling in his belly. It was all wrapped up in the sugary niceness of some of the Slytherins, and the odd badges. And now, one of them had taken Ralph's weird Muggle game device. Why?
They were passing the Hogwarts trophy case when Zane, who had drifted ahead, called out. "Hey, club sign-up sheets. Let's do something extracurricular." He leaned in, examining one sheet in particular. "'Read the Runes! Predict your Fate and the Fates of your Friends! Learn the Language of the Stars.' Blah, blah. 'Constellations Club. Meets at eleven o'clock on Tuesdays in the West Tower.' Sounds to me like an excuse to be out late. I'm there." He grabbed the quill which had been affixed to a shelf by a length of string, dipped it theatrically, and scribbled his name on the sheet.
James and Ralph had caught up with him. Ralph leaned in, reading the sign-up sheets aloud. "Debate teams, Wizard Chess Club, House Quidditch teams."
"What? Where?" Zane said, still holding the quill as if he meant to stab something with it. He found the parchment for the Ravenclaw Quidditch Team tryouts and began to sign his name. "I just gotta get on one of those brooms. What do you think my chances are, James?"
James took the quill from Zane, shaking his head in amusement. "Anything's possible. My dad was the Seeker for the Gryffindor team his first year. Youngest Seeker in team history. He's part of the reason they changed the rules. Used to be that first years couldn't be on the team. Now it's allowed, but really, really rare." James signed his name to the bottom of the sheet for the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Tryouts, he saw, were after classes the next day.
"Ralph, you going to sign up for the Slytherins? Come on! All your friends are doing it!" Zane leered at the bigger boy.
"Nah, I was never very good at sports."
"You?" Zane cried heartily, throwing an arm rather awkwardly over Ralph's shoulder. "You're a brick wall! All you have to do is park yourself in front of the goal and the defense is all shored up! All they'd need is to find a broom that'll hold you, you big lug."
"Shut up!" Ralph said, twisting away from Zane's arm, but smiling and turning red. "Actually I was thinking about signing up for the debate team. Tabitha thinks I'd be good on it."
James blinked. "Tabitha Corsica asked you to be on the Slytherin debate team?"
"Actually," Zane said, peering at the debate sign-up sheets, "debate teams aren't divided by house. They're just random Teams A and B. Look, people from all different houses are on each team. There's even some of the visiting Alma Alerons on here."
"Why don't you go ahead and sign up, Ralph?" James asked. Ralph obviously wanted to.
"I don't know. I might."
"Oh, look, Petra's on Team A," Zane said. He began to sign his name again.
James frowned. "You're joining the debate team just because Petra Morganstern is on it?"
"Can you think of a better reason?"
"You know," James said, laughing, "Petra is going out with Ted, I think."
"My dad says girls don't know whether they like ice cream until they've tried every kind," Zane said wisely, sticking the quill back into its holder.