Foreshadowing the Past

Chapter 16

High sprits they had: gravity they flouted. -- Cecil Day Lewis

Connor and Zack woke on the morning of Christmas Eve to the sounds of Christmas music playing somewhere downstairs, and the smell of fresh gingerbread on the air. The clouds that had been a steely gray were still hanging over the countryside, but the ground outside told them that they had not delivered much snow during the night. Connor groaned and turned over, pulling the duvet up over his head in an attempt to get back to sleep; he had dreamed of the clock room again during the night, but it hadn't progressed any further than it had before. Zack however, woke excited, and showered and dressed quickly, and went down to the kitchen in hopes of having a square of gingerbread with his breakfast. The music didn't get louder as he traveled down the stairs, and he guessed that it had been charmed to be the same volumes all over the house.

"Good morning, Zack," Mrs. Potter greeted him warmly. "Is Connor still in bed?"

"Yes, ma'am," he answered cheerfully. He glanced at the clock and saw that it was already half-nine. "I'd probably still be asleep, too, but the smell of gingerbread coaxed me out." He smiled hopefully at her, and was rewarded with a laugh.

"I think we can scare some up for you," she said. "Have a seat."

Zack sat at the table across from Adam, who had a Puffskein on the table beside his bowl of porridge. "Good morning, Adam," he said to the younger boy. "Is that Pit-pat you've got there?"

Adam looked up at Zack, took an audible deep breath, and began to talk. "Good morning Zack. This one is Sweetie. I had Pit-Pat out earlier, but he likes to be in his cage in the morning. Sweetie likes to be out during the day and she likes to play under the couch where Quigley can't get her. You were asleep a long time. Mum says that you boys must have stayed up for half the night talking and that's why you were so tired and that I shouldn't wake you because you're on your holidays and you're a guest, and you don't need a little boy climbing all over you too early. I wanted to wake you up because Dad says we can go out on brooms today once everyone is ready, and that means you and Connor because everyone else has been awake for ages." The little boy took another deep breath and launched into another long speech, but luckily, Connor's dad came along and distracted him. "Dad! Zack's awake now, but Connor's still asleep and I want to go out on the brooms, but you said that we can't until everyone's ready, and Connor can't be ready if he's asleep, so can I go and wake him up and make him get ready so we can go?"

"Sure, son," Harry said with an indulgent smile. "Why don't you go wake him up?"

Zack got the distinct feeling that Connor's dad had only given his permission for Adam to go and wake him so that he'd quit talking. Mrs. Potter set a steaming bowl of porridge in front of him, and a fat square of gingerbread that had been dusted with powdered sugar, and Zack dug in.

"Hey!" Harry said. "I didn't get any gingerbread with my porridge!" He grinned when his wife rolled her eyes and levitated a piece over to the table in front of him. "Excellent! You're good luck, Zack! She said she wasn't going to cut this stuff until later today!"

Zack grinned back and took a large bite. "Don't you have work today, Mr. Potter?"

"Not really," he answered, summoning the milk bottle with a wave of his hand. He didn't notice Zack's stunned look as he witnessed him using wandless magic so effortlessly. He had the bottle raised to halfway to his lips when his wife made a warning noise in her throat, and he summoned a glass as well. "There will probably be a few people coming today to pick up special orders, but I don't have to go in to work unless there's an emergency. I thought we could all go out and spend some time in the air. Do you like to fly?"

"I love it," Zack said at once, immediately distracted. "Though I'm not very good at it."

"He's loads better than he was a couple of months ago," Connor said with a yawn, sitting down at the table sloppily dressed, and with hair even messier than usual. "We've been practicing with him before Quidditch practice a couple of times a week."

"I don't have a broom," Zack said. "I've been using one of the school brooms."

Connor's dad winced at that bit of information, and said, "We've got plenty of brooms about; we'll find a good one for you to use today. The school brooms are okay, but I think that you'll find that a better made broom is easier to ride."

"And there's no broom made better than a Dog Star broom, right Dad?" Lucy said, coming down the stairs with her long black hair in a slightly lumpy ponytail.

"That's right, honey," her Dad grinned, putting and arm around her.

"Sir," Zack asked politely. "Why did you name your company Dog Star?"

"It was named after my Godfather, Sirius," came the easy reply. "He was killed during the war, and we thought it would be a fitting tribute."

"I'm sorry," Zack said, looking at his plate. He remembered Rachel and Connor talking about their "Uncle Sirius" before, but had not connected him to the name of their fathers' broomstick business.

"Don't be," Harry said gently. "It's been nearly twenty years since he died. I think he'd be proud to have it named for him. Now! If you two will finish your breakfast, I'll go hunt up a broom for Zack to ride."

He left the room, and Connor noticed that Zack looked worried. "Don't worry, mate. Dad likes talking about Uncle Sirius; you didn't say anything wrong,"

"Hey Mum!" Ian came skidding into the room. "Are you coming flying with us?"

"I don't know," she said with a frown. "I have a lot to do around here still, and..."

"Please?" All three Potter children begged at once.

"Oh, all right. I haven't been out in a while. It would be nice," she relented. "Where's Adam?"

"Oh, Connor left him tied to the banister," Ian said unconcernedly.

Zack almost spit his milk across the table at this casual announcement, but Connor just shrugged and said in his defense, "I warned him, and he still shoved that stupid Puffskein down the back of my shirt."

"Connor," his Mum said with a long-suffering sigh. "How many times have we told you not to tie your brother up?"

"I don't know; fifty three? He could've called for help," Connor said to her retreating back, as she went to free her youngest. "I didn't gag him or anything."

"No," Lucy grinned impishly. "That was me."

"Excellent!" Connor grinned at her.

A moment later, Adam came into the room, glaring at them all, but his mood only lasted a few seconds as his father came out of the basement carrying several broomsticks. The kids all cheered, and raced to get cloaks and gloves, and soon they were all outside waiting for permission to launch into the air. Zack watched curiously as Mrs. Potter charmed a tether of sorts from Adam's small broomstick to his ankle, and then let him take off into the air.

"That's to keep him from falling," she told Zack. "If he slips off his broom for any reason, and tension is put on the tether, the broom will automatically pull up against his weight and then gently bring him to the ground."

"Maybe I should have one of those," he grinned.

"I think you'll be safe," she ruffled his hair affectionately, much the way she did to her own children, and then called to her husband to bring their guest a broom.

"This is just a Daytripper," Harry told Zack as he presented him with a broom. "It's one of our leisure model prototypes with a few... modifications. Normally it would be used strictly for traveling, but this one will do a few tricks for you and has a bit better maneuverability. We originally designed it for Connor's grandmother, but she prefers to Apparate, so we started adding extra features to it to make it more appealing to the younger consumer. It's also charmed to be very stable, so you won't be able to fall off unless you're really trying."

Zack took the offered broom with polite thanks and kicked off into the air. He couldn't believe the difference in the feel of this broom in comparison to the school's brooms. Everything about it was much smoother and more comfortable, and he soon found himself making bolder moves than he might have done at school. He allowed himself to be drawn into a makeshift game that the kids simply called, "Copy Me!" and was enjoying it immensely.

Connor watched as Zack executed a clumsy, but successful loop in the air, laughing at the expression of deepest concentration on his friend's face as did so. He was glad that he had invited him to spend Christmas with his family, and couldn't wait to see how he would react to being surrounded by two-dozen or more Weasleys tonight. He was pulled from his thoughts about the delights of Christmas Eve when Ian suddenly called out, "Ew! They're doing it again!"

He wheeled around on his broom as saw that his parents were floating about twenty feet off the ground, kissing each other. Again.

"They do that all the time," he said at Zack's surprised expression; he had the feeling that Zack's parents didn't behave this way in front of him. He wondered what it would be like to have parents as strict as his friend's seemed to be, and decided that he was a very lucky kid, indeed.

Both of his parents gave Zack some pointers in flying, and the family spent a happy two hours out on their brooms before they landed and trooped back inside. Ginny told the boy that she wouldn't be surprised if he was good enough to try out for the Quidditch team next year with a bit more practice. Connor thought that she might be right; all he really needed was the confidence, and they could work on that for the rest of the school year.

No sooner had Connor's dad put all of the brooms away than one of the people he had told Zack about earlier arrived to pick up a broom. He and his customer disappeared into the basement talking about 'final adjustments'. Connor's mother went to the kitchen to find that Dobby had already prepared a good portion of the dishes that she had been intending to make to take to dinner that night, and he had cleaned up the kitchen as well.

"Dobby," she scolded lightly. "We told you that you can have the today and tomorrow off! I thought you were going to go to Hogwarts and visit with some friends."

"I is going now, Mrs. Ginny!" he squeaked. "I just wanted to make sure that..."

"Everything here will be fine. Go!" she said firmly. The little elf nodded and returned to his room, and then they heard a sharp crack a few moments later that told them that he had gone.

Zack wondered why he and Conner seemed to be just hanging around, until Mrs. Potter turned to them and said, "All right dears, I'm going over to the Burrow now, and I'll be back in about an hour to give you lunch. Keep an eye on the other kids while I'm gone, Connor; your dad is probably going to be busy for a while."

"Okay, Mum," Connor said easily.

She gathered up the dishes and baked goods that Dobby had prepared and packed them into an enormous basket, then used her wad to shrink it before picking it up and heading out the door.

"Connor," Zack asked curiously. "Why does everyone go outside to Apparate?"

"There are wards on the house to prevent anyone from Apparating directly in or out. Except Dobby; he can pretty much do it anywhere, I think. It's like... good manners or something. Like Muggles wouldn't just go to someone's house and walk right in; they'd knock first."

That made sense, but Zack sure hoped that they offered a class in such things before he graduated Hogwarts. "So what are we doing now?"

"We're going to make sure my sister and brothers are busy, then we're going to sneak into the attic and have a look around," he said matter-of-factly.

They went to check on the other kids and found them in the family room playing a complicated looking board game with pieces that hovered an inch above the surface of the table. They seemed to be very involved, so Connor simply motioned for Zack to follow him and walked back toward the stairs. They went up all three flights of stairs and came to the attic door. Connor knocked twice on each corner of the door, then tapped the doorknob once and said, "Let me in."

The door swung open, and Connor grinned back at the look on Zack's face and motioned for him to follow him up three more steps and then into a large open storage area, filled with neatly stacked and labeled boxes. Looking around them, they saw labels like, 'baby clothes' and 'photo albums' and 'Christmas decorations.' They walked quietly around, until Zack finally spotted something of interest.

"Here's one that says 'Harry's school things' on it!" he said. It was actually a trunk very much like the ones he and Connor used to store their belongings at Hogwarts. "If the battle at the Ministry took place while he was at school, then there might be something in here."

Connor came over and helped Zack lift the trunk and bring it to the floor, and then prayed that it wasn't locked. Both boys sighed when the fastenings flipped easily and the lid came open without even a creak from the hinges. Inside were a few old schoolbooks, a plaque that bestowed thanks to Harry James Potter for 'Special Services to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry', a program, for some strange reason, to a Muggle play in London, an old cauldron, empty vials and such, an old Gryffindor scarf, and various other things of little interest to the boys. It wasn't until they were about to give up on the whole thing that Connor spotted a large folded piece of parchment tucked carefully into a pocket in the trunk's lining. There was a red ribbon tied carefully around it, and a tag that read, "VERY important."

"What do you think it is?" Zack asked, as Connor carefully slid it out.

"Only one way to find out," he said with a shrug. He slid the ribbon with the tag off the end, and carefully unfolded the parchment, only to find that it was blank. Zack's shoulders slumped in disappointment, but Connor was no so easily deflated. "I wonder what it is? Maybe there's something written in invisible ink?" He was frustrated at not being allowed to use his wand. "I think we should hold onto it until we get back to school."

He re-folded the parchment and replaced the ribbon and tag, then set it aside while they continued looking for anything else that might be useful. Unfortunately, they didn't find much, even when they stumbled upon a school trunk that had been labeled, 'Ginny Weasley'. Finally, Zack glanced at his watch and said, "It's been nearly an hour since your Mum left."

They took the mysterious parchment and hid it in the bottom Zack's trunk for the time being, since it would be least likely to be discovered there if anyone were to snoop. They went down to the kitchen in time to see that the others were still playing games in the family room, and were about to join them when Mrs. Potter came through the front door.

"I'll have lunch going in just a few minutes," she said as she took off her cloak. "Did your father's client leave yet?"

"I'm not sure," Connor said. "We were upstairs for a while."

"He left, and now there's some woman down there with him," Lucy said with mild disgust. "She pinched our cheeks."

Ginny chuckled as walked toward the kitchen. "That will have been Mrs. Menchin, come to pick up her son's broom. She even pinches my cheeks."

Zack and Connor sat at the kitchen table twenty minutes later, enjoying huge bowls of beef stew, when Connor's dad appeared. He had just shown Mrs. Menchin to the door, and was sporting a very pink cheek from the pinch that she had given him. He sat down at the head of the table and dug into his own bowl.

"I just have Kingsley coming now," he said to Ginny, "And then we can head out to your mother's."

"Sounds good," she replied, handing Adam a napkin for his messy face.

"Is Mr. Shacklebolt getting a new broom?" Ian asked keenly. He was very fond of the Auror, and often tried to coax anyone who was going to the Ministry on business to take him along so that he could see him.

"Yes," Harry nodded. "His old one met with an unfortunate end, I'm afraid. I'm not going to be the one to tell him he's getting too old to compete in the Annual Swedish Broom Race."

"Why don't you compete in it, Dad?" Lucy asked.

"Your Mum won't let me," he whispered loudly enough for his wife to hear.

"Your father seems to enjoy his close calls with dragons," she said dryly. "I'm not having him in a race that goes straight through a dragon reservation."

"Well I want to compete when I'm old enough," Lucy said firmly.

They were saved from the need to answer that announcement by the tapping on the window that came at that moment. Harry got up to open the window to let the tawny owl inside. "Looks like Godric's back from your house, Zack."

Zack was pleased when Godric fluttered in and landed on his shoulder, hooting proudly. He extended his leg and waited patiently for Zack's fumbling fingers to untie the letter he bore, and then accepted the chunk of beef that his young master offered.

"May I please be excused from the table Mrs. Potter?" he asked politely. "I'd like to take Godric to his cage and read my letter, if it's all right."

"Of course," she answered with a smile.

Zack stood, enjoying the weight of the bird on his shoulder. He gathered his bowl and glass, and carried them to the sink, saying, "Thank you for lunch, Mrs. Potter. It was delicious."

Connor rolled his eyes as his mother beamed at their guest. "May I please be excused as well?" he asked in his most courteous voice, mocking Zack's behavior.

"Yes you may," his Mum smiled, not missing her son's slight sarcasm. "Thank you for using you manners."

Connor rolled his eyes again, and stood. He turned and was almost to the staircase when he sighed heavily and came back to collect his dishes and take them to the sink as Zack had done. "Lunch was good, Mum," he said, and then fled up the stairs after his friend.

Connor entered his room to find Godric sitting regally atop his cage instead of inside of it, and Zack had the letter from his parents open, and was laughing quietly at it. He wondered what could be so amusing, since everything he know about Mr. and Mrs. Ellis told him that they were somewhat stiff and formal people.

"My Dad likes his quill set," Zack said, seeing Connor staring at him. "Look."

Zack turned the paper he was reading over to show very heavy and expensive looking stationary, scribbled over with thickly penned words and many blotches of ink over the entire thing. It looked to Connor as though a four year old, rather than a full-grown man, had written it. "It looks as though he's never used a quill before."

"That's because he hasn't really. He gave one of mine a go last year, but wasn't very good at it then, either." Zack explained. "Muggles don't use quills; I had to practice for hours to get the hang of it."

"You're joking!" Connor said. "How do you write anything down?"

Zack laughed and explained about pencils, markers and ballpoint pens. At Connor's fascinated expression, Zack made a mental note to ask his parents to send some of them for his friend to see. They talked about other differences in Wizarding and Muggle items for a while, and then Mrs. Potter was calling up the stairs, "Boys! Time to go!"

They grabbed their cloaks, and at the last second, decided to take the parchment they had found earlier with them to show to Rachel.