Trinity

Chapter 5

Sarah

On Saturday morning, I came downstairs from my dormitory to find most of my House clustered around the common room noticeboard. A couple of the younger students were standing on tiptoes in an attempt to see over everyone else's shoulders.

"What's going on?" I asked as I drew nearer to them.

"Quidditch and Powerball tryouts start today," one of the Grade Ten girls explained.

I waited for a gap to open in the crowd before making an attempt at getting closer to the noticeboard. Once there, I scanned the sheet of parchment that had been tacked up.

* * *

Attention all students

Tryouts for Powerball and Quidditch commence today (February fifth 2000). Prospective and current team members must assemble at either the Powerball or Quidditch pitches at nine-thirty sharp.

Positions Available (Atitjere House)

Quidditch

Beater

Chasers (2)

Powerball

Centre-forward

Left-wing

Current team members are to wear their team uniforms. Prospective team members should wear attire appropriate to their desired sport. Students in all grades are eligible for selection.

* * *

"Are we allowed to watch the tryouts?" I asked as I stepped away.

"Yeah, they usually let us watch," Ares replied. "They tend to keep a close eye on us though."

"How close is close?"

"Close enough. You coming?"

I nodded and followed Ares to the Tower exit.

I had seen enough Quidditch tryouts to last me a lifetime, but I had never seen a Powerball tryout. So it was on the sidelines of the school Powerball pitch that I found myself ten minutes later, waiting for the tryouts for Atitjere House to begin.

"All right you lot, listen up!" shouted a boy whom I guessed to be the team captain. "My name's Dominic Hayes, and I'm the team captain - I play left full back." He gestured to the rest of the team, all of whom were dressed in royal blue uniforms. "The rest of the team, who you will get to know well if you make it on, are behind me. Today we're on the lookout for a new left-wing and a new centre-forward, seeing as those people who used to play those positions graduated last year. Everyone going in for left-wing, line up to my left; everyone going in for centre-forward, to my right."

The tryout seemed fairly straightforward - it was basically a game of one-sided football, with substitutions every five minutes. I kept my eye on Taylor when his turn on the pitch came up; I had never seen him play, and was therefore quite interested to see just what he was capable of.

"Chambers, Putnam, you're up!" Dominic yelled, and Taylor and a younger boy with dark brown hair sprinted onto the field as a girl and another boy ran onto the sidelines. And as I watched Taylor's little 'performance', I saw precisely what had gotten him onto the team he played for back home in the first place. It didn't matter that he had never met most of the current House team, let alone worked with them - before the first minute was even up, he'd adapted his usual playing style (which, from what I could tell from the newspaper articles he'd shown to me, was to go hell-for-leather after the ball, and to hell with everyone else) to match that of the current team members. If nothing else, that was what would get him on the team.

Before I knew it, tryouts were over, and Dominic stood in the middle of the pitch, facing the sidelines. He had a clipboard and a quill in hand.

"It was a tough decision, as you all did well - if I could have you all on the team this year, I would. But as I said before, there are only two positions open this year. Therefore, the two newest team members are Jasper Putnam as left-wing, and Taylor Chambers as centre-forward. The rest of you can bugger off."

"Oh you're nice!" shouted one of the female team members, and we all laughed before picking ourselves up and wandering back to the school building. This weekend was a 'closed' weekend, meaning that even if I had wanted to go out to Alice Springs to do a bit of shopping, I wouldn't be able to. Instead, I had a preliminary meeting with the teacher who would be training me in the use of my powers this year - a meeting that I was currently five minutes late for.

"Good morning Sarah," greeted my instructor as I sprinted into her office and collapsed into the chair that had been placed in front of her desk - her name was Izzy Wharton, and she was a trained Precognitionist. Precognition was the power that I was weakest in, the one power that Professor Sinistra hadn't seemed to know how to train me in the use of, so I basically trained myself nine months out of every year, and my mother took over for the remaining three, along with during Christmas break. Much to my dismay, after over five years of training, I still couldn't 'see' further than six weeks. Hopefully in the company of a 'proper' teacher, my range would lengthen a little.

"'Morning," I replied. "Sorry I'm late."

"Don't worry about it," Izzy said dismissively. "Just don't make a habit of it, all right?" I nodded my agreement, and Izzy smiled. "Great. Today we're just going to start off with figuring out your strengths and weaknesses, and what exactly we need to work on. With me so far?" I nodded again. "First, how long have you been in training for?"

I counted off on my fingers. "Five-and-a-half years, twice a week during school terms and seven days a week during the holidays. Mostly I've just been training myself, seeing as my usual instructor doesn't know what the heck to do with me."

"I see." She picked up a quill, dipped the nib in a nearby inkbottle, and scribbled something on a sheet of parchment. "And...your range?"

"Six weeks."

"That is unusual, though considering your circumstances I'm not all that surprised. Most Precognitionists your age, if they started their training at thirteen, would have a range of approximately three, almost four years."

"Three years?"

"Yes. But I won't expect you to have that much of a range come December, don't worry. The most I'll expect of you is a range of approximately one year, eighteen months at the very most. Of course, if you can manage three years, that's great." She put her quill down on the desk. "To begin with, I want you to see ahead to the limit of your range - in other words, to the middle of this March. Close your eyes, concentrate on the upper limit of your range, and tell me what you see."

I obeyed, allowing my eyes to fall closed, and I concentrated on the date six weeks from today - March nineteenth. Tell me what you see, I whispered to my mind, and a picture formed behind my closed eyelids.

A faded photograph of three babies, each with blonde hair - two girls and a boy. That was nothing special; I'd been seeing that in my dreams for a week or so now. Turn it over, I thought, and the image shifted, the photograph flipping over to allow me to read the writing on the back.

Sarah Elizabeth Lawyer

Miriam Marie Lawyer

Jordan Taylor Lawyer

March 14 1983

I opened my eyes almost as soon as I had registered what the writing had said. "I saw something," I said. "A photograph, and I was in it."

"Were you the only person in the photograph?"

I shook my head. "Two of my friends were in it as well."

It was at that moment that I realised the significance of that photograph, and the writing on its back.

Miriam Kennedy was my sister.

* * *

Taylor

This is not the way I envisaged my Saturday afternoons turning out.

During school terms, my Saturdays usually consisted of waking up at around nine-thirty, maybe ten, wandering down to the dining hall and eating a late breakfast, then either watching a game of Quidditch or playing a pick-up game of Powerball with some of the other elementals. Sometimes I took my guitar, my Muggle composition book and notebook, a pencil and an eraser out to the courtyard, and I tried my hand at writing a song or two. Not that my efforts at song writing ever amounted to anything - I was as far from being a poet or a songwriter as it was possible to get.

But sitting on a wooden platform in the middle of the school lake, dressed in nothing more than a pair of black board shorts, with bright sunshine beating down on my bare back and shoulders? You have to be kidding me.

"I just need to know a few things first before we get started," Melissa Ronavuso, my instructor, said. She sat cross-legged facing me, a clipboard on her lap. "Just the basics for now. You've been in training now for how long?"

"My parents started teaching me the basics when I was about six or so, but I've only been in formal training for five-and-a-half years." I scratched my left ear. "At the moment, I'm only comfortable with doing this for half an hour at the most; any longer and I start getting a headache."

"I see." She wrote something down on her clipboard. "Just one more question - how do you usually exercise your particular ability?"

"I work at a Muggle aquarium in my hometown during the summer."

Melissa nodded and set her clipboard aside. "What I want to do with you this year, starting from this coming Monday, is extend your range by about ten minutes a week. By the end of this term, you should be up to about two-and-a-half hours."

"Oh you have to be kidding me..."

"Afraid not kiddo. Now, let's get started." She conjured up two sets of what looked like heavy iron chains and manacles.

"You keep those away from me," I said.

"Do you want to continue with this session?"

"Not if you're going to chain me up! I do have my rights, you know. And if you're going to start out by doing something like that, then I want absolutely no part in it." Melissa said nothing, merely eyed me quizzically. I snorted and turned my back on her, and slipped off of the platform into the lake. "This is a fucking joke," I said as I started swimming toward the nearest bank. "I'm outta here."

Upstairs in the House bathroom, I turned one of the showers on as hot as I could stand it (which wasn't all that hot at all, to be perfectly honest) and stood under the spray, rinsing my hair out. I was seething - as far as I was concerned, nothing gave a teacher (or any adult, for that matter) the right to even entertain the thought of chaining a child up and forcing them underwater for any length of time, which was what I guessed she was going to attempt to do to me. If it had been anyone else, they would have drowned. That realisation alone gave me chills - while I am not always appreciative of my 'ability', as other people are often predisposed to calling it, I am grateful for it in that I probably otherwise wouldn't have lived as long as I have.

After my shower, I dressed in jeans and a black Nirvana T-shirt, pulled my sneakers on, stuck my wand in my belt, and headed downstairs. I fully intended on having a little chat with my Head of House on the matter of my training, because there was no way I was continuing with it if Melissa was going to chain me up again. I found her office easily and knocked on the door.

"Come in!" she called, and I opened the door. "Ah, Mr. Chambers, what can I do for you?" she asked as I sat down in the chair in front of her desk.

I came right out with it. "My instructor is insane. She tried to chain me up."

Mrs. Chatham fixed a searching gaze on me, and I returned her stare unblinkingly. "I see," she said finally. "And did she say why she was intending to do this?"

"No, but I can take a pretty good guess - probably to stop me surfacing before she was prepared to let me. It doesn't matter that I can breathe underwater, it's the fact that she wanted to chain me up - if it'd been anyone else, and they had let her do it to them, they'd have drowned. I refuse to participate in training sessions with her if she's going to try and pull that little stunt again - I can just as easily train myself. I'll get a headache from it, sure, but that's nothing; I've put up with worse before."

"You are aware that this is a very serious allegation."

I nodded. "Very. If she's willing to keep those chains of hers the hell away from me, I'll agree to working with her. But otherwise, she can go whistle for all I care."

"That's quite enough, Mr. Chambers. I will speak with your instructor. You may do as you wish this afternoon, but starting on Monday you will begin formal training - no excuses. You may go."

"Yes ma'am." I stood up and left the office.

As I walked along the corridors, I started humming to myself, the rudimentary beginnings of a song forming in my head.

Hello, goodbye my friend...feels like the start all over again...

I stopped in my track, turned tail and pelted back through the corridors and upstairs to the sixth floor. Once at the portrait of Madam Linsley, I skidded to a stop and tried to catch my breath. "Kata Tjuta," I panted out, ducking into the common room when the portrait had swung forward. I had to get this song, music and all, written out right now, otherwise it would be lost forever. I didn't want to let this one go to waste.

Once in my dormitory, I found my guitar, composition book, notebook, pencil and eraser, parked myself on the rug that covered the wooden floor, and started tuning my guitar. I didn't own a guitar tuner, so I'd trained myself to tune my guitar by ear. That task completed, I took up my pencil and began quickly scribbling out the lyrics as they popped into my head. I doubted that I would be able to do much with the song, but I had a friend back in America who was in a band with two of his brothers - I figured he could probably put it to some kind of use.

"What're you doing?" Ares asked as he and Seth came into the dormitory. I'd finished writing out the lyrics, and had quickly moved on to writing the music, using the back of my guitar as a table.

"Writing a song," I answered. I glanced at my watch and blinked. "Oh shit, I think I missed dinner."

"Nope," Seth said as he ran a brush through his hair. "It's just about to start." He looked down at me. "How good are you with that?" he asked, indicating my guitar with his hairbrush.

I shrugged. "I'm not bad," I answered. "Why?"

"How would you feel about putting on a show tonight? It's sort of tradition during closed weekends for the students to get together in the auditorium, and some of the musicians and dancers from the senior class put on a show of sorts."

"I don't know; I'm sort of out of practice."

"Just think about it, okay? You could play that new song of yours."

I looked down at the sheet of composition paper I was currently working on. "I suppose I can consider it..."

Seth nodded, smiling. "Good enough. Come on, I think tonight's pasta night. The brownies down in the kitchens do a mean napolitana, let me tell you now..."

That decided it for me. Between my music and the prospect of good pasta, the pasta is going to win out each and every time. I shoved my composition paper inside my guitar and stood up, propped my guitar up against my desk, and dropped my notebook, pencil and eraser on my desk chair.

After dinner, I went back up to the dormitory and quickly finished writing the music for my new song, running through it on my guitar to check that it sounded all right. It didn't sound too bad, so I sat down and quickly wrote out a letter.

Hey Matt,

Thought you might like a look at a song I wrote this afternoon. I doubt I can do much with it, so maybe you could pass it on to your brother and see what he thinks. It's untitled as yet, until such a time as I come up with a title or you and/or your brothers think of one. Anyway, let me know what you think. And say hi to Zac and Natalie for me - tell Nat that I'll write sometime next week.

Taylor

I cast a Duplicating Charm on the lyrics and music I'd written, folded the copies up and slipped them and the letter into an envelope, and addressed it.

Matthew Hanson

Amargosa Valley College

Amargosa Valley, Nevada

USA

The auditorium was a hive of activity when I entered, my guitar in one hand and the music for my song in the other. A group of girls dressed in blue denim jeans and white T-shirts stood near the stage; I could hear them singing a Billy Joel song a capella - The Longest Time by the sound of it. Another group of girls were practicing a dance routine. And up on the stage itself, a group of boys were setting up a drum kit, levitating the pieces of the kit into place with their wands.

"Hey, Taylor!"

I looked in the direction of the voice to see Seth standing off to one side, waving his wand like a conductor's baton, levitating wooden chairs into orderly rows. He moved the final few chairs into place and stuck his wand in his belt. "I see you've brought your guitar with you," he noted. "All ready to go?"

I nodded. "I'm nervous though. I don't often do this kind of thing."

"Hmm..." Seth conjured up a clipboard and quill, and ran the tip of the quill down what I guessed to be a list. "How about...ah, here we are. You can go on after the inter-house dance group." He indicated the group of girls who were currently sitting on the floor, stretching. "That should give you a bit of time to, y'know, psych yourself up." He grinned at me and headed off toward the back of the auditorium.

By the time the auditorium had filled, my hands were shaking. I hadn't been this nervous in years, not since my first 'official' Powerball match. I got the impression that these concerts were something that everyone at the school, both students and teachers alike, looked forward to; many of the other students were murmuring excitedly about who they thought might be performing tonight. Rather than sit on my hands, which was my usual course of action when I became nervous, I elected instead to begin flipping through my lyrics and my music. In fact, I became so engrossed in my reading that I didn't hear my name being called, and only reacted when someone elbowed me in the side. "You might want to get up there," I heard Miriam mutter. "Before they start a riot or something like that."

"Oh yeah..." I grabbed my guitar and gathered up my notes, and made my way up to the stage, vaguely aware of a couple of hundred pairs of eyes boring into the back of my head. "I don't like this," I mumbled as I sat down in the wooden chair that had been placed on the stage.

I spread my pages of lyrics and music out on the stage at my feet where I could see them, and took a few deep breaths to steady myself. Once my hands had stopped shaking visibly, I fished a guitar pick from one of my pockets, settled my guitar on my right knee, and began to play the opening notes of the song; a few bars later, I began singing.

"Hello, goodbye my friend...feels like the start all over again...but I'd rather not pretend...there aren't things still left to mend...somebody break my fall...I'm slipping down all over again...

"I'll do it all over...taking my own sweet time...I may make it slower...but I'm taking my own sweet time...I'm taking my own sweet...

"Tell me where I begin...you can't deny what's already been...I won't break but I can bend...shaping the scars that I can't mend...feel your fingers around my throat...there's nothing but bones beneath my skin...somebody break my fall...I'm slipping down all over again...

"I'll do it all over...taking my own sweet time...I may make it slower...but I'm taking my own sweet time...I'm taking my own sweet...I'll do it all over...taking my own sweet time...I'm taking my own sweet time...

"I'd do it all over again, my friend...my friend, you know I'd do it all over again...hello, goodbye my friend...until we start all over again...somebody break my fall...I'm slipping down all over again...

"I'll do it all over...taking my own sweet time...I may make it slower...but I'm taking my own sweet time...I'm taking my own sweet...I'll do it all over...taking my own sweet time...I'm taking my own sweet...I may make it slower...but I'm taking my own sweet time...I'm taking my own sweet time...

"Do it all over...hello, goodbye my friend...until we start all over, start all over again...do it all over...hello, goodbye my friend...until we start all over, start all over...I'll do it all over again...I'll do it all over again..."

* * *

Miriam

Holy shit.

I had never heard anyone, magical or otherwise, sing like that in my life. Not even Daniel Johns, the lead singer of one of my favourite bands, Silverchair, had a voice like that. And it seemed that the rest of the students were just as stunned, for it was at least a full minute before the applause started.

"Well, that was a mistake," Taylor muttered as he sat down next to me, stuffing a few sheets of paper into his guitar and setting the instrument at his feet as he did so. "I don't know why I let myself be talked into it..."

"Where did you learn to sing like that?" I asked. "That was incredible."

He looked at me. "You're kidding me, right? I'm hopeless."

"If you were 'hopeless', as you so delicately put it, you would have been laughed off the stage the moment you started playing. But you weren't. With a voice like that, you'd have no problems whatsoever going Muggle; the record companies would be all over you."

"Yeah, that's what everyone tells me. And I keep telling them that I'm just not interested in doing music professionally - I'd rather play Powerball for the rest of my life." He looked over at me. "What does 'going Muggle' mean?"

"When a witch or a wizard makes a name for themselves in the Muggle world, say as a writer or a musician, that's called going Muggle. You'd be surprised how many Muggle celebrities have magical backgrounds."

Taylor raised an eyebrow sceptically. "Uh-huh. Pull the other one, it plays Jingle Bells."

"I'm not kidding you. Give me the name of a Muggle celebrity - any at all."

"Nicole Kidman."

"Witch."

"Mel Gibson."

"Squib."

"John Lennon."

"Wizard."

We traded back and forth like this for the remainder of the concert, continuing our little game as we left the auditorium after the final act and headed upstairs to Atitjere Tower. "So, let me get this straight," Taylor said as we entered the common room. "John Lennon's still alive?"

"Oh, he's alive all right. Do you really think that a bullet could kill a wizard? As if. What do you think healing charms are for?"

"You don't think that it's a bit selfish of him?"

"Well, yeah, of course I do." I sat down on one of the lounges and propped my feet up on a nearby coffee table. "But think about it - it's the perfect way to drop off of the radar if you ask me."

"I suppose you're right."

"So who wrote that song you played tonight?" I asked.

"I did."

"You wrote it?" When he nodded, I let out a low whistle of awe. Merlin, not only was he an incredible guitarist, but he was an amazing songwriter as well. I was officially jealous. "Damn mate...I wish I could write songs."

"Yeah, well, so do I. I don't know where the hell that one came from, and I wish I did."

I chose not to push the matter. "Well, if you ever figure it out, let me know; I'd love to hear more."

* * *

I pushed the wooden door open and slipped through the gap into the room beyond. Closed weekends always made me feel cagey, a feeling exacerbated by the knowledge that I couldn't sneak out beyond the school gates unless I wanted to be subjected to the harsh desert. It was the next afternoon.

I had discovered this room in Grade Seven. It was in the castle basement, near to where I surmised the Nyapari common room to be. All that was contained within was an upright piano, which had been close to falling apart when I'd encountered it. A few Repairing Charms and a quick polish later, it was as good as new; with the addition of a few candelabra and a magical window or two, the room started looking more like a place to play music and less like the storage room I figured it had originally been intended as.

I sat down on the piano bench and gave my hands a quick shake before placing my fingertips on the keys. I ran through a few scales from memory to begin with - when I had completed my 'practice', I started playing my favourite piano piece, Elton John's Song For Guy; it wasn't a strictly instrumental piece, but I didn't see how one line sung four times right at the end qualified it as a legitimate song. My hands moved fluidly along the keyboard as I played, and I closed my eyes, imagining myself to be up onstage at the Sydney Opera House. If Powerball didn't work out, I was considering taking a shot at being a musician - most of the Muggle recording companies had wizarding counterparts, the majority of them based in Absconditus Plaza in Sydney.

Once I was finished playing that song, I moved onto what was considered the unofficial Atitjere House song - Little River Band's Cool Change. Tanami and Atitjere were the only houses at the Academy that had their own songs, mainly because we were the most competitive of the houses.

"If there's one thing in my life that's missing...it's the time I spend alone...sailing on the cool and bright clear waters...there's lots of those friendly people...showin' me ways to go...and I never want to lose your inspiration...

"Time for a cool change...I know that it's time for a cool change...now that my life is so pre-arranged...I know that it's time for a cool change...

"Well I was born in the sign of water...and it's there that I feel my best...the albatross and the whales they are my brothers...it's kind of a special feeling...when you're out on the sea alone...starin' at the full moon like a lover...

"Time for a cool change...I know that it's time for a cool change...now that my life is so prearranged...I know that it's time for a cool change...

"I've never been romantic...and sometimes I don't care...I know it may sound selfish...but let me breathe the air...

"If there's one thing in my life that's missing...it's the time that I spend alone...sailing on the cool and bright clear waters...it's kind of a special feeling...when you're out on the sea alone...staring at the full moon like a lover...

"Time for a cool change...I know that it's time for a cool change...now that my life is so prearranged...I know that it's time for a cool change...time for a cool change...time for a cool change...now that my life is so prearranged...I know that it's time for a cool change..."

I lifted my hands up off the keys and listened to the final echoes reverberating around the room. I was a little rusty, but that was nothing a good amount of practice wouldn't fix. I made a mental note to go into Alice Springs the first chance I got, so that I could pay my usual term-time piano teacher a visit.

I glanced at my watch and got up from my seat. It was almost dinnertime - I needed to get upstairs, have a shower and change into some clean clothes, before my roommates got exactly the same idea in their heads and used up all the hot water.

The first week back at the Academy had come to a close, and the second week was just about to begin. New friendships had been made, lessons were being learned, and the 'new' House Powerball team was coming together nicely, just in time for the beginning of the 2000 season.

I lowered the lid back down over the keys and stood up, dusting the back of my jeans off. I crossed the room to the door and slipped out into the corridor, carefully pulling the door shut behind me.