About a letter and a dream
Dearest Uncles,
You will be interested to hear that Operation Breakfast and a Show was a success.
Everyone loved it. The coach you organised, Ralph ‘the Rock’ Randall, is a super sound guy.
He really knows his stuff and is full of enthusiasm. He has organised fitness training, which includes laps around the lake and when the new Equipment and Gym building is completed, there will be weight sessions, just like the professionals have. As it would not be fair for him to be coach of just one of the house teams, he has made sure that each house team has their own coach and he is training them as well to make sure they know their stuff.
The Hufflepuff coach is your friend Neville (Professor Longbottom to us), even though he is a Gryffindor himself, but The Rock is trying to mix things up a bit.
He is a Liverpool supporter and a decent soccer player, did you know that? Neville I mean, I guess you know that The Rock is more than just decent, as you hired him.
There was a major hullabaloo when we first tried to use the broom shed to store all the soccer balls, as they took up too much space, but then the incoming headmistress suggested to Coach Neville to put them in a bag and use an extension charm, or something. It is so neat.
All 100 balls fit in a bag the size of a small backpack, so they take up no space at all. You should see it!
Coach Neville also put some sort of inflation spell on the balls, so that they are always perfectly inflated.
To kick off the season, and to recruit players, we had a seven-a-side exhibition match, students vs teachers.
I won’t bore you with the details, but it was a good match that was won by the students 3-2.
I scored one of the goals for the students and coach Neville scored one for the teachers.
The other person who scored for their side, was that awful caretaker guy, I told you about, Flint ('Mr Flint to you miscreants'). He eventually was given a red card by The Rock and sent off for a pretty nasty foul on Sevvie Crabbe, our goalie. Such a jerk (Flint not Sevvie). Rumour has it that it took him ten years to graduate from Hogwarts. Luckily he has no cat to accompany him on his rounds, like that old caretaker you told us about. The only person he seems to fear is headmistress McGonagall. I hope the new headmistress will have the same effect on him.
The recruitment drive went so well that we have enough players for multiple house teams.
With so many teams, we may need another pitch soon, but that, according to McGonagall, is the problem of the incoming headmistress. She seems to be very fond of using that phrase every time there is something she does not want to deal with. Of course the teams are mixed, same as the quidditch teams.
Anyway, our first inter-house league match will be next Saturday. I am the captain of the Hufflepuff First team.
You know that line you made me put in the application about inclusiveness and muggle integration, the one that Uncle Draco said ‘they will lap that up’?
Well, they apparently took that on board and they are organising a bus from London for any muggle parent who wants to attend the first league match, just as a trial. They will also put on a lunch for them in the Great Hall before driving them back to London.
So, even if you can’t make it, Dad can still take the muggle coach to come and see me.
Hope you can make it, though.
Lots of love, Jimmy
PS I had a weird dream last night, at least I thought it was a dream.
There was a guy sitting at the end of my bed, he was a bit blurry, like a ghost, and he looked a bit like Uncle Harry, apart from the eyes. He said something like ‘Our legacy rest with you now. You might be a Puff, but I sense a Lion in you, a restless one at that. I can’t believe he hasn’t passed on his cloak and the map by now. No point in having it sitting in his trunk in the attic. Such a waste of a good map.’
And then there seemed to be voices and shadows in the background calling him and urging him to get back.
I heard one voice saying, ‘Come on, James, leave him alone. This is none of our business. Harry knows what he is doing.’
Then the man disappeared. It was really weird and seemed so real.
Harry had read the letter twice.
The first bits were fine. He was glad the delivery of the balls and jerseys had gone as planned and was glad that the new trainer was working out well.
Because of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, they could not engage any muggle trainers and there were very few wizarding soccer trainers around. In the end it was Draco who suggested to check if there were any good soccer playing squibs around. That would get around the Statute of Secrecy and a squib might also be highly motivated to work in a school environment like Hogwarts.
The only other hurdle was payment. Muggles and squibs would be subject the muggle taxes, but by putting the coach on their own company payroll as a Company Wellness and Morale Officer, there should be no problems with the muggle tax office.
The bit about that oaf Marcus Flint was worrying. Harry was surprised that he knew the word miscreant, but maybe Snape had used that word often enough during their schooldays to make it stick. McGonagall must have had her reasons for hiring that misfit, but Hermione would have her work cut out for her to keep that guy in line.
Maybe Crabbe and Goyle could put some manners on him. Harry was sure that they would have been none too pleased to find out that Flint fouled their daughter Severia in her first soccer match.
The description of the Extension Charm brought a smile to his face. Good old Hermione to the rescue, as always. He remembered his own surprise when she asked him to fetch a tent out of her little clutch bag.
She would be an excellent headmistress, he mused.
And then that PS about the dream, which most definitely was not a dream.
Was his Dad trying to meddle? He had often wondered whether he should pass on his invisibility cloak and the Marauder's map.
Not that the map would be any use. Most of the passages in and out of Hogwarts had been blocked during the second wizarding war.
Apart from that, Hermione would have a fit, if he would give such ‘dangerous’ items to a student in her school.
Also, he had always hoped that he would someday pass it on to a son or daughter of his own.
With a sigh, he put the letter away for Draco to read when he got home.