"Cool," Ralph breathed meaningfully. "That's good to know."

        James, Ralph, and Sabrina pressed against the rear of the shed to peer through the single, grimy window. The Quidditch pitch lay behind the shed, and they could clearly see three of the grandstands, already mostly filled with banner-waving students and teachers, all bundled against the unseasonable chill. The Ravenclaw and Slytherin teams were gathering along opposite sides of the pitch to observe their captains shaking hands and listen to Ridcully's traditional recital of the basic rules of play.

        "I forgot all about this," Sabrina said quietly. "The whole handshaking thing. That Zane is a pretty sharp fellow."

        James nodded. It had been Zane's idea to stage the broom caper during the opening moments of the match, in those few minutes when both teams came out of their holding pens beneath the grandstands to watch the opening ritual. It was a genius idea, because it was the only time when the teams' brooms were separated from their owners, left behind in the holding pens until the teams collected them for their big flying introductions.

        "It's time," Ted said, tapping James once on the shoulder. "There's Corsica already."

        James swallowed past a lump in his throat that felt like a marble. His heart was already pounding. He pulled the Invisibility Cloak out of his backpack, shook it open and threw it over his and Ralph's heads. As they neared the door of the shed, Petra whispered harshly, "I can see your feet. Ralph, duck down some more." Ralph hunkered and James saw the edge of the cloak meet the ground around his feet.

        "Stay low and move fast," Ted instructed. He turned and peered between the planks of the door. The equipment shed was positioned at a corner of the pitch, just inside the magical boundary erected by the match official. The door faced away from the pitch, visible only to the Slytherin grandstands right next to it.

        "Looks clear enough," Ted said, his face pressed to the cracks in the door. "Let's just hope

everybody's looking at the pitch and not this shed." With that, he pushed the door open and stepped aside. James and Ralph shuffled through and James heard the door clunk shut behind them.

        The wind was shifty and unpredictable. It barreled across the pitch and swatted restlessly at the Invisibility Cloak, flapping it about the boys' legs.

        "Somebody's going to see my feet," Ralph moaned.

        "We're almost there already," James said under the noise of the crowd. "Just stay close and keep down."

        Through the transparent fabric of the Invisibility Cloak, James could see the dark mouth of the doorway into the Slytherin holding pen. The great doors were swung wide open, latched to the walls of the grandstand to keep them from blowing shut. The Slytherin players were lined up along the pitch on the other side of the doorway, close enough that a careless word or a flicker of their shoes might be noticed. James held his breath and resisted the urge to run. Slowly, the two boys sidled past the nearest Slytherin player, Tom Squallus, and slipped into the shadow of the doorway. Inside, the wind fell away and the cloak hung still. James let his breath out in a careful hiss.

        "Come on," he whispered almost soundlessly. "We don't have much time."

        James knew what the Gremlins were planning, even though he wasn't going to see any of it. Zane, who was watching along with his teammates on the Ravenclaw side of the pitch, told him all about it later. As Tabitha and Gennifer Tellus, the Ravenclaw Captain, walked to meet Ridcully at the centerline of the pitch, a strange sound began to build in the air overhead. All day, the sky had been low and sluggish, packed with grey clouds, but now, as the spectators and players glanced up, the clouds had begun to circle ponderously. There was a bulge in the clouds directly over the pitch, spiraling in on itself and lowering even as the crowd watched. The general noise of the assembly quieted, and the sound of the clouds in that silence was a deep, vibrating groan, long and menacing. With only his eyes, Zane glanced toward the equipment shed at the far corner of the pitch. He could just see the shapes of Ted and Petra, ducked low in the corners of the tiny window, their wands raised, teasing the cloud shapes. He smiled, and then, when the timing was perfect and the entire pitch had fallen silent, he called out across the pitch, "Quidditch is never called on account of weather, right, Gennifer?"

        There was a nervous ripple of laughter across the nearer grandstands. Gennifer glanced at Zane for a moment, then looked back up at the funnel lowering over her. As a Gremlin, Ted had told her of their plan, but Zane could tell that her nervousness wasn't hard to fake. Neither Ridcully nor Tabitha Corsica seemed prepared to move. Corsica merely looked up at the clouds, her hair whipping wildly around her face, her wand visible in her hand. Ridcully's expression seemed to be one of grim determination.

        "Ladies and gentlemen," Damien's voice echoed throughout the grandstands from his place in the announcer's booth, "we seem to be experiencing some sort of highly localized weather phenomenon. Please stay in your seats. You are probably safe there. Those on the field, please remain where you are. Cyclones cannot see you if you don't move."

        In the crowd, someone shouted out, "That's dinosaurs, you crazy fruitbat!"

        "Same concept," Damien answered in his amplified voice.

        Sabrina and Noah darted out of the equipment shed, ducking against the swirling winds. They scurried toward the tiny concessions area built into the base of the Hufflepuff grandstand. The counter was manned by Hufflepuff students, but the food itself was prepared by elves in a kitchen near the back. Noah and Sabrina headed along the side of the grandstand and stopped at an open doorway.

        "Hey, you fellows see what's going on out here?" Sabrina yelled over the growing noise of the cyclone. "Weather's getting pretty foul, isn't it?"

        A grumpy looking elf in the back of the kitchen lowered his pipe. "And what do you want we's to do about it, eh? You wants we should shoot a blast of storm-calming pixie dust out our ears, maybe?"

        "I was just thinking about section fifty-five, paragraph nine of the Elves of Hogwarts Coalition Agreement," Noah yelled, hunkering in the doorway. "Says elves are responsible for securing the grounds during inclement weather. Getting pretty inclement out here, I'd say. Maybe you'd like Sabrina and me to go shut and lock the holding pen doors for you until this blows over? Come on, Sabrina."

        The elf stuffed his pipe into the knot of his napkin loincloth and jumped forward. "Never you mind that, now!" He turned and called into the depths of the kitchen. "Oi! Peckle! Krung! Seedie! We got a job, we does. Let's get a move on."