The Vault of Destinies (James Potter #3) (39 page)

James raised his right palm and saw the thread there, the one that had connected him to Petra when she had fallen from the stern of the
Gwyndemere.
The thread trailed off like a line of smoke, vanishing after a few feet, fading even as he watched. Somehow, the silver thread was still there, connecting him to her. More importantly, that connection had triggered something when he had touched her dream story. It had been a vision, but one so powerful and shocking that he'd barely been able to register it. Something, he felt quite sure, was happening with Petra, possibly at this very moment. Was something bad happening to her?

Was she causing something bad to happen?

A minute later, James joined Ralph and Zane in the hallway. They forced the dumbwaiter doors shut, enclosing the luggage and the clockwork monkey inside. With a ratcheting clatter, the dumbwaiter began to descend toward the lobby below.

"What's with you?" Zane asked, peering sideways at James. "You look white as a ghost."

James shook his head. "I don't know. I think… something's happening."

"Something's always happening, isn't it?" Ralph frowned as they clumped down the stairs.

"I don't know…," James said again, faintly.

They retrieved the trunks from the dumbwaiter and began to lug them out onto the common dorm's stoop.

"Whoa," Ralph said suddenly, looking up. "What's going on over there?"

James didn't want to look, but did anyway. The sky had lowered ever further. It swirled unnaturally over a point nearby, like a very slow, inverted cyclone. Lightning flickered silently in the clouds and wind switched restlessly over the campus, whickering in the trees and scouring dead leaves over the footpaths.

"Where are you going?" Zane called as James stepped slowly down onto the lawn, watching the sky. He didn't answer. Instead, he moved along the lawn, skirting the fountain and its birdbath gargoyles, keeping his eye on the strange, swirling cauldron of clouds. It was making a noise, a sort of dull rumble, like the sound of a hundred freight trains in the dark distance. It was very nearly a growl.

"Is that… you know… normal?" Ralph asked Zane as they moved alongside James. "Like, tell me that it's some sort of side effect of the way the school jumps around in time, right?"

"I've never seen anything like that before," Zane answered seriously.

James lowered his eyes from the swirling purple maelstrom of the clouds and found himself looking at the squat mass of the Hall of Archives. The stormy phenomenon was directly above the building.

"She watches," James heard himself say. "She watches and she waits."

A tongue of lightning connected the clouds and the Hall of Archives, and the ground leapt beneath James' feet. A blast of purple light illuminated the building from within, spearing through every crack and from the seams of every brick. Pencil beams shot from the tiny windows in the domed roof, spearing up into the sky. A split second later, the light was gone, leaving only blinding green afterimages on James' retinas.

"What," Zane asked in an awed voice, "was that?"

James shook his head very slowly. The sky seemed to have exhausted itself. The clouds broke up slowly overhead and there was a lingering coppery taste in the air. In the darkness beneath the Hall of Archives portico, the door opened. Two figures strode out into the dusky evening light and descended the steps. One of them was robed in black from head to toe and James found himself thinking of the mysterious woman whom he had first met in the midnight halls of the Aquapolis, the one who had appeared again later, during the attack on the
Zephyr
, and then vanished afterwards. She walked on into the deepening darkness, but the second figure lingered for a moment on the footpath, looking around slowly.

"Is that…?" Ralph began, but there was no point in finishing the question. All three boys could see who it was.

It was Petra. She looked around with interest, as if seeing the campus for the first time. Her dark eyes stopped when she saw the three boys, but it was James that she seemed to focus on. She smiled slowly. And then she waved.

"What is happening here?" a voice demanded shrilly. James turned around and saw Chancellor Franklyn moving swiftly across the darkened campus, nearing them. His face looked very pale in the stormy darkness. Merlin and Neville Longbottom were following him, looking around carefully.

"Did you feel it?" Zane asked. "The ground shook! Right when the lightning happened! Pow!"

Franklyn passed the boys with barely a glance, approaching the Hall of Archives and its open door. The dim lights that had previously shown from the building's tiny windows had been extinguished in the aftermath of the blast.

"Oh dear," Franklyn muttered darkly. "Oh great heavens. What has happened…?"

Merlin stopped near James. Without taking his eyes from the Hall of Archives, he asked in a very low voice, "Did you see anyone?"

James considered lying. For a moment, he considered telling Merlin that he hadn't seen anything at all, especially not Petra looking strange and vaguely malevolent. The moment passed.

"I saw Petra," he answered quietly, almost whispering. "She and someone else—a woman I think—came out of the Hall right after… whatever it was."

Merlin nodded slowly, with grave emphasis. He didn't say anything in response. He didn't need to.

S
tudents had begun to gather in the darkness around the Hall of Archives by the time Professor Jackson arrived and set up a perimeter of Werewolf House upperclassmen to guard the entrance. The grey-clothed students stood with military precision, hands clasped behind their backs, eyes staring out over the crowd as if daring anyone to try to pass them. Ralph, James, and Zane stood well back from the gathering observers, watching the proceedings with mixed curiosity and trepidation.

Ralph frowned at the Werewolf guards in the near distance. "What kind of stuff do they have in the Archive anyway?"

"I was only in there once before," James replied, shrugging.

Zane was impressed. "Are you kidding?" he rasped. "I've been on campus a whole year and I've never once been allowed into the Archive chambers. Hardly anyone gets to go inside except for Bad Hadley and his student tech crew."

"Is that a difficult crew to get on?" Ralph asked, looking aside at Zane.

"Nah, they're always looking for new members," Zane replied, shaking his head. "There're sign-up sheets all over campus. But that's like actual work. I wasn't
that
curious."

James asked, "So who's Bad Hadley anyway?"

"Hadley Henredon," Zane answered, lowering his voice. "He's the Archive custodian. A Muggle, but totally devoted to his job. There's some long tedious story about how he got the position in the first place, but you'll have to ask somebody else about it if you really want to know. He's old and terminally cranky, and he goes by loads of nicknames around the campus: Bad Hadley, Hadley the Horrible, the Henredonkey, Captain Fisheye, Evil Enos, etc, etc, etc. Us Zombies came up with most of them."

"I wouldn't have guessed," Ralph muttered.

Just then, Harry Potter and Oliver Wood arrived, crossing the lawns and cutting through the noisome throng. Zane saw them first, and grabbed Ralph's sleeve.

"Come on," he hissed, ducking through the knot of students.

"Where are we going?" Ralph asked, following along with James in tow.

Zane glanced back with a crooked grin. "Where else? To see what happened inside the Archive."

James shook his head as they ducked through the babbling crowd. "They'll never let us in there," he whispered harshly.

"Sure they will," Zane replied without looking back. "Just follow me and walk like you don't expect anyone to stop you. You'd be amazed how often that works."

James found himself falling into step behind his own father and Professor Wood as they ascended the steps. Next to him, Zane glanced around wisely, as if he was taking inventory of the pillars around the portico. He had his wand in his hand, held importantly at his side. James produced his own wand and held it the same way. Behind them, Ralph scuffled up the steps, pushing his lank hair out of his face. Almost before he knew it, the three boys found themselves ushered into the darkened entryway of the Hall, following in Harry Potter's wake. The noise of the nervous crowd fell away behind them.

"Mr. Potter," a voice echoed from the inner chamber. "I'm glad to see you've arrived. Your particular expertise might be of great value as we descend to the Archive floor." It was Chancellor Franklyn, his wand lit and held overhead, providing the only light in the huge empty room.

"He seems to have gained some stowaways as well," a woman's voice commented. James recognized the Wizard Home Economics professor, Mother Newt, as she moved into the light next to Franklyn. "Excuse me, boys, but this is no place for students. You must leave this instant."

"We're witnesses!" Zane exclaimed suddenly, pushing James and Ralph forward. "The three of us saw it happen!"

"You witnessed the attack on this building?" Franklyn clarified, narrowing his eyes at Zane.

"Attack?" Ralph replied. "We saw lightning strike it. And we saw—"

"They were moving their belongings into their new house, Chancellor," Merlin interrupted. "If you'll recall, they visited us in the guest house a short while before. Their activities placed them in the vicinity of the phenomena when it occurred. It may prove valuable to interview them presently."

"And this one," Harry said, shaking his head and smiling down at James, "is my son, of course. He and these other two are quite trustworthy. I have called upon their services in the past."

Franklyn removed his square spectacles and wiped them on his lapel, sighing. "As you wish. But let it be known that the school will not take any responsibility for anything that may befall them in this endeavor."

"Nor would I expect it to," Harry replied. "You mentioned with some confidence that what happened here was, in fact, an attack. How can you be so sure?"

"Did you feel the shift?" Franklyn asked in response.

"The shift?" Wood repeated thoughtfully. "Is that what it was?"

"I felt a shake of the earth," Harry said, "as if a giant had stomped nearby. Is that what you are referring to?"

"That was not a shake of the earth," a new voice said calmly. James looked up and saw Professor Jackson stride into the light from the rear of the room. His face was set into a grim scowl, but his eyes were electric as he glanced from face to face, ending on Harry. "The earth did not move," he went on. "Your brain merely attributed the sensation to the most obvious source, but the shift took place on a much deeper, fundamental level."

"I felt it," Zane nodded. "It was as if the whole world suddenly stopped moving, making everything stumble for a moment."

Merlin's voice was solemn in the darkness. "But it wasn't the world, was it, Professor? It was, if I may be so bold as to guess, the very fabric of reality."

"It was a dimensional shift," Jackson agreed soberly. "How deep a shift, we have yet to discover."

"And the occurrence of this… shift," Harry clarified, tilting his head, "is why you suspect the Hall of Archives was attacked?"

Jackson nodded once, curtly. "Mere lightning is not capable of what transpired here tonight, Mr. Potter."

"I suggest we avoid using the elevator," Franklyn announced, turning and striding toward the recessed door in the rear of the room. "Wands out, everyone. We cannot be certain that what happened here is entirely over. Professor Jackson and I will lead. Mother Newt, if you would be willing to stand guard at the upstairs entrance."

Newt agreed to this with palpable reluctance. She moved next to the inner archive door and produced her wand with a flourish, leaving a trail of pink sparks in the air.

"Careful, dearies," she said, smiling cryptically as James, Zane, and Ralph passed her, heading into the massive chamber beyond.

Inside, Ralph and Zane craned their heads at the marching rows of shelved miscellany and the massive chasm that dropped into the Archive's spiraling depths. Silently, Franklyn led the group toward the stairway, which they began to descend in single file, with James, Ralph, and Zane in the rear.

As the group circled the throat of the Archive's staircase, James could see that the strange gold and purple light of the object at the bottom, the thing Franklyn had called the Vault of Destinies, was diminished to the point of darkness. Even more unsettling, the complicated motion of the Vault had completely ceased. It sat in the dim depths like a sort of gigantic gold and glass rose, its petals curled around some hidden shape. The group tromped on in somber silence, listening only to the shuffling clang of their feet on the metal steps. As they passed the lowest of the Archive's dizzying levels, the air grew so cold that James could see his breath puffing out before him. He shivered and pulled his blazer around him, buttoning it up.

Finally, the group reached the floor of the Archive and congregated in the darkness at the base of the stairs. The lowest level was smaller than the rest, and nearly empty. The stone walls dripped with cold water and tiny stalactites hung from the bottom of the stairs above like icicles. The center of the space was a round pool, its water mirror-flat. Over this, the Vault of Destinies was suspended inside a complicated iron framework. Close up, the Vault seemed quite large, slightly taller than Merlin, and comprised entirely of leaf-shaped golden shutters and purplish prisms. In motion, the overlapping shapes would form a dizzying shield of flashing metal and enchanted glass. Now, halted, they embraced the interior shape like a clenched fist. James tried to see inside, but couldn't make anything out.