The Vault of Destinies (James Potter #3) (6 page)

"What do
you
know about it?" James asked, meeting Damien's eyes.

"Not a whole lot more than you do, but I'm just saying—there was magic going on there the likes of which I've never seen. Merlin made us swear secrecy about it, which is fine by me. You probably wouldn't believe it anyway. All I know is that if Petra was doing it, then that wasn't the Petra I thought I knew."

"'Morgan'," Sabrina corrected again, holding up her neatly folded auger. "What do you say, Lupin? You ready to go six circles with the reigning champion?"

"Not now, not now," Ted answered distractedly, producing a rather surprising amount of miscellany from his pockets and dumping it all onto the table. "There's Gremlinery afoot. Where are they, then…"

James, Lucy, and Rose leaned over the table as Ted rooted quickly through the pile of odds and ends. A dog-eared origami frog leapt out of the detritus, limping crookedly. Every Flavor Beans and loose Knuts rolled every which way. "Aha!" Ted announced triumphantly, sitting back and producing a velvet bag tied with a silver cord. "Gather 'round, comrades. This could be interesting."

Sabrina put down the auger and frowned studiously as Ted undid the bag. "Extendable Ears?" she said, peering at its contents. "How are those going to work? You said Morgan and the Headmaster were meeting in his office. That's all the way across the castle."

"Ah, ah, ah," Ted corrected, smiling mischievously. "These are the new Extendable Ears Mark II, with a Remote Sensing Hex built right in. Just mark the object you want to serve as the receiver—in this case, an innocent peppermint that I slipped into the Headmaster's pocket on the way back to the castle, and voilà—" Here, Ted Metamorphed his face into a caricature of George Weasley, proceeding with George's infectious enthusiasm, "Instant illicit audio illumination for all your eavesdropping endeavors." He changed his face back to himself and pulled a handful of pinkish shapes out of the bag. "Strictly experimental at this point, but working at the Three 'W's does have its perks."

James took one of the pink shapes as Ted handed it to him. It was made out of foam rubber and shaped like a large ear. "What do I do with it?"

"Well," Damien said, examining his critically, "I don't guess that you eat it." Experimentally, he stuck the foam ear up to his own ear and listened. His eyes widened. "It's working!" he whispered raspily. "I can hear them!"

As one, the Gremlins and Lucy clapped the ears to the sides of their heads. James discovered that the shape was fashioned to fit neatly over his own ear so that it could be worn hands-free. He jammed it on and then leaned back, frowning slightly at the distant, echoing voices he was hearing.

"Is it them?" Sabrina asked, squinting quizzically. "They're hard to make out."

Ted nodded distractedly. "It's them, they're just far away. Shut it and listen."

James strained his ears to hear over the noise of the common room. Dimly, he perceived the rumbling baritone of the Headmaster, and then the tremulous tenor of Petra's response. Slowly, faintly, the voices became clear.

"Unfortunate as it was, I am less concerned about the way in which you chose to exercise your powers," the Headmaster was saying, "than I am about your more recent dreams. I have come to believe that such things often have implications we do not immediately comprehend."

"It's just a dream," Petra answered, her voice tiny and distant. "It's a lot like some others that I've had, only the other way around. I used to dream of decisions I thought I wanted to change. Now, I'm dreaming of disasters I barely avoided. I'm a little glad of them, really. They remind me."

Merlin's voice came again, calm and measured. "What do they remind you of?"

"Of the power of choices. And the fact that the simplest actions can have enormous consequences."

Merlin's voice lowered meaningfully. "And you know now how very true this is for you, in particular, don't you, Ms. Morganstern? Or would you prefer me to call you by your
other
name?"

There was a long pause. James had begun to wonder if the Extendable Ear had stopped working when the Headmaster's voice became audible again.

"Grundlewort ganache popovers," he said slowly, as if tasting the words. James looked up, his brow furrowed. Lucy met his gaze, frowned, and shook her head slightly. The voice of Merlinus went on, low and quiet, so that James had to strain his ears to hear. He leaned over the table, hunching his shoulders in concentration.

"Use only powdered grundlewort, dried and well-sifted, to avoid an overly pungent aroma. Mix with two parts huiverte extract and a pinch of tea blossom petal. Add rum three drops at a time until damp enough to knead…"

James looked aside and saw Ted staring furiously at the table in front of him, the oversized foam ear jutting from the side of his head. He noticed James' look and shrugged.

"Sounds like a recipe," Damien whispered. "Why's he teaching Petra how to make popovers?"

"Because," Merlin's voice boomed, so loud that James exclaimed in surprise and clambered at his Extendable Ear, "popover preparation is a valuable life skill that all witches and wizards should aim to perfect."

James succeeded in clawing the foam shape off his ear, turned, and recoiled at the sight of the Headmaster standing right next to him, a very large cookbook open in his hands. Merlin was smiling, but it was not the sort of smile one felt instinctively comfortable sitting beneath.

"After all," the Headmaster said, eyeing the foam ears scattered around the table, "one never knows when the need might arise for an unexpected treat. Which reminds me…" He retrieved something from the depths of his robes and held it out over the table. "I believe this belongs to you, Mr. Lupin. I'll just, er, add it to the pile." He dropped the charmed peppermint onto the mess of Ted's pocket contents.

"And a good evening to you, Headmaster," Damien said, recovering and smiling hugely. "Did you enjoy the wedding, sir?"

"Save your efforts, Mr. Damascus," Merlin replied, snapping the cookbook shut in his hand. "I have every suspicion that you will require them later in the term. Good evening, students, Mr. Lupin."

He turned to go, passing Petra as she entered through the portrait hole. Merlin nodded at her meaningfully, and she returned the gesture, somewhat reluctantly.

"So was any of what we just heard for real?" Ted asked as Petra joined them, squeezing in between James and Lucy on the bench side of the table.

"Depends on when you started listening," she said, avoiding his gaze. "He started fogging you right about the time we were heading back to the common room. Merlin likes to walk while he talks, you know."

Ted nodded somberly. James knew that Ted had been part of the group that had rescued Petra from her grandparents' farm, and he knew that Damien was right in saying that there was a lot more to that story than the rest of them knew. Merlin had spoken to everyone involved with the escape from Petra's grandparents, but all of those involved had been very secretive about it since. Something unspoken seemed to go between Ted and Petra as he reached across the table to collect the Extendable Ears.

Rose perked up. "So, are they going to let you go along on the trip to the States, Petra?"

"'Morgan'," Sabrina corrected again, glancing around.

"It's all right," Petra said, laughing a little. "I'm still Petra to all of you. Morgan is more of a… personal identity."

Damien nodded. "Sort of like that guy in that band, Shrieker and the Shacks, who changed his name from Uriah Hollingsworth to just Dûm. Sort of an attitude thing, right?"

"Shut it, Damien," Rose commented, giving him a shove. "So are you going to the States or what, Petra?"

"I'm going," Petra nodded. "Izzy's coming with me. And I think we're going to stay there for awhile."

"You mean longer than Christmas break?" James asked. "Because that's when we're coming back, hopefully."

"I don't think even we will be back by Christmas, James," Lucy said apologetically. "I have some idea of how these things happen, sadly enough."

"And who is this refreshingly pragmatic creature?" Damien said brightly, leaning toward Lucy.

James deflated, but only a little, considering his proximity to Petra. "My cousin, Lucy," he answered. "She was supposed to be starting here this year, although she thinks she'd have been a Ravenclaw, or even a Slytherin."

"I could see that," Damien nodded. "She has that look, 'round about the eyes. Pleased to meet you, Cousin Lucy."

"Likewise," Lucy replied, nodding with practiced diplomacy.

"So tell us how this all came about, then," Ted said, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms. "I mean, Hogwarts is a boarding school. You don't
need
to go with your parents to the States even if they're going to be there all year. Right?"

James sighed and leaned on his elbows. "It was Mum's idea," he began. "She didn't want to be so far away from Albus and me for so long. She was right upset when the owl came with Dad's instructions, straight from the Minister himself. I mean, things have been pretty humdrum in the Auror Department for quite a while now. It's like Professor Longbottom said to my dad once: peace is a pretty boring thing for an Auror, you know? I think the family just got used to it all. Now that things seem to be, sort of, heating up out in the world…" James spread his hands over the table, palms up.

"Whole city blocks being Disapparated away and chucked into waterfalls does tend to put people on edge," Damien nodded wisely.

"My mum's acting the same as yours, James," Rose said. "I hear her and Dad talking. They say it's a scary time because too many people have forgotten what things were like back when YouKnow-Who was still alive. They get tolerant of all sorts of iffy ideas, start questioning the way the whole wizarding world works."

"Like Tabitha Corsica and her bloody Progressive Element," Ted scoffed. "And don't think
they've
gone away either. Not by a long shot. They're like bugs that have retreated into the walls. They'll come back, and when they do, there'll be a lot more of them."

Sabrina picked up the paper again and peered at the headlines. "Is that who this Wulf bloke is involved with, you think?"

"Wulf isn't a bloke, Sabrina," Ted said, pointing at the headline. "It's an organization."

"The Wizard's United Liberation Front," Lucy said carefully. "I've seen some of their posters up around London, talking about equality at any cost and such things. Supposedly they're international, thousands in numbers, but my father says not. He says they are probably just a few kooks in a cellar somewhere."

"Why would they go and pretend to kidnap some Muggle politicians if it wasn't true?" Rose asked, shaking her head and looking around the table. "I mean, even if it
was
true, why would they do it?"

"I don't know," James answered, scowling. "And I don't care. All I know is, it's getting everybody all up in a snit, and now my dad has to go work on some big international task force, and Mum's worried that something will happen to him, or us, or everybody. Dad says he
could
wrap the whole thing up by Christmas, but Lucy's probably right. Nobody knows how long it'll last. As long as it does, Mum wants us all to be together, or at least on the same continent."

"But Deedle's going with you, right?" Ted said, looking at James. "His dad's already been over there once, visiting Stonewall and Franklyn and everybody at Alma Aleron, checking out their security and Muggle repellent techniques, that sort of thing. Is that why he's going along this time?"

"I guess," James answered, slumping again. "I don't know."

"Well," Lucy said, climbing off her end of the bench, "if
any
of us are going, we'd better get upstairs to bed. Show me the way, Rose?"

Rose got up to join her cousin, and the rest of the Gremlins stirred, stretching and squeaking as chairs were pushed away from the table.

"What about you, Petra?" Damien asked, turning his attention to the girl across from him. "What's over there for you?"

James watched Petra, who smiled slightly at Damien and shrugged. "I don't know," she answered, and then sighed disconsolately, looking around the common room. "What's over
here
for me?"

James awoke the next morning to a scratching at the window next to his bed. He sat up, buried deep in the fog of sleep, and wondered for several moments where in the world he was. Dark shapes hulked around him, thick with the silence of night. A single candle burned nearby, but James couldn't see it over the four-poster bed next to him. Something tapped the window, startling him, and he spun blearily, straining his eyes in the dark. Nobby, James' barn owl, stood on the other side of the glass, hopping up and down impatiently.

"What do you want?" James whispered crossly as he opened the window. Nobby hopped in and extended his foot, showing James the small note attached to his leg by a twine knot. James pulled the knot loose and unrolled the strip of parchment.

Awake yet? I thought not. Meet us by the rotunda doors in ten minutes.
We'll have breakfast on the ship. —Mum

      James balled up the note and dropped it onto the bed. Clumsily, he got up and began to change out of his pyjamas.