James Potter And The Morrigan Web (10 page)

Petra smiled slightly. “I never doubted otherwise, Mr. Parris.”

“Good,” Parris said, relaxing. “So. What’s the job and when do we start?”

“We start right now, Mr. Parris,” the young woman answered. “And the job is very simple. I need you to help me find someone.”

“A magical someone?” Parris hazarded, picking up his pencil again and pulling his notepad toward him.

“The most magical someone of them all,” Petra sighed. “She has hidden herself away from me, and her hiding is especially good. She isn’t bound by time or space or even reality. She can take the form of water and travel through the deepest oceans, even through pipes and faucets.”

Parris blew out a deep breath. “I never met any witch who could do any of that,” he said with a shake of his head.

“That is because the woman we seek is no witch,” Petra answered. “She is a Fate, one of three currently loose in the world. My sister and I must find her at all costs.”

Parris cocked his head at her. “Why? If, er, you don’t mind my asking.”

The young woman’s smile turned icy. “Because,” she said, as if the answer was obvious, “
we
are her
sister
fates.”

Parris drew a deep sigh and scribbled a few notes. On the bottom of his yellow notepad, he wrote one word: CRAZY. He nodded at it in a businesslike fashion. “All right. So we’re looking for some mythical water demon who might be anywhere, anytime, and who has… let me guess… cosmically monstrous powers. Yes?”

Petra nodded and shrugged. “No more so than me.”

“But
you
can’t find her,” Parris added, as if just to be sure.

“She hides from us because she fears us.”

Parris nodded slowly. “Of course,” he said carefully, “this doesn’t mean that I need to fear you, too, right?”

Petra’s face darkened. She looked more annoyed than threatening. “Do you want the job or not, Mr. Parris?”

In answer, he put down his pencil and scooped the pile of gold coins toward him. “What’s this demon Fate woman’s name, then?” he asked loudly as the coins clattered into his desk drawer.

“Judith,” the young woman answered firmly, her face still dark. “The Lady of the Lake.”

Parris sighed. He closed his top desk drawer then slid open a smaller drawer below it. Inside was a bottle of cheap whiskey and a small revolver. He took the revolver out, checked the chambers, saw that they were all loaded, and then seated it in a holster in his jacket. It was a generally pointless weapon against magical people, but it was better than nothing. Besides, some habits were very hard to break.

“One last thing,” he said, standing up behind his desk. “Just out of curiosity. Assuming we find this sister Fate of yours. What will you do with her?”

Petra’s face remained dark, but she lifted her eyes to Parris, studying him for a moment. She looked almost as if she hadn’t even considered the question until that very moment.

“Why,” she answered faintly, wonderingly. “I guess… I shall kill her.”

1. THE FOUR CABINETS

James had expected his return to Hogwarts to be a happy occasion. Indeed, the sight of the enormous crimson engine of the Hogwarts Express, shrouded with steam, hissing and clanging with prosaic urgency, was a very welcome sight after the events of the previous months. Even Albus, who had spent the holiday in a sort of angry fugue, had displayed an almost annoyingly chipper mood all morning, eager to board the train and rejoin his Slytherin mates. At the station, he spied their cousin Rose with her parents, Ron and Hermione, and ran to join them. Lily, the youngest Potter, hung back, huddling nervously next to her mother.

“It’s all right, love,” Ginny soothed. “I thought you were excited about your first year? You’ve been begging to go with your brothers ever since James’ first year. Go on now. No long goodbyes.”

Ted Lupin appeared from the crowd looking roguish and bedraggled, accompanied by his fiancée, the contrastingly immaculate Victoire Weasley. James knew that Ted would be taking the train as well, on his way back to Hogsmeade after a short visit to London. The trip had ostensibly been for the benefit of seeing Victoire and his grandmother, but Albus had suspected otherwise. For the past week, he had insisted that Ted’s visit had been no holiday at all, but rather part of a reconvening of the old Order of the Phoenix at Grimmauld Place. Ted alternately scoffed at the idea (in front of Ginny) and played along (in private), egging Albus into a frenzy of jealousy that he himself had not been invited to any alleged secret meetings.

At the sight of Lily in her school things, Ted disengaged from Victoire’s arm and bowed low, extending a hand toward the younger girl. “I am smitten!” he declared. “My darling Lily, will you accompany me for the journey? My reputation can only benefit from being seen in the company of such beauty.”

Ginny rolled her eyes but Lily grinned. Sheepishly she took Ted’s hand and hoisted her bag. She glanced back at her mother once, her eyes bright, as Ted led her happily toward the train.

“He is incorrigible.” Victoire stated flatly, crossing her arms. Next to her, Ginny nodded, still smiling rather mistily.

It had been a year since any of them had set foot in the halls of Hogwarts-- a year spent across the ocean, at the American magical school of Alma Aleron. It hadn’t been a bad year, exactly, although it had ended very badly indeed. For a moment, as James accepted a goodbye kiss from his mother and gathered his bags and Nobby’s cage, it was easy to pretend that the last year had not happened at all. It was a very serene thought, broken only by the fact that his cousin Lucy, who should have been accompanying him to Hogwarts with great anticipation (it would have been her first full school year there, after all) was not with him.

James tried not to think about that. It was difficult.

“Goodbye, James,” his father said somewhat somberly, as if sensing his son’s thoughts. “Have a good term. And here. I… have something for you.” He paused in the shadow of the train and produced a small package. He stared at it for a moment, and then, almost reluctantly, handed it to James, hunkering down next to him. In a lower voice, he said, “Don’t open it until you’re settled in. Be alone when you do it. All right?”

James glanced at his father’s face and saw that he was quite serious. He cocked his head suspiciously. “Does Mum know about this?”

His father’s lips twitched into a small, grave smile. “No. Nor does Albus, although you can tell him about it later. It may involve him at some point. But I’m leaving that up to you for now. Lily should stay out of it, though. I need you to promise me that, James.”

“How can I promise if I don’t even know what it is?” James prodded hopefully.

His father held out his hand. “Give it back, then.”

“All right, already. I promise.” James hugged the package to himself, frowning.

His father nodded seriously. “I expect you to keep your word then. It’s Lily’s first year, James. I want her to enjoy it. I want her most difficult challenges to be Arithmancy-related. She’s already gotten her fill of dangerous adventures at Hogwarts, if you recall.”

James nodded, remembering the night of the Triumvirate, when Lily had disappeared from the audience, spirited away to the Chamber of Secrets where she was very nearly lost forever. “I’ll keep a watch on her, dad. Don’t worry.”

“I’ll hold you to that, son,” his father said, and James heard a hint of regret in his father’s voice.
He’d rather be watching over her himself
, he thought;
he’s worried about her. About all of us.
It was a disconcerting realization.

Harry Potter stood and clapped his son affectionately on the shoulder. “Happy travels, son. Just keep that package tucked away until tonight.”

James nodded, feeling a small surge of pride. He didn’t know what it was, but the look on his father’s face was familiar-- it was the face James and Albus had come to call ‘Auror mode’. James unzipped his bag and carefully stuffed the package into it, burying it among his things. “I don’t even know what package you’re talking about,” he said, straight-faced.

Harry nodded at his son but did not smile. “Off with you, then. I’ll… be in touch.”

Behind James, the great engine produced a deafening hiss, sending up a cloud of dense steam. James shouldered his bag, turned, and climbed into the wood-smelling warmth of the train. He found an empty compartment, stowed his bag and Nobby’s cage, and kneeled on the bench near the window, peering out. The train shuddered into motion and King’s Cross Station began to recede smoothly backwards, as if the entire world was on rollers outside the train. James felt inexplicably cheerful, despite everything that had happened.

What, he wondered, was in the package from his father? He glanced at his bag, imagining the parcel buried inside. It was smallish, about as long as a wand but much thicker, wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with twine. Could it be…?

No, he told himself. Of course not.

After a few minutes, there grew a commotion in the corridor outside his empty compartment door. It was his cousins Rose and Louis, along with Ralph Deedle, one of his best friends, and somewhat surprisingly, Scorpius Malfoy, whose smarmy, drawling voice still sometimes made James want to reach for his wand, despite the fact that Scorpius had proven his merit as a Gryffindor and a friend on several occasions. Their faces crowded suddenly against the glass of the door, peering in. Rose grinned and James happily waved them all inside. The next moment, the compartment was filled with a cacophony of excited voices, clamoring bags, and the annoyed hooting of Scorpius’ new great horned owl, which waved its wings indignantly in its golden cage as it was stowed in the overhead.

Shortly, wands were produced and new spells, learned over the summer from various dodgy sources, were tested and compared. Scorpius succeeded in temporarily turning Ralph’s toad into a tiny statue, while Rose’s Invisium charm-- a notoriously difficult spell meant to render a person invisible-- was just effective enough to subject them all to the sight of a reluctantly half-vanished Louis, seemingly reduced to various bones and muscles. Once this was (very thankfully) rectified, Rose and Ralph fell into a heated Wizard Chess match. James and Scorpius enjoyed a game of Winkles and Augers, managing to upset the chess match only twice (the second time inspiring the chess pieces to temporarily put aside their differences and launch an all-out attack on the broken Remembrall that Scorpius had produced for use as the Winkle, finally destroying it with their tiny swords and battle-axes).

None of them spoke of the Night of the Unveiling, or of the unfortunate Lucy, or of the mysteriously vanished Petra and Izzy, whose actions had simultaneously saved James’ dad, Harry Potter, and his partner, Titus Hardcastle, while laying bare the entirety of the magical world to Muggle eyes. No one even mentioned the fact that their headmaster, Merlinus Ambrosius, was no more and that his replacement had, as yet, not been announced. Everyone knew that the entire fabric of their world had changed dramatically in a very short time, and that the future was an eerily uncertain place. But for now there seemed to be an unspoken agreement that it was best just to ride the train, return to their schooling, and hope for the best.

It was dark and raining upon their arrival at Hogsmeade station. Hagrid paced along the platform, summoning the first years in his booming voice, oblivious of the silvery downpour that beaded in his beard and matted his thick hair to his forehead. James waved at him as he ran toward the carriages with their ghastly thestrals. Hagrid waved back, smiling gamely and surrounded by a crowd of hunkering first years, cloaks pulled over their heads against the rain.

James shared a noisy carriage ride with Rose, Ralph, Scorpius, and two Ravenclaws who he barely knew. They asked him about Zane, whom they remembered from their first year, but fell silent as the carriage left the lights of the station and began the jouncing, splashy trek toward the castle.

Fifteen minutes later, it was a tired and damp crew that clamoured into the Great Hall, blinking in the light of the thousands of floating candles and the brilliance of the white-clothed house tables. Beneath the Slytherin banner, Trenton Bloch spied Ralph and waved vigorously, beckoning him over. Ralph grinned back as Albus threw an arm over the bigger boy’s shoulder.

“Home sweet home, eh, Ralph? Come on!”

Together, the two threaded between the tables and fell into their seats at the Slytherin table, where they were greeted raucously. James noticed that some of the older Slytherins, former cronies of his nemesis, Tabitha Corsica, did not join in the welcoming committee. The group sat near the front of the hall and looked away, as if bored or vaguely disgusted by their mates’ enthusiasm. Without the presence of Tabitha’s icy charm, however, the gathering appeared merely petulant rather than coolly detached.

James settled into a seat at the Gryffindor table with a sigh of relief. There was Graham Warton and Deidre Finnegan, both fellow fourth years, and Joseph Torrance, and Devindar Das, seventh year and Quidditch captain. Further down the table, waving wildly, was Cameron Creevey, seated next to several other third years. Distinctly missing, however, were Sabrina Hildegard, Noah Metzker and Damien Damascus, three of James’ good friends and fellow members of the club of mischief-makers known as the Gremlins. They had graduated the previous year, thus ending, for all intents and purposes, the reign of the Gremlins. It was sad to have missed his friends’ last year and graduation, but it was also exciting to stand on the fringe of becoming part of the Hogwarts “old Guard” himself.