James Potter And The Morrigan Web (14 page)

James eyes widened with mortification. He glanced around the room in panic and saw the older students looking on with expressions of wry amusement or mild annoyance.

“Cameron!” James called, rushing toward the group and raising his hands, but the small chorus mistook his movements. They surged forward, clustering around him and joining hands, hemming him in as they finished the song. James tried to shout over them, but they merely grinned happily, bouncing and thronging about him. Finally, the song petered out and James allowed his arms to flop to his sides.

“Welcome back, James!” Cameron cried, nearly vibrating with delight. “I hope you liked it! We worked on the song by owl over the past few weeks, me and Stanton and Shivani. We couldn’t practice, really, but I was hoping…”

James disengaged himself from the group, his cheeks going crimson as he backed away. “Sure, Cam. Er, thanks, I guess. Just don’t, you know… for Merlin’s sake don’t sing it anymore.”

Cameron’s brow furrowed for a moment, and then cleared as another thought seemed to strike him. “We want to hear all about what happened last term in the States!” he rasped suddenly, his whisper so shrill that it carried through the entire room. “You were there, right? You were in the middle of it all on the Night of the Unveiling! What was it like? Did you know she was going to do it? Did you see Headmaster Merlin try to stop her?”

James continued to back away, his hands raised. “Cameron, I don’t… I can’t really talk about--”

“Yeah,” someone else called out. James glanced toward the voice and saw a tall, handsome boy he didn’t recognize. “Tell us, Potter. What sort of hero you were that night. What did you do to stop your girlfriend from ruining a thousand years of magical secrecy?”

James boggled at the boy speechlessly. He realized with sinking horror that the common room had fallen uncomfortably quiet. Scorpius stood in the entranceway alongside Rose, her eyes tense and wary.

“Lay off him, Lance,” Heth Thomas said mildly, plopping into a large armchair. “James doesn’t have to explain himself to any of us. Do you, James?”

“Yeah,” the handsome boy, Lance, agreed, narrowing his eyes at James. “He’s a
Potter.
”

James wanted to sink right into the natty red carpet of the common room. His cheeks were burning, and he realized it was only partly with embarrassment. He hands were clenched into fists at his sides, so tightly that they felt like rocks. With a force of will, he loosened them.

Voices began to fill the common room again as the moment thankfully passed.

“Sorry, James,” Cameron whispered next to him. “We didn’t mean to cause any trouble. We just wanted to…”

James shook his head. “It’s all right, Cam. I guess. Just… no more songs, okay?”

At a corner table, Lily caught James’ eye. He began to approach, but she quickly glanced away.

“Maybe give her a little room,” Rose muttered at James’ elbow, pulling him away, toward the fire. “After all that, she may not want to remind everyone whose sister she is just now.”

“Let go,” James grumbled, yanking his elbow away, but following his cousin toward the fire. “Who’s that Lance git, anyway?”

“Lance Vassar,” Rose whispered. “Transferred last year from Bragdon Wand.”

“Bragdon Wand? The snooty private school? That explains why he’s such an ass. What’s
he
know about Petra or anything that happened last term?” he turned on Rose, glaring at her. “And what’s he doing calling her my girlfriend?” he hissed angrily. “I should have hexed him right on the spot!”

“It’s just a joke, James,” Rose answered without meeting his gaze. “Ever since you and Petra played lovers in the Triumvirate…”

“Have a seat, Potter,” Scorpius advised pointedly, directing James to the sofa.

“No,” James spat, shoving Scorpius’ hand away. “I’ve only been back for five bloody minutes and already there’s drama all over the place. Is this how it’s going to be all year?”

Scorpius rolled his eyes and turned away. “Fine. Stand there, then.” He plopped onto the sofa and glanced back at James. “But I did warn you, if you recall.”

“What’s that supposed to mean,” James demanded, scowling.

“Before you left last term,” Scorpius answered. “I told you not to let your feelings for Petra Morganstern get in the way. I told you to watch out, because fate has a way of plopping you Potters right on the bullseyes of history.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” James seethed in a low voice.

“James,” Rose whispered, trying to move between them, but James shook his head, still looking directly into Scorpius’ eyes.

Scorpius met James’ look. “I’ll tell you what I do know, Potter,” he said evenly. “I know that people have gotten pretty used to Potters saving the day. It’s natural for them to be a little disappointed with the first Potter who ruins everything.”

James could hardly believe what he was hearing. He boggled at the blond boy, his hands snapping into fists again.

“We don’t mean it that way, James,” Rose began, but James rounded on her once more.

“‘We?!’” he repeated furiously. “You’re on
his
side?”

“We don’t
agree
with it,” Rose rasped, trying to pull James down onto the sofa. “It’s just that nobody really knows what happened on the Night of the Unveiling. We know more than the rest, but even still. You helped her. Petra couldn’t have done what she did without you and Ralph and Zane. It wasn’t your fault, but not everybody sees it that way…”

James was shaking his head in bewildered anger. “I don’t believe this,” he said softly. “None of you understand. None of you know what you’re talking about. Judith was just
using
Petra. The Lady of the Lake was behind the whole thing…”

“But, James…” Rose insisted uncomfortably, “Nobody else
saw
this Lady of the Lake person. Not even your dad. It’s not that we don’t believe you, but try to imagine how it looks to the rest of us. The entire wizarding world was exposed by
Petra Morganstern
. She’s been declared the first
International
Undesirable Number One in decades. She’s still out there, and nobody knows what she’s going to do next, or what she’s even capable of.”

James couldn’t listen anymore. He turned away from his cousin, rage and misery clenching his throat and jaw, and stomped up the steps to the boys’ dormitory without another word.

If there was one thing he had not been able to predict, it was the fact that the true villain in this whole nightmare, the Lady of the Lake-- who had manipulated Petra, broken into the Vault of Destinies, and ultimately killed brave young cousin Lucy-- would escape attention completely. No one, save for James himself, Ralph and Zane, had apparently ever seen her. James’ persistent attempts to explain Judith and her vicious plot to the people in authority had been an exercise in frustration. His father believed him, but the Ministry in general did not, and there was only so much Harry Potter could do without the full backing of his superiors. A few people, including Titus Hardcastle, his father’s auror partner, had gone so far as to suggest that James’ memory of Judith might merely have been an illusion, projected by Petra herself, in a devious attempt to deflect blame. Titus did not hide his disbelief in the Lady of the Lake, nor his single-minded intention to capture Petra at any cost.

Titus was not alone. As Rose had said, every magical government in the world was looking for Petra, with orders to subdue her immediately, by any means necessary. No one would underestimate her mysterious power again, even if the source of her power was a complete mystery.

James knew Petra’s secret, though. She had confirmed it to him on the Night of the Unveiling. She was a sorceress; perhaps the first of her kind to ever walk the earth. She wasn’t evil, he knew (or at least desperately hoped). But she was indeed very powerful, and her power was corruptible. The Lady of the Lake had used it, manipulated it, and if she had her way, she would do it again.

“There’s nothing I can do about that,” James muttered angrily to himself, throwing his knapsack onto his four poster bed and plopping down next to it. The circular dormitory room was thankfully empty. Raucous voices echoed dimly up the steps from the common room. James thought he could hear Lily’s laughter. “It’s not my problem. Who cares if the rest of them don’t believe me? I don’t need them.”

It wasn’t true, of course. Even he knew that.

He dug roughly through his trunk and found the Shard wrapped in a thick hank of white cloth. He unwrapped it impatiently and tossed the cloth aside. The magical mirror showed only silvery smoke, rolling densely and endlessly, as if it was a portal to the inside of a storm cloud. This mirror was the twin of the one Merlinus Ambrosius had given James last year. That one was still back in the States, entrusted to Zane Walker, one of James’ best friends. Both mirrors had once been part of a whole, the monstrously powerful (yet capricious) Amsera Cyrth, which had belonged to Merlin himself until he had deemed it too potentially dangerous. Broken into equal parts, the Shards’ powers were now limited only to communication. James’ Shard had originally been given to his father, but it was no longer needed for its original purpose (portable communication from the States to Ministry headquarters). Now, it served as a connection to Zane at the American magical school of Alma Aleron.

“Magic mirror, shard of three,” James muttered, “Show me what I wish to see.”

The face of the Shard began to clear, revealing the interior of a dim room. James peered closely into the glass. The room was tiny and cluttered, with a steeply canted ceiling, covered with posters and banners, over a single window. A lumpy heap beneath the window revealed itself to be a bed covered with assorted clothing, mounds of blankets and pillows, open textbooks, and an impressive collection of empty licorice soda bottles. James palmed his forehead, remembering the time change. It was barely afternoon in America. Zane wasn’t in his dormitory room on the top floor of Alma Aleron’s Zombie House. The yellow and black zombie banner-- an X-eyed skull with its tongue stuck out-- was draped over the window, blocking out the light. From the angle of view, it appeared that Zane had hung his Shard on the door. James sighed in annoyance, knowing he would get no answers tonight about what classes Zane was taking this term.

Just then, something in the far-off dorm room caught James’ eye: a faint glow, just at the very edge of the dim scene. He squinted at it, involuntarily turning and twisting his own Shard, as if he could somehow alter the view on the other end. The glow seemed to emanate from a battered whiteboard hung opposite the canted ceiling. Notes and doodles were scribbled on it, their magical ink glowing a faint green in the gloom. There was an unflattering sketch of Professor Jackson (of course) and a few snippets of rude limericks. Beneath this, printed in messy capital letters, was a note, apparently a reminder to Zane himself: EXP COMM 10:15!!

James frowned at this for a few seconds until understanding dawned on him. Zane was part of a school program, headed by Chancellor Benjamin Franklyn, devoted to experimental magical communication. Apparently they would be meeting at ten-fifteen (there was no way to tell if that meant morning or night). Unfortunately it wasn’t particularly useful information to James.

He considered knocking on the Shard in an attempt to wake Zane up, then, reluctantly, decided against it. He’d just have to try to catch Zane in the morning. Retrieving the white cloth, he wrapped the Shard again and buried it carefully in the bottom of his trunk. Restless and disgruntled, knowing he was not yet ready for sleep but unwilling to go back down to the common room, James began to change into his pyjamas. He reached to toss his knapsack onto the bedside table, and only then remembered the package from his father hidden inside.

Instantly, he plopped onto the bed again and rammed his arm into the knapsack, digging to the bottom. He felt the wrapped package, grasped it, and drew it out eagerly, shoving his knapsack unceremoniously to the floor.

He unwrapped the package messily, tossing the thick, rough paper aside.

It was a small, compact bundle, held together with a loop of string. James saw immediately what it was, and his eyes bulged in mingled surprise and confusion. It was his father’s invisibility cloak. Scarcely believing what he was seeing, James turned it over and found a small note tucked under the knotted string. He grabbed it and unfolded it atop the bundled cloak.

James,

This is not a gift. It is a tool, and I mean you to use it only as I instruct you to. Things are afoot this year, and I may, at some point, ask you to be my eyes and ears there at Hogwarts.
If that happens
, the cloak will prove useful, as you well know. Until then,
keep it safe
. Hide it well. I am telling you this not only as your father, but as an auror.

And just to be sure, you will notice that I didn’t include the Marauder’s Map. I am keeping it handy, because as you may imagine, it works just as fine here on my desk as it does there at the school. With it, I will keep an eye on things as well as I can, not the least of which being you. Catch my meaning?

James caught his father’s meaning. With the Marauder’s Map, he could easily see where James was at any given time, thus, if James used the cloak for his own purposes, there was a good chance he’d get caught by his father, if no one else.
But,
James mused mischievously,
dad can’t be watching
all
the time…

There was more to the note:

I have an idea what it might be like for you this year, son. It’s no fun being misunderstood and disbelieved. I know how it feels. Don’t rail against it. Try to be patient with those who are truly seeking the truth. It will show itself, in time. Trust me on that, James.

Have a good term,

Dad

James reread the last few lines, frowning as he thought of Rose and Scorpius and all the rest down in the common room. Even Lily, his little sister, hadn’t wanted to be seen with him. Perhaps his dad, the famous Harry Potter, did know what it was like to be disbelieved and ridiculed, even by those closest to him. But somehow that didn’t make James feel any better.