James Potter And The Morrigan Web (18 page)

It did, in fact, take rather a lot of getting used to.

After Care of Magical Creatures, there were Durmstrangs in Herbology, standing uncomfortably in the stuffy greenhouse, sweating under layers of wool and fur collars.

“What is it with those blokes,” Graham Warton asked behind his hand, “is it
always
winter where they come from?”

“I don’t see any Durmstrang girls,” Fiona Fourcompass noticed a little hopefully. “Is it an all-boys school, do you think?”

Rose scoffed at this. “Of course not. It’s an international wizarding school. They’d have to admit girls.”

“Maybe there’s a separate school for girls,” James suggested reasonably. “Wouldn’t surprise me. They don’t allow Muggle-borns in, after all. Who knows what other rules and restrictions they have?”

“They are
very
serious about their secrecy,” Fiona said archly as they gathered around a raised table covered in purple ferns. “Nobody even knows for sure where the school is. Unless
you
do, Weasley, and just haven’t told anyone.”

“In fact, I know it’s either in Norway or Sweden,” Rose said stiffly. “My mum told me.”

“Maybe that’s just what the Durmstrangs
want
us to think,” Graham said conspiratorially, nudging James with an elbow.

Later, as lunch drew to a close, James, Rose and Ralph watched students leave for their various classes via the four vanishing cabinets. One by one, students would enter a cabinet and then close the door. A moment later, when the door was opened, the cabinet would be spotlessly empty. Hanging beneath the rose window, dominating the area above the staff table, the monstrous five-faced Clock ticked off all the relevant time zones, allowing students to keep track of their international class schedules. Rose was nearly jumping with anticipation about her first class abroad, scheduled for just after dinner that night (which would be one-thirty in the afternoon, Alma Aleron time, according to the Clock). Neither Ralph nor James had an international class until Wednesday.

Lily, James saw, stood in line before the Beauxbatons cabinet, surrounded by a happy huddle of other first years. She noticed James looking and waved heartily at him, her strawberry-blonde hair bouncing around her shoulders.

For some reason, James was reminded of Izzy, Petra’s younger sister. Lily and Izzy were about the same age, and had become friends during the previous year, when they had attended school together in America. James wondered where Izzy was. With Petra, probably-- they had become virtually inseparable, after all. But where was that? How was Izzy going to grow and learn, living such a chaotic life on the run with her eerily powerful sister? He knew Petra would take care of her as best she could. But was that good enough? Being powerful, James knew, did not necessarily mean being wise.

And of course, there was the matter of the Bloodline-- the last, guttering shred of Lord Voldemort’s soul, locked away inside of Petra, tangled inside her like a vine. She had overcome it. James trusted this. But it would never fully go away, never give up trying to twist her, to bend her to its wicked will. The allure of her power was just too great.

James still cared for Petra-- a great deal, in fact-- but he also grudgingly understood why people feared her. Not because she was evil, but because so many dark forces had coalesced around her, seeking to corrupt her, to gain a foothold on her powers. And Petra had, unfortunately, shown that she
could
be manipulated. Judith, The Lady of the Lake, had succeeded in that endeavour, using Petra to virtually destroy the vow of secrecy. By doing so, Petra had shown that she wasn’t completely incorruptible.

James sighed deeply to himself as Lily stepped into the Beauxbatons cabinet. She turned, gripped the edge of the open door, and grinned nervously at her friends just outside. A moment later, she pulled the door shut, and was gone.

James shivered in his seat.

After lunch, there were Beauxbatons in Transfiguration. Two girls and two boys in sky blue robes sat clustered at the front table, directly in front of Professor McGonagall, speaking rapid French to each other under their breath as the rest of the class shuffled to their seats. James couldn’t shake the feeling that the Beauxbatons were talking unflatteringly about everything they saw as they glanced furtively around the classroom.

“It’s just the way they look,” Rose scolded him in a harsh whisper. “It’s the same expression Aunt Fleur always wears, like she’s sort of politely disgusted by everything all the time.”

It didn’t help that the Beauxbatons were singularly skilled at transfiguration, apparently being taught it from a much younger age. They seemed positively bored by the class assignment of transfiguring a toad into a shoe. After accomplishing this with ease, they began to amuse themselves by adding intermediate transformations, such as tiny alligators (resulting in a rather fetching alligator-skin high-heel), and a fat brown kiwi fruit (on the way to a natty suede loafer).

Rose watched this with annoyance, growing increasingly dissatisfied with her own simple leather pump. Ralph, who had learned to control his own transfigurations very nicely, commented appreciatively.

“Oh, that’s good,” he nodded seriously. “They added a rattlesnake and made a cowboy boot. Pity the Americans aren’t here to see it.”

At the front table, the Beauxbatons giggled and sniggered at their creation. Professor McGonagall pursed her lips in obvious irritation.

“Why
aren’t
any of the Americans here?” Ashley Doone asked from a nearby table, flicking her wand impatiently.

James paused, his own wand half-raised in front of his toad. “Now that you mention it, we haven’t seen more than one additional school per class. Doesn’t that seem a little odd?”

“Maybe it’s just to keep things simple,” Ralph suggested. “After all, each school had its own sign-up parchments. It was probably easiest just to offer each school its own unique set of classes.”

“They could have just used a Protean charm to connect all the parchments,” James said, shaking his head. “That way every school would see all the sign-ups by all the other schools.”

Ashley shrugged. “Well, there has to be a reason why we never see more than one other school per class.”

“Maybe there’s such a thing as
too much
inclusion,” Scorpius said darkly from the table behind James.

James turned in his seat. “What’s
that
supposed to mean?” he asked irritably.

Scorpius shrugged. “Believe what you want, Potter,” he said, fiddling idly with his wand. “But I don’t think any of this is about ‘fostering brotherhood and tolerance between schools’. Call me a cynic.”

“You’re a cynic,” James agreed, turning back around in his seat.

“Oh, now they’re just showing off!” Rose hissed angrily, smacking her own wand onto the table, where it spat a burst of lime green sparks. “Dancing tap shoes made out of jewel crab? That’s not even practical! If they were already so good at Transfiguration they shouldn’t have signed up for the class in the first place!”

James turned away, stifling a grin. Scorpius may be a suspicious, greasy malcontent, but he did seem to be right about one thing: the addition of other schools in class certainly didn’t seem to be fostering any brotherhood and tolerance.

Tuesday’s class schedule illustrated just how quickly the drudgery of school work could replace the excitement of returning to a familiar, even beloved, place.

Potions classes were still held in the dungeons and taught by the head of Slytherin house, Professor Lucia Heretofore, who, in keeping with longstanding tradition, had no love for students outside her own house. Unlike her more infamous forerunner, Severus Snape, however, Professor Heretofore had no secret ambition of teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts or any other class. Her ambitions, it seemed, were confined to the more tangible goals of tormenting non-Slytherins. To that end, Professor Heretofore’s first class assignment was the mixing of a particularly difficult elixir designed to temporarily grant supernatural hearing abilities.

“Mix it properly,” she promised, arching one pencil-thin black eyebrow, “and you will listen to the rats plan their secret counsels in the highest rafters of the north tower. Mix it
im
properly,” she warned, cocking her head and ticking an index finger back and forth, “and your ears will swell to the size of teakettles.” She smiled meanly, her black eyes sparkling. “There is no antidote. So. Do be careful.”

The four Muggle exchange students from Yorke school were, of course, exempted from the exercise. Professor Heretofore, showing apparently monumental restraint, instructed them to merely sit in the front corner and observe.

“Should we take notes, Professor?” asked an eager, pretty girl with braids and a silvery mouthful of braces.

“If it so moves you,” Heretofore answered with thinly veiled disgust. “I suppose even pets may learn to act like their masters if they watch them hard enough.”

Fortunately, the improperly prepared elixir’s negative effects only lasted until halfway through the next class, which happened to be History of Magic. The ghostly Professor Binns, of course, barely noticed the arrival of the students, much less the grotesquely enlarged ears on many of them.

“I miss Professor Baruti already,” James groused, holding his ears back so that they didn’t flop forward and smack him in the face. “Nobody ever got accidentally cursed in
his
class. Besides, everybody knows that Heretofore helps the Slytherins more than any of us. None of them ever gets a potion wrong.”

“Kevin Murdoch’s got ginormous ears, just like you,” Rose pointed out primly, producing a sheaf of history notes. Her own ears, of course, appeared perfectly normal. “And
he’s
a Slytherin.”

“Professor Heretorfore doesn’t help
me
any,” Ralph agreed. “And I do all right.”

James shook his head, nearly dislodging his massive ears again. “That just proves that Murdoch is a hopeless berk and you’re a natch at potions. I tell you, she’s giving the rest of your Slytherin mates an unfair advantage. I hear she even helps you lot with all the essays and homework she assigns, at nights down in the dungeon. Try to tell me
that’s
not true.”

Ralph shrugged and made a show of arranging his own quill and ink. “She offers tutoring sessions for anyone who needs a little help. Nothing wrong with that.”

“There is if it’s only available to Slytherins,” James whispered darkly, “
and
if by ‘tutoring’ you mean ‘giving out all the answers’.”

“Move your monstrous ears, James,” Graham whispered in annoyance. “I can’t see the front of the classroom.”

James glanced over his shoulder. “Who cares? It’s not like you’re going to take any notes from that mess on the blackboard.”

“It’s not the blackboard I want to see,” Graham muttered dreamily.

James followed Graham’s gaze. A pair of golden-haired Beauxbatons girls sat in the front of the room, studiously listening to Professor Binns’ lecture. A brilliant sunbeam from the single window lay across their shoulders and hair, making both girls virtually glow in the gloomy classroom.

“They arrived early just to arrange those seats,” Ashley Doone muttered with a roll of her eyes. “They’re not Veelas. They’re drama queens.”

Graham smiled wistfully and settled his chin onto his hands. “They can be any kind of queens they want, s’far as I’m concerned.”

“Shh!” Rose hissed, shaking her head in annoyance. “I can barely hear Binns’ lecture over the arguments of the rats in the north tower. And everybody’s bloody heartbeats. And who knew spider web-making was so noisy, what with all those little clicking legs?”

James rolled his eyes, lowered his head, and allowed his ears to flop forward with twin, meaty smacks.

At lunchtime, he found himself seated across from Lance Vassar, the fifth year who had previously transferred from the wealthy private school called Bragdon Wand. Tall, good looking, and emanating a sort of worldly-wise confidence, Lance tended to dominate any conversation around him. He had a sort of magnetism that was hard to deny. Indeed, despite Lance’s sharp words in the common room during first night, James found himself grudgingly longing for the popular boy’s approval and acceptance.