James Potter And The Morrigan Web (38 page)

“I was bored until that last bit,” Scorpius interjected. “Who are you talking about?”

Rose lowered her parchments. “Avior Dorchascathan, Durmstrang professor of Practical Prophecy.”

“
Him
,” Zane rolled his eyes. “I think I’ve had enough of that old crank to last a million years. I still haven’t told my parents that I already managed to fail a class,
and
not for any of the
usual
reasons.”

“Poor baby,” Nastasia purred, tightening her grip on Zane’s arm. James felt suddenly slightly ill.

Scorpius leaned to peer at Rose’s notes. “Since when are you vetting crotchety old foreign teachers? Did James suck you in with that bit about him being Dumbledore’s evil twin?”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about!” Rose said with sudden ferocity, crinkling the notes in her fists. “Who are you to laugh at what James says? How many times has he just made stuff up? How often has he been wrong when he says there’s some big plot afoot?”

“Well,” Ralph said uncomfortably. “He
was
wrong about Professor Jackson back during the Hall of Elders’ Crossing. Turned out he was a good guy after all.”

“Same with Merlinus in our second year,” Zane nodded.

Rose blew her hair out of her face impatiently. “That’s missing the point. The point is there
were
big scary plots going on. So what if he was wrong about a few of the details?”

“Like the Merlin staff,” Ralph agreed. “He thought it was Tabitha Corsica’s broom.”

Zane brightened. “Or what about when he brought Merlin’s robe right to Madame Delacroix, thinking it was just the Invisibility Cloak? She really pulled a fast one on you there, didn’t she, James?”

“That’s quite a track record,” Nastasia nodded appreciatively.

“Shut up, all of you!” Rose interrupted, her face grave. “The point is, if James says something isn’t right, I, for one, am choosing to believe him. I think he’s earned that.”

“What about the Lady of the Lake?” Scorpius asked calmly. “Like it or not, Nasty here is right. Nobody else has ever seen her. Do you believe James about that?”

Rose met Scorpius’ eyes firmly. “My cousin Lucy is dead. James says that the Lady of the Lake killed her. Are you suggesting that he lied about that? Are you saying that he’s using the death of a twelve year old girl… to get attention?”

Scorpius studied Rose’s face for a long, tense moment. Finally, he looked away. For once, he seemed to have no response. James’ face felt hot with mingled embarrassment and gratitude. He hadn’t realized until this moment just how much it had wounded him not to be believed. He met Rose’s eyes and nodded gratefully at her. She glanced down at the floor. When she looked up again, she shrugged. Perhaps she wasn’t as confident as she seemed, but at least she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“So,” Ralph said, “If James says there is something dodgy about Professor Avior, then it’s worth looking into, right?”

Rose didn’t answer. Instead, she raised her notes again. “Shortly after Avior was hired as assistant potion master at Durmstrang, a magical summit was held there, attended by Hogwarts and Ministry representatives. Avior did not attend. Apparently he was ill the entire time, confined to his quarters.”

“Couldn’t have happened to a nicer fella,” Zane muttered darkly.

“A few years later, when Avior was a full professor,” Rose went on, “There was a big scandal involving a bunch of vacationing students from Hogwarts, Durmstrang and Beauxbatons. It seems they all showed up in a Muggle fishing village, got into a huge duelling contest and caused all sorts of trouble, levitating boats into the village streets and engorging fish to the size of monsters. The Ministry of Magic called in a whole team of professors from all three schools to help sort it out and determine who to punish. Avior was the one professor all the Durmstrang students had in common, but he refused to come. He claimed to have a ‘family emergency’. The thing is there is no record whatsoever of his family. Not a mother or father. No siblings. Not so much as a single crazy uncle.”

Ralph said, “Well, he’s got to have
some
family, right? I mean, he didn’t just hatch from an egg. Er, unless that happens sometimes in the wizarding world. It doesn’t, does it?”

“What’s the point of all this, Rose?” Scorpius shook his head.

“In nineteen ninety-four,” Rose went on, raising her voice. “The Triwizard Tournament was held for the first time in nearly two hundred years, due in large part to the efforts of one Avior Dorchascathan. And yet, for reasons no one really knows, the Professor himself
did… not… attend
.”

There was a long pause in the darkness of the Owlery. All around, feathered shapes shuffled. Cold wind pressed through the open windows, ruffling James’ hair.

“So,” Zane finally said, “the old guy’s shy. Or maybe he just doesn’t like leaving Durmstrang castle.”

“That can’t be it,” Rose countered. “He’s left the castle loads of times. In fact, according to some of the Durmstrang students I’ve interviewed, Avior travels very frequently, and for weeks at a time. He definitely has no problem getting out and around.”

Ralph shrugged. “So what’s the big deal then?”

“The big deal,” Rose replied, lowering her voice, “is that Avior is suspiciously absent anytime he might be around people from Hogwarts or the Ministry of Magic,” she turned to James, her face serious. “Anytime he might encounter people who remember
Albus Dumbledore
.”

A shiver completely unrelated to the chill of the room shook James’ shoulders. He glanced around at the others. “After last class at Durmstrang,” he said, “Avior said he would answer my most important question.” He told them about the Chocolate Frog card, and how Avior had used it to show James he knew of his suspicion.

Breathlessly, Rose asked, “Are you going to take him up on the offer?”

James shrugged. “I don’t know. Possibly. I
am
dying of curiosity. If he is willing to just tell the truth straight up…”

Rose shook her head adamantly. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, James. He’s not just going to tell you everything after all these years of keeping secrets. He knows you’re a threat to whatever it is he’s hiding.”

“Rose is right,” Zane said. “He probably means to find out what you know and shut you up somehow. Us wizarding types have lots of ways of doing that. One quick Imperius curse and you’re silenced forever.”

James frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t think so, though. Somehow… I sort of trust him.”

“Just because he looks like Headmaster Dumbledore,” Rose said quietly, “doesn’t mean he’s trustworthy. Maybe it’s just a trick. Maybe… I don’t know. Maybe he’s just using Polyjuice potion.”

“But why?” Ralph interjected. “Why go to all that trouble if it means having to hide yourself from whoever might recognize the person you are trying so hard to look like?”

“No,” James said firmly. “It’s not a trick. That wouldn’t make any sense. Whatever or whoever he is, there is
some
connection between him and Dumbledore. If I can go to his office and just get him to tell me…”

“I’ll come along,” Nastasia suddenly said.

Everyone, including Zane, turned to look at her. She simply smiled mildly, glancing from face to face.

James was the first to ask the obvious. “But… why?”

“Simple,” Nastasia said, disengaging from Zane’s arm. “It’ll let Avior know that you’ve already told more people. Making you disappear won’t keep his secret safe if you’ve already started blabbing it around. Besides,” she shrugged. “I’m curious.”

James shook his head impatiently. “I thought you didn’t care about any of this?”

“Oh, I’m mercurial that way,” she said, crossing over next to him. “Sometimes even I don’t know when I’m going to change my mind about things.”

“But Avior hates Muggle-borns,” Zane said, folding his arms across his chest. “He’ll take one look at your hair and nose ring and, I don’t know, throw you in the dungeon or something.”

“Oh, didn’t you know?” Nastasia cocked her head and smiled crookedly. “I’m one hundred percent pureblood witch. From one of the oldest magical families in America, in fact. Why, some of my great, great, great aunts were actually burned at the stake during the Salem witch trials.” She turned to James and whispered in his ear, “None of them were hurt, of course. But they did put on a good show for the Muggles.” She giggled.

“I still think it’s a bad idea,” Rose said, “But Nastasia has a point. If Avior knows that more than just the two of you are onto his secret, it’ll keep you both a bit safer. At least until he finds out exactly who else knows what.”

“There’s one thing here I don’t understand,” Scorpius announced. “I assumed we were all here because we were the ones who went to New Amsterdam together and encountered that Collector person. We heard the Muggle woman, Lissa, talk about the Morrigan Web. James here asked you to check that out, Rose. Not Professor Avior. How’d this get connected to him?”

Rose nodded meaningfully. “That’s where all this started,” she admitted. “I started looking up the Morrigan Web, just like James asked. It wasn’t easy. Frankly, I was about to give up. Then, somehow, I came across two references, both at the same time. It started with a history of Alma Aleron. The Morrigan Web was a pet project of some American Professor from Igor House over a hundred years ago. She called it the ultimate magical super-weapon, and said that it was so powerful, so devastating, that if it was ever perfected, it would stop magical warfare forever.”

“That…” Ralph frowned thoughtfully, “doesn’t exactly make sense.”

“Sure it does,” Nastasia smiled. “She probably believed that if everyone had a Morrigan Web, no one would ever be crazy enough to use it.” She shook her head and turned to James. “Idealistic people are so cute,” she purred. His face heated again as he tried to ignore her.

To Rose, he said, “Did you find out what it does or how it works?”

“No. I couldn’t get any details at all. It just said that the professor’s experiments eventually got her into trouble with the American magical authorities. They threatened to confiscate all of her tools and imprison her if she didn’t shut down her research on the Morrigan Web. She must have agreed to it, because her name doesn’t come up again.”

“That doesn’t sound like any Igors I know,” Zane said, tilting his head. “What
was
her name?”

Rose consulted her notes. “Professor Principia Laosa. I’ve never heard of her. Certainly she’s long since dead.”

Zane glanced aside at Ralph, then James, his brow furrowed. “Could it be…?”

“What?” Ralph said.

Nastasia suddenly perked up next to James. “Of course! Unless she’s just a legend. Oh, that would be such a shame.”

“What?!” James demanded, nearly hopping with impatience.

“Crone Laosa,” Zane said, shaking his head. “But that’s totally, like…”

“Oh yeah, I remember you talking about her,” Ralph said, standing up from his stool. “She’s supposed to be that really terrifying old witch that haunts the lower cellars of Alma Aleron’s Administration Hall, right?”

Rose looked from Ralph to James in annoyance. “Is this for real?”

James shrugged, remembering. “Admin Hall was built by dwarves, and legend says they included endless layers of tunnels and basements going down who-knows how deep. It’s all off-limits to students. Some people say that the cellars are guarded by a really powerful and creepy old witch, Crone Laosa.”

“But no one’s ever seen her, right?” Ralph asked, looking almost imploringly at Zane. “I mean, she’s just a legend. Like the boogeyman.”

“The Boogeyman’s no legend,” Scorpius interjected. “He tried to get appointed Minister of Magic a few decades ago. Said he’d gotten reformed from all that scaring children in the dead of night stuff.”

“Besides,” Rose said, pushing Scorpius aside and addressing Zane. “She’d be extremely old. Nearly two hundred years.”

Zane shrugged. “Our Chancellor is like two hundred and fifteen or something. Magical types have ways of living way long if they want to. If Crone Laosa really is the old Professor Laosa from Igor House, she’d totally know how to extend her life. Igors are into that sort of thing.”

There was another long, thoughtful silence in the Owlery as everyone considered the ramifications of this.

Finally, James turned back to Rose. “What was the other reference you found to the Morrigan Web?”

Rose looked uncomfortably down at her notes again. “It’s probably nothing, I suppose. But the coincidence was just a bit too much.”

“As if there haven’t been enough coincidences already,” Zane commented. He glanced across the gathering at Nastasia where she now stood next to James.

“In the book about Alma Aleron’s history,” Rose said, ignoring Zane. “When it talked about the Morrigan Web, it referenced an expert on magical doomsday devices and super-weapons. I thought it might be the man that escaped from Azkaban this summer, Worlick.” She glanced at James. “After all, he’s probably a Warlock, and that’s their specialty. Instead…”

James leaned closer as Rose held up her notes. She tapped a name written on the top, underlined three times:
Avior Dorchascathan
.

“Professor Avior?” Ralph said aloud. “He’s an expert on magical doomsday weapons?”

Scorpius nodded. “So that’s what raised your flags about him. It wasn’t just James’ suspicions.”

Rose shook her head. “It was both,” she admitted. “But it does prove that James has a nose for dodgy characters.”

“It’s a Potter specialty, I suspect,” Nastasia said with a sigh.

Ralph ran his hands through his hair. “So where does all of this leave us, then?”

“The important thing,” Rose said, refolding her notes, “is that it leaves us on the same page. There is something potentially horrible going on in New Amsterdam. The Collector and his pet Warlock, along with some other person who may or may not be James’ Lady of the Lake-”

“She’s not
my
Lady of the Lake,” James interrupted, annoyed. “I don’t keep her on a leash or anything.” Next to him, Nastasia giggled again.