James Potter And The Morrigan Web (65 page)

“What’d you tell them?” Ralph asked as Albus returned.

“I told them you were building up confidences so James and Scorpius here would let slip with the Gryffindor Quidditch playbook for next match. Not that it matters,” he added, elbowing James in the ribs. “You lot are about as threatening as a sack of dead Horklumps, what with that git Vassar chasing the Snitch.”

As the sun began to lower and gusty winds pushed a low blanket of clouds overhead, dimming the streets and cooling the air, James, Rose and Scorpius parted from Albus and Ralph (who prudently decided to rejoin their Slytherin fellows). Reluctant to return to the castle just yet, they made their way to Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes for their favourite stop of the trip.

Uncle George met them at the counter and called Ted Lupin from the back room to join them. There, in hushed tones, the students described the latest happenings at Hogwarts, up to and including the new restrictions on Hogsmeade weekends, which they had narrowly bypassed.

“It was bad enough with Umbridge,” George scowled, his usually jovial face dark. “She was vicious and deluded, but she seemed to truly believe she was operating for the good of the wizarding world. Fred once told me he thought it was better to live with an outright tyrant like Voldy than with a psychotic do-gooder like Umbridge. But giving Filch that kind of authority…” he shook his head slowly. “He’s neither an all-powerful tyrant
or
a deluded crusader. He’s a petty bully whose suddenly been given a license to hurt people. Why would Grudje do such a thing?”

“Maybe for the same reason he’s told all the teachers to pile on the schoolwork,” James said, narrowing his eyes. “It’s a distraction. Maybe he’s trying to keep us all so busy that we don’t have time to ask questions, to look around, to see what’s going on right under our noses.”

Ted shook his head in frustration. “But what
is
going on? Do you lot have any idea? Because the rest of us sure bloody don’t. Between the assassination of the American vice president, the collapse of the laws of secrecy all over the world, and your dad getting frozen out of everything going on in his own office at the Auror Department, the whole world is just a big, confusing mess.”

Rose shrugged helplessly. “It doesn’t get any clearer on our side. There’s some demented wizard in New Amsterdam, calls himself the Collector, who apparently
is
the new American vice president, although Uncle Harry says there’s nothing he can do about it except try to warn the Magical Integration Bureau, and those blokes don’t tend to trust him much.”

“Not to mention the fact,” Scorpius added in a low voice, “that this Collector person seemed to be working on a magical super weapon called the Morrigan Web, which everyone agrees is pretty awful, even if they have no idea what it does or if it’s even possible.”

James opened his mouth to remind them that the mysterious Durmstrang Professor Avior was, according to Rose’s investigations, supposedly one of the world’s only experts on the Morrigan Web. For some reason, however, he hesitated, and then closed his mouth again. Rose saw this, and frowned slightly.

“The difference between Umbridge’s time and now,” George exclaimed tensely, “is that back then we had the Order of the Phoenix.”

Rose blinked at him. “But… just this past Christmas,” she said, dropping her voice to a secretive near-whisper, “at Grimmauld Place, wasn’t that the Order reconvened?”

George barked a harsh, mirthless laugh. “Oh, I suppose you could call it that. But look at us. Me, a jokester who never even finished my schooling. A half-giant who was forbidden for half of his adult life from even using magic. Bloody Draco Malfoy! Er, sorry Scorpius. I mean… your dad’s helpful in his own way, but, well there’s a lot of history there.”

Scorpius shrugged and looked away.

“The most powerful person there is your dad, James,” George went on, staring down at his own clenched fist. “And he’s been stripped of any influence he might have, sent off on pointless busy-work, trotted out like some kind of tamed animal. They’re embarrassed of him at the Ministry.”

“George,” Ted said. “I don’t think--”

“It’s true, though,” George insisted stubbornly, meeting Ted’s eyes. “And the sooner we all realize it, the better. The Order of the Phoenix is a pathetic shadow of what it once was. It’s an insult to keep the name. Where’s Sirius Black? Forgive me, Ted, but where are Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks? Where is my brother Fred?”

He looked around suddenly, switching his gaze from face to face, as if literally looking for those long departed heroes. “Gone, every one of them. Gone. Like Dumbledore, the one we all rallied behind, the one who made it seem like, against all odds, there was always a slim chance, always a shred of hope. Where is Dumbledore? Is he coming back?”

Uncle George’s eyes looked very naked as they probed James’ face. Finally, slowly, the ginger-haired man shook his head.

“No. Regardless of the drunken conspiracies that get tossed around at the Hog’s Head, regardless what some of us whisper to each other to keep hope alive, Albus Dumbledore isn’t coming back. There’s a power-mongering crackpot sitting in his chair in the headmaster’s office.” He sighed deeply and dropped his gaze. “Dumbledore died. And the Order of the Phoenix died with him.”

Rose stared at her Uncle, her face set in a mask of stubborn defiance. “Hope isn’t dead,” she said quietly. “Hope is never dead.”

Uncle George didn’t look up. Ted met Rose’s eyes and nodded at her. Silently, he stepped around the counter and led the three students toward the door.

“Don’t be too hard on your uncle,” he said, leading them out onto the footpath as he stood in the doorway. “It’s a dark time, and it’s reminded him of everything he lost. I don’t think any of us can understand what it means to him.”

James looked puzzled. “But… you lost both your mum and dad at the Battle of Hogwarts.”

Ted sighed. “Believe me, James, I know. But I was just a baby. I didn’t know them. I miss them, sure, but it’s like missing a place you can’t remember ever being. It’s just a curiously-shaped hole in my heart, with nothing in it. But George…” he shrugged helplessly. “He was a twin. He lost half of himself. He knows what used to be in that hole. He lives with that awareness every day.”

James considered this as he peered back through the open door of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. Uncle George still stood behind the counter, not looking up. He seemed not even to have moved.

“Good bye, Uncle George,” Rose called gently, raising a hand.

George did look up then, and nodded farewell. James expected to see tears in his uncle’s eyes, but there weren’t. He almost wished there had been. Somehow tears would have been better than the blank, calm deadness he saw there instead.

Something moved in a back corner of the store, flitting behind a display of exploding wands. James only just saw it as the door swung shut-- a figure in a dark robe, the hood pulled up to shadow the face. The figure seemed to turn toward him. A moment later, the glass door closed and Ted stood just inside, waving goodbye and blocking the view.

“Did you see…?” James asked, cocking his head and pointing vaguely.

“What?” Rose asked hollowly.

James considered it, and then shook his head. “Nothing, I guess.” There were plenty of people in Hogsmeade who preferred to keep their identities hidden beneath cowls and hoods. Granted, most of them lurked in the Hog’s Head or dim corners of the Three Broomsticks, but it was possible that one of them had need of a bag of Dungbombs or a Nose Biting Teacup. He turned away and began to follow Rose and Scorpius, heading away from the lowering sunset.

Silently, the three made their way along the High Street, past the two-story News Stand and its rooftop newscaster (who seemed to be closing up for the night), and onto an angled side street leading out of the village.

“We’re being followed,” Scorpius said conversationally.

“What?” James asked, glancing back.

“Don’t look back, you clumsy berk,” Scorpius chided calmly. “Just keep walking and don’t let on.”

Rose hugged herself against the increasingly chilly wind. “How do you know we’re being followed?”

“One does not grow up a Malfoy without learning something about subterfuge,” Scorpius admitted with a note of pride. “Long shadows along the High Street followed ours for the last few minutes. Two of them. When we turned, I saw their reflections in the window of that ironworks back there. They’re wearing long robes and hoods.”

A wave of coldness fell over James as he walked. “I saw one of them back at Uncle George’s shop. They were hiding in a corner.”

Rose gasped. “Listening in on us, do you think? Why didn’t you say anything?!”

“I started to,” James rasped nervously, “But it didn’t seem like anything much at the time. Hogsmeade is loaded with dodgy looking characters, isn’t it?”

Scorpius shushed them tersely. “In a moment, we’re going to cross Guddymutter Avenue,” he said, nodding faintly toward the next intersection. “The sun is setting along it. Follow me closely when we get there.”

James held his breath as the three students walked along, maintaining an infuriatingly casual pace. As they neared the corner, Scorpius gazed idly about, angling into the shadow of a low awning. The moment he stepped out into the blazing copper sunset, however, he dodged to the right, disappearing around the corner onto Guddymutter Avenue. James grabbed Rose’s arm and pulled her around the corner as well, dashing to follow Scorpius.

Immediately, Scorpius pressed himself back against the brick wall and clutched his wand against his chest. James scrambled to brandish his as well. Rose stretched out her arm, her own wand already protruding from her fist.

Two robed figures ran out into the narrow intersection, casting about and raising their arms to block the rays of the low, blinding sunset.

“Expelliarmus!” Rose and James cried at once. Scorpius, however, called a different spell.

No wands flew from the hands of the robed figures, despite the fact that both James and Rose had hit them squarely with the disarming spell. Instead, both figures spiralled up into the air, flipping upside down so that their robes fell down around their heads.

James boggled at the dangling figures where they hung in mid-air. “Levicorpus?” he exclaimed, glancing aside at Scorpius. “
Not
expelliarmus?”

“They don’t have wands,” Scorpius sighed, shaking his head. He stepped forward and tugged at the robe around the head of the nearest figure, who was struggling uselessly in the air. James noticed that the clothing beneath their robes was decidedly non-threatening. The stockier one wore jeans and a striped rugby shirt. The other seemed to be a thin girl in green capris and a grey tee shirt.

“Lucia Gruberova?” Rose exclaimed in a shocked voice as Scorpius yanked the robe away from the girl’s head. “But how… why…?!”

“I demand you put me down!” a muffled voice commanded. James recognized the nasally haughtiness of Morton Comstock struggling under his inverted robe.

“Let them down, Scorpius,” he said, pocketing his wand. “They’re obviously harmless. How did you know?”

Scorpius flicked his wand at Lucia and Comstock, flipping them over and dropping them messily to their feet. “I said they were following us,” he drawled lazily. “I didn’t say they were any good at it.”

Rose moved toward Lucia, helping to straighten her dishevelled robes. “But how did you even get here? Hogsmeade is unplottable! No Muggle can get inside.”

“I don’t know what unplottable means,” Comstock said, poking his head angrily back out of his mussed hood, “but all we did was pop through the cabinet this morning and follow the lot of you. It wasn’t exactly difficult.”

“It
couldn’t
have been that easy,” James insisted. “How’d you get past Tabitha Corsica and the rest of the teachers in the courtyard?”

“We didn’t go by way of the courtyard, genius,” Comstock sneered. “We ducked through the halls and went out the back way.”

“The old rotunda entrance,” Rose shook her head. “Nobody was guarding that, of course.”

James frowned. “So why didn’t
we
just go that way?”

“Because Filch kept a census of everyone who didn’t have a pass for Hogsmeade,” Rose sighed briskly. “If we went missing without reason, he’d pile us with so much detention we’d never be heard from again.”

“Or maybe you were just too thick to think of it,” Comstock countered. “Leave it to us ‘Muggles’ to be better sneaks than the lot of you.”

“Shut up, Morton,” Lucia exclaimed breathlessly. “We’re only following them back now because
you
forgot how we came.”

Rose smiled ruefully. “That’s unplottability for you. The magic may be weakening along with the laws of secrecy, but you couldn’t just walk out of here without having somebody lead you. You’d have ended up going in circles all night.”

“But why come here at all?” James asked Lucia, ignoring Comstock. “What made it worth the risk?”

Lucia stared at James in disbelief for a moment, and then shook her head wonderingly. “Are you serious? It’s
Hogsmeade
! I’ve been reading about it since I was a kid but never dared to dream it was real! And then this school year starts and we find out that everything we read about
really happened
, that those places exist, and we’re the first Muggles ever to be allowed to know about it! How could I resist sneaking in and seeing it all for myself? Can you even imagine how jealous my friends back home would be? Gretchen Plotz would have a litter of kittens!
That
would teach her to not invite me to her stupid birthday party. Like I’d want to go anyway, the shallow little minx. Not that I can
tell
her about any of this, of course. She wasn’t chosen for the exchange program. But soon enough, maybe the whole world will know about this, and then… well. Sorry.” She suddenly clamped her mouth shut, apparently deciding she had said too much.

Comstock shook his head. “I’m just here because I was hoping I might find
something
in this mad, backwards world of yours worth getting excited about. Seriously. You have a world of magic at your disposal and you send messages around in little notes tied to the legs of owls? That’s the best you can do?”