James Potter And The Morrigan Web (83 page)

Rose’s expression of excited hope melted into one of pained disappointment. “He didn’t…!”

James nodded wearily. “He wouldn’t believe a word of it, even when Zane told him their new vice president was that same wizard in disguise. Cloverhoof laughed and told him he
wished
it was true, since it might give the Muggle government the kick it needed to finally get something done.”

Rose had no reply. The look on her face was so crestfallen that James almost wished he hadn’t told her. A minute later she bid him a doleful goodnight and left without a word.

It wasn’t until their last class at Beauxbatons that James finally learned why he hadn’t heard anything from his father, or any other member of the Order of the Phoenix.

He was sitting in the mirrored classroom as blue-robed Beauxbatons (and the insufferable Morton Comstock) clacked and shuttled the oversized abaci, continuing whatever incomprehensible magical mathematics they had been working on all year. Next to him, Ralph was leafing idly through a French copy of
The Quibbler
, shaking his head occasionally and turning the magazine upside down, trying to understand some of the more obscure magical star charts and illustrations.

“You know,” he whispered, “I think this magazine almost makes
more
sense in another language.”

James sighed disconsolately. On the other side of the grand classroom, Lucia Gruberova smiled at him secretively. James offered her a weak smile of his own. To Ralph he muttered, “Have we ever figured out what exactly we’re supposed to be doing in this class?”

“Harnessing the cosmic harmonics and manipulating the resonant frequencies of time and space,” Ralph answered. “Whatever that means.”

“Well whatever it is,” James said in a bored voice, “We better wrap it up. We’re almost done for the year.”

“It’s really a shame that you can’t even understand the coolest thing your people have worked out about magic,” Morton Comstock commented, standing back from his abacus and cracking his knuckles. “I mean, you waste all your time turning teacups into turtles and you completely miss out on the magical equivalent of one small step for man, one giant leap for wizardkind.”

James rolled his eyes. “What are you talking about, Comstock?”

“I’m talking about space travel,” the ginger boy answered smugly, his eyes bulging behind his glasses. “Duh! Flitting around the stars without any spaceships, just by using the power of magical constants. I mean, I knew math was powerful, but this stuff is amazing. And wizard boy here doesn’t even get it!” He snickered to himself.

“Here’s an idea, Comstock,” James suggested, his cheeks reddening in spite of himself. “Why don’t you do us all a favour and zap
yourself
to some other planet?”

Comstock sniggered again. “Shows what you know. Nobody ‘zaps’ themselves anywhere. Magical constants are about moving the universe around
you
. Next thing you’ll be telling me you want to fly to the moon on one of your turtle teacups.” He snorted at his wit.

“James,” Ralph said suddenly, his voice low and tense. “Take a look at this!”

Still fuming, James glanced down at the magazine in Ralph’s hands. Immediately, all thought of Comstock emptied from his mind.

“Is that…?!” he asked, disbelieving his own eyes. “Is that… Professor McGonagall?”

Ralph nodded fervently.

Sure enough, occupying one full page in the middle of the French
Quibbler,
was a picture of the former Transfiguration Professor and Headmistress. The photo appeared to be quite old, showing a rather younger version of McGonagall standing in the Great Hall, unsmiling, surrounded by students during what appeared to be an examination.

“Why’s she in the
Quibbler
?” James asked in a low voice, struggling to make sense of the headline on the opposite page.

Ralph shook his head. “Dunno! We need someone who reads French.”

“Fortunately we’re in a French school,” James suggested eagerly, and then frowned. “Unfortunately, they aren’t the friendliest people I’ve ever met. And they’re all pretty busy, what with all this magical space travel and whatnot.”

“Cosmic temporal manipulation,” Comstock corrected loftily.

“I can read some French,” a female voice suggested.

James glanced up to see Lucia standing next to him. She shrugged. “I wouldn’t want any of
them
to hear me,” she said, nodding toward the busy, blue-robed Beauxbatons students, “But I’ve been taking French since I was ten. I could probably figure it out.”

She hunkered between Ralph and James, taking the magazine in her hands and studying it closely. “There was…” she said slowly, squinting. “An attack. She attacked some people, it looks like. But, she’s one of your teachers, right? I remember her.”

James screwed up his face in confusion. “McGonagall
attacked
someone?”

“She seemed to want to attack
me
, sometimes,” Ralph admitted consideringly. “Like the time I grew a peach tree in her classroom. The look on her face was right scary.”

“No, wait,” Lucia said, still reading. “She didn’t attack anyone. She
was
attacked, but she fought back. This was a couple weeks ago, it seems. It says there was some sort of… ambush? They cornered her outside her home, I think. A bunch of… wolves? That doesn’t make sense.”

“The W.U.L.F.,” James exclaimed, stabbing a finger at the magazine. “McGonagall was attacked by the Wizards United Liberation Front! The same lunatics that killed the American Vice President!”

Ralph’s face paled. “That means Professor Avior was in on it,” he whispered. “He’s the one making it all happen, isn’t he? But why would he attack Professor McGonagall?”

A sinking feeling filled James as the answer struck him. “Because of what we told her. She knew about Avior’s plans because we told her all about them. Avior must have figured out what we did and attacked her to keep her from telling anyone.”

“But they didn’t succeed,” Lucia said, still reading. “She fought back. Took out a few of them. It says three of the ones who ambushed her ended up in someplace called… called the anti-curse care unit?”

“That’s the counter-jinx ward at St. Mungo’s,” James said impatiently. “What happened to her? Is she all right?”

Lucia skipped to the end of the article and read haltingly, “‘After Madame McGonagall’s sudden and unexpected termination of her post at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, this attack is a suspiciously timed event, indicating a very powerful infestation of Bad Luck Laelaps, probably contracted during the Professor’s previous holiday in the Romanian countryside.’” She stopped reading, her brow furrowed. “What’s a Bad Luck Laelap?”

“That’s
the Quibbler
being
the Quibbler,”
James sighed. “Did she survive? Is she all right?”

Lucia shook her head and leaned over the magazine again. “‘In any event, Madame McGonagall, having sustained numerous curses and jinxes during the attack, is currently in guarded condition at St. Mungo’s anti-curse unit, apparently unconscious and under constant healer supervision, for all the good it will do in such an advanced case of Laelap-induced Luck-lacking.”

Ralph leaned back against the mirrored wall, stunned. “She never told anyone what you found out about Avior,” he said hopelessly. “She couldn’t have.”

“That’s why I haven’t heard from my dad,” James agreed, and then sat up, alarmed. “That means no one is doing anything to stop Avior! No one even knows what’s about to happen!”

“The attack you all talked about?” Lucia clarified, keeping her voice hushed. “When we found that… er… man… in the woods?”

James nodded helplessly, stunned.

“Well then,” Lucia shrugged seriously, closing the magazine and handing it back to Ralph. “I guess it’s up to you, then, isn’t it?”

Ralph took the magazine and looked hard at the picture of Professor McGonagall. To James’ surprise, the bigger boy nodded. “I guess it is.” He sighed deeply and turned to James. “Looks like we’re going to need Zane’s crazy plan after all.”

Zane’s crazy plan, of course, was a convoluted method of sneaking into the endless warren of basements and dungeons beneath Alma Aleron’s Administration Hall in search of the elusive-- and apparently terrifying-- Crone Laosa, who, according to Rose’s research, was possibly one of the only people on earth harbouring the secrets of the Morrigan Web.

Zane was, as usual, wildly enthusiastic about the idea. “It’s all totally still set up and ready to go,” he declared in a stage whisper at their next Ancient Runes class. He dug in his pocket and produced a fat gold coin, an American Drummel. “The Protean charm is as strong as ever. Wherever I vanish this baby to, the spell yanks the American side of the Hogwarts cabinet along with it. We step in on this side and pop out on the other side in the new location.”

Ralph shook his head impatiently. “But what about this Crone Laosa person?” he whispered, leaning close to James and Zane. “How are we going to find her?”

Zane shrugged. “That’s the easy part. She’s supposed to be the guardian of all the lower levels of Admin Hall. We tromp around and make enough noise, she’ll just come to us.”

“And what then?” James frowned. “She’s supposed to be, like, ten kinds of horrible, isn’t she? How do we keep her from cursing us into cockroaches, much less convince her to tell us all of her darkest secrets?”

“Leave that to me,” Zane said with a firm nod. “I’ve got an ace up my sleeve.”

James’ frown deepened. “What’s that mean?”

“It means I’ve got a few secrets of my own,” the blond boy whispered loftily. “And besides, you probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Whatever,” James muttered, still frowning. “Ralph, just keep that monster wand of yours handy. I have a feeling we may need it.”

“Mr. Potter,” Professor Votary’s voice echoed stridently, snapping James to attention. “Perhaps you’d like to come up to the blackboard and use your busy whispers to translate this ancient Angkoran rune? Do be careful, though: mispronunciations often trigger unpleasant curses. I once saw a cryptologist’s tongue transfigured into a dung beetle by a careless consonant.”

Glowering and dragging his feet, James stood and made his way to the blackboard.

“And never a more foul-mouthed dung beetle have I encountered,” Votary went on, shaking his head. “The Sumerian swear words that that creature uttered. Why, it was enough to make a rock troll blush.”

James’ tongue, fortunately, did not get transformed into a foul-mouthed dung beetle, but he did spend the dinner hour haunted by a particularly pesky Angkoran demon, which circled his head like a semi-transparent bat, pecking at him and screaming incomprehensible insults.

“Makes me wonder whatever happened to Peeves,” Rose commented, watching the demon with a wistful expression. “Haven’t seen him in months.”

“Good riddance,” Graham Warton proclaimed around a mouthful of stew. “Stupid poltergeist ruined my diorama of the Battle of the Red Mages. Turned them all into fire imps and sent them invading everyone else’s dioramas.”

“I remember that,” Heth Thomas smiled mistily. “It was hilarious.”

“It was a miniature massacre,” Ashley Doone called spitefully from the Ravenclaw table. “I spent weeks on that model of King Kreagle’s court. Took those imps about ten seconds to pillage it and burn it down.”

Heth nodded. “Like I said, bloody hilarious.”

“Quit it!” James shouted, waving his hands at the Angkoran demon. “So I mixed up ‘djaa’ and ‘bjaat’! It’s a dead language already! Get over it!”

Ignoring the demon, Albus squeezed in next to James. “So when are we going to visit old Crone Laosa?”

James blinked at him. “Who’s ‘we’? How do you even know about that?”

Albus nodded toward Ralph, who was cramming in between Rose and Scorpius. James glared at him.

“What?” Ralph proclaimed, taken aback. “He was with you in Avior’s office, wasn’t he? He’s as much a part of this as we are. And at this point we need all the help we can get.”

“How many people do you think we can shove into the vanishing cabinet?”

“Easy,” Scorpius replied, “We just take two trips.”

“Or more,” Rose nodded.

“Besides,” Albus said blithely. “Not
all
of us are the size of a bloated yeti.”

“Hey!” Ralph said, sitting up straight in his seat. “I’m just big boned. I can’t help it.”

“Where are you lot headed, then?” Graham Warton asked, nudging Albus with an elbow.

“Down into the dungeons of Alma Aler--”

“Nowhere!” James exclaimed, overriding his brother and shoving him backwards off the bench.

“Doesn’t sound like nowhere to me,” Lily said, replacing Albus on the bench and narrowing her eyes.

“Ow!” Albus complained, clutching his head where he lay turtle on the floor.

“Shut up, Al,” Both James and Lily said in unison.

Ralph rolled his eyes. “We really have got to stop discussing these things around the dinner table.”

“I said quit it!” James bellowed, flailing uselessly at the Angkoran demon as it blew raspberries into his ears.

It wasn’t until the following Wednesday night, during their walk back from the Astronomy tower, that plans for the trip into Alma Aleron’s cellars were finally solidified. After the coming Monday’s Herbology class, James, Ralph, Scorpius and Rose would meet Zane in the Great Hall, purportedly for an unscheduled Experimental Communications meeting, and take the reconfigured Alma Aleron vanishing cabinet to its new portal location beneath Administration Hall. Albus had complained loudly about being left out, but a prior arrangement with Professor Heretofore’s duelling club made it impossible.