The Vault of Destinies (James Potter #3) (81 page)

"James came here? What'd he say?"

Altaire shrugged indulgently. "Who knows? He and his little Bigfoot pal shook in their capes when I met them at the door and told them you weren't here. I suggested they beat it before I taught them a little respect. Sorry if I ruined teatime or something." He grinned maliciously and nudged the girl next to him. She smirked crookedly.

Albus rolled his eyes and turned away, trudging up the rest of the stairs.

He'd heard about James' errands around the campus that day. Lucy had corroborated the rumors at lunchtime. Apparently, James and Ralph Deedle were making the rounds to all the other societies, asking for a little help with the upcoming tournament match. He shook his head as he made his way to the second-floor landing and opened the door to the small sophomore dormitory room. It was just like James to traipse all over the campus with his hand out, begging for help, making
his
problem everyone
else's
problem. As irritating as the Werewolves could be, at least they understood the concept of self-respect. They'd either win or lose on their own two feet, and they'd do it with pride, no matter what.

Of course, in Albus' experience, the Werewolves
always
won, so he couldn't be entirely sure how they'd react if they ever lost. He assumed that they'd accept it with the same stoic bitterness that they displayed in nearly every other case.

Albus plopped his knapsack onto his bed and threw himself down next to it. He propped his chin in his hands and stared out the tall window.

The fact was that it rankled him a little bit that James hadn't tried any harder to ask
him
for help. Truthfully, Albus knew that he hadn't given James any indication that he, Albus, would be willing to
offer
any help, but still. They were brothers, weren't they?

Deep down, despite all of his bravado and his apparent society loyalty, Albus sort of wanted to see the Bigfoots win the tournament. Not just because James was part of the team and not in the least because the Foots were the celebrated underdogs. Albus was not the sort of boy to be moved by the plight of the underdog. The fact was, Albus was uneasy about the apparently unstoppable nature of Team Werewolf.

It had started a few months earlier, right before Christmas.

Albus was bundling up to follow the team out to Pepperpock Down for a match against Igor House when Altaire had stopped him.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, where do you think
you're
running off to?" the bigger boy had demanded, placing a hand on the middle of Albus' chest and pushing him slightly back into the foyer.

"I'm going to the match," Albus replied, resisting—with some difficulty—the urge to produce his wand and give Altaire a
shove
of his own.

Altaire shook his head impatiently. "No you aren't," he countered. "
You've
got a job to do. Don't tell me you forgot already."

Albus frowned wearily. "You're kidding? I have to do it
now
? But the match…!"

"I expect we'll manage to play the first half just fine without you in the stands waving your little Werewolf flag," Olivia Jones smirked, passing them as she strapped on her gauntlets.

"Everybody has to do their part," Altaire added condescendingly. "Our part is to go kick Team Igor's scrawny butts.
Yours
is to polish the silver so that we have something nice to eat with when we get back. It may not seem very important to you, Cornelius, but we'll be hungry when we get back. We'll deserve some nice shiny silverware. Right? What would happen if you toddled off to the match and shirked your duties? Why, we'd get back here and find nothing but tarnished, spotty old silver! How awful would that be?"

"Answer him, cadet," the Werewolf Keeper, a brute of a senior named Dunckel, commanded as he passed, bumping Albus with his shoulder.

"That would be pretty awful," Albus muttered, trying not to sound too sarcastic.

Altaire nodded. "It sure would. Now get to it. If you double-time it you may still make it for the second half of the game. And if you get there any earlier than that, I'll know you cheated and used magic. No magic for house chores! You know the rules."

"Yeah," Albus said darkly, stripping off his scarf and throwing it over the hook by the door. "I know the rules."

Altaire had already dismissed Albus, however. He smacked himself on his padded shoulders, first his right and then his left, let out a hoarse bark of animal-like enthusiasm (which was answered by the rest of the team as they made their way through the huge front door), and trotted down the main steps into the cold afternoon.

Unlike the rest of the houses, Team Werewolf lived close enough to Pepperpock Down that they got ready for their matches in their own house, ignoring the locker cellar beneath their platform until the end of the match. Albus watched grimly as the team ran single file down the steps and along the path, barking and yawping at the early yellow moon. As they passed the bronze statue of the crouched werewolf, they patted it on the muzzle, as if for good luck. It was a tradition that was very nearly a compulsion. Albus shook his head. He was not superstitious enough to believe in luck. He believed in making his own luck.

Or not.

Still frowning to himself, he turned back to the main hall of Ares Mansion and made his way to the dining room and the silver hutch therein.

He used magic to clean the silver, of course, despite the Werewolf House rules. It took all of three minutes. The next few minutes he spent grubbing up some old rags with silver polish and leaving them on the table just for the look of it.

There was a television in Ares Mansion. This had offended Albus a great deal at first—the idea of a telly at Hogwarts was utterly preposterous, of course—but Alma Aleron was not Hogwarts, and at times like this, he was secretly rather glad for the diversion. He used his wand to click on the set and plopped full length onto the couch.

There were dedicated wizarding television channels in the States and Albus watched one of them disconsolately, biding his time until he felt he could head out to the match without raising any suspicions. The program was a sort of chat show. The host, a wizard in orange pinstripe robes, was interviewing some bloke from the Crystal Mountain about the persistently missing Muggle senator. The working theory, apparently, was that the senator, whose name was Filmore, was still alive, and was being held by the Wizard's United Liberation Front at a secret location. The man from the Crystal Mountain was impressively slick and cool, wearing a slate grey suit and a burgundy ascot.
Former Werewolf House man
, Albus thought with a mixture of pride and annoyance.

"According to some experts, the new head of the W.U.L.F. is a woman," the man said, his tone grave. "She replaces the former leader, Edgar Tarrantus, who preferred to be a rather public figure despite his group's clandestine nature. This new leader, however, has maintained a remarkably low profile, and we know almost nothing about her. She simply seems to have appeared out of thin air, wresting control of the group away from its founders and taking it, some say, into dangerous new directions."

"And what does this bode for the Muggle senator Filmore," the host asked meaningfully, leaning slightly forward on his chair.

The man in the grey suit shrugged. "If he is still alive, then we have to assume that the plan is to Obliviate and
Imperio
him. He may then be released back into the Muggle power structure, probably with some fabricated story to explain his absence. Assuming that this succeeds, we must expect that he will then act upon the will of his former captors."

"And what might that be?" the host asked, cocking his head.

"The aims of the W.U.L.F. are quite well-known," the grey suited man replied easily. "Complete equality between the wizarding and Muggle worlds. The first step would probably be some disclosure of the magical world, at least in a relatively small way, just to prepare the Muggle public for the changes to come. Of course, this is just conjecture at this point."

The host nodded dourly. "Noble goals indeed, even if their methods are a little questionable. Recent opinion polls show that nearly fifty-two percent of American witches and wizards are in favor of complete magical revelation to the Muggle world. Any ideas why the W.U.L.F. and their mysterious new leader have waited so long to act? After all, the senator has been missing for several months, now."

"It may be that they are on the run," the interviewee answered breezily. "International authorities are working with the Magical Integration Bureau to track them down, and there are rumours that the international agencies involved have acted imprudently, allowing the W.U.L.F. time to relocate. There are even suspicions that
some
of the international police are secretly involved with the W.U.L.F., either working with them or, more likely, attempting to take over the group for their own nefarious purposes."

"Skrewt poop," Albus said disgustedly, sitting up on the couch and flicking his wand at the telly. It popped off with a short squawk. "Bloody malcontents and ingrates. It'd serve you all right if Dad just gave up and went home. Leave you all in the lurch with your stupid W.U.L.F. and your bleedin' opinion polls."

He got up, pocketed his wand, and stalked toward the door, not caring if he got to the match early or not. For the moment, Albus figured Altaire could stuff his silver where the nargles didn't bite. He grabbed his scarf and slammed the front door on his way out.

It was virtually dark by now and Albus could hear the whoop and roar of nearby Pepperpock Down even as he made his way along the front path. He passed the glinting bronze statue of the crouched Werewolf. The plaque embedded into the statue's base was just readable by the light of the full moon:

"Sod off, Havershift," Albus grumped. "You and your stupid statue."

A moment later, he stopped in his tracks as a thrill of surprise scuttled up his back. Slowly, wide-eyed, he turned back to the snarling bronze shape.

It hadn't moved. And yet Albus was quite sure that it had just growled at him. He frowned at the crouched shape. Its bared teeth glinted in the moonlight. Its amber eyes caught the dusky light and seemed to glow faintly. Albus was about to continue on his way when the sound came again—a sort of tiny, barking growl. It was almost too quiet to notice, but it was definitely coming from the statue. With some trepidation, Albus crept closer to the statue. The noise of nearby Pepperpock Down echoed across Victory Hill. A cheer erupted suddenly from the grandstands. Albus concentrated on the bronze statue, resisting an irrational fear that the frozen shape would suddenly spring to life and pounce upon him, snapping its jaws, its amber eyes flashing.

It was making noises.

They were so quiet, so faint, that Albus had to place his ear directly in front of the bared muzzle, straining to listen, but there was no question about it. More of the faint barking growls sounded and Albus suddenly recognized them. He'd heard the same sounds less than half an hour earlier as Team Werewolf was making their way to the match. It was his own team, barking in triumph at a scored goal. He heard them through the mouth of the bronze statue, as if on some secret magical wireless frequency. And then, tiny but recognizable, he heard their voices.

Nice shot, Lantz!

Knocked her clean off her skrim!

All right team, pincer formation! Let's take it to 'em again!

Steal that Clutch from 'em! That's more like it!

Albus recognized the voices: Altaire, Jones, and all the rest. As he listened, he heard the roar of the crowd as well, coming both from the statue's snarling mouth and the air high overhead. There was no question about it: he was hearing the match as it happened—hearing everything his teammates said to each other like a magical play-by-play.

He stepped back and stared at the statue. The amber eyes glowed faintly and Albus wondered if perhaps it
wasn't
the collected light of the full moon that he saw glinting in those yellow orbs. Perhaps they were glowing on their own, powered by the same secret magic that connected the statue to the match even as it played on less than a hundred yards away.

And if it was connected to the match, was the match somehow connected to
it
? Albus knew very well that while game magic was allowed in Clutchcudgel, outside magic was strictly forbidden. Nothing outside the boundaries of the figure eight course was permitted to influence the match in any way.

And yet…

Albus shook his head slowly, still frowning at the bronze statue. 'VICTORY TO THE WEREWOLVES', the plaque on its base read. Albus couldn't help wondering.

Was that merely a slogan? Or, perhaps—just perhaps—was it an incantation?

He didn't know. But he meant to find out.

For now, he turned and ran the rest of the way to the nearby grandstands, his breath pluming behind him in the cold, dark air.

It took less than a week for Albus to work out the secret of the Werewolf statue.