James Potter And The Morrigan Web (44 page)

James nodded unenthusiastically.

Rose spoke up. “We’ll just bring them by your class tomorrow. Won’t we, James?”

“Sure we will,” James muttered.

Votary frowned at them vaguely. “Well. That will be fine, I suppose. Good evening, then, Ms. Weasley, Mr. Potter.”

They waited for the professor to walk on without them until he rounded a corner. Then, without a word, they ran down the stairs and out the doors of the entrance hall.

The sky was low and steely, packed with clouds and seemingly pregnant with icy rain. Wind marched across the lake, wrinkling its surface into long, iron-coloured breakers. The waves thudded against the dock, spraying mist over Scorpius, Lily and Ralph where they waited, their shoulders hunched under heavy cloaks.

“Any word from Zane and Nastasia?” James asked as he and Rose hurried to join them.

“I contacted Zane with the Shard,” Ralph said. “They’re coming to get us here in the next few minutes. Experimental Communications Club is meeting early today in some super-secret location so they got special permission to escort us over.”

James tilted his head quizzically. “They couldn’t just meet us outside the cabinet once we get to Alma Aleron?”

Ralph shrugged and tossed a hunk of stale bread onto the waves. A long pinkish tentacle surfaced, dabbed the bread, and then coiled around it, dragging it down. “Zane was all weird about it when I talked to him, like he was afraid to say too much or something. Chancellor Franklyn was going to forbid both of them from leaving campus ever again, but Zane’s head of house convinced him to go easy.”

“Good old Professor Cloverhoof,” James sighed. “Sometimes I guess it really is good to be a Zombie.”

“Sometimes nothing,” a voice declared from behind. James glanced back to see Zane clumping toward them along the dock, Nastasia close behind. “Sneaking around is almost the Zombie cardinal virtue,” the blonde boy went on. “Still, the Jersey Devil had to pull every trick in the old Zombie handbook to get us out of that one.”

“
I
was just a poor innocent bystander,” Nastasia added, batting her eyes meekly. “We Pixies don’t like to play that card much, but it works in a pinch. I got a stern talking to from Mother Newt and a week of cleaning cauldrons, but meh.” She shrugged and looked out over the choppy waves. James tried to catch her eye. Ever since she had promised to tell him her snaky secret they had not had a moment alone. He hoped to corner her after today’s discussion.

“So, what’s going on with Ex-Comm?” Ralph asked Zane curiously. “Why’d you have to meet us here?”

Zane glanced around furtively. “Top secret stuff. Need-to-know basis. I’d tell you but I’d have to kill you.”

“All right, all right,” James said, rolling his eyes.

“They’re reading our post,” Rose stated, getting directly to the point.

“They’re
reading
it?” Zane repeated. “They can’t do that, can they?”

James’ brow darkened. “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” he said, quoting Professor Votary. “Peace at any cost! Bah! Votary’s going along with it because he’s a dupe, but Grudje is definitely clamping down on communication for his own reasons. Perhaps Lily is right and he’s trying to keep us from reaching our parents.”

Zane tilted his head consideringly. “I could take your letters back to the Aleron and mail them from there, I suppose.”

“Already thought of that,” Scorpius shook his head. “Owls don’t cross oceans, remember?”

“
We
use pigeons,” Nastasia corrected haughtily. “They totally cross oceans.”

James plopped onto the end of the dock between Lily and Ralph as the others crammed around. “It’s a good idea, but it would take too long. We need a way to contact my parents--
and
Uncle Ron and Hermione,” he added, nodding toward Rose, “straight away. The longer we wait, the creepier things get.”

“Filch is totally abusing his magic!” Lily interjected, turning to Zane. “He’s a Squib bully with a big old wand now, thanks to Grudje! He’s got everyone scared to death now that he can catch and punish them however he wants!” She rubbed her own hand unconsciously where an angry red welt still formed a scribble on her skin.

“Filch supercharged is definitely seriously bad news,” Zane whistled in awe. “Who else has he dropped the hammer on?”

Ralph shifted. “Who knows? It’s a new rule that no one discusses their punishment,” he said, his voice hardening. “It’s supposed to be a privacy thing, but all it does is make everyone’s imagination run wild. And there’s Filch, always roaming the halls, just looking for reasons to give out his dreaded detentions, banging around that cane of his so we never forget what he can do.”

“The whole school is feeling it,” James agreed.

There was a pause as wind tore over the dock, slapping the waves against its pilings. When it fell away, Lily spoke up, changing the subject. “I’ve been wondering about something.”

“What’s that?” Rose asked, looking aside.

“When that horrible watery woman showed up…” Lily said thoughtfully, still staring at the waves. “Right before she grabbed me, she swiped at Peeves. Remember?”

Scorpius nodded. “Serves the little imp right.”

Lily looked around, addressing everyone at once. “Has anyone seen Peeves since?”

James frowned, thinking hard. He glanced at Ralph, then the rest. “No, I can’t say that I have, actually. Any of you?”

Scorpius and Ralph shook their heads.

“I haven’t either,” Rose admitted. “You think it’s actually possible? Could that watery woman have really…”

“You can’t kill a poltergeist,” Nastasia said matter-of-factly. “They aren’t technically alive to begin with.”

Lily looked earnestly around at the others again. “Either way, Peeves seems to be gone. If he really was, somehow, wiped out by that thing…”

“It’s proof that something really happened.” James nodded. “It isn’t just our word anymore.”

“But,” Zane shook his head firmly, “who-- or what-- was that woman? Where did she come from? How did she get into Hogwarts?”

James looked incredulously at Zane. “It was the Lady of the Lake,” he declared. “She travels through water. I’ve seen it myself! She can go through pipes, lakes, even oceans. As long as there are faucets, she can get in.”

Rose was frowning hard at James as he spoke. Finally, she said, “Are you totally sure about that, James?”

“As sure as I can be,” James admitted. “I never really saw her face. But it makes sense. Don’t you think?”

Rose shrugged nervously. “Perhaps. I suppose.”

Ralph peered at her. “Do you have another idea, Rose?”

She shrugged again, not meeting his gaze.

Scorpius rolled his eyes. “Oh, let’s not beat about the bush. We’re all thinking the same thing.”

“What?” James demanded, his face reddening.

“Think about it for a moment, Potter,” Scorpius prodded. “The water-woman called Lily by name. She said she had missed her. And then she tried to run off with her. Doesn’t it remind you of something?”

James shook his head stubbornly. “No! I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re getting at--”

“Petra,” Lily answered softly, realization dawning on her.

James looked down at his sister, speechless. Her eyes were wide and thoughtful, almost eerily calm. Finally she looked up at him. “Petra took me once before. Remember? She magicked me right out of the audience of the play during your second year. She was going to sacrifice me in the Chamber of Secrets, all to get her mother and father back.”

“Lily, that wasn’t really Petra,” James insisted nervously. “She was under the influence of the last shred of Voldemort in her soul. But she fought back! She overcame it and saved you in the end.”

“Maybe she regrets that now,” Lily replied. “Maybe she wants another chance.”

“That
wasn’t Petra
,” James declared, raising his voice. Suddenly, as if to counter his argument, a memory flooded into his mind: the eerie woman’s voice that had called out to him from the darkness of First Night. His father, watching from the Marauder’s Map, had witnessed the confrontation.
It was Petra, son,
he had said,
Petra Morganstern
…

“Petra’s the Bloodline,” Ralph admitted quietly. “She may have overcome Voldemort’s voice in her head once, but it won’t just go away. It’s with her forever. Eventually, probably…” He shrugged, unwilling to go on.

“And she’s powerful,” Zane added gravely. “She and Izzy both. Together they were somehow even more powerful than Merlin. He couldn’t stop them.”

James felt like he was falling, dropping into the depths of the lake beneath him. Coldness seeped into him from all around. “Sister fates,” he said to himself, thinking back to that horrible night. “That’s what she called them. The Lady of the Lake, Judith… she called Petra and Izzy… her Sister Fates.”

“You mean,” Rose asked tentatively, “maybe they’re all one and the same?”

“That doesn’t make any sense at all,” Ralph said, shaking his head.

But James wasn’t so sure. Suddenly, he felt less sure than he ever had in his life.

“None of this changes anything,” Zane said firmly. “Our first task is still to contact your parents somehow, get their help sorting all of this out.”

“Don’t you have another cousin here?” Nastasia piped up. “Maybe you could use him as a mule somehow, piggyback a secret message when he writes home. He wouldn’t arouse any suspicion, right?”

“Louis certainly is a mule,” Rose muttered. “And he’s about as suspicious as a Flobberworm. But there’s still the chance the secret note would be spotted when they inspect his letter. We need something we can be sure will get through.”

James suddenly sat up as an idea struck him. “Something we can be sure will get through,” he repeated, squinting thoughtfully. “Something that can’t be intercepted...”

“You having a brainstorm over there, James?” Zane asked.

“I might be,” James nodded. “But it’ll be risky. Especially with Filch on the loose. And we’ll need help.”

Scorpius cocked his head sceptically. “Help from who?”

James glanced back at him, his thoughts racing. “The whole Night Quidditch league.”

“Oh,” Scorpius shrugged sarcastically. “Just that. I’ll get right on it. You do know that Longbottom’s shut us down entirely, right?”

“Rose, Ralph and I will talk to Professor Longbottom,” James replied. “He can’t be on board with Grudje and his new rules.”

Rose narrowed her eyes. “Are you going to tell us this idea of yours?”

James shook his head. “Let me work out the details. Scorpius, just see if you can get all the teams out to the pitch tonight at midnight. Tell them it’ll undermine Filch and Grudje. That should get them there. I’ll explain everything then. Rose and Ralph, we need to corner Professor Longbottom tonight after dinner.”

“What about me?” Lily asked shrilly, perking up next to him. “I want in on this!”

“Not this time, Little Sister,” James said firmly. “And don’t argue with me. If Filch punishes you one more time for something I do, I swear I’ll curse him back to the stone age.”

“And me alongside you,” Ralph agreed fervently.

“I don’t know what you’ve got in mind,” Zane said, giving James the first real smile he had seen in weeks, “But I love it already. I woudn’t miss it for all the mustard in New Amsterdam. For now, though, we’d better head back to the Aleron. Ex-Comm starts early today.”

With the meeting nominally adjourned, the group began to make its way back to the castle. As they walked, a fine, cold rain began to spritz in the wind, stinging their faces like sand. James dropped to the rear of the group, falling in alongside Nastasia.

“You and me,” he said under his breath, staring at the ground as he walked. “Tonight, after everything’s over. You promised you’d tell me everything.”

“I remember,” she murmured tersely.

“I’ve kept my part of the bargain,” he went on. “I haven’t told anyone. You keep yours.”

She glanced aside at him sharply, her eyes dark, nearly sparking with anger. Then, with eerie suddenness, her face changed. She leaned close to him in the stiffening rain, pressing her shoulder against his. She sighed deeply, shuddering as she let it out. Almost without thinking, James put an arm around her. She leant into it, letting him support her.

Zane, walking ahead of them, his shoulders hunched in the rain, fortunately did not notice.

“He’s completely mad,” James shook his head as he, Ralph and Rose climbed the stairs toward Professor Longbottom’s quarters some hours later. “Experimental Communications wasn’t meeting early at all. Zane just wanted to show us how he could gimmick the cabinets into taking us into the basements beneath Administration Hall.”

“
Did
he?” Rose exclaimed in a hushed voice, obviously impressed. “How is that even possible? That’s got to take some serious Technomancy!”

“Hah!” James scoffed. “You don’t understand how Zombies think. Why use messy quantum stuff like Technomancy when you can just play a cheap trick?”

Ralph explained, “Zane just planted a Protean charm on the Alma Aleron cabinet, connecting it to a silver coin he carries in his pocket.”