Prologue

agic, thought Senator Charles “Chuck” Filmore. I can’t believe this is what I have to stoop to.

M He leaned out of the open glass doorway of the building and smiled winningly at the cameras positioned on the other side of Chambers Street. The normally crowded thoroughfare was cordoned off on either end, blocked with orange barricades and New York City police officers, all of whom looked bored and sullen in their dark caps and side arms.

Behind the barricades, raucous crowds had gathered, waving and grinning at the cameras. That was one thing Filmore both loved and hated about this town: no matter what time of day it was, there was always a block party ready to erupt at the slightest provocation, complete with tee shirt vendors, sign wavers, and wide-eyed tourists, looking like aquarium goldfish who’d suddenly found themselves in the Great Barrier Reef. Filmore waved left and right, showing all of his freshly whitened teeth in a huge practiced grin. Flashbulbs popped and flickered and the crowd cheered. They weren’t really cheering for him, of course, and he knew it. They were cheering because his was the face currently up on the portable JumboTron television screen. It wouldn’t have mattered if the face had belonged to a Bloomingdale’s mannequin. That was another thing about New York crowds: they were fairly 6

indiscriminate about the things they applauded, so long as there was a good chance they’d be seen on television doing it.

The face on the JumboTron changed. Now it belonged to the great smarmy magician, Michael Byrne. He was dressed in an open-throated black shirt, his glossy hair hanging lank around his face, framing his handsome smile. Byrne didn’t grin, of course, as Filmore had. He looked impishly sly, his eyes flicking back and forth, as if he wasn’t even aware of the camera that had to be (Filmore knew from experience) less than two feet from his face. Byrne was a born showman, and he was extremely persuasive, even when he wasn’t saying a word. That was part of what had made him so successful as a stage magician. The crowd wanted to believe in his tricks. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Byrne’s infectious charms, insincere as they obviously were, Filmore might not have even agreed to be part of such a stunt.

“Let’s talk brass tacks for a minute,” Byrne had said on the day that they had first met in Filmore’s office. “You’re one of the rising stars of the political world, at least in New York.

Everybody knows it, right? Not many other politicians have the kind of name recognition you do.

Former Jets quarterback, career Marine, happily married to a prominent Broadway actress. You’re poised to launch your way right to the top of the Washington mud wrestling match. You just need one little boost, a little rocket fuel to shoot you up into the media mainstream.” Filmore had disliked the man almost from the beginning, but at that point, Byrne had been talking a language he understood all too well even if he didn’t approve of it. Filmore wished he could build a name for himself purely on his political record and his grasp of the needs of his constituency—for despite what many people thought, he was a smart man. He did well on the interview programs and Sunday morning talk shows, partly because of his own brand of square-jawed charm, but also because he, unlike many other senators that he could mention (but didn’t), really did understand the issues that were being discussed. Despite this, however, Byrne was right.

American voters didn’t always vote for the best candidates. In fact, as Filmore well knew, most of them tended to cast their votes based on looks and one-liners as much as they did on qualifications and voting records. There was no point in complaining about it even if Filmore did find it occasionally depressing. The only practical choice was to acknowledge the reality of the current political world and use it to his advantage as best he could.

“You and the Chrysler Building,” Byrne had said, smiling and spreading his hands. “Two New York City monoliths, together at the same time. If it works—and it will—people from coast to coast will know your name. Mine too, of course, but that’s neither here nor there.”

“You’re proposing to vanish the Chrysler Building,” Filmore had replied, leaning back in his chair and looking out over the cloudy city beyond his office window. “With me in it.” Byrne had shrugged. “What better way to cement both of our careers at the same time, right, Senator? We both know that these days, show business and politics are really just two sides of the same coin. Besides, it’ll be fun.”

Filmore tilted a sideways glance at Byrne. “How will you do it?” 7

Byrne sighed languidly. “It’s magic,” he answered. “Which means it’s either surprisingly simple or mind-bogglingly complex. Neither answer is ever very satisfying to the viewer. So what do you say, Senator?”

Filmore had agreed, of course, albeit somewhat reluctantly. If it had required anything more than an evening’s stopover in the lobby of the famed steel skyscraper, he probably wouldn’t have.

Looking around from his vantage point by the lobby doors, he began to get a sense that this trick was, in fact, going to be of the ‘mind-bogglingly complex’ variety. There were massive mirrors on swiveling stands, for instance, positioned just outside the view of the barricaded crowds. A monstrous scaffolding, nearly thirty stories tall, had been erected in front of the building. It was equipped with a skyscraper-sized curtain that could be lowered and raised on Byrne’s command, giving his crews time to manage whatever complicated machinations were going to be required for the illusion. Looking at the official observation platform, half a block away, Filmore had some idea of how the trick was probably going to be accomplished. He didn’t understand all of it, but he understood enough to know that the entire trick depended on countless tiny details, from sightlines and camera editing to crowd psychology and even the angle of the setting sun. In his own way, Byrne was very intelligent, although, as the man had suggested, seeing some of the complicated behind-the-scenes rigging of such a trick definitely tended to reduce one’s appreciation for it.

Now that he was officially off-camera, Filmore turned and crossed the deserted lobby, entering a side door next to the security desk. There, he found a small room dominated by two soda machines, a long leather sofa and a plasma television. On the screen, a remote feed of the external cameras showed what the rest of the world was going to see. Filmore’s bodyguard, John Deckham, a former fellow football player with a perfectly bald head, was seated on the sofa, watching the proceedings on the huge plasma screen with mild interest.

“Looked good,” Deckham commented, nodding toward the television. “They did a close up on you waving. Very ‘man of the people’.”

Filmore sighed as he sat down on the opposite end of the sofa. “Feels like schtick. I hate schtick.”

“Schtick makes the world go ’round,” Deckham shrugged, lifting a bag of pistachios and pouring out a handful.

Filmore settled in to watch the event. On the screen, Michael Byrne raised his arms as the camera zoomed dramatically toward him, framing him against the sunset as it reflected from the city’s mirrored windows.

“And now,” Byrne announced, his voice amplified over the crowd, echoing grandly, “you’ve seen me escape from Alcatraz prison. You’ve witnessed my triumph over the Egyptian Sepulcher of Doom. You’ve watched as I’ve vanished a live elephant, and then an airliner, and finally a moving freight train. Now, for the first time ever, I will perform the greatest feat of illusion ever attempted.

Not only will I vanish one of the greatest landmarks of the city of New York, the legendary Chrysler Building, from its very foundation: I will do so while it is occupied by your senator, a landmark himself, the honorable and respected Charles Hyde Filmore!”

8

On the screen, the crowd cheered again. Filmore could hear the echo of their cheers emanating from the lobby beyond. Byrne smiled triumphantly into the camera, extending his arms, palms up, exulting amidst the dying sunlight. As the crowd began to quiet again, banks of spotlights ratcheted into place, illuminating the front of the building like an enormous jewel. Byrne raised his arms, still palms up, and then dropped them. On cue, hundreds of yards of red fabric unfurled from the scaffolding that fronted the building. It poured down like water, shimmering grandly in the spotlights, and finally hit the street with an audible fwump. From the perspective of the television cameras, as well as the viewers on the observation platform, the curtain completely obscured the building. Standing silhouetted against the waving red fabric, Byrne lowered his head. He appeared to be in deep concentration. The crowd waited breathlessly.

At the end of the sofa, Deckham rooted in his bag of pistachios. “So, how’s he doing this anyway?” he asked. “Did he tell you?”

“No,” Filmore replied. “Trade secret and all that. All I know is we’re supposed to wait in here for a minute or so while he convinces everyone the place has disappeared. When it’s all over, the building reappears and I come back out the front door, waving like a goombah. Thank you and goodnight.”

“Are we really the only people in the whole building?”

Filmore nodded, smiling ruefully. “That Byrne’s a genius, really. He arranged to have the Department of Health evacuate the building, claiming that he could only promise the safety of one person—yours truly—when the building ‘crossed over into the unknowable dimensions’.”

“He didn’t,” Deckham laughed, crunching pistachios.

Filmore nodded again. On the television screen, Byrne was still standing with his head down, his arms hanging at his sides as if somebody had switched him off. A drumroll began. Slowly, Byrne began to raise his arms again, and as he did, he turned away from the wall of shimmering red fabric. The drumroll increased, building to an almost unbearable crescendo. Now Byrne had his back fully to the curtain, arms raised and head lowered, his hair obscuring his face, and still he paused.

Suddenly, the building around Filmore shuddered violently. Dust sifted from the ceiling and the power flickered, sputtered, and died. Filmore sat up, alarmed.

“What was—” he began, but stopped as a whirring noise deep in the bowels of the building cycled to life. The lights flickered on again and the television screen blinked into motion.

Deckham looked wary. “Was that supposed to happen?”

“I… guess so,” Filmore answered slowly, nodding toward the television. “Look.” Apparently, the scene outside had not changed. Byrne still stood with his arms held out, his head lowered. Finally, theatrically, he dropped his arms and raised his head, flinging his hair back.

Jets of white sparks burst into the air and the red curtain dropped, swirling and billowing as it fell.

Beyond it was only empty space, punctuated by the crisscrossing beams of a dozen spotlights. The 9

great shining building certainly appeared to be gone. The crowd exploded into frenzied applause and a live band struck up a tumultuous fanfare.

“Not bad,” Deckham commented, relaxing a bit. “Looks pretty real.”

“Meh,” Filmore replied, squinting up at the screen. “It’s too dark. You should be able to see the buildings behind it. The spotlights are distracting everyone.”

“I guess you’re just too cynical for magic, Chuck. Better just stick to politics, eh?” The big man climbed to his feet, balling the pistachio bag between his huge hands. “I’m gonna hit the men’s room before we go.”

“Sure,” Filmore muttered, still watching the screen. Deckham brushed a few pistachio shells from his pants and disappeared through the bathroom door in a corner of the small room.

Outside, Byrne had commanded the curtain to be raised once more. Slowly, it cinched upwards, once again concealing the mysteriously dark view and the sweeping spotlights. The television screen panned over the observers on the main platform, showing their rapt wonder, eyes wide and mouths agape. Filmore imagined that they’d been forced to practice that expression during rehearsals. Maybe Deckham was right; maybe he was just too cynical for magic. Ah well, he thought, worse things have been said about people.

Across the room, the lobby door pushed slowly open as a breeze forced its way through.

Filmore frowned at it. The breeze smelled vaguely unusual, although he couldn’t quite place it. It was a fresh smell, wild and earthy.

“And now,” the televised voice of Michael Byrne announced grandly, “witness the completion of tonight’s feat. Ladies and gentlemen, let me reintroduce to you, your Chrysler Building, and your senator, Charles Hyde Filmore!” He raised his hands once more, facing the curtain this time.

Another drumroll sounded, even louder this time.

“Hurry it up, Deckham,” Filmore said, climbing to his feet. “The fat lady’s about to sing.” Another vibration shook the building, making the lights flicker once more. Somewhere far off and high above, something crashed. Filmore glanced around nervously.

On the screen, Byrne allowed his fingers to tremble on the ends of his outstretched arms.

The drumroll redoubled, drawing out the tension like a knife. Finally, with a grand flourish, Byrne threw himself forward onto his knees, bringing his arms down as if he himself were stripping the enormous curtain away from the scene. The curtain dropped, untethered this time, and drifted sideways in the breeze. It crumpled to the street messily, throwing up a cloud of dust and grit.

Behind it was nothing.

Filmore blinked at the screen, his eyes widening. Something had gone wrong. Not only was the Chrysler Building still missing, so was the mysterious blackness that had filled the space. Distant buildings could be seen beyond the rising dust, their windows glowing yellow in the dimness of the falling night. Byrne hadn’t moved. He remained in the foreground of the television scene, kneeling, his head raised to the unexpected sight. Eerie silence filled the street all around.

10

“It’s gone!” a far-off voice yelled suddenly. The camera view changed, cutting to a closer shot of Chambers Street. Acres of limp red curtain could be seen in the spotlights, covering the street like a blanket. The camera turned. Where the Chrysler Building should have stood was a great, broken hole. Pipes and electrical wiring jutted from the hole’s sides, spurting water and sparks. “It’s gone!” the voice cried out again, closer this time. “It’s completely gone, and so is the senator!” The crowd responded like a beast. A low roar rippled over it, confusion and disbelief mingled with panic, and the roar quickly turned into a cacophony. The view spun, focused on the observation platform. It zoomed in, centering on the figure of Michael Byrne. He was still kneeling, his face slack, completely perplexed and disbelieving. To Filmore, he looked virtually catatonic.

“Deckham! Something’s wrong! Get out here!”

There was no answer. Filmore crossed to the bathroom door and flung it open. It was a very small room, with only one toilet and a sink. It was perfectly empty. A pair of shoes sat on the floor in front of the toilet, black leather, still tied. Filmore boggled down at them, speechless.

Another gust of wildly scented air pushed through the room, bringing the sound of the roaring crowd with it. Filmore turned, peering back at the doorway into the lobby. It swung shut slowly on its pneumatic arm. The television still flickered and warbled, but Filmore didn’t notice it anymore. Slowly, cautiously, he crossed the floor.

The lobby was much brighter than it had been, illuminated by a strangely brilliant fog that pressed against the glass doors. Filmore stepped around the security desk and heard a wet smacking sound. He looked down and saw that he had stepped into a puddle. It rippled around his shoes, coursing merrily over the marble floor toward the banks of elevators. The entire floor was covered with water. It reflected the brilliance of the doors, throwing snakes of refracted light up onto the high ceilings. Filmore felt as if he was in a dream. Slowly, he made his way toward the front doors.

Maybe, he thought, this was all just part of the trick. Maybe Byrne was simply a much better showman than Filmore had given him credit for. The view beyond the glass doors was seamlessly white, moving faintly, almost like mist. Filmore jumped suddenly as a gust of wind battered the doors, pushing them inwards with enough pressure to force more of that exotically scented air through. The breeze rippled over Filmore, threading through his hair and flapping his tie. The air was damp and warm.

Filmore reached out and touched the door. He steeled himself, squared his jaw, and pushed.

The door opened easily, admitting a burst of warm, misty breeze and a heavy roar. He had thought that the noise was the roar of the New York City crowd, but now he knew that that had been a mistake. No collection of human voices could make a noise like that. It was deafening and seamless, huge as the sky. Filmore stepped out into that sound, straining to see through the blinding whiteness.

The wind picked up again, suddenly and wetly, and it pushed the mist away, breaking it apart enough for Filmore to finally see the source of the noise. He craned his head back, higher and higher, his eyes bulging at the bizarre and inexplicable enormity of what he was witnessing.

11

Surrounding the building, encompassing it on three sides, was a wall of thundering water, so high and so broad that it seemed to dwarf the shining steel tower. It was a waterfall of such proportions that it defied belief. Filmore found himself stunned by it, nearly unable to move, even as it drenched him with its pounding, battering mists. Somehow, impossibly, the Chrysler Building had been transported, vanished away, to some entirely fantastic location. Filmore shook himself, breaking his paralysis, and spun around, looking back at the building behind him. It stood entirely intact, leaning very slightly, on a shelf of rock in the middle of a heaving tropical river. Its windows dripped with water, reflecting the mountain around it and its bounding, lush jungles.

“Greetings, Senator,” a voice called, shocking Filmore so much that he spun on his heels and nearly fell over. “Sorry about your bodyguard, but the deal was for only one person. He may be somewhere, but let me assure you, he is not here.”

“Wha…!” Filmore stammered faintly. He opened and closed his mouth several times, boggling at the figure as it approached through the mist, walking jauntily. It appeared to be a man, dressed all in black. A cloak flapped about his shoulders and his face was covered in a bizarre, metallic mask. As the figure approached, Filmore saw several more similarly dressed shapes unsheathe from the pounding mist, keeping their distance but watching him carefully.

“Do pardon the omission, Senator,” the dark figure called out, stopping suddenly. His voice bore the cultured clip of a British accent. He seemed to be smiling. “I understand there are traditions to be seen to. This is, after all, a magic trick.” The man curled a hand to his masked mouth, cleared his throat, and then threw out both arms in a grand gesture that seemed to encompass the Chrysler Building, the thundering waterfall, and even Charles Filmore himself.

“Ta-daa!” he cried out, clear as crystal in the roaring noise. And then he laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

A great distance away and some weeks later, a short order cook struck a bell with his slab of a hand and clunked a steaming plate onto the counter.

“Number three, hold the O, extra mayo, get it while it’s hot,” he called without looking.

A waitress in a dingy rayon dress blew hair out of her face in annoyance. “Keep your hair on, I’ll get it in a second.” She turned back to an overweight couple crammed into the window booth.

12

They leaned over the little dog-eared menus, studying them as if they were final exams. The man looked up at the waitress, his eyes swimming in a huge pair of black-rimmed glasses.

“Does the tuna come open-faced or in one of those fancy tomato bowls?”

“Fancy—” the waitress blinked. She scoffed good-naturedly. “You don’t know where you are, do you?”

“We’re in Bridgend, aren’t we?” the overweight woman said suddenly, glancing up at the waitress and then looking worriedly at her husband. “Aren’t we? I told you we should’ve taken the expressway. We’re lost now, aren’t we?”

“No, I mean—” the waitress began, but the man interrupted her, producing a large folded map from his breast pocket.

“Bridgend,” he said emphatically, unfolding the map and stabbing at it with a pudgy finger.

“Right ’ere, see? You saw the sign when we left the last roundabout.”

“I’ve seen a lot of signs today, Herbert,” the woman huffed, sitting up primly in the red booth.

“Look,” the waitress said, lowering her order pad, “if you two need a few more minutes—” The bell at the counter dinged again, louder this time. The waitress glanced back, her temper flaring, but another waitress passed behind her and touched her shoulder.

“I’ll get it, Trish,” the younger (and decidedly prettier) waitress said. “Table three, right?” Trish exhaled and scowled at the pickup window. “Thanks, Judy. I swear to you, one of these days…”

“I know, I know,” Judy smiled, crossing the narrow floor and waving a hand to show she’d heard it a hundred times before.

Judy ripped an order slip from her pad and jabbed it into one of the clips on the cook’s carousel. With a deft movement, she scooped up the plate and carried it to a table in the corner by the door.

“Here you go, love,” she said, sliding the plate onto the table in front of a middle-aged man with thinning black hair. “Enjoy.”

“Thank you very much,” the man replied, smiling and unrolling his napkin so that his silver clattered onto the tabletop. “Why, if I thought I could get waited on by the likes of you every day, I might never even leave.”

“You sweet-talker you,” Judy replied, cocking her hip. “You’re not from around here, then?” The man shook his head with derision. “Not likely. I’m from up the coast, Cardiff. Just passing through.”

“Is that so?” Judy said, smiling enigmatically. “I have family up that way, though I hardly ever get to visit. I wonder if you know any of them?”

13

The man’s smile turned condescending. “Cardiff ’s a big place, dearie. Unless your daddy’s the mayor, seems unlikely I might know ’em, but go ahead.”

Judy leaned toward the man and cupped one hand to her mouth, as if she was about to share a secret with him. “Potter,” she said, “James Potter. He’d be young… not a boy, but not a man yet either.”

The man narrowed his eyes in a parody of deep thought, as if he really wanted to say yes, just to keep the pretty waitress talking to him, but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. He blew out a breath and shook his head. “Sorry, can’t say I know ’im. Frankly, I don’t run across too many boys anymore, now that my own are mostly grown. My youngest just went off to the milit’ry, you know…”

The waitress nodded, straightening. “You let me know if you need a refill on that, all right?” She smiled again, a somewhat more plastic smile than the one she’d shown him a few moments before, and then turned away.

Trish, the older waitress, was standing by the cash register counting out her end-of-day tips.

Without looking up, she said, “What is it with you and this Potter kid? You’ve been asking about him since your first day here, what, three weeks ago? I, for one, don’t believe he’s any relation of yours. What is it? He lay into your kid brother or something? His folks owe you money?” Judy laughed. “Nothing like that. He’s just… a friend of a friend. Someone I’ve lost touch with and want to find again. It’s nothing. It’s sort of a hobby, really.” Trish chuckled drily. She slammed the register drawer shut and stuck a thin roll of bills into her apron. “Some hobby. I’ve seen your little apartment, remember? If you want a hobby, maybe you should take up decorating. That place is as bare as Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. Not even a bed. Creepy, if you ask me.”

Judy wasn’t listening to Trish. Her eyes were locked on the front window, expressionless and unblinking, transfixed.

“What is it, Judy?” Trish asked, looking up. “You look like someone just walked over your…”

Judy held up a hand, palm out, instructing the older woman to be still. Trish went still.

Judy stared through the front window, between the faces of the overweight couple who were still arguing over the map, beyond the narrow footpath and the lamppost, across the street, toward a small man as he ambled slowly down an alley, tapping a twisted cane as he went. Judy’s eyes narrowed slightly, quizzically.

Behind her, loudly, the short order cook banged the bell again. A plate clanked onto the counter. Neither Trish nor Judy moved.

“Number six,” the cook called, peering at the two women through the little pickup window, his cheeks red and sweaty. “Bangers and mash, no pickle—” he went on, bellowing, but his voice cut off abruptly as Judy raised her hand again, gesturing vaguely toward him. He stared at her, unmoving, as if frozen in place.

14

Judy moved out from behind the counter, walking with a swift, determined gait that was completely unlike her previous movements.

“I think we’re ready to order now,” the overweight woman said, smiling hopefully up at her.

She froze in place as Judy passed her. The bell jingled over the door as it swept open entirely on its own, so swiftly that it sucked a gust of air through the diner, whipping menus from tables and flapping order slips on the cook’s carousel. No one inside seemed to notice. The middle-aged man with thinning black hair sat with his fork half-raised to his mouth, still as a statue.

Judy strode into the misty sunlight and began to cross the street. A horn blared and brakes squealed as a lorry bore down on her, swerving into a deep puddle, but the sound cut off sharply as Judy raised her hand. Fingers of ice erupted from the puddle and embraced the lorry so firmly that it slammed to a halt. It emitted a screech of crimping metal and the driver’s head struck the windshield, shattering it into a bright starburst. Judy still had not taken her eyes from the small man with the cane. He turned back at the noise of the mysteriously halted lorry, his eyes gimlet and wary.

He saw Judy approaching. His expression didn’t change, but when he turned back, he did so with much improved posture. He began to run down the alley, gripping his cane at his side. Judy smiled happily and leapt onto the curb, following the man into the alley.

He ducked into a narrow cross street, not looking back, but Judy was amazingly fast. She was still smiling, and it was a beautiful smile, one filled with delight and a sort of dawning wonder.

“Lemme be!” the man called out, still running. He darted up a short stairway toward a decrepit apartment door and began to fumble a key into the lock. “Lemme be, I didn’t do anything wrong!”

Judy reached the bottom of the steps just as the man socked the key home. He jerked the door open and lurched inside, still clutching his cane to his side.

“Please wait,” Judy said, raising her hand, but the man didn’t look back. Neither did he stop in his tracks as everyone else had. He slammed the door and Judy heard the bolt clack into place.

Her smile narrowed, sharpened at the edges, becoming a hard grin. She raised her hand once more, curled her forefinger under her thumb, and pointed it at the door. It looked as if she meant to flick a speck of dust out of the air. She flicked.

The heavy wooden door exploded inwards with a reverberating, hollow crash. It shattered into a dozen pieces, all of which blew partly up the narrow staircase beyond. The small man was halfway up the steps, hunched and gripping the banister, afraid to move.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” he cried in a high, tremulous voice, still not looking back.

“What’ve I done? What do you want? Why can’t you just leave me be?” Judy moved forward and began to slowly climb the stairs. The chunks of door clattered aside as she neared them. “Who do you think I am?” she asked, her voice sounding both pleased and amused.

“Well, it’s plain, innit?” the man said, trembling. He finally peered back at her from over his right shoulder, still clutching his cane. “You’re from the Ministry. You found out about me cane.

15

It’s not a proper wand, not really. I ordered it special through the post, but that’s not illegal now, is it? I mean, it barely works at all. It doesn’t violate my parole. You don’t need to send me back.”

“You…,” Judy said, still climbing the stairs slowly, smiling in wonder. “You… are a wizard.

A magical person. Aren’t you?”

The man boggled at her over his shoulder, half turning back to her. “What d’you mean, then? What you wanna go and tease me for? You trying to rub it in, now that I have to go and live like the blasted Muggles? All it was was a little robbery. I did my time in Azkaban, fair and square.

If I keep me nose clean another eight months, I’ll even get me wand back. Why you wanna go scarin’ me half to death and then teasin’ me about being a wiz—”

The man stopped as he saw the truth in the woman’s face. She wasn’t teasing him. She had nearly reached him now. The two of them stood in the shadows of the stairwell. She was two steps lower than him and yet her eyes were level with his. The man’s watery gaze widened as he realized this was because she was floating several inches in the air, still smiling at him in the darkness.

“I see it now,” she said, shaking her head in wonderment. “An entirely magical society, living in secret. How very interestingly preposterous. My, how times have changed. And yet it makes sense now. It is no wonder… but what good fortune that I happened to see you, my friend, and to recognize the strange nature of that cane of yours. What, pray tell, is your name?” The man was still trembling, so much that his teeth chattered when he answered. “Buh-b-b-Blagwell,” he stammered. “Harvey. Blagwell.”

“What an unfortunate name,” the woman frowned. “Tell me, Mr. Blagwell, I wonder if you might be able to help me. I am looking for someone. I’ve asked so very many people and none of them have been of any assistance to me, although I now understand why. I do so hope you might prove different.”

Blagwell nodded jerkily, his eyes bulging.

The woman leaned toward him, floating higher in the air so that she covered him with her shadow. “Have you ever heard of someone named… James Potter?”

Blagwell stared up at her, his lips trembling. He made a sort of coughing noise, and then blurted a ragged chuckle. “P- Potter?” he said, shaking his head as if she was mocking him. “You…

you’re kidding, right?”

Judy’s smile grew. It stretched beyond its normal bounds of prettiness, becoming first a grin, and then a humorless, lunatic rictus. “Tell me more,” she breathed.

“Wha-what do you want to know?” Blagwell exclaimed, leaning backwards, wilting under the force of her gaze. “Everybody knows them. Th-th-they’re bloody famous, aren’t they?”

“She is there,” the woman answered in a strangely singsong voice, her face now lost in the shadows. “I sensed it in the memory of her thoughts. It wasn’t much, but it was all I needed. She went there, seeking refuge after her trial of the lake. I could not follow her, for her trail was lost, but two words remained, imprinted in the ether where the tree once stood, two words that I knew would 16

take me to her: James Potter. Tell me where I may find him. Tell me, and everyone may be happy again. Perhaps even you, my unfortunate friend.”

“Who are you?” Blagwell moaned, terrified.

Her voice came out of the darkness, both maddening and entrancing. She was still smiling.

“Call me Judith,” she said, “call me the Lady of the Lake.”

Five minutes later, the woman strode out of the broken doorway again, smiling to herself, content. She had finally learned what she needed to know. It had taken her nearly two months, two long months of wandering and searching, renting empty flats just to keep those around her from becoming suspicious. Now, of course, it all made perfect sense. This was a strange, absurd time, a time when the magical world hid away in secret, unknown to the dull, unmagicked ones. Now she understood why she had been called into this time, remade in such a form, and by whom. She understood what it was she was meant to do. It was going to be a difficult task, but she would enjoy it. She would enjoy it immensely.

She crossed the footpath and found a large puddle of water near the curb. It was covered in a thin rainbow sheen of oil. She saw herself reflected in the murky water, saw her own smile. It was indeed a pretty smile, one that inspired people, made them want to help her. No wonder the great sorcerer had once fallen for it. Judith remembered it vaguely although it wasn’t her memory, not really. It was attached to this form, to the human shape she had assumed, like a note pinned to the collar of a dress. She was not the Judith that the sorcerer had once known and loved, and yet she occupied a version of that Judith’s shape, looking out of that woman’s eyes, smiling her pretty smile.

The great sorcerer had indeed fallen for this smile, and had very nearly lost everything in pursuit of it.

The truth was he still might.

Judith knelt on one knee, still looking down at the puddle. She finally had what she needed.

Such a common thing, really, and yet so very hard to find, at least in this benighted age. She held her hand over the puddle, formed into a fist. A dagger jutted from it, its handle encrusted with jewels, its blade dark and wet. She allowed something red to drip from the tarnished knifepoint. It pattered onto the surface of the puddle, forming ripples and making the oily sheen begin to swirl, to form cloudy shapes. Such elemental magic, she thought, and yet so rare. She understood it instinctively, of course. After all, it was how she had come to be.

“Show me,” she said to the puddle. “Show me where they are. The boy James; his brother Albus, the snake; his sister Lily, the flower; his father Harry, the legend; his mother Ginny, the torch.

Show me where they are that I may seek them, and find her.”

Harvey Blagwell’s blood fanned across the puddle and the oily sheen deepened, intensified, formed a picture. The Lady of the Lake leaned close, anxious and pleased, watching the image solidify. There were forests, a lake, and then a castle, huge and sprawling, spiked with turrets and towers, glittering with windows. The image blurred, zoomed, focused, showing her what she needed to know.

17

Everything was clear now. Judith knew her task and where she must go. Soon, this world would be awakened, terribly and irreversibly, and chaos would follow. Judith loved chaos. She breathed it like air. She hungered for it, even now. She straightened, smoothing the faded rayon of her waitress dress, and began to walk. She would change soon, dressing herself in a manner that better suited her status. In the meantime, she was pleased. Her mission was begun. She would find the girl, and then she would simply watch.

The girl was her fate—her sister and her daughter, her nemesis and her ally. They were intertwined, inextricably and permanently. Whether she wanted to or not, the girl would help Judith. The girl would take her exactly where she needed to go.

Judith wiped the dagger, her birthright, absently on her dress as she walked. She began to hum.

18

1. Hogwarts Farewells

ot so very far away, the sun shone on a broad hilltop, warming the early autumn air and inspiring a vibrant chorus of cicadas in the marsh and birdsong in the nearby forest.

N Butterflies and bumblebees meandered and flitted, stitching invisible patterns among the flowers. The shadow of an enormous castle stretched over the face of the hilltop, its shape blurring as the wind made ripples across the overgrown lawn. A boy ran across the castle’s shadow, leaving a rambling wake in the tall grass.

“What are you waiting for?” the boy, Albus Potter, called, glancing behind him.

“You’re out of bounds,” his brother James yelled from some distance away, cupping his hands to his mouth. “The field ended back by that big boulder, you nimrod. You can’t even see the ball under all that grass.”

“That’s part of the challenge!” Albus called back, grinning. “Are we playing wizard football or what?”

“It’s all right,” a girl’s voice called from some distance away. James glanced aside and saw his raven-haired cousin, Lucy, crouched in front of a stand of young trees, shuffling slowly sideways.

“The goal’s moved away from him. I’m trying to keep up with it, but it’s a bit of a challenge. Oh, 19

there it goes again!” Sure enough, the saplings that formed the goal behind her seemed to sidle away across the grass, walking on their roots like very tall, woodsy squid. Lucy scuttled to keep up with them while simultaneously keeping an eye on Albus.

“I’m open, Al!” Ralph Deedle called, catching up to his friend and fellow Slytherin. He waved his hands helpfully. Albus nodded, turned, and booted at something in the grass. A threadbare football appeared momentarily as it arced through the air. Ralph squared himself to trap the ball, but it never reached him. Instead, it jigged mysteriously into the sunlight and spun away at an angle.

“Hey!” Albus and Ralph both called in unison, looking in the direction the ball was hurtling.

It dropped to the ground near the feet of a red-haired girl, who ran up to it, brandishing her wand.

“Are we playing wizard football or what?” she hollered, kicking the ball toward the opposite side of the hilltop.

“Rose!” James called, running to catch up to his cousin. “Look out behind you! It’s Ted!” Rose ducked as a cloud of blue moths suddenly blew over her, conjured from the end of Ted Lupin’s wand. He hooted as he ran past, aiming his foot for the ball, but she was very quick with her own wand. With a flick of her wrist and a flash, she transfigured a dead leaf into a banana peel. An instant later, Ted Lupin’s foot landed on it and it squirted away beneath him, hurling him to the ground.

“Good fundamentals, Rosie!” Ron Weasley bellowed from what was, for the moment, the sidelines. “Bring it on home now! James is in the clear! Their Keeper’s still fending off that Tickling Hex! Aim low!”

Rose bared her teeth grimly and kicked the ball toward James, who trapped it easily and began to maneuver it toward the outcropping of rocks that was currently serving as his team’s goal.

Standing before the goal, George Weasley, who was notoriously ticklish, struggled to pay attention as a large white feather darted around him, occasionally pecking at him and making him convulse with angry laughter.

James was about to shoot for goal when a voice cried out next to his ear. “Yargh! Leggo the ball! Get ’im!” Shadows fell over him and hands grabbed at his hair and cloak. James tried to bat them off without looking, but it was no use. His younger cousins, the twins Harold and Jules, circled around him on toy brooms, grabbing at him and chomping their teeth like airborne piranhas.

James glanced up at them in exasperation, tripped over his own feet, and went down into the grass like a sack of bricks. Harold and Jules glanced at each other for a moment and then dove into the grass to continue their attack. The football rolled to a stop nearby as George ran forward to kick it.

“Barricado!” James cried, stabbing out with his wand as Harold grabbed double fists of his hair.

A tiny brick wall suddenly erupted out of the ground next to the football, a split second before George Weasley’s foot came into contact with it. The ball sprang off George’s foot, 20

immediately struck the tiny wall, and shot up into the air, arcing high over George’s head. He craned his neck to watch. With a dull thud, the ball bounced between the rocks behind him.

“Goal!” James shouted, throwing both of his hands into the air.

“Cheat!” Harold and Jules called out, falling on James again and driving him to the ground.

Rose ran past James and George, reaching to scoop up the football. “The first rule of wizard football is that there are no rules,” she reminded everyone, raising her voice. “James scored that one with a Barricade Charm, and I had the assist with a transfigured banana peel. That’s five more points for Team Hippogriff.”

“Five points!” Albus cried angrily, trotting to a stop nearby. “How do you figure that math?”

“One point for the goal,” Rose sniffed, bouncing the ball on her right palm, “two points each for magical finesse.”

“Those were one-point spells,” Albus argued. “I could have done those in my sleep!”

“Then maybe someone should throw a Nap-a-bye Charm on you,” James said, finally shooing his cousins away. “Maybe you’ll play better in your dreams, eh?”

“At least I don’t need any stupid baby brick walls to make my goals for me,” Albus groused, producing his wand. “I have this crazy idea that goals are made with my feet!”

“Too bad they’re so busy getting stuck in your mouth,” James countered, obviously pleased with his turn of phrase. “But I can help you with that!”

Albus saw James’ intention a moment before it happened. He scrambled to raise his own wand and both boys called the incantation at the exact same moment. Two bolts of magic crossed over the sunny hilltop and both Albus and James spun into the air, pulled by their ankles.

“What is going on here?” a female voice cried shrilly, wavering on the edge of outright fury.

All eyes spun guiltily. Ginny Potter, James and Albus’ mother, was striding purposely across the hilltop, approaching the gathering, her eyes blazing. Young Lily Potter followed in her wake, hiding a delighted grin behind her hands.

“I’ve been looking all over for the lot of you!” Ginny exclaimed. “And here I find you out in the grass making messes of yourselves in your dress robes! Ronald Weasley!” she cried, suddenly spotting her brother, who shrank away. She balled her fists. “I should have known!”

“What!” Ron cried, raising his hands. “They were bored! I was bored! I was… overseeing them, making sure they didn’t get into trouble! Besides, George is out here too, if you haven’t noticed!”

Ginny exhaled wearily and shook her head. “You’re both as bad as the children. All of you, back to the castle this instant. Everyone’s waiting. If we don’t hurry we’ll be late for the ceremony.” A meter above the grass, James hung upside down across from his brother. Albus met his gaze and sighed, his black hair hanging lank from his head. “I’ll do you if you do me,” he said. “On three.”

21

James nodded. “One…”

“Liberacorpus,” Ted said, flicking his wand. Both boys dropped out of the air and tumbled messily to the hillside. “You’re welcome,” Ted grinned, pocketing his wand. “Come on. You don’t want to keep your mum waiting.”

The gathering trotted to catch up to Ginny as she stalked back toward the castle gates, where a small throng had gathered, dressed, as was she, in colourful robes, hats, capes, and cloaks.

“How do I look?” James asked Rose as they crossed the lawn.

She eyed him critically. “Good,” she said mournfully. “Your rolling in the dirt is no match for your mother’s Laveolus Charms. Not so much as a grass stain.” James cursed under his breath. “I don’t see why we need to wear these stupid dress robes anyway. Nobody even knows if a giant’s wedding is a formal affair, do they? Hagrid says we’re the first humans to see such a thing in forever. He doesn’t even know how we’re supposed to dress for it.”

“Better safe than sorry,” Ralph commented, adjusting his high, starched collar. “Especially with blokes big enough to swat you like a flobberworm.”

James shook his head. “Grawp and Prechka are our friends. Er, more or less. They wouldn’t hurt any of us.”

“I’m not worried about them,” Ralph said, his eyes widening. “I’m talking about all their family. And that King of theirs! Relations with the giant tribes are ticklish even at the best of times!

You told me they even laid into Hagrid once!”

Rose shrugged. “That was a long time ago. Buck up, Ralph. I bet it’s considered poor taste to kill the friends of the bride and groom.”

“At least during the wedding,” Lucy added reasonably.

As they neared the waiting witches and wizards by the courtyard gates, James saw that his dad, Harry Potter, was standing near Merlinus Ambrosius, the current Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The casual observer might have assumed that the two men were merely waiting, passing the time with idle banter, but James knew his dad better than that. The eldest Potter and the Headmaster had been spending a lot of time in discussion since yesterday evening, their voices low, their eyes roaming, watching. There was a secret sense of weighty matters and carefully unspoken fears in the air between the men, even when they were smiling. James knew what some of it was about although he didn’t understand any of it very much. He only knew that whatever it was, it was the reason that everything in his life had suddenly, messily, been turned on its head, like the world’s most indiscriminate Levicorpus jinx. He sighed angrily and looked up at the castle, soaking in the sight of it. Sunlight glimmered from the windows and glared off the blue slate of the highest turrets. Lucy fell in step next to him.

“It really is a shame, you know,” she said, as if reading his thoughts.

22

“Don’t remind me,” he muttered darkly. “Tomorrow’s the first day of school. We already missed the Sorting yesterday. Someone else has probably already claimed my bed in Gryffindor Tower.”

“Well,” Lucy replied carefully, “I hear that your bed still has the words ‘whiny Potter git’

burned onto the headboard, even though they don’t glow anymore. So maybe that’s not such a bad thing, is it?”

James nodded, not amused. “It’s easy for you. You won’t know what you’re missing.” Lucy shrugged. “Is that better, somehow?”

“Forget it,” James said, sighing. “We’ll be back soon enough. Probably after Christmas holiday, like my dad says.”

Lucy didn’t reply this time. James glanced at her. She was two years younger than him, but in some ways she seemed older, much more mature, strangely enigmatic. Her black eyes were inscrutable.

“Lucy,” a voice announced, interrupting James just as he opened his mouth to speak. He glanced aside and saw his Uncle Percy, Lucy’s father, approaching, resplendent in his navy blue dress robes and mortarboard cap. “Come along now. We can’t afford to be late. The usher is waiting for us. Where were you anyway? Never mind, never mind.”

He put a hand around her shoulder and led her away. She glanced back at James, her expression mildly sardonic, as if to say this is my life, aren’t you jealous? Percy rejoined his wife, Audrey, who glanced down at Lucy, registered her presence for one second, and then returned her attention to the woman standing next to her, who was dressed in a red robe and a fairly ridiculous floral hat with a live white owl nested in it. Molly, Lucy’s younger sister, stood next to their mother looking bored and vaguely haughty.

James liked Molly and both of Lucy’s parents although he knew them rather less than he did his Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron. Percy traveled an awful lot, due to his job at the Ministry, and he often took his wife and daughters with him when he went. James had always thought that such a life might be rather exciting—traveling to faraway lands, meeting exotic witches and wizards, staying in grand hotels and embassies—but he’d never thought it would actually happen to him. Lucy was used to it even if she didn’t seem to particularly enjoy it herself; after all, she’d been accompanying her family on such trips ever since she’d been a baby, since they’d brought her home from the orphanage in Osaka, before Molly had ever been born. She’d had time to get so familiar with the routine of travel that it was virtually drudgery. James knew his cousin well enough to know that she had been looking quite forward to the consistency and pleasant predictability of her first year at Hogwarts.

Thinking that, he felt a little bad about telling her that the coming trip would be easier for her. At least he’d had two years at Hogwarts already, two years of classes and studies, dorm life and meals in the Great Hall, even if all of it had been overlaid with some fairly spectacular events. Just when Lucy had been expecting to get her first taste of such things, it had gotten neatly snatched 23

away from her. Considering Lucy’s personality, it was easy to forget that she was, if anything, probably even more upset about it than he was.

“Welcome back, James, Albus,” his father said, smiling and tousling the boys’ heads. James ducked away, frowning, and ran his hand through his hair, matting it down.

“Well then,” a woman’s voice trilled, barely concealing her impatience. James looked toward the front of the small group and saw Professor Minerva McGonagall, her eyes ticking over them severely. “Now that we are all nominally present, shall we proceed?”

“Lead the way, Professor,” Merlin said in his low, rumbling voice, bowing his head and gesturing toward the forest. “We’d hate to keep our giantish friends waiting any longer, especially on such a momentous occasion.

McGonagall nodded curtly, turned, and began to cross the lawn, striding toward the arms of the Forbidden Forest beyond. The troupe followed.

A short time later, deep in the shadow of the huge, gnarled trees, Ralph spoke up.

“I think we’re nearly there,” he said, his voice tight and his eyes widening. James looked up.

The path curved up around a steep incline toward a rocky crest, and standing atop that crest, framed between the trees, stood a monstrous, lumpy shape. The giant was easily twenty-five feet tall, with arms that looked like a herd of swine stuffed into a tube sock and legs so thick and hairy that they appeared to take up two thirds of the rest of the body. The head looked like a small, hairy potato perched atop the creature’s stubby neck. It was dressed in yards of burlap, enormous leather sandals, and a cloak made of at least a dozen bearskins. It regarded them gravely as they approached.

“Bloody hell,” Ralph said in a high, wavering voice. “I knew I should have just sent a gift.” Several hours later, as the sun descended beyond the trees, casting the world into copper twilight, the troop of witches and wizards shambled back out of the Forbidden Forest, looking decidedly less crisp than they had when they’d entered. James and Ralph walked with Hagrid, who had gotten rather louder and substantially more rambling as the evening had progressed. The half-giant’s footsteps meandered back and forth across the path, one huge hand each on James and Ralph’s heads.

24

“S’for the best, o’ course,” Hagrid was saying mushily. “S’for… s’for… s’for the best, it is.

Jus’ like the Headmistress says. Where is the Headmistress? I want t’ thank ’er for bein’ there, for showin’ ’er support for li’l Grawpy an’… an’… li’l Grawpy an’ his byootiful bride.”

“She’s not the Headmistress anymore,” Ralph said, his voice strained as Hagrid leaned uncertainly, pressing down on the boys’ heads. “Not since year before last. But she’s behind us.

Don’t worry.”

“Where does th’ time go?” Hagrid went on, weaving onto the grass and aiming, with some difficulty, for his hut. “Why, it only seems like yesh… yesh… yes terday that it was li’l Harry and Ron and Hermione comin’ to my hut, stumblin’ their way in and outta trouble, makin’ mischief, helpin’ me take care o’ little baby Norbert. Now they’re all grown, jus’ like Norbert. Tha’s Norberta, now, yeh unnerstand, the dragon yeh’re Uncle Charlie came to check on. Awful nice of ’im to do that since he’s the one what’s been keepin’ tabs on ’er all these years, ’specially now that she’s goin’ on with the two newlyweds. Yeh saw ’er jus’ back there, sittin’ by Grawpy’s side jus’ like a dog, jus’ like my ol’ boarhound, Fang. Did I ever tell yeh about Fang? He was a good dog. Not that I don’ love Trife, mind yeh. Fang’s pawprints was jus’ some awful big pawprints to fill, y’ know.” Under Hagrid’s ponderous weight, James felt like he was being driven into the ground like a tent peg. He pried Hagrid’s large meaty hand off his head and held it, pulling the half-giant toward the door of his cabin. “Norberta made a nice wedding present, Hagrid. I bet they’ll all be very happy together, up in the mountains.”

“Do yeh think so?” Hagrid boomed suddenly, taking his hand from Ralph’s head to wipe a tear from his bloodshot eyes. “I hope so. I do. The Headmistress knows best, she does. I think I need to sit down now for a… for jus’ a minnit.”

Hagrid turned as if he meant to enjoy the beauty of the sunset, wobbled on his feet for one long moment, and then fell backwards onto his garden, smashing a few unusually coloured pumpkins. Immediately, he began to snore loudly.

“He’ll be fine,” Ralph said uncertainly. “Right?”

James shrugged, heading toward Hagrid’s hut and pulling the door open. “Yeah, it’s a nice night. Probably do him some good. I’ve never seen anyone drink so much mead though.”

“I did!” Ralph countered, ambling toward the doorway. “Merlin put that stuff away like it was water! Didn’t seem to affect him at all, either, not like the rest. Maybe it’s some sort of special power or something.”

“Maybe it’s just part of being eleven hundred years old,” James called from the darkness of the hut, grunting to himself. “Maybe he can, sort of, spread it all out over a lifetime, so it doesn’t affect him as much at any given moment. You think?”

Ralph heaved a sigh. “I try not to, at least when it comes to Merlin. He makes my head hurt. The food was good tonight though. The chicken and kabobs and everything. I’ve never had whelk before, especially cooked like that.”

25

“You mean spit-roasted by a dragon?” James replied, dragging a huge quilt through the door of the hut. “Kind of gives it a weird aftertaste, don’t you think? I thought it tasted a little like the potions closet smells on a humid day.”

Ralph shrugged, helping tug the quilt over Hagrid’s huge snoring bulk. “There. Sleep well, Hagrid. See you next year.”

“Ugh, stop saying things like that,” James said, rolling his eyes.

“What?”

James shook his head. “I just don’t want to be reminded. Come on, there’s McGonagall. If she beats us back to the gates, she’s likely to give us detention for being late even if we aren’t going to be here to serve it.”

The boys ran across the field at an angle, meeting the former Headmistress at the courtyard entrance. They surprised her as they came bounding up.

“Boys!” she exclaimed, blinking owlishly at them, her eyes strangely bright. “You should be inside now that the ceremony is over. It’s late.”

“We know, Professor… er,” James said, looking up at the tall woman. “Er, are you… er?”

“I’ll have you know I have allergies,” McGonagall sniffed, dabbing at her eyes and striding quickly through the gates. “The babelthrush is particularly fetid this time of year, that’s all. Now come.”

Inside, Harry, Ginny, and the rest were milling near the doorway of the Great Hall as the candles lit themselves for the evening. Students moved through the huge open doors in knots, drifting toward the stairs and their common rooms. Lucy, Rose, and Albus met James and Ralph as they entered.

“Dad’s arranged for us to have extra beds in the dormitories,” Albus said, munching a biscuit he’d found in the Great Hall. “You and Lucy with the Gryffindors, me and Ralph downstairs with our own mates.”

James asked, “What about Charlie and Jules and Harold and everybody else?”

“They’re just going home tonight. No point in their hanging around here until tomorrow morning, is there? It’s not like they’re going anywhere.”

“Ugh! Stop reminding me,” Rose said, throwing up her hands. “I’m so jealous I can hardly stand it. You lot going off on some big holiday and me having to stay here and do Arithmancy and Charms and Debellows’ stupid version of D.A.D.A. all year.”

“But you like Arithmancy,” Ralph said, frowning.

She sighed angrily. “Just because I’m good at it doesn’t mean I like it.”

“I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat,” Albus griped. “It isn’t like I want to go on this stupid trip.”

“You think that makes it any better?” Rose fumed. “The injustice of it all is breathtaking.” 26

From across the hall, Hermione’s voice called to her daughter. “You and your brother should probably get upstairs, Rose. Tomorrow’s first day of school. Aren’t you excited?” Rose glowered darkly at her mother, and then shared the look with James, Ralph and Albus.

Lucy patted her older cousin on the arm. “I’ll take lots of pictures for you, Rose. And we’ll write. Won’t we?” She looked meaningfully at the boys, who muttered their assent and shuffled their feet on the dusty floor.

Rose nodded skeptically.

“All of you had better get up to bed, then,” Harry Potter said, nodding toward his sons.

“Lily will be staying with your mother and me in the Room of Requirement. We don’t want to have to come and wake you lot up when it’s time to leave.”

Albus frowned. “When are we leaving?”

“I suggest we meet here by the main doors at five thirty,” Harry answered, looking at the rest of the adults, who nodded agreement.

James grumbled, “This just gets worse and worse.”

“It really was a beautiful wedding,” Ginny sighed, ignoring James. “In its own special way.

Don’t you think?”

“Minerva,” Harry smiled, peering closely at the older woman. “Are you…?”

“I have allergies!” McGonagall answered stridently, waving a hankie. “They make my eyes water!”

Harry nodded and put an arm around the woman’s narrow shoulders, leading her toward the faculty corridors. Ginny, Ron, and Hermione followed, talking amongst themselves.

Shortly, Albus and Ralph said goodnight and drifted down the stairs toward the Slytherin cellars. James and Lucy joined Rose on the stairs, tromping their way up to the Gryffindor common room.

“Humdrugula,” Rose called curtly as she approached the portrait of the Fat Lady. The frame swung away from the wall and the sound of raucous voices, laughter, and a crackling fire filled the hall from beyond.

“I wasn’t even told the password,” James mourned to Lucy as they approached the portrait hole.

“Passwords are for students only,” the Fat Lady sang happily from the other side of the open frame. James rolled his eyes in annoyance.

“James!” a voice called out. “I got your bed! Isn’t it cool?”

James looked and saw Cameron Creevey grinning at him from over the back of the hearth sofa, flanked by two boggling first-years. “It’s got your name on it and everything. My mates are dead jealous, of course. I’ve been telling the new students about last year. Remember when we went 27

off to Hogsmeade in the tunnel beneath the Whomping Willow? Remember the wolf when we came back?”

“I remember you getting knocked out cold in the dirt,” James answered unhappily. Rose poked him in the stomach with her elbow, but Cameron seemed unperturbed.

“See?” he said, turning back to the two first-years. “I told you! It was excellent.” James shook his head and joined Rose at a corner table where Ted Lupin was sitting with his former school crew. Lucy followed James, looking around with open curiosity, her face calm and watchful.

“Hey, James, Gremlin salute,” Damien Damascus announced, raising his fists to either side of his head, the pinky fingers extended to form wiggling ears. Rose, Sabrina Hildegard, and Ted joined in, sticking out their tongues dutifully. James performed the salute as well, but halfheartedly.

“Things are looking a little slim for the Gremlins this year,” Sabrina said, lowering her hands to the table before her, where she was folding an auger out of a page of the Daily Prophet. “What with Noah and Petra joining Ted in the fabled outside world and James running off to hobnob with his cronies in the States.”

“Yeah,” Damien said, raising his eyebrows derisively. “What’s up with that anyway?” James opened his mouth to reply, but Ted spoke first. “It’s right here, isn’t it? Front page, top of the fold.” He pulled the paper out from under Sabrina’s elbow and held it up for all to see.

James had already seen the headline, which read, ‘H. POTTER, AURORS TO JOIN

INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATIVE TASK FORCE’. Below the headline was a moving photograph of James’ dad and Titus Hardcastle, standing before a podium at the Ministry while flashbulbs erupted from the crowd in front of them. The smaller headlines next to the photo read,

‘MUGGLE LEADERS STILL MISSING: W.U.L.F. CLAIMS CREDIT FOR KIDNAPPINGS

DESPITE MINISTRY DENIALS. FAMED NYC SKYSCRAPER DISCOVERED IN

VENEZUELA, BLAMED ON “ALIENS”’.

“The whole thing’s gone all international now that there’s been bigwig kidnappings both here and in the States,” Ted sighed, dropping the newspaper. “I don’t envy your dad one bit, James. It was one thing teasing the American press into believing it was little green men that nicked their building. Getting a bunch of foreign agencies to work together is like getting horklumps to play chess.”

Damien frowned askance at Ted. “How would you know about such things, Lupin?”

“I do this thing called ‘reading’,” Ted said, tapping the side of his nose. “I learned it from Petra. You should try it sometime!”

“It’s ‘Morgan’ now, remember?” Sabrina corrected without looking up. “She calls herself Morgan ever since that whole debacle at her grandparents’ place.”

“Talking of which,” Ted said, sitting up in his chair, “she and the new Headmaster are having themselves a serious little chat right about now, up in his office. I heard Uncle Harry discussing it 28

with the old man himself, and she admitted it when I got back to the castle. Seems there’s some question of whether she’s going to be allowed to come along on this little jaunt of yours, Potter.”

“What’s that mean?” James asked, watching Ted dig something out of his robes. “She’s of age now. They can’t stop her if she wants to go on a trip.”

“Can’t they now?” Damien mused, leaning back and steepling his fingers. “I mean, there’s detention, and then there’s detention, if you know what I mean. There’s some tricky legal questions, after all, what with both of her grandparents ending up dead. The Muggle police don’t know much of anything, thanks to Merlin, but that hardly means everything’s all sunshine and rainbows. The stuff we saw at that farm, well, let’s just say it makes Professor Longbottom’s Snapping Thornroot look like daffodil salad. Our Petra is one complicated little witch, if you ask me.”

“That doesn’t mean she’s guilty of anything horrible,” James said, sitting up. “She and her sister are lucky to be shut of the lot of them. Sounds to me like they were pretty rotten to both of them.”

“They’ve been staying with you and your parents since the day they got out of there, right?” Rose asked, raising her eyebrows. “Did they tell you what happened that day?” James sat back again, looking out over the common room. “Well, not really. She said that her grandfather had denied his wizard powers for the sake of his Muggle wife, some awful woman named Phyllis, who was just beastly. And she said that Phyllis tried to send Petra’s sister Izabella off to some work farm place for people who are soft in the head. Petra told me that they did what they had to do to get out of there together.”

“I guess that’s close enough to the truth,” Damien nodded. “Although it isn’t all of it. That’s for sure.”

“What do you know about it?” James asked, meeting Damien’s eyes.

“Not a whole lot more than you do, but I’m just saying—there was magic going on there the likes of which I’ve never seen. Merlin made us swear secrecy about it, which is fine by me. You probably wouldn’t believe it anyway. All I know is that if Petra was doing it, then that wasn’t the Petra I thought I knew.”

“‘Morgan’,” Sabrina corrected again, holding up her neatly folded auger. “What do you say, Lupin? You ready to go six circles with the reigning champion?”

“Not now, not now,” Ted answered distractedly, producing a rather surprising amount of miscellany from his pockets and dumping it all onto the table. “There’s Gremlinery afoot. Where are they, then…”

James, Lucy, and Rose leaned over the table as Ted rooted quickly through the pile of odds and ends. A dog-eared origami frog leapt out of the detritus, limping crookedly. Every Flavor Beans and loose Knuts rolled every which way. “Aha!” Ted announced triumphantly, sitting back and producing a velvet bag tied with a silver cord. “Gather ’round, comrades. This could be interesting.” 29

Sabrina put down the auger and frowned studiously as Ted undid the bag. “Extendable Ears?” she said, peering at its contents. “How are those going to work? You said Morgan and the Headmaster were meeting in his office. That’s all the way across the castle.”

“Ah, ah, ah,” Ted corrected, smiling mischievously. “These are the new Extendable Ears Mark II, with a Remote Sensing Hex built right in. Just mark the object you want to serve as the receiver—in this case, an innocent peppermint that I slipped into the Headmaster’s pocket on the way back to the castle, and voilà—” Here, Ted Metamorphed his face into a caricature of George Weasley, proceeding with George’s infectious enthusiasm, “Instant illicit audio illumination for all your eavesdropping endeavors.” He changed his face back to himself and pulled a handful of pinkish shapes out of the bag. “Strictly experimental at this point, but working at the Three ‘W’s does have its perks.”

James took one of the pink shapes as Ted handed it to him. It was made out of foam rubber and shaped like a large ear. “What do I do with it?”

“Well,” Damien said, examining his critically, “I don’t guess that you eat it.” Experimentally, he stuck the foam ear up to his own ear and listened. His eyes widened. “It’s working!” he whispered raspily. “I can hear them!”

As one, the Gremlins and Lucy clapped the ears to the sides of their heads. James discovered that the shape was fashioned to fit neatly over his own ear so that it could be worn hands-free. He jammed it on and then leaned back, frowning slightly at the distant, echoing voices he was hearing.

“Is it them?” Sabrina asked, squinting quizzically. “They’re hard to make out.” Ted nodded distractedly. “It’s them, they’re just far away. Shut it and listen.” James strained his ears to hear over the noise of the common room. Dimly, he perceived the rumbling baritone of the Headmaster, and then the tremulous tenor of Petra’s response. Slowly, faintly, the voices became clear.

“Unfortunate as it was, I am less concerned about the way in which you chose to exercise your powers,” the Headmaster was saying, “than I am about your more recent dreams. I have come to believe that such things often have implications we do not immediately comprehend.”

“It’s just a dream,” Petra answered, her voice tiny and distant. “It’s a lot like some others that I’ve had, only the other way around. I used to dream of decisions I thought I wanted to change.

Now, I’m dreaming of disasters I barely avoided. I’m a little glad of them, really. They remind me.” Merlin’s voice came again, calm and measured. “What do they remind you of?”

“Of the power of choices. And the fact that the simplest actions can have enormous consequences.”

Merlin’s voice lowered meaningfully. “And you know now how very true this is for you, in particular, don’t you, Ms. Morganstern? Or would you prefer me to call you by your other name?” There was a long pause. James had begun to wonder if the Extendable Ear had stopped working when the Headmaster’s voice became audible again.

30

“Grundlewort ganache popovers,” he said slowly, as if tasting the words. James looked up, his brow furrowed. Lucy met his gaze, frowned, and shook her head slightly. The voice of Merlinus went on, low and quiet, so that James had to strain his ears to hear. He leaned over the table, hunching his shoulders in concentration.

“Use only powdered grundlewort, dried and well-sifted, to avoid an overly pungent aroma.

Mix with two parts huiverte extract and a pinch of tea blossom petal. Add rum three drops at a time until damp enough to knead…”

James looked aside and saw Ted staring furiously at the table in front of him, the oversized foam ear jutting from the side of his head. He noticed James’ look and shrugged.

“Sounds like a recipe,” Damien whispered. “Why’s he teaching Petra how to make popovers?”

“Because,” Merlin’s voice boomed, so loud that James exclaimed in surprise and clambered at his Extendable Ear, “popover preparation is a valuable life skill that all witches and wizards should aim to perfect.”

James succeeded in clawing the foam shape off his ear, turned, and recoiled at the sight of the Headmaster standing right next to him, a very large cookbook open in his hands. Merlin was smiling, but it was not the sort of smile one felt instinctively comfortable sitting beneath.

“After all,” the Headmaster said, eyeing the foam ears scattered around the table, “one never knows when the need might arise for an unexpected treat. Which reminds me…” He retrieved something from the depths of his robes and held it out over the table. “I believe this belongs to you, Mr. Lupin. I’ll just, er, add it to the pile.” He dropped the charmed peppermint onto the mess of Ted’s pocket contents.

“And a good evening to you, Headmaster,” Damien said, recovering and smiling hugely.

“Did you enjoy the wedding, sir?”

“Save your efforts, Mr. Damascus,” Merlin replied, snapping the cookbook shut in his hand.

“I have every suspicion that you will require them later in the term. Good evening, students, Mr.

Lupin.”

He turned to go, passing Petra as she entered through the portrait hole. Merlin nodded at her meaningfully, and she returned the gesture, somewhat reluctantly.

“So was any of what we just heard for real?” Ted asked as Petra joined them, squeezing in between James and Lucy on the bench side of the table.

“Depends on when you started listening,” she said, avoiding his gaze. “He started fogging you right about the time we were heading back to the common room. Merlin likes to walk while he talks, you know.”

Ted nodded somberly. James knew that Ted had been part of the group that had rescued Petra from her grandparents’ farm, and he knew that Damien was right in saying that there was a lot more to that story than the rest of them knew. Merlin had spoken to everyone involved with the escape from Petra’s grandparents, but all of those involved had been very secretive about it since.

31

Something unspoken seemed to go between Ted and Petra as he reached across the table to collect the Extendable Ears.

Rose perked up. “So, are they going to let you go along on the trip to the States, Petra?”

“‘Morgan’,” Sabrina corrected again, glancing around.

“It’s all right,” Petra said, laughing a little. “I’m still Petra to all of you. Morgan is more of a… personal identity.”

Damien nodded. “Sort of like that guy in that band, Shrieker and the Shacks, who changed his name from Uriah Hollingsworth to just Dûm. Sort of an attitude thing, right?”

“Shut it, Damien,” Rose commented, giving him a shove. “So are you going to the States or what, Petra?”

“I’m going,” Petra nodded. “Izzy’s coming with me. And I think we’re going to stay there for awhile.”

“You mean longer than Christmas break?” James asked. “Because that’s when we’re coming back, hopefully.”

“I don’t think even we will be back by Christmas, James,” Lucy said apologetically. “I have some idea of how these things happen, sadly enough.”

“And who is this refreshingly pragmatic creature?” Damien said brightly, leaning toward Lucy.

James deflated, but only a little, considering his proximity to Petra. “My cousin, Lucy,” he answered. “She was supposed to be starting here this year, although she thinks she’d have been a Ravenclaw, or even a Slytherin.”

“I could see that,” Damien nodded. “She has that look, ’round about the eyes. Pleased to meet you, Cousin Lucy.”

“Likewise,” Lucy replied, nodding with practiced diplomacy.

“So tell us how this all came about, then,” Ted said, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms. “I mean, Hogwarts is a boarding school. You don’t need to go with your parents to the States even if they’re going to be there all year. Right?”

James sighed and leaned on his elbows. “It was Mum’s idea,” he began. “She didn’t want to be so far away from Albus and me for so long. She was right upset when the owl came with Dad’s instructions, straight from the Minister himself. I mean, things have been pretty humdrum in the Auror Department for quite a while now. It’s like Professor Longbottom said to my dad once: peace is a pretty boring thing for an Auror, you know? I think the family just got used to it all. Now that things seem to be, sort of, heating up out in the world…” James spread his hands over the table, palms up.

“Whole city blocks being Disapparated away and chucked into waterfalls does tend to put people on edge,” Damien nodded wisely.

32

“My mum’s acting the same as yours, James,” Rose said. “I hear her and Dad talking. They say it’s a scary time because too many people have forgotten what things were like back when You-Know-Who was still alive. They get tolerant of all sorts of iffy ideas, start questioning the way the whole wizarding world works.”

“Like Tabitha Corsica and her bloody Progressive Element,” Ted scoffed. “And don’t think they’ve gone away either. Not by a long shot. They’re like bugs that have retreated into the walls.

They’ll come back, and when they do, there’ll be a lot more of them.” Sabrina picked up the paper again and peered at the headlines. “Is that who this Wulf bloke is involved with, you think?”

“Wulf isn’t a bloke, Sabrina,” Ted said, pointing at the headline. “It’s an organization.”

“The Wizard’s United Liberation Front,” Lucy said carefully. “I’ve seen some of their posters up around London, talking about equality at any cost and such things. Supposedly they’re international, thousands in numbers, but my father says not. He says they are probably just a few kooks in a cellar somewhere.”

“Why would they go and pretend to kidnap some Muggle politicians if it wasn’t true?” Rose asked, shaking her head and looking around the table. “I mean, even if it was true, why would they do it?”

“I don’t know,” James answered, scowling. “And I don’t care. All I know is, it’s getting everybody all up in a snit, and now my dad has to go work on some big international task force, and Mum’s worried that something will happen to him, or us, or everybody. Dad says he could wrap the whole thing up by Christmas, but Lucy’s probably right. Nobody knows how long it’ll last. As long as it does, Mum wants us all to be together, or at least on the same continent.”

“But Deedle’s going with you, right?” Ted said, looking at James. “His dad’s already been over there once, visiting Stonewall and Franklyn and everybody at Alma Aleron, checking out their security and Muggle repellent techniques, that sort of thing. Is that why he’s going along this time?”

“I guess,” James answered, slumping again. “I don’t know.”

“Well,” Lucy said, climbing off her end of the bench, “if any of us are going, we’d better get upstairs to bed. Show me the way, Rose?”

Rose got up to join her cousin, and the rest of the Gremlins stirred, stretching and squeaking as chairs were pushed away from the table.

“What about you, Petra?” Damien asked, turning his attention to the girl across from him.

“What’s over there for you?”

James watched Petra, who smiled slightly at Damien and shrugged. “I don’t know,” she answered, and then sighed disconsolately, looking around the common room. “What’s over here for me?”

33

James awoke the next morning to a scratching at the window next to his bed. He sat up, buried deep in the fog of sleep, and wondered for several moments where in the world he was. Dark shapes hulked around him, thick with the silence of night. A single candle burned nearby, but James couldn’t see it over the four-poster bed next to him. Something tapped the window, startling him, and he spun blearily, straining his eyes in the dark. Nobby, James’ barn owl, stood on the other side of the glass, hopping up and down impatiently.

“What do you want?” James whispered crossly as he opened the window. Nobby hopped in and extended his foot, showing James the small note attached to his leg by a twine knot. James pulled the knot loose and unrolled the strip of parchment.

Awake yet? I thought not. Meet us by the rotunda doors in ten minutes.

We’ll have breakfast on the ship.

—Mum

James balled up the note and dropped it onto the bed. Clumsily, he got up and began to change out of his pyjamas.

“Looking forward to your little holiday, Potter?” a voice drawled quietly. James startled, hopping on one leg as he pulled on his jeans, and fell over onto his mattress. Nobby jumped back onto the windowsill and flapped his wings, bristling.

“Bloody hell, Malfoy,” James breathed, shaking his head. “Don’t you ever sleep?”

“I’m just a tiny bit jealous,” Scorpius Malfoy mused from where he sat, leaning against his headboard with the single candle lit on his bedside table. He lowered the book he’d been reading and peered over his glasses. “And yet you don’t seem to be looking forward to this in the least. I find it hard to believe you’ll miss not making the Quidditch team again that much.” James had grown used to Scorpius’ backhanded conversational style. He sighed, hoisted his jeans the rest of the way up and reached for his trainers. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“I have a sneaking suspicion, Potter,” Scorpius said, apparently returning his attention to the book on his lap. “Would you like me to share it with you?”

James knotted his shoe vigorously. “Is there any way I can get you not to?” 34

“I think you aren’t as grumpy about going on this trip as you’re letting on,” Scorpius said quietly. “And for obvious reasons.”

James nodded curtly. “That Malfoy intuition of yours kicking in? Maybe you’ll tell me my lucky lotto numbers too.”

“Petra Morganstern is accompanying you and your family, isn’t she?” Scorpius said, finally closing his book. “She and her Muggle sister?”

“Yeah,” James answered, stuffing his pyjamas into the duffle bag and zipping it up. “So?”

“Come now, Potter, it’s no secret how you feel about her. When she sat down next to you last night in the common room your face turned so red we could have roasted chestnuts on it.”

“Shut up,” James rasped, mortified. “You’re crazy!”

“I’m just stating the obvious,” Scorpius said, shrugging. “It’s not a bad thing. She’s a very fetching girl, if you ask me. I just think you ought to be careful.”

“Yeah, I know,” James muttered, somewhat mollified. “Rose already warned me. I shouldn’t say anything stupid to ruin the friendship. I know. I’m not a complete idiot.”

“That’s not what I’m thinking of,” Scorpius said, meeting James’ eyes. “Personally, I don’t give a newt for your friendship with Petra Morganstern. There are more important things at work in the world, if you haven’t noticed.”

“I’ve noticed,” James said, frowning at the blonde boy. “But what am I supposed to do about it?”

“Maybe nothing,” Scorpius answered, narrowing his eyes. “You’re… you. But you’ve managed to be involved in some other fairly spectacular world events over the last two years, sometimes for the better, and sometimes not. Fate seems to enjoy placing you Potters right onto the bull’s-eyes of history. I’m just saying, it might be a good idea to try not to be too… distracted if that should happen again.”

James shook his head wearily and hefted his bag. “This isn’t my adventure this time,” he said, crossing the circular room. “This time, it’s all Dad’s.”

“So you keep saying,” Scorpius replied, raising his eyebrows sardonically.

“See you later, Scorpius,” James said, stopping at the top of the stairs. “I hope.”

“Bon voyage, Potter,” the boy said, dismissing James and opening his book again.

“Remember what I said.”

James frowned quizzically at the boy, but that seemed to be all Scorpius had to say.

Shrugging, James turned and trotted down the stairs.

“Your cousin Lucy’s already left,” a far-off, wispy voice commented from the hearth sofa.

James saw the ghost of Cedric Diggory seated there. “I was supposed to come up and wake you if Nobby wasn’t able to do it.”

35

“Thorough bunch, aren’t they?” James said, but he couldn’t help smiling. Scorpius was right.

Now that it was finally happening, he was becoming rather excited about it.

“Have fun, James,” Cedric nodded, meeting James’ smile. “I always wanted to see the States, back when I was alive. Tell us all about it when you come back.”

“I will, Ced. See you!”

The portrait swung open easily, and when James closed it behind him, he heard the soft whistle of the Fat Lady’s snore. He looked back at her from the dark corridor. There would be no common room passwords for him this year, he thought, testing the fact to see if it still panged him as much as it had the previous night. There would be no D.A.D.A. classes with Professor Debellows and his horrid Gauntlet, no dinners in the Great Hall under the floating candles and the enchanted ceiling. None of Peeves’ nasty pranks or Professor McGonagall’s steely glares. No weekend teas with Hagrid in his hut.

It was sad, of course, but not as sad as he’d thought it would be. Because there would be new things to experience instead, at least for this year. He didn’t know what they’d be, but unsurprisingly, that was a rather large part of the excitement. Maybe not all of it would be fun, but it would at least be noteworthy, and when he returned, everyone would be dying to hear all about it. Especially Rose, and Cedric, and even Scorpius. He puffed out his chest a little, taking in the darkened, sleepy corridor, the portrait of the Fat Lady, and all of Hogwarts beyond. He almost said goodbye to the school, and then thought that’d be a little silly. Instead, he turned and fairly ran down the stairs, taking two at a time.

He was very nearly to the rotunda entrance, could even hear the dim babble of his fellow travelers’ voices echoing from up ahead, when a figure moved in the dim shadows, jingling faintly.

To James’ surprise, he recognized Professor Sybil Trelawney.

“Ah, James,” she said tremulously. “Off on your grand adventure to the colonies, I see. I am glad of the opportunity to say fare-thee-well and bonne chance. May your voyage avoid the ravages of the many fates that always lurk the depths, preying upon the unwary.”

“Thanks, Professor,” James replied. “Uh, I guess. What are you doing awake at this hour?” Trelawney drew a great, dramatic sigh. “Oh, I need very little sleep these days. Age takes its toll. But don’t let me detain you. Your fellow sojourners await…” She patted James lightly on the shoulder as he passed her, her wrist bangles jingling merrily.

Suddenly, James stopped in his tracks, nearly dropping his bag. He peered aside and saw the professor’s hand clamped onto his shoulder, gripping it so tightly that her purple fingernails virtually disappeared into his sweatshirt. He glanced up at Trelawney, but she wasn’t looking at him. She stared straight ahead, her eyes wide and unfocused, as if she had suddenly been turned into a statue.

“Professor?” James asked, furrowing his brow worriedly. “Are you all right?” In the distance, James could still hear the voices of his family and friends, echoing in the high vaults of the rotunda.

“I see a world on fire,” Trelawney said conversationally. She didn’t seem to be talking to James or even to herself. Her words hung in the air almost like they had lives of their own, like solid 36

things just outside the limits of human vision. James shivered, and yet her hand held him like a vice, as immobile as stone.

“Worlds upon worlds, stretching away into forever,” she said, her voice becoming dreamy, singsong. “All linked back to one place, the crux, the fulcrum, the axle upon which every reality turns. It is wobbling, leaning, falling… it is shattered, and with it go all things and all times.”

“Er, Professor…?” James breathed, trying to pry Trelawney’s hand from his shoulder.

Truthfully, he barely felt the pain of her grip. Her words were like poison smoke. He was afraid to breathe, for fear that her voice would get into him and infect him, and grow into something unspeakable.

“There is only one,” she mused, her voice changing, deepening. “One who stands on the nexus of destinies, one whose hand can preserve the balance or knock it into oblivion. The power is not in his hands, but in the hand of whom he shepherds. There is only one outcome. The fates have aligned. Night will fall, and from it, there will be no dawn, no dawn, save the dawn of forever fire, the demon light of worlds burning, consuming, the light in which there is no life. Goodnight.

Goodnight. Goodnight.” She repeated the word rhythmically, eerily, like a scratched record.

James shivered violently. Finally, the professor’s hand came loose from his shoulder, wrenched free as she fell forward, toppling full length like a tree. James scrambled to catch her, and she fell partially upon him. She was so light, so festooned with bangles, jewelry, and coloured shawls, that it was like being fallen on by a thrift store mannequin.

“Professor?” James gasped, struggling to roll her over. She was as stiff and cold as a plank of wood. He shook her. “Professor Trelawney?” She stared up at the dark ceiling, her eyes boggling blindly behind her spectacles, which had been knocked askew on her face. James was terrified. He filled his lungs to call for help, but at that moment, the professor convulsed before him. She inhaled desperately, filling her narrow chest and flailing her arms, struggling to sit up. James grasped one of her cold hands and tugged her shoulder with his other hand, pulling her upright.

“Goodness me,” Trelawney wheezed, her voice an octave higher than normal. “What has become of me, fainting dead away right here on the corridor floor. My apologies, Mr. Potter, I do hope I didn’t alarm you…”

James helped the professor to her feet, and peered at her face suspiciously, his heart still pounding in his chest. She seemed not to remember what had happened or any of her strange words, but James felt almost certain that she knew something had happened. She glanced at him, fanning herself, and then looked away.

“I’ll be just fine, James, my boy,” she said faintly. “Please, go on, go on…” She seemed either unwilling or unable to look directly at him.

“Professor,” James said slowly, “are you sure you’re… I mean, what did all of that mean?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, young man,” she admonished, as if he had suggested something slightly dirty. “Off with you now. Your family awaits.” 37

“I could walk you to your rooms, Professor,” James offered, stepping forward and reaching for Trelawney’s elbow.

“No!” she nearly shrieked, snatching her elbow away from him. She struggled to moderate her tone. “No. Of course not. Just go. Please.”

James peered up at her face, his eyes wide, worried. “It was about someone who’s going on this trip, wasn’t it?”

Trelawney sighed hugely, shakily turning to lean against the wall and fanning herself with the end of a mauve scarf. “There are those who laugh at me,” she said, as if to herself. “They don’t believe in the cosmic harmonics. They doubt that I am one of its rare vessels.” She tittered a little madly, apparently forgetting that James was even there. He began to back away, half afraid to leave the professor alone, but knowing his fellow travelers were waiting for him. Trelawney didn’t look up at him, but continued to mutter nervously to herself, her face lost in the shadows of the corridor.

Finally, shaking his head, James turned and began to run, following the distant voices from the rotunda.

“It was you, James,” Trelawney’s voice said blankly, stopping him in his tracks. “It will surprise no one that I have had very few true revelations in my life. Rarely do I remember them, nor is this time any exception, but for one thing: I saw you. You are the one. You are the instrument, but not the tool. You will shepherd the one who will bring down the darkness. Even now… even now…” Her voice had gone flat, resigned and dead.

James turned slowly to look back over his shoulder. Trelawney stood right where he’d left her, leaning against the wall, indistinct in the shadows.

“You’re confused. My dad was the Chosen One. Not me. It was his job to save the world.” She shook her head slowly, and then laughed again. It was a thin hopeless sound. “Your father was indeed the chosen one. His task is finished. Now, the universe demands payment, and that payment will come by your hand. It is done. You cannot escape your destiny, any more than your father could his.”

“I don’t believe that,” James heard himself say. “Nothing is unchangeable. Whatever this payment is, I’ll fight it.”

“I know you will,” she said slowly, so sadly that it nearly broke James’ heart. “I know you will. But you will fail, dear boy. You will fail…” She exhaled on the last word, turning it into a long diminishing note, fading into the darkness. James shivered violently.

“James?” a voice called. It was his dad, Harry Potter. “Is that you? We need to move along, son.”

James glanced along the corridor and saw shadows approaching, growing longer in the torchlight.

“I’m coming, Dad,” he called. “I just… I ran into somebody. We were saying goodbye…

She’s still—”

38

He turned around again, pointing, but Trelawney was gone. In the predawn darkness of the corridor, there was no sign of her whatsoever.

39

2. the Gwyndemere

James couldn’t remember the last time he had been awake at such an early hour. The sun was barely a rose-grey suggestion on the horizon, leaving the rest of the sky scattered with faint stars and high clouds, frosted with moonlight. Mist rose from the school grounds and the grass was so wet that James could feel it through his trainers.

“Good morning, James,” Izzy, Petra’s sister, announced cheerfully, moving alongside him as the travelers made their way into the pearly dawn gloom. “It’s exciting, isn’t it?”

“It is, actually,” James agreed, smiling at the younger girl as she skipped next to him, her blonde curls bouncing around her face. Izzy was a year older than James’ sister, Lily, but it was a little hard to remember that. Where Lucy tended to strike people as older than she really was, Izabella Morganstern had a simple innocence that made her seem rather younger. Petra had explained to James and his family that Izzy had been born with some sort of learning disability, one that had earned her the disdain of her own mother and very nearly doomed her to a life of dull servitude at the woman’s cold hand. James didn’t think that Izzy seemed slow, exactly. On the contrary, it was almost as if her brain was simply blissfully unencumbered by the sorts of nagging worries that left most people grumpy and irritable. James envied her a little bit.

“Petra didn’t want to get up when I tried to wake her,” Izzy said in a stage whisper, nodding toward her sister, who was walking some distance away, near Percy and Audrey. “She says she’s not a morning person.”

James nodded. “I’m not either, usually. But this is different, isn’t it?” 40

“It’s not like getting up for a day of work on the farm or anything dull like that,” Izzy agreed, grabbing James’ hand and skipping merrily. “We’re off on a grand adventure! We’re going for a ride on a ship, just like Treus. Aren’t we?”

“Raise ye forth thy wands and wits,” Albus commented from somewhere behind James.

“Right ‘Treus’?”

“So how are we getting there, then?” Ralph piped up. James turned to see the bigger boy walking alongside Albus, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his hooded sweatshirt. “Portkey? I’ve always wanted to travel by Portkey. Is it that stump over there?”

“You see who’s leading this little expedition, don’t you Ralph?” James replied, nodding toward the front of the group.

Ralph squinted. “Yeah. It’s Merlin,” he said, and then slumped as realization struck him.

“Oh.”

Albus peered ahead at the Headmaster. “What’s that mean, then?”

“It means we’re walking,” James answered, grinning. “Merlin likes to commune with the secret whatsits of nature whenever he gets the chance, don’t you know.” Ralph sighed. “Why’s he even coming anyway?”

“Simple,” a new voice answered. James glanced up to see Ralph’s father, Denniston Dolohov, walking nearby, his cheeks flushed in the pearly light that sifted down through the trees of the Forbidden Forest. “Back in his time, nobody knew anything about the ‘New World’, although lots of wizards and witches suspected its existence. He’s coming along for a few days before heading back to Hogwarts. I expect he wants to take a look around and see what life is like on the other side of the pond. It’d be like one of us traveling to the distant future and being offered a chance to visit cities on the moon.”

“Now that would be cool,” Albus sighed. “Much better than being carted off to stupid old America.”

“I’d be careful with talk like that,” Lucy said. James glanced aside and saw her walking on the other side of Izzy, her duffle bag slung over one shoulder. “I understand that Americans can be fiercely proud of their country. Not unlike some of us, of course.”

“Well, it’s easy for us, isn’t it?” Albus exclaimed. “I mean, we’ve got ourselves loads of history and traditions, going back thousands of years! They’ve got, what? About fifteen minutes and a tea party?”

“Speaking of tea,” Ralph said, rubbing his stomach, “I could use a bite.” As if on cue, James’ mother drifted back from the front of the group. “Biscuits, anyone?” she said, carrying an open tin.

James shouldered his bag and grabbed with both hands. “Thanks, Mum.”

“Ah! Shortbread,” Izzy exclaimed happily. “We hardly ever got shortbread at home!” 41

“Merlinus says a little nourishment is needed for the journey,” Ginny commented, nodding.

“After all, we’ve got a lot to do and a long way to go.”

“And we’re walking the entire way?” Albus asked around a mouthful of biscuit. “Seriously?” Ginny nodded. “Merlin sent all of our trunks ahead yesterday afternoon. They’ll be waiting for us at the port. A little exercise will do you some good.”

“Maybe it’ll help you grow a bum,” Lucy suggested helpfully.

“Hah hah,” Albus chimed sarcastically. “So how long is this going to take anyway?”

“Yeah,” Ralph huffed, peering up at the trees as they passed overhead. “What if any of us, you know, faints from hunger or something along the way?”

“We’re here,” a voice called from the front. To James’ surprise, he recognized it as belonging to Neville Longbottom. “Everybody stay close now.”

Albus boggled. “We’re here?”

“Is that Professor Longbottom?” Ralph frowned, puzzled. “I mean, fun’s fun, but shouldn’t somebody be staying back home to run Hogwarts?”

James, who’d been on one of Merlin’s magical walking trips in the past, grinned. Still clutching a biscuit in one hand, he ran ahead, joining the adults near the front of the group.

“Hi Uncle Percy, Aunt Audrey, Molly,” he called as he passed. “Hi Petra. Good morning.” He darted past her and slowed down as he found his dad, Merlin, and Neville Longbottom walking at the head of the troop. Sure enough, as James looked around, he could see that the trees here looked different. They were no longer the enormous old growth of the Forbidden Forest. These were young trees, choked with weeds and moss, leaning in the shifting wind. The air smelled briny and damp.

“Good morning, James,” Neville said, smiling down at him. “Excited?”

“I am!” James agreed, meeting Neville’s smile. “Why are you coming along? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Professor Longbottom has come at my request, Mr. Potter,” Merlin answered, striding easily down a winding, rocky path. “Besides, even Herbology teachers deserve the occasional holiday.

Even if it is a working holiday.”

“The Alma Alerons have asked me to give a lecture,” Neville admitted sheepishly. “I was recommended to their Flora Department by Ben Franklyn himself. It seemed an opportunity not to miss.”

“Wands away, everyone,” Harry commented mildly. James looked up as the trees thinned and fell behind them. He could see now that they were on the outskirts of a small crowded fishing village. The morning sky was low and dull, packed with clouds over the rooftops. Smoke drifted listlessly from dozens of chimneys and the streets were wet, their cobbles shining dully. The group tramped their way single file down the curving, stony path until it met the street. An old man with a 42

grizzled white beard was seated on a stool nearby, stooped beneath the awning of a fish shop. He pushed the brim of his cap up with a horny thumb as the group filed past.

“Good morning,” Harry Potter said cheerfully.

“Lovely day for a stroll, isn’t it then?” Ginny added, bringing up the rear.

“Nice town you’ve got here,” Albus cried, turning around and walking backwards, smiling at the man. “Smells a bit funny, but we won’t hold it against you!” Ginny grabbed him by the arm, spinning him around.

The narrow street descended in a series of sharp switchbacks, passing crowded houses and shops, and eventually emptying out at the seashore. Wharves, docks, and piers festooned the coastline, making a haphazard silhouette against the steely sky. Some of the slips were occupied with rusting fishing boats, others with immaculate touring yachts, still others with enormous, looming cargo ships. Green waves smacked at the hulls, lifting and dropping them monotonously. Merlin whistled as he walked, leading the group along a warped boardwalk, passing ship after ship. Workers in heavy coats and dark woolen caps barely looked up as the group passed by, ogling and wide-eyed.

“What kind of ship will we be going in?” Izzy asked, her voice full of wonder. “Will it be one of the big ones?”

“Probably not one of the big ones,” Petra answered with a smile in her voice.

“Is it a cruise ship?” Ralph mused hopefully. “They have buffets on cruise ships.” The crew walked on and on. The sun finally began to burn away the dense clouds and became a hard white ball on the horizon, casting its reflection onto the ocean in a long blinding stripe.

“Here we are,” Merlin finally announced. They had reached the end of the boardwalk. It was virtually deserted, overshadowed by a rocky promontory decked with a very antiquated lighthouse. James was surprised to see his grandfather’s old Ford Anglia parked near the end of the boardwalk, its engine idling smoothly.

Albus frowned quizzically. “What’s Granddad’s car doing here?”

Ginny replied distractedly. “Go help your father unload now. Hurry, all of you.”

“Unload what?” Ralph asked as she herded them forward.

Merlin produced his staff, which always seemed to be with him, hidden somewhere just out of sight despite its rather impressive size. He tapped it on the boardwalk and the Anglia’s boot popped open.

“Ah,” Ralph said, answering his own question. “Manual labor.”

“Cool!” Albus crowed, running forward. “It’s got all of our trunks in it. Did you send it ahead all by itself? Can it drive on its own?”

43

“It was your grandfather who taught it that particular skill,” Merlin replied, smiling. “The more I learn about him, the more impressed I become. Put the trunks right here on the boardwalk, if you please. I will alert the portmaster of our arrival.”

“But where’s the ship?” James asked, glancing around the deserted pier below.

Merlin either didn’t hear him or chose not to answer. He strolled ponderously up the crooked, curving staircase that led to the door of the lighthouse.

“Hop to it, men,” Harry cried heartily, reaching into the boot and heaving out one of the trunks. As with many wizard spaces, the boot was rather larger inside than would have seemed possible from without. Eventually, James, Albus, and Ralph stood next to a precariously stacked tower of trunks, cases, crates, and bags.

“Good thing I had that biscuit,” Ralph breathed, wiping his brow. “Merlin was right.

Traveling is hard work.”

James glanced up at the lighthouse, looking to see what the Headmaster was up to. As he watched, the small door in the side of the lighthouse opened. Merlin strode out, his head lowered as he traversed the narrow, leaning stairway.

“Hold tight, everyone,” he announced. “Prepare to board.”

Behind him, a loud, low note suddenly sounded, emanating from the lighthouse’s high lantern. It was a singularly lonely sound, echoing long and deep over the water. James recognized it as the sound of a foghorn. When the sound finally died away, chasing its echoes over the distant waves, a beam of light appeared from the decrepit lighthouse. Ginny gasped at the brilliance of it as it speared out into the gloomy morning, seeming to extend all the way to the horizon. Slowly, the beam began to turn.

James stumbled. He grabbed out and clutched a handful of Ralph’s sweatshirt, only then noticing that Ralph was staggering as well. The two of them clambered backwards against the Anglia.

“What’s happening?” Albus called.

“Stand fast, landlubbers,” Uncle Percy laughed, holding onto his wife Audrey and daughter Molly. “You just haven’t gotten your sea legs yet.”

“Watch,” Lucy announced, pointing toward the lighthouse’s beam.

James watched. Strangely, it seemed as if the beam was, against all probability, standing perfectly still. It was the world itself that was revolving, pulled around in a long smooth axis by the anchor of the spotlight’s beam.

“There,” Harry announced. “Our ship appears to be coming in.”

James followed his father’s gaze and saw a long sleek boat appearing from around the rocky promontory. Like the beam of light, the ship appeared to be standing perfectly still as the ocean revolved beneath it, sending its waves up beneath the bow and turning them into briny foam. The ship was long and sleek, with a polished wooden hull stained deep brown, festooned with glittering 44

brass portholes and fittings, tall, complicated masts and a single black smokestack jutting up from the center. Painted white letters along the prow proclaimed the name of the ship: Gwyndemere.

Ponderously, the pier angled toward the ship until it pointed directly at it. Figures moved about on the deck of the ship, shouting to each other and manning the rigging. James grinned as one of the deckhands heaved a length of rope over the side, Disapparated from the deck, and then Reapparated on the pier seconds later to retrieve the rope as it thumped onto the planks. He looped it industriously around an iron bollard, anchoring the Gwyndemere to shore. That accomplished, the beam of light ceased turning and switched off. James stumbled again as the world seemed to shudder into place.

“Everyone aboard,” Percy called, striding down onto the pier, clutching his hat to his head as the wind picked up. “We’ve got a schedule to keep.”

Merlin nodded approvingly, and then leaned toward the Anglia’s driver’s side window. He seemed to tell the car something, patted it lightly, and then stood back as it began to roll. It performed a neat three-point turn on the end of the boardwalk, and then puttered serenely away, its windows reflecting the low sky.

“I hope I packed enough socks,” Ralph commented, watching the Anglia amble away. “I’d hate to run out of socks.”

“I bet they have socks in America,” Albus replied, smacking the bigger boy on the shoulder.

“Let’s risk it, eh?”

James smiled and followed his family down onto the pier, enjoying the sound of the waves and the misty breeze. Gulls circled overhead and alighted on the waves around the ship, where they bobbed like corks. More deckhands Apparated onto the pier, moving economically toward the stack of baggage, which they began to lug toward the ship.

A gangway appeared, steep and narrow, connecting the ship to the end of the pier. James couldn’t be sure if the gangway had grown out of the pier or extended down from the ship. Either option seemed just as likely. He ran ahead, chased closely by Lucy, Izzy, and Petra, who was laughing with delight.

Once aboard, James looked around with unabashed wonder. From the deck, the Gwyndemere seemed simultaneously huge and cozy. Its bow and stern decks were separated by two recessed walkways, one on either side of the ship, accessed by stairs at the front and back. The walkways enclosed a high, long deckhouse, which dominated the center of the ship, fronted with the pilothouse. James could see men in white jackets and caps inside, moving busily about. An enormous ship’s wheel turned gently back and forth as waves rocked the ship.

“This is so cool,” Ralph said, approaching James. “I’ve never been on a ship before. Do you think a magical ship is any different than a regular ship?”

“You’re asking the wrong mate, Ralph,” Albus commented. “We’re just as new to this as you are. Ask Uncle Percy if you want a real answer. Or Cousin Lucy, for that matter.” 45

“I’ve only ever traveled by ship once before, believe it or not,” Lucy said, pulling her hair back into a ponytail. “And that was a lot smaller than this one, on the way to Greece.”

“Have you seen the dining galley yet?” Petra called from the stairs to the lower level.

“Breakfast is all laid out, and it’s perfectly lovely! Come and join us!”

“They have currant buns!” Izzy added importantly, cupping her hands to her mouth.

James, Albus, Ralph, and Lucy ran to the stairs and ducked into a doorway at the bottom, which opened onto a long low room with windows on either side, letting in the watery morning light. Two long tables dominated the room, bordered on both sides by wooden swivel chairs.

Silverware, crystal glasses, china plates and steaming silver tureens and platters were spread over the tables.

“This is more like it!” Ralph exclaimed, pulling off his sweatshirt in the warmer quarters. He strode along the nearer table and took a seat next to his father, who was already stirring a cup of tea.

“Enjoy it while you can, friends,” Denniston Dolohov proclaimed. “This is what it’s like to travel on the Ministry’s Sickle.” Beyond him, the rest of the adults were seating themselves as well, sighing happily and removing their traveling cloaks and hats.

“The chairs are bolted to the floor,” Albus said, swiveling his experimentally.

“In case of storms,” Lucy nodded, speaking around a mouthful of muffin. “Can’t have everything slamming all over the place if the sea gets tetchy.”

Ralph looked up, his brow furrowed. “Is that likely to happen, do you think?” Lucy shrugged. “It’s the Atlantic ocean. Tetchy is sort of a habit.”

“Especially this time of year,” Albus agreed, reaching for a platter of toast.

James nodded gravely. “We may have to steam right through a hurricane or two. And icebergs.”

“And sea monsters,” Izzy added wisely, meeting Lily’s eyes and stifling a grin. “Giant squid with tentacles like trolley cars!”

“Ah,” Ralph said, rolling his eyes. “Sarcasm, then. I see how it is.”

“Don’t worry, Ralph,” Petra soothed. “We’ve got Merlin with us. If any sea monsters attack, he’ll just talk them into joining us for the trip.”

“Or vanquish them and cook them for dinner,” Lily said, grinning.

A little while later, James had finished his breakfast and discovered he was too excited to sit still any longer. The adults made their way below-decks to explore their cabins while most of the children scrambled back up to the foredeck to enjoy the brightening sun and the misty stamp of the bow on the waves.

“What’s making us move, I wonder?” Izzy asked, squinting up at the masts.

46

James looked as well, noticing that all of the sails were furled tightly, lashed to the masts in neat bundles.

“Good question,” Albus agreed, frowning. “I guess we’re being powered somehow. Look at the smokestack.”

Sure enough, a steady stream of black smoke was issuing from the smokestack’s high, black funnel. James shrugged, turning back to the ocean view.

“Coal, you think?” Ralph mused. “I wouldn’t have expected that.”

“Maybe it’s a magical fire,” Lily replied reasonably. “One that doesn’t need any fuel or anything.”

Lucy nodded. “Like goblin’s spark. That’d make sense.”

Wind capered over the ship, pushing in from the ocean and whipping James’ hair around his head. He grinned into it, and then turned and leaned on the railing, looking toward the shore as it crept alongside the ship. The Gwyndemere was passing the other docks and piers still, and James watched the dozens of ships where they clustered along the bank, dizzying in their sizes and variety.

Workers thronged amongst them, moving on the piers and gangways, silent in the distance. Finally, the Gwyndemere began to angle away from the shore, and the wharves and enormous cargo ships began to grow faint in the morning’s haze.

A whistle sounded high above. James glanced up and saw a man in what looked like a wooden bucket, attached to the main mast. The whistle protruded from between his lips and he held a long collapsible telescope to one eye. As James watched, the man lowered the telescope and spat out the whistle, which dangled around his neck on a length of string.

“Now exiting the Muggle mainland,” he bellowed. “Entering international magical waters.” A deckhand, whistling cheerfully, passed close behind the five travelers where they gathered near the railing. James turned to watch as the man bent, grabbed the handle of a large deck hatch, and heaved it open.

“All right, Dodongo, you heard the man,” the deckhand called down into the darkness below-decks. “Put it out then. Don’t make me come down there.”

James and the rest drifted toward the deckhand and peered down into the shadows. The interior of the hold was huge, taking up most of the ship’s bow. Portholes illuminated an enormous, hairy shape where it lounged in the hold, taking up most of the space. James blinked in shock. The creature was like a gorilla, but grown to monumental, titanic proportions. Its great leathery face peered up at the open hatch, sucking its lips thoughtfully. Its feet clutched the pedals of a complicated, brass mechanism, turning it easily. The mechanism, in turn, operated a driveshaft that extended through the rear of the hold, apparently driving the ship’s propeller. To James increasing surprise, the gigantic ape seemed to be smoking an equally gigantic cigar, puffing black smoke up into a funnel-shaped tube.

“Picked him up years ago,” the deckhand explained, planting his hands on his hips and shaking his head. “Found him wandering some lost island in the South Pacific. Someone had the 47

crazy idea that he’d make a great attraction on the mainland, make us all millionaires. Problem was, once we got him on board, he never wanted to leave. You know the old joke about where a thirty thousand-pound gorilla sits, right? Wherever he bloody well pleases.” James, Ralph, Izzy, Albus, and Lucy looked from the deckhand to the enormous gorilla again. Dodongo pedaled happily, making gentle ook noises to himself and puffing his monstrous cigar.

“Hi!” the deckhand called again, cupping his hands to his mouth. “I told you to put that thing out, didn’t I? It’s the last one we’ve got on board until Bordeaux. What else you going to use to fake smokestack smoke, eh? Banana peels?”

“I guess,” Lucy said in a small voice, “there is a bit of a difference between a Muggle ship and a magical ship.”

The first leg of the ocean journey progressed swiftly. James explored the ship with his fellow travelers, finding the galley kitchens, the aft storage hold, a dozen small but meticulously dapper staterooms, and even the captain’s quarters, which the crew of teenaged witches and wizards (and Izzy) barged into quite by accident while chasing each other through the narrow corridors. The captain’s rooms were in the rear of the ship, above the hold, with a curving bank of windows that overlooked the ship’s boiling wake. It would have been a very interesting place to explore, what with its framed maps, brass lanterns, and bookshelves cluttered with curious nautical tools and artifacts, except for the fact that the captain himself was there, looking up from his desk with a mixture of annoyance and weary patience. James had apologized as quickly and formally as he knew how, backing out of the room and herding the others behind him.

Most of the day, however, was spent up on the decks, lounging in the hazy sunlight and watching the crewmen manage the ship’s complicated rigging. James was only slightly surprised to learn that the deckhands sang songs while they worked, raising their voices in unison so that the sound carried over all the decks, clear and cheerful in the gusting winds.

“So,” Albus said, leaning against the high stern railing, “I wonder if this is the poop deck?” Izzy tittered, but Petra rolled her eyes. “That joke wasn’t funny the first time, Albus. It doesn’t get any better with age.”

48

“I’m not joking,” Albus said, raising his eyebrows with guileless innocence. “I’m just asking a question. Every ship has a poop deck. It’s a known fact. I’m just trying to make this an educational experience.”

“Yes,” Lucy nodded. “Because that’s so very like you.”

“I like the songs,” Ralph said, looking up at the masts as a pair of crewman climbed and capered, singing in harmony. James couldn’t help noticing that the sails were still furled, lashed neatly to the strange, articulated masts.

Albus smirked. “Mum says the songs are nice, so long as you don’t listen to the actual words.”

“Which only makes you pay even closer attention,” James agreed. “I especially like the one about the old dead pirates fighting over a doubloon, chopping off bits of each other until there’s nothing left but a bunch of skeletal hands hopping around, gripping cutlasses.”

“A lot of them do seem to have a similar theme,” Petra agreed. “A lot of dead pirates, barrels of rum, cursed lost treasures, that sort of thing.”

“I heard Merlin and Dad talking about it at lunch,” Albus said, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “Merlin says ever since the International Magical Police have cracked down on wizard piracy, a lot of the pirates have had to turn to more honest work. Most of them take jobs on ships like this. I bet these blokes are all former privateers themselves! You think?” Ralph squinted up at the men in the masts. “I’d have expected more peglegs and parrots,” he shrugged.

Albus rolled his eyes.

As the afternoon wore on, Petra and Izzy went below-decks to have tea and unpack. Albus wandered off in search of deckhands to grill about their nefarious former lives, and James, Ralph, and Lucy meandered their way to the bow, where they found James’ dad, Professor Longbottom, and Merlinus Ambrosius watching the seas and talking.

“Did you see the big gorilla?” James asked as the adults greeted them.

Harry nodded. “The captain took us down to meet him. He’s very intelligent. Likes popcorn. Apparently he’s the primary mode of propulsion on the landward ends of the journey.”

“The captain says it keeps him from getting fat and lazy,” Neville added, smiling.

“You met the captain too?” Lucy asked, peering up at the men.

“He’s an old wizard’s navy man,” Neville answered. “And a distant relative of mine. Knew my parents, way back when I was a baby. I haven’t seen him in decades, but still, it’s nice to connect with the old family network.”

Ralph glanced from Merlin to Harry Potter, and then asked, “What are you all looking for?”

“I smell land,” Merlin replied mildly. “I think we have nearly reached today’s destination.” James blinked. “Already? We’re there?”

49

“Boy,” Ralph commented, peering out over the waves, “magic sure makes the world an itty bitty place.”

“He doesn’t mean we’ve already made it to America, silly,” Lucy said, laughing. “We’re stopping at a port along the way.”

“What for?” James asked.

“To pick up more travelers,” Harry replied, taking off his glasses and wiping sea mist from them with his shirt tail. “And drop off cargo, get supplies, and get rigged for the transatlantic leg of the journey.”

“You mean,” Ralph said, clarifying, “we’ve sailed all day, and we haven’t yet gotten to the transatlantic part?”

“The ocean is a monstrously large place,” Merlin said, smiling, his beard streaming in the wind. “It provides us an excuse not to do anything for a day or two. Enjoy it, Mr. Deedle. Soon enough, the pace of life will catch us all up again.”

James looked at Ralph expectantly. “Did you hear the Headmaster?” he prodded gently.

Ralph glanced at him and then rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes. ‘Monstrously’ large. Look, I’m not a big baby. You can stop trying to give me nightmares.”

“I would have said the ocean was ‘beastly huge’,” Lucy said, “but ‘monstrously’ is even better.

Reminds me of those old woodcut maps covered in sea serpents and krakens and the like.”

“Is that land over there?” Neville asked suddenly, leaning on the railing and squinting.

Merlin nodded. “It may well be. You can smell it, can’t you? The trees, the sand…”

“Not all of us are quite as sensitive to such things as you are, Headmaster,” Harry replied, shaking his head.

James leaned against the railing and peered into the distance. The sky had grown clear and cloudless as the day progressed. Now, as the sun lowered, the clarity of the air made the horizon seem like something he could very nearly reach out and touch. The ship’s prow bounced rhythmically on the waves, sending up bursts of fine spray. Beyond it, sitting on the watery rim of the world like a bug on a windowsill, was a tiny black shape.

“What is it?” Lucy asked, shading her eyes. “Is it another boat?” No one answered. Gradually, the shape grew as the Gwyndemere approached it, slowing almost imperceptibly. To James, it began to look like the top of a giant’s head, fringed with wild hair, peeking over the horizon. He watched, transfixed, as the shape finally resolved into the unmistakable outline of a tiny island, hardly bigger than the back garden of the Potter family home in Marble Arch. A narrow white beach ringed the island, embracing a growth of brush and wild grasses. In the center, half a dozen scrubby trees swayed ponderously. As the Gwyndemere slowed, coming within shouting distance of the tiny island, James was shocked to hear a voice cry out from the shadow of the trees.

50

“A ship!” the voice shouted. “Oh, thank heavens, a ship! At long last!” A man stumbled out onto the beach and jumped up and down, waving a length of driftwood in his hand. The man was very thin and wildly bedraggled, his hair and beard grown to nearly comical proportions and his clothing bleached white.

“Hooray!” he shouted. “My messages in all those old bottles were not in vain! The seagulls laughed at me, they did! Told me it was foolish to hope, but I kept the faith! I knew someday my long, long sojourn would come to an—oh, it’s you,” he said, his voice dropping on the last three words.

“Ahoy, Roberts!” a sailor in the Gwyndemere’s crow’s nest called. “All’s clear along the span o’

the compass. Captain Ash Farragut requests landing.”

“Permission granted,” the erstwhile castaway called back grumpily, turning and walking back toward the trees. His voice carried easily over the lapping waves as he muttered, “Tells me all’s clear along the span o’ the compass. Like I ain’t been sittin’ here all day, keepin’ a lookout. S’my job, after all, isn’t it?” James watched with fascination as the bedraggled man stopped beneath one of the trees and tapped it with his driftwood walking stick. “Portmaster Roberts reporting the arrival of the Gwyndemere, Captain Farragut in command, with partial complement of travelers, goods, and cargo.

Forty minutes late too, unless the sun’s a liar.”

“Ah, we’ve reached port,” a voice behind James said cheerfully. He glanced back to see his Uncle Percy dressed in a fancy traveling cloak and matching derby. “Aquapolis for the night, ladies and gentlemen. Last landfall ’til journey’s end. I’ll go tell the others.” James glanced from his uncle to Ralph and Lucy. “Some ‘port’ this is. I’m not even sure we’ll all fit down there.”

“Yeah,” Ralph agreed. “If it’s all the same to everyone else, I think I’ll just stay here on the ship for the night.”

“Quite clever of the portmaster to play the part of a shipwreck survivor, though,” Lucy commented appreciatively. “Just in case any Muggle ships come in sight of the place.” James looked back at the man on the shore, his brow furrowed. “How sure are you that he’s just playing the part?”

“Whoa,” Ralph said suddenly, grabbing onto the railing with one hand. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?” James asked, and then gasped as he felt it too. The ship was shuddering very faintly, as if a thousand fists were pounding on the hull. A sound accompanied the sensation, a sort of low rumble, deep and huge.

“It’s all right,” Neville said, albeit rather nervously. “Somehow, I think this is supposed to happen.”

“It’s not just happening on the ship,” Lucy cried, pointing. “Look at the island!” James looked. The leaves of the trees were shaking faintly. A large yellowish fruit fell from one of the trees and rolled to a stop on the white sand. Strangely, there seemed to be far more of the 51

sand than there should have been. It was as if the beach was expanding around the island, growing, pushing back the waves. The man on the shore seemed to be completely unperturbed by the phenomenon. He ambled over to a large dark boulder, reached behind it and retrieved a clipboard, which he consulted critically.

“Behold,” Merlin proclaimed, raising his chin against the increasing wind. “The wonders of the lost city. Behold Aquapolis, grandest of the seven cities of the continent of Atlantis.” Slowly, the island rose, pushed upwards by a great, dark shelf of stone. The foundation widened as it elevated, as if the island were merely the topmost peak of a huge undersea mountain.

Water thundered down the faces of broad cliffs, coursing out of dozens of deep crags and caverns.

James watched, dumbstruck, as the landmass grew, extending great rocky arms out to embrace the Gwyndemere, creating a bay around it. Regular shapes became visible as they pushed upwards through the waves: peaked roofs, domes, and spires first, and then monumental stone columns, arches, and colonnades. Soaring bridges and stairways crisscrossed the mountain, connecting the structures and enclosing walled courtyards, ancient statuary, and bright, colourful gardens of coral.

Sunlight shimmered over the city as it revealed itself, reflecting as if from innumerable, enormous jewels. With a thrill of wonder, James realized that the shining shapes were not jewels, in fact, but glass windows and doors, fitted into exquisitely crafted coppery frameworks. The windows glittered like rainbows as the seawater coursed down them, glinting from every opening and doorway, from between every pillar and column, completely enclosing the city in rippling, briny brilliance.

“I’ve heard of this place,” Harry Potter said, placing a hand on his son’s shoulder, “but I never imagined it would be like this.”

“Are the other six cities of Atlantis like this too?” Ralph asked in an awed voice.

Merlin sighed somberly. “Alas, the Aquapolis is the lone survivor of the great Republic. The others have long since settled to their watery graves, having exhausted their magic as their populations dwindled, drawn to the fixed lands. Such is the course of history. All great things, even the most wondrous, must meet their ends.”

“Did you see it?” Albus cried suddenly, grabbing James’ shoulder and shaking him enthusiastically. “Did you see it come up out of the water?”

“It was pretty hard to miss, Al,” James laughed, turning. “Where were you?”

“The first mate took me up to the pilothouse to watch!” Albus exclaimed, beside himself with excitement. “Me and Petra and Izzy. Mum and Lil too! It was bloody awesome!”

“Don’t say that word,” Ginny said mildly, following Albus across the deck with the others at her side. “But it was, really. I had no idea.”

“Well,” Harry announced grandly, turning to face the travelers, “all ashore who’s going ashore!”

James grinned and turned to look back at the great island again. Its countless windows sparkled gently as the sun lowered, painting the city bronze and gold. A crew of men in neat red 52

tunics was piloting a ferry toward the Gwyndemere, apparently prepared to transport everyone aboard to their home for the night.

“It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?” Ginny said, sighing. “Almost makes the whole trip worthwhile.” James smiled up at his mother. For the moment, not knowing yet what was still to come, he agreed with her completely.

James lay in his bed and stared up at the low ceiling, unable to sleep. The Aquapolis’

lodgings were clean, ornate, and well-maintained, but very, very old. The entire city, spectacular as it was, smelled vaguely damp, which was, of course, perfectly understandable. Uncle Percy, who apparently suffered from mold allergies, had had a rather difficult time of it, especially as evening had set and the city had once again sank into its watery habitat. Eventually, Aunt Audrey had asked one of their Atlantean hosts, a pretty, plump young woman with thick black hair and olive skin, if Percy might be offered a particular brand of medicinal tea. The woman, whose name was Mila, had taken one look at Percy’s red nose and eyes, and returned minutes later with an empty cup and a small steaming pot. Upon drinking the pot’s contents, Percy no longer sneezed or sniffled, but had nevertheless remained in a rather irritable mood throughout the evening.

Merlin, as was usually the case, was treated with great fanfare upon his arrival in the city, even as he disembarked from the ferry with James and Ralph at his side. Men in long white robes and curiously carved staffs met them on the steps of the city’s reception hall, which was hewn directly out of the stone of the mountain. While the city’s leaders and Merlin exchanged formal greetings, Lucy and Albus had caught up to James and Ralph, and all four of them had stood looking about with undisguised wonder. Water still ran over the intricately patterned marble floor and dripped from the high vaulted ceilings, and James understood that the reception hall, grand as it was, was filled with seawater most of the time. A great stone column dominated the entryway to the space, topped with a monumental statue of a bearded wizard in flowing toga-like robes, a staff in his left hand and his right hand raised, pressed to the base of one of the ceiling’s vaulted supports, as if he was holding it up.

“Soterios,” Lucy had said, reading the inscription that wrapped around the base of the statue’s column. “The Hero of Atlantis. He was the one that unified the wizarding populous of Atlantis and created the network of magic that kept the cities intact, even as their foundations eroded 53

away. I read about him in the wizard library at home. ‘Poios Idryma sozo para magica dia magikos’.”

“What’s it mean?” Albus had asked, walking around the column to read the inscription.

Izzy, Lily, and Petra had gotten off the ferry by then and joined the others near the base of the statue. Petra had peered at the ancient carved words. “It means, ‘who saved the foundations of magic, by magic’.”

“So,” Ralph had said slowly, “this whole place is held together by, what…?” Petra had shrugged. “The collective magical will of the witches and wizards who live here.”

“Makes sense, really,” Lucy had commented. “After all, the Greeks did invent the concept of democracy, which is really just the idea of the city being supported by the people who live in it.

Granted, this takes it to a rather new level.”

Ralph had shaken his head and looked around at the massive, dark ceilings. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m a little iffy about the idea of willpower as structural bedrock.”

“That’s because you’re thinking of your willpower,” Lucy had sniffed.

“It’s held up for centuries, Ralph,” Albus had said, shrugging. “What could happen?” Ralph had glanced back at Albus, then at Merlin, who was still chatting with the Aquapolis elders some distance away. “I don’t know,” he’d replied. “Why don’t you ask the other six cities of Atlantis?”

Later, as the sun had set on the horizon amidst a flaming cauldron of colourful clouds, an Atlantean elder named Atropos had taken the travelers on a tour of the city, leading them along broad, sweeping staircases and bridges, through enormous colonnades, past ornate oceanic gardens, statues and arches. Many of the city’s myriad, enormous windows had been cranked open, letting in the cool, ocean breeze.

“The city has remained virtually unchanged since its descent into the depths,” Atropos had explained. “When the waters began to rise, our ancestors had enough forewarning to design and construct a system of watertight crystal valves, which you see all around us. They are virtually unbreakable, and are reinforced by a unique alchemy that makes them less brittle.” To illustrate, Atropos had approached one of the tall copper-framed windows that fitted between a set of herculean columns. He leaned on the crystal with one hand, and then gently applied his weight.

Instead of breaking, the crystal bent slowly around his hand, almost like a very large, very thick soap bubble. Finally, Atropos’ hand had pushed entirely through. He’d wiggled his fingers in the dying sunlight on the other side of the crystal, smiling thinly back at his attendees. Merlin had nodded slowly, impressed.

“Remarkable,” Denniston Dolohov had enthused. “Tell me, is this proprietary magic? Or would the Atlanteans be willing to share it? I can think of dozens of security applications for such a thing.”

“Doesn’t he ever go off duty?” Aunt Audrey had muttered to her husband, who shushed her.

54

“That’s why he’s here, dearest,” he’d replied quietly. “His new post at the Ministry places him in charge of a whole new department of anti-Muggle defensive magic and technomancy. These are uncertain times, as you well know. And growing more uncertain every day.” At that point, Percy had shared a meaningful glance with Neville Longbottom and James’

dad. Harry had shrugged slightly, raising his eyebrows and nodding toward Atropos, as if to say not now.

After a lavish dinner of strange, deep-sea fish and crustaceans, some of which were as large as hippogriffs and more bizarre than James was prepared to taste, the Aquapolis had sunk again. James, Ralph, and Lucy had watched from the broad crystal portals of a Parthenon-like structure built atop one of the island’s curving peninsulas. The sun had finally dipped beneath the rim of the horizon, leaving only a faint pinkish glow at the edge of the star-strewn sky. For a while, the Gwyndemere had been visible in the bay far below, rocking gently on its own reflection. Presently, the marble floor had begun to rumble beneath the observers’ feet and the bay had begun to rise, pushing up and out, slowly overtaking the Aquapolis’ lower reaches. Silently, water had poured into the reception hall, far below and halfway around the bowl of the great city. James had glimpsed the statue of Soterios, tiny with distance, as the ocean rushed around it, swallowing it up. As the island sank away, the Gwyndemere had risen higher and higher, until it was nearly eye-level with James, Ralph, and Lucy where they watched, breathlessly. The pink light of the dying sun had painted the ship on one side while the faint blue glow of the new moon lit the other. And then, so suddenly that it had made all three students jump back in alarm, water had rushed up over the crystal window before them, swallowing it with a dull, thunderous roar. After that, there was only the dim, featureless blue of the depths, punctuated, faintly, by pinpricks of light that glowed from the submerged city.

It had been wondrous, in a grave, solemn sort of way.

Now, as night enveloped the city and everyone, including James’ parents and sister in the next room, had gone to bed, James lay awake, alert and restless. Lantern light seeped beneath the door from the corridor beyond. James’ eyes had grown used to it so that he could easily see the ancient, cracked fresco painted onto the ceiling. In it, a man in a short tunic and a sort of leafy crown was wrestling a giant octopus, clutching four of its tentacles beneath his muscled arm and stunning it with the staff in his other hand. To James, it didn’t look like a fair fight. He found himself rooting for the octopus.

It had been a very strange summer. The surprise arrival of Petra and Izzy had, of course, caused quite a stir. It had happened mere weeks after the last day of school, and James had only just begun to get comfortable with the fact that Petra had graduated and would not be showing up in the Gryffindor common room next term. It was a shame, he told himself, because he had finally admitted to himself that he did, in fact, feel something stronger for Petra than mere friendship.

Apparently, everyone else had seen it before he had, including his own mum, who had made some fairly embarrassing comments about it in the wake of the school play. Despite the fact that the event had ended in a disastrous uproar, James had spent more than a few wistful moments remembering the fact that the play, The Triumvirate, had required he and Petra to play the parts of doomed lovers.

He was still young enough to think that that pairing had been ripe with cosmic significance, and had 55

secretly (so secretly that he himself had barely even known it) hoped that Petra would recognize it as well.

She had not, of course.

At first, James had believed that this was because Petra was still in love with her former beau, Ted Lupin. Later, however, he’d realized that Petra had been under the influence of a secret, awful curse. Due to a series of very wicked schemes, set in motion by none other than the long dead Dark Lord himself, Petra Morganstern was the living carrier of that villain’s last, ghostly shred of soul. It had been imparted to her while she was still in her mother’s womb, transmitted via a special, nearly unheard-of bit of cruel, dark magic: a special kind of Horcrux, in the shape of an ugly silver dagger.

James’ dad had done some research on it, with the help of Aunt Hermione, and had discovered that such a thing was called a ‘transcendent Horcrux’. They’d only found one reference to it, in a book so dark and treacherous that James’ dad and Uncle Ron had had to bolt it to the table with silver stakes to keep it from snapping their hands off. According to their awed, whispered conversations (which James and Albus had surreptitiously listened in on), a transcendent Horcrux was purely theoretical; no one, at the time of the book’s writing, had ever succeeded in actually creating one. Unlike other Horcruxes, a transcendent Horcrux could never be used to restore the bit of soul it contained to its original host. If such a thing were attempted, it would act as a kind of poison, killing every other bit of the soul it had been sheared from, regardless of how many normal Horcruxes were in use. The shred of preserved soul in a transcendent Horcrux had to be passed on to another host, accepted willingly, there to spread its influence and live on, leech-like.

Petra’s mother had been tricked into transmuting the curse of Voldemort’s soul into her unborn baby, but that didn’t make James hate her any less. As far as he was concerned, the woman had to have been either stupid, gullible, or blind. Miraculously, however, Petra herself loved her long dead mother, loved her and missed her enough to have nearly doomed all of mankind in the hopes of somehow bringing her back to life. In the end, fortunately, Petra herself had been stronger and smarter than her mother had been, and she had made the right choice—the hard choice. She had rejected the deal offered to her by the otherworldly beast called the Gatekeeper, even though it had meant the loss of the one thing she’d most wanted in all the world: the return of her dead parents.

Not very surprisingly, the realization of all of these things had not in the least diminished James’ fascination with the young witch. If anything, it had increased it. James himself had confronted the Gatekeeper, and knew the awful stresses Petra had to have endured in rejecting its tantalizing offer. Furthermore, there was just something about Petra, something about the reality of her internal struggles and her painful, personal losses, that made James want to be brave for her.

In his most secret heart, she awoke a deep, pervasive sense of manly nobility. He wanted to defend her, to slay her dragons, to be her knightly savior. Of course, he told no one about these feelings. He was sheepish about admitting them even to himself. In the light of day, his infatuation with her seemed silly, childish, quaintly preposterous. She was of age, for one thing, graduated and free, a young woman moving out into a grownup’s world, while he was still a month shy of fourteen.

Still, the feelings clung to him, as did his affection for her. Without even trying, she had smitten him. Fortunately, as the summer had progressed, absence and distance had helped James begin to 56

forget the girl who had occupied so much of his attention during the previous school year. Such, he thought (rather wisely for his age), was the nature of young love.

And then, to his mingled dismay and delight, Petra and Izzy had arrived at the Potter family home, escorted by Ted Lupin, Damien Damascus, and Sabrina Hildegard. There had been much curiosity about what had brought them there, but very few questions, at least at first. It was apparent that something awful had happened, something that had resulted in the deaths of both Petra’s grandfather and his horrible wife, Phyllis, Izzy’s mother. Ted, Damien, and Sabrina had kept quiet about whatever they had seen at Morganstern Farm, apparently believing it was Petra’s tale to tell (and later because Merlin had apparently sworn them to secrecy). Ted had, however, taken James’ dad and mum aside and asked if it would be all right if Petra and Izzy stayed at the Potter home until things settled down. This had been agreed to quickly and with very little fuss, so that by that very evening, James had found himself going to bed only one wall removed from the girl who, completely and inexplicably, commanded his every affection.

He’d lain awake that night and listened to the soft footsteps and murmured voices in the next room, wondering what it all meant, if anything; wondering if there was something he could do, some way to salvage the bravery he’d felt only days before, when he’d told himself that if Petra had been coming back to Hogwarts the next term, he would have told her exactly how he felt about her, and done whatever was necessary to inspire the same in her.

He lay awake now as he had then, staring up at the fresco of the Atlantean warrior wrestling the unfortunate octopus, and wondered much the same things. Petra had accompanied the Potters on their trip across the ocean, apparently intending to seek employment at the school James would be attending during their stay. Considering her intellect and her uncanny magical skills, James thought it very likely that she would get any job she applied for. In short, Petra’s life seemed, even now, to be mysteriously intertwined with his own. It was like the play, The Triumvirate, all over again, like their fleeting, staged kiss at the end, the one that should have ended so wonderfully, and had instead ended with chaos and near tragedy. The mingled hope and fear filled James with a queer, intense range of emotions.

And on the heels of that, James was reminded of the odd, creepy words that Professor Trelawney had uttered to him early that very morning. The professor was, of course, a few octocards shy of a full deck. Hardly anyone believed her proclamations and visions. And yet, what James had heard and witnessed in the corridor with her that morning had been dramatically different than anything he’d ever seen in her class. It had seemed all too real, all too certain. But what had any of it meant? James didn’t know, but maybe Lucy would. She was smart about such things, remarkably pragmatic and clearheaded. He made a mental note to ask her about it during their voyage.

As James stared up at the fresco over his head, a soft noise caught his attention, coming from the corridor outside his room. A shadow obscured the ceiling fresco for a moment and James glanced down toward the bar of light beneath the heavy door of his room. The unmistakable silhouette of a pair of walking feet passed by. James frowned curiously.

“Hey Al,” he whispered. “You awake?”

“Mrmmm,” Albus declared from the other side of the narrow room, rolling over.

57

James considered waking his brother, even got out of his own bed and reached to shake him, but then he thought better of it. Holding his breath, he approached the door, thumbed the latch, and pulled it open as quietly as he could.

There didn’t seem to be anyone in the corridor. Lantern light flickered silently, reflecting on the tiled marble floors and white walls. Leaving the door slightly open, James padded along the corridor in the direction that the shadowy figure seemed to have gone. He reached the end of the corridor and entered a larger hallway lined with statuary and doorways on one side and tall crystal windows, interspersed with pillars, on the other.

Beyond the windows, the city seemed very dark in its watery bed. Only a few lights could be seen glimmering in the blue distance. Under a glass-enclosed bridge, a whale maneuvered deftly, its bulk black in the dimness, its tail waving ponderously. James saw his own reflection in the crystal; saw his tee shirt, pyjama bottoms, and bare feet. His hair, as usual, was stuck up in a wild strew. He frowned at himself, even though he liked what he saw. He was getting taller, was, in fact, nearly as tall as his mum now. “You could pass for a seventh-year,” she had told him recently, before they’d known they would be spending the year away from Hogwarts, in an entirely different country.

“You’ve gone and turned into a man,” she’d said, smiling indulgently and a little mistily, “and I barely noticed it happening. Albus and Lily too, but especially you. You’re growing up. You’re becoming your own man.”

James sighed, wishing his mother had been right. He didn’t feel like his own man, at least not yet. But he was getting there. The past two years had made their mark, as had his recent ordeal with the Gatekeeper, which had, very fortunately, ended with its eternal banishment. James didn’t yet feel like a man, but he could sense the essential framework of his manhood taking shape inside him, defining who he was going to be, giving him hope and a fleeting, giddy strength. Maybe Scorpius had been right. Maybe there would be another adventure in the offing this year. If there was, and if James was going to be a part of it, he thought that he might just be ready for it. This time, he wouldn’t stumble into it filled with uncertainty and self-doubt. This time, he thought, grinning to himself, he’d face it head on.

“So very like your grandfather,” a voice said quietly, smiling. James startled and whipped around, looking for the source of the voice. A tall figure stood next to him, staring out the crystalline window, its robes so seamlessly black that they cast no reflection on the mirror-like surface.

“Sorry,” James said quickly, his eyes wide. “I didn’t hear you, er… how long have you been there?”

“You are growing bold,” the figure said, and James realized it was a woman. Her voice was pleasant, friendly. “Bold and confident, James Sirius Potter, nor does this come as a surprise to anyone who might be paying the slightest bit of attention. It is, in fact, exactly as it should be.” James peered at the woman, trying to see her face under the thick hood that covered her head. “Thanks, I guess. How do you know me?” he asked.

58

She noticed his look and laughed lightly. “I am a fellow traveler, James. Didn’t you see me aboard the Gwyndemere?”

James thought for a moment. “No, actually. Sorry. And I expect I’d have remembered you, to be honest. Were you wearing… er… that?”

“People tend not to notice me, believe it or not,” the woman sighed. “Unless they want to, or unless I make them. But I apologize. We were talking about you, weren’t we?”

“I guess so,” James replied, taking a step back. He felt a little strange standing in the empty corridor with the woman, especially since she seemed to be fully dressed and he was in his bedclothes, his hair teased into corkscrews. He reached up and matted it down as unobtrusively as he could. “But like I said, how do you know about me? Who are you?”

“Oh, everyone knows you,” the woman said, her voice smiling. “Everyone in the wizarding world, at least. Son of the great Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, et cetera, et cetera. Why, you’ve spent so very much time wondering how you should and shouldn’t be like your father that you’ve completely failed to see all the ways—the far more important ways—that you are like your namesake, your grandfather, James Potter the First.”

James glanced from the darkly clothed woman next to him to his own reflection in the crystal glass. Strange as it seemed, the woman was right. It had never occurred to him to wonder about his grandfather on his dad’s side, to wonder if he himself bore any of that man’s personality traits or physical attributes. Everyone said that Albus was the one who most looked like the young Harry Potter. Maybe James had, therefore, inherited the looks and personality of his long lost grandfather.

It wouldn’t be all that surprising, really. Truthfully, it was quite a nice thought. He shrugged at his reflected self, musing.

“Did you know my grandfather?” he asked the robed woman. “James the First?” As soon as he’d asked it, he felt foolish for doing so. The woman couldn’t possibly be that old.

“Not as such,” the woman answered, a laugh in her voice. “I am rather a student of history, that’s all. You Potters are quite famous, as I have already mentioned, and your family name has a long and rich ancestry, dating back more than a thousand years. You may be interested to know that your experience with Merlinus Ambrosius is not the first time the Potter name has been historically linked to the great sorcerer. He saved the life of a distant relative of yours, in fact, albeit indirectly.”

“Really?” James asked, glancing back at the woman again. Her face was still hidden, lost in shadow. “When? How?”

“A story for another time, I think,” the woman demurred. “For now, I think I will be on my way. I was simply entranced by the view here. A city buried underwater is truly a spectacular sight.

You might say that it appeals to me, in a rather deep, elemental way.”

“Yeah,” James said, sighing. “Me too, I suppose. But I should probably get back to my own room. I couldn’t sleep. I was just too excited.”

59

“Indeed,” the woman nodded, her voice teasing. “That sort of thing seems to be rather common this night. Your friend is also up and wandering. But of course, you must already know that. You are probably planning to meet her.” She exhaled slowly, wistfully. “Ah, young love…”

“Who?” James asked, frowning, but of course he knew the answer already. “Petra?”

“I’m sure I don’t know her name,” the woman answered tactfully, but her hooded head turned, gesturing toward the deserted hall behind James. She nodded, as if prodding him in the right direction. James finally had a glimpse of the woman’s face. She was pretty, and younger than he had expected. A curl of reddish hair lay on her forehead like a comma.

“Sure,” James nodded. “I should probably go and… er… check on her. If she’s part of my group, like you said.”

The woman nodded again, her red lips smiling knowingly. James’ face flushed, partly because what she was implying—that he was sneaking off to meet a girlfriend for some unchaperoned snogging—was so untrue, and partly because he so terribly wished it was.

“Good night, James,” the woman said, turning away. “Sleep well.”

“Good night, er,” he replied, but he didn’t know the woman’s name. She swept on, leaving a deep shadow behind her and no reflection on the crystal windows. James frowned at her as she departed. Then, remembering what she had said, he turned and ran along the hall in the other direction.

Closed doors and crystal panels lined the hall for some distance, and then the hall widened, enclosing a large space with a dizzyingly high, dark ceiling. An ornate brass framework of crystal windows embraced one side of the space, forming shining buttresses and terraces, filled with ferns.

The floor was checkered marble, each square as large as James’ parents’ bed. The space appeared to be a sort of common room, full of chairs, sofas, tables, and desks. A massive silver chandelier hung over the room, dominating it, but its hundreds of candles were dark. The only light in the room came from a long low fireplace and a cluster of candles that stood near it on a brass brazier. James began to cross the floor slowly, threading between the low chairs and desks, instinctively feeling that he should be very quiet. Before he was halfway to the fireplace, however, he spied a figure lying serenely on a sort of half sofa. She sat up at his approach, apparently unsurprised, and James saw that it was Izzy.

“Hi James,” she said quietly. “What’re you up to?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he replied, matching her tone of voice. “I saw someone’s shadow go by and came out to see who else was up.”

Izzy nodded. “It was probably me and Morgan. That’s Petra, you know. I call her Morgan sometimes still because I was there when she changed her name. I changed mine too, but I couldn’t make it stick. Hers fits her, though, even though she says that everybody else can still call her by her old name.”

James nodded a little uncertainly. “I see… er,” he said. “Anyway, why are you both up, then?”

60

“Just like you,” Izzy replied. “We couldn’t sleep either. Petra especially, I think. She has dreams. They make her feel a little crazy,” she said, whispering the last part.

James sat down on the end of the chaise as Izzy curled her feet under her. He peered over toward the fireplace. “What do you mean they make her feel crazy?” Izzy nodded her head back and forth and shrugged. “I don’t understand any of it. I don’t think they’re regular dreams. She says she feels them even when she’s awake. She says they make her forget what really happened, the last day we were back home, on Papa Warren’s farm.” James wanted to ask what had happened that day, but thought he probably shouldn’t.

Instead, he asked, “Do you think she’s all right?”

“No,” Izzy answered, sighing and peering back over her shoulder, toward the fireplace. “But it’ll be all right in the end. She says we just need to get away from everything. That’s why we’re going all the way across the ocean. I think she’s hoping that the dreams won’t be able to find her there.”

James followed Izzy’s gaze and finally saw Petra, seated at a low desk near the fire, her back to them. “What do you think, Izzy?” he asked, not taking his eyes from Petra’s silhouette where she sat bent over the desk. “Do you think it’ll work?”

Izzy shook her head, making her blonde curls swing. “No, it won’t work. Don’t tell Morgan— Petra—that I said that, though, all right? I don’t think her dreams are going to go away. I think they’re going to get worse. Until it’s all over, at least.”

“How do you know, Iz? When will it be over?”

The girl shrugged again. “Headmaster Merlin says that she has to find out where the dreams are really coming from. He told her to chase them. That’s what she’s doing now. She’s chasing them.

It works best right when it happens, right when they wake her up.” James studied Petra, saw that she was engaged in some intense activity, bent over the desk so severely that she appeared to be wrestling with it. “What’s she doing?” he asked very quietly. “I mean, how does she chase a dream?”

“She’s writing it,” Izzy said simply. “Like a story. She’s good at that. She used to tell me stories all the time, when it was nights out. She’d make them all up in her head, and a lot of them were better than the stories she read to me in the books. Me and Beatrice and all the rest of my dolls all listened. It was our most favorite thing.”

James could see it now that Izzy had told him what Petra was doing. Her elbow moved slightly, and a quill wavered in the air over her shoulder, silhouetted in the darkness.

“Does she read the dream to you, Iz?”

“Oh no,” the girl answered quickly, obviously disinterested. “I don’t want to hear them.

They’re nasty. I don’t want to ever think about any of that ever again. It scares me too much. And it makes me sad. I miss my mother, sometimes, and I cry, and Petra doesn’t know what to do. I never want to hear those stories.”

61

James looked back at Izzy, frowning thoughtfully. “Then why do you come along when she chases the dream? Are you standing guard?”

Izzy nodded. “Yes, that’s what Petra says, but I think there’s another reason, maybe. I think she asks me to come because she needs me here to prove that the dreams aren’t true.” She sighed again, in a quick, businesslike manner, and looked at James. “She needs me here to prove that I’m still alive.”

James’ eyes widened. What in the world did that mean? He opened his mouth to ask, but a shadow moved nearby. He glanced up and saw Petra approaching, shaking her right hand as if to loosen the kinks from her fingers.

“Hi James,” she said, smiling tiredly. “I see you haven’t given up skulking around at night, Invisibility Cloak or not.”

“Yeah,” James said, his face reddening. “I couldn’t sleep. Are you, you know, all right and everything?”

“I’m fine,” Petra lied, glancing away. James saw that she had her knapsack in her left hand, partly unzipped. A sheaf of loose parchment lay inside. “Izzy probably told you what I was doing. I just have some things to work out, that’s all.”

“Izzy said it’s a bad dream,” James said, standing. “Is that really all it is?” Petra looked back at him. In the darkness, James couldn’t read her expression. He went on quickly, “I mean, you don’t have to tell me or anything. It’s just, you know, I was there. I remember what happened that night in the Chamber of Secrets and everything, and I had my own run-in with the Gatekeeper. I know what you’re going through, sort of. If you, I don’t know, wanted to, er, talk about it. Or whatever.”

Suddenly, helplessly, Petra laughed. She shook her head wonderingly and pushed her hair out of her face. “James, you are very sweet. I’m glad you’re here, and not just for the reasons you said. Me and Izzy both, we owe you and your family a lot. I don’t know what we’d have done without the lot of you. But you, especially. You make me feel better. Do you know that? You make me laugh. Lately, that’s a very rare thing. Walk with us, won’t you?” James could feel the heat beating off his face as the blood rushed to his cheeks. He was glad it was very dark in the room. “Sure,” he said, pushing himself to his full height. “I was just checking on you. Some lady in black robes told me where you’d gone. You probably saw her already.”

“I didn’t,” Petra answered, sighing. “Did you, Iz?”

“I only saw that man sleeping by the statue near our rooms. I think he’s a lantern lighter, fell straight to sleep while out doing his job. He snored really loud, and it echoed. Remember that?” She giggled.

“I remember,” Petra said, smiling.

“So,” James began, feeling a little bold, “how did it go?”

62

Petra walked slowly along the hall, watching the murky view beyond the crystal. “How did what go?”

“The, er, dream chasing. Izzy mentioned it. She said you were writing it down. Like a story.”

Petra nodded. “Headmaster Merlin told me I should try it. I didn’t want to, but… it helps.

A little.” She touched Izzy’s head lightly, resting her hand on the girl’s blonde hair. “It isn’t a very nice story though. It’s rather horrid.”

“I… I could read it, if you wanted,” James said, studying the floor furiously as he walked. “If you thought it might help.”

Petra was silent, and James was suddenly worried that he had offended her. He glanced aside at her, but she was looking thoughtful, her eyes half-lidded. “Perhaps,” she finally said, “you may be right, James. Maybe that would weaken it. Like Izzy probably told you, it’s… more than just a dream. It’s like a certainty. Like a memory of something that didn’t really happen, or happened very differently. I can’t shake it off. It haunts me.”

James nodded and willed himself not to say anymore. Silently, the three walked on, finally coming to the lantern-lit corridor where James had begun. He saw the door to his room, still standing slightly open.

“We can find our way from here,” Petra whispered.

“We’re just around the corner and down the stairs,” Izzy added, pointing. “Past the man sleeping with the lantern wand in his hand. You want to come and hear his snore? It’s funny. It sounds like this,” Suddenly, loudly, Izzy snorted, making a comical imitation of a snore.

“Shh! Iz!” Petra rasped, stifling a laugh and covering her sister’s mouth with her hand.

“People are sleeping!”

“I know!” the girl whispered, pushing Petra’s hand away. “And that’s what they sound like!” Petra shook her head at James, still trying not to laugh. James grinned at her.

“Good night, James,” she said quietly. “Thanks for checking on us. Thanks for walking us back. Maybe I will let you read the dream. If you really want to. I think you’d probably understand it better than anyone else, for all the reasons you mentioned back in the hall. If you think you are up to it, that is.”

James nodded soberly. “Definitely. If you think it will help. Besides, I’m… I’m curious.” Petra studied his face for a long moment, biting the corner of her lip. Finally, she hefted her knapsack, reaching inside, and produced a thin sheaf of parchments. Wordlessly, she handed them over to him.

“It’s not a nice story,” she said again. “And it won’t make a lot of sense. I can tell you the rest, if you want. Later. I need to tell some one, I think. It’s just too big a secret for… well, for Izzy and me. Do you agree, Iz?”

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The blonde girl screwed up her face thoughtfully. She shrugged.

“It’s all right, either way,” James said, taking the parchments. There were about four pages, covered with Petra’s neat, small handwriting. Suddenly, he felt strange about the offer. “Are you sure? You don’t have to, if you don’t want to.”

“I

do want to,” Petra said, sighing again. “But you can’t tell anyone, all right? Not any of it.

I swear, if you do…”

James shook his head vigorously. “I won’t! I promise! Pinky promise, even!” Petra blinked at him, and then laughed again. “All right, I believe you. Thanks, James. See you in the morning. We still have a long way to go, don’t we?”

James nodded. “Good night, Petra. Night, Iz.”

The girls turned and continued down the hall, Petra’s hand on her sister’s shoulder. James looked down at the small stack of parchment in his hands, barely believing what had happened. He felt both giddy and dreadfully nervous about it. He wanted to read Petra’s dream story, wanted to read it that very moment, standing in the dim light of the Atlantean corridor, and yet he was strangely afraid to do so. What if it was as awful as Petra said it was? Nothing, he felt quite sure, could change the way he felt about her (whether he liked it or not) and yet…

Finally, he turned and pushed the door of his room open, letting himself into the darkness inside. He passed the shape of his sleeping brother and crept toward the table next to his bed, where his duffle bag lay, unzipped. He rooted in the bag for a moment until he found his wand. Glancing around, he laid Petra’s story on the bed and pointed his wand at it.

“Velierus,” he said, as quietly as he could. A tiny burst of blue light illuminated the bed, and the parchments folded together, doubling over repeatedly until all that remained was a thick packet, no bigger than an auger. It was totally seamless, as if it was encased in a perfect sphere of parchment.

Kneeling, James hid both his wand and the secret package in the bottom of his bag. A moment later, he threw himself onto the bed and pulled the covers up to his chin.

He would read Petra’s dream story soon. Until then, he relished the idea that she had chosen him, and him alone, to share it with. He had suggested it, of course, but the fact remained that she had accepted his offer. She trusted him. She was glad of his presence. And what else had she said?

He made her laugh. James’ cousin Lucy had said the same thing to him once, last year, after Granddad’s funeral, but it seemed so much more meaningful, so much more portentous, when Petra said it. He sighed, remembering the sound of her voice, the pleasing music of her laughter, sad and weary as it may have been.

It doesn’t mean anything, he told himself, but they were only words, and his heart didn’t believe them. Secretly, his heart rejoiced. Eventually, smiling faintly, he slept.

64

3. Eighty-eight Knots

The next morning, as James and his family and friends made their way to breakfast, they were greeted by a spectacular sight. The view beyond the submerged city’s crystal enclosures was a green-gold vista, filled with shimmering beams of dawn sunlight, gently streaming rafts of bubbles, and schools of silvery fish, all of which played over and around the glittering Atlantean cityscape.

James, Albus, and Lucy gazed with rapt curiosity as several strange shapes moved slowly through the water, angling back and forth between the distant ocean surface. The shapes were rather like long mirrored bubbles, some as large as a city bus, and all rippling in the faint Atlantic currents.

Far below these, along the city’s sloping, rocky foothills, James spied the unique patterns of sprawling oceanic gardens. Streaming leaves of kelp and neat rows of sea cucumbers grew alongside fields of far stranger and more colourful fruits and vegetables. Giant octopuses moved slowly through the gardens, and Lucy was the first to notice that they were being ridden upon by Atlantean farmers, their chests bare and their heads encased in glittering copper and crystal helmets.

As the students watched, the octopuses used their long agile arms to harvest some of the fields, and to tend to others, weeding or pruning them. One of the octopuses suddenly spread all of its arms and then contracted them together, shooting forward like a lithe torpedo. It rose up into the city swiftly, propelled by its powerful tentacles, and Albus gasped and pointed, laughing out loud; one of the Atlantean farmers was being towed behind the octopus, tethered to it by a long length of cord and standing on a sort of rounded board, which he used like a fin to steer and bob through the currents. As the pair rose into the city, chased by their shadow, James couldn’t help thinking that both the octopus and the rider seemed to be having a grand time of it. Swiftly, the octopus banked 65

and spun, following the contours of the streets and streaming under bridges and walkways, until it roared directly in front of the window, a long dark shape against the brilliant beams of watery sunlight. The Atlantean farmer passed by a split second later, his legs flexing as he carved the currents with his bullet-like board.

“I wonder where he’s going?” Albus asked, trying to peer up past the angle of the window.

“Probably bringing us our breakfast,” his mum replied, gently pushing him onward. “If we don’t hurry, we won’t have time to eat it. We cast off in less than an hour.” A short while later, after a light breakfast of kippers and toast, the troop made their way toward a section of the city that Merlin referred to as the Aquapolis Major Moonpool. James didn’t know what to expect, but was delighted and curious to find, upon their arrival, a massive amphitheater-like room which surrounded a huge dark pool of ocean water. Busy Atlantean witches and wizards milled on the circular terraces and steep staircases that surrounded the pool, which bobbed with all manner of boats.

“Looks like King’s Cross on a Monday morning,” James heard Denniston Dolohov comment, laughing.

“I don’t expect that’s too far from the truth, either,” Neville Longbottom replied.

As the travelers made their way down toward the pool, James watched Atlantean conductors directing bits of the crowd this way and that, threading them along floating gangplanks and onto the decks of long narrow boats. The boats were wooden, decorated fore and aft with large carved curlicues. Men dressed in bright red tunics and high, fin-shaped caps stood on the sterns of the boats, next to the rudder lever, reading newspapers or consulting schedules as the ornately crafted benches filled before them.

A chime rang out in the bowl of the room, overriding the babble of voices. It was followed by an echoing female voice. “All commuters destined for Conch Corners and the Octodome, your skiff is departing now. Please stand clear of the descending bubble, in three, two…” James glanced up as a gust of air pounded through the space from above, rippling through the commuters’ robes and Merlin’s long beard. The round, crystal skylight in the center of the ceiling bulged downwards at the force of the gust. The window elongated, trembled, and popped free, forming a monstrous, rainbow-streaked bubble. The bubble dropped precipitously onto one of the long boats, enveloping it, and then sank away into the depths, taking the boat with it.

Amazingly, none of the gathered throng seemed alarmed or even to have noticed what had happened.

“I did some reading on this last night,” Lucy said faintly, looking at the domed ceiling. “In the Atlantean Library. It’s sort of a wonder of the world, you know, second only to the great library at Alexandria.”

“Fascinating,” Albus said. “You know how interested we all are in libraries, but maybe you can get to the bit about the giant doom bubbles swallowing up ships.” 66

“Well, I’m making some guesses here,” Lucy replied, following as the troop threaded onto a narrow gangplank, “but the entire continent of Atlantis has volcanic origins. Unfortunately, the volcanoes that created the continent are what ended up destroying it, breaking it up and stripping away all of its foundations. The Atlanteans harnessed the power of the volcanoes, though, and used their vents to power their industry. I would guess that that’s what’s behind all of this.”

“What do you mean?” Ralph asked, stepping, somewhat reluctantly, onto the deck of one of the narrow boats, which was about the size of the Knight Bus. The boat captain stood in his red tunic and funny hat, scowling at a series of copper gauges installed on a post near the rudder lever.

“I suspect that those big gusts of air are volcanic exhaust,” Lucy frowned thoughtfully. “And this pool is probably part of the subterranean vent system.”

“No fears, everyone,” Percy said cheerfully, leading Molly and Audrey to one of the benches near the front of the boat. “But do strap in and hold tight. I’ve heard this can be quite a ride.”

“The famed Aquapolis Transit Authority,” Harry said, seating himself between Ginny and Lily. “The scheduling and dispatching model for the entire wizarding world. Percy’s right. Strap in and hold onto your bags, everyone.”

Albus glanced at James with an expression of mingled excitement and trepidation.

“So what’s it do?” Ralph asked. “I haven’t had the greatest luck with wizarding transportation systems.”

“There’s no way to explain it properly before we leave, Ralph,” Petra answered, buckling the copper clasps of her safety belt and helping Izzy with hers. “One word of advice before we go though.”

Ralph looked at her a bit helplessly. “What’s that?”

“Swallow your gum.”

Another chime rang through the crowded space. James looked around at the bobbing boats, the floating gangplanks, the throngs of busy Atlantean commuters on the terraces above, and grinned with nervous anticipation. Once again, the female voice rang out.

“All commuters destined for the surface and launch points beyond, your skiff is departing now. Please stand clear of the descending bubble, in three, two…” As one, the travelers looked up. High above, the bubble ceiling bulged downwards, pushed by a blast of warm, vaguely sulfur-scented air. The bubble expanded, broke away, and dropped onto them. James couldn’t help ducking and covering his head. A sudden burst of pressure popped his ears and he felt the boat drop away beneath him as the bubble distorted the surface of the water, turning it concave. And then, with a dull, gurgling roar, the bubble dropped into darkness, taking the boat, and all those aboard, down with it.

Green darkness surrounded the boat. James drew a breath to comment on it, but a sudden explosion of velocity forced the air right back out of his lungs. Inertia pushed him back into his seat like a giant, soft hand. The ship’s captain clung to the rudder lever as the bubble carried the craft 67

forward, sucked into a tube of rough, dark rock. The noise of the journey was a dull thunder, pushing on James’ ears like cotton batting. He turned to look at Albus and then Ralph, both of whom were staring with wide eyes, Albus in delight, Ralph with green-faced terror. In front of them, Petra had her arm around Izzy, who was looking around with undisguised wonder. To James’

complete amazement, the rest of the travelers (his family and Merlin excluded) were completely ignoring the dark view that rushed around them. Most of the Atlanteans had their noses buried in books and small scrolls or were busily tapping notes onto tablets with glimmering, enchanted chisels.

One of them, a man with a long grey beard and red leather sandals on his feet, was sprawled on a corner bench, dozing.

In the darkness far ahead of the boat, a glimmer of purple light appeared. It grew with shocking speed, and James craned in his seat to watch it flash past. The purple glow formed very angular words, which shone brightly in the darkness: ‘ PHEBES-DUOPHENES’. A glowing arrow pointed downwards, toward an enormous copper-framed valve, which snapped open as the ship passed it. In the darkness behind, another bubble ship shot into the open valve, which winked shut again with a barely audible clang.

While turned around in his seat, James saw that the job of the captain was not so much to steer the ship as it was to angle it up the sides of the bubble as it shot around curves, thereby conserving the monumental centrifugal forces and keeping the passengers more or less in their seats.

In the darkness it was hard to tell, but James had a sense that much of the time, the boat was sideways, or even upside-down, carried full circle around the circumference of the bubble as it rocketed through the curving vent tunnels. More copper-valved exits flashed past, listing off districts of the city.

There was one harrowing moment when another larger bubble ship appeared in the tunnel before them, moving much more slowly, and James was certain that their smaller boat was going to ram into it. The captain twitched the rudder lever deftly, however, and James felt their boat revolve swiftly up, changing their inertia just enough to push the bubble over the larger boat. For one bizarre moment, James and his companions found themselves upside-down, looking up on the larger boat as it passed beneath them. The captain of the larger boat tipped a quick salute to the captain in the smaller boat as it roared fleetingly overhead.

Finally, a much larger valve appeared in the dark distance, enclosing what appeared to be the end of the tunnel. The glowing purple letters over it read: ‘ SURFACE AND ALL POINTS

NORTH’ .

“Be prepared for sudden stops,” the captain bellowed in a clipped monotone. James gripped his seat and gritted his teeth.

The bubble ship shot through the valve and into blinding golden light. Instantly, the ship lost almost all of its momentum and dragged to a near halt. James felt the safety belt pinch his middle as inertia threw him forward. A second later, the force broke and he flopped backwards against the bench, his hair flying. He looked around dazedly.

Petra ran a hand through her hair and smiled down at Izzy, who clapped her hands in delight.

68

“That was excellent!” Albus cried.

Lucy smoothed her blouse and looked aside. “How are you doing, Ralph?” Ralph blinked. “You know,” he mused, “I think I was too startled to realize I should be sick.” James craned to look behind him again. The bubble ship was still underwater, moving up and away from the submerged city. Even now, the sprawling Aquapolis was growing faint in the shimmering distance. James understood now what the mysterious shapes were that he had seen earlier that morning, the mirrored bubbles that had moved ponderously back and forth between the city and the ocean’s surface. He and his fellow travelers were inside one of them now.

“I think I could live here,” he murmured, turning back around in his seat.

“Ugh, not me,” his cousin Molly replied from a few benches away, seated between Aunt Audrey and Uncle Percy. “Too cold and dark.”

“That’s what makes it so cool,” Albus argued. “It reminds me of the Slytherin dungeons under the lake.”

James felt a small pang at that, remembering once again that they had all left Hogwarts behind them for the year, but he pushed the feeling away. The experience of the bubble ship was too cool to ruin with depressing thoughts about what he might be missing back home. Besides, he reminded himself, Rose, Louis, Hugo, and all the rest were probably just now settling into one of Professor Binns’ long incomprehensible lectures or a dull study period in the library, under the strict supervision of Professor Knossus Shert. If they knew what James and his fellow travelers had just experienced, they would likely be sick with envy—even Scorpius, although he would probably hide it well. This made James grin.

He looked up as the bubble ship rose into daylight. The surface rippled overhead like a living mosaic, its facets casting the sunlight into wild, golden prisms. Finally, the ship heaved onto the waves, where it splashed down gently and bobbed, still glimmering in its long mysterious bubble.

The Gwyndemere stood some distance away, rocking on the waves, sunlight sparkling from its brass fixtures.

“Hup, hup, everyone,” Percy called, collecting his overnight bag and standing up. “Let us be off.” With his bag dangling from his hand, he extended one arm to Molly and the other to Lucy.

She sidled out of her seat and approached her father, threading her arm into the crook of his elbow.

“See you on board,” she called back. A moment later, there was a loud, flat crack in the enclosed air of the bubble, and the three had disappeared.

Ralph looked confused. “Why couldn’t we just Disapparate from the city, if that’s how we’re getting on board the boat?”

“Apparating through water is extremely tricky business, Mr. Deedle,” Merlin answered, beckoning him over. “Especially onto a moving ship. Besides, we would have missed that wonderful tube ride, wouldn’t we have?”

69

“Come on!” James grinned, unbuckling his safety belt and scrambling up off the bench.

“Last one on the Gwyndemere is a hinkypunk’s uncle!”

“It isn’t a race,” Ginny chided, standing and extending a hand to Lily.

“Speak for yourself,” Harry replied, stepping forward to meet his sons. “I’m not going to spend this voyage as a hinkypunk’s uncle.”

Both Albus and James grabbed one of their dad’s hands. A moment later, the bubble ship vanished around them and was replaced by the deck of the Gwyndemere, which glowed in the morning sunlight. Cool wind coursed over the ship, singing in James’ ears, and he immediately broke away from his father, laughing and running toward the bow.

“My feet were first to touch the deck,” Albus called from behind. “I jumped right before we Disapparated so I’d land here first. You lose!”

James ignored his brother as he neared the pointed prow of the ship, slowing to a stop, his eyes widening.

“Mum just got here with Lil,” Albus announced, catching up. “She says we’re supposed to take our bags down to the cabins and what in Merlin’s magic mousehole is that?”

“Haven’t the faintest,” James replied, approaching the strange shape. “It wasn’t here before, was it?”

Ralph, Izzy, and Lucy joined the boys as they moved around the object. It had apparently been installed on the deck since last night’s arrival and it was, essentially, a very ornate brass chair, elevated atop a series of five wrought iron steps. The chair was fitted onto a swiveling base and had a complicated brass armature attached to its front. James studied it but couldn’t begin to imagine what the armature was for.

“You’re the smart one, Lucy,” he said, scratching his head. “What do you think this thing is for?”

“Rose is the smart one,” Lucy admonished, mildly annoyed. “I just read a lot.” Ralph frowned crookedly. “What’s the difference, exactly?

Izzy widened her eyes solemnly. “Petra says smart is in the brain of the perceiver.”

“Whatever that means,” Ralph muttered.

“Yeah,” Albus insisted, reaching to touch the ornately crafted stairs, “but you’re good at seeing how stuff fits together, Lu. It’s a knack.”

“Looks to me,” Lucy sighed, walking around to the front of the strange fixture, “like something is missing. See that brass flange there on the end of the pivoting arm thing? Something is meant to fit into it.”

“See?” Albus crowed, running around to the front to join Lucy. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about!”

70

James heard the low voices of adults nearby. He turned and saw Merlin, Denniston Dolohov, and the Gwyndemere’s captain, Ash Farragut, approaching slowly.

“We haven’t any time to spare, unfortunately, captain,” Merlin was saying. “I am quite happy to leave matters in the hands of your very capable crew.”

Farragut nodded cynically. “All too capable, if you take my meaning.”

“Piracy isn’t what it used to be,” Merlin said, smiling. “In my day, one couldn’t ply the waves without expecting to be boarded by any number of competing piratical hoards. They were like swarms of bees on the high seas. Considering the preventative measures enacted by the Magical Maritime Regulatory Commission, I suspect we will manage just fine, whatever befalls us.”

“Their ships have been spotted on the horizon this very morning,” Farragut clarified, tilting his head in the sunlight.

“Then they will expect us to remain at port,” Harry Potter nodded, approaching with a grim smile on his face. “Surprise is almost always an advantage. Wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Dolohov?”

“Oh, I happily submit to your expertise in such matters,” Denniston replied dismissively.

“But I agree that we do indeed have a schedule to keep. Let us be off.” Farragut nodded approvingly. “Then let it be so. Gentlemen.” He strode away, angling toward the deckhouse.

James drifted toward Petra and Audrey, who stood near the mid-ship stairs. The pair seemed to be studying a small knot of people who had suddenly appeared on the ship. “Who are they?” James asked, nodding toward a group.

“Fellow sojourners,” Audrey replied, keeping her voice even. “Americans, I should think.” James peered at the newcomers. There was a group of them moving up the stairs, pushing past the others, meandering toward the bow and chattering like a flock of birds. Most of them were dressed in black, only slightly older than James, but the central figure seemed to be a woman with jet hair, a pale, angular face, and an expression of indulgent boredom. She wore a long black dress with a tightly laced bodice, a lot of silver jewelry, and heavy purple eye make-up, so that she looked, to James, rather like she had recently escaped from her own funeral.

“Pardon yourselves, students,” she sang morosely to her entourage as they streamed past James, Petra, and Audrey. “We are representing another culture. We do not wish to appear rude.” The students babbled on, not sparing the others a glance, and James had the distinct impression that the woman had spoken more for his, Petra, and Audrey’s benefits than that of her own charges.

Audrey spoke up, easily raising her voice over the chattering teenagers. “I take it by your accent and words that you are from the States, Miss?” she said, smiling pleasantly. “We are on our way there ourselves for a rather lengthy stay. Don’t raise our expectations overmuch, lest we be disappointed that the rest of the country is not as pleasant as you and your delightful associates.” 71

The woman slowed and faced Audrey, her expression unchanging. “Persephone Remora,” she announced languidly, stretching out a limp hand toward Audrey, who shook it perfunctorily.

“And please pardon me for saying so, but I was not referring to the United States. That country is only our current residence, not our home. We can hardly be expected to represent it any more than you might be expected to represent this ship. No offense meant. The fact is: I and my friends are returning from a summer’s exploration of our ancestral homeland. Perhaps you have heard of it,” she paused and narrowed her eyes slightly. “It is called Transylvania.”

“Indeed I have,” Audrey smiled. “Why just this spring my husband and I had quince soup with the Archduke of Brasov and his wife. Have you met them? Lovely couple. She makes her own tzuika, which is quite good.”

Remora seemed faintly disdainful. “You’ll excuse me for saying so, but we don’t recognize the current Transylvanian ruling class. Our heritage is beholden to a much older historical aristocracy.

I’m sure you haven’t heard of it. It’s rather a… secret society.” She sniffed and looked meaningfully out over the waves.

“Ah,” Audrey answered nonchalantly. “Well, I’m sure your secrets are best left uncovered.

Far be it for us to pry.”

Remora continued to stare out at the waves dramatically. After a moment, she seemed to realize that the pose wasn’t having the effect that she had apparently hoped for. She coughed lightly and turned back. “I’m terribly sorry,” she said faintly. “The sunlight does take its toll on… such as ourselves.”

“I have some Amberwycke’s sunblock here in my bag,” Petra replied, glancing at Audrey. “I’d be happy to share it around. It’s coconut-scented.”

“No,” Remora oozed, her shoulders slumping slightly. “Thank you ever so much. I should catch up with my friends. If you’ll excuse me.” She turned, began to walk away, and then looked back over her shoulder, making her eyes twinkle meaningfully. “It’s been… deliciously delightful to meet you,” she said in a low, breathy voice.

“Likewise,” Audrey said, smiling cheerfully. “We’ll see you this afternoon for tea, won’t we?”

“Are you sure you don’t want some sunblock?” Petra said, proferring the bottle. “You’re looking a little peaked around the eyes.”

Remora huffed and turned away, stalking toward the small throng that milled in front of the deckhouse.

“What was that all about?” James asked, frowning after the departing woman.

Audrey sighed. “Vampires,” she said lightly. “So haughty and melodramatic. Ah well, whatever makes them happy.”

James blinked, looking back at the black-clothed knot of people. Remora had rejoined them, and they moved around her like a school of pale, sneering fish. James frowned. “I didn’t think there were any vampires in America.’

72

Petra shook her head, smiling crookedly. In a low stage whisper, she answered, “There aren’t.”

“Let’s not be too hasty,” Audrey said, clucking her tongue. “The United States is, after all the great melting pot. I do suspect, however, that if there are vampires residing in America… they are not them.”

A man passed by in front of them, and James glanced up. He recognized the man as the ship’s first mate, a burly, cheerful bloke named Barstow. He was wearing a floppy grey hat and whistling happily to himself, heading toward the bow. Over his shoulder was slung a very long, thin pole, fitted with reinforcing brass sleeves. James narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, and then ran to follow.

“Hey Barstow,” Albus called, grinning, as the man approached. “When do we shove off, eh?” Barstow answered jovially, “Depends on how well the fish are biting this morning, don’t it?”

“If you say so,” Albus shrugged.

Izzy plopped onto the sunny deck and crossed her legs. “What do fish have to do with anything?”

“Oh, everything, love,” Barstow said gravely, adjusting his hat. “You just watch and see. You might say they’re the key to the whole affair.”

“I don’t like fish all that much,” Ralph admitted. “I think I had enough back down in the Aquapolis. I was hoping for something a little more… terrestrial.” Barstow smiled and climbed the wrought iron stairs to the brass chair. It turned slightly as he sat down on it. “This fishy ain’t for eating, my friend. You just wait and see.” Everyone watched as Barstow settled himself into the seat, resting his feet on a pair of fitted pedals and turning the chair so that it faced backwards, overlooking the rest of the ship. Apparently satisfied, he lifted the strange pole straight up into the air. It wavered high over the deck, flashing darts of sunlight from its brass fittings. Carefully, Barstow began to swing the pole in a small arc, as if he were using it to draw a circle in the briny sky. The circle widened as Barstow swung faster, creating larger and larger arcs.

“Look,” Izzy cried, pointing. “It’s a fishing pole! Just like Papa Warren used to use on the lake!”

James squinted in the sunlight, trying to follow the movement of the pole’s tip. Sure enough, a length of magical string spooled out behind it, pulling a very large ephemeral hook. Suddenly, Barstow heaved the pole back over his shoulder, stretching back so much that the hook swooped far behind him, past the prow of the Gwyndemere and out over the waves. Finally, in one swift, smooth motion, Barstow cast the pole forward, snapping the large ghostly hook through the air. It flashed past the masts, over the deckhouse and smokestack, and out over the stern, where it finally dipped into the waves. Barstow reached forward and fitted the handle of the fishing pole into the clasp that Lucy had mentioned earlier. It locked into place, making the pole an extension of the articulated brass arm. That done, Barstow relaxed, but only a little.

73

“What,” Ralph asked, his eyes wide, “do you catch with a hook like that?”

“There’s no bait on it!” Albus suddenly said, looking accusingly up at Barstow. “How do you plan to catch anything with no bait?”

“Oh, it’s baited, friends,” Barstow laughed, “but not with food. The hook’s made of a little magical concoction I’ve been working on over the last decade or so. It’s not an easy thing, conjuring sea serpent pheromone, believe you me.”

Ralph paled a little and peered out at the choppy waves. “Sea serpent?” he repeated carefully.

“Pheromone?” James added, standing on tiptoes to see over the stern of the boat. “What’s that?”

Lucy seemed to be stifling a grin. “It’s sort of like a love potion. For fish.”

“For a sea serpent,” Ralph clarified. “I’m just trying to be sure I heard him right. That’s what he said, isn’t it?”

A loud twang suddenly pierced the air. Barstow heaved backwards on the pole and its articulated arm, and James saw the magical thread trembling tautly over the boat.

“There she is!” Barstow cried happily. “Landed a big one! That’s Henrietta, I’ll wager! She’s the best of the fleet! Hold fast, everyone!”

James, Albus, Izzy, and Lucy scrambled to the ship’s railing, craning down the length of the boat for a glimpse of the mysterious Henrietta. In the brass chair, Barstow grunted and cursed to himself, wrestling with the pole, which bent precipitously. “Come on over, sweetheart,” he muttered through gritted teeth. “Right this way, that’s it. You know the routine…” James finally saw the point where the magical fishing line entered the water. A shape heaved beneath, pushing the waves into a sudden, boiling hill. A line of serrated fins broke the surface and sawed through it, angling toward the Gwyndemere.

“That can’t be good,” Ralph said in a high voice.

James swallowed, but Barstow seemed grimly pleased.

“That’s my great big girl,” he teased. “Come to papa, then. Just a little further, that’s the way…”

A monstrous, serpentine shape became visible as it shot beneath the boat, dragging the magical fishing line with it. Barstow whooped happily and swung around as the chair swiveled beneath him, pulled by the massive shape beneath the waves.

“She’s through the harness,” he cried, bracing himself against the chair’s foot pedals. “Hang on tight, everyone!”

“I really wish people would stop saying that,” Ralph moaned, gripping the railing with both hands.

74

As if on cue, a horrible shudder shook the boat, jerking it forward in the water. James stumbled but remained upright, clinging staunchly to one of the ship’s bollards. Lucy fell backwards against him and James caught her. Her black hair streamed into his face, tickling his cheeks.

“Sorry James,” she called, glancing back at him over her shoulder and grinning sheepishly. “I thought I was ready for it.”

James laughed. “I don’t think anybody was ready for that.”

“We’re off!” Albus cried, running toward the prow and peering forward. “Excellent! She’s pulling us! And look how fast we’re going!”

“She can maintain forty knots,” Barstow called down proudly, operating the screws that locked the brass armature in place. “With bursts of ninety if required. She’s the fastest of all her sisters, if you ask me.”

“Is she really a sea serpent?” Izzy asked, raising her hand to her forehead and studying the waves that roared under the ship’s prow. “I can’t see anything but a sort of froth up there by her head. That’s her head, right?”

“It’s her cranial fin,” Barstow nodded. “And that there’s Henrietta, the great Atlantean razorback. Biggest and longest of the sea beasts. Good thing she’s on our side, eh? Back in the old days, creatures like her were real ship-eaters. Now, there’s only a few left in the whole world. Worth more than her own weight in Galleons, she is.”

“How do you steer her?” Albus asked, glancing back at the pole. “And how’s that little bit of wood hold her?”

Barstow laughed. “That’s just the lead,” he explained, calling over the rushing wind. “We use it like reins on a horse, turning her this way and that. The real muscle is underneath the boat.

She’s attached to us by an iron harness and a length of anchor chain. That’s what I was teasing her through, and that’s the only tricky part. From here on out, it’s smooth sailing.” In a concerned voice, Izzy asked, “Doesn’t Henrietta ever get tired?”

“She ain’t like us, love,” Barstow replied, squinting toward the horizon. “She could take us the whole way and back with barely a breath. But we’ll stop and feed her once or twice along the way, give her the breathers she deserves. After all, she’s the queen of the voyage, isn’t she?” He smiled lovingly at the great beast as it carved the waves.

“What about the big gorilla?” Ralph asked. “Doesn’t he get bored?”

“See for yourself!” Barstow called down, hooking a thumb over his shoulder.

James, Lucy, and Ralph turned to look back. The bow’s huge cargo doors were thrown open in the sunlight. Peering up out of them, resting his chin on his crossed arms, was the great ape. His black fur rippled in the wind and he blinked slowly, apparently enjoying the sense of speed and the rushing air.

75

“He’ll be like that the whole rest of the trip,” Barstow commented without looking back.

“Nothing we can do about it. The great brute’s happy to let somebody else do the work from here on out. He’s like a dog in a carriage window, isn’t he?”

The

Gwyndemere was only half an hour into her long journey when a whistle pierced the air high overhead. James, who was still on the prow with Ralph and Lucy, glanced up. The mate in the crow’s nest had his spyglass to his eye again, extended to such an extent that it almost seemed to defy gravity. “Ship spotted at two o’ the clock!” he bellowed, pointing.

“Ah, this doesn’t bode well,” Barstow announced.

Lucy squinted up at Barstow. To James and Ralph, she said, “I can’t help but notice that he’s smiling when he says that.”

“It’s just that weird seafaring sense of humor,” Ralph replied. “Like jolly songs about all your dead mates and zombie pirates and the like. They seem to have a sort of skewed perspective on life, don’t they?”

High above, his voice thin in the whipping winds, the mate in the crow’s nest called again.

“Ship is a triple-mast clipper, bearing the sigil of the Three-Eyed Isis.” Barstow whistled appreciatively between his teeth. “The Three-Eyed Isis. That’s bad, that is.

Best to get below-decks, my young friends. This could get fierce.”

“What’s

a

Three-Eyed Isis?” James asked, leaning on the railing and shielding his eyes from the sun. Sure enough, a dark shape bobbed on the horizon, apparently tracking the Gwyndemere.

“That’s the ship of the pirate Hannibal Farson, Terror of the Seven Seas. Looks like we’re in for a wee tussle.”

“Hannibal Farson isn’t the Terror of the Seven Seas,” the crow’s nest mate called down, still scanning the horizon with his spyglass. “You’re thinking of Captain Dirk Dread. That’s Farson the Fearsome, Fright of the Atlantic.”

Barstow nodded. “Ah, right you are, Brinks! No argument there. Hard to keep ’em all straight, isn’t it?”

76

“If yeh’re talking real terrors,” a third voice called out, carrying on the wind, “then it’s Rebekah Redboots yeh’re thinkin’ of. As beastly as she is lovely. Just as quick to kill yeh as to look at yeh, but you’d die happy, havin’ gazed upon ‘er deadly beauty.”

Barstow and Brinks murmured their wistful agreement.

“Is that a ship over there?” Petra asked, approaching James and peering at the horizon.

“Pirates, apparently,” James nodded. “Only it sounds like it’s going to be a bit of a reunion, really.”

Lucy looked from the distant ship to Barstow where he sat on his high brass chair. She called up, “What are they after anyway?”

“Oh, lots of stuff, love,” Barstow answered enthusiastically. “Passenger jewels and money, the captain’s safe, valuable cargo that they can resell on the wizarding black market…”

“And don’t forget the women,” Brinks added loudly. “They’ll be after the women, for sure.”

“But don’t you worry, my pretties,” Barstow said soothingly. “They’ll treat you with the greatest of respect and decorum. It’s the pirate way, you know, all dashing and debonair.

Oftentimes, the women caught by pirates don’t even want to be rescued, when it comes right down to it. Why, I knew of whole ships full of available ladies what set sail just in the hopes of being caught up by a band of the watery rogues.” He sighed deeply.

“Unless it be Rebekah Redboots,” the third mate’s voice speculated. “Then they’d be after the men-folk, likely.”

“Aye…,” Brinks and Barstow agreed soberly. After a long thoughtful moment, Barstow went on. “Most likely, though, they’re after Henrietta. Like I said, she’s worth her weight in Galleons.

Sea serpents are terrible hard to come by anymore, and every pirate captain out there is dead jealous to get one. Makes ’em unbeatable, even by the coppers from the Magical Maritimers’.” At that moment, Albus ran up, his hair whipping wildly in the wind. “Hey everybody, Uncle Percy says we need to all get below-decks, captain’s orders! There might be a ‘skirmish’, he says!”

“Cool,” James grinned, matching his brother’s obvious excitement. “Are you really going to go down and miss all the fun?”

“Normally no,” Albus admitted, “but Mum knows how we are. She’s asked Captain Farragut if we can watch everything from the big windows in his quarters. Best view on the whole ship, he says, and there’ll be biscuits and tea!”

“Your mum really knows how to handle a bribe,” Petra said appreciatively. “Better hurry on down. And get Izzy, if you would. She’s in our cabin, drawing pictures.” James glanced at Petra, and then turned to the others. “Go on,” he said. “I’ll catch up in a minute.”

“Mum will leather you with a hex if you stay up here,” Albus said, tilting his head knowledgeably. “But feel free. More biscuits for me. Come on, Lu. Where’s Ralph?” 77

“He headed below-decks the moment you mentioned a skirmish,” Lucy answered, nodding toward the stairs. She turned back to James. “You want me to wait with you?”

“No, go ahead, Lu. I just want to watch a minute. I’ll be right there.” Lucy gazed at him for a long moment, her expression unreadable. “All right. See you in the captain’s quarters. You too, Petra?”

“Sure,” the older girl answered. “And thanks for gathering Izzy. Tell her to bring her crayons and parchments if she wants. Once she gets drawing, it can be hard to get her to stop.” Lucy nodded and turned to follow Albus.

“She’s closing in on us,” Brinks called, watching the horizon with his spyglass. “Matching our speed and angling to meet us dead on.”

“That I can see, mate,” Barstow answered amiably, gripping the pole before him. “But she won’t match us for long! Let’s open things up a bit.”

James felt the subtle lift of the boat beneath him as Henrietta picked up speed. Waves clapped beneath the prow and exploded into sparkling mist, which flashed past the boat with dizzying speed. The Three-Eyed Isis began to fall past, but only very slowly. The pirate’s ship was near enough now that James could see men moving around on the decks. The image on the mainsail was visible: a fanged skull with three gaping eyes. As James watched, the eyes narrowed and the skull chomped, as if it meant to swallow the Gwyndemere up.

“Did you read the dream story yet?” Petra asked, not taking her eyes from the rushing pirate ship.

“No, not yet,” James admitted. “I haven’t had much of a chance. Tonight, I think.” She nodded slowly. “I appreciate it. Talk to me after you do. All right?” James glanced aside at her. “Sure. Why wouldn’t I?”

She shrugged. “You might not want to.”

James shook his head. “I’ll want to. I promise.”