"What do you want?" James demanded furiously.
The Collector sighed dramatically. As he did, he transformed yet again, shifting back to the shape of Avior Dorchascathan with a subtle crackle of bone and tendon. "This is also a question I have already answered, James," he said. "In my office, weeks ago. History repeats itself, only this time we must get the details right. Like your father and Albus Dumbledore, you must join me rather than oppose me. We must be partners, you and I, and by your own willing decision. If you do so, I shall see that your sister and parents are moved to safety. It's all quite simple, really."
James shook his head helplessly. "That's crazy! How am I supposed to join you? How could I?"
"We shall come to that," Avior smiled thinly. "For now, simply answer the question: do you mean to partner with me? Will you, James, join me, as your father joined Albus Dumbledore?"
"Fine!" James exclaimed. "Anything! Just get my sister and our parents away from the Great Hall!"
"In a moment, in a moment," Avior nodded. "But first, I'm afraid, the details of our partnership…" He drew a deep sigh and peered at James speculatively. "You are not my first partner, James. I have another, a fetching yet powerful woman. It was she that introduced Ms. Hendricks to me, who recognized the potential of our alliance. You know this partner of whom I speak, do you not, James?"
James' mind was such a blur of fear and worry that for a long moment he had no idea what Avior was talking about. Then, with a shock, the truth clicked into place. "You mean…" he said, not quite daring to say it aloud. Would Avior laugh at him? Mock him? Doubt him as had so many others? He steeled himself and went on, "You're other partner… is Judith. The Lady of the Lake."
Avior nodded slowly, meaningfully. "I am jealous of you, James," he said, almost playfully. "You've known her rather longer than I. You two have a history. Don't attempt to deny it."
Rose turned to James as Avior spoke, her eyes wide, but not exactly shocked. He knew what she was thinking: she could no longer afford the luxury-- the comfort-- of doubt. The Lady of the Lake was real. Avior knew her. She was his partner.
Ralph sidled closer to James. "Blimey," he said under his breath, "you were right."
Avior went on. "It is the history that you and she share that I mean to speak of, James," he said, a bit too casually to hide the intensity of his interest. "For it shall form the foundation of the partnership between you and I." As Avior spoke, he changed again, more gradually this time, transforming back into Rechtor Grudje. He turned, pacing slowly along the line of vanishing cabinets. "There is something that I want, Mr. Potter. Something you have heard of, no doubt. It is a great tool. Even greater than the Morrigan Web itself. I have come to understand that whoever possesses it possesses the very fabric of destiny. With it, they can step outside the capricious and nonsensical restrictions of fate. Rather, they can make fate their slave, bending it to their every whim. You know the tool of which I speak, James. My other partner, Judith, whom you call the Lady of the Lake, assures me of this. In fact, she tells me that you are, quite simply, the key to it. You, my young friend," Grudje said, turning to face James squarely, piercing him with his cold, grey eyes, "You… are the key to the Crimson Thread."
James returned Grudje's stare, his mouth suddenly as dry as cotton, completely dumbfounded.
"And thus," Grudje went on, approaching James slowly, measuring him, "I present to you the nature of our partnership. I desire the Crimson Thread. I have already told you that it is nearly in our grasp. I am assured that you are the key to it. It is in your very hand. All you must do to save the lives of your sister and parents… is give it to me."
James could not speak. More than anything, he wanted to save his sister, his dad, his uncle Ron and aunt Hermione… but he had no idea what the crazily transforming figure was talking about. Why would he think that James was the key to the Crimson Thread? Why would he say that it was in his, James', hand? Helplessly, James glanced down, opening his hands. They were empty, of course.
"She lied to you," he said faintly, not looking up from his open hands.
"Speak up, Mr. Potter," Grudje said warningly. "And take care: the lives of your family depend on your next words."
James shook his head, wishing he had something else to offer, wishing that Judith hadn't been so horribly cruel. He raised his eyes to Grudje. "She lied to you," he said, angry tears prickling the corners of his eyes. "Judith is the one who told you I was the key to the Crimson Thread. But she lied. It's a trick. A horrible, mean trick. On both of us."
"Mr. Potter," the dark figure said, transforming once again into the Collector, "Are you telling me that you refuse to give me the Crimson Thread?"
"I'm telling you," James said, raising his voice, "That I don't have it to give…" He glanced aside at Ralph. "Last time we saw the Crimson Thread it was in the World Between the Worlds. Only what we saw wasn't really the Crimson Thread at all. It was just a symbol. The real Crimson Thread was a girl. Her name was Morgan. She's dead now. Judith killed her. That's what she does," James returned his gaze to the dark figure before him, his eyes blazing. "Judith kills. She killed Morgan. She killed my cousin Lucy. She'll kill us if she gets the chance. And then, when she's done," James laughed harshly, "why, she'll come and kill you."
The Collector's face hardened at this. All the mean glee leaked out of it, leaving only hard-eyed viciousness. He straightened.
"So be it," he said coldly, almost petulantly. "If you do not wish to play my game, Mr. Potter, then I am afraid I have no use for you at all. Ms. Hendricks," he looked past James, addressing Nastasia. "Kill them."
James couldn't quite believe his ears. Could it be this sudden? This anticlimactic? Were he, Ralph and Rose about to be killed by a girl their own age, a traitor with pink hair and a nose ring?
He turned, but Nastasia was no longer behind him. She was moving around them to join the Collector, her eyes firm as she glared at James, her wand still raised.
The Collector stood back to allow her room. "This is the first time you've killed, is it not, Ms. Hendricks?"
Nastasia nodded, not hesitantly, but eagerly. "I've practiced plenty. On the target dummies back at Alma Aleron. But this is the first time for real."
"For real is the only time that counts," the dark figure said wisely, his bones crackling slightly as he transformed back into Professor Avior. "I know that you have feelings for James. This could make killing him somewhat difficult for you. Practice on the other two first. Begin with Ms. Weasley."
"Wait!" James cried, trying to push Rose behind him, but she shoved him away.
"Don't be stupid, James!" she hissed. "You're very noble and all, but it's pointless."
Suddenly, Ralph lunged forward, rushing Nastasia where she stood and inexplicably jamming his hand into his robes. Nastasia leapt backwards, pivoting her wand wildly.
"Avada…!" she shouted, but Ralph was too fast. He bowled into her, driving her backwards into the Alma Aleron cabinet. Their combined weight knocked the cabinet off balance. It teetered and crashed to the floor with Ralph and Nastasia atop it. James threw himself forward to help his friend, but a blast of red blinded him, emanating from the struggling pair. Ralph flew backwards, repulsed by the blast, and bashed against the Durmstrang cabinet, knocking it over as well.
"Stay!" Nastasia shouted furiously, struggling upright and pointing her wand at James. James skidded to a halt while Avior laughed wheezily.
"Excellent, Ms. Hendricks," he said encouragingly. "One must be ready for anything, including physical attack. Very spirited response, if a bit clumsy. You will learn refinement."
Rose joined James, trembling with rage and fear. "Did you kill him?" she demanded, her voice glassy.
"Not yet," Nastasia admitted, her breath coming in harsh pants, her pink hair wild over her flushed brow. "You heard the Professor. I'm to kill you first."
On the floor, Ralph moaned.
"Do it, Ms. Hendricks," Rechtor Grudje instructed. "He comes around. Let
us waste no more time with brute confrontation."
Nastasia nodded. She levelled her wand at Rose and took a step closer, breathing hard through her nose.
"Avada…"
James pushed himself in front of Rose again, but she only shoved him back once more. "Stop it, you git!" she rasped angrily, hopelessly. "You think I want to watch you die in front of me?" She grabbed his hands, refusing to look at Nastasia. Instead, she squeezed her eyes tight shut.
James waited breathlessly. Five seconds passed. There was no flash of deadly green.
He looked aside, still grasping his cousin's hands.
Nastasia stood exactly as before, wand extended, panting hard through her nose. "Avada…!" she said again, more loudly.
"Do it!" Grudje commanded.
Nastasia opened her mouth to finish the killing curse. What came out, however, was her own name: "Nastasia!" she shouted.
James blinked at her in confusion. Avada Nastasia? Rose opened her eyes, glancing aside at the pinkhaired girl. Nastasia's wand trembled in her hand.
"Nastasia!" she called again, apparently involuntarily. Her eyes seemed to lose focus, to drift, almost to look in two different directions. "Nasti-ashya!" she shouted. Then, more emphatically, "Nasti! Ashya!" James had the eerie, haunting feeling that Nastasia was arguing with herself.
"Nasti!" she cried, the wand gradually lowering in her hand. "Ashya!"
"NASTI!"
"ASHYA!"
Grudje strode forward impatiently. He reached to wrench Nastasia's wand out of her hand, to do the horrible deed himself, but she flicked her wand, barely even pointing it at him and without so much as a sidelong glance. The old man was thrown backwards amidst another flash of red light. He tumbled over Ralph and collapsed to the floor between the fallen cabinets. With a sudden, spasmodic movement, Nastasia gripped her wand in both fists, twisted it, and snapped it in half.
"What's she doing?" Rose begged in a shrill voice, unable to take her eyes from the chanting, shouting girl in front of her.
"She's losing control of herself," James said weakly.
As if to emphasize his words, Nastasia's face began to transform. It happened with surprising, horrible speed. Her pink hair shrank away while her pupils grew, expanding to fill her eyes completely, turning them into inky black orbs. Her cheeks and nose flattened while her mouth grew wide, spreading all the way to her quickly vanishing ears. And still the mouth spoke, chanting her dual names, turning raspy and hoarse. Her tongue flicked out, long and red. Nastasia's entire body grew thinner. Her arms sucked up into her sleeves. Her legs snapped together beneath her skirt, melding into one, sinewy appendage.
It was horrible to watch, but James was not entirely surprised. He knew this was what happened to Nastasia when she went to war with herself.
And that was why what happened next was so completely and utterly shocking.
"Nasty!" the snake's mouth hissed. "ASHYA!" And then, with a wet crackle of bone and a horrible, violent jerk, the head split in half.
Rose screamed, shrinking against James, still holding his hands in a death grip. James could not tear his eyes from the sight. As Nastasia's body continued to narrow, to slither hypnotically inside her clothes, two snake heads split from her collar, each one hissing its name, fighting for dominance over the other. Two tails coiled on the stone floor, thrashing and curling.
James jumped back as the Nastasia-thing fell forward, losing its ability to stand upright. Out of her limp clothing slithered two snakes, each the size of a giant python, one black and oily, the other bright pink with glinting, sharp scales. Both snakes hissed at each other viciously, rising atop their coils and baring horrible, glistening fangs. Then, in an explosion of lithe violence, they fell to battle. The snakes curled and thrashed around each other, forming a blur of whipping coils and snapping jaws, each still hissing its name in a battle for dominance.
Ralph stumbled around the melee, his forehead bleeding from his collision with the Durmstrang cabinet. "What the ruddy hell!?" he cried breathlessly, grabbing James' arm.
"We have to get out of here!" James declared, pulling Ralph and Rose back from the battling snakes. "To the Great Hall while we still have a chance!"
"Oh, I think not!" a rough voice cried madly. A hand gripped James' shoulder, clutching like iron. Another fell on Ralph, fisting in his robes and yanking him off balance. Stumbling, fighting against the ironlike hands, James was dragged around the thrashing snakes, away from the classroom door.
"You really are simply a constant source of trouble," the Collector growled through gritted teeth, hefting James and Ralph toward the Beauxbatons cabinet. Rose followed, beating uselessly at him with her fists. "Fortunately," he went on, seething through a sick grin, "I pride myself in my resourcefulness!"
He shoved James into the vanishing cabinet, bashing him against its rear wall. Ralph was thrown in after him, followed by Rose, who fought and thrashed furiously against the Collector's unnatural strength.
"I will grant you this," the Collector gasped, his eyes dancing with mad rage, "You are intrepid, and you are far luckier than any mere rabble-rousers should ever expect to be!" Behind him, the black and pink snakes wrestled on, thumping wildly, their ten foot bodies twined in vicious struggle. "But I daresay none of that will help you cover a thousand miles in the next thirty minutes! Au Revoir, my troublesome young friends!" He cackled shrilly.
James struggled to jump out of the cabinet, along with Ralph and Rose, but the door slammed upon them, closing them in seamless darkness.
"No!" James shouted, but it was no use. A flash of light filled the compartment, accompanied by a sickening lurch, like a lift suddenly dropping in its shaft. A moment later, gravity reasserted itself, propelling the three students out of the cabinet, tumbling them onto a cold, marble floor.
James clambered around, aware that he was in an entirely new space, echoing and flooded with golden light. People were milling around, chattering, but James barely registered them. He looked up at the cabinet he had just fallen out of. Its doors creaked slowly shut as he watched, revealing a woodcut of the Hogwarts crest, split so that half adorned each door.
He jumped up, threw himself into the cabinet again, and without waiting for Ralph and Rose, jerked the doors shut.
There was no flash, no sickening jolt. The doors merely creaked open again slightly, letting in the curious gaze of a collection of blue-robed girls. Ralph and Rose clambered to their feet in front of them. Rose opened the doors fully, her face tense and pale.
"Broken," James announced helplessly. "Or destroyed on the other side. He shut it down somehow. Closed off our only way back."
Rose's mouth opened soundlessly, dumb with shock. Next to her, Ralph's face was a mask of frustrated anger. Blood still trickled freely down his forehead and cheek. French voices babbled all around and James finally recognized where they were: Beauxbatons, of course, in the gilded and richly vaulted atrium at the centre of the school. Broad white staircases leapt up in twin curves on either side, lined with brassframed windows.
"What are you lot doing here?" a voice-- thankfully not speaking French-- called out.
Ralph and Rose turned, looking back as a figure approached. James did not think it was possible, but his spirits dropped even further at the sight. Morton Comstock strode toward them, his head cocked and a sardonic smile cinching the corner of his mouth. "Don't tell me you actually came to help get Professor Moreau safely back home after all this time. If so, you only missed it by about three hours. His welcome home party was quite an event. Nobody celebrates like the French, eh?"
James shook his head, unwilling even to formulate a response to Comstock's irritating prattle. Wearily, helplessly, he stepped out of the useless cabinet.
"We have to get back," he said. "If we don't…"
"Everyone dies," Ralph nodded darkly. "But how? Like that madman said, it's impossible! A thousand miles in thirty minutes!"
"Wait a minute…" Rose suddenly said, her eyes sharpenin
g. She glanced back at Comstock. "Where, exactly, did this professor Moreau just get back from?"
Comstock scoffed and adjusted his glasses. "You mean where didn't he just get back from," he chortled. "You lot just don't get Advanced Arithmatics at all, do you?"
Dismissing Comstock, Rose turned back to James and Ralph, her eyes bright with intent. "I think," she said, raising a hand to point at the Muggle boy, "we just might be able to travel that thousand miles after all…"
23. COLLECTIVE CONSTANT
"It isn't like a cab, you know," Comstock said, straightening his glasses as Rose hurried him along. "You can't just hop across countries neat as you please. It's complicated!"
"That's why you're along," James said, turning left at a tall, marble archway and hurrying between a pair of impeccable suits of armour. Sky-blue vaulted ceilings, decorated with winking golden stars, spread away for what seemed miles. Beneath them, dressed in normal clothes with only a few robes in sight, were a scattering of Beauxbatons students, some levitating trunks, others lounging in alcoves on collections of baroque chairs and sofas, all looking up curiously as James, Rose, Ralph and Comstock sped past.
"Who are these, Morton?" a tall girl in jeans and a Rig Mortis tee shirt called curiously.
"Hi Adela," Comstock called back as Rose hurried him on. "Friends, er, I guess."
"Moorr-ton!" a trio of younger girls walking in the opposite direction sang, giggling. The gingerhaired one in the middle waved. "Pas si tôt! Change your mind about the dancing lessons?"
James Potter and the Morrigan Web Page 72
