JAMES POTTER AND THE VAULT OF DESTINIES jp-1

by G. Norman Lippert

  James felt a stirring of jealousy. He knew it was utterly stupid, but that didn’t make the feeling go away. “What else is he teaching you?”

  Petra smiled crookedly at him, as if she was reluctant to admit it. “Well, he’s teaching me French.”

  “French?” James blinked, surprised. “You mean, like, the language?”

  “Of course, silly!” Petra laughed. “It’s his native tongue. I’ve always wanted to learn it myself. It’s a beautiful language and… I don’t know. I just always thought it would be neat to learn. Like it might come in handy some day. Didn’t you ever think it might be useful to know another language?”

  “Er, yeah, sure,” James lied, looking away and running a hand through his hair.

  Petra sighed and hefted the book that she’d been carrying under her arm. “He has me reading this. It’s in French, but since I’m already familiar with most of the stories, it makes it a lot easier to understand. He says it’s the way he learned English, back when he was just a lad himself.”

  “What is it?” James asked, glancing down at the huge leather-bound book.

  “It’s a Bible,” Petra replied, lowering her voice. “Les Saintes Écritures. When I was very young, my grandmother would read to me from her big family Bible. I remember those stories even better than I do the bedtime stories my Grandfather Warren told me at night. In some ways, Grandmother’s stories were even more magical. Jonah and the whale, Daniel in the lion’s den, even Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Or jardin d’Éden, as it’s called in French.”

  James nodded. “My Aunt Fleur speaks French,” he said, not knowing what else to say. “And so does my Uncle Bill now. He sort of had to learn, like, so he could understand what Fleur and Victoire were saying behind his back.”

  Petra put the big book under her arm again as they passed in front of the Archive. James glanced aside and saw that there were still a few guards, older Werewolf students in raincoats and tricorner hats, posted around the entryway. They’d been there ever since the attack on the Vault of Destinies, although James couldn’t imagine what they were protecting, considering what had already been done. The Archive custodian, Mr. Henredon, was rumored to have been moved into a secret wing of the campus medical school, where he was ostensibly still frozen solid despite the Healers’ best efforts. James glanced back at Petra, curious to know what she thought of the Archive’s guards, but she wasn’t looking at them. After a moment, in a very low voice, James asked, “Petra, are you still having dreams?”

  Petra blinked and looked aside at him. Thoughtfully, she replied, “I’m having different dreams now.”

  James frowned. “Not the dream you wrote about?”

  “No,” she said simply.

  James walked on for a long moment. Up ahead, Professor Baruti seemed to be leading the class around the ruin of Roberts’ mansion, toward the Warping Willow at the far end of the campus. James looked aside at Petra again. “Is there a castle in your dream?” he asked, his voice nearly a whisper. “A big black castle? Sticking out over a cliff?”

  Petra looked at James sharply, her brow lowering. “How would you know that?”

  James shook his head, not knowing how to answer. “I… think I saw… part of it. By accident. When I touched your dream story.” He stopped and collected his thoughts for a moment before going on. “I think that we’re still… connected, somehow. Remember the silver thread that appeared when you fell over the back of the Gwyndemere?”

  Petra’s eyes narrowed. “Yes,” she answered in a low voice.

  James gulped. “Well, I think it’s still there, just invisible. I don’t know where it came from, or why it happened, but it’s… powerful. It’s like I tapped into something bigger than myself, somehow, but I don’t know what. And now… it won’t go away.”

  “I feel it,” she whispered, unsmiling. “But I didn’t know you could too.”

  “I didn’t,” he replied. “At least not until I brushed your dream story in the bottom of my duffle bag. It was just a glimpse, but I saw something like a giant, ugly castle, all black and sharp. It was sitting on a sort of cliff, sticking right out over the edge, almost like it was holding the cliff up, and not the other way around. I could only get a sense of it all because it was so strong… so, sort of, heavy. Is that what’s in your dream?”

  Petra was still studying James as she walked, her eyes narrowed. Finally, she drew a long, deep breath. “It’s just a dream,” she answered, returning her gaze to the students marching along ahead of her. “It’s not like it was before. Not like what I wrote. Headmaster Merlin told me to chase it down, and that’s what I did. I don’t have the dream about that night on the lake anymore, the one where Izzy died. I haven’t had that dream since the attack on the Archive, in fact. It’s like something broke the spell, or changed it. This dream… I can handle.”

  James watched Petra as she spoke. Her voice was calm, but there was something under her words, something watchful and secretive.

  “Petra?” he asked in a near whisper. “Was it you that night? When the Vault of Destinies was attacked? Were you… maybe… sleepwalking?”

  “I was in my room that whole night,” she answered blandly. “Izzy was with me. We were sleeping. Just like I told Merlin.”

  “But…” James stopped and shook his head. “I could’ve sworn it was you. You looked at me. And there was another woman… someone I think I recognized from the train…”

  Petra’s voice was oddly flat. “It was dark, James. Your eyes were probably playing tricks on you.”

  “Maybe,” James agreed faintly. “But… who do you think it was, then? You think it really was those W.U.L.F. nutters?”

  Petra raised her eyebrows slightly, and then glanced aside at him, a wry smile on the corner of her mouth. Ignoring his question, she said, “Do you know that this book tells the story of the beginning of the magical world?” She hefted the black tome in her hands again.

  James looked down at the black leather Bible. “It does?”

  “It does. It says that when God first created people, heavenly beings came down to the earth and fell in love with human women. They took them as their wives, and when they bore children, they were different from other babies. Some grew up to be giants. Others had special powers. They were called the Nephilim. That’s where we all began.” She tapped the big book.

  “Wow,” James commented. “I never heard that story.”

  “It’s all right here, in the book of Genèse, plain as day. But you know what else is in Genesis? The story of the jardin d’Éden. Do you know the story of Adam and Eve, James?” She peered sideways at him.

  “Sort of,” he answered. “They were the first people God made, right?”

  She nodded. “God made them and put them in a perfect garden. They had everything they needed, and there was only one rule. They weren’t supposed to eat from one very special tree.”

  “I remember,” James said, recalling the times when his own Grandmother Weasley had told him Bible stories as a child. “The Tree of Knowledge. Right?”

  “That’s right,” Petra replied quietly. “The Tree of Knowledge.” She was silent for a long moment, considering.

  “But,” James prodded, “they didn’t listen, if I remember.”

  “No,” Petra agreed, her voice still soft, distant. “They didn’t. Eve ate the fruit, and then she gave it to Adam. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. There was only one thing they weren’t supposed to do, and she did it anyway. She did it for both of them, and nothing’s been the same ever since.”

  James felt a coldness settle over him. He watched Petra, waiting for her to go on. When she didn’t, he asked, “So… why do you think Eve did it?”

  Petra sighed again and looked up at the grey sky, past the glimmering rainbows that continued to shift overhead. “She did it because she believed in her heart that it was the right choice. Not only for her, but for everyone else. That’s why she ate the fruit, and why she gave it to her husband,
and all the rest of us throughout the generations that followed. She wasn’t evil. She was just… misinformed. She was doing what she felt was best.”

  James shook his head. “So what does all that mean to us?”

  Petra tucked the book back under her arm again and touched him on the shoulder. “It means that we can’t just rely on what we feel, James. We can’t always trust our hearts. Sometimes, as hard as it is to accept… the heart is a liar.”

  James was about to ask Petra what this had to do with the dream she was having, the one he had gotten a harrowing peek into when he’d accidentally touched her dream story, but at that moment, Professor Baruti’s voice called out through the rain, interrupting his thoughts.

  “Everyone gather under the Tree,” he said, gesturing toward the Warping Willow. “Huddle in close, under the branches. Pretend you are one big happy family, going on a little vacation. That’s the way.”

  “Where are we going, Professor?” Norrick asked, cramming in behind Emily Worrel. “Don’t we need permission slips for this kind of thing?”

  “Not far, not far,” Baruti replied, ducking beneath the branches himself. “School policy states that parental permission must be acquired for travel of more than twenty miles. We, however, will barely leave the campus. Wait and see, wait and see.”

  James pressed in under the shadow of the Tree, moving alongside Ralph and Zane. When he turned around, he found himself face to face with Petra. This close to, he noticed that they were nearly eyelevel in height. She smiled at him, brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face, and then turned to look out over the campus.

  Still humming, Professor Baruti shouldered his way toward the Warping Willow’s large gnarled trunk. There, he produced a small piece of parchment and a quill from his robes. Squinting, he peered up at the sky, checked the position of the sun, and then scribbled something on the parchment. Finally, he held up the parchment between his thumb and forefinger and, in a lilting, singsong voice, said, “Warping Willow, wing us hence, day or year or none or all, wend us from this present tense, we who are ephemeral.” When he was finished, Baruti turned and, almost casually, flicked the small parchment into a hole in the Willow’s trunk.

  Just as it had upon James’ arrival, the Tree began to shift subtly overhead, as if some otherworldly breeze was pushing through it. The whip-like branches whispered and the lighting began to change in the sky overhead.

  “Look,” Zane rasped suddenly, pointing past Ralph’s shoulder. “The rain! It’s falling up!”

  In front of James, Petra gasped, and then laughed with delight. Sure enough, all over the grey-lit campus, drops of rain seemed to jump up from the ground, leaping into the sky as if to rejoin the clouds. Overhead, the Tree whispered and stirred, and the backward rain grew faster, turning into a blur. Within seconds, James sensed the motion of the clouds, and then that of the sun beyond the clouds as it dipped back toward dawn. Darkness swept over the campus as time began to march backwards outside the canopy of the Tree.

  “I never get tired of this,” Zane commented breathlessly. Next to him, James nodded.

  Petra stood directly in front of James, looking out as the days and months began to march past. Her head moved slightly as she watched the sun turn into a golden streak and the leaves leap back up onto the trees, turning green and lush. Seasons went by and she sighed deeply. James watched her as she watched the view. She was so close to him and yet turned away from him. That was all right though. Without really thinking about it, he raised his hand and very nearly stroked his fingers over the dark sweep of her hair. Instead, he lowered his hand to her shoulder and rested it there, as if only for support or as a gesture of familiarity. Very faintly, she leaned back against his hand, and he was glad.

  Time flew by beyond the branches of the Tree and finally began to cycle back through seasons, and then weeks, and finally days. The sun slowed in its arc and crept once more up into a pristine, cloudless sky. A hot breeze blew in beneath the canopy of the Warping Willow, bringing a scent of wild grass and, unexpectedly, animal dung. With a sort of deep sigh, the Tree went still and Professor Baruti clapped his hands together.

  “This way, then, students,” he cried. “We have just over an hour and a half before we must return, so let us use it wisely. Good afternoon, Mr. Flintlock.”

  Petra stepped out into the sunlight and James followed, blinking in the sudden heat. The campus of Alma Aleron University had vanished away, replaced by the small weedy yard with its surrounding glass-topped stone wall. Whenever they were, it felt like the middle of a particularly sweltering summer. All around, students began to strip off their sweaters and blazers and fan themselves in the still air. James could vaguely hear a distant, low rumble.

  “What is that?” Zane asked quizzically, peering around and fanning himself with his tie. “Traffic?”

  “An airplane?” Ralph suggested, looking up at the untouched blue sky.

  “Good day, Professor Baruti,” Flintlock the troll said in his slow, gravelly voice, unlocking the gate’s padlock. The growth over the gate was even thicker now than it had been when James had first seen it. Swaying leaves and vines completely obscured the view beyond. “Going to visit Miss Amadahy, I presume?”

  “Right you are, my stone-hearted friend,” Baruti answered jovially.

  Flintlock smiled, pulling away the huge padlock while Baruti turned back toward the milling students.

  “Attention, class,” he called. “Today, you may well learn more about the advanced art of potionmaking than any textbook could teach you throughout the rest of the semester. We are about to visit a community that has been simmering magical elixirs for thousands of years and still does so today just as their forefathers did in eons past.” Here, Baruti stopped and smiled to himself. “Of course, I mean ‘today’ in the purely rhetorical sense.”

  “When are we, Professor?” Norrick called out, mopping his forehead with his sleeve. “Since when do potion-makers live in Muggle Philadelphia?”

  Baruti poked a finger into the air, as if to say wait and see. Then he turned to the troll. “Open the gate, s’il vous plaît, if you would, Mr. Flintlock.”

  With one huge stony hand, Flintlock gripped the gate and pulled. There was a sustained ripping sound as years of vines and bushes were torn apart, half of the green mass riding the gate inwards as Flintlock swung it open. James had expected to see the residential street of Philadelphia outside the gate, but like the campus of Alma Aleron University, the street seemed to have vanished. In its place was a vast, uninterrupted prairie, dotted with trees and carpeted with tall, shushing grasses. A multitude of brown humps seemed to be swimming through the grasses in the hazy distance.

  “No way,” Zane said as a huge grin spread across his face. Along with the rest of the class, the three boys pressed toward the gate, eager to see the entire view beyond. As James passed through, he found himself standing atop a low hill that overlooked miles of sunny valley. The river sparkled in the distance, snaking toward the horizon. James now recognized the brown humps in the grass as buffalo. An enormous herd of them followed the curves of the river, tossing their great shaggy heads and kicking up a cloud of dust that hovered all around them.

  “Well,” James said, nudging Zane, “you said you thought that that rumbling sound was traffic. You weren’t too far off.”

  “Wicked!” Ralph said suddenly, turning. Both James and Zane followed his gaze. In the near distance, spreading away from the base of the hill upon which stood the Alma Aleron gate, was a teeming Native American village. Hundreds of buff-coloured conical tents poked up from the grass, each decorated with colourful symbols and shapes. Trails of white smoke drifted into the sky from dozens of small fires, most tended by dark-skinned men with bare chests and long, neatly braided black hair. Children and women milled throughout the village as well, stretching buffalo skins, pounding grain in wooden bowls, or simply sitting crosslegged around the fires, conducting their councils. A woman was walking up the hill to meet th
e class, her jet black hair shining in the sun, her short buckskin tunic swishing about her strong legs.

  “Good day to you, Ayasha,” Baruti called down to her, bowing.

  “It is indeed,” the woman replied. “I see you received my note about today’s lesson.”

  Baruti nodded and spread his hands. “Only last night. The cave paintings grow hard to read after so many centuries.”

  “It is well that you were able. The Wraithraize is at its ripest and ready for threshing. Come, the pots are already boiling in wait.”

  “Professor,” a Vampire girl called from near the gate. “Is she a…? Are those…?”

  “Welcome to Philadelphia,” Professor Baruti announced expansively, turning back to the class and smiling, “before it was Philadelphia. This is Shackamaxon, the largest extra-temporal, unplottable Indian reservation in North America.”

  Next to James, Ralph let out a long low whistle. “Wow,” he said slowly, his voice filled with awe. “Rose Weasley is going to be sooo mad.”

  12. GAME MAGIC

  That evening, the Administration Hall cafeteria buzzed with the anticipation of the season’s first Clutchcudgel match. As James waited in line with his tray, he looked around at the packed tables and milling students, most of whom were decked out in sweaters or scarves bearing their house colours, some even with their faces painted. Most prominently displayed, of course, were the acid green of the Igors and the autumn orange of the Bigfoots. To James’ surprise, the Igors were apparently considered the stronger team, thus most of other houses had donned the Bigfoots’ orange and blue, rooting for the team that they believed would be an easier victory for their own teams when the time came.

  Many upperclassmen and college-aged students had turned out in the cafeteria in preparation for the evening’s match, showing just how seriously the population of Alma Aleron took the sport. Realizing this, James finally began to feel a stirring of nervousness. He ate very little and then excused himself quickly, darting alone back to Apollo Mansion to grab his jersey and glasses.