Ralph took a deep breath. “I’ll try it,” he announced, sighing with resignation. “After all, I’m a Slytherin.”
Nobody argued. Ralph opened his mouth and imitated the noise as well as he could. James thought he did a remarkably good job since the same sounds in Ralph’s mouth still sent chills down his spine. As soon as he finished, a grating rumble shook the bathroom. The sink directly behind Ralph began to lower, receding into the floor. Tabitha gasped and moved aside, her pale face a mask of awe and jealousy.
“Come on,” Ted said grimly. “We have to hurry.”
“You can’t go, Ted,” Rose said, touching Ted’s arm. “Unless you plan on taking Tabitha along, too. She’s a seventh year. I might be able to guard her, but I’d feel a lot better if you did it.”
Ted grimaced in frustration, looking away and fingering his wand. Finally, he turned back. “You go,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll guard Corsica, but we won’t leave until you come back, understood? Besides, it’s just Petra down there, right? You’ll be able to talk sense into her. She’d never hurt anyone.”
James nodded, but he wasn’t at all sure that Ted was right. Ted hadn’t had the dreams. “Right. Let’s go.” He took a deep breath and turned toward the ancient stairway.
“And James,” Ted called, “tell Petra the same thing she told me! This isn’t the way! Tell her I said that, all right?”
James nodded, and then plunged down the stone steps, his friends following closely.
19. THE SACRIFICE
James illuminated his wand as he trotted down the ancient stone staircase. Rose and Albus followed, eyes wide, with Zane and Ralph in the rear. James’ phantom scar had been aching ever since that horrible burst of pain when he’d moved to kiss Petra; now, as he entered the dark chamber, the ache increased to a throbbing pulse.
“I was in the Chamber of Secrets once before,” Rose called, her voice echoing in the dark, cavernous space. “Years ago, when it was still on the Hogwarts tour. My parents refused to go down with me because they’d already seen it of course, and didn’t want to relive any of that, so I went with Uncle George. There wasn’t much to see, really, since they’d taken the dead Basilisk out years ago. It was just an open space underground. Most of it had caved in.”
James gasped and stumbled to a stop, throwing out one hand to warn the rest and holding his wand high in the other.
“Was this a part of the tour when you were here, Rose?” he asked breathlessly.
Rose stopped behind him, her eyes widening. Behind her, Ralph and Zane clambered to a halt as well.
The floor ended at James’ feet as if it had been broken away. Beyond it, seamless black space indicated a chasm of unimaginable depth. Ominous whooshing sounds wafted out of the blackness, and as James raised his wand, its light glinted off the edges of huge, swinging blades.
“No,” Rose breathed. “This was definitely not a part of the tour. Where did it come from?”
“I’d say it was opened only recently,” Zane said, pointing. “Look!”
James saw what Zane was pointing at. A pair of huge stone doors stood open on either side, overlooking the depths of the chasm before him.
“How did Petra open those?” Rose asked incredulously. “They must weigh tons!”
“I’m more interested in how she crossed that,” Ralph said, gesturing at the chasm and the huge swinging blades. “We’ll never be able to follow her!”
James stooped down and hefted a medium-sized rock. He weighed it thoughtfully in his hand, and then heaved it out over the chasm as hard as he could. It tumbled into the darkness, turning slowly, and then there was a flash and a spark as one of the magical blades swooped down. It pulverized the rock in midair, and then sucked back up into darkness.
James looked aside at Rose and Ralph, his eyes wide. Ralph shrugged helplessly.
Albus drew a deep sigh. “I think I might know a way to cross that,” he said, as if he dreaded admitting it.
“What, Al?” James asked, but his brother had already turned. He walked a few paces away until he stood at the base of the stone steps again. He glanced back.
“Dad taught me this one,” he said. “It saved his life once. Maybe we can use it to save Lil.” He turned back to the stairs, raised his own wand, and as loudly as he could, shouted, “Accio broomstick!”
Almost a minute passed, and James had begun to doubt the spell had worked when an exclamation of alarm echoed down the stone steps.
“No!” Tabitha’s voice cried. “Not my broom! You can’t!”
Ted called over her, “Incoming!”
The broom dipped down the stone steps and halted next to Albus. James, standing nearby, could hear the faint hum of the broom. He remembered it well from his doomed attempt to commandeer it last year.
“You can’t be serious,” Zane said, stepping forward and examining the broomstick. “This is Tabitha’s broom! The bogus Merlin staff from last year. You’re not going to try to ride it across that chasm, are you?”
“It’s my broom now,” Albus said grimly. “Tabitha gave it to me, although she may well be regretting it.”
Rose proclaimed, “But you can’t just fly across! You saw what happened to the rock! I don’t know how Petra made it across with Lily, but there must be some other way!”
Albus strode to the edge of the chasm and straddled the broom. “This is no ordinary broom, Rose. I don’t know where Tabitha got it, or how it works, but it knows where it needs to be. In a way, it’s kind of the reverse of James’ Thunderstreak. It knows where to go, and it puts it into the mind of the rider. The broom won’t let us get chopped. And besides, we don’t have a choice. Hop on behind me, James, and hold on as tight as you can.”
James gulped and climbed onto the broom, wrapping his arm tightly around his brother’s waist.
“Wait!” Rose cried. “This is mad!”
“That’s why we can’t wait, Rose,” James said, gritting his teeth. “If we wait, we’ll realize how completely daft this is. Go, Al!”
James felt Albus tense. Together, they coiled, and as Rose reached forward to grab James, her face terrified, Albus threw himself forward, taking James and the broomstick with him.
The broom plummeted under the weight of both James and Albus, and James squeezed his eyes shut, hugging his brother as he leaned over the broomstick, struggling to pull it upright. The broom corrected swiftly, angling upwards and accelerating. James still had his lit wand in his fist. He gripped Albus with his left arm and held the wand aloft, fighting the force of their momentum. Wandlight flashed off a long, steely blade as it dropped alongside them, scything the air. Albus lurched sideways as the broom banked away, and James nearly dropped his wand, fighting to hold on. The air hissed on all sides as huge, curved blades sliced the darkness, dropping like swords and barely missing them. Amazingly, the broom seemed to determine the course on its own, dodging with lightning speed through the flashing, deadly barrage. James struggled to hold on, trying to keep his body as close to the broom and Albus as possible. There was a high, rasping sound as one of the blades sliced a neat seam in his robe, and James felt the chill of the metal whoosh past his skin. He yelped and leaned away, pulling the broom slightly off course.
Albus swore, trying to correct, but it was no use. The broom seemed to have lost its bearing. It pushed upwards beneath them, and James had a sense that they were nearing the other side of the chasm. Suddenly, a rough stone wall loomed into view, as if it were falling on them. Albus pulled up, trying to help the broom to reach the ledge, but it was too high. The broom struggled, flying nearly straight up, still weaving past falling blades. And then, suddenly, there was light and space, and James was spinning off the broom, flailing for something to hold onto. He landed hard on stone, rolled, and scrambled up, his chin scraped and bleeding but otherwise unhurt.
Albus lay ten feet away, dangerously near the edge of the chasm they had just traversed. He moaned and clutched his head.
“Al!” James called, st
umbling over to him. “Are you all right?”
“I think we crashed,” Albus replied, shaking his head as if to clear it. “That was just sick, wasn’t it? Ow!”
James glanced down, “Oh no! I think we broke it!”
“My leg?” Albus asked, examining his shin critically. “Ouch! I’m pretty sure it isn’t supposed to bend in that direction, but it’s nothing Madam Curio won’t be able to fix, right?”
James blinked at Albus’ crooked leg. “Oh. Ew. No, that’s not what I meant. Sorry, Al. I meant that.” He pointed at the broomstick, which was splintered messily into two pieces.
“Oh no! That hurts even worse than my leg! How are we going to get back now?” Albus exclaimed, picking up one of the pieces.
James shook his head. “Like you said, let’s just rescue Lily, and we’ll figure out the rest later.”
Albus started to scramble to his feet, and then hissed in pain, falling back. “I’m no good, James. Unless you plan on carrying me, I’m stuck here.”
“Come on, I can’t do this by myself!” James said, feeling a sudden, helpless anger.
“Well, if you hadn’t pulled us out of control back there, I wouldn’t be in this condition, you stupid berk!”
“Me? Whose idea was it to ride the Broom from Hell across the pit in the first place?”
“Well, you sure weren’t coming up with any brilliant ideas, were you?”
“Shh!” James suddenly hissed, half turning.
“Don’t shush me, you big git!” Albus cried. “If my broken leg wasn’t still attached, I’d beat you with it!”
“SHHH!” James insisted, waving one hand frantically. He cocked his head, listening. Albus stopped and listened as well, furrowing his brow.
“It’s a voice,” he whispered. “Sort of. That’s creepy,”
“It’s coming from that cave over there,” James pointed. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could see a greenish light flickering from the mouth of the cave.
“Go, James,” Albus whispered urgently. “Go get Lily back if you still can. And if you can’t, I swear I’ll kill you.”
James nodded. “All right. I just hope nobody else beats you to it.”
He took a deep breath, still staring at the green glow of the cave mouth, and then began to walk toward it.
James’ phantom scar began to sing a long, high note of pain. It rang in his ears, throbbing with the steady thrum of his heartbeat. Petra wouldn’t really hurt Lily, would she? He truly wanted to believe she wouldn’t, but he remembered the dreams, remembered the coaxing, lulling, infuriating words of that phantom voice. It had promised Petra she could get her parents back if only she was willing to make the hardest choice of all, to repay blood for blood. Petra was obviously not in her right mind. She was in a sort of trance, wasn’t she? She was under the control of that horrible voice, and the last shred of the soul of Lord Voldemort which beat in her veins. But even as James approached the entrance to the cave, he knew that was not entirely true. Petra was being influenced, yes, but she wasn’t being forced to do anything. The shred of Voldemort wasn’t enough to completely control her, only to sway her, to coax and persuade her. The greatest influence inside Petra was her own broken heart, and her deep, unspoken rage, and the desperate, bottomless hunger for judgment on those who’d taken her parents from her. In the thrall of those emotions, James knew that Petra may well do almost anything if she was convinced that it would satisfy those needs.
Thinking that, James shuddered. He stepped into the mouth of the cave and saw it all.
There was the flickering green pool, lit from within, and there was Petra, still dressed in her pink costume dress. The curls had begun to fall from her hair, and her make-up had run, forming tear-streaks down her cheeks. Her eyes were dry now, however. She had her wand out, pointed at Lily, who stood before her, expressionless and limp, like a puppet. The high, horrible voice was babbling, and James could only now make out the words.
“The boy James comes!” the voice said with delight. “Look upon him, my dear! He comes, just as predicted!”
James gasped, hearing his name in that awful voice, but then Petra turned to him, and his gasp turned to a violent shiver as the pain in his forehead spiked. Petra’s eyes were eerily dead. In the flicker of the greenish pool, her face looked like a mask. She held his voodoo doll in her free hand, and James could see that someone had drawn a crude green lightning bolt onto its forehead.
“James,” she said blankly, still pointing her wand at Lily, “you shouldn’t have come. Now it’s too late.”
James stumbled forward, moving into the light of the cave. “Petra, what… what are you doing?”
Petra shrugged slightly, and then turned her gaze back to Lily. “What I was made for,” she answered, sounding eerily like Tabitha Corsica. She nodded at Lily and said, “You know what to do, dear.”
Without blinking, Lily walked slowly around the glowing pool, her bare feet making no noise on the stone. On the far side of the pool, James saw that a series of steps led down into the water. Quite slowly, Lily began to descend the steps. With a shock of horror, James realized that his sister was under the Imperius Curse.
“I’m sorry, James,” Petra said. “I know you can’t possibly understand why this has to happen. It seemed awful to me at first too, but now I know it is the only way. It really is best for everyone, even Lily. You have to trust me.”
“…have to trust me,” the horrible, keening voice echoed. It seemed to be speaking constantly, muttering under Petra’s words, almost as if it was feeding them to her.
“Lily!” James called, stepping forward. “Stop!”
Lily’s eyes didn’t so much as flicker. She took another step into the eerie green pool. James reached desperately for his wand, but it wasn’t in his pocket. Too late, he realized he must have dropped it when he and Albus had crashed the broom. He ran forward, meaning to drag his sister bodily from the pool, but just as he was within reaching distance, something repelled him. He hurtled backwards through the air, as if pulled by a rope around his waist. He struck the mossy stone wall and fell, the breath knocked out of him.
“One at a time, James,” Petra said sadly, still pointing her wand at Lily. “I’m sorry. Please don’t try that again. I really don’t want to hurt either of you before it’s all over.”
James gasped for breath, and the phantom scar on his forehead burned like a branding iron. The awful voice echoed Petra’s every word, and for the first time James wondered if Petra was even aware of the voice. Was it possible that she didn’t realize how it was influencing her? He glanced around, looking for the source of the voice. Just as in his dreams, it seemed to emanate from a shadowy figure in a dark corner. It stood perfectly still, apparently wearing an old bowler hat and a dusty coat. Its arms hung loosely at its sides.
James struggled to get up, but he felt weak and heavy, as if something was pushing down on him. It was the awful weight of some new presence, filling the room like black smoke, darkening it. It was the Gatekeeper. Silently, eerily unseen, it descended into the Chamber, watching, preparing to enter Petra once she completed the necessary rite of willingness: murdering Lily.
Lily took another step into the pool. Her yellow dress began to float about her, sinking into the murky water, and as she descended, something else seemed to be ascending from the other end of the pool. James recognized the shape. It was the young woman he’d seen so often in his dreams: Petra’s mother. As Lily lowered into the water, Lianna arose from her own reflection, smiling at her daughter, raising her hands. Petra’s eyes shone as she looked at the ascending shape.
“Petra!” James called, catching his breath. “That can’t really be your mother! It’s a trick! She’s not real!”
“Don’t listen to him,” the high voice whispered, wheedling. “He is the son of those who let her die. He is full of lies and deception. But his voice will soon be stopped forever, and with his death, you shall have your father back as well! Then all wil
l be prepared; balance will be restored. The new age of judgment will be at hand, and all because of your sacrifice…”
“All because of my sacrifice,” Petra said quietly, tears running down her face again, smearing her makeup.
Lily’s chin touched the surface of the pool. A drop of water hung there, and then she stepped forward again, her mouth dipping below the surface. Her hair spread around her, floating on the water like a corona. The ghostly figure of Lianna Agnellis put one foot onto the stone floor. She wasn’t even wet.
“This isn’t real!” James screamed desperately, struggling to his feet. “It’s all coming from that voice! What is it?”
“There is no voice,” Petra sang lightly, rocking her head back and forth. “There is no voice other than the voice of my dead father. You see, I have brought his things here, where they await him. His shoes and hat, his coat. Even his Cloak of Invisibility, which I’ve used myself these many visits. He’ll be so happy to see them again, don’t you think?”
James shook his head fervently. “That’s my father’s Cloak, Petra! You’re being deceived!”
Petra didn’t seem to hear him. Her eyes gazed trancelike at the shape of her mother, but her wand was still pointed at Lily as she descended the last step, slipping beneath the surface of the water. The heavy, dark sense of the Gatekeeper’s presence increased. The task was nearly done; Lily would soon be dead and the Gatekeeper would unite with Petra, its host. Then there would be no sending it back, no stopping it from running rampant upon the earth. James wanted to lunge toward the pool again, risking everything to pull his sister out of the water, but even in his desperation he knew Petra would easily repel him once more. There was no hope, and yet James realized this was his last chance for action. Frantically, he looked from his drowning sister to the shadowy figure in the corner. He could see now that it wasn’t a figure at all but simply an assembly of clothes—Petra’s father’s belongings, propped like a scarecrow. The voice came from within, hidden somehow. Suddenly, horribly, James knew what he had to do.
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