Текст книги "James Potter and the Hall of the Elders' Crossing"

Автор книги: G. Norman Lippert

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5.The Book of Austramaddux

        "Don't think of it as looking like a miserable failure on a broomstick," Zane said afterwards as they all sat in the Ravenclaw common room. "Think of it as giving Ralphie here a chance to look positively brilliant!"

        James said nothing. He sat slumped at the end of the couch, his head propped miserably on his hand.

        "Besides, if I hadn't hopped on my broomstick and took off after you, I don't think I'd have been able to figure it out at all. It was just a matter of not thinking about it, really."

        "Spectacular stuff out there, Walker," an older student said as he passed the couch, ruffling Zane's damp hair.

        "Yeah," another one said from across the room. "Normally, first years tryouts are just for laughs. With you, we get the laughs and the skills." There was a round of laughter and scattered applause. Zane beamed, soaking it up.

"Seriously, though," Ralph said from where he sat on the floor, his back to the fire, "how'd you do that? Flying is supposed to be pretty tough to master."

        "I dunno, honestly," Zane said. "I saw James heading into the stratosphere and I just took off after him. I hardly even knew I was doing it until the very end, when I realized I was nose-diving straight into the pitch. I pulled up at the last second, just as the human torpedo here went past me, and I thought, 'Look at me! I'm flying!' Maybe it was all those racing games and flight simulators I grew up playing with my dad. The feel of it all just made sense to me." Zane suddenly seemed to realize this conversation wasn't lifting James' mood much. "But enough about me and my broom. What about you, Ralphie?"

        Ralph blinked thoughtfully, and then picked up his wand from where it lay on his wet cloak. It was just as huge and ridiculous as always, still with the tip whittled down and painted lime green, but nobody was laughing at it anymore. "I don't know. It's like you said, isn't it? I just didn't think about it. I saw James falling and I thought of the feather in Flitwick's class. Next thing I know, I'm pointing my wand at him and yelling–"

        Several students, including Zane, ducked and called out as Ralph flicked his wand ahead of him. Ralph smiled sheepishly. "Get a grip, everybody. I wasn't gonna say it."

        "Ralph, you're the real deal, mate," Zane said, recovering. "You went from floating a feather to a human body in one class, you know? My boy's got talent."

        James stirred. "If you two are done congratulating yourselves, I'm gonna go find a hole and live in it for the rest of the year."

        "Hey, I'll bet Grawp's girlfriend has room in her cave," Ralph said. Zane did a double take at Ralph, open-mouthed.

        "What?" Ralph said. "It'll save him some time looking!"

        "He's joking," Zane said, glancing at James. "I couldn't tell at first."

        "Congratulations on making the team," James said quietly, standing and collecting his cloak from a hook by the fire.

        "Hey, really," Zane said awkwardly. "I'm sorry about how things worked out. I didn't know it was that important to you. Really."

        James stood still for several seconds, staring into the fire. Zane's expression of regret struck him deeply. His heart ached. His face heated and his eyes burned. He blinked and looked away.

        "It wasn't that important to me, really," he said. "It was just really, really important."

        As the door closed behind James, he heard Ralph say, "So who was it important to?"

James walked slowly, his head down. His clothes were still damp, and his body ached from the jolt of Ralph levitating him at the end of his long dive, but he barely noticed those things. He had failed. After the victory of becoming a Gryffindor, he'd been cautiously confident that Quidditch, too, would work out. Instead, he'd ended up looking like a complete fool in front of both the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws. Far from the spectacular aerobatic displays his dad had legendarily performed, James had to be rescued from killing himself. There was no surviving this kind of failure. He'd never live it down. Nobody was making fun of him now, at least to his face, but what would they say next year when he showed up for tryouts again? He couldn't even bear to think about it.

        How would he tell his dad? His dad, who would be coming at the beginning of next week to see him and hear of his exploits. He'd understand, of course. He'd tell James Quidditch didn't matter, that the important thing was for him to be himself and have fun. And he'd even mean it. And still, knowing that didn't make James feel any better.

        Zane had made the Ravenclaw team, though. James felt a stab of bitter jealousy at that. He felt immediately sorry for it, but that didn't make the jealousy go away. Zane was Muggle-born. And an American, to boot! Quidditch was supposed to be a baffling mystery to him, and James was supposed to be the instinctive flyer, the rescuing hero. Not the other way around. How could things have gone so totally wrong so fast?

        When he reached the Gryffindor common room, James ducked around the edge of the room, avoiding the eyes of those gathered there, laughing with their friends, listening to music, discussing homework, snogging on the couch. He ducked up the stairs and into the sleeping chamber, which was dark and quiet. Back in his dad's day, the dorms had been separated by year. Now James was glad that he shared the room with some of the older years. They usually brought reassurance that all of this was survivable. He needed some of that reassurance now, or at least someone to notice his misery and validate it. He sighed deeply in the empty room.

        James washed up in the little bathroom, changed, then sat on his bed, looking out into the night. Nobby watched him from his cage by the window, clicking his beak from time to time, wanting to get outside and find a mouse or two, but James didn't notice him. The rain had finally exhausted itself. The clouds were breaking up, revealing a great silvery moon. James watched it for a long time, not knowing what he was waiting for, not even really knowing he was waiting. In the end, what he was waiting for didn't happen. No one came upstairs. He heard their voices below. It was Friday night. Nobody else was going to bed early. He felt utterly lonely and bereft. He slid under the covers and stared out at the moon from there.

        Eventually, he slept.

        James spent most of his weekend moping about in the Gryffindor Common room. He knew that neither Ralph nor Zane could get into the common room without the password, and he was in no mood to see them or anyone else. He read his assigned homework chapters and practiced some wandwork. He was particularly annoyed to discover that he couldn't get his practice feather to do any more than scuttle pathetically around the table. After twenty minutes, he grew exasperated, growled a word his mother didn't know he knew, and slammed his wand onto the table. It shot a stream of purple sparks, as if surprised at James' outburst.

        Saturday night's detention with Argus Filch came. James found himself following Filch around the corridors with a bucket and a giant, stiff-bristled scrubbing brush. Occasionally, Filch would stop and, without turning, point at a spot on the floor, the wall, or a detail of a statue. James would look and there would be a bit of graffiti or a patch of long trodden-upon gum. James would sigh, dip the brush, and begin to scrub with both hands. Filch treated James as if he was personally responsible for each bit of defacing he scrubbed. As James worked, Filch muttered and fumed, lamenting about the much better sorts of punishments he had been permitted to mete out in years past. By the time James was allowed to return to his rooms, his fingers were cold, red and sore, and smelled of Filch's ugly brown soap.

        On Sunday afternoon, James went for a moody wander around the grounds and ran into Ted and Petra, who were lounging on a blanket, ostensibly working out star charts on sheets of parchment.

        "Now that Trelawney's sharing Divination class with Madame Delacroix, we have actual homework," Ted complained. "Used to be we just had to look at some tea leaves and make up doom and gloom predictions. That was kind of fun, actually."

        Petra was leaning against a tree, shuffling maps and charts on her lap, comparing them to a huge book of constellations that lay open on the blanket. "Unlike Trelawney, Delacroix seems to have the quaint notion that astrology is a hard science," she said, shaking her head in disgust. "How a bunch of rocks rolling around in space know anything about my future is beyond me."

        Ted told James to stick around and keep them from getting too much done. Sensing that he wasn't interrupting anything personal, and that neither Ted nor Petra were going to bring up James' disastrous Quidditch tryouts, James flopped onto the blanket and peered at the book of star charts. Black and white drawings of planets, each emblazoned with names and illustrations of mythical creatures, circled and spun slowly on the pages, their orbits drawn as red ellipses.

        "Which one of these planets is the Wocket from?" James asked drily.

        Petra turned a page. "Hardy-har."

        James turned the enormous pages of the constellation book slowly, examining the moving planets and other-worldly astrological symbols. "So how do Professor Trelawney and Madame Delacroix get along, then?" James asked after a minute. He remembered Damien implying there would be some friction between them.

        "Oil and water," Ted replied. "Trelawney tries to make nice, but she obviously hates the voodoo queen. For Delacroix's part, she doesn't even pretend to like Trelawney. They're from two different schools of thought, in every sense of the word."

        "I like Trelawney's school better," Petra muttered, scribbling a note on her parchment.

        "We all know what you think, dear," Ted soothed. He turned to James. "Petra likes Trelawney because she knows that, at its heart, divination is really just a set of random variables that you use to order your own thinking. Trelawney thinks it's all mystical, of course, but she still knows it's just a bunch of totally subjective mumbo-jumbo. Petra is a facts girl, so she likes that even if Trelawney takes all this stuff seriously, she doesn't try to make it, you know, rigid."

        Petra sighed and clapped her book shut. "Divination isn't science. It's psychology. At least Trelawney gets that in practice, if not in belief. Delacroix…" She threw the book onto the pile next to her, rolling her eyes.

        "We have a test this week," Ted said mournfully. "An actual Divination test. It's all about some crazy astrological event that's happening later this year. The linings of the planets or whatever."

James looked quizzical, "The linings of the planets?"

        "Alignment of the planets," Petra said patiently. "Actually, it is a pretty big deal. It only happens once every few hundred years. That's science. Knowing what silly mythical creature each planet represents, what it was a god of to some bunch of dotty primitives, and what it means to 'the harmonics of the astrological precognition matrix' isn't."

        Ted looked at James and frowned. "Someday, we'll get Petra to reveal her true feelings about it."

        Petra smacked him over the head with one of the larger star charts.

        Later, at dinner, James saw Zane and Ralph sitting together at the Ravenclaw table. He saw Zane look over once, and was glad that he didn't try to come over and talk to him. He knew it was extremely petty of him, but he was still sick with jealousy and the shame of his embarrassment. He ate quickly, and then wandered out of the Great Hall, unsure where he would go.

The evening was pleasant and cool as the sun dipped behind the mountains. James explored the perimeter of the grounds, listening to the song of the crickets and throwing stones into the lake. He went to knock on the door to Hagrid's cabin, but there was a note on the door, written in large, clumsy letters. The note said that Hagrid was up in the forest until Monday morning. Spending time with Grawp and Grawp's lady giant friend, James figured. It was beginning to get dark. James turned and headed dejectedly back in the direction of the castle.

        He was on his way up to the common room when he decided to make a side trip. He was curious about something.

        The trophy case was lit with a series of lanterns, so that the cups, plaques, and statues each glinted brightly. James walked slowly along, looking in at the team photos of decades-past Quidditch teams, their uniforms outdated, but their smiles and expressions of hearty invincibility eternally unchanged. There were gold and bronze trophies, antique Snitches, game Bludgers strapped down with leather belts, but still wiggling slightly as he passed.

        James stopped near the end and looked in at the Triwizard Tournament display. His dad smiled the same uncomfortable smile, looking impossibly young and unruly. James leaned in and looked at the picture on the other side of the Triwizard Cup, the one of Cedric Diggory. The boy in the picture was handsome, guileless, with the same expression on his face that James had seen in the old Quidditch team photos, that expression of perpetual youth and seamless confidence. James studied the photo. The expression was what had kept him from making the connection the first time he'd seen the picture.

        "It was you, wasn't it," James whispered to the picture. It wasn't really a question.

        The boy in the picture smiled his smile, nodding slightly, as if in agreement.

        James hadn't expected an answer, but as he started to straighten up, something changed on the plaque below the Triwizard Cup. The engraved words sank into the silver plaque, then, after a moment, new words surfaced. They spelled out slowly, silently.

        James Potter

        Harry's son

        A shiver thrilled down James' back. He nodded. "Yes," he whispered.

        The words sank back into nothing. Several seconds went by, and then more words drifted up.

        How long

        Has it been

        James didn't understand the question at first. He shook his head slightly. "I… I'm sorry. How long has it been since what?"

        The letters receded and spelled again, slowly, as if they took great effort.

        Since I died

        James swallowed. "I don't know, exactly. Seventeen or eighteen years, I think."

        The letters faded out very slowly. No more formed for almost a minute. Then:

        Time is so strange here

        It feels longer

        Shorter

        James didn't know what to say. A sense of great loneliness and sadness had crept into the corridor, filling the space, and James himself, like a cool cloud.

        "My–" James' voice caught. He cleared his throat, swallowed, and tried again. "My dad and mum, Ginny, used to be Weasley… they talk about you. Sometimes. They… they remember you. They liked you."

        The letters faded, surfaced.

        Ginny and Harry

        I always knew

        There was something there

        Cedric's ghost seemed to be seeping away, leaking out of the air of the corridor. The letters faded slowly. James had wanted to ask more questions, had meant to ask about the Muggle intruder, how he was getting in, but now it seemed unimportant. He just wanted to say something to lessen the pall of sadness he'd sensed in Cedric's presence, but he couldn't think of anything. Then the letters came once more, spelling out very faintly and slowly.

        Are they happy

        James read the question, considered it. He nodded. "Yeah, Cedric. They are. Weare."

        The letters evaporated as soon as James spoke, and there was something like a sigh all around him, long and somehow exhausted. When it was over, James glanced around the corridor. He could tell he was alone again. When he looked back at the plaque below the Triwizard Cup, it had reverted to its normal state, covered in elaborate, engraved words. James shivered, hugged himself, then turned and began to walk back toward the main hall. The ghost had finally spoken, and it was Cedric Diggory.

We are happy,James thought. As he climbed the steps to the common room, he realized it was true. He felt a little silly about the way he'd mooned around all weekend, stirring his jealousy and sense of failure like a stew. At this moment, it all seemed unimportant. He was just glad to be here, at Hogwarts, with new friends, challenges, endless adventures before him. He ran along the hallway to the portrait hole, wanting nothing more at that moment than to spend the last couple of hours of his first weekend at Hogwarts having some fun, laughing, forgetting the silliness of the whole Quidditch disaster. He realized, reluctantly, that on some level, it was even a little funny.

         As he entered the common room, he stopped and looked around. Ralph and Zane were there, sitting with the rest of the Gremlins around the table by the window. They all looked up.

        "There's our little alien," Zane said happily. "We're trying to work your broom-handling skills into the routine. What do you think of a Roswell crash kinda gig? Ralph's got his wand all ready to catch you."

        Ralph wiggled his wand and smiled sheepishly. James rolled his eyes and went to join them.

        James awoke late Monday morning. He ran into the Great Hall hoping to grab a piece of toast before Transfiguration class and met Ralph and Zane, who were just coming out.

        "No time, mate," Ralph said, hooking James' arm and turning him around. "Can't be late to first class. McGonagall teaches it and I've heard bad, bad things about what she does to tardy students."

        James sighed and trotted along with them through the noisy, busy corridors. "I hope she doesn't do terrible things to students whose stomachs growl during class as well."

        Zane handed something to James as they walked. "Check that out when you get a chance. I already showed it to Ralphie and it blew his mind, didn't it? I've marked the spot for you." It was a thick, bedraggled book. The cover was clothbound in frayed fabric that had once probably been red. The pages were yellowed, threatening to fall out of the binding in chunks.

        "What is it?" James said, unable to read the embossed title, which was ghostly faint with age. "Between Jackson and Flitwick, I've got enough reading to last me until next term."

        "You'll be interested in this, believe me. It's the Book of Parallel Histories, Volume Seven," Zane said. "I got it from the Ravenclaw library. Just read the section I marked."

        "Ravenclaw has a private library?" Ralph asked, struggling to wrestle his Transfiguration textbook out of his overstuffed backpack.

        "Do you Slytherins have dragons' heads on your walls?" Zane shrugged. "Sure. To each his own."

        As they filed toward the Transfiguration classroom, they passed through a cluster of students standing beside the door. Several of them wore the blue 'Question the Victors' badges. More and more students seemed to be wearing them as the days went by. Signs on some of the bulletin boards had identified the badges as the mark of a club called the 'Progressive Element'. James was dismayed to see that not all of the students wearing them were Slytherins.

        "Your dad's coming today, eh, Potter?" an older boy called out, smiling crookedly. "Going to have a little meeting with his cronies from the States?"

        James stopped and looked at the speaker. "He's coming today, yeah," he said, his cheeks going red. "But I don't know what you mean about his 'cronies'. He hasn't even met the Americans before. Maybe you should read a little before you open your mouth."

        "Oh, we've been reading, believe me," the boy replied, his smile disappearing. "More than you and your father would like us to be, I'm sure. Your kind can't hide the truth forever."

        "Hide the truth?" James said, anger overcoming his caution. "What's that supposed to mean?"

        "Read the badges, Potter. You know exactly what we're talking about," the boy said, hoisting his backpack and moving casually down the hall with his friends. "And if you don't, you're even stupider than you look." He turned his back on James.

        James blinked in anger and amazement. "What was that all about?"

        Ralph sighed. "Come on, let's get a seat. I'll tell you, although I don't understand much of it myself."

        But they had no time to discuss it before class. Headmistress McGonagall, who had taught

        Transfiguration to James' mum and dad, taught it still, and with apparently the same degree of businesslike briskness. She explained the basic wand motions and commands, illustrating by transforming a book into a herring sandwich. She even asked one of the students, a boy named Carson, to eat a portion of the sandwich. Afterward, she transformed the sandwich back into the book and showed the class that the book still bore the bite marks Carson had made. There were sounds of awe and amusement. Carson looked at the bitten chunks and pressed his hand to his stomach, a look of thoughtful dismay on his face. Near the end of class, McGonagall instructed the students to produce their wands and practice the motions and commands on a banana, which they were to attempt to transfigure into a peach.

        "Persica Alteramus, emphasis on first syllables only. Don't expect to make much progress your first time," she called over the noise of the students' attempts. "If you produce even a banana with a hint of peach fuzz, we will consider that a success for today. Do be careful, Miss Majaris! Small circular flicks only, please!"

Zane stared furiously at his banana and flicked his wand at it. "Persica Alteramus!" There was no apparent change. He pressed his lips together. "Let's see you try, James."

        Shrugging, James raised his wand and flicked it, speaking the command. The banana flopped over, but remained decidedly a banana.

        "Maybe they're transforming on the inside," Zane said hopefully. "Maybe we should peel it and see if it's all peachy in there, eh?"

        James thought about it, and then shook his head. They both tried again. Ralph watched. "More wrist movement. You guys look like you're directing jetliners."

        "So easy to criticize, so hard to create," Zane said between attempts. "Let's see you have a go, Ralphinator."

Ralph seemed reluctant to try. He fingered his wand, keeping it under the edge of the desk.

        "Come on, Ralph," James said. "You've been pretty excellent at wandwork so far. What are you worried about?"

        "Nothing," Ralph said, a little defensively. "I don't know."

        "Rats!" Zane said, dropping his wand arm and grabbing the banana with the other. He plunked his wand onto the table and pointed the banana at it. "Maybe I'd have better luck doing it this way, you think?"

        James and Ralph stared at him. He rolled his eyes. "Oh, sheesh, come on Ralph. Make with the peach. You know you can do it. What are you waiting for?"

        Ralph grimaced, then sighed and raised his gigantic wand. He flicked it lightly at his banana and said the command flatly, almost as if he was trying to get it wrong. There was a flash and a noise like a pine knot exploding in a fireplace. The rest of the class heard the noise and glanced over at Ralph. A puff of heavy smoke lingered on the table in front of Ralph, who had pushed back from it, his eyes wide and troubled. As the smoke dissipated, James leaned in. Ralph's banana was still lying there, completely untouched.

        "Well," Zane said into the sudden silence, "that was a whole lotta–"

A small, squishy noise came from Ralph's banana. The peel split slowly and began to separate, opening like a pulpy yellow flower. There was a prolonged gasp from the students as a green tendril grew out of the center of the peeling banana. It seemed to sniff the air as it grew, twisting and lengthening like a vine. The tendril began to straighten as it rose, snaking up from the table with a graceful, writhing motion. More tendrils came out of the banana. They spread along the surface in a starburst pattern, found the edges of the table, and curled under them, gripping tightly. Branches began to separate from the main shoot as it grew, thickening and turning lighter, until it was a woody, yellowish grey. Foliage sprouted from the branches in great, sudden bursts, growing from tender shoots to full leaf in a matter of seconds. Finally, as the tree reached a height of about four feet, there came a series of soft pops. Half a dozen peaches sprouted from the ends of the lower branches, weighing them down. Each one was fuzzy, plump, and pristine.

        James tore his glance away from the tree and looked around the room. Every eye was on the perfect little peach tree Ralph had conjured, mouths dropped open, wand hands still frozen in mid-flick. Headmistress McGonagall stared at the tree intently, her mouth a frown of complete surprise. Then motion returned to the room. Everyone exhaled and spontaneous, awed applause broke out.

        "He's mine!" Zane called, standing and throwing an arm around Ralph's shoulders. "I saw him first!" Ralph broke his eyes away from the tree, looked at Zane and smiled rather blankly. But James remembered the look on Ralph's face when the tree was growing. He hadn't been smiling then.

        Moments later, in the corridor outside, Zane spoke through a mouthful of peach. "Seriously, Ralph. You're creeping me out a bit, here. That's some serious wizarding you've got going on. What's the deal?"

        Ralph smiled his uncertain, worried smile again. "Well, actually…"

        James looked at Ralph. "What? Tell, Ralph!"

        "All right," he said, stopping and pulling them into a windowed alcove. "But this is just a guess, right?"

        James and Zane nodded enthusiastically, gesturing for Ralph to go on.

        "I've been practicing a lot with some of the other Slytherins at night, you know," Ralph explained. "Just the basic stuff. They've been teaching me a few things. Disarming Spells and some tricks and pranks, stuff to pull on your enemies."

        "What enemies have you got already, Ralph?" Zane asked incredulously, licking peach juice from his fingers.

        Ralph flapped his hand impatiently. "You know, just average enemies. It's just the way the guys in my house talk. Anyway, they say I'm better than average. They think I'm not really just a plain old Muggle kid who got some random magic genes. They think maybe one of my parents is from one of the great wizarding families and just don't know it."

        "Seems like a pretty big thing not to know, doesn't it?" James said doubtfully. "I mean, you said your dad made Muggle computer stuff, didn't you?"

        "Well, yeah, him," Ralph said dismissively, and then dropped his voice. "But my mum… I didn't tell you guys she was dead, did I? No," he answered himself. "Of course not. Well, she is. She died when I was really little. I never even knew her. What if she was a witch? I mean, what if she was from one of the great old pureblood wizarding families and my dad never even knew it? It happens, you know. Magic types fall in love with Muggles and can never tell them the secret their whole lives. Pureblood types don't like it, I guess, but still…" He trailed off and looked back and forth at Zane and James.

        "Well," James said slowly, "sure. I guess it's possible. Stranger things have happened."

        Zane raised his eyebrows, considering. "Would explain a lot, wouldn't it? Maybe you're, like, a prince or something. Maybe you're an heir to fabulous riches and power and stuff!"

        Ralph grimaced and stepped out of the alcove. "Let's not get carried away. It's just a guess, like I said."

        James walked with Zane and Ralph until it was time for his next class. Neither of the other two had Herbology class with him, so he told them he'd see them that afternoon and struck off across the grounds toward the greenhouses.

        Professor Longbottom greeted James by name as he entered, smiling warmly. James had always liked Neville, even though he was much quieter and thoughtful than his dad or Uncle Ron. James knew the stories of how Neville had fought back during his last year of school, when Voldemort had taken over the Ministry and Hogwarts had been under his control. In the end, Neville had been the one to cut off the head of the great snake, Nagini, Voldemort's last link to immortality. Still, it was hard to imagine the gaunt and rather clumsy professor doing such things as he arranged pots and planters on the table at the front of the greenhouse classroom.

        "Herbology is–" Neville began, gesturing and knocking over one of the smaller pots. He interrupted himself, righting the pot quickly, spilling dirt onto his papers. He looked up and smiled in a harried sort of way. "Herbology is the study of… well, herbs, of course. As you can see." He nodded to the greenhouse at large, which was packed with hundreds of plants and trees, all growing in a bewildering variety of containers. James thought Professor Longbottom would probably be quite interested in examining the peach tree currently growing on the Transfiguration room table.

        "Herbs are the root, er, so to speak, of much of the most fundamental practices of magic. Potions, medicine, wand construction, even many charms, all rely on the essential cultivation and processing of magical plants. In this class, we will be studying the many uses of some of our most important vegetable resources, from the lowly bubotuber to the rare Mimbulus mimbletonia."

        Out of the corner of James' eye, he saw something moving. A plant was spreading a vine along a windowsill next to a first-year girl, who was furiously scribbling the names Neville was listing off. The vine separated from the windowsill, tapped lightly along her back, then curled into her earring. The girl's eyes widened and she dropped her quill as the vine began to pull.