“I have a natural musky scent,” Albus shrugged breezily.
“Comes from being too busy at the manly arts to worry about primping in a mirror all day.”
“It also comes from sleeping in the same clothes for a week straight through the summer,” James suggested.
“And from thinking a bath is interchangeable for another splash of dad’s aftershave,” Lily said, hurrying through the door and dropping onto the chair opposite Rose. “Sorry I’m late everyone. What did I miss?”
“Nothing so far,” Ralph sighed, settling into his own chair between Scorpius and Rose. “Except another row between these two and some unwelcome insights into Albus’ nonexistent love life.”
“Look who’s talking, Deedle,” Albus said, favoring Ralph with a piercing look. “When’s the last time you had a date?”
“I go on dates,” Ralph shrugged. “I just don’t spend all the rest of my time gassing on about them.”
Lily whispered loudly in Rose’s direction: “He’s got a thing for his Head Girl, I hear.”
“That’s more ambition than amour,” Scorpius glanced aside at Ralph. “He’s become quite the social climber, our Ralph. Finally living up to his House assignment.”
“You’re all full of Doxie-doo,” Ralph shook his head. “You don’t know anything about me. I probably shouldn’t even be here, now I’m Head Boy. If one of those Snape portraits sees me on the way back to the dungeons…”
“Just tell him you were spying out the rest of these sneaks,” a new voice suggested in an unmistakable American accent. “That’s the sort of double-dealing duplicity the Snapester likes best. And don’t pay any attention to the rest of these malcontents, Ralphinator. I think it’s killer you made Head Boy. Way to go!”
James smiled at the rectangular piece of mirror he had removed from his knapsack and propped on the table. In it, a blonde boy’s face could be seen, speaking from the depths of what appeared to be a mound of dirty laundry and candy wrappers. The mirror was one of the remaining Shards of Merlin’s legendary Amsera Certh, now broken up and reduced to its most basic uses. At one time, Merlin had been able to spy on conversations held via the Shard, but since then the sorcerer had deliberately destroyed his own portion (much to his evident disappointment), vowing never again to subvert the Shard for his own espionage.
“Easy for you to say, Zane,” James said with a shake of his head.
“You don’t have to put up with Ralph second-guessing every decision against the Hogwarts Handbook of Student Conduct.”
“Hi Zane,” Lily piped up, craning on her chair to see the boy in the Mirror. “How’s life back at Alma Aleron?”
“Same as always in most ways,” Zane bobbed his head.
“Complicated and worrying in others. The Timelock is getting a little wonky as the unplottability spell around the outer wall frays like an old scarf. Little chunks of the school keep breaking through into Muggle basements and attics all around Philadelphia, popping up like bubbles.
Professor Jackson says he has a solution in the works, but for now we’ve had to restrict the Timelock to the century before the city of Philadelphia was founded, just to be safe.”
“Things are getting tetchier around here as well,” Ralph said soberly. “We just had a Muggle family join us in the Great Hall, just as Merlin was finishing up his start-of-term speech.”
“No!” Zane’s eyes widened. “How’d they get in?”
“Just drove their car right up into the courtyard,” James said, his shoulders slumping. “They were lost and looking for directions.”
Uncharacteristically, Zane looked worried. “I’m sure old Merlin was up to the task of wiping their memories and sending them on their way, right?”
“And setting up a refreshed unplottability field around the school,” Rose said. “But yes. It’s a concern. Things are unraveling in ways no one can really predict. And there doesn’t seem to be much anyone can do about it.”
“Which brings us to why we’re all here,” Scorpius said somewhat impatiently, leaning back in his chair and raising his eyebrows. “For whatever it’s worth, we’re the few who may have some idea of who is really behind all of this. Meaning, of course, Judith, this very secretive Lady of the Lake person. And Petra Morganstern, our very own Undersirable Number One. Not that we’ve heard more than a peep from either over the last few years.”
“No news for two whole years,” Lily blew a breath up into her blonde fringe. “How do we know that Judith, the Lady of the Lake, is even still out there? Maybe she gave up and went back to whatever dimension she came from?”
James shook his head firmly. “Judith’s not the type just to give up. The more ground she loses, the harder she fights. But we know she’s still out there, working behind the scenes, letting everyone blame Petra for her plans.”
“I still don’t understand how anyone can blame Petra for what happened with the Morrigan Web,” Lily said, her brow darkening.
“Loads of us were there when it happened. We saw Judith and her fighting!”
“We did see it,” James agreed sourly, “But hardly anyone seems to remember it right. Judith has a sort of slippery quality about her that makes most people forget about her the moment she’s out of sight.
Even the people that do sort of remember her are afraid to admit it.
Don’t you see? People prefer blaming Petra. She’s the villain that they know. It’s less complicated, and somehow more comforting that way.”
Rose nodded. “That’s why the consequences of her plan are still unfolding everywhere around us.”
“And how do we know that?” Scorpius asked, cocking his head.
“Because you’ve got Muggles showing up in the Great Hall,”
Zane replied from the Shard. “That’s evidence that Judith’s plan, her version of our destiny, is still in play. Because the Crimson Thread is still stuck in our world, not the one it belongs to. The Thread is like a rock in the gears of our world’s destiny. As long as it’s here, things will continue to break down more and more over time.”
“And the Crimson Thread,” Scorpius said, doubt creeping into his voice, “is Petra Morganstern, according to you lot.”
James sighed. “We’ve been over this. When Judith brought the other dimension’s version of Petra into our world through the Vault of Destinies, then killed her here, that version of Petra—the Morgan version—became a part of our universe. Now, our Petra is the new Morgan. The Crimson Thread plucked from the Loom represents her.
She believes that the only way to set things back to rights, to get our own original destiny back, is for her to take Morgan’s place in that other dimension, Morgan’s version of our world, restoring the balance.”
Lily nodded tentatively. “And the fact that the Vow of Secrecy is still coming apart is a sign that she hasn’t succeeded in doing that yet.”
“Judith doesn’t want her to,” Ralph said. “Petra’s her toe-hold in our world. If Petra replaces the Morgan from that other dimension, not only do the destinies snap back into place, Judith gets sent back to whatever netherworld she came from. She’ll do anything to make sure Petra doesn’t do that.”
Scorpius looked doubtful. “Two years is a long time. How can we be certain that both of them are even still alive?”
“Petra was just in the news a few weeks ago,” Albus said, staring reflectively into a dark corner. “She apparently broke into some top secret armory of forbidden artifacts and books, looking for something.
One of the guards saw her.”
Lily shrugged uncertainly. “He could have been mistaken.
Petra’s posters are up everywhere. The guard might have just seen some woman in the dark and assumed it was her.”
“It was her,” Albus replied with unexpected conviction, still staring into the corner. James watched his brother, narrowing his eyes.
“Well then,” Scorpius said briskly, sitting up again in his seat.
“That does bring us to the point
.” He glanced around the room, looking from face to face. “Have any of us seen or heard from Petra since last we met? Any word at all?”
Every eye in the room turned silently to James. It was Zane who prompted him from the Shard. “What do you say, James? You’re the one with the magic mind-meld to our favorite misunderstood villainess.
How sure are you that she’s still out there? And that she really is the new Crimson Thread?”
James drew a long, deep breath, and then looked down at his right hand where it still lay on the table. He opened it, palm up.
“She’s blocking me, somehow,” he said reluctantly. “I can feel it.
But I don’t know why.”
“Really,” Scorpius said sarcastically, rolling his eyes again. “You have no idea, do you?”
“And I suppose you do?” James challenged, looking Scorpius in the eye.
“Now, now. Don’t let me steal your thunder. Although I am rather curious how you can be so certain of Morganstern’s plans if she has apparently turned off your mysterious third eye into her thoughts.”
James deflated a little. “I could never read her thoughts, you know that. I just got glimpses into her dreams sometimes, through the cord that connects us. I don’t understand it any more than you do. But up until recently, no matter how far apart we were, if I concentrated on that cord, I could sort of send my thoughts out on it, to wherever she was, and get an inkling. A mood, maybe. Or just a sort of fuzzy image.
No words. No complete thoughts, unless she’s very close. Usually just… feelings.”
Zane frowned from the Shard. “But not anymore?”
James shook his head slowly. “No. She’s still there. I know that much. But she’s shutting me out. She’s blocking her end. She doesn’t want me to know what she’s doing.”
Lily furrowed her brow. “Well, that’s rather worrying. Don’t you think?”
Albus made a scoffing noise and studied his own hands on the table. “Petra’s shutting James out because he’s a nervous busybody who’s all besotted with love, not thinking about whatever’s best for the whole world. Just his poor little ‘Astra’.”
“It was him that said it,” Scorpius observed quickly, raising an eyebrow. “Not me. I only thought it.”
James flopped forward and rested his chin on his crossed forearms. “You’ve said it enough in the past, I expect.”
“I think it’s very sweet,” Rose smiled. “Even if it is perhaps a bit hopeless and tragic.”
“It’s not tragic,” James said, pushing back in his chair again.
“You’re all daft. I care about Petra, yes. But I’m not just thinking of her. I’m thinking of the whole world. In fact…” He paused and drew a deep breath, considering what he was about to say. In a lower voice, he went on. “I think her plan is probably for the best. Even if it does mean… that she’ll leave our world forever.”
After a long, silent moment, Scorpius looked around the table.
“Well, then. That is rather a change of heart.”
James refused to meet anyone else’s gaze. “There’s just too much going wrong. Too much at stake to worry about just one girl’s life.”
Even if, he thought, but didn’t say, that one girl is Petra Morganstern.
“That does leave one lingering question, though,” Rose said on the heel of a reluctant sigh. “If Petra is blocking your connection to her, how do you know that this is still her plan? To replace the other version of herself, the Morgan version, from that other dimension? How do you really know that Petra has become the new Crimson Thread?”
James finally looked up. Without a word, he raised his right hand, palm up, fingers splayed. Slowly, he half-closed his eyes and began to concentrate.
He imagined Petra. In his mind and heart, he felt the ephemeral cord that bound him to her, that had connected them ever since that fateful moment on the Gwyndemere, when Petra had asked James to let her fall to her doom in the waves, and James had refused. The cord was a cool ribbon that rooted in his very heart, ran down his arm, and condensed on his palm like a ball of ice. From there, it wafted away into the space between them, extending and thinning, to wherever Petra was at this very moment.
She was blocking him. He could sense the pressure of her pushing back against him. It was frustrating. But it also meant, if nothing else, that she was thinking of him.
James opened his eyes again and looked down at his open hand.
The others in the room did as well, eyes wide, speechless and spellbound.
The cord was transparently visible in the darkness, brightest and thickest in the centre of James’ palm, fading and thinning upward in a shimmering ribbon, a thread that drifted up into darkness, not ending, just falling from sight.
In the still shadows of the Room of Requirement, the cord was no longer merely the pale silver of moon-glow. Now, the silver pulsed and flickered with traces of burnished red, the color of deepest sunset, forming a grey and scarlet ribbon that ascended and swirled up into dimness.
There could be no question. Without a doubt, the silver cord was slowly, gradually, becoming a crimson thread.
For James and Ralph, the first day of classes was like reacquainting with an old friend for the last, raucous time. James knew the entire castle by memory now. He could navigate the corridors with his eyes closed. He knew which shortcuts could be counted on to be too well-known and crowded to save any time between classes. He knew which bathrooms were prone to have their pipes clogged after lunch, requiring the blackly grumpy ministrations of Mr. Filch and a large rubber plunger. He knew when it was safe to cut through Professor Heretofore’s empty classroom, and the potions closet beyond, to cut several dozen yards off an otherwise wearying trek through noisy, cramped corridors.
In short, he was a seventh-year. The school was like home.
Better than that, Hogwarts was his native domain. Unlike home, where the rules were his parents’ and they made the decisions, Hogwarts school existed for him, belonged to him nearly as much as it belonged to its teachers and administrators. And as he passed through its halls between classes, laughing with his friends, soaking up the camaraderie that he had so missed throughout the summer, the younger years did (as McGonagall had predicted) seem to look up to him and his fellow seventh-years as sort of minor demigods. As James and his friends walked by, the youngest and most timid students even backed up against the walls to watch, their eyes wide and somber with awe, like rowboats rocking in the waves of passing yachts. James didn’t feel quite entitled to such attention, but he enjoyed it nonetheless, knowing that even those shy first-years would someday be in his shoes.
According to James’ class schedule, Mondays were light, but brutally rigorous. His morning period included a double Arithmancy class, which was quite the marathon, considering that Arithmancy was one of James’ weakest subjects. Fortunately, he navigated to a seat next to Rose, who, like her mother, was a natural at the subject and had tested into the advanced classes during her very first year. Unlike her mother, however, Rose felt no obligation to assist James and Ralph in any way, and in fact did her best to shield her fastidious notes from their prying, sidelong glances. At one point, near the end of class, Professor Shert called Rose to the chalkboard to illustrate a particularly lengthy equation, and James, in a burst of inspiration, had quietly drawn his wand.
“Geminio!” he rasped as quietly as possible, directing the spell at his cousin’s notes. With a tiny puff, he conjured two identical copies of the parchment and quickly, triumphantly, distributed one to Ralph and jammed the other into his knapsack.
It wasn’t until after class, when he and Ralph paused in the halls to examine the copied notes, that they noticed that each neat, back-slanting paragraph of Rose’s handwriting had transformed into a single sentence, repeated over and over:
This content protected by ROSE WEASLEY’S PATENTED ANTI-DUPLICATION JINX, meant exclusively for JAMES POTTER, who is a lazy Niffler, and maybe ALBUS POTTER, too, except I don’t t
hink he even knows the Gemini spell yet, even though that’s first-year magic for morons.
Without a word, James and Ralph balled up the copied parchments and tossed them into the nearest trash bin. Rose passed them with her chin raised in the air, smiling smugly.
The remainder of the day was devoted to History of Magic with the ghostly Professor Binns, which was perhaps even tougher than Arithmancy. James knew that the subject was very important for potential Auror training. Unfortunately, he had barely avoided a (D) Dreadful on the subject’s most recent N.E.W.T. examination. He determined to be resolute in paying painstaking attention to the famously boring Professor Binns, to take copious, detailed notes, and to study steadfastly at every opportunity.
Ten minutes into the class, however, he was leaning on his elbow in the first row, his eyeglasses abandoned on the parchment before him, staring blankly at the mish-mash of chalk notes on Professor Binns’ blackboard as the professor droned patiently on.
Even Rose took fewer notes in Binns’ class, although James suspected that this was because she, unlike him, already knew the material frontwards and back. She doodled idly on the corner of her parchment. James slid an eye toward the scratching of her quill and was both pained and annoyed to see her completing a drawing of a fat heart around Scorpius Malfoy’s name, written in looping cursive. She completed the heart, stared disconsolately at it for a moment, and then scribbled it out, pursing her lips silently.
Dinner in the Great Hall cemented the day happily, with James, Graham, and Deirdre completing the beginning-of-term ritual with a round of de rigueur complaints about the assigned homework and essays.
Rose, as usual, had completed hers in her free library period and merely raised her eyebrows primly. None of them truly minded the homework, at least not yet. James’ would be easily finished by the time ten o’clock rolled around, bringing the appointment with Argus Filch and the other Seventh-years. He saw the anticipation on Graham’s and Deirdre’s faces, but resisted the urge to discuss it, even in whispers. The tour of Hogwarts’ most clandestine areas was a secret, of course. If Rose had any clue about it, she would find a way to get the information from James somehow or other.