Ahead of him, revealed only in the moonlight, a clearing opened, surrounding a stony depression in the earth. He descended into the center of the depression and looked up. The glittering night sky poured into the bowl-shaped clearing, painting everything bone white. His shadow pooled beneath him as if it were noonday. There was no place for him in this world anymore. He would leave the society of men. But he would return when things were different, when circumstances had changed, when the world was again ripe for his power. Then he would reawaken the earth, revive the trees and their spirits, refresh their power, and his with it. Then would be a time of reckoning. It might be decades, or even centuries. It might even be eternity. It didn’t matter. He could stay in this time no longer.
There was a noise, a scuffle of clumsy footsteps nearby. Someone else was there, in the clearing with him: someone he hated, but whom he needed. He spoke to this person, and as he did, the world began to dim, to darken, to fade.
“Instruct those that follow. Keep my vestments, station, and talisman at the ready. I will await. At the Hall of Elders’ Crossing, when my time of returning is come, assemble them again and I will know. I have chosen you to safeguard this mission, Austramaddux, for as my last apprentice, your soul is in my hand. You are bound to this task until it is complete. Vow to me your oath.”
Out of the descending darkness, the voice spoke only once. “It is my will and my honor, Master.”
There was no answer. He was gone. His robes dropped to the earth, empty. His staff balanced for a moment, then fell forward and was caught in an eerily white hand, the hand of Austramaddux, before it could hit the rocky ground. Then even that scene vanished. The darkness compressed to a dwindling point. The universe leapt up, monstrous and spinning, and there was only oblivion.
James forced his eyes open and gasped. His lungs felt flattened, as if he hadn’t had breath in them for several minutes. Hands grasped him, yanking the hood back and pulling the robe off his shoulders. Weakness stole over James and he began to collapse. Zane and Ralph caught him awkwardly and heaved him onto his bed.
“What happened?” James asked, still dragging in great gulps of air.
“You tell us!” Ralph said, his voice high and frightened.
Zane was stuffing the robe roughly back into the briefcase. “You put this crazy thing on and then pop! Off you went. Not what I’d have called a wise choice, you know.”
“I blacked out?” James asked, recovering enough to get his elbows beneath him.
Ralph said, “Blacked out nothing. You up and disappeared. Poof.”
“It’s true,” Zane nodded, seeing James stunned expression. “You were clean gone for three or four minutes. Then he showed up,” Zane indicated the corner behind James’ bed with a worried nod. James turned and there was the semi-transparent form of Cedric Diggory. The ghost looked down at him, then smiled and shrugged. Cedric seemed rather more solid than the last few times James had seen him.
Zane went on, “He just appeared through the wall, as if he had come looking for you. Ralph here shrieked like--well, I’d say like he’d just seen a ghost, but considering we have breakfast with ghosts most mornings and a History class with one every Tuesday, the phrase doesn’t seem all that impressive anymore.”
Ralph spoke up. “He took one look at us, then the briefcase, and then he just, sort of, thinned out. Next thing we know, you’re back, just where’d you been, looking white as a statue.”
James turned back to the ghost of Cedric. “What did you do?”
Cedric opened his mouth to speak, tentatively and carefully. As if from a long way off, his voice seeped into the room. James couldn’t tell if he was hearing it with his ears or his mind.
You were in danger. I was sent. I saw what was happening when I got here.
“What was it?” James asked. The experience was murky in his memory, but he sensed he’d remember more when the magic of it wore off.
A Threshold Marker. A powerful bit of magic. It opens a dimensional gateway, designed to communicate a message or a secret over great time or distance. But its strength is careless. It almost swallowed you up.
James knew that was true. He had felt it. In the end, the darkness had been consuming, seamless. He swallowed past a hard lump in his throat and asked, “How did I get back?”
I found you, Cedric said simply. I dipped into the ether, where I have spent so much time since my death. You were there, but you were far-off. You were going. I chased you and returned with you.
“Cedric,” James said, feeling stupid for putting on the robe, and terrified at what had almost happened. “Thanks for bringing me back.”
I owed you that. I owed your father that. He brought me back, once.
“Hey,” James said suddenly, brightening. “You can talk now!”
Cedric smiled, and it was the first genuine smile James had seen on the ghostly face. I feel… different. Stronger. More… here, somehow.
“Wait,” Ralph said, raising a hand. “This is the ghost you told us about, isn’t it? The one that chased the intruder off the grounds a few months ago?”
“Oh, yeah,” James said. “Zane and Ralph, this is Cedric Diggory. Cedric, these are my friends. So what do you think is happening to you? What’s making you more here?”
Cedric shrugged again . For what seemed like a long time, I felt like I was in a sort of dream. I moved through the castle, but it was empty. I never got hungry, or thirsty, or cold, or needed to rest. I knew I was dead, but that was all. Everything was dark and silent, and there didn’t seem to be any days or seasons. No passage of time at all. Then things began to happen.
Cedric turned and sat on the bed, making no mark on the blankets. James, who was closest, could feel a distinct chill emanating from Cedric’s form. The ghost continued.
For periods of time, I started to feel more aware. I began to see people in the halls, but they were like smoke. I couldn’t hear them. I came to realize that these periods of activity happened in the hours of the day right after my time of death. Each night, I’d feel myself awaken. I noticed the time, because that was the thing that meant the most, the sense of minutes and hours passing. I searched out a clock, the one just outside the Great Hall, and watched the time go by. I was most awake throughout the night, but by each morning, I’d begin to fade. Then, one morning, just as I was thinning, losing touch, I saw him.
James sat up straight. “The intruder?”
Cedric nodded. I knew he wasn’t supposed to be here, and somehow I knew that if I tried, I could make him see me. I scared him away.
Cedric grinned again, and James thought he could see in that grin the strong and likeable boy that his dad had known.
“But he came back,” James said. Cedric’s grin turned into a scowl of frustration.
He came back, yes. I saw him, and I scared him off again. I started to watch for him in the mornings. And then, one night, he broke in through a window. I was stronger then, but I decided someone else needed to know he was inside the castle. So I came to you, James. You had seen me, and I knew who you were. I knew you’d help.
“That was the night you broke the stained-glass window,” Zane said, smiling. “Kicked that guy through it like Bruce Lee. Nice.”
“Who was he?” James asked, but Cedric merely shook his head. He didn’t know.
“So it’s almost seven o’clock, now,” Ralph pointed out. “How are you making us see you? Isn’t this your weakest time?”
Cedric seemed to think about it. I’m getting more solid. I’m still just a ghost, but I seem to be becoming, sort of, more of a ghost. I can talk more now. And there is less and less of that strange nothing time. I think that this is just how ghosts are made.
“But why?” James couldn’t help asking. “What makes a ghost happen? Why didn’t you just, you know, move on?”
Cedric looked at him closely, and James sensed that Cedric himself didn’t know the answer to that question, or at least, not very clearly. He shook his head slightly. I wasn
’t done yet. I had so much to live for. It happened so fast, so suddenly. I just… wasn’t done.
Ralph picked up Professor Jackson’s case and threw it back into James’ trunk. “So where did you go when you popped off, James?” he said, heaving himself onto the end of the bed.
James took a deep breath, collecting his memories of the strange journey. He described the initial feeling of holding the cloak, how it seemed to allow him to sense the air and the wind, then even the animals and the trees. Then he told them about the vision he’d had, of being inside Merlin’s body, in his very thoughts. He shuddered, remembering the anger and bitterness, and the voice of the servant, Austramaddux, who vowed his oath to serve until the time of reckoning was come. He recalled it vividly as he spoke, finishing by describing how the blackness of the night had wrapped around him like a cocoon, shrinking and turning to nothingness.
Zane listened with intense interest. “It makes sense,” he finally said in a low, awed voice.
“What?” James asked.
“How Merlin might’ve done it. Don’t you see? Professor Jackson himself talked about it on our first day of class!” He was getting excited. His eyes were wide, darting from James to Ralph to the ghost of Cedric, who was still seated on the edge of the bed.
Ralph shook his head. “I don’t get it. I don’t have Technomancy this year.” “Merlin didn’t die,” Zane said emphatically. “He Disapparated!”
James was puzzled. “That doesn’t make sense. Any wizard can Apparate. What’s so special about that?”
“Remember what Jackson told us that first day? Apparition is instantaneous for the wizard whose doing it, even though it takes a little time for the wizard’s bits to fly apart then reassemble at a new place. If a wizard Disapparates without determining his new center-point, he never Reapparates at all, right? He just stays stuck in nothingness forever!”
“Well, sure,” James agreed, remembering the lecture, but failing to see the point.
Zane was nearly vibrating with excitement. “Merlin didn’t Disapparate to a place,” he said meaningfully. “He Disapparated to a time and a set of circumstances!”
Ralph and James boggled, considering the implications. Zane went on. “At the end of your vision, you said Merlin told Austramaddux to keep the relics and to watch for the time to be right. Then when the time came, the relics were supposed to be gathered again at the Hall of Elder’s Crossing. You see? Merlin was setting up the time and circumstances for his Reapparition. What you described at the very end, James, was Merlin Disapparating into oblivion,” Zane paused, thinking hard. “All these centuries, he’s just been suspended in time, stuck in everywhereness, waiting for the right circumstances for his Reapparition. To him, no time has passed at all!”
Ralph looked at the trunk at the end of James’ bed. “Then it’s for real,” he said. “They could actually do it. They could bring him back.”
“Not anymore,” James said, smiling mirthlessly. “We’ve got the robe. Without all the relics, the circumstances won’t be right. They can’t do anything.”
As soon as James had heard Zane explain it, it made perfect sense, especially in the context of the Threshold Marker vision. Suddenly, his possession of the robe had become even more important, and he couldn’t help wondering at the remarkable series of lucky circumstances that’d led to them obtaining it. From the briefcase Ralph had discovered in just the nick of time to Zane’s remarkably effective Visum-ineptio charm, James had the strongest sense that he, Zane, and Ralph were being guided in their goal of thwarting the Merlin plot. But who was helping them?
“By the way,” James said to the ghost of Cedric, once Ralph and Zane had fallen into an animated discussion about Merlin’s Disapparition. “You said you were sent to help me. Who sent you?”
Cedric had stood and was fading a bit, but not much. He smiled at James and said, Someone I’m not supposed to mention, although I think you can probably guess. Someone who’s been watching.
Snape, thought James. The portrait of Snape had sent Cedric to help him when he’d gotten sucked into the Threshold Marker. But how had he known? James thought about that for a long time after Zane and Ralph had headed back to their own rooms, long after the rest of the Gryffindors had climbed the stairs and plopped into their beds. No answer came that night, however, and eventually James slept.
For the next several days, the three boys went about their normal school activities in a sort of triumphant fog. James left Jackson’s bag, with the relic robe inside, locked in his trunk and protected with Zane’s Locking Spell. Considering the effectiveness of the Visum-ineptio charm on the fake case, they had no serious concerns that anyone would even be looking for the real briefcase. Jackson continued to carry the old red rock-hound bag with the Hiram & Blattwott’s label on it to classes and meals, with no indication that he thought anything was out of the ordinary. Further, no one else spared it a second glance, even though Jackson had been seen carrying the black case with his name plate on the side for months. Finally, on Saturday afternoon, James, Ralph, and Zane met in the Gryffindor common room to discuss their next steps.
“There’re really only two questions, now,” Zane said, leaning over the table upon which they were ostensibly doing their homework. “Where is the Hall of Elder’s Crossing? And where is the third relic, Merlin’s staff?”
James nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that last one. The throne is under the guard of Madame Delacroix. The robe was under the guard of Professor Jackson. The third relic must be under the guard of the third conspirator. My guess is it’s somebody else here on the grounds, an inside person. What if it’s the Slytherin who used the name Austramaddux on Ralph’s GameDeck? They’d have to be aware of the plot if they used that name, and if they are aware of it, they’re in on it.”
“But who?” Ralph asked. “I didn’t see who took it. It was just gone. Besides, the staff of Merlin would be pretty hard to hide, wouldn’t it? If he was as big as you said he was in your vision, James, then the thing must be six feet tall if it’s an inch. How do you hide a six-foot magical lightning rod like that?”
James shook his head. “I haven’t the foggiest. Still, it’s up to you to keep a look out, Ralph. Like Ted said, you’re our inside man.”
Ralph slumped. Zane doodled on a piece of parchment. “So what about question one?” he said without looking up. “Where is the Hall of Elder’s Crossing?”
James and Ralph exchanged blank looks. James said, “No clue, again. But I think there’s a third question we need to think about, too.”
“As if the first two weren’t tricky enough,” Ralph muttered.
Zane glanced up and James saw he was doodling the gate to the Grotto Keep. “What’s the third question?”
“Why haven’t they done it yet?” James whispered. “If they believe they have all three relics, why haven’t they just gone on down to wherever this Hall of Elder’s Crossing is and tried to call Merlin back from his thousand-year Disapparition?”
None of them had any answers, but they agreed it was an important question. Zane flipped his doodle over, revealing a drabble of scribbled notes and diagrams from Arithmancy class. “I’m checking the Ravenclaw library, but between homework, classes, Quidditch, debate and Constellations Club, I hardly have two minutes left to rub together.”
Ralph dropped his quill on the table and leaned back, stretching. “How’s that coming, anyway? You’re the only one with any contact with Madame Delacroix. What’s she like?”
“Like a gypsy mummy with a pulse,” Zane replied. "She and Trelawney are supposed to be sharing Constellations Club, like Divination class, but they’ve started trading on and off instead of teaching it together. Works a lot better, since they sort of cancel each other out, anyway. Trelawney just has us sketch astrological symbols and look at the planets through the telescope to ‘ascertain the moods and manners of the planetary brethren’.” James, who knew Sybil Trelawney as a distant family friend, grinned at Zane’s affectiona
te impression of her. Zane went on, “Delacroix, though, she has us plotting star charts and measuring the color of starlight wavelengths, working out the exact timing of some big astronomical event.”
“Oh, yeah,” James remembered. “The alignment of the planets. Petra and Ted told me about that. They’re in Divination with her. Seems like the voodoo queen’s really into that kind of stuff.”
“She’s the anti-Trelawney, that’s for sure. With her, it’s all math and calculations. We know the date it’ll happen, but she wants us to factor out the exact timing right down to the minute. Pure busywork if you ask me. She’s a little kooky about it.”
“She’s kooky in general, if you ask me,” Ralph stated.
“I think she might be onto us,” James said in a hushed voice. “I’ve seen her looking at me sometimes.”
Zane raised his eyebrows and pointed at his eyes. “She’s blind, if you remember. She’s not looking at anything, mate.”
“I know,” James said, undeterred. “But I swear that she knows something. I think she has ways of seeing that don’t have anything to do with her eyes.”
“Let’s not freak ourselves out,” Ralph said quickly. “This is freaky enough already. She can’t know anything. If she did, she’d act on it, right? So forget about her.”
The next day, James and Ralph went to visit Hagrid in his cabin, ostensibly to inquire after Grawp and Prechka. Hagrid was rebuilding the wagon Prechka had accidentally destroyed and was glad of the break. He invited them in and served them tea and biscuits while he warmed himself by the fire, Trife lying over his feet and occasionally licking Hagrid’s lowered hand.