"I'm not mad," James admitted grudgingly. "I'm just… disappointed."
"I really am sorry, James," Rose insisted, glancing aside at him. "It isn't that I don't believe you. I do! It's just… it's hard to be caught between the way everyone else sees things and trusting what you say really happened."
"I don't see what's so hard about it," James said darkly.
Rose's voice lowered and hardened a bit. "It isn't just the Lady of the Lake, James. I trusted you. We all did. I know you did your best, and I believe you, but whether you like it or not, you were warned. Not only by Scorpius, but by me, too. I told you it was really dangerous, breaking through the Nexus Curtain. I could've told on you, you know. I could have stopped it all, but I didn't. I let it happen. Because I trusted you."
"Believe me, Rose," James said, stopping his cousin as they came into the shadow of the great stone barn. "You couldn't have changed what happened that night. Even Merlin couldn't stop it, and I promise you, he really tried. If we hadn't followed the Lady of the Lake, she and Morgan would have succeeded in killing my dad and Titus. Petra had no choice. There was no stopping what she did."
"I'm not talking about that," Rose said impatiently, glancing up at James, and then looking away again. "I don't care about what happened afterwards."
James blinked at her. "Then what…?"
"Lucy," Rose said, locking her eyes onto James' again, unblinking. "I keep thinking that if I had stopped you, Lucy would still be alive. Not just for me, but for Aunt Audrey and Uncle Percy. They worked so hard to adopt her, and they haven't been the same since they lost her. And poor Molly! Lucy was the only sister she'll ever have. And I think, if only I had been there somehow, if only I had done something, maybe I could have saved her. And… and…"
She looked away again, refusing to continue.
"You think it's my fault she died." James said quietly.
Rose's eyes glimmered with sudden tears. She swiped at them.
"I don't want to…" she whispered, refusing to look at him. "I keep telling myself… you couldn't have done anything. She was your cousin, too. I… I defend you in my thoughts. But…" she finally looked at him again, and there was something like a defiant plea in her eyes. "It's hard work. I'm sorry, James. I really, really am. I don't it want to be like this."
James suddenly didn't care about the cold wind, or his already soaked shoes, or whether they would be late for their first class. He realized how petty he had been to feel anger toward Rose. A deep sense of emptiness descended on him, weighed him down and drained the colour from the world. He felt that he could just sit down right there on the wet grass and never move again.
"If it helps, Rose," he said in a flat voice, "I don't blame you for thinking that. I feel the same way. I've been thinking about it all summer, replaying it, seeing all the ways that I could have responded differently. I've saved Lucy in my mind… in my dreams… about a million times. But when I wake up…" He shook his head helplessly and spread his hands, framing emptiness.
Rose studied his face intently, tears still standing in her eyes.
Hagrid was approaching, his voice booming over the gusting wind as he led a small group toward the barn. James barely heard them.
"It does help, James," Rose said, nodding once. "Perhaps that makes me a horrible person, but I can't change it. It helps to know you've thought about it, struggled with it." She paused, and then, very quietly, she added, "She fancied you. She knew it was silly, but she couldn't help it. Did you know that?"
James bowed his head weakly.
Rose put her arm through his, supporting him. Together, they rounded the corner of the barn and joined the gathering near its great open doors.
Two summers, he thought to himself, not hearing Hagrid greet the class, not even aware of the small gathering of gawking, unfamiliar faces that accompanied him. Two summers… and two funerals. It's too much. I don't want anymore.
Dimly, he became aware of what was happening as the newcomers filtered into the class, mingling awkwardly. One of them, a heavy boy with thick ginger hair and a mass of freckles, shouldered in next to James. He caught James' eye and stuck out his hand.
"Morton Comstock," he announced briskly. "Yorke Academy."
James shook the boy's hand automatically. "James," he muttered.
"So this is what they've been telling us about, eh?" Morton nodded, glancing around. "Doesn't seem like all that much of a thing to me. Where are all the monsters and stuff?"
James saw Rose look sidelong at the heavy boy. "They aren't just roaming around free, you know," she answered stiffly. "Most of them aren't exactly tame."
"Despite what our oaf of a teacher thinks," Trenton Bloch muttered pointedly.
James looked back over his shoulder. Trenton stood at the back of the group, alongside Ralph. Ralph shrugged and rolled his eyes.
"Right, then!" Hagrid called happily, clapping his huge, meaty hands. "Into th' barn with yeh. We've got lots ter cover in a short time, what with getting our new friends up ter speed. We'll start with th' Harbinger classes and work through th' Triminaries. If yeh're lucky," he added with a wink, looking over the students, "We may get a peek at my newest addition, a genuine pimpleback bog slug. Big as a pig if it's an inch!"
"Slugs," Morton scoffed under his breath as the group crowded into the warmth of the barn. "Yeah, this is going to be way scary. 'See amazing creatures of myth and legend' they said. Whatever. I should have stayed home and played Realm of Runescape. At least there the monsters aren't bloody slugs."
"You may want to watch your mouth, Muggle," Trenton Block murmured threateningly. "Here, the spells do more than make pretty lights on a telly screen."
"But you can't use them on us," Morton replied smugly. "We may have signed agreements not to tell anyone else what we see here-- for the time being-- but that won't stop the authorities from closing this place down like a bad restaurant if you so much as point one of those little sticks of yours the wrong way. Just try it."
"Oh dear me," a familiar voice drawled from the rear of the class. James looked back to see Scorpius shaking his head sardonically. "I can tell already that this is going to be a simply delightful term."
It did, in fact, take rather a lot of getting used to.
After Care of Magical Creatures, there were Durmstrangs in Herbology, standing uncomfortably in the stuffy greenhouse, sweating under layers of wool and fur collars.
"What is it with those blokes," Graham Warton asked behind his hand, "is it always winter where they come from?"
"I don't see any Durmstrang girls," Fiona Fourcompass noticed a little hopefully. "Is it an all-boys school, do you think?"
Rose scoffed at this. "Of course not. It's an international wizarding school. They'd have to admit girls."
"Maybe there's a separate school for girls," James suggested reasonably. "Wouldn't surprise me. They don't allow Muggle-borns in, after all. Who knows what other rules and restrictions they have?"
"They are very serious about their secrecy," Fiona said archly as they gathered around a raised table covered in purple ferns. "Nobody even knows for sure where the school is. Unless you do, Weasley, and just haven't told anyone."
"In fact, I know it's either in Norway or Sweden," Rose said stiffly. "My mum told me."
"Maybe that's just what the Durmstrangs want us to think," Graham said conspiratorially, nudging James with an elbow.
Later, as lunch drew to a close, James, Rose and Ralph watched students leave for their various classes via the four vanishing cabinets. One by one, students would enter a cabinet and then close the door. A moment later, when the door was opened, the cabinet would be spotlessly empty. Hanging beneath the rose window, dominating the area above the staff table, the monstrous five-faced Clock ticked off all the relevant time zones, allowing students to keep track of their international class schedules. Rose was nearly jumping with anticipation about her first class abroad, scheduled for just after dinner that night (which would be onethirty i
n the afternoon, Alma Aleron time, according to the Clock). Neither Ralph nor James had an international class until Wednesday.
Lily, James saw, stood in line before the Beauxbatons cabinet, surrounded by a happy huddle of other first years. She noticed James looking and waved heartily at him, her blonde hair bouncing around her shoulders.
For some reason, James was reminded of Izzy, Petra's younger sister. Lily and Izzy were about the same age, and had become friends during the previous year, when they had attended school together in America. James wondered where Izzy was. With Petra, probably-- they had become virtually inseparable, after all. But where was that? How was Izzy going to grow and learn, living such a chaotic life on the run with her eerily powerful sister? He knew Petra would take care of her as best she could. But was that good enough? Being powerful, James knew, did not necessarily mean being wise.
And of course, there was the matter of the Bloodline-- the last, guttering shred of Lord Voldemort's soul, locked away inside of Petra, tangled inside her like a vine. She had overcome it. James trusted this. But it would never fully go away, never give up trying to twist her, to bend her to its wicked will. The allure of her power was just too great.
James still cared for Petra-- a great deal, in fact-- but he also grudgingly understood why people feared her. Not because she was evil, but because so many dark forces had coalesced around her, seeking to corrupt her, to gain a foothold on her powers. And Petra had, unfortunately, shown that she could be manipulated. Judith, The Lady of the Lake, had succeeded in that endeavour, using Petra to virtually destroy the vow of secrecy. By doing so, Petra had shown that she wasn't completely incorruptible.
James sighed deeply to himself as Lily stepped into the Beauxbatons cabinet. She turned, gripped the edge of the open door, and grinned nervously at her friends just outside. A moment later, she pulled the door shut, and was gone.
James shivered in his seat.
After lunch, there were Beauxbatons in Transfiguration. Two girls and two boys in sky blue robes sat clustered at the front table, directly in front of Professor McGonagall, speaking rapid French to each other under their breath as the rest of the class shuffled to their seats. James couldn't shake the feeling that the Beauxbatons were talking unflatteringly about everything they saw as they glanced furtively around the classroom.
"It's just the way they look," Rose scolded him in a harsh whisper. "It's the same expression Aunt Fleur always wears, like she's sort of politely disgusted by everything all the time."
It didn't help that the Beauxbatons were singularly skilled at transfiguration, apparently being taught it from a much younger age. They seemed positively bored by the class assignment of transfiguring a toad into a shoe. After accomplishing this with ease, they began to amuse themselves by adding intermediate transformations, such as tiny alligators (resulting in a rather fetching alligator-skin high-heel), and a fat brown kiwi fruit (on the way to a natty suede loafer).
Rose watched this with annoyance, growing increasingly dissatisfied with her own simple leather pump. Ralph, who had learned to control his own transfigurations very nicely, commented appreciatively.
"Oh, that's good," he nodded seriously. "They added a rattlesnake and made a cowboy boot. Pity the Americans aren't here to see it."
At the front table, the Beauxbatons giggled and sniggered at their creation. Professor McGonagall pursed her lips in obvious irritation.
"Why aren't any of the Americans here?" Ashley Doone asked from a nearby table, flicking her wand impatiently.
James paused, his own wand half-raised in front of his toad. "Now that you mention it, we haven't seen more than one additional school per class. Doesn't that seem a little odd?"
"Maybe it's just to keep things simple," Ralph suggested. "After all, each school had its own sign-up parchments. It was probably easiest just to offer each school its own unique set of classes."
"They could have just used a Protean charm to connect all the parchments," James said, shaking his head. "That way every school would see all the sign-ups by all the other schools."
Ashley shrugged. "Well, there has to be a reason why we never see more than one other school per class."
"Maybe there's such a thing as too much inclusion," Scorpius said darkly from the table behind James.
James turned in his seat. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked irritably.
Scorpius shrugged. "Believe what you want, Potter," he said, fiddling idly with his wand. "But I don't think any of this is about 'fostering brotherhood and tolerance between schools'. Call me a cynic."
"You're a cynic," James agreed, turning back around in his seat.
"Oh, now they're just showing off!" Rose hissed angrily, smacking her own wand onto the table, where it spat a burst of lime green sparks. "Dancing tap shoes made out of jewel crab? That's not even practical! If they were already so good at Transfiguration they shouldn't have signed up for the class in the first place!"
James turned away, stifling a grin. Scorpius may be a suspicious, greasy malcontent, but he did seem to be right about one thing: the addition of other schools in class certainly didn't seem to be fostering any brotherhood and tolerance.
Tuesday's class schedule illustrated just how quickly the drudgery of school work could replace the excitement of returning to a familiar, even beloved, place.
Potions classes were still held in the dungeons and taught by the head of Slytherin house, Professor Lucia Heretofore, who, in keeping with longstanding tradition, had no love for students outside her own house. Unlike her predecessor, Severus Snape, however, Professor Heretofore had no secret ambition of teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts or any other class. Her ambitions, it seemed, were confined to the more tangible goals of tormenting non-Slytherins. To that end, Professor Heretofore's first class assignment was the mixing of a particularly difficult elixir designed to temporarily grant supernatural hearing abilities.
"Mix it properly," she promised, arching one pencil-thin black eyebrow, "and you will listen to the rats plan their secret counsels in the highest rafters of the north tower. Mix it improperly," she warned, cocking her head and ticking an index finger back and forth, "and your ears will swell to the size of teakettles." She smiled meanly, her black eyes sparkling. "There is no antidote. So. Do be careful."
The four Muggle exchange students from Yorke school were, of course, exempted from the exercise. Professor Heretofore, showing apparently monumental restraint, instructed them to merely sit in the front corner and observe.
"Should we take notes, Professor?" asked an eager, pretty girl with braids and a silvery mouthful of braces.
"If it so moves you," Heretofore answered with thinly veiled disgust. "I suppose even pets may learn to act like their masters if they watch them hard enough."
Fortunately, the improperly prepared elixir's negative effects only lasted until half-way through the next class, which happened to be History of Magic. The ghostly Professor Binns, of course, barely noticed the arrival of the students, much less the grotesquely enlarged ears on many of them.
"I miss Professor Baruti already," James groused, holding his ears back so that they didn't flop forward and smack him in the face. "Nobody ever got accidentally cursed in his class. Besides, everybody knows that Heretofore helps the Slytherins more than any of us. None of them ever gets a potion wrong."
"Kevin Murdoch's got ginormous ears, just like you," Rose pointed out primly, producing a sheaf of history notes. Her own ears, of course, appeared perfectly normal. "And he's a Slytherin."
"Professor Heretorfore doesn't help me any," Ralph agreed. "And I do all right."
James shook his head, nearly dislodging his massive ears again. "That just proves that Murdoch is a hopeless berk and you're a natch at potions. I tell you, she's giving the rest of your Slytherin mates an unfair advantage. I hear she even helps you lot with all the essays and homework she assigns, at nights down in the dungeon. Try to tell me that's not true."
Ralph
shrugged and made a show of arranging his own quill and ink. "She offers tutoring sessions for anyone who needs a little help. Nothing wrong with that."
"There is if it's only available to Slytherins," James whispered darkly, "and if by 'tutoring' you mean 'giving out all the answers'."
"Move your monstrous ears, James," Graham whispered in annoyance. "I can't see the front of the classroom."
James glanced over his shoulder. "Who cares? It's not like you're going to take any notes from that mess on the blackboard."
"It's not the blackboard I want to see," Graham muttered dreamily.
James followed Graham's gaze. A pair of golden-haired Beauxbatons girls sat in the front of the room, studiously listening to Professor Binns' lecture. A brilliant sunbeam from the single window lay across their shoulders and hair, making both girls virtually glow in the gloomy classroom.
"They arrived early just to arrange those seats," Ashley Doone muttered with a roll of her eyes. "They're not Veelas. They're drama queens."
Graham smiled wistfully and settled his chin onto his hands. "They can be any kind of queens they want, s'far as I'm concerned."
"Shh!" Rose hissed, shaking her head in annoyance. "I can barely hear Binns' lecture over the arguments of the rats in the north tower. And everybody's bloody heartbeats. And who knew spider webmaking was so noisy, what with all those little clicking legs?"
James rolled his eyes, lowered his head, and allowed his ears to flop forward with twin, meaty smacks.
At lunchtime, he found himself seated across from Lance Vassar, the fifth year who had previously transferred from the wealthy private school called Bragdon Wand. Tall, good looking, and emanating a sort of worldly-wise confidence, Lance tended to dominate any conversation around him. He had a sort of magnetism that was hard to deny. Indeed, despite Lance's sharp words in the common room during first night, James found himself grudgingly longing for the popular boy's approval and acceptance.
"I took a private class at Durmstrang when I was twelve," Lance said off-handedly, in reference to the students queuing up before the international vanishing cabinets. "A very good program regarding the dark arts, really. They teach some defence, but they also teach a lot of the actual curses and jinxes. Even some of the unforgiveable ones. You have to understand them to know how to fight them, you know."