"Whatever the problem with the oil is," he ventured loudly. "It isn't in any of my bags."
"So sure, are you?" the man growled, beginning to heave Quinn's things out onto the street.
Quinn's temper finally broke. "All right, that's enough," he said, grabbing a duffle bag with one hand and the man's shoulder with the other. "I don't know what you think you're doing, but you're obviously not fixing my car. Why don't you just--"
The back of Quinn's head connected with the light pole before he knew what happened. He dropped the duffle bag, grabbed the back of his head and slid clumsily to the sidewalk, fifteen feet away from the car.
The old man-- who suddenly didn't appear particularly old at all-- still stood near the open boot, but peered back at Quinn with a calmly warning look.
"You'll not want to touch me again," he said, all the wheeze gone out of his voice. "If you know what's best for you."
He resumed his ransacking of the trunk, becoming agitated, muttering angrily under his breath.
Quinn climbed to his feet woozily. There was a hot, damp spot on the back of his head. He touched it gingerly with his fingers and they came away grimed with blood. The old man had pushed him. That had to have been it. But fifteen feet? Was anyone capable of such strength?
And yet the answer was right in front of him. The wheezy, hunched old man was suddenly straightspined and square-shouldered, his wispy grey hair now thick and threaded with black. He heaved Quinn's guitar case out onto the street with a clatter, barely pausing.
Still feeling woozy, Quinn looked around the sunny street. People were passing, glancing idly at the man ransacking the car, but no one stopped. To the outside observer, the scene probably looked like a disgruntled father searching his son's car for some mildly illegal contraband.
Quinn stumbled off the sidewalk and into the street, making a wide angle toward the Toronado's passenger door. He reached it, thumbed the latch, and pulled the door open. A moment later, he fell inside.
"Where is it?" the man's voice seethed from the depths of the trunk behind him. "It's here! Same as before! I can feel it!"
Despite the morning heat, a sort of preternatural chill fell over Quinn where he sat. The man was looking for something; something he knew had to be there, something he recognized. But how could he? It was the mention of the Toronado that had done it. Not many people drove them, not anymore. That was when the old man had changed, become suddenly interested.
"Where are you," he growled, shaking the car with his fervour as he tore things out of the boot, heaving them onto the street. "Where are you, Gods damn it!"
And then, suddenly, he stopped. Silence fell, punctuated only by the dim thrum of distant traffic and a nearby dog's barking.
And Quinn realized that knew what the man was looking for.
He lurched in the passenger's seat, leaned over, and rammed his hand under the driver's seat, groping frantically. It wasn't there. He twisted his body, shimmying further under the seat, scrabbling in the darkness. His fingers brushed something, a small, heavy object wrapped in oily rags. He fumbled it, and then gripped it.
"What are you at, then?" a voice exclaimed harshly in his ear, and a pair of strong, knuckly hands grabbed him, clamping onto his calf and shoulder, heaving him bodily out of the car. "Eh? Where is it? Give it over!"
Quinn flailed, scrabbled at the car door to no avail, and fell stumbling into the street. The man loomed over him, a grim shadow against the morning sun. He reached again, but Quinn scrambled backwards, still clutching the object he'd claimed from beneath the seat. The man followed, stalking resolutely, chasing Quinn into the shadows of the opposite sidewalk. A newspaper lorry sat idling against the curb, its exhaust making a plume of rich fumes in the still air. Quinn bumped against the lorry's tire and tried to clamber to his feet.
The man kicked at him, knocking him back down.
"Give it over," he commanded, raising his chin and reaching for his back pocket. "Give it over and perhaps this day may end with you still alive."
Quinn shook his head. He groped for something to say, some pithy rebuttal that would end this incomprehensible confrontation. "O--" he stammered, clutching the wrapped object against his chest. "O- Over my dead body!"
The old man nodded firmly and sighed. "In that case…" He raised his fist from behind his back and a long, tapered stick was protruding from it. He pointed it at Quinn, sighted down it, and stepped back into the sunlight of the street, drawing his aim.
And in Quinn's hand, the wrapped object pulsed, suddenly as cold as a January tombstone.
"Avada…!"
There was a screech, a blaring horn, a judder of grinding tires, and the man was bashed from view, replaced by a blur of grey-green metal. It was a garbage truck, slewing sideways as it braked. Quinn (and James as well) could hear the frantic cursing of the driver even over the noise of the squealing tires. A moment later-- and twenty feet away-- the garbage truck jerked to a stop, producing a rattling crash from its rubbish-choked guts.
Weak with disbelief and shock, Quinn finally clambered to his feet. He stumbled around the front of the newspaper lorry to where the garbage truck sat idling, angled crookedly toward the curb. The erstwhile old man lay in its shadow, broken and bleeding, road grime ground into his cheek and forehead. His wand was broken in his clenched fist.
"What the--" a man's voice cried, and then, shrill with disbelief: "Him again!"
Quinn looked up, saw the garbage truck driver standing on the running board of his truck, clutching the open door. James was not exactly surprised to see that it was the same driver, only a decade older, his chin pouched and his cheeks grey with stubble.
"Go for help," Quinn said mildly. "The cops, ambulance. Whatever."
The driver looked from Quinn, to the body in the gutter, and then back again. "Whatever you say, kid," he said, shaking his head in wonderment. "But I don't think it's gonna do anybody any good." He looked back again at the dying man below and muttered, "Jeesh. Talk about what goes around comes around…"
Quinn approached the bleeding figure in the shadow of the garbage truck. As he did so, he felt the cloth fall off the object in his hand. The dying man saw it and his eyes sparkled strangely. He let out a harsh, barking laugh.
James looked. It was the ancient pistol. The one that had killed Magnussen in an alley in 1859. The one that had somehow travelled through time, passing from one hand to another, to end up here, at this moment. Quinn looked down at it in his hand.
"This is what you wanted," he said blankly. "But… why?"
The man's face contorted with pain and rage. "It's… more power than a creature like you--" He coughed violently and spat blood. "Than a creature like you knows what to do with."
Quinn took another step forward and stood over the man. He lowered the old, unloaded pistol to his side. "You murdered my mother," he said, merely confirming what he already knew.
The man showed his bloody teeth and struggled for his last, ragged breath. "Killing Muggles," he rasped, "isn't… murder."
He fell back against the curb, his strength spent. A moment later, his chest fell and didn't rise again. He still stared up at Quinn, but the eyes were as empty as marbles.
Quinn stared down at him. It was over, but it wasn't satisfying. James could see it on the young man's face. Quinn didn't have any more answers. Just more questions. It was as if he was willing the dead man to come back to life again, to ask him the questions that now, suddenly, seemed so important.
Why was the gun-- this ancient, useless old revolver-- worth killing for? What had he meant by it having more power than he, Quinn, would know what to do with? What had the stick in the man's hand been? Was that how he had killed Quinn's mother somehow, all those years earlier?
So many questions, and almost no answers.
Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime (but was really less then fifteen seconds) Quinn bent, retrieved the hank of oily cloth from the pavement, and wrapped the pistol in it. He returned t
o his Toronado, pushed the wrapped weapon back under the driver's seat, and then went back to the body of his mother's murderer. Calmly, he sat down on the curb and just stared at the dead man's blank, marble-like eyes. There he waited for the police, whose sirens were even now echoing along the street.
And James sank away, leaving Quinn, watching the young man's strange, inquiring calm, wishing he could answer the questions for him.
The pistol was powerful because it had ended the life of a great, dark wizard, and that had made it a sort of wand, absorbing the wizard's power, converting it into strange, magical energy. It was inexplicable, but it was also undeniable.
Somehow, some way (James thought as darkness drifted over him, engulfing the scene) this was the answer. This strange, long story was the answer to his most pressing question.
And as James tumbled into the darkness of the dream's closing oblivion, he realized: Quinn wasn't the only one with more questions than answers.
12. MYSTERY AT THE WHITE TOMB
James ascended to wakefulness like a diver ascending from the depths of the ocean. It seemed to take an exceedingly long time, with consciousness blooming slowly above like a pale dawn. Eventually, blearily, he opened his eyes.
He was not on the Hogwarts Express. A blank, grey ceiling hung high over his head, dim with shadows. He turned, moaning, and pushed himself to a sitting position.
"Oh thank goodness," a woman's voice announced, her tone somewhere between relief and rebuke. "I was beginning to think you'd spend the rest of the term on that bed. Here, here, drink this. You must be hopelessly dehydrated."
A glass vial was pressed against James' lips, followed by a gush of cold liquid. He gulped the liquid-- which tasted a bit like old copper knuts and dirty socks-- and coughed.
"Now let's not be dramatic," Madame Curio chided, setting the glass aside. "Anyone willing to swallow five of those horrible Weasley Fainting Fancies on a dare should have no problem with a little Draught of Rejuvenation."
"F-Fainting--" James coughed, glancing around. He saw that he was back at Hogwarts, in the hospital wing. The light outside the tall windows was grey and watery, giving no indication of the time of day. "Fainting Fancies?"
"You of all people should know better, Mr. Potter," Madame Curio huffed. "Taking dares about such silly things, especially on the train, with no medical staff to assist if things go awry. And things do always seem to go awry with you, don't they? Fortunately for you, Rose Weasley, Ralph Deedle and that Malfoy boy had the sense to bring you straight to me from the train, telling me exactly what happened."
James' heart sank in his chest. "They carried me here from the train? Like, in front of everybody?"
"Well there was little they could do to hide it, was there?" Madame Curio replied, producing a thermometer and thrusting it into James' mouth.
He flopped back against the rumpled pillows. "How long have we been back, then?" he mumbled around the thermometer.
"Three and a half days," Madame Curio sniffed. "I was seriously beginning to wonder if I was going to have to transfer you to St. Mungos."
"Three days!?" James nearly choked again, scrambling upright. Madame Curio pushed him back down.
"Yes, three days, so you can manage five more minutes. Now lie still and stop talking."
When Madame Curio finally released him, James made his way toward the Great Hall, where he could hear the dull thrum and clatter of dinner conversation. He tried to enter surreptitiously, angling around the side wall toward the Gryffindor table, but nonetheless drew an increasing number of glances and half-whispered comments. As James passed, Lance Vassar smirked and shook his head, joined by his constant entourage of admirers. From the Slytherin table, Albus craned, and began to applaud. This was joined by a smattering of others throughout the hall, all grinning, some miming fainting, hands to their foreheads.
"Hilarious," James huffed, dropping to a seat between Rose and Scorpius. "Fainting Fancies."
"What were we supposed to do?" Rose hissed. "It was like you were dead! By the time we got to Hogsmeade I'd tried every reviving charm I know. We couldn't tell anyone about the Dream Inducers, could we?"
"The Fainting Fancies were Scorpius' idea," Ralph said, pushing a platter of steak and kidney pie at James. "When we told him what happened, he came up with that straight away, even had a few of them in his pocket to make it all seem legit. Did the job nicely when we got to Madame Curio."
James accepted the platter, suddenly realizing just how ravenous he was. "Except that now everyone thinks I'm some prat who'll swallow anything on a dare."
"Better that than having Professor Avior knowing you nicked some of his wares," Rose said in a low voice. "By the way, glad you finally woke up."
"So tell," Scorpius said seriously, pushing aside his own plate and leaning close. "Apparently the Yuxa Baslatma worked, yes? We've been waiting half a week to hear the mysterious answer to our problems. What did you see?"
James met Scorpius' eyes, then drew a deep breath, unsure where to start. He nodded, and then shook his head. "It worked. But I don't have any clue what any of it meant."
"Tell," Rose insisted. "Maybe we can help work it out."
James shook his head firmly, as if to dislodge something in his brain. "Let me eat. And think a bit. I still feel like there's a cloud jammed into my head. Then we'll discuss it. In the library."
The others agreed to this reluctantly. Eventually, after James' third helping of steak and kidney pie (and Ralph's fourth pumpkin muffin) they made their way to the library, where James told them everything he could remember. When he finished, there was a moment of thoughtful silence.
"How's that an answer to our most important question?" Ralph finally asked.
Rose frowned. "It does seem pretty vague. Perhaps it will make sense eventually?"
"Who's Quinn?" Scorpius mused, leaning back in his chair. "That's really the key to everything."
"Quincy is one of the names the Collector is using as the new American vice president," Scorpius suggested doubtfully.
James sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I wish it was that easy. The Quinn in my dream had it as a last name, and he stopped using it as soon as he moved away from Philadelphia. Who knows what name he's going by now? All I know is that all of this started because of what happened when Zane, Ralph and I went through the timelock and followed Magnussen."
"I told you it was dangerous meddling about in time!" Rose rallied, poking James in the chest. "I warned you! That's why Time Turners have been outlawed! The past is no place to go mucking about in!"
"Cool your cauldron, Weasley," Scorpius drawled in a bored voice. "Clumsy as they probably were, James, Deedle and Walker didn't change anything. They just watched it all happen from behind a bunch of crates. Like mice."
"Well," Ralph, objected mildly. "Not like mice, exactly. More like… like lemurs."
"Foxes," James amended. "Stealthy like."
"You can't know you didn't change things," Rose insisted seriously. "It's a scientific law: observing things changes the outcome. Even the Muggles know that."
Ralph blinked at Rose. "Where do you get this stuff?"
Rose flopped backwards in her chair and crossed her arms huffily. "Just because you haven't read it doesn't mean it isn't true."
"So what did I miss here in the land of the living?" James asked tiredly. For someone who had slept for almost four days, he felt surprisingly exhausted.
"Nothing good," Ralph admitted in a low voice. "Professor Revalvier isn't the only good teacher whose been replaced by some dodgy Ministry hack. Tabitha Corsica has taken over for Professor Longbottom in Herbology, just like we heard last time we were at Yorke. Grudje apparently arranged it himself."
"She's actually not a bad teacher, really." Rose sniffed. "I mean, she's a despicable person and all, sure, but still…"
James rolled his eyes, dreading the prospect of sitting beneath that cool, pretty, hateful gaze next Herbology. "I don't care how good a teacher she's pr
etending to be. She's vicious and mad. And besides, nobody knows more about Herbology than Professor Longbottom."
Nobody argued with that.
"That's just the start, though," Rose went on, "Filch is running more rampant than ever, haunting the halls at all hours with that cane of his, just looking for people to sock with detention. He's filling up the Charms classroom most nights with his victims, making them scrub old trophies, do lines, or worse."
"What's worse than doing lines with those bloody black quills?" James frowned, remembering the cuts on the back of his sister's hand, his temper rising.
"Oh, he doesn't use those in public," Ralph answered. "Those are for special offenders who have to do detention down in his office. Nobody is allowed to talk about it, but we all know that's what happens there."
"Argus Filch is a sadist," Scorpius said simply. "He likes hurting people, but he gets bored with the same things over and over. To keep it enjoyable he has to get… inventive."
"He makes students levitate their textbooks." Rose whispered.
James blinked. "Well. That doesn't sound so--"
"For hours at a time," Ralph added. "Have you ever tried that? It's easy for the first few minutes, sure. But eventually your arm gets tired, so tired it hurts. And your concentration weakens."
"And if you drop the book," Scorpius said, "it falls into a cauldron of acid, destroying it. You're out a textbook and Filch just laughs, clucking his tongue and talking about how wasteful it is, and how your 'mummy and daddy' will soon run out of money to replace your books. And then he just makes you start over with another one from your school bag."
"Who's he doing this to?" James asked, his cheeks reddening. "Has he done it to Lily?"
"Lily is keeping herself out of trouble," Rose soothed. "But Scorpius has first-hand experience. He spent three hours levitating his books."
"Only dropped one," Ralph nodded, impressed.