"No rush, man, no rush," Jack had said, as he'd handed Parris the keys. "You just get me a check whenever you can. It's all crazy these days, you dudes from New York getting moved all over the place, government cover-ups, and Martians showing up and hypnotizing everybody."
Parris accepted this with wary suspicion. After all, if his New York landlord had shown such magnanimity, Parris would have likely discovered that his rental was missing a few minor details, like glassed windows, or perhaps a floor. Here in California, though, things were different. The office above Jack's Magic Bean was tiny but comfortable, with a huge bay window and a working bathroom. Unfortunately, every wall was painted a bright coral pink and decorated with bits of driftwood. For a fleeting moment, Parris felt he would have preferred a missing floor.
It had been nearly three months since Parris had left New York City, nearly three months since the Event that had changed everything and sent the entire city packing for the foreseeable future.
Parris knew that the Event had not, in fact, been caused by Martians. He'd known about the wizarding city of New Amsterdam for years, although he had never, until that night, seen it with his own eyes. A guy in his line of work tended to learn a lot of stuff that was supposed to be secret. After all, a lot of Parris' clients were witches and wizards themselves. They pretended they weren't—it was just force of habit—but they knew he knew, and that made it all right. Their vow of secrecy didn't count in situations like that. The fact of the matter is, sometimes even witches and wizards need a competent private eye, and sometimes the best private eye is a guy like Parris, a guy with no magic in him at all. Sometimes the best private eye is a Muggle.
Parris knew that that was what the wizarding folk called people like him. People who didn't have any magic in their blood were called Muggles, at least by polite magical society. Some of the witches and wizards he tracked down had called him much less flattering names. It didn't bother him. Every society had its bigotries, and the society of witches and wizards was no exception. Besides, the names were technically right. He was totally human, without a lick of magic in him at all.
Technically.
Parris approached the stairway next to Jack's Magic Bean, turned into the shadow of the awning, and clumped noisily up to his office door.
The coral walls met him cheerily. Parris tried to ignore them as he checked his telephone messages. There were none. He crossed disconsolately to the little kitchenette and started a pot of coffee.
It had also been nearly three months since he'd had a client. That was the worst part of it all. The career of a private detective (especially one who specialized in what Parris liked to refer to as "the transmundane") depended almost entirely on word of mouth referrals. Unfortunately, his reputation had not exactly followed him to his temporary home in California. Without clients, he could not pay his rent, and surely even Jack's magnanimity would eventually run out. Worse, he couldn't hire a secretary, which was, of course, essential to the appearance of a thriving detective agency. When clients called, they expected a perky, business-like female voice. They wanted to hear the reassuring clack of a typewriter and the riffle of pages in a scheduling book. What they most certainly didn't want to hear was the recorded message of the detective himself, especially when he didn't know how to operate the answering machine, and had cut himself off in the middle of his own greeting.
As if to remind him of this, the phone on Parris' desk began to ring.
It surprised him so much that he dropped the coffee pot. It fell onto the tiny counter, miraculously managed not to shatter, and threw up cold water all over his pants. He leapt backwards, brushing himself off furiously.
On the desk, the telephone stopped ringing and the answering machine clicked on.
"You've reached the temporary office of detective Marshall Parris, private eye, specializing in the trans-mundane. I'm currently on the case, but feel free to call my cell phone at 555-21—BEEP!"
Parris stumbled toward the desk, still brushing at his pants and reaching for the phone, but the caller had already hung up. The annoying buzz of the dial tone sounded for a few seconds, followed by a click as the machine hung up.
It was probably for the best, anyway. The only other time his office phone had rung it had been an old Venice Beach woman seeking help in finding her missing youthful idealism. Parris had almost yelled at her, assuming that she'd been mocking him. She hadn't, and it was then that Parris had realized just how different life in California was going to be.
He considered trying to re-record his answering machine message, if only to get the rest of his cell phone number into it. There was no point, really. His cell phone had been disconnected for lack of payment. He sighed, flopped into his desk chair, and stared out the window at the impossibly blue California sky.
There was a knock at his office door.
Parris' eyes snapped toward the closed door. The odd thing was not so much that he had a visitor, but that he hadn't heard footsteps on the stairway outside, which was notoriously loud. He considered this for a brief moment, decided it was rather a good sign, and called out, "It's not locked."
The door opened silently and a young woman stepped inside. She closed the door carefully behind her and studied the man behind the desk.
"Marshall Parris, I assume?" she asked in a clipped, unmistakably British accent.
He considered giving her a cagy response, but decided to play it straight. "That's what the sign out front says. Marshall Parris, private eye."
"Specializing in the trans-mundane," the young woman said, nodding once. She moved toward his desk but made no effort to sit down. She was attractive enough, with long dark hair, and she was dressed in a distinctly un-California manner. Her skirt was floral patterned and prim, swishing over chunky black boots. She wore a pale blue sweater, despite the constant Los Angeles summer. Parris decided he liked her, even if she didn't exactly seem like client material.
"What can I do for you, miss…?" he said, rising to his feet. He remembered that his pants were still damp. "Er… coffee mishap," he explained a bit lamely. "Never once happened to me in New York."
The young woman nodded again, still unsmiling.
"I've come to hire your services, Mr. Parris," she said, meeting his eyes. "Your…trans-mundane services."
"I see," Parris replied. "Do sit down, Miss…?"
"You can call me Petra," the young woman answered, settling herself reluctantly into one of the client chairs. "Although I go by other names."
Parris nodded and drew a yellow notebook out of his desk drawer. He scribbled the woman's name on the top. "Petra. Means rock. Are you in a band, perhaps?"
"We'll get along much better if you stop trying to guess what I am here for, Mr. Parris," the young woman answered with cool courtesy. "You've had enough magical clients to know that each case is very unique."
Parris leaned back in his chair, which creaked tiredly. "Maybe I have," he agreed. "But I've also had enough young clients to know that they can't always afford my services, magical or not."
Petra nodded and adjusted herself on the chair so that she could reach slightly forward. Something glittered in her outstretched hand. Ten heavy coins spilled from her fingers onto the wood of Parris' desk.
"Will gold do?" she asked, raising her eyebrows slightly.
Parris tried to look nonchalant. His chair creaked again as he leaned forward, examining the thick golden coins. "These aren't leprechaun money, are they?" he asked sharply, glancing up at the woman. "I wasn't born yesterday, you know."
"Those are galleons," Petra answered patiently. "Legal tender in the wizarding world, but valuable for their weight even in the Muggle world. I will pay you ten of those a day."
"Plus traveling expenses," Parris added automatically, a bit breathlessly.
"There won't be any such expenses," Petra replied grimly. "I will travel with you, by my own means."
Parris nodded again. He picked up one of the gold coins, felt its heaviness in the p
alm of his hand. The metal was cold to the touch. "Well then," he said lamely. "I hope my services will be up to your lofty standards, lady, 'cause I'll be honest with you: this is some serious cashola."
Petra merely eyed his office for a long moment, letting her gaze travel around the brightly painted walls. "Where do you keep it, Mr. Parris?"
Parris closed his hand over the cold coin. "What do you mean?"
"You know exactly what I mean," Petra said coolly. "After all, how else does a Muggle come to be known as the best detective in the wizarding world? How does a Muggle confront some of the darkest witches and wizards in existence and live to tell of it? You may be lucky, Mr. Parris, but no one is that lucky. You are protected, somehow. You have a talisman. I'm just curious, sir. Where do you keep it?"
Parris narrowed his eyes at his new client. "Even if you were right, lady, you'd need to pay me a lot more to answer that question."
Petra accepted this with a shrug. "I'm just being cautious, Mr. Parris. My case, I think, will be the most difficult and dangerous of your career. I only ask about your talisman because I wish to be sure that it will, indeed, protect you under the most extraordinary of circumstances. Furthermore, I wish to know that it may indeed assist you in finding what I seek."
Parris began to wonder if this young woman might be more trouble than she was worth, gold coins or not.
"I keep it on me at all times," he said quietly. "Although no one would be able to get it from me. It's not particularly powerful, and it wouldn't do anyone else any good, anyway. But for me, yeah, it'll do the trick. You'll just have to trust me on that." He leaned forward again, resting his elbows on the desk. "And just let me get one more thing straight, lady: my 'talisman', as you call it, may keep me safe from the worst of your people—it may help me stay out of sight and get into places that nobody else ever could—but it's me that does all the hard work. This is where the detecting happens," he tapped his forehead meaningfully. "Capiche?"
Petra smiled slightly. "I never doubted otherwise, Mr. Parris."
"Good," Parris said, relaxing. "So. What's the job and when do we start?"
"We start right now, Mr. Parris," the young woman answered. "And the job is very simple. I need you to help me find someone."
"A magical someone?" Parris hazarded, picking up his pencil again and pulling his notepad toward him.
"The most magical someone of them all," Petra sighed. "She has hidden herself away from me, and her hiding is especially good. She isn't bound by time or space or even reality. She can take the form of water and travel through the deepest oceans, even through pipes and faucets."
Parris blew out a deep breath. "I never met any witch who could do any of that," he said with a shake of his head.
"That is because the woman we seek is no witch," Petra answered. "She is a Fate, one of three currently loose in the world. My sister and I must find her at all costs."
Parris cocked his head at her. "Why? If, er, you don't mind my asking."
The young woman's smile turned icy. "Because," she said, as if the answer was obvious, "we are her sister fates."
Parris drew a deep sigh and scribbled a few notes. On the bottom of his yellow notepad, he wrote one word: CRAZY. He nodded at it in a business-like fashion. "All right. So we're looking for some mythical water demon who might be anywhere, anytime, and who has… let me guess… cosmically monstrous powers. Yes?"
Petra nodded and shrugged. "No more so than me."
"But you can't find her," Parris added, as if just to be sure.
"She hides from us because she fears us."
Parris nodded slowly. "Of course," he said carefully, "this doesn't mean that I need to fear you, too, right?"
Petra's face darkened. She looked more annoyed than threatening. "Do you want the job or not, Mr. Parris?"
In answer, he put down his pencil and scooped the pile of gold coins toward him. "What's this demon Fate woman's name, then?" he asked loudly as the coins clattered into his desk drawer.
"Judith," the young woman answered firmly, her face still dark. "The Lady of the Lake."
Parris sighed. He closed his top desk drawer then slid open a smaller drawer below it. Inside was a bottle of cheap whiskey and a small revolver. He took the revolver out, checked the chambers, saw that they were all loaded, and then seated it in a holster in his jacket. It was a generally pointless weapon against magical people, but it was better than nothing. Besides, some habits were very hard to break.
"One last thing," he said, standing up behind his desk. "Just out of curiosity. Assuming we find this sister Fate of yours. What will you do with her?"
Petra's face remained dark, but she lifted her eyes to Parris, studying him for a moment. She looked almost as if she hadn't even considered the question until that very moment.
"Why," she answered faintly, wonderingly. "I guess… I shall kill her."
1. THE FOUR CABINETS
James had expected his return to Hogwarts to be a happy occasion. Indeed, the sight of the enormous crimson engine of the Hogwarts Express, shrouded with steam, hissing and clanging with prosaic urgency, was a very welcome sight after the events of the previous months. Even Albus, who had spent the holiday in a sort of angry fugue, had displayed an almost annoyingly chipper mood all morning, eager to board the train and rejoin his Slytherin mates. At the station, he spied their cousin Rose with her parents, Ron and Hermione, and ran to join them. Lily, the youngest Potter, hung back, huddling nervously next to her mother.
"It's all right, love," Ginny soothed. "I thought you were excited about your first year? You've been begging to go with your brothers ever since James' first year. Go on now. No long goodbyes."
Ted Lupin appeared from the crowd looking roguish and bedraggled, accompanied by his fiancée, the contrastingly immaculate Victoire Weasley. James knew that Ted would be taking the train as well, on his way back to Hogsmeade after a short visit to London. The trip had ostensibly been for the benefit of seeing Victoire and his grandmother, but Albus had suspected otherwise. For the past week, he had insisted that Ted's visit had been no holiday at all, but rather part of a reconvening of the old Order of the Phoenix at Grimmauld Place. Ted alternately scoffed at the idea (in front of Ginny) and played along (in private), egging Albus into a frenzy of jealousy that he himself had not been invited to any alleged secret meetings.
At the sight of Lily in her school things, Ted disengaged from Victoire's arm and bowed low, extending a hand toward the younger girl. "I am smitten!" he declared. "My darling Lily, will you accompany me for the journey? My reputation can only benefit from being seen in the company of such beauty."
Ginny rolled her eyes but Lily grinned. Sheepishly she took Ted's hand and hoisted her bag. She glanced back at her mother once, her eyes bright, as Ted led her happily toward the train.
"He is incorrigible." Victoire stated flatly, crossing her arms. Next to her, Ginny nodded, still smiling mistily.
It had been a year since any of them had set foot in the halls of Hogwarts-- a year spent across the ocean, at the American magical school of Alma Aleron. It hadn't been a bad year, exactly, although it had ended very badly indeed. For a moment, as James accepted a goodbye kiss from his mother and gathered his bags and Nobby's cage, it was easy to pretend that the last year had not happened at all. It was a very serene thought, broken only by the fact that his cousin Lucy, who should have been accompanying him to Hogwarts with great anticipation (it would have been her first full school year there, after all) was not with him.
James tried not to think about that. It was difficult.
"Goodbye, James," his father said somewhat sombrely, as if sensing his son's thoughts. "Have a good term. And here. I… have something for you." He paused in the shadow of the train and produced a small package. He stared at it for a moment, and then, almost reluctantly, handed it to James, hunkering down next to him. In a lower voice, he said, "Don't open it until you're settled in. Be alone when you do it. All right?"
James glanced at his father's face and saw that he was quite serious. He cocked his head suspiciously. "Does Mum know about this?"
His father's lips twitched into a small, grave smile. "No. Nor does Albus, although you can tell him about it later. It may involve him at some point. But I'm leaving that up to you for now. Lily should stay out of it, though. I need you to promise me that, James."
"How can I promise if I don't even know what it is?" James prodded hopefully.
His father held out his hand. "Give it back, then."
"All right, already. I promise." James hugged the package to himself, frowning.
His father nodded seriously. "I expect you to keep your word then. It's Lily's first year, James. I want her to enjoy it. I want her most difficult challenges to be Arithmancy-related. She's already gotten her fill of dangerous adventures at Hogwarts, if you recall."
James nodded, remembering the night of the Triumvirate, when Lily had disappeared from the audience, spirited away to the Chamber of Secrets where she was very nearly lost forever. "I'll keep a watch on her, dad. Don't worry."
"I'll hold you to that, son," his father said, and James heard a hint of regret in his father's voice. He'd rather be watching over her himself, he thought; he's worried about her. About all of us. It was a disconcerting realization.
Harry Potter stood and clapped his son affectionately on the shoulder. "Happy travels, son. Just keep that package tucked away until tonight."
James nodded, feeling a small surge of pride. He didn't know what it was, but the look on his father's face was familiar-- it was the face James and Albus had come to call 'Auror mode'. James unzipped his bag and carefully stuffed the package into it, burying it among his things. "I don't even know what package you're talking about," he said, straight-faced.
Harry nodded at his son but did not smile. "Off with you, then. I'll… be in touch."