James' brow was still furrowed as he listened to her, but she was looking past him now, her eyes unfocused, her hand still on his.
"Now, though, both of my grandparents are dead," she said faintly. "There's no reason to hide anymore. I broke my wand on my last night at Papa Warren's farm. I didn't do it on purpose. I just let it feel the full weight of my powers. It broke right down the middle, split as if it had been struck by lightning, just like my very first wand, when I was a little girl and hadn't yet learned how to rein it in. Now I don't need a wand. Now I'm learning to use the power the way I was meant to. That's what you tapped into, James," she said, focusing on him again. "For better or worse, you locked us together. When you conjured this silver cord, you bound us, maybe forever. Soul to soul. And that, James, you may well someday regret. Someday, you may curse yourself for it, and me too."
James' thoughts swam as he looked at the slight girl next to him. It all sounded perfectly daft to him, and yet he could sense the honesty of her words. She believed everything she said. If she hadn't been touching him, her hand on his, making the silver cord pulse like a dynamo, he might have been able to doubt her. Now, however, tiny shreds of memories came into his head, directly from Petra's own thoughts.
He saw her as a young girl, closing a set of window drapes with a wave of her small hand. Another memory showed her in a sunlit wood, moving rocks through the air with a pointing finger, forming them into carefully constructed, mysteriously sad towers. Finally, he saw her as a ten-year old girl standing frightened in the darkness of a cellar, several rats lying dead at her feet. She had thought the rats to death, merely sending her mind into their little beating hearts and squeezing them, bursting the little organs like balloons. She had hated the rats and feared them, but lying there dead at her feet, their feet curled and their black eyes staring like drops of oil, Petra felt terrible about what she had done. She tried to think them back to life, but that was where her powers—her prodigious, mysterious powers—ended. She could kill, but she could not return to life. Young Petra cried in the darkness of the cellar, cried for the rats that she had first feared, and then, when it was too late, pitied. She cried for her own lost innocence. She was, after all, a rat murderer.
And then, buried beneath all of these secret visions, curling under and through them like a snake, was a memory of a woman's voice, crying out with terror and a sort of mad, vindictive spite. I always knew you'd be the death of me, you horrible girl, the voice screeched. And I was right! I was riiiigght!
James shook himself. Involuntarily, he pulled his hand away from Petra's. The visions, and the mad, screeching voice, stopped at once. Petra blinked at him, and then, sheepishly, she pulled her own hand back.
"Petra," James whispered. "How is this possible? What… what kind of witch are you?"
Petra sighed once more and shook her head. "I'm not a witch, James."
In the warmth of the room, James felt suddenly cold. He remembered the vision of the black castle and the strange, dead island. Like the visions he had seen when Petra had touched him only moments before, that had also been a peek into Petra's dreams and thoughts. And in that vision, the Morgan part of Petra's mind, somehow separate and imprisoned, had spoken aloud: I am the Princess of Chaos, she had said. I am the Sorceress Queen.
The Sorceress Queen.
James opened his mouth, not sure what he was about to say, when Lily, Molly, and Izzy suddenly ran past, their feet thumping wildly, their voices giggling like a flock of birds.
"Tag!" Izzy said, tapping James on the shoulder. "You're it!"
With a flurry of screams and laughter, the three girls scurried away. James watched them, and then turned back to Petra.
"You're it," she smiled, shrugging one shoulder. "You'd better go get them."
"Petra," James began, but she shook her head.
"No more for now, James," she said, and James could sense that she meant it. "Besides, I think they just ran into your father's study. You'd best herd them back out before they disturb any of his things."
James could barely bring himself to interrupt his hushed conversation with Petra, especially when he felt so close to such an important revelation, but he didn't seem to have any choice. Petra had already turned away, standing and moving toward the fire. With a great sigh, James stood as well.
"All right, you lot," he began as he entered the study door. "You know you're not supposed to be in here. Especially you, Lil—"
He was drowned out by a cacophony of giggles and shrieks as all three of the girls scrambled from behind chairs and under tables. They rushed past him, obviously hoping that he meant to chase them. James shook his head in weary annoyance, marveling at how his sister seemed to play down to the level of the youngest child in her presence, and then looked around the study to ensure that nothing had been disturbed.
The room was rather like a small library, crowded with chairs, end tables, and lamps. The far end was dominated by a large desk and a leather swivel chair with a very high back. The chair was about as un-Harry-Potter as anything James had ever seen. Its high, pointed shoulders were adorned with silver rivets, making it look, on the whole, like something that belonged in the basement of Erebus Mansion. Obviously, the flat had come already furnished. James knew that his father would never pick out such a thing for himself.
Moving toward the desk, James reached over it and gave the chair a tentative push. It turned silently, revolving somewhat malevolently on its oiled base. Behind the chair, propped on a low shelf below the window, was the small Shard of the Amsera Certh that Merlin had given his dad. Its face was silvery with rushing smoke, unfocused. James knew that it connected, when magically empowered, to the Auror offices back at the Ministry of Magic. Using the Shard, his father kept in close contact with Titus Hardcastle and the other Aurors.
Below the Shard, in the shadow of the shelf, was a gleaming iron lockbox. James' eyes widened. This, he knew, was the lockbox that his father had taken to keeping his Invisibility Cloak and Marauder's Map in ever since last year, when they had been stolen out of his trunk by Scorpius Malfoy. James moved quickly around the desk, his curiosity getting the better of him. Stopping the huge leather chair from turning, he sat down on it, facing the window. He tapped the lockbox with his wand.
"Alohomora," he whispered quickly.
There was a flash of golden light, and for a moment, James thought that his basic Unlocking Spell had worked. The flash didn't diminish, however. It spun around the lockbox, as if repelled from the iron shape. Finally, with a crackle of magical energy, the bolt spat back at James, striking him in the chest and shoving both him and the chair backwards. The chair rammed against the desk, producing a rattling thud.
James shook himself, alarmed, and quickly rammed his wand back into his pocket, scrambling to get up. He should have known that his father's counter-spells would repel anything that he, James, might use to open the lockbox.
There were footsteps just outside the study. A shadow moved on the partially open door. Without thinking, James dropped back onto the huge desk chair. The chair began to spin again and he clumped his feet to the floor, halting its movement. He stared furiously out the darkened window in front of him and held his breath.
The door swept open behind him, and James realized, with some bemusement, that he could see the entire room reflected in the high study window. The shape of the batwing chair blocked out a lot of the reflection, of course, but he could see the top of the door and indistinct shadows on the nearby bookshelves as someone entered the room, leaving the door wide open behind them.
"What would Dumbledore say?" the figure mumbled quietly, and James realized, with a mixture of relief and trepidation, that it was his father. Harry Potter had finally returned from his raid. He sighed quietly to himself, "Think, Potter. What would Dumbledore say? Or even Snape?" And then, in a louder voice, "In here, gentlemen. Close the door behind you, if you would."
Slowly, James hunkered lower in the black chair, keeping his fe
et planted firmly on the floor to prevent it from swiveling around and revealing him. More footsteps approached and in the window's reflection, James saw two more men enter the room. They wore the black suits and ties of the Magical Integration Bureau.
"I thought it best," Harry said, moving toward his desk and leaning on it, facing the men, "that we debrief immediately. Thank you for coming inside."
"We wouldn't have it any other way," one of the men said stiffly. The image in the window's reflection was somewhat distorted, but James recognized the man. He was the one they had first met outside the Zephyr after the crashing attack along the streets of Muggle New York. His name, James recalled, was Price.
"Well then," Harry began briskly, "it seems that our information was accurate enough. That is one good thing we can take from this evening's exercise. The W.U.L.F. is on the run. We can expect that they will be much clumsier now, having been routed from their headquarters."
"And this seems like a good thing to you?" Price said evenly. "I don't know about you, but I'd rather stamp out the whole nest of spiders at once than try to chase them one by one into the shadows. Wouldn't you, Espinosa?"
"I sure wouldn't call tonight a win for the good guys," Espinosa replied coolly. "They know we're onto them now. They'll be watching for us. No more element of surprise."
"We have eyes all over the city," Harry said. "Now that Tarrantus' agents are on the run, we will surely sense their movements. If we have to track them down one by one, then that's how we will do it. It wouldn't be the first time the Department of Aurors disassembled a network of dark wizards one brick at a time."
Espinosa commented, "Would've been a lot easier if we'd have been able to take Tarrantus alive."
"Sure would," Price nodded, and James could see that he was watching Harry closely. "I don't suppose you magical types have the ability to extract information from the dead, do you? No? That's a shame. And here we 'Muggles' all thought you were so much more advanced than that."
"Necromancy is a forbidden art," Harry replied. "Not that it was ever particularly accurate, even for those who excelled at it."
"Pretty convenient," Price countered. "Tarrantus being found murdered in his recently abandoned headquarters and us not being able to interview the deceased to find out where his people might have escaped to or what their plans were."
"No sign of the missing senator, either," Espinosa added reasonably. "Very convenient."
"Convenient for whom, exactly?" Harry said, and James heard the barely restrained anger in his voice. "Since I've been spearheading the international search for these villains, I can say that the lack of any prominent leads and the apparent murder of their leader is decidedly inconvenient. I had very high hopes that this whole mess would be concluded tonight, as you well know."
"So you keep saying," Price countered. "And yet there is no question that somebody alerted the W.U.L.F. to our raid only minutes before our arrival, giving them just enough time to escape. Not to mention the very damning fact that your name, Mr. Potter, was scrawled on the wall with the victim's own blood."
"A warning," Harry said stonily. "They want me gone, precisely because we are this close to capturing them. They've been attempting to thwart our attempts ever since they hired a fleet of pirates to sink us on the journey here. Tarrantus himself led the attack on the train and personally delivered the warning, telling us to leave immediately or face the consequences."
"And now, Tarrantus is lying cold in a wizarding morgue in downtown New Amsterdam," Espinosa nodded. "I mean, it could be that the name written in blood on the wall was a warning that you should give up and run home, Mr. Potter. But we cannot rule out that it might, in fact, have been the victim's way of identifying his killer."
"That's ridiculous, Mr. Espinosa, if you'll pardon me for being blunt," Harry said coldly, "even apart from the fact that I was with you at the time the man was killed. I've seen Killing Curses in action in my time. The curse that ended Tarrantus' life was not only brutal, it was instantaneous. He wasn't just killed. He was destroyed. I promise you, there were no final moments during which the man could have scrawled the name of his murderer on the wall in his own blood. Tarrantus was dead before he hit the floor and someone else wrote my name on the wall with his blood."
Espinosa asked, "And why would the W.U.L.F. have murdered their own leader only moments before their escape from our raid?"
"Perhaps for being sloppy," Harry suggested curtly. "After all, it was his own paper trail that led us to him. Organizations like the W.U.L.F. do not easily forgive such ineptitude."
"Could be," Price agreed reluctantly. "Then again, it could be that Tarrantus was getting ready to talk. Maybe he was getting cold feet about the organization's tactics and was planning on telling us everything he knew. Maybe someone else decided he was a threat and planned to overthrow him as leader. They'd have no choice but to kill him, of course. Whoever tipped them off about the impending raid, seems likely to me that that's the same person who's probably in charge now. What do you think, Espinosa?"
"Just makes sense," Espinosa agreed. "Find the snitch, find the murderer. Find the murderer, find the new head of the W.U.L.F."
"And you think that person is me," Harry said with a sigh.
Price shook his head. "We're paid to be suspicious, Mr. Potter. Don't take offense. If we had any actual evidence of your involvement, then we wouldn't be standing here in your study having this little chat. But I'll be honest with you. There's loads of circumstantial evidence piling up against you. The bloody name on the wall doesn't help."
Harry's voice was no longer restrained. "That's insane," he proclaimed darkly.
"Lotta things are insane, Mr. Potter," Price agreed. "Wanting to maintain power over nonmagical people by not sharing your world with them, that seems a little insane to some of us. Conjuring up shadowy villains like the W.U.L.F. to scare your own people into living by outdated laws of secrecy, that also seems pretty insane. Of course, all of this is just conjecture at this point, I admit. But if it ever stops being conjecture, well…"
"The W.U.L.F. is not a creation of the Department of Aurors," Harry said with cold emphasis. "Has it even begun to occur to you that it might have been one of your men who tipped them off about the impending raid? Frankly, if the Wizard's United Liberation Front believes what they claim, then your own people are much more sympathetic with them than is the Department of Aurors."
"Really, Mr. Potter," Price chided. "That's a little childish, isn't it? You perceive that we are accusing you, so you accuse us in response. I expected better from you."
"Someone alerted them that we were coming," Harry insisted. "On my side, the only people who knew about the raid were Titus Hardcastle and myself."
"And we have your word for that only," Price said, effecting an apologetic tone of voice. "Be reasonable, Mr. Potter. Do you mean to say that you didn't tell anyone else at the Ministry of Magic? Or even your wife and family?"
"I mean to tell you that those on my side who knew about today's raid," Harry growled, "are people who I trust completely. Members of our raiding party, including myself, might have gotten killed today had the W.U.L.F. chosen to ambush us instead of run. Why would my own people have risked that?"
"If your people and the W.U.L.F. are one and the same," Espinosa suggested, "then it wouldn't be a risk at all, would it?"
Harry drew a deep breath, composing himself. "Gentlemen, if this is where we stand, then I fail to see how we can continue to work together. Either arrest me for conspiracy or let me and my associates work alone."
"Now let's not get huffy, Harry," Price said, softening his tone and raising his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "Espinosa and I are just doing our jobs. The task of the Magical Integration Bureau is to protect the interactions between the magical and the non-magical world and to see that the two coexist with as much harmony as possible. Your people have chosen to hide yourselves and live among us in secrecy, which has always struck the Bureau as suspicious
on the very surface of it. You can't blame us for approaching our duties with a degree of healthy skepticism, can you? Look, if you're innocent, then you have nothing to fear from our involvement. If you're guilty, then of course we can't just allow you to operate without our supervision. Either way, Harry, you're stuck with us. Let's try to make that fact as pleasant as possible, eh?"
There was a long pause as Harry appeared to consider this. In the window reflection, James could see Price standing to the side, his face stony, waiting. Across from him, Espinosa looked vaguely bored. He stared up at the dark ceiling, eyebrows raised inscrutably.
"So be it," Harry finally said. "But if I suspect that your notions of mistrust are undermining our investigations, or worse, placing us all in danger, then be assured that I will abandon this mission, regardless of the consequences. Is that understood?"
"Duly noted," Price said with a smile. "I'm glad that we can all dispense with any pretenses. Everything all out in the open. That's the way I like it. Right, Espinosa?"
"Right you are, Price," the other man agreed soberly.
"I assume you can find the door on your own," Harry replied. "Merry Christmas, gentlemen, and goodnight."
James heard shuffling footsteps and saw the door's reflection as it opened again. A few moments later, the elevator doors dinged from down the hall. Price and Espinosa, apparently, were on their way back down to the parking garage.
Without turning the chair around, James asked quietly, "You know I'm here, don't you?"