At the mention of their names, both the Slytherin and Hufflepuff tables erupted into raucous applause. Grudje's face paled and his eyes narrowed.
"This is not an occasion for petty house loyalties," he declared with surprising volume, quelling the applause. The hoots and handclapping fell away, reducing the hall to awkward silence as Grudje frowned at the tables, the weight of his gaze like a cold wind. In a low, severe voice, he continued. "These are very serious times, pupils. The gravity of this summit is heavy upon us. We have been chosen to represent the entirety of the magical world. Our task is to show that witches and wizards are not threats to be feared, but friends and helpers, partners in a new world of peaceful coexistence. As such, many of you will be chosen as amateur diplomats. You will both serve and entertain our Muggle guests at events in their honour, held at various locations throughout the school.
"Most importantly, however, will be the display of magical competition and camaraderie that is the Quidditch tournament. This will be the keynote of the summit, and will involve each and every one of you. You will attend, and you will be on your best behaviour. Whomever wins, we shall all display the greatest respect, deference, and school spirit. And in the end, our Muggle guests will know that we are a culture they need not fear. Indeed, they will be welcomed and disarmed by our combined sportsmanship and magical heritage."
Grudje paused, his cold eyes still roaming over the hall, measuring each face. Finally, he relaxed slightly. "On a happier note, however, this term's Quidditch tournament will also be witness to the unveiling of an all new tournament trophy, the soon-to-be-coveted Crystal Chalice, presented via the generous donation of Mr. and Mrs. Draven Vassar, parents of our own Lance Vassar of Gryffindor. The Chalice, an ancient and immensely rare magical relic discovered by the Vassars in the course of their historical explorations, will serve as an enduring symbol of excellence for centuries to come. How fortunate will be the first winner to bear such a legacy."
With that, Grudje favoured the hall with one of his rare, ghastly smiles.
"Ugh," Rose muttered, cupping a hand to the side of her face to block the sight. "It looks like magical fish hooks are tugging at the corners of his mouth."
Graham Warton's face was pale with anger as a smattering of applause rippled through the Hall. "Isn't it just like Lance Vassar to lose us the Quidditch cup and then produce some even better cup to award the winner."
James was distracted, however, by the chilling certainty of Grudje's announcement. Until now, the Quidditch Summit had seemed like a disturbing but nebulous premonition-- something that simply might not happen if he only refused to believe it. Now, it was not only a concrete reality, it was less than two weeks away. And worst of all, despite what they had learned during their misadventure in the cellars of Alma Aleron, they didn't seem any closer to unravelling the mystery of the Morrigan Web.
With the announcement, the final days of term seemed to trickle by with eerie, capricious speed. This was due in large part to the typical end of term rush of examinations, accompanied by the mountains of homework that continued to be piled on. James tried heroically to attend to his studies and keep on top of homework, not so much for the sake of his grades but simply to stay out of Filch's way. Even now, the old Caretaker was assigning crushing detentions to students who failed to turn in their assignments, which only succeeded in taking more time from their homework and studies, leading to even more detentions. The unfairness of it was all too infuriating, offset only slightly by the fact that Filch himself seemed the most harried of all, driven as he was by the increasingly demanding expectations of Headmaster Grudje.
As the days slipped by, James arranged fleetingly brief meetings with Rose, Ralph, Scorpius and sometimes even Albus, Zane and Nastasia in the Room of Requirement, which he had learned how to access back in his first year, thanks to his father. During the meetings, the Room of Requirement presented itself as a small command centre, complete with Sneakoscopes and a Foe-Glass, a library of books on magical spying and espionage, and a large plotting table bearing a map of Hogwarts and the surrounding grounds. Despite these tools, the gathering was consistently frustrated in their attempts to work out how the attack on the Quidditch Summit might happen, much less how to prevent it.
"Even if we knew Avior's plan," Scorpius declared finally, "The pitch will be absolutely crawling with guards."
Albus nodded grimly. "Titus Hardcastle will be in charge of security. Nothing gets past him. He'll have all the Aurors on high alert, especially after the disaster over the holidays when the American vice president was killed."
"Will Uncle Harry not be there at all?" Rose asked.
James shook his head. "The Minister of Magic will probably have dad scheduled to count cauldrons in some warehouse in Siberia or something. They're going out of their way to keep him away from the action these days."
"I never thought I'd say this," Zane sighed, pushing the map away and leaning back in his chair. "But this is out of our hands. It was one thing when we faced off against loopy Madame Delacroix and even the Gatekeeper. Those were plots involving just a few powerful people working under the radar. This time it's the whole Ministry of Magic and powerful people working right out in the open."
"It's still only a few people," James persisted, pounding the table with a frustrated fist. "It's Avior working alongside Judith, the Lady of the Lake. I don't know how they met, but obviously they have the same goals in mind. He wants power over Muggles, she wants chaos and destruction. Either way, it's still just the two of them."
"It may only be the two of them with the wicked little plans," Nastasia agreed breezily, "but they've got the whole brute force of your Ministry of Magic behind them, paving the way without even knowing it."
Ralph's face was stony with resolve. "We can't just give up, either way. We just need some help."
"Help from where?" Scorpius asked, meeting Ralph's eyes. "Anyone who knows enough to join us is either already gone or too squashed under Grudje's thumb to do anything about it."
Albus frowned. "Where's he at most of the time, anyway? How's he keep everyone so terrified when it seems like he's gadding about who knows where every other day?"
Ralph shrugged. "Probably meeting up with the Minister of Magic to give him his orders."
Rose's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. James regarded her curiously.
"What are you thinking, Rose?"
She shook her head. "Nothing. Just… something strange."
"The whole thing's strange," Zane sighed.
"What about all those Yuxa Baslatma vines and leaves and stuff that got caught up in your robes when the Jiskra was chasing us," James prodded, still watching Rose. "Maybe they'll tell us what we need to do if you just use them?"
"Rose has some Dream Inducers?" Ralph asked, sitting up hopefully.
"I already told you," Rose snapped, "Not a chance! They're all jumbled together and miss-matched. There's no way to know even which pots they came from. Nobody's using them, and especially not me. It's way too dangerous."
"Rose," James insisted intently. "If the Morrigan Web goes off at the Quidditch final, it'll kill every witch and wizard there! Players, students, Ministry people, guards, even Titus Hardcastle and his Aurors! We're seriously running out of options, here!"
But Rose was firm in her resolve. "Those Yuxa Baslatma fragments won't help us, James. They're too mixed up and torn apart. If I was smart I would just bury them somewhere and forget about them. But I do have an idea for how we can save at least a few people, and maybe even more than a few, if the Morrigan Web does go off. We just need to get started immediately."
"What, Rosie?" Zane asked eagerly, leaning forward again.
Rose looked from face to face. "It's too simple, really," she said. "The Web connects every wand in the vicinity with some sort of ultra killing curse, right? We just go to the Quidditch final without our wands. Us and as many other people as we can convince."
There was a moment of awed silence as everyone
considered this. James nodded, remembering. "In Crone Laosa's story, her mother survived by not having her wand with her. She'd broken it that morning in some sort of accident. She was right in the midst of the Web, but since she didn't have a wand, it didn't hurt her…"
Ralph, however, was sceptical. "Hard to imagine that the best way to go into magical battle is to leave your wand at home."
Nastasia tittered.
"It is if you want to live to see the actual battle," Rose countered, giving Nastasia a steely glance. "And I'm not suggesting we leave them back in the dormitories. I say we find a place to hide them nearby, perhaps beneath the grandstands or even the equipment shed, safely stowed but available to us afterwards."
"That's pretty grim, Rose" Albus said. "You're suggesting we watch everyone else get murdered, then pick over their bodies to grab our wands and fight Avior and whatever bad guy squad he's assembled?"
"You have a better idea?" Rose asked, clearly unhappy with the prospect herself. "We'll need to protect the Muggle survivors. It's not a perfect plan, but it's all we've got at the moment."
"This is worse than last year," Ralph shook his head with slow emphasis. "It was bad enough when Lucy was killed and New Amsterdam was laid out there for all the Muggles to see. But this is just worse. This is like… like…"
"Like the end of our world," James sighed morosely. "The end of Hogwarts. The end of the Ministry of Magic. It'll be a massacre."
"I can't believe you lot are even considering this!" Albus suddenly declared. "Ralph already said it! We can't just give up! We have to stop the Morrigan Web, not just figure out how to survive it like…" he waved his hands helplessly, "like cockroaches!"
This was followed by a long moment of awkward silence. James was sure that everyone was thinking the same thing, even if they could not bring themselves to say it. Uncomfortable glances were passed furtively around the room. Stopping the Morrigan Web may well be impossible, those glances said, but surviving is better than dying.
Thankfully, Scorpius spoke up, breaking the pause. "No one is giving up," he said with a decisive nod. "But until we figure out something better, we do what we can to convince as many as people as possible to hide their wands away. We'll stow them in a trunk beneath the Gryffindor grandstand, and we'll do it hours before the tournament, before Hardcastle and his Aurors arrive as guards."
"We'll have to conceal the trunk somehow," James agreed. "Hardcastle's crew will sweep the pitch for anything suspicious."
"We could hide it under the invisibility cloak," Ralph suggested, brightening.
"We could," James agreed pointedly, "if Albus here hadn't left it lying on the floor of Avior's office."
"I didn't just leave it lying," Albus protested. "I was being chased by a mad two-headed, firebreathing bird monster if you recall!"
Zane gave a low whistle. "You left your dad's prize invisibility cloak in the bad guy's office? Does he know?"
Albus deflated. "No. And neither does Filch, fortunately. We nicked it from his desk but he's been too swamped to notice."
Scorpius dismissed these concerns with a wave of his hand. "Either way, Ralph can put a Visum Ineptio charm on the trunk to make it look like a rock or something. He's good at that kind of magic. With all the wands hidden away, the Web can't hurt us."
Rose sighed deeply. "Then, if we fail to prevent it…" She swallowed hard. "We can protect the survivors: the Muggle government leaders that Avior and his people will try to assassinate once everyone else is dead."
"Bloody hell," Ralph murmured. "Merlin was right. This changes everything."
There was a rumble of grave agreement as the meeting broke up.
The next few days were some of the tensest days of James' life. One at a time, he, Ralph, Rose, Albus and Scorpius met with as many students as they dared trust, attempting to warn them of the impending attack. They refrained from referring to the Morrigan Web, since that would only incite scepticism or confusion, and either way demand lengthy explanations. Instead, they exploited the general sense of angry suspicion the entire school harboured toward Headmaster Grudje and his Draconian policies.
"I knew he was hiding something!" Graham hissed angrily as he and James threaded their way to the Astronomy tower. "You say he's covering for some big conspiracy?"
James nodded. "Something like that. The point is it's absolutely essential that we all hide our wands before the Quidditch tournament. Seriously. Life and death."
Graham glanced at him, not with scepticism, as James had expected, but grim awe. "What's the old power-monger up to?" His mouth dropped open in shocked revelation. "He's going to confiscate everyone's wands next, isn't he? First he clamps down on the post, then Hogsmeade weekends, and now he's taking away our wands so we can only use them when he wants to let us! Of course! Why, that total dictator!"
James did not dissuade Graham from this suspicion. Frankly, it did seem like the sort of thing Grudje would do. "We'll be collecting wands the night before the tournament and hiding them away. No one will find them."
Graham nodded. "And then, when Grudje tries to confiscate them, boom, no wands to confiscate! And later, we can all collect them again. Brilliant! That'll teach the old tyrant."
James nodded and shrugged at the same time. He didn't like lying to Graham, but not disabusing him of his own notions seemed acceptable under the circumstances. Unfortunately, most of the other students James spoke to were not as easily persuaded as Graham.
"I'm not going anywhere without my wand, James," Mei Isis insisted stubbornly. "Not the way things have been going lately. Especially if, like you say, something terrible is going to happen at the tournament."
Heth Thomas and Deirdre Finnegan felt the same way, seemingly caught between refusing to believe James' warning, and feeling that even if it was true, their wands were their own best recourse.
"But your wand will be the weapon!" James insisted frantically.
"Of course my wand's the weapon," Deirdre rasped impatiently. "That's the whole point! Have you even been to a Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson?"
By the time he cornered Gabriel Jackson, captain of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, outside the Ancient Runes classroom, she had already heard rumours of James' whispered warnings.
"None of the Hufflepuff players carry wands while in the air," she assured him dismissively. "My own rule, ever since that incident my third year when my sister Julian got blindsided by one of Beetlebrick's Bludgers and decided to fry him with a friendly Stunner in mid-air. Lost the match on a technicality that time. No way I'm going to let that happen again. No wands while the match is on."
James accepted this with a relieved sigh.
"Still," Gabriel mused thoughtfully. "Beetlebrick did deserve it. And he's never blindsided Julian again, I'll tell you that. Overall it was probably a net gain for the team. Maybe we should revise the no wands rule next year."
"You do that," James nodded. "Next year."
Rose, Ralph, Scorpius and Albus had had similar luck with their own contacts.
"Joseph Torrance and Cameron Creevey were easy," Rose muttered as she followed James into the Great Hall for dinner. "Joseph trusts you, and Cameron is your biggest fan. Lily and her friends will go along as well. No luck with Aloysius, Shivani or Penelope, though. Even worse with the Hufflepuffs who aren't playing in the tournament. They want to be able to celebrate with firework charms, the clueless morons."
James nodded gravely. Secretly, he couldn't blame the Hufflepuffs, or anyone else, for doubting their story. Without details, it sounded paranoid and stupid even to his own ears.
Scorpius, who could be surprisingly persuasive, and who had taught Defence club during his first year, had somewhat better luck, convincing almost half of the Ravenclaws to stow their wands the night before the tournament. Albus and Ralph, however, had made almost no headway with the Slytherins who, like the Hufflepuffs, were keen on magically celebrating their predicted win.
Still, with only four days left until the
Quidditch Summit, they had convinced over a third of their fellow students to attend the tournament wandless. It wasn't much-- it was, in fact, horrifyingly unsatisfying- but it was indeed better than nothing.
James and Ralph prepared an old Quidditch trunk to house the stowed wands, hiding it in the shadows beneath the Gryffindor grandstands and disguising it with one of Ralph's Visum Ineptio charms.
Walking away from it, James couldn't help feeling that, despite their best efforts, they were resigning themselves to watching most of their classmates killed before their eyes. It was a dreadful, harrowing thought. And yet, even now, he felt no closer to unravelling Avior's plan. Despite what they had learned in the cellars beneath Alma Aleron, they simply could not guess how the Morrigan Web might be powered, or what form it might take. As the days crept by and preparations for the Summit loomed, a sense of deep, palpable dread settled in James' stomach.
This was worsened by the frustrations with not being able to meet in the open. Even the brief, secret conversations he, Rose, Ralph and Scorpius had engaged in while waiting in line for lessons or while navigating the halls between classes became too dangerous, as Filch seemed to have been charged with watching them specifically. He could regularly be seen hovering outside their classrooms, steely eyed and silently seething, gripping his black cane like a lifeline.
And then, strangest of all, at the last Care of Magical Creatures class of the term, Hagrid himself gave James, Ralph and Scorpius a detention.
"You lot," he called across the barnyard, his voice uncharacteristically gruff. "Talking during lesson, are yeh? Why that's the last straw. Detention for yeh!"
James straightened, his mouth dropping open in shock as foot-long purple salamanders ran pell mell about the yard, chased futilely by the other students. "What? Of course we're talking! We're trying to round up these crazy lizards you set us on!"
James Potter and the Morrigan Web Page 65