James tried not to interrupt Luna. “What are the three relics?”
“Oh,” Luna said, looking at him. “I thought you’d read about it?”
Ralph spoke up. “We did, but it didn’t say anything about any relics. It just said that Merlin would leave the world of men and return when the time was ripe for him, or something.”
“Ah, well, that’s the key, then, isn’t it?” Luna said placidly. “The relics determine when the time is ripe. Merlin’s three required magical elements, his throne, his robe and his staff. He left them in the charge of Austramaddux. According to the prediction, once the three relics are brought together again in a place called the ‘Hall of Elders’ Crossing’, Merlinus will reappear to claim them.”
James gasped. The Hall of Elder’s Crossing, he thought, remembering the legend inscribed on the gate of the secret island. He felt his heart pounding and was sure Luna would hear it in his voice. He struggled to sound merely curious. “So what became of Merlin’s three relics, then?”
“No one knows for sure,” Luna replied airily, “but my father had developed some pretty strong theories. According to legend, Merlin’s ceremonial black robe was made of incorruptible fabric, allowing it to survive eternally. It was supposedly used as a caulk over the body of Kreagle, the first king of the wizarding world, in the belief that it would prevent corruption. Alas, no one knows the location of Kreagle’s tomb, its Secret-Keepers having been inhumed within it to secure its secrecy forever.” Ralph shuddered as Luna went on. “Merlin’s throne as advisor to the kingdoms of the Muggles was passed from regime to regime, always kept ready for the wizard’s return, until it was eventually lost in the mists of time. Some believe that it was recovered by a wizarding king in the sixteen hundreds, and that it is stored today in the Ministry of Magic, forgotten in the endless vaults of the Department of Mysteries. Finally,” Luna said, narrowing her eyes as she searched her memory, “the greatest of Merlin’s relics, his staff. Back then, wizards used staffs rather than wands, you know. Long sticks, often as tall as the wizard himself. Merlin’s was carved from the trunk of a rare talking knucklewood tree. It is said that he could still make his staff speak with the voice of the dryad that had given it. Austramaddux kept the staff himself, claiming to be its sole keeper until the day of Merlin’s returning. He hid it, and the secret of its location is said to have died with him.”
“Wow,” Ralph said in a low voice.
“But still,” James said, “say someone could get all the relics back together again. Where is this Hall of Elder’s Crossing supposed to be?”
“Again, no one knows,” Luna replied. “Austramaddux speaks of it as if he expects his readers to know of it, as if it were a well-known place. Perhaps it was then, but it has been completely lost to us now.”
“But your father believed it would be possible to bring Merlinus back? He thought it could happen?” James prodded.
For the first time, Luna’s face became serious. She looked at James. “My father believed in quite a wide variety of things, James, not all of them technically consistent with reality. He did believe in the return of Merlinus. He also believed in the healing power of Nargle warts, the fountain of pleasing breath, and the existence of an entire subterranean civilization of half-human creatures he called Mordmunks. In other words, just because my father believed it, that hardly makes it true.”
“Yeah, I guess,” James said, but distractedly.
Luna went on. “No wizard has ever overcome death. Many have cheated it for a while, using arts ranging from the creative to the questionable to the outright evil. But no single wizard in all of history has tasted death and returned to tell about it. It is the law of mortality. One life, one death.”
James nodded, but he was barely listening anymore. His mind was reeling. Finally, Ginny peeked in and sent both boys off to bed.
“So what do you think?” Ralph asked as they passed the curtained portrait of old Mrs. Black and climbed the stairs. “You still think there’s a big Merlin conspiracy?”
James nodded. “Definitely. Remember our first Defense Against the Dark Arts class? When Professor Jackson came in to talk to Professor Franklyn about something? They were both standing up front, then the voodoo queen popped in to tell Jackson his class was waiting for him. Remember?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Well, you know that case that Jackson carries with him pretty much everywhere? I got a look into it. It came open a little and it was only a few feet away from me. There was a big bundle of some kind of black cloth in it. Jackson saw me looking and gave me a look that’d melt lead!”
James opened the door to his room and Ralph threw himself onto his cot. “So? I don’t get it.” “Remember what I told you about the night I hid under the Invisibility Cloak and followed Dad and Professor Franklyn around? Franklyn told Dad that he should keep an eye on Professor Jackson. He said that Jackson was involved in the whole anti-Auror propaganda movement. Don’t you see?”
Ralph frowned again, thinking hard. “I don’t know. I can’t believe Professor Jackson would be part of a plot to start a war against the Muggles. He’s hardcore, but he seems cool.”
“That’s what I thought, too, but Ralph, you know what I think that thing in his case was? I think it was one of the relics! I think it was Merlin’s robe! He’s keeping it safe until he can get the rest of the relics together.”
Ralph’s eyes widened. “No!” he said in a low whisper. “Can’t be! I mean, Professor Jackson…!”
“That’s not all,” James said, digging into his backpack. “Take a look at this.” He pulled out the folded Daily Prophet that Zane had given him, the one with the cover story about the demonstration against Harry Potter’s visit. “It’s been in the bottom of my bag this whole time. I’d forgotten why I even kept it, but take a look at the article on the back.” James tapped the article about the break-in at the Ministry of Magic and the strangely cursed thieves who had apparently not gotten around to stealing anything. Ralph read it slowly, then looked up at James, his eyes large.
“It says one of the places they broke into was the Department of Mysteries,” he said. “You think these guys were looking for the Merlin throne?”
“Maybe,” James admitted, thinking hard. “But I don’t think so. I think they were hired as a diversion. It says none of them had much of a prior record, right? They couldn’t have broken into the Ministry on their own. I think maybe they were just a distraction, riffling things around and playing a bit of havoc while someone else found the throne and got it out of there.”
“But it says here nothing was stolen,” Ralph said, glancing back at the article.
“Well, they wouldn’t admit that the throne of Merlin had been taken, would they?” James replied. “I mean, that’d be a pretty scary bit of dark magic to admit had gone missing, what with all the stories of evil wizards trying to use the relics to bring back Merlin all these centuries past. Then again,” he thought back to what Luna had told them, “if it had been stored in the vaults of the Department of Mysteries since the sixteen hundreds, maybe they didn’t even know it was there anymore. How would they know if one item had gone missing from the place? Luna called them the ‘endless vaults’, didn’t she?”
“So,” Ralph said, still scanning the news article, “somebody hires these three goons to break in and make a mess of things, while the real thieves make off with the throne of Merlin. Then the real thieves curse these guys not to be able to talk, and set them up to take the fall. Right? Pretty sneaky. But still, where do you hide something like Merlin’s throne? Don’t powerful magical objects, especially dark ones, make a pretty noticeable imprint? I mean, your dad and his Aurors would’ve picked up on it somehow, wouldn’t they?”
“Yeah,” James agreed doubtfully, “they’d have to put it someplace either really far away from civilization or hide it under loads of Disillusionment Charms and Secrecy Spells. More than just any old witch or wizard could whip up. They’d need a place totally
protected and absolutely secret, like…” He stopped, realization dawning on him. His mouth hung open and his eyes grew wider and wider.
“What?” Ralph finally asked. James glanced at him, and then grabbed the newspaper from him. He turned it around, examining the front page.
“That’s it!” he said in a breathless whisper. “Look! The break-in happened the night before we arrived at school! Remember when we were on the boats crossing the lake for the first time? I saw somebody in a boat over by the lake’s edge!”
“Yeah,” Ralph said slowly, narrowing his eyes, “I guess. The next day, when the Americans arrived, you saw old Madame Delacroix and thought it’d been her. I thought you were being a bit of a nutter.”
James ignored him and went on, “I decided it couldn’t have been her, because the woman I’d seen on the lake had been a lot younger. Still, the resemblance had been pretty scary. You know where I saw that boat, though? It was over by where Zane and I found the island! The Grotto Keep! I think that was Madame Delacroix, after all!”
“How?” Ralph asked simply. “She didn’t arrive until the next day.”
James explained to Ralph what Professor Franklyn had revealed about Madame Delacroix at the dinner in the Alma Aleron’s quarters. “It was her wraith,” he concluded. “She projected herself to the lake, to that place on the island, using the ability Franklyn told us about. No wonder she was so mad when he explained that she could project a younger version of herself anywhere she wanted!”
Ralph seemed doubtful. “But why? What’d she want to be doing floating around in a boat on the lake?”
“Don’t you see?” James exclaimed, trying to keep his voice low. “Whoever stole the Merlin throne would need to hide it in a place so secure and secret that nobody would ever sense it. What better place to hide it than right on the grounds of Hogwarts? Why create an ultra-powerful hiding place when one already exists and you’re going to be there anyway? Madame Delacroix sent her wraith to the island that night to deliver the stolen throne. She’s hiding it right on the Hogwarts grounds, there on the island. The Forbidden Forest is already so full of magic that the throne is probably just lost in the background noise to the wizards at the school. The Grotto Keep must be the hiding place!”
Ralph stared at James, biting his lips and wide-eyed. Finally he said, “Wow, that’s so creepy it makes sense. So you think she’s working with Jackson, then?”
“One way or another, they’re in it together,” James nodded. “That stinks,” Ralph said flatly. “I was really starting to like Professor Jackson. But still, what’s the big deal, really? I mean, Luna said that it’s impossible to bring Merlin back. She pretty much made it sound like anyone who thinks they can do it is right loony. Once dead, always dead. Why not let Delacroix and Jackson have their fantasies?”
James couldn’t let it go. He shook his head. “I don’t know about Delacroix, but Professor Jackson’s smarter than that. He teaches Technomancy, doesn’t he? He wouldn’t fall for some crackpot scheme if he didn’t think it’d work. Besides, everybody keeps talking about it as if Merlin had died. But Austramaddux doesn’t say he died, does he? He just left the world of men.”
Ralph shrugged. “Whatever. Seems pretty dodgy to me.” He flopped backwards onto the cot.
“Come on, Ralph!” James said, tossing the old newspaper onto him. “They’re trying to bring Merlin back so they can start a war with the Muggles! It’s up to us to stop it!”
Ralph rolled onto his side and furrowed his brow at James. “What do you mean? Your dad’s Head Auror. If you’re really worried about it, tell him about it. It’s his job to stop things like this, isn’t it? What’re we going to do, anyway?”
James was exasperated. “We can try to stop them! Nobody will believe us if we tell them now. We can try to capture the relics ourselves. If we do that, then we’ll at least have proof!”
Ralph continued to stare at James. After a minute he spoke. “Don’t you think you might be making a bit much of this? I mean, I understand wanting to follow in your dad’s footsteps and all, trying to save the world and be the hero…”
“Shut up, Ralph,” James said, suddenly angry. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ralph rolled onto his back. “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry.” James knew that, after their earlier fight, Ralph was sensitive not to say anything too argumentative.
“All right,” James admitted, “I know why you’re saying that. But this is different. I’m really not just trying to be like Dad, all right? Maybe there isn’t any way to bring back Merlin. But still, these Progressive Element types are up to no good. If we can prove that they’re trying to start a war, we can at least shut them down, can’t we? If we can do that, I think we should. Are you with me?”
Ralph grinned at James. “Of course. What’s the fun of being a wizard if we aren’t on a quest to save the world?”
James rolled his eyes. “Shut up and go to sleep, Ralphinator.”
But James couldn’t sleep, not for a long time. He thought and thought about everything he’d learned that night, the connections he and Ralph had made. It made too much sense. It had to be true. And as much as he trusted Luna, he couldn’t quite accept that it would be impossible to bring Merlin into the world somehow. He’d been the greatest wizard ever, hadn’t he? He was sure to have been capable of things that even the most powerful wizards since would find impossible. James felt a strong unwillingness to let it go. Still, part of him had been pricked by Ralph’s suggestion that James was simply looking for a way to be a hero, like his dad. Not because he knew it wasn’t true, but because he was afraid it might be. Finally, several hours after the house had fallen silent, feeling confused and exhausted, James drifted to sleep.
The day before the trip back to school, James was wandering the upper rooms of Grimmauld Place, bored and restless. The last of the guests had left the previous day, and Ralph had gone with Ted and Victoire to see Harry’s offices at the Ministry. James had been there loads of times, but his primary reason for not accompanying them was that he wanted time to think. After half an hour of lying on his bed and scribbling meaningless notes and drawings on sheets of parchment, he’d given up and climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. The top floors were silent and sleepy, with motes of dust swimming lazily in the sunbeams that streamed through the frosted windows. All the beds were made, the trunks mostly packed. Everyone would be leaving Grimmauld Place in the next few days, reducing it once again to temporary emptiness. Even Kreacher had been induced to accompany the family back to the main house in Marble Arch for a couple of months. The age and quiet of the house seemed to fill the rooms, fog-like. James felt like a ghost.
He was passing the door to his parents’ bedroom when he stopped. He took a step backwards and peered in. The curtains were thrown wide open and a hard beam of sunlight speared the air, laying a window-shaped spotlight on Harry Potter’s trunk. James glanced toward the hall stairs to be sure no one was coming, and then tiptoed into the room. The trunk wasn’t completely closed. It didn’t even have a lock. James lifted the lid slowly, peering in. There, in the same place it was last time, was his dad’s Invisibility Cloak. It was folded tightly, packed into a corner, almost covered by a pile of socks. James glanced again at the doorway, already feeling guilty. He shouldn’t do it, of course. Absolutely not. When his dad found out, there’d be trouble. But then again, maybe his dad wouldn’t notice. Harry Potter seemed to carry the legendary cloak with him merely by force of habit. James couldn’t remember the last time his dad had actually used it. It seemed wrong, somehow, that such a useful treasure was not being put to use by someone. James reached in and touched it, then, without allowing himself to think about it, he pulled the cloak out. He was about to turn and flee back to his bedroom, when something else inside the trunk captured his eye. He caught his breath as he looked, barely allowing himself to believe what he was seeing. It had been packed beneath the Invisibility Cloak, only revealed when James pulled it out. F
ew people would even recognize what it was. At first glance, it was merely an old parchment, folded many times. Like a map. James considered it. What finally decided him was the thought of what Ted Lupin might say if he knew that James had turned down such a golden opportunity.
James grabbed the Marauder’s Map, clutching it and the Invisibility Cloak to his chest, then carefully closed his dad’s trunk. He ran down the steps and back into his bedroom. By the time he’d hidden his contraband in the bottom of his own trunk, he was feeling both excited and frightened in equal measures. There was sure to be a row when he was found out, and there was no question that he would be found out. Still, he knew that his dad wouldn’t be able to deny that he himself would have done the same thing if he’d been in James’ shoes. He was counting on that to temper things when the time came. Until then, he’d put both items to great use. He didn’t know exactly how, yet, but there was no question that, with the Invisibility Cloak and the Marauder’s Map in his possession, he felt much better equipped to tackle whatever adventures were sure to come.
The return trip to school was, like all post-holiday journeys, melancholy and quiet. Back at Hogwarts the next week, James and Ralph relayed to Zane everything Luna had told them and the connections they had subsequently made. James was gratified that Zane immediately grasped the implications.
“Maybe Madame Delacroix’s put the Imperius Curse on Jackson?” he asked in a low tone as the three boys huddled around a table in the corner of the library.
“Yeah,” Ralph agreed. “That’d make sense. She could just be using him as a tool.”
James shook his head. “Dad says the Imperius Curse is pretty easy to cast, but it takes a lot of willpower to maintain it over a long period of time. The whole school year is a long time. Also, a strong enough wizard can learn to throw it off or resist it altogether. Jackson’s too sharp to be an easy target for something like that.”
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