James Potter and the Crimson Thread

by G. Norman Lippert

  It was weighed down from the inside by a single dense object—a pewter chess king of the non-magical variety, from a set once owned by James’ grandfather, Arthur Weasley. The piece normally decorated the corner of Harry Potter’s desk in the Auror department at the Ministry of Magic, except for moments like this.

  “One benefit of the diminished boundaries around Hogwarts,”

  Harry said, bouncing the small bag on the palm of his hand. “Portkeys work much closer to the school than they used to. There was a time I’d have to walk halfway to Hogsmeade before this would have functioned.”

  He looked up at the three gathered students again. “I assume I’ll be seeing you lot soon enough, now that you’re all officially junior Aurors in training?”

  Rose nodded. “Until any of the teachers catch wise on my part, at least.”

  “But hopefully only during class-times, from here on out,” Ralph added.

  James only nodded, not quite trusting himself to speak.

  “I’ll give your love to everyone else,” Harry said, his smile fading slightly. “And they send theirs to you. Until next I see you, then, remember: you know how to contact me, both personally and officially.

  I trust that you will, should anything… come up.”

  The three nodded as Harry watched. Apparently satisfied, he bounced the black velvet bag on his palm again, caught it, and then turned and walked several paces, as if he meant to stroll into the evening shadows of the Forbidden Forest beyond the old courtyard. Wind blew and switched through the tall grass at his feet. As James watched, his father upended the bag onto his open right hand, catching the pewter chess king as it fell out. With an eye-bending whoosh and a whip-crack of collapsing air, he was gone, leaving only the impression of his footsteps in the field grass below.

  “We’ve crossed the Rubicon now,” Ralph breathed fretfully, running a hand back through his hair and collapsing against the stone wall. “We’re withholding valuable information from official Ministry investigation. Your dad’s right, James. We could go to prison for this.

  Seriously.”

  Rose shook her head, more uncertain than denying. “We don’t know any valuable information. Not yet. At least not so far as the Ministry’s concerned. James just had a dream, that’s all. Uncle Harry might understand the significance of such a thing. But his bosses would think he was daft if he brought it to them. James probably did him a favour, not telling him about it.”

  Thinking about it that way, James felt slightly better. Not a lot, but a little. Wordlessly, for lack of anything better to do with the remaining hours before dinnertime, the three clambered over the stone wall and meandered down toward the lake, watching the stiff breeze as it skated over the treetops and rippled the mirror of the lake, listening to the companionable, if somewhat tense silence between them.

  It wasn’t that James had never lied to his dad before. He’d lied to him on loads of occasions, regarding everything from windows broken while playing Winkles and Augers to who had left the Quidditch rulebook lying outside in the rain after an argument about blatant blatching.

  But he had never lied about anything as serious as this, about anything that might get both he, and perhaps even his father, into serious trouble with people who could imprison all of them.

  A pit of unease lay in his stomach, nagging at him, growing even as the evening rolled over the edge of the world and pulled the night behind it, cloudy and cool and wet with fog, like a portent, a damning shroud that chased James silently, even as he finally climbed the steps to his dormitory and fell into bed, restless and worried.

  He hoped he would dream of Petra again, perhaps even go to her, as he had the previous week. He wanted to talk to her, to gain some assurance that she really did mean to set everything right, and that he, James, had done the right thing by guarding her secret even from the man whom he loved and respected most in the whole wide world.

  When he finally slept, however, he did not dream of Petra. She had closed the conduit once more, even though it cost her much energy, and she could not maintain it forever. James knew this, even in his sleeping mind. The unplugged thread of her sorceress powers glowed between them, shifting from grey, to white, to deepest red. It pulsed.

  Even as she closed her end, James felt the strength of the thread banking inside him, storing up in him like a battery.

  He had absorbed her powers before, even called on them from time to time, usually without even intending to. Her powers were foreign to him, and completely uncontrollable. And yet he comforted in feeling the connection, the slowly intensifying energy that pooled inside him like a cycling dynamo.

  Even in his dreaming mind, he mused: perhaps someday he would be able to use that banked strength to protect Petra again, just as he had on the back of the Gwyndemere those several years earlier. Only better, and more confidently, because he had absorbed so much of that weird energy in the time since. Petra was a sorceress, but unlike Merlin, her element wasn’t the vast expanses of nature. She was a new kind of sorceress, and her element was the humming hive of the city.

  James’ dreaming, untethering mind mused with some tentative comfort: since he had first connected to Petra on that fateful ocean voyage, he had visited many, many cities. All of that absorbed sourcery strength was inside him, banked away, just waiting for the proper moment to be unleashed. When it came, perhaps—just perhaps—James could use it for good.

  If, of course, it didn’t kill him first.

  6. – Ordinance Thirteen

  Despite Zane’s advice, James had deliberately left out any reference to Professor Odin-Vann when he told the others about his dream visit to Petra. This was because, deep down, he was still half certain that the appearance of the professor was the vision’s only truly imaginary element, culled by his dreaming mind from thoughts earlier that day.

  And yet, as the next week began, James became suspicious that the professor was giving him furtive, sharp-eyed looks at unexpected moments. He noticed it for first time during Monday’s breakfast, a decidedly gloomy affair beneath an iron-grey caul of autumn clouds.

  The low sky hulked both outside the windows and in the upper recesses of the Great Hall, hiding the rafters within a fog of fine rain that, while never quite reaching the candles or the tables below, left the students hunkered, their voices subdued. James glanced toward the dais and caught the skinny young professor eyeing him sharply, his chin raised and craning, his hair combed in a glossy black wing across his forehead.

  He saw James’ look and his head retracted between his shoulders like something on a spring, his eyes darting away. As James watched, the professor maneuvered a carafe of pumpkin juice slightly, as if to hide behind it.

  It happened again that afternoon, in the halls between classes as the professor stood in the doorway of his classroom, his eyes sharp, watching James as he shouldered through the throng of students toward History of Magic. And again, unmistakably, in the library that evening, as James caught a glimpse of the professor between the bookcases, ostensibly reading a thick book but peering furtively at up from beneath his lowered brow.

  The following day’s Charms class was cancelled at the last minute with no appearance by the professor at all. James and the rest of the class were informed, after waiting for nearly a quarter of an hour, that Professor Odin-Vann had unexpectedly taken ill.

  “Merely a trifle,” Professor Votary assured them from the Charms classroom door, the irony in his eyes clearly editorializing the new teacher’s absence as well as announcing it. “I’m sure he shall bounce back in a trice and feel quite the dandy for cancelling class at such short notice.” He lowered his voice beneath the sudden noise of hastily packing bags and scraping chairs. “Something I never would have done, of course, cancel a class over a mere sniffle and cough. But, alas, young men these days don’t seem to be built with quite the same constitution as those of the older generation.”

  And it seemed that the Ancient Runes professor was right after all, for
as James and a few dozen other students gathered around the a notice board that evening, discussing the Quidditch tryouts announcement that had just been posted, he saw Professor Odin-Vann at the end of the hall, seemingly perfectly healthy, standing with his wand in his hand, pointed at the floor. The man seemed to be watching James, and this time, when James met his gaze, the professor didn’t glance away. James did not have on his spectacles, of course, so he couldn’t quite make out Odin-Vann’s expression. But he seemed to sense a sort of watchful resignation in the man’s posture and the set of his face.

  James was tempted to disengage from the group near the notice board and approach Odin-Vann right then and there. The professor must have sensed James’ thoughts, however, for at that moment he turned, his robes flowing beneath the angles of his sharp elbows and knees, and stalked away, turning along an intersection and vanishing from sight.

  James glared at the now empty corridor where Odin-Vann had stood a moment before. Was the man actually avoiding him?

  Impulsively, James launched along the hall in pursuit of him, using his long legs to carry him swiftly and quietly without resorting to an outright run. He reached the intervening corridor quickly, knowing that Odin-Vann would have disappeared into any of the myriad side passages, stairways, and doors. Instead, he nearly ran into the professor, who had stopped just beyond the angle of the corner, his shoulders slumped as if he had been magically turned off.

  “Professor!” James said, skidding to a halt, the surprise in his voice sharpening it to a half-shout.

  The young man startled so violently that he fumbled the wand in his hand. It clattered to the floor and rolled, even as the professor dropped to a squat and scrambled for it, his shoulders cinching up next to his ears like the wings of a vulture. He tried to stand and spin around at the same time, wheeling on James, but the movement was clumsy and James had to reach out an arm to steady the man before he stumbled sideways into the wall.

  Footsteps echoed behind James, following him. He didn’t need to look to know that it was Ralph and Rose, curious to see why James had run off.

  Odin-Vann attempted to compose himself as quickly as he could before the newcomers arrived. He brushed a hand frantically down his robes, straightening them, and then smoothed his fingers compulsively over the thick hank of hair on his forehead, pushing it back into place.

  “Mr. Potter,” he said, raising his chin as if he meant to wield his pointed beard like a dagger. “You shouldn’t startle people so. You never know how a trained witch or wizard might respond.” He gripped his wand tightly, as if to imply that only practiced control had prevented him from reflexively turning James into a frog.

  “You were there, weren’t you?” James asked quickly, his voice lowered. “I saw you, and you saw me. That’s why you’ve been watching me. You’re trying to figure out if I was really there. Just like I’m doing with you.”

  James had to give the young professor credit. The expression on his face didn’t change a tick, but the color drained from it so quickly that he swayed on his feet. His fist relaxed on his wand.

  “What’s this?” Ralph asked, breathing hard as he caught up.

  “Hi, professor. Feeling better, I hope?”

  Rose had heard James’ question, however. She moved next to him and studied Odin-Vann’s face. “You were there?” she said, a suspicious lilt in her voice. A second later, her eyes blazed and she turned on James. “He was there?! Why didn’t you tell us?!” She pointed at the thin man, who heaved a deep, resigned sigh and sagged slightly.

  “Let us at least not discuss this in the halls,” he growled, rolling his dark eyes. “My quarters are nearby, such as they are. Come.”

  He turned and swept away, moving into the dimness of the corridor, nearly vanishing into it. James glanced back at Rose and Ralph, surprised into silence. After a moment, Odin-Vann paused and glanced impatiently back over his shoulder.

  “Come!” he called, inserting a note of impatient command into his otherwise hushed voice.

  Speaking volumes with her eyes alone, Rose glared at James, and then trotted to follow the teacher. Breathlessly, James and Ralph hurried to join her.

  The professor’s quarters were not, in fact, around the next corner, as the man had inferred. Odin-Vann led them briskly through turn after turn, into narrower hallways and down short flights of steps, into a section of the castle that James had never before seen. Here, there were no classrooms or offices, only ranks of doors, small and warped in their stone frames, squat and close together. Finally, stopping in a damp, nondescript corridor, the professor tapped a tarnished door handle with his wand, causing the door to unlatch loudly and creak partway open.

  “Home, sweet home,” he said, pushing the door fully open and ducking slightly to enter. He didn’t invite James, Rose, and Ralph inside. He merely left the door open and assumed they would follow.

  James had been in several of the teachers’ quarters before, but this was by far the smallest and most spartan of any of them. The room seemed barely larger than a maintenance closet, crammed with a single bed against the far wall, beneath a single narrow window, next to a single, albeit very large, open leather trunk on a rickety three-drawer bureau. Across from this was a sagging Chesterfield sofa and a tall desk nearly obliterated beneath mounds of paperwork, tools, a huge magnifying glass on an articulated stand, a precariously leaning tea tray, and a thick book James recognized as the Charms class textbook: The Caster’s Lexicon of Spells, Charms, & Hexes. The professor’s copy was dog-eared, fat with use, and crammed with bookmarks and slips of parchment.

  “I’ll make this brief, and I shall deny every word should you choose to repeat it,” Odin-Vann announced, remaining standing but indicating the sofa with one hand. With the other, he flicked his wand at the door, which swung shut with a sweep of air and a heavy clap.

  Once again, James noticed the Professor’s magical prowess in the wake of a moment of stress. He wondered, perhaps unfairly, if the professor would have been capable of something as simple as closing the door a few minutes earlier, when James had first confronted him in the hall.

  Ralph plopped onto the couch, which moaned under his weight.

  Rose lowered herself onto the other end. James, however, stood in front of the closed door, observing the professor in the cramped space.

  “So you really were there, then,” he confirmed, cocking his head.

  In answer, Odin-Vann turned to the desk and began to shuffle papers, seemingly randomly. “How long have you three known her?” he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he went on, “I met Petra right here in school. I was a seventh-year, like you. She was a first year. A strange bridge for friendship to cross, but it happens sometimes. We had similar family situations, you see. She was being raised by her grandfather, who loved her, and his new wife, who did not. It was an unhappy arrangement, and Petra rarely spoke of it, but I recognized the silence. I had a similar home life, being raised by an uncle and his wife and his much older children. None of them wanted me there, and took pains to make certain I knew it. I had come to terms with it, having lived it all of my school years. I had hardened a bit. Petra had not yet hardened. And in my heart, I didn’t want her to. So I befriended her.

  We became secret allies. I watched out for her. It was a brief but important acquaintance. I expect she shared more with me during that one year than she did with any other school mates over the following six.”

  He handled the magnifying glass on its articulated arm, moving it into a new position, apparently merely to give his hands something to do. He glanced back toward the three students, but not at them, exactly.

  “I knew she was powerful, even then. Although I had no idea how much, or why. I just knew that she was special. Later, when I heard about what happened in Muggle New York City, on the Night of the Unveiling, I trusted, deep down, that Petra had had a good reason for whatever she did. She was always powerful and passionate, and she has a lot of buried anger—one can’t blame her for
that, what with her upbringing—but she was never driven by it. She may use her anger sometimes, like a healer uses a blade, to lance and excise, but never like a villain with a dagger, to threaten and kill.”

  “Is that why you went to her?” Rose asked from the couch, leaning forward with interest. “To help her, once the rest of the magical world turned on her?”

  Odin-Vann finally looked at Rose, and blinked. “Oh, I didn’t go to Petra. How could I? No one knew where she was. And frankly, despite everything, I wasn’t even positive that she’d really remember me.

  Both of us have changed quite a lot in the many years since we were friends. She was just a child then. I was…” He shrugged and shook his head faintly. “Well, I was just a gawky teenager, more full of ego than wisdom, but willing to spew either to anyone who would give me an ear.” He continued to shake his head wryly, and then looked back at Rose. “No, I didn’t go to Petra. She came to me. It was only a few months ago. She needed help, you see. She has all the power, does Petra, but she doesn’t have all the knowledge, and she is smart enough to know it. It turned out that she remembered her old friend Donofrio after all. She came to me, and asked for my help. And I granted it, of course. But in secret.” He pressed his lips together tightly, eyeing all three students with an air of wary annoyance. “Until now.”

  “We’re safe,” Ralph said pointedly, glancing around at the others. “In case you were wondering.”

  “Oh, I know,” Odin-Vann admitted. “Petra told me whom I could trust, should I have need to. I believed her, and yet I wasn’t certain I really could trust any of you. Not because you weren’t on her side, but because you’re, well…” He stopped abruptly and blinked at the three students.

  James suddenly understood. “Because we’re just teenagers,” he prompted. “It’s OK. You can say it. Maybe we aren’t trustworthy because we’re just clumsy, loud-mouthed students who don’t have any clue about how the grown-up world works.”