JAMES POTTER AND THE VAULT OF DESTINIES

       'So was any of what we just heard for real?' Ted asked as Petra joined them, squeezing in between James and Lucy on the bench side of the table.

       'Depends on when you started listening,' she said, avoiding his gaze. 'He started fogging you right about the time we were heading back to the common room. Merlin likes to walk while he talks, you know.'

Ted nodded somberly. James knew that Ted had been part of the group that had rescued Petra from her grandparents' farm, and he knew that Damien was right in saying that there was a lot more to that story than the rest of them knew. Merlin had spoken to everyone involved with the escape from Petra's grandparents, but all of those involved had been very secretive about it since. Something unspoken seemed to go between Ted and Petra as he reached across the table to collect the Extendable Ears.

Rose perked up. 'So, are they going to let you go along on the trip to the States, Petra?'

''Morgan',' Sabrina corrected again, glancing around.

       'It's all right,' Petra said, laughing a little. 'I'm still Petra to all of you. Morgan is more of a… personal identity.'

       Damien nodded. 'Sort of like that guy in that band, Shrieker and the Shacks, who changed his name from Uriah Hollingsworth to just Dum. Sort of an attitude thing, right?'

       'Shut it, Damien,' Rose commented, giving him a shove. 'So are you going to the States or what, Petra?'

       'I'm going,' Petra nodded. 'Izzy's coming with me. And I think we're going to stay there for awhile.'

       'You mean longer than Christmas break?' James asked. 'Because that's when we're coming back, hopefully.'

       'I don't think even we will be back by Christmas, James,' Lucy said apologetically. 'I have some idea of how these things happen, sadly enough.'

       'And who is this refreshingly pragmatic creature?' Damien said brightly, leaning toward Lucy.

       James deflated, but only a little, considering his proximity to Petra. 'My cousin, Lucy,' he answered. 'She was supposed to be starting here this year, although she thinks she'd have been a Ravenclaw, or even a Slytherin.'

       'I could see that,' Damien nodded. 'She has that look, 'round about the eyes. Pleased to meet you, Cousin Lucy.'

'Likewise,' Lucy replied, nodding with practiced diplomacy.

       'So tell us how this all came about, then,' Ted said, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms. 'I mean, Hogwarts is a boarding school. You don't need to go with your parents to the States even if they're going to be there all year. Right?'

       James sighed and leaned on his elbows. 'It was Mum's idea,' he began. 'She didn't want to be so far away from Albus and me for so long. She was right upset when the owl came with Dad's instructions, straight from the Minister himself. I mean, things have been pretty humdrum in the Auror Department for quite a while now. It's like Professor Longbottom said to my dad once: peace is a pretty boring thing for an Auror, you know? I think the family just got used to it all. Now that things seem to be, sort of, heating up out in the world…' James spread his hands over the table, palms up.

'Whole city blocks being Disapparated away and chucked into waterfalls does tend to put people on edge,' Damien nodded wisely.

       'My mum's acting the same as yours, James,' Rose said. 'I hear her and Dad talking. They say it's a scary time because too many people have forgotten what things were like back when YouKnow-Who was still alive. They get tolerant of all sorts of iffy ideas, start questioning the way the whole wizarding world works.'

       'Like Tabitha Corsica and her bloody Progressive Element,' Ted scoffed. 'And don't think they've gone away either. Not by a long shot. They're like bugs that have retreated into the walls. They'll come back, and when they do, there'll be a lot more of them.'

       Sabrina picked up the paper again and peered at the headlines. 'Is that who this Wulf bloke is involved with, you think?'

'Wulf isn't a bloke, Sabrina,' Ted said, pointing at the headline. 'It's an organization.'

       'The Wizard's United Liberation Front,' Lucy said carefully. 'I've seen some of their posters up around London, talking about equality at any cost and such things. Supposedly they're international, thousands in numbers, but my father says not. He says they are probably just a few kooks in a cellar somewhere.'

       'Why would they go and pretend to kidnap some Muggle politicians if it wasn't true?' Rose asked, shaking her head and looking around the table. 'I mean, even if it was true, why would they do it?'

       'I don't know,' James answered, scowling. 'And I don't care. All I know is, it's getting everybody all up in a snit, and now my dad has to go work on some big international task force, and Mum's worried that something will happen to him, or us, or everybody. Dad says he could wrap the whole thing up by Christmas, but Lucy's probably right. Nobody knows how long it'll last. As long as it does, Mum wants us all to be together, or at least on the same continent.'

       'But Deedle's going with you, right?' Ted said, looking at James. 'His dad's already been over there once, visiting Stonewall and Franklyn and everybody at Alma Aleron, checking out their security and Muggle repellent techniques, that sort of thing. Is that why he's going along this time?'

'I guess,' James answered, slumping again. 'I don't know.'

       'Well,' Lucy said, climbing off her end of the bench, 'if any of us are going, we'd better get upstairs to bed. Show me the way, Rose?'

       Rose got up to join her cousin, and the rest of the Gremlins stirred, stretching and squeaking as chairs were pushed away from the table.

       'What about you, Petra?' Damien asked, turning his attention to the girl across from him. 'What's over there for you?'

James watched Petra, who smiled slightly at Damien and shrugged. 'I don't know,' she answered, and then sighed disconsolately, looking around the common room. 'What's over here for me?'

       James awoke the next morning to a scratching at the window next to his bed. He sat up, buried deep in the fog of sleep, and wondered for several moments where in the world he was. Dark shapes hulked around him, thick with the silence of night. A single candle burned nearby, but James couldn't see it over the four-poster bed next to him. Something tapped the window, startling him, and he spun blearily, straining his eyes in the dark. Nobby, James' barn owl, stood on the other side of the glass, hopping up and down impatiently.

       'What do you want?' James whispered crossly as he opened the window. Nobby hopped in and extended his foot, showing James the small note attached to his leg by a twine knot. James pulled the knot loose and unrolled the strip of parchment.

       Awake yet? I thought not. Meet us by the rotunda doors in ten minutes. We'll have breakfast on the ship.

—Mum

       James balled up the note and dropped it onto the bed. Clumsily, he got up and began to change out of his pyjamas.

       'Looking forward to your little holiday, Potter?' a voice drawled quietly. James startled, hopping on one leg as he pulled on his jeans, and fell over onto his mattress. Nobby jumped back onto the windowsill and flapped his