JAMES POTTER AND THE VAULT OF DESTINIES

       Without turning the chair around, James asked quietly, 'You know I'm here, don't you?'

       Harry, still leaning against the front of the desk, chuckled drily. 'I never leave my chair facing the window. I figured it was either you or Albus. Frankly, I was betting on the latter.'

       'Nice counter-spell on the lockbox,' James said, swiveling the chair to face his father. 'I wasn't trying to nick the cloak and map, you know. I was just… checking on them.'

       Harry nodded, looking back at his son over his shoulder. With a sigh, he turned around and plopped onto one of the visitor's chairs.

'So, what do you think, James?' he asked. 'Is this whole investigation a lost cause?'

       'Why would they think you were involved with the same bad guys that you're trying to catch?' James exclaimed incredulously. 'I mean, it doesn't make any sense!'

       'It makes sense from their viewpoint,' Harry said sadly. 'You were at Neville's assembly, so you heard how a lot of people around here think. Many of them truly believe that the Ministry of Magic would indeed stoop to creating shadow villains, from Voldemort to the W.U.L.F., just to keep the magical world under their thumb. If that was true, then it would make perfect sense that I'd be in on it, and might even be one of the masterminds of the scheme.'

       'That's what Ralph said, too,' James acknowledged reluctantly. 'But none of it's true! How can they believe such a bunch of drivel?'

       Harry frowned thoughtfully. 'Once you abandon the concept of truth, James, everything becomes merely a matter of perspective. For the Progressive Element, there is no right or wrong; there are only sides. When one of those sides defeats another, they don't see it as a triumph of good over evil or evil over good. They view it merely as one side exerting unfair power over the other. Without truth—without any belief in right and wrong—the best one can hope for in life is a sort of lukewarm concept of fairness, where both sides in any fight simply choose to live and let live. They think that what we call 'good' should just learn to tolerate what we call 'evil' since good and evil are really just equally valid philosophies of life.'

       'But,' James began, screwing up his face in an effort to understand. 'But, that's obviously crazy. This isn't like disagreeing over whether flying carpets should be legal or not. Voldemort was a bloodthirsty villain who killed people just for the sake of his own power. Stopping him was the only way to save countless other lives, wasn't it?'

       'Not according to the Progressive Element,' Harry replied, shaking his head. 'They think that if only we'd stopped fighting him, laid down our weapons, and given him his right to live the way he wanted to, then we'd all have just lived in peace, somehow.'

       James considered this for a moment, his eyes narrowed, and then shrugged. 'But then he'd just have killed every last one of you.'

       Harry nodded. 'Probably. Voldemort wasn't a 'live and let live' sort of wizard, especially considering the prophecy. One of us had to die for the other to survive. But really, prophecy or not, that's how it is in every corner of the world, in every struggle between evil and good, between power and love. The two cannot compromise because they cancel each other out. There will always be a struggle between them until one prevails over the other. There is no alternative.'

       'So, all these Progressive Element types are complete nutters, then?' James said, throwing up his hands.

       'Not all of them,' Harry replied with a sigh. 'They are right that a lot of awful things have been done throughout the ages in the name of good. Merlin himself tells of battles that occurred between the magical and non-magical peoples of his day, not over right and wrong, as they pretended to be, but over mere prejudice and fear, intolerance and hatred. These are the things we must always be wary of at all costs. And yet, to deny that some struggles are, indeed, worthy of the fight—that evil and good are always alive and in enmity against one another, like fire and water—is to turn a pragmatic truth into a dangerous delusion. This, James, is what the Progressive Element is guilty of. Most of them are not bad, and most of them are very well-meaning. But that does not mean that their philosophy is not, in the end, thoroughly deadly.'

       James thought on this for a long moment. Finally, he asked, 'So who do you think ratted you all out?'

       Harry shook his head again, his face growing dark. 'I don't know. Hardly anyone knew about the raid. But I suspect that Espinosa and Price are right. Whoever warned them about us also killed their leader, Tarrantus, and left his body for us to find. The W.U.L.F. has a new leader now, someone who may well know a lot more about us and how we plan to stop them than Tarrantus ever did. I suspect that the first order of business is to find out who that person is. Then, perhaps we will know how to proceed.'

       'But who could it have been, Dad?' James asked earnestly, leaning forward over the desk. 'I mean, Mum knew, and maybe Lil…'

       'Even if they did tell someone else,' Harry replied, narrowing his eyes, 'nobody sent any messages out of the flat, either via Floo or even through the Shard. I've set up hexes to alert me anytime there is any communication between the flat and the outside world, just to make sure that no one is spying on us. If any message had gone out, I'd have known about it.' Suddenly, Harry looked up at his son, his eyes sharp. 'James, did any of you come or go over the last few hours? Besides Percy, I mean. After the time you arrived, did anyone go out? Even for a little stroll around the neighborhood?'

       'No, Dad,' James said, but then he paused. Unbidden, he found himself thinking of Petra's empty bed upstairs when he had gone to look for her. He'd searched through all of the upstairs rooms, but hadn't seen any sign of her. And yet, some time later, she had come downstairs, as if she'd been up in her bedroom all along. James was still shaking his head, but his thoughts spun onward, turning cold and fearful. Petra would have known about the raid. But surely she wouldn't have warned the villains even if she could have somehow Disapparated from the flat without anyone noticing. Would she?

       'Well, I don't know, then,' Harry said, leaning back in his chair again. 'But I'll find out. Whoever it was that leaked the information about the raid and killed Tarrantus, I'll find them. And when I do, they'll be sorry they ever took over for him. I'll make very sure of that.'

       James nodded, but inside he felt numb and deeply frightened.

       I am the Princess of Chaos, he thought, remembering the dream-vision of Morgan, the shadowy figure that had spoken with Petra's voice. I… am the Sorceress Queen…

       Christmas at the flat seemed to go by in a rather hectic rush, juggled between the much shorter Alma Aleron holiday break, Harry and Percy's constant work demands, and James' spinning thoughts about Petra, the W.U.L.F., Professor Ignatius Magnussen, and the Magical Integration Bureau.

       Christmas Day was the only somewhat relaxing day of the break, during which time the family opened their presents and visited with Grandma Weasley, Uncle Ron, Aunt Hermione, and the rest via Floo. From his mother, James did indeed get a box of new underpants as well as a new winter cloak. His father, however, had purchased James a brand new pair of Clutchcudgel gauntlets from a wizarding sporting goods store in New Amsterdam. The gloves were leather, coloured Bigfoot orange and blue, with a chamois-lined wand sleeve in the left wrist. Denniston Dolohov had gotten Ralph a new wizard chess set with enchanted pieces that could, if desired, play themselves. The pieces had been especially hexed by a famed wizard chess champion so that Ralph could practice the game alone whenever he couldn't find a suitable opponent. Petra, to James' surprise, had managed to procure Izzy a new dollhouse and china doll, which Izzy had immediately christened Victoria Penelope.

       'But never Vicky Penny,' she warned, peering sternly at James, to which James nodded solemnly in agreement.