JAMES POTTER AND THE VAULT OF DESTINIES

       She did, and it was a singularly ugly dagger, its blade tarnished nearly black, as if it had been rubbed with soot.

       'No!' Petra moaned this time, pausing. 'No, Mum! Don't do it! He's lying!'

       James touched her shoulder, drawing her back. 'It won't change anything,' he urged softly, hating himself for doing so. 'You were right before. It's all a trick. We have to save Izzy.'

       Petra nodded, but didn't take her eyes away from the woman at the table. James saw the resemblance between the two.

       'It'll hurt only for a moment,' Lucius said soothingly.

       'Go on,' Zane said, nudging Petra gently. 'One more curtain. There's nothing we can do here and you don't want to watch.'

Petra nodded again, but still she did not move. Finally, she shook herself. She glanced at Zane, Ralph, and James, even at the sad bundle of Lucy's body in Ralph's arms, and then sighed deeply. She turned, saw the billowing curtain in the corner of the kitchen, and walked toward it. Somehow, James knew that it was the last of the portals. They had passed through the Gauntlet. For better or worse, whatever was about to come, there would be no turning back.

       When the final Nexus Curtain unfolded around them, the travelers were once again met with the noise of a crowd.

       James blinked, his eyes dazzled with flashing lights and monstrous hulking structures. People pressed in on him from all sides, thronging and jostling. It took several seconds for James to realize where and when he was.

       'New Amsterdam!' Zane called out, raising his voice over the noise. 'Why are we here?'

       'Is it the present day?' Ralph asked. 'Our present day?'

       Next to James, Petra swayed on her feet for a moment, as if disoriented. She clutched James' shoulder, and he covered her hand with his.

       'Are you all right?'

       She nodded uncertainly, and then seemed to recover herself.

        'We are back to our own day and time,' she said with grave confidence. 'Morgan is here. We are both here together.' Suddenly, she turned and led the group through the throng, angling toward bright lights ahead.

       Ralph looked up at the looming skyscrapers and the rain of parade confetti. 'But why are we here, in New Amsterdam?'

       Petra stopped at the perimeter of the crowd, where the view opened onto a section of the closed-off city street. 'Because this is where she wants us to be.'

       James jostled to get next to Petra and saw.

       They stood on the edge of the Memorial Day parade route, which cut straight through the main thoroughfare of the great city. Flat wagons lined the avenue, covered in festive decorations and oversized tableaux, most decorated in red, white, and blue colours. The floats were stopped now, halted by a police helicopter which sat incongruously in the center of a wide intersection, its rotors revolving slowly. The parade crowd watched with avid interest as policemen in riot gear moved in an urgent circle, their weapons raised, surrounding two men. The men stood in the center of the street, flooded with spotlights, their arms held over their heads. James recognized both of them. One was Titus Hardcastle. The other was his father, Harry Potter.

       'That's them!' a woman's voice called out, heard by the entire crowd. James glanced wildly toward the sound and saw Judith herself, pointing, her chin raised and her eyes bright. 'They killed Senator Filmore! I saw it myself in that basement hideout right behind you! His body is there even now, next to their names, written in his own blood! Look! They're terrorists and murderers! Arrest them!'

       Nearby, Morgan stood at the edge of the crowd, still cradling Izzy against her shoulder, as if the girl had fallen asleep while waiting for the parade.

       The police approached Titus and Harry cautiously, hunkered low, their weapons raised. Near the helicopter, two men in black suits spoke urgently into a handheld radio and James recognized them as the men from the Magical Integration Bureau, Price and Esposito. Harry and Titus did not attempt to flee their captors or use spells to escape. There were far too many Muggle observers. Television cameras surrounded the parade route, installed on tall gantries, even now broadcasting the event live to the entire country. James marveled hatefully at the perfection of Judith's plan.

       'She means to have your dad arrested, James!' Zane cried, pushing James out into the street. 'Stop them!'

       'I can't!' James shouted back. 'The whole Muggle world is watching on TV! The giant Disillusionment Spell that hides New Amsterdam from the Muggles won't work on magic we perform right in front of them! It'd break the Law of Secrecy! Why do you think Dad and Titus are just going along with them?!'

       'Look!' Ralph shouted suddenly, pointing into the air over the street.

       James looked and felt as if the entire world had dropped out from beneath him. One hundred feet over the New York intersection, floating like a cloud of bats and hidden from the Muggle observers below, were dozens of broom-borne wizards in black robes. It was the W.U.L.F., waiting for their moment to strike. They could be stealthy, James knew. They simply had to wait for the helicopter to rise into the air, bearing their enemy, Harry Potter, and they could strike it down easily, perhaps freezing its rotors or cursing the pilot dead in his seat. To the observers below, inured by the city's massive, constantly refreshed Disillusionment Charm, the crash would appear as a freak accident.

       Judith knew that Harry Potter and his Aurors were her greatest enemy in her pursuit of chaos. She didn't just mean to see him arrested. She meant to see him dead.

       'We can't let it happen!' Zane insisted, staring up at the swirling dark wizards.

       'But we can't use magic!' James insisted. 'The Vow won't let us! We couldn't do it even if we wanted to!'

       'Some of us can,' Petra said, her voice as flat and cold as iron. With that, she stepped out into the street and raised her right hand, her fingers splayed. A crackle of light exploded from it, but Petra did not aim it at the helicopter. Instead, she flung it out over the avenue toward the young woman who held her sleeping sister.

       This time, it was Morgan who was unprepared for the attack. Petra's bolt struck her in the shoulder and threw her backwards into a lamppost, which bent ominously at the force of the blast. Izzy flailed from Morgan's arms, but did not fall. Instead, she floated in the air, levitated by Petra herself as she strode out into the street.

       'Wake up, Iz,' Petra said, lowering her sister gently to the ground. 'Come back to me, love.'

Izzy blinked as her feet touched the pavement, and the crowd backed away all around her, frightened by the blast and the sight of the magically floating girl.

       'Petra! The helicopter!' Ralph called out, hoisting Lucy's body in his arms. The crowd was becoming agitated, progressing toward raw panic.

       'Drop your weapons!' an amplified voice roared out. James spun toward it and saw a policeman in riot gear pointing an electric bullhorn at his father, who held his wand in his upraised hand. Behind the policeman was the Magical Integration Bureau agent named Price. He was pointing at Harry Potter's wand, instructing the officer to take it from him.

       'Ms. Morganstern,' a man's voice declared suddenly, coming from directly next to James. He glanced up and was shocked to see Merlinus Ambrosius. The big man stood at the edge of the crowd, his eyes locked onto Petra as Izzy rejoined her in the middle of the street.

       'Headmaster,' Petra said, taking Izzy's hand in her own. Strangely, she didn't seem terribly surprised to see him there.