JAMES POTTER AND THE VAULT OF DESTINIES

lantern wand in his hand. You want to come and hear his snore? It's funny. It sounds like this,' Suddenly, loudly, Izzy snorted, making a comical imitation of a snore.

       'Shh! Iz!' Petra rasped, stifling a laugh and covering her sister's mouth with her hand. 'People are sleeping!'

'I know!' the girl whispered, pushing Petra's hand away. 'And that's what they sound like!'

Petra shook her head at James, still trying not to laugh. James grinned at her.

       'Good night, James,' she said quietly. 'Thanks for checking on us. Thanks for walking us back. Maybe I will let you read the dream. If you really want to. I think you'd probably understand it better than anyone else, for all the reasons you mentioned back in the hall. If you think you are up to it, that is.'

James nodded soberly. 'Definitely. If you think it will help. Besides, I'm… I'm curious.'

       Petra studied his face for a long moment, biting the corner of her lip. Finally, she hefted her knapsack, reaching inside, and produced a thin sheaf of parchments. Wordlessly, she handed them over to him.

'It's not a nice story,' she said again. 'And it won't make a lot of sense. I can tell you the rest, if you want. Later. I need to tell someone, I think. It's just too big a secret for… well, for Izzy and me. Do you agree, Iz?'

The blonde girl screwed up her face thoughtfully. She shrugged.

       'It's all right, either way,' James said, taking the parchments. There were about four pages, covered with Petra's neat, small handwriting. Suddenly, he felt strange about the offer. 'Are you sure? You don't have to, if you don't want to.'

       'I do want to,' Petra said, sighing again. 'But you can't tell anyone, all right? Not any of it. I swear, if you do…'

James shook his head vigorously. 'I won't! I promise! Pinky promise, even!'

       Petra blinked at him, and then laughed again. 'All right, I believe you. Thanks, James. See you in the morning. We still have a long way to go, don't we?'

James nodded. 'Good night, Petra. Night, Iz.'

       The girls turned and continued down the hall, Petra's hand on her sister's shoulder. James looked down at the small stack of parchment in his hands, barely believing what had happened. He felt both giddy and dreadfully nervous about it. He wanted to read Petra's dream story, wanted to read it that very moment, standing in the dim light of the Atlantean corridor, and yet he was strangely afraid to do so. What if it was as awful as Petra said it was? Nothing, he felt quite sure, could change the way he felt about her (whether he liked it or not) and yet…

       Finally, he turned and pushed the door of his room open, letting himself into the darkness inside. He passed the shape of his sleeping brother and crept toward the table next to his bed, where his duffle bag lay, unzipped. He rooted in the bag for a moment until he found his wand. Glancing around, he laid Petra's story on the bed and pointed his wand at it.

       'Velierus,' he said, as quietly as he could. A tiny burst of blue light illuminated the bed, and the parchments folded together, doubling over repeatedly until all that remained was a thick packet, no bigger than an auger. It was totally seamless, as if it was encased in a perfect sphere of parchment. Kneeling, James hid both his wand and the secret package in the bottom of his bag. A moment later, he threw himself onto the bed and pulled the covers up to his chin.

       He would read Petra's dream story soon. Until then, he relished the idea that she had chosen him, and him alone, to share it with. He had suggested it, of course, but the fact remained that she had accepted his offer. She trusted him. She was glad of his presence. And what else had she said? He made her laugh. James' cousin Lucy had said the same thing to him once, last year, after Granddad's funeral, but it seemed so much more meaningful, so much more portentous, when Petra said it. He sighed, remembering the sound of her voice, the pleasing music of her laughter, sad and weary as it may have been.

It doesn't mean anything, he told himself, but they were only words, and his heart didn't believe them. Secretly, his heart rejoiced. Eventually, smiling faintly, he slept.

3. EIGHTY-EIGHT KNOTS

       The next morning, as James and his family and friends made their way to breakfast, they were greeted by a spectacular sight. The view beyond the submerged city's crystal enclosures was a green-gold vista, filled with shimmering beams of dawn sunlight, gently streaming rafts of bubbles, and schools of silvery fish, all of which played over and around the glittering Atlantean cityscape.

       James, Albus, and Lucy gazed with rapt curiosity as several strange shapes moved slowly through the water, angling back and forth between the distant ocean surface. The shapes were rather like long mirrored bubbles, some as large as a city bus, and all rippling in the faint Atlantic currents. Far below these, along the city's sloping, rocky foothills, James spied the unique patterns of sprawling oceanic gardens. Streaming leaves of kelp and neat rows of sea cucumbers grew alongside fields of far stranger and more colourful fruits and vegetables. Giant octopuses moved slowly through the gardens, and Lucy was the first to notice that they were being ridden upon by Atlantean farmers, their chests bare and their heads encased in glittering copper and crystal helmets.

As the students watched, the octopuses used their long agile arms to harvest some of the fields, and to tend to others, weeding or pruning them. One of the octopuses suddenly spread all of its arms and then contracted them together, shooting forward like a lithe torpedo. It rose up into the city swiftly, propelled by its powerful tentacles, and Albus gasped and pointed, laughing out loud; one of the Atlantean farmers was being towed behind the octopus, tethered to it by a long length of cord and standing on a sort of rounded board, which he used like a fin to steer and bob through the currents. As the pair rose into the city, chased by their shadow, James couldn't help thinking that both the octopus and the rider seemed to be having a grand time of it. Swiftly, the octopus banked and spun, following the contours of the streets and streaming under bridges and walkways, until it roared directly in front of the window, a long dark shape against the brilliant beams of watery sunlight. The Atlantean farmer passed by a split second later, his legs flexing as he carved the currents with his bullet-like board.

       'I wonder where he's going?' Albus asked, trying to peer up past the angle of the window.

       'Probably bringing us our breakfast,' his mum replied, gently pushing him onward. 'If we don't hurry, we won't have time to eat it. We cast off in less than an hour.'

       A short while later, after a light breakfast of kippers and toast, the troop made their way toward a section of the city that Merlin referred to as the Aquapolis Major Moonpool. James didn't know what to expect, but was delighted and curious to find, upon their arrival, a massive amphitheater-like room which surrounded a huge dark pool of ocean water. Busy Atlantean witches and wizards milled on the circular terraces and steep staircases that surrounded the pool, which bobbed with all manner of boats.

       'Looks like King's Cross on a Monday morning,' James heard Denniston Dolohov comment, laughing.

'I don't expect that's too far from the truth, either,' Neville Longbottom replied.

       As the travelers made their way down toward the pool, James watched Atlantean conductors directing bits of the crowd this way and that, threading them along floating gangplanks and onto the decks of long narrow boats. The boats were wooden, decorated fore and aft with large carved curlicues. Men dressed in bright red tunics and high, fin-shaped caps stood on the sterns of the boats, next to the rudder lever, reading newspapers or consulting schedules as the ornately crafted benches filled before them.

       A chime rang out in the bowl of the room, overriding the babble of voices. It was followed by an echoing female voice. 'All commuters destined for Conch Corners and the Octodome, your skiff is departing now. Please