JAMES POTTER AND THE VAULT OF DESTINIES

       'What about the Focusing Book?' Ralph asked, referring to the book that was the magical counterpart to the original Magic Mirror.

       'Destroyed forever,' Merlin sighed. 'As with the Mirror of Erised, the Amsera Certh is reduced to only its most basic and illusionary powers without the aid of its Focusing Book. With the Book destroyed, and the Mirror divided, its impact upon the world is far lighter. I used my arts to enchant this bit of the Mirror, connecting it to the mirror over the hearth in your former dormitory common room, James. With its help, you will be able to see and interact with your friends at home whenever you wish. I have given your father another Shard, similarly enchanted, which will allow him to speak to his associates at the Ministry of Magic.'

       'Excellent!' Zane nodded. 'This is way better than using lunarflies and doppelgangers. Raphael will be dead jealous when he hears about this.'

       'Alas,' Merlin said gravely, 'you must not tell anyone about the Shard. As divided and diminished as its powers are, it must still be kept hidden from those who would wish to use its magic for wicked purposes. Use it to communicate with your friends as you wish, but tell no one here what the Mirror can do or what its origins are. Can you swear obedience to these requirements?'

       'Sure,' James answered slowly, nodding. 'But… I mean, is it… safe?'

       'If you are referring to your inadvertent usage of the Amsera Certh last term,' Merlin said, smiling crookedly, 'I assure you, the Mirror's days of capricious trickery are quite over. Like any magical tool, this Shard is exactly as safe as that which you might choose to do with it.'

       James nodded, relieved. 'Nice. Thanks, Headmaster. We'll be extra careful with it. And we won't tell anyone else about it. Will we?'

       The other two boys agreed easily and James rewrapped the Shard in its cloth. Shortly, Merlin bid the three boys goodbye and rejoined Professor Longbottom and Chancellor Franklyn in the guest room's parlor. James waved goodbye to Neville, and then, in a lower voice, told him that he'd done an excellent job putting those Progressive Element rabble-rousers in their place at the previous night's assembly. Neville nodded sheepishly and thanked James.

       'Enjoy your new surroundings, boys,' Franklyn said. 'I suspect you will find yourselves quite at home within the halls of Apollo Mansion.'

       James nodded, feeling dismissed and not particularly liking it. Ralph, however, dragged him by the elbow and a minute later, the three had ducked out of the rear door of the guest house and crossed into the shadow of the common dorm. It had grown rather darker by then, with low clouds obscuring the few stars. The wind switched restlessly and hissed in the tall grass that surrounded the buildings.

Inside, Ralph and Zane manhandled the larger trunks out into the hallway, lugging them toward the dumbwaiter and the waiting clockwork monkey. James slung his duffle bag over his shoulder and unzipped it awkwardly, meaning to stuff the Shard inside it along with his dirty laundry and toiletries. He turned comically on his feet, reaching around himself to work the Shard into the depths of the bag on his shoulder, and suddenly, shockingly, the world went away.

       There was no disorienting sense of speed and no jolt, as with Apparition or Portkeys. The world simply clicked off like a light, and in its place was darkness. James sensed himself still standing, but there seemed to be nothing around him. Emptiness pressed on him like weights, and when he opened his mouth to call out, there didn't seem to be any air, either to breathe or to conduct sound waves.

       Panic gripped him suddenly, but before he could act upon it, the darkness swept away. It was as if a monstrous wind blew, bringing with it brightness and light, a ghastly, dead environment, a sky like a gravestone and a looming, black shape, hideous and somehow prehistoric, the architectural equivalent of a petrified dragon. The scene boiled all around James, perfectly still but impossible to look at, as if it was comprised of darning needles, all poking toward him, assaulting his senses. James tried to recoil from the sights, but he was unable to move. A voice came out of the vision, huge and clanging, as if it was the voice of the sky and the earth itself. 'She watches,' the voice said calmly. 'She watches and she waits. Soon I must go to her. It is the only way.'

       James recognized the voice immediately, even though he'd never heard it sound so huge and terrible. It was the voice of Petra Morganstern. It was the voice of Morgan.

       And then, as suddenly as it began, the vision blew away. The dormitory room sprang back into existence around James again, feeling tiny and hot, remarkably mundane in the wake of the teeming vision. A thump came from the ground at James' feet and he looked down dully. His duffle bag had slipped from his shoulder and fallen to the floor. The wrapped Shard poked from the unruly clothing inside. Next to it, unearthed from the depths of the laundry, was Petra's dream story, compressed into a small dense packet of parchment. It glowed very faintly with silvery light.

       James raised his right palm and saw the thread there, the one that had connected him to Petra when she had fallen from the stern of the Gwyndemere. The thread trailed off like a line of smoke, vanishing after a few feet, fading even as he watched. Somehow, the silver thread was still there, connecting him to her. More importantly, that connection had triggered something when he had touched her dream story. It had been a vision, but one so powerful and shocking that he'd barely been able to register it. Something, he felt quite sure, was happening with Petra, possibly at this very moment. Was something bad happening to her?

       Was she causing something bad to happen?

       A minute later, James joined Ralph and Zane in the hallway. They forced the dumbwaiter doors shut, enclosing the luggage and the clockwork monkey inside. With a ratcheting clatter, the dumbwaiter began to descend toward the lobby below.

       'What's with you?' Zane asked, peering sideways at James. 'You look white as a ghost.'

       James shook his head. 'I don't know. I think… something's happening.'

       'Something's always happening, isn't it?' Ralph frowned as they clumped down the stairs.

       'I don't know…,' James said again, faintly.

       They retrieved the trunks from the dumbwaiter and began to lug them out onto the common dorm's stoop.

       'Whoa,' Ralph said suddenly, looking up. 'What's going on over there?'

       James didn't want to look, but did anyway. The sky had lowered ever further. It swirled unnaturally over a point nearby, like a very slow, inverted cyclone. Lightning flickered silently in the clouds and wind switched restlessly over the campus, whickering in the trees and scouring dead leaves over the footpaths.

       'Where are you going?' Zane called as James stepped slowly down onto the lawn, watching the sky. He didn't answer. Instead, he moved along the lawn, skirting the fountain and its birdbath gargoyles, keeping his eye on the strange, swirling cauldron of clouds. It was making a noise, a sort of dull rumble, like the sound of a hundred freight trains in the dark distance. It was very nearly a growl.

       'Is that… you know… normal?' Ralph asked Zane as they moved alongside James. 'Like, tell me that it's some sort of side effect of the way the school jumps around in time, right?'

       'I've never seen anything like that before,' Zane answered seriously.

       James lowered his eyes from the swirling purple maelstrom of the clouds and found himself looking at the squat mass of the Hall of Archives. The stormy phenomenon was directly above the building.

       'She watches,' James heard himself say. 'She watches and she waits.'

       A tongue of lightning connected the clouds and the Hall of Archives, and the ground leapt beneath James' feet. A blast of purple light illuminated the building from within, spearing through every crack and from the seams of