G. Lippert - JAMES POTTER AND THE VAULT OF DESTINIES

"Are you doing all right?" a voice asked quietly. It was his dad.

James sighed deeply. "Yeah. I guess."

Together, they watched the marching shapes of the whitecaps, moving like ghosts alongside the ship. After a minute, his dad spoke again. "Do you want to tell me what happened?"

James thought about it. Finally, he said, "Petra's sick, Dad. But not sick like Mum thinks. She's not well. In her thoughts. I think she… I think she came up on the deck tonight… because she wanted something to happen to her."

Harry Potter nodded slowly. His glasses glinted softly as the moon finally peeked through the tattering clouds. "I've spoken to Merlinus about it," he said. "The Headmaster has been… watching her."

"What's the matter with her?" James asked, looking aside at his father. "Does Merlin know? Is she going to be all right?"

Harry turned his head toward James and smiled slightly. "I'll tell you the truth, son. I don't know. But she's been through an awful lot. It will take time for her to work through it all. Be patient. Be her friend."

James sighed again, turning away. "I don't even know how to do that much. Every time I talk to her, I get… I don't know…" He shrugged and shook his head.

Harry's smile widened a little and he bumped James with his shoulder. "I know how you feel, son. Don't worry. The words will come when they need to. Just like they did tonight."

"What do you mean?" James asked, glancing back at his father.

Harry shrugged. "I heard you. We all did. We heard you calling down to Petra as she hung behind the ship, trapped. I heard you telling her what she had to do. You convinced her. You saved her life, James."

"But how, Dad?" James asked, almost pleading. "How did she do it? How did she break the ropes with just her mind? It was her yesterday morning too! She's the one that fixed the harness chain beneath the boat. She didn't use her wand! She doesn't…" James stopped himself, realizing he was close to breaking his promise to Petra. He'd vowed not to tell anyone her secret. "She doesn't… use a wand. Anymore. I mean, not that I've seen."

"So I have noticed," Harry replied evenly. "Merlin knows. He's told me a bit, but not very much. He is a man who keeps his own counsel."

"Can you tell me anything?"

Harry shook his head. "Not because you don't deserve to know, James, but because it wouldn't make any sense. Later, perhaps. When things are clearer."

"That's why Merlin's on this trip, then, isn't it?" James said, peering up into his father's face. "The real reason he came is to keep an eye on Petra. Isn't it?"

Harry met his son's gaze. He shook his head very faintly. "You have the mind of an Auror, James," he said seriously. "Use it well. Use it to keep yourself out of trouble. I know how hard it is to hear this, but hear it anyway: for now, there is nothing more you can do for Petra than be her friend. Whatever happens, that will be the thing she needs most."

"What's going to happen?" James asked, not breaking his father's gaze. "What do you know?"

"I know that you have difficulty understanding that the weight of the world isn't yours to bear," Harry said, with fond weariness. He smiled crookedly. "But you come by it honestly, so I can't blame you for it."

For a long moment, the two were silent again. James turned and looked back out at the ocean, listened to the monotonous thrash of the waves beneath the prow. After another minute, he spoke again.

"What happened back there, Dad?"

Harry seemed to know what his son was asking about. He thought about it for a moment, and then took off his glasses. "Did I ever tell you what happened on the day my mother and father were killed?" he asked mildly.

James glanced at him seriously. "Yeah," he said slowly. "I mean, everybody knows about that. There've been books. Movies even."

Harry nodded shortly. "Yes, but that's not what really happened. It's all just guesses, really. I mean, everyone that was there that night is dead now. Except for myself, of course. And I don't remember any of it, fortunately. There's only one person who really did know the truth of that night. You know who that is?"

James frowned as he thought about it. An idea occurred to him. "Dumbledore? Your old Headmaster?"

"Got it in one," Harry said, smiling. It was a thin smile, rather sad. "Albus Dumbledore. He told me about it, although I didn't fully understand it at the time. Maybe no one but Dumbledore himself truly could. It was old magic, after all. Old and deep. Such things aren't taught in books and classes. They come only through wisdom. Dumbledore may not have been perfect… but he was wise."

James blinked, unsure where this was going. "So what did he tell you?" he asked. "What really happened that night?"

Harry narrowed his eyes as he looked out at the waves. "My mother made a trade," he said slowly. "It sounds simple, really, and yet I think it's anything but that. I think the simple explanation is the only way we can really understand it. She made a trade. She gave her life in order to save me. When she did that, she created a kind of magic that Voldemort, in all his cruel power, could never grasp. She created a sort of contract, something that bound him, and hobbled him, something that connected him and me forever, until one of us was dead. The secret of it, the mystery of it, is in the substance of that bond, the force that made the contract unbreakable. Dumbledore told me when I was just a boy, younger than you, but it was too simple for me then. I thought he was just being sentimental. Now, I know different. Now, I know that the force he spoke of truly is the most powerful, the most inviolate and unbreakable thing in the entire universe. Tell me that you know what I am talking about."

James did know what his father was talking about. "Love," he answered. "Your mother's magical contract was bound in love. Somehow. Right?"

Harry nodded again, very slowly this time. "People think love is something all light and fluffy, something dreamy. They write it in flowery pink letters, print it on cards, play wispy songs about it on flutes and harps. But that's not what love really is, or, at least, that's not all love is. Love is like chains of unbreakable steel. Love is like iron weights, heavier than the world. Love can crush just as surely as it can lift up. Everything else wilts before it. That's what Voldemort failed to grasp, and what killed him in the end: my mother's love, the trade she made, giving herself… for me."

James had never heard his father talk about such things before. The story of his parents' death was so common, so familiar to everyone in the wizarding world, that it had become almost sterile. Now, James realized, more than he ever had before, that this was something that had actually happened. His dad, the great Harry Potter, had once been a baby, defenseless and helpless, and he had required the protection of his own mother, a woman who had given the last thing, the most powerful thing, she'd known how to give: her own life, as an act of perfect love.

Next to James, his father stirred. "Like I said, it is old magic. So basic, so simple, that there is no word for it. It just is. The trade, the saving of one life by the sacrifice of another. It makes a bond, one that is unbreakable, one that forms a contract forever, just like the one that existed between me and Voldemort, the one that eventually killed him. Do you understand, James?"

James nodded. "Yeah. I mean… I guess so. But what's this have to do with—"

"James," Harry interrupted him, "tonight, something like that happened here, on this very ship. But different. I didn't know for sure, not when it happened. I couldn't see it because Merlin clouded the windows. But I sensed it. Some part of me… some buried, essential part of me… remembered the feeling of it. James, can you tell me… when Petra fell… did you see something? Something unusual?"