G. Lippert - JAMES POTTER AND THE VAULT OF DESTINIES

A great distance away and some weeks later, a short order cook struck a bell with his slab of a hand and clunked a steaming plate onto the counter.

"Number three, hold the O, extra mayo, get it while it's hot," he called without looking.

A waitress in a dingy rayon dress blew hair out of her face in annoyance. "Keep your hair on, I'll get it in a second." She turned back to an overweight couple crammed into the window booth. They leaned over the little dog-eared menus, studying them as if they were final exams. The man looked up at the waitress, his eyes swimming in a huge pair of black-rimmed glasses.

"Does the tuna come open-faced or in one of those fancy tomato bowls?"

"Fancy—" the waitress blinked. She scoffed good-naturedly. "You don't know where you are, do you?"

"We're in Bridgend, aren't we?" the overweight woman said suddenly, glancing up at the waitress and then looking worriedly at her husband. "Aren't we? I told you we should've taken the expressway. We're lost now, aren't we?"

"No, I mean—" the waitress began, but the man interrupted her, producing a large folded map from his breast pocket.

"Bridgend," he said emphatically, unfolding the map and stabbing at it with a pudgy finger. "Right 'ere, see? You saw the sign when we left the last roundabout."

"I've seen a lot of signs today, Herbert," the woman huffed, sitting up primly in the red booth.

"Look," the waitress said, lowering her order pad, "if you two need a few more minutes—"

The bell at the counter dinged again, louder this time. The waitress glanced back, her temper flaring, but another waitress passed behind her and touched her shoulder.

"I'll get it, Trish," the younger (and decidedly prettier) waitress said. "Table three, right?"

Trish exhaled and scowled at the pickup window. "Thanks, Judy. I swear to you, one of these days…"

"I know, I know," Judy smiled, crossing the narrow floor and waving a hand to show she'd heard it a hundred times before.

Judy ripped an order slip from her pad and jabbed it into one of the clips on the cook's carousel. With a deft movement, she scooped up the plate and carried it to a table in the corner by the door.

"Here you go, love," she said, sliding the plate onto the table in front of a middle-aged man with thinning black hair. "Enjoy."

"Thank you very much," the man replied, smiling and unrolling his napkin so that his silver clattered onto the tabletop. "Why, if I thought I could get waited on by the likes of you every day, I might never even leave."

"You sweet-talker you," Judy replied, cocking her hip. "You're not from around here, then?"

The man shook his head with derision. "Not likely. I'm from up the coast, Cardiff. Just passing through."

"Is that so?" Judy said, smiling enigmatically. "I have family up that way, though I hardly ever get to visit. I wonder if you know any of them?"

The man's smile turned condescending. "Cardiff 's a big place, dearie. Unless your daddy's the mayor, seems unlikely I might know 'em, but go ahead."

Judy leaned toward the man and cupped one hand to her mouth, as if she was about to share a secret with him. "Potter," she said, "James Potter. He'd be young… not a boy, but not a man yet either."

The man narrowed his eyes in a parody of deep thought, as if he really wanted to say yes, just to keep the pretty waitress talking to him, but couldn't quite bring himself to do it. He blew out a breath and shook his head. "Sorry, can't say I know 'im. Frankly, I don't run across too many boys anymore, now that my own are mostly grown. My youngest just went off to the milit'ry, you know…"

The waitress nodded, straightening. "You let me know if you need a refill on that, all right?" She smiled again, a somewhat more plastic smile than the one she'd shown him a few moments before, and then turned away.

Trish, the older waitress, was standing by the cash register counting out her end-of-day tips. Without looking up, she said, "What is it with you and this Potter kid? You've been asking about him since your first day here, what, three weeks ago? I, for one, don't believe he's any relation of yours. What is it? He lay into your kid brother or something? His folks owe you money?"

Judy laughed. "Nothing like that. He's just… a friend of a friend. Someone I've lost touch with and want to find again. It's nothing. It's sort of a hobby, really."

Trish chuckled drily. She slammed the register drawer shut and stuck a thin roll of bills into her apron. "Some hobby. I've seen your little apartment, remember? If you want a hobby, maybe you should take up decorating. That place is as bare as Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard. Not even a bed. Creepy, if you ask me."

Judy wasn't listening to Trish. Her eyes were locked on the front window, expressionless and unblinking, transfixed.

"What is it, Judy?" Trish asked, looking up. "You look like someone just walked over your…"

Judy held up a hand, palm out, instructing the older woman to be still. Trish went still. Judy stared through the front window, between the faces of the overweight couple who were still arguing over the map, beyond the narrow footpath and the lamppost, across the street, toward a small man as he ambled slowly down an alley, tapping a twisted cane as he went. Judy's eyes narrowed slightly, quizzically.

Behind her, loudly, the short order cook banged the bell again. A plate clanked onto the counter. Neither Trish nor Judy moved.

"Number six," the cook called, peering at the two women through the little pickup window, his cheeks red and sweaty. "Bangers and mash, no pickle—" he went on, bellowing, but his voice cut off abruptly as Judy raised her hand again, gesturing vaguely toward him. He stared at her, unmoving, as if frozen in place.

Judy moved out from behind the counter, walking with a swift, determined gait that was completely unlike her previous movements.

"I think we're ready to order now," the overweight woman said, smiling hopefully up at her. She froze in place as Judy passed her. The bell jingled over the door as it swept open entirely on its own, so swiftly that it sucked a gust of air through the diner, whipping menus from tables and flapping order slips on the cook's carousel. No one inside seemed to notice. The middle-aged man with thinning black hair sat with his fork half-raised to his mouth, still as a statue.

Judy strode into the misty sunlight and began to cross the street. A horn blared and brakes squealed as a lorry bore down on her, swerving into a deep puddle, but the sound cut off sharply as Judy raised her hand. Fingers of ice erupted from the puddle and embraced the lorry so firmly that it slammed to a halt. It emitted a screech of crimping metal and the driver's head struck the windshield, shattering it into a bright starburst. Judy still had not taken her eyes from the small man with the cane. He turned back at the noise of the mysteriously halted lorry, his eyes gimlet and wary. He saw Judy approaching. His expression didn't change, but when he turned back, he did so with much improved posture. He began to run down the alley, gripping his cane at his side. Judy smiled happily and leapt onto the curb, following the man into the alley.

He ducked into a narrow cross street, not looking back, but Judy was amazingly fast. She was still smiling, and it was a beautiful smile, one filled with delight and a sort of dawning wonder.

"Lemme be!" the man called out, still running. He darted up a short stairway toward a decrepit apartment door and began to fumble a key into the lock. "Lemme be, I didn't do anything wrong!"

Judy reached the bottom of the steps just as the man socked the key home. He jerked the door open and lurched inside, still clutching his cane to his side.

"Please wait," Judy said, raising her hand, but the man didn't look back. Neither did he stop in his tracks as everyone else had. He slammed the door and Judy heard the bolt clack into place. Her smile narrowed, sharpened at the edges, becoming a hard grin. She raised her hand once more, curled her forefinger under her thumb, and pointed it at the door. It looked as if she meant to flick a speck of dust out of the air. She flicked.