G. Lippert - JAMES POTTER AND THE VAULT OF DESTINIES

Was she causing so mething 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 every brick. Pencil beams shot from the tiny windows in the domed roof, spearing up into the sky. A split second later, the light was gone, leaving only blinding green afterimages on James' retinas.

"What," Zane asked in an awed voice, "was that?"

James shook his head very slowly. The sky seemed to have exhausted itself. The clouds broke up slowly overhead and there was a lingering coppery taste in the air. In the darkness beneath the Hall of Archives portico, the door opened. Two figures strode out into the dusky evening light and descended the steps. One of them was robed in black from head to toe and James found himself thinking of the mysterious woman whom he had first met in the midnight halls of the Aquapolis, the one who had appeared again later, during the attack on the Zephyr , and then vanished afterwards. She walked on into the deepening darkness, but the second figure lingered for a moment on the footpath, looking around slowly.

"Is that…?" Ralph began, but there was no point in finishing the question. All three boys could see who it was.

It was Petra. She looked around with interest, as if seeing the campus for the first time. Her dark eyes stopped when she saw the three boys, but it was James that she seemed to focus on. She smiled slowly. And then she waved.

"What is happening here?" a voice demanded shrilly. James turned around and saw Chancellor Franklyn moving swiftly across the darkened campus, nearing them. His face looked very pale in the stormy darkness. Merlin and Neville Longbottom were following him, looking around carefully.

"Did you feel it?" Zane asked. "The ground shook! Right when the lightning happened! Pow!"

Franklyn passed the boys with barely a glance, approaching the Hall of Archives and its open door. The dim lights that had previously shown from the building's tiny windows had been extinguished in the aftermath of the blast.

"Oh dear," Franklyn muttered darkly. "Oh great heavens. What has happened…?"

Merlin stopped near James. Without taking his eyes from the Hall of Archives, he asked in a very low voice, "Did you see anyone?"

James considered lying. For a moment, he considered telling Merlin that he hadn't seen anything at all, especially not Petra looking strange and vaguely malevolent. The moment passed.

"I saw Petra," he answered quietly, almost whispering. "She and someone else—a woman I think—came out of the Hall right after… whatever it was."

Merlin nodded slowly, with grave emphasis. He didn't say anything in response. He didn't need to.

10. JAMES AND THE SKRIM

Students had begun to gather in the darkness around the Hall of Archives by the time Professor Jackson arrived and set up a perimeter of Werewolf House upperclassmen to guard the entrance. The grey-clothed students stood with military precision, hands clasped behind their backs, eyes staring out over the crowd as if daring anyone to try to pass them. Ralph, James, and Zane stood well back from the gathering observers, watching the proceedings with mixed curiosity and trepidation.

Ralph frowned at the Werewolf guards in the near distance. "What kind of stuff do they have in the Archive anyway?"

"I was only in there once before," James replied, shrugging.

Zane was impressed. "Are you kidding?" he rasped. "I've been on campus a whole year and I've never once been allowed into the Archive chambers. Hardly anyone gets to go inside except for Bad Hadley and his student tech crew."

"Is that a difficult crew to get on?" Ralph asked, looking aside at Zane.

"Nah, they're always looking for new members," Zane replied, shaking his head. "There're sign-up sheets all over campus. But that's like actual work. I wasn't that curious."

James asked, "So who's Bad Hadley anyway?"

"Hadley Henredon," Zane answered, lowering his voice. "He's the Archive custodian. A Muggle, but totally devoted to his job. There's some long tedious story about how he got the position in the first place, but you'll have to ask somebody else about it if you really want to know. He's old and terminally cranky, and he goes by loads of nicknames around the campus: Bad Hadley, Hadley the Horrible, the Henredonkey, Captain Fisheye, Evil Enos, etc, etc, etc. Us Zombies came up with most of them."

"I wouldn't have guessed," Ralph muttered.

Just then, Harry Potter and Oliver Wood arrived, crossing the lawns and cutting through the noisome throng. Zane saw them first, and grabbed Ralph's sleeve.

"Come on," he hissed, ducking through the knot of students.

"Where are we going?" Ralph asked, following along with James in tow.

Zane glanced back with a crooked grin. "Where else? To see what happened inside the Archive."

James shook his head as they ducked through the babbling crowd. "They'll never let us in there," he whispered harshly.

"Sure they will," Zane replied without looking back. "Just follow me and walk like you don't expect anyone to stop you. You'd be amazed how often that works."

James found himself falling into step behind his own father and Professor Wood as they ascended the steps. Next to him, Zane glanced around wisely, as if he was taking inventory of the pillars around the portico. He had his wand in his hand, held importantly at his side. James produced his own wand and held it the same way. Behind them, Ralph scuffled up the steps, pushing his lank hair out of his face. Almost before he knew it, the three boys found themselves ushered into the darkened entryway of the Hall, following in Harry Potter's wake. The noise of the nervous crowd fell away behind them.