G. Lippert - JAMES POTTER AND THE VAULT OF DESTINIES

As it turned out, Remora had made quite a reputation for herself by writing a series of wizarding romance novels about fictional American vampires with amazingly cool names and darkly dashing personalities. In class, she made thinly veiled references to the ongoing progress of her latest book, claiming that her stories were not fictional at all, but merely novelized accounts of her own life experiences.

"Much like another series of books based loosely on the exploits of a certain famous wizard," she said in class, sniffing disdainfully and glancing furtively at James. "Although mine," she went on breezily, "are not biased in favor of the main characters. I write my tales exactly as they happened, with an eye toward intellectual honesty."

" And adjective-heavy run-on sentences," Zane mumbled under his breath, his face low over his parchment as he doodled.

The Shard of the Amsera Certh ha d proven to be exactly as refreshing to James and Ralph as Merlin had implied. Most afternoons, James would return to his and Ralph's dormitory room on the third floor of Apollo Mansion and uncover the Shard. He'd tap it with his wand and say the phrase that Merlin had taught him and watch as the Gryffindor common room swam into view, usually filled with late evening activity. The first time he had done it, both Ralph and Zane had been with him, and they had succeeded in startling Cameron Creevey quite badly, calling his name from the enchanted mirror over the Gryffindor fireplace.

"Cam!" James had called, cupping his hands to his mouth and leaning close to the Shard where it hung on the back of his dormitory room door. "Cam! Can you hear me? It's me and Ralph and Zane! Where's Rose and everybody?"

Cameron had lowered the Potions book he'd been studying and glanced around uncertainly. When James called his name again, the boy looked up, saw the three boys' faces in the mirror over the hearth, and leapt neatly over the back of the hearth sofa, throwing his book into the air. A second later, he peered over the back of the sofa, his eyes wild.

"Somebody killed James!" he cried out shrilly. "And Ralph Deedle! And that third bloke, the blonde one that they hung out with their first year! They're haunting us in the mirror! Look!" He pointed frantically as James, Ralph, and Zane dissolved into laughter. It was nearly a minute before they could recover enough to explain to the gathered students on the other side of the Shard that they weren't ghosts at all, but were simply communicating from the States via Merlin's magical Mirror.

As they finished, James heard Rose's voice as she pushed through the crowd of Gryffindors. "James? Is that you? Move aside, Paulson, you great ape!" She elbowed her way to the front and leaned close to the mirror on her side. "James," she asked gravely, "what are the three of you doing in the mirror?"

James drew a breath to answer, but Rose shook her head impatiently. "Never mind. Tell me this first: is it true that the American students get to take weekly field trips to some giant unplottable prairie where Native American Indians still sleep in teepees and live like they did three hundred years ago? Because if it is, I don't even want to talk to you again out of sheer dead jealousy."

"No, Rose," James laughed. "Nothing like that's happened. So far, classes here are almost just like classes back home. Some are good, some are bad, but it's just school. Different country, same routine."

Rose sighed skeptically. "All right then," she said, plopping onto the sofa. Cameron Creevey was still peering over it, his eyes wide. Rose planted a hand on the side of his head and shoved him away. "So how is it there, then? How are you two and Lucy and everyone else settling in? Tell me everything, spare nothing."

James shook his head helplessly, not knowing where to begin. Zane, however, skipped right to the bit that most interested him. "Petra's turned all evil schizo on us!" he exclaimed, his eyes going wide. "She attacked the Hall of Archives and destroyed life as we know it!"

"Shut up !" James said, pushing his friend aside. "We're not supposed to talk about that! And besides, she says that it wasn't her!"

"She says that she was asleep when it happened, along with Izzy in her rooms on campus," Ralph clarified, raising a finger. "And Merlin only told us to keep it a secret around the school. He didn't say anything about our friends back home."

"Wait a minute," a different voice said from the other side of the Shard. James looked up and saw Scorpius Malfoy seating himself on the sofa next to Rose as the rest of the students drifted back to their homework and various conversations. "What's this about Morganstern? Are you telling us that she's already gotten into trouble with the Americans?"

"No!" James said immediately, glancing warningly at Ralph and Zane. "There was some confusion, but nobody really knows what happened. It's… complicated."

Together, the three boys explained the events that surrounded the attack on the Vault of Destinies, ending with the details of their interview with Chancellor Franklyn, Merlin, and James' father in the Chancellor's office, which had occurred later that night.

"So Merlin didn't let you tell the Americans that it was Petra you saw leaving the Archive?" Rose asked, frowning.

"He didn't really stop us from saying so," Ralph answered. "He just sort of… explained it to Franklyn on our behalf, leaving that bit out, and we didn't contradict him. It helped that those crazy loons at the W.U.L.F. released an announcement the next day claiming that they had been the ones responsible for the attack. They said that if Harry Potter and his people didn't return home, there soon wouldn't be any home for them to return to."

Rose frowned. "Do you think it really was the W.U.L.F. that was responsible for the attack?"

"It would make sense," Zane nodded. "They already went after James' dad and the rest of us once, on the Zephyr ride here."

At that point, the conversation turned to an excited recitation of the travelers' adventure on the train and the warning issued by the W.U.L.F. leader immediately before he flew away. Finally, Rose shook her head thoughtfully.

"And yet it wasn't the W.U.L.F leader you saw coming out of the Archive after the attack," she mused. "It was Petra and some other woman, right?"

"Unofficially, yes," Zane agreed. "According to Merlin's version of the story, we just saw two women leaving the Archive. He seemed to want to keep Petra's part secret."

From the other side of the Shard, Scorpius asked, "Why would he do that?"

"He said something about it to me afterwards," James admitted, shuffling his feet. "He said… that it was important that he choose his battles wisely, whatever that means. He talked to Petra himself after the whole thing was over, right before he left. And then he came and talked to me. He said that it would be best if we kept what we knew to ourselves since the Americans wouldn't have the… er… facilities to properly handle any investigation of Petra. That's exactly how he put it, but I don't know what in the world he meant by it. And then he asked me, along with Ralph and Zane, to keep an eye on her, for him."

"He knew that she was involved in the attack on the Vault and he just let her go?" Rose said skeptically. "Pardon me for saying so, but that seems extremely odd. What did he want you to watch out for?"

James shrugged, looking from face to face. "First of all, maybe she wasn't really involved," he insisted. "Maybe it was… I don't know… someone using Polyjuice Potion or something."

Scorpius sighed wearily. "Potter, your blind loyalty is getting to be a bit of a drag. Isn't this exactly like what happened last year, when you refused to admit that you saw the Headmaster in the Magic Mirror, consorting with villains?"