G. Lippert - JAMES POTTER AND THE VAULT OF DESTINIES

Petra blinked and looked aside at him. Thoughtfully, she replied, "I'm having different dreams now."

James frowned. "Not the dream you wrote about?"

"No," she said simply.

James walked on for a long moment. Up ahead, Professor Baruti seemed to be leading the class around the ruin of Roberts' mansion, toward the Warping Willow at the far end of the campus. James looked aside at Petra again. "Is there a castle in your dream?" he asked, his voice nearly a whisper. "A big black castle? Sticking out over a cliff?"

Petra looked at James sharply, her brow lowering. "How would you know that?"

James shook his head, not knowing how to answer. "I… think I saw… part of it. By accident. When I touched your dream story." He stopped and collected his thoughts for a moment before going on. "I think that we're still… connected, somehow. Remember the silver thread that appeared when you fell over the back of the Gwyndemere ?"

Petra's eyes narrowed. "Yes," she answered in a low voice.

James gulped. "Well, I think it's still there, just invisible. I don't know where it came from, or why it happened, but it's… powerful. It's like I tapped into something bigger than myself, somehow, but I don't know what. And now… it won't go away."

"I feel it," she whispered, unsmiling. "But I didn't know you could too."

"I didn't," he replied. "At least not until I brushed your dream story in the bottom of my duffle bag. It was just a glimpse, but I saw something like a giant, ugly castle, all black and sharp. It was sitting on a sort of cliff, sticking right out over the edge, almost like it was holding the cliff up, and not the other way around. I could only get a sense of it all because it was so strong… so, sort of, heavy . Is that what's in your dream?"

Petra was still studying James as she walked, her eyes narrowed. Finally, she drew a long, deep breath. "It's just a dream," she answered, returning her gaze to the students marching along ahead of her. "It's not like it was before. Not like what I wrote. Headmaster Merlin told me to chase it down, and that's what I did. I don't have the dream about that night on the lake anymore, the one where Izzy died. I haven't had that dream since the attack on the Archive, in fact. It's like something broke the spell, or changed it. This dream… I can handle."

James watched Petra as she spoke. Her voice was calm, but there was something under her words, something watchful and secretive.

"Petra?" he asked in a near whisper. " Was it you that night? When the Vault of Destinies was attacked? Were you… maybe… sleepwalking?"

"I was in my room that whole night," she answered blandly. "Izzy was with me. We were sleeping. Just like I told Merlin."

"But…" James stopped and shook his head. "I could've sworn it was you. You looked at me. And there was another woman… someone I think I recognized from the train…"

Petra's voice was oddly flat. "It was dark, James. Your eyes were probably playing tricks on you."

"Maybe," James agreed faintly. "But… who do you think it was, then? You think it really was those W.U.L.F. nutters?"

Petra raised her eyebrows slightly, and then glanced aside at him, a wry smile on the corner of her mouth. Ignoring his question, she said, "Do you know that this book tells the story of the beginning of the magical world?" She hefted the black tome in her hands again.

James looked down at the black leather Bible. "It does?"

"It does. It says that when God first created people, heavenly beings came down to the earth and fell in love with human women. They took them as their wives, and when they bore children, they were different from other babies. Some grew up to be giants. Others had special powers. They were called the Nephilim. That's where we all began." She tapped the big book.

"Wow," James commented. "I never heard that story."

"It's all right here, in the book of Genèse , plain as day. But you know what else is in Genesis? The story of the jardin d'Éden. Do you know the story of Adam and Eve, James?" She peered sideways at him.

"Sort of," he answered. "They were the first people God made, right?"

She nodded. "God made them and put them in a perfect garden. They had everything they needed, and there was only one rule. They weren't supposed to eat from one very special tree."

"I remember," James said, recalling the times when his own Grandmother Weasley had told him Bible stories as a child. "The Tree of Knowledge. Right?"

"That's right," Petra replied quietly. "The Tree of Knowledge." She was silent for a long moment, considering.

"But," James prodded, "they didn't listen, if I remember."

"No," Petra agreed, her voice still soft, distant. "They didn't. Eve ate the fruit, and then she gave it to Adam. I've been thinking about that a lot lately. There was only one thing they weren't supposed to do, and she did it anyway. She did it for both of them, and nothing's been the same ever since."

James felt a coldness settle over him. He watched Petra, waiting for her to go on. When she didn't, he asked, "So… why do you think Eve did it?"

Petra sighed again and looked up at the grey sky, past the glimmering rainbows that continued to shift overhead. "She did it because she believed in her heart that it was the right choice. Not only for her, but for everyone else. That's why she ate the fruit, and why she gave it to her husband, and all the rest of us throughout the generations that followed. She wasn't evil. She was just… misinformed. She was doing what she felt was best."

James shook his head. "So what does all that mean to us?"

Petra tucked the book back under her arm again and touched him on the shoulder. "It means that we can't just rely on what we feel, James. We can't always trust our hearts. Sometimes, as hard as it is to accept… the heart is a liar."

James was about to ask Petra what this had to do with the dream she was having, the one he had gotten a harrowing peek into when he'd accidentally touched her dream story, but at that moment, Professor Baruti's voice called out through the rain, interrupting his thoughts.

"Everyone gather under the Tree," he said, gesturing toward the Warping Willow. "Huddle in close, under the branches. Pretend you are one big happy family, going on a little vacation. That's the way."

"Where are we going, Professor?" Norrick asked, cramming in behind Emily Worrel. "Don't we need permission slips for this kind of thing?"

"Not far, not far," Baruti replied, ducking beneath the branches himself. "School policy states that parental permission must be acquired for travel of more than twenty miles. We, however, will barely leave the campus. Wait and see, wait and see."

James pressed in under the shadow of the Tree, moving alongside Ralph and Zane. When he turned around, he found himself face to face with Petra. This close to, he noticed that they were nearly eye-level in height. She smiled at him, brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face, and then turned to look out over the campus.

Still humming, Professor Baruti shouldered his way toward the Warping Willow's large gnarled trunk. There, he produced a small piece of parchment and a quill from his robes. Squinting, he peered up at the sky, checked the position of the sun, and then scribbled something on the parchment. Finally, he held up the parchment between his thumb and forefinger and, in a lilting, singsong voice, said, "Warping Willow, wing us hence, day or year or none or all, wend us from this present tense, we who are ephemeral." When he was finished, Baruti turned and, almost casually, flicked the small parchment into a hole in the Willow's trunk.

Just as it had upon James' arrival, the Tree began to shift subtly overhead, as if some otherworldly breeze was pushing through it. The whip-like branches whispered and the lighting began to change in the sky overhead.