Pretty lucky, I guess.”
“She got sacked?” Zane frowned, “I thought that hardly ever happened? What for?”
James sighed. Ahead of them, the Gertrude unsheathed slowly from the fog. The folding gangplank stretched out to the ice, tilting and creaking with the movement of the ship. “She was mad and desperate about losing her work to a load of Muggle servants. She tried to sabotage them into getting sacked, but got herself caught and sacked instead. It was me that caught her, in fact. I was there for the holidays with Millie.”
Zane turned to glance at James, his brow lowering. “And you all trust her?” he asked, his voice suddenly incredulous.
James opened his mouth to reply, but a sudden commotion from behind startled both boys.
“Whoa!” Hagrid bellowed suddenly, “Norberta! WHOA!”
With a sound both low and terribly huge, the ice cracked beneath James’ feet, as if something very heavy had just pressed hard down on it. He felt the motion as the frozen expanse pitched, throwing him off balance. Zane grabbed his arm, keeping him upright, but just barely. Something buffeted overhead and the sky was momentarily blotted by a huge black silhouette. Dark wings whumped through the air, and suddenly, deafeningly, a roar broke over the ice. It was deep, long, and ululating, seeming to make the very snowflakes shiver in their course. This, James immediately knew, was no restrained bark of nervous energy. This was a full-on roar of hectic release.
Norberta couldn’t properly fly, James remembered, only glide short distances due to an old wing injury. She swooped over him and closed on Ralph, her shadow covering him as she lowered, scrabbling at the air, her claws swinging down toward the cracked ice.
“Ralph!” Zane cried, but the boy had already turned around.
His eyes bulged in terror as the great beast bore down on him.
Instinctively, he threw himself flat just as the dragon crunched down, rebounding from the ice with all four powerful legs, and lunging back into the air again even as the frozen river shattered beneath her weight.
Ralph scrambled to hold on, now captive on a heaving chunk of loose ice.
Hagrid ran past on James’ right, still bellowing, leaping clumsily over widening cracks. Rose was close behind, running more nimbly, even as her boots slipped and scraped.
Norberta pumped her wings, lofted through the air, and kicked off again, this time from the deck of the Gertude, tearing up planks and rigging with her claws. One wing walloped the air, the other, slightly out of synch, limped faintly, tugging her off course. Her swooping form was wreathed in swirls of snow, and James could just make out the shape of Heddlebun as she leapt from the dragon’s head, grabbed onto the rear mast of the Getrude, and swung up to perch on the furled sail.
“Elf work is for elves!” she called, her voice suddenly firm, as high and ringing as a trumpet. “Spread the word! This is just the beginning! Elf work is for elves, or the Muggle world will pay!”
James slid and stumbled to a halt as the shattered ice broke up before him. Norberta roared again, and the echo of it pealed over the Thames like thunder. With a wrench and screech of metal, she landed on the unmistakable shape of a Tower Bridge, clawed up to the top of its south stone tower, and coiled there, her tail whipping about her flanks, her wings raised and flexing for balance. She raised her neck, hinged open her jaw, and sent a gout of flame high into the snowy clouds.
Yellow light filled the world like a beacon, illuminating every falling snowflake, glinting from bridge’s suspended walkways. On the roadway below, cars squealed and tyres screeched. The noise of crashing metal and terrified screams was unmistakable even through the dark distance.
Then, with a sinewy lunge, Norberta launched again. Her wings caught the air, whumped down, and she swooped into a long, low arc, descending into the foggy glow of the city, where she was met with distant blares of horns and crumps of colliding metal.
James could barely believe what he was seeing. Zane scraped to a halt next to him, weighing down the giant chunk of ice they floated on and grabbing James’ shoulder for support.
“NORBERTA!!” Hagrid bellowed, standing in silhouette on a heaving floe ahead, his legs splayed. Next to him, Rose clutched onto his coat for dear life. “NORBERTA! COME BACK!”
James turned, realizing that the force of the river had already carried them some distance away from the Gertrude. Frantically, he scanned the rigging and masts, looking, but there was no longer anything to see.
“She’s escaped,” Zane gasped hopelessly, still clinging to James for support. “We’ll never see that little traitor again.”
A heavy shape slid up against James’ legs as the ice bobbed, allowing black water to bubble up over its edge. He buckled and fell backwards onto the object, which let out a hoarse “Oof!”
It was Ralph.
“I really do get tired,” he wheezed, rolling onto his back on the ice and throwing James off of him, “of being right… about these things.”
18. – A brief reprieve
It was almost dawn by the time James and Rose made their way back to the portrait hole, feeling as if they’d been away for weeks rather than hours.
“My, just look at the two of you,” the Fat Lady said disapprovingly, raising the topmost of her many chins. “You both look a fright. And what brings you back at such an ungodly hour?”
“Venomous Tentacula,” Rose growled the password as if it was a curse.
“Well!” the Fat Lady huffed, gathering her stole tighter about her shoulders indignantly. With a creak, her frame swung open, revealing the deep shadows and cold hearth of the common room.
Without a word, the two separated and climbed their respective dormitory stairs.
James didn’t know about Rose, but despite the numbing exhaustion of his body, he felt as wide awake as he’d ever been in his entire life. Creeping up the winding stairs to the somnolent dimness of the dormitory, he was relieved to see even Scorpius asleep in his stolen place among the seventh years.
Unable to muster the energy even to peel off his damp clothes, James lowered himself to his bed fully dressed, collapsed upon it, and lay there staring up toward the nearby window. The snow had stopped and the moon was up, glaring back with its own glowing eye, illuminating the window’s frosted edges like neon.
James’ every thought was consumed with the grave consequences of what they had inadvertently caused that night. The journey home had been difficult and arduous, with hours spent on the broken ice of the Thames shoring up the Gertrude enough to brave the attempt, all while Zane cast visum-ineptio charms over the ship to make it look like a mere tugboat to anyone who might come to investigate the fracas nearby.
But now that it was over, the return trip ceased to matter completely.