Millie rolled her eyes impatiently. She was dressed in loose grey sweatpants and a yellow Hufflepuff Quidditch tee shirt. The hand-lettered legend across the front read WE’LL HUFFlePUFF and BLOW YOUR HOUSE DOWN!
“James,” Millie said, covering her eyes with one hand. “I’ve got exactly one book on the subject, and I’ve barely had a chance to crack it so far. What sort of ‘expertise’ do you need, exactly?”
James hedged a little, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
“Well. We need somebody who can recognize building styles that might look at home in… a different country.”
Millie peeked over her hand at him, and then dropped it, cocking her head. “What country?”
“Norway,” James answered, deciding to go for broke.
“I don’t know anything about Norwegian architecture,” Millie said, bracing her hands on her hips. “Not any more than the average person does.”
“I’m the average person,” James said helplessly, “and up until ten minutes ago I didn’t know Norwegian architecture was even a thing!”
“Look, I wouldn’t be any help,” Millie insisted, becoming annoyed. “Whatever you told your dad, I doubt I can live up to it.
When it comes to Norway, I can barely tell a redwood stave from a Romanesque.”
“See?” James brightened, boggling at her in the dark. “You do know what you’re talking about!”
“Those are just words I picked up while skimming books,”
Millie exclaimed in annoyance. “The sentence barely even makes sense.
If you really want someone who knows their stuff, why don’t you go talk to Blake? Poor bloke’s probably still groping around for his invisible car.” She turned away, reaching for the door.
“Millie,” James whispered, stopping her with a hand on her shoulder. She halted, but didn’t turn back to him. Still whispering, he said, “I’m sorry for the way I acted that night. I’m not sorry for Blake— I still think he’s an obnoxious, scheming pikey. But I’m sorry to you that I was a jealous, suspicious duffer. And later on the train, it was stupid of me to tell Ralph what I did. I didn’t want you to find out from him. I acted like a coward.”
Millie considered this, one hand still on the latch of the common room door. “I could’ve taken it,” she said quietly. “If you’d just come and told me yourself.”
“I was on my way to do that,” James sighed. “But I kept finding reasons to put it off. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Well,” she nodded, still staring back at the closed door, “you did hurt me. But I’m a big girl. I can handle it. And I’m mostly over it.
Mostly.”
James lowered his hand. “I’m glad. I do really like you, Millie.
I just don’t…”
He stopped, knowing he couldn’t go any further without explaining his connection to Petra, and the hopeless love he felt for her.
Fortunately, he didn’t need to say anymore. Millie glanced back at him over her shoulder, and the look on her face told him she was content to leave it at that.
“This doesn’t make me know any more about Norwegian architecture,” she said, meeting his gaze.
He shrugged and sighed.
Millie turned back to him fully. “But it does make me slightly more willing to help you. If not for your sake, then at least for your dad.
I’ve been hearing about him since I was in nappies. Let me change and get my coat. It’s about time my name appeared in one of Revalvier’s books.”
Merlin came along as well.
James didn’t discover this until they were already on the ship, barreling along the subterranean tunnels en route back to London. As he and Millie clambered down the steps into the narrow hold, they encountered the headmaster seated on a crate reading a small but immensely thick book, a pair of glinting spectacles perched low on his nose.
James stumbled to a halt so quickly that Millie clambered into him from behind.
The ship rocked precipitously and groaned all around, occasionally juddering as the hull ground against the rushing tunnel beyond. Merlin seemed completely oblivious to these things, but he did clap his book shut and look up at the students, his face merely pleasantly curious.
“I doubt you two have developed your sea legs yet,” he announced, and patted a bench bolted to the sloping hull next to him.
“Do come sit down before you do yourselves harm.”
James hesitated, his mind racing with a mixture of speechless surprise and cold fear. Why was the headmaster here? What did he know? Was he a portent of official trouble to come?
After a moment, Millie pushed James aside and half walked, half stumbled to the bench. Strategically, she sat at the end of the bench furthest from the headmaster, leaving James the space right to him.
With a silent sigh and a gulp, he lurched to the bench and fell to a seat upon it.
Merlin opened his tiny book again, adjusted his spectacles, and casually said, “I trust your father, aunt, and uncle are assisting Mr.
Hagrid in piloting the ship to our destination?”
James nodded uncertainly. He knew that there wasn’t much piloting to be done once the ship was caught in the throat of the rushing tunnels, but felt there was no point in explaining it.
Instead, he asked in a low voice, “I guess we’re all going to be in trouble when we get back?”
“Trouble?” the headmaster repeated the word as if he’d never heard it before. “Whatever for?”
James blinked aside at him. “You know why we’re going to London, right? You’re not just along for the ride?”
Merlin shrugged his huge shoulders. “I know that magical safeguards in the cities have deteriorated to the point that a dragon has penetrated Muggle spaces, causing some distress to hapless witnesses.
And I know that you and your friends were ultimately responsible for it.” He tilted an eye at James, as if he could see the wave of guilt that washed over him, making him shrink against the hull wall. Lowering his voice to a low rumble, the headmaster said, “Your error was not in attempting to rescue the dragon from her own persistent instincts, Mr.
Potter. Until recent years, normal magical protections would have rendered the city impenetrable to creatures such as she. Nor did you err in not telling me of your plans. I am, personally, quite content when citizens willingly delegate these tasks to themselves. It frees those such as myself to their own unique devices.”
“So…” James said, frowning a little. “We’re not in trouble?”
“Your error,” Merlin said, raising a finger, “and the error of your companions, was to trust an elf whose motives were proven to be suspect.”
James sat up in surprise. “How did you know about her? We didn’t mention her to my dad or anyone else!”
Merlin drew a deep sigh and blew it out thoughtfully. “I’d prefer to allow you to believe that I divined this information via my own mysterious and terrible machinations. But I find that trust is a more valuable commodity than awe when it comes to you, Mr. Potter.