“So if it’s mandatory, why’s Professor Revalvier sitting it out?”
Rose lowered her voice further. “She’s a pacifist, they say.
Won’t raise a wand against another person or creature if it’s in the name of war. She may lose her post over it, but she says it’s worth it to set an example to the students.”
James shook his head in dismay, and then turned back to Rose.
“How do you know all of this stuff?”
“I ask the right people,” Rose shrugged. “It pays off being teacher’s pet to half a dozen professors. I magic the blackboards clean and shelve their books and they talk to me. It’s like being a barkeeper.”
By the end of the week, with the Centaurs still biding their time mysteriously in the Forest, life had returned to what currently passed for normal. The watchtower had been rebuilt a safe distance from the lake and the expanded watch now patrolled two at a time throughout all hours of the day and night. The final Hogsmeade weekend came and went as spring finally broke its clammy hold over the grounds, granting the first truly sunny days and leaving flowers and lush grass across the grounds. Study sessions in the library resumed as N.E.W.T. examinations grew imminent. The first occurred early, as Mr. Twycross, the Ministry disapparation expert, concluded his class and prepared to disembark. When James’ examination time came, he successfully apparated across the classroom, leaving not even the faintest trace of magical exhaust.
“Excellent form, Mr. Potter,” Twycross nodded curtly, clearly impressed. “One might well think you had been apparating for years.”
James grinned a little guiltily, thinking of his midnight experience in Diagon Alley weeks earlier. That night, necessity had been a very good teacher. By comparison, zapping across the classroom felt about as difficult as hovering on a broom.
Night Quidditch picked up as the weather improved, with Gryffindor just barely leading in the standings against team Hufflepuff, led by the irrepressible Julien Jackson. Jackson, who had initially been reluctant to allow game magic into the matches, was now equal to James in her ability to cast gravity wells and bonefuse hexes. Further, she had taken to studying obscure Clutchcudgel magazines from the United States in order to learn all new spells, including a nasty version of the Knuckler that caused a person’s fingers to flex backwards (making it impossible to hold the clutch or a beater bat) and a ghosting hex that created random duplicates of the player who cast it, with no way to tell which was the original. She taught the spells to her teammates, but guarded them vigilantly from being discovered by any other teams.
James was annoyed at her devotion, mostly because he felt too distracted to make such efforts himself.
For his own part, Ralph continued to chafe at the existence of Night Quidditch, vowing that if he ever found out when a match was going to occur, it would be his duty “as Head Boy and a magical citizen” to shut it down. James rolled his eyes at these proclamations, choosing to believe that Ralph made them mostly out of duty, not determination.
Indeed, with the watch patrolling the premises twenty-four hours a day, the night Quidditch teams had been forced to resort to their own guards, warning of incoming patrols so that the teams could rush away to hiding places in the grandstands every half hour or so, peering over railings as the watchmen passed obliviously below.
James thought often of his recent meeting with Merlin, during which he had almost told the headmaster everything he knew—had only been prevented from telling, in fact, by the incredible intrusion of both the Merpeople and the Centaurs. The timing of those events, James mused, seemed simply too coincidental to be random. And yet he couldn’t imagine how they could be anything else. No one else knew what he and the headmaster had been discussing, and even if they had, who could have orchestrated such a conspiracy with two societies as independent and irascible as the Merpeople and the Centaurs?
Still, he wondered if it had been a blessing or a curse that he had been interrupted before telling Merlin the secret of Albus’ and Odin-Vann’s involvement with Petra—the Ransom and the Architect, according to him. Sometimes he considered seeking the headmaster out and telling him after all. Other times, he tried to stay as inconspicuous as possible, hoping that Merlin would forget about the whole thing.
For his own part, Merlin seemed busier than he ever had been before. He was constantly in meetings, or bustling from place to place with members of the watch in tow, or traveling far and wide consulting with magical administrations and security forces all over Europe. And yet, somehow, the old sorcerer seemed more engaged and animated than James had ever known him. It had been a thousand years since Merlin had been part of a magical war. Perhaps, as dismaying as it might seem, he had sort of missed it. He was a tactician at heart, after all, a man of action with deep battle instincts. He may not welcome the coming confrontations, whenever or however they happened, but he would know how to handle them. Until then, content with his duties and the competence of his skills, he was preparing.
Odin-Vann went missing for a solid week. James didn’t know about it until the young professor’s classes were cancelled one day, and then led the following few days by Professor Votary as substitute.
“Sick, I am told,” Votary sniffed with a note of disapproval.
“And contagious as well, quarantined in his quarters with no visitors allowed. Myself, I expect the young man suffers from mere seasonal scumblewort allergies. Tis the season. But far be it from me to judge another professor’s ability to function while impaired.” He plunked his carpetbag onto the desk for emphasis.
Graham leaned aside and whispered, “I hear he’s got dragon pox.
Sneezing his guts out through his ears and every other orifice.”
“You’re disgusting,” Kendra Corner rolled her eyes.
Later that evening, James and Rose stole through the corridors to Odin-Vann’s door. Sure enough, they could hear the unmistakable sound of gut-wrenching sneezes from within, the force of them visibly shaking the old door. Tentatively, Rose knocked.
“Can we get you anything, Professor?”
They waited, but Odin-Vann didn’t respond. A few moments later, another gusting sneeze rocked the door in its frame. Rose looked up at James, her face etched with suspicion.
James understood, and a feeling of deep dismay chilled him.