Scorpius raised his arm, his wand already jutting from his fist.
“Convulsis!” he shouted, and the blast of light struck the door, bashing it open. The inside was dark, much deeper than the tiny shed itself. Cool air wafted blissfully out of it, rising from a rank of stone steps.
Scorpius led the way, running down into the subterranean corridor below.
James gulped as he followed. Everything felt out of control. He didn’t know what he intended to do. He didn’t know where Petra was, or even if she was still alive. Chaos seemed to have fallen over the entire world, throwing every imaginable obstacle and distraction in his way to stop him.
His side ached as he ran into the cool, eerily quiet darkness. And then light bloomed ahead as Scorpius reached the passage exit. The four clambered out, pushing around the statue of Lokimagus the Perpetually Productive, and into the glow of torchlight and a perfectly prosaic Hogwarts corridor. No one was in sight, and yet voices could be heard echoing distantly, shouting with alarm and urgency.
The school had not been vacated, it seemed. That’s why Merlin was protecting it. But even he could not hold off the centaurs much longer.
As if on command, a huge boom shook the castle, raining grit from the ceiling and shattering a nearby window. The centaurs were attacking through the fiendfyre, though James couldn’t guess how.
“It’s all a distraction,” he said, turning to Zane, Rose, and Scorpius. “I don’t know how or why, but we still have just one job, and that’s to find Petra and warn her! If Odin-Vann and Judith get to her first…!”
“But how!?” Rose cried, stamping her foot in frustration. “We don’t even know where she is!”
James drew a resolute breath and glanced at Scorpius. “We have to find Merlin,” he said firmly. “He has Petra’s father’s brooch. Petra still thinks she’s leaving our world forever, and she won’t go anywhere without it. If we find Merlin, we’ll find Petra.”
“If we’re not too late already,” Zane shrugged and nodded.
“And all of this is just the opening act for the apocalypse.”
Drawing his wand and holding it at the ready, James turned and ran down the corridor, heading in the direction of the main stairs and the headmaster’s office. As he turned at the nearest junction, he nearly bowled into George Muldoon, the Ravenclaw prefect. The tall boy caught James by the shoulder, a look of terror and alarm bulging in his eyes before he recognized him.
“Potter!” he exclaimed in consternation, “what are you doing down here! We’re in lockdown state! Everyone to their common rooms!
And you, Weasley and Malfoy! And…!” he boggled at Zane. “And just who the ruddy hell are you?”
“Zane Walker,” Zane said agreeably. “Normally I shake hands, but we’re in a pretty big hurry. Next time, maybe? If there is a next time?”
With that, the troupe ran on again, leaving Muldoon to turn and boggle after them, frantically calling their names.
They reached the stairs and turned to pelt up them, swinging around the ballustrade for support. Another boom shook the castle and the Heracles window cracked, disintegrated, and fell away in a rain of colorful shards.
“That’s not magic,” Scorpius gasped, boggling at the broken window. “Something is hitting us!”
“The giants,” Zane nodded. “They’re trying to get in any way they can. Not to attack, but to get away from the centaurs.”
“Go!” James pressed, turning past the landing and continuing up the stairs. “No time for anything else!”
They reached the third floor, James in the lead. He turned down Gargoyle corridor, aiming for the spiral staircase at the end.
Another boom sounded, this one from directly next to James, and a pillar keeled toward him, breaking into heavy chunks. James ducked and stumbled, barely avoiding the collapsing stonework. Dust blew past him as part of the ceiling came down with the pillar, choking the air and snuffing the nearest lantern.
James scrambled to his feet and looked back, squinting into the gritty dark. He was cut off from Scorpius, Rose, and Zane by the caved-in ceiling.
“She knew that you would come,” a man’s voice said from behind him. “I doubted her. But she knew.”
James wheeled back, so fast that he nearly lost his footing, and jerked his wand wildly upright.
“Expeliarmus!” he gasped, and a bolt of light shot from his wand. It was snuffed immediately, reduced to a swarm of dying sparks.
“Judith predicted that you would race the storm back. I was to wait for you here, and be ready when you came. I shouldn’t have doubted her. She’s rarely wrong.”
A dark figure stepped forward out of the shadows, coming between James and the spiral stairs of the headmaster’s office. Even before his face was visible, James recognized the gaunt shape of Donofrio Odin-Vann, his wand held almost lazily, half-raised.
“Stupefy!” James cried, raising his wand up in his hand again.
The red spell flashed and snuffed itself barely a foot from his wand. Odin-Vann was laughing to himself, his upturned wand streaming a faint haze of purple.
“You know you cannot defeat me,” he chided. “Best not even to try.”
“Where’s Petra?” James demanded, staring down the length of his trembling wand. He gulped. “Is she still alive?”
“Petra isn’t your concern, James,” Odin-Vann answered, stepping forward slowly. “She never was. You like to think she feels something for you, don’t you? And yet it’s her that intended to leave you forever. That must gall you. Does it gall you, James?”
James lowered his wand slowly in defeat. And then jerked it up again and cried, “Expulso!”
The spell leapt across the distance between them, and exploded against the shimmering shield charm that sprang, unbidden, from Odin-Vann’s raised wand. He stepped forward again, closing the distance between them.
James backed up a step. His heel crunched on broken grit. “Are you planning to kill me?”
“I don’t need to kill you,” Odin-Vann answered with a light shrug. “The storm will kill you. It will follow you wherever you go.
And if somehow you manage to stay ahead of it, well…” he sighed and shook his head. “This world only has a few hours left anyway.”
“Why are you doing this?” James demanded, lowering his wand again, this time all the way. “I mean, I understand being bullied around and all. Revenge makes sense, even if you seem to have gone pretty mental with it. But why destroy the whole world?”
“Ah, but this is no longer my world, James,” the young man replied breezily. “With Judith’s help, we can create an all new world.
One crafted in our own image. We have the key. And the key is our very own Petra Morganstern. She will open the way for us. And then we will throw away the key forever. No backsies.” He tittered.
James retreated another step. He chilled under the force of Odin-Vann’s madness, and yet a tiny surge of hope fanned out in his veins. Petra was still alive. If only he could find her…