“Get off,” he moaned impatiently. “I’m fine. Lemme be.”
Rose ignored his protests and continued to inspect him. Behind her, Odin-Vann turned his attention from the re-incorporated figure of James to the wand in his hand. He studied it with apparent satisfaction.
“Do your eyebrows always look like that?” Rose said, squeezing James’ cheeks between her palms and forcing his head up toward the moonlight. “All scrunched together and unruly in the middle?”
“I’m fine!” James insisted, finally batting her hands away.
“Geroff me!” He began to struggle uncertainly to his feet, but his knees felt like rubber and his head suddenly spun with dizziness. He dropped back to the floor.
“It was their fault,” Ralph said, moving alongside Odin-Vann and pointing at the three younger students, who were just beginning to stir. “Edgecombe threw a firecracker at James just as he was beginning his Disapparation!”
Edgecombe moaned loudly, rolled, and fell off the desk where Ralph had tossed him. He hit the floor with a muffled thump and his moan turned into an affronted grunt. Polly Heathrow sat up blearily, her pigtails flopping. Quincy Ogden gave a sudden, snorting snore.
“So you stunned them?” Odin-Vann said, still calm, glancing from Ralph to Rose.
“Only when they started to run away,” she answered shrilly.
“Believe me, they had it coming. And loads more!”
Edgecombe spoke up then, his voice mushy. “They were practicing illegal magic, Professor. They broke into the classroom!”
“Yeah,” Heathrow added, cupping a hand gingerly to her forehead. “And then they cursed us! They cursed us just because we saw them!”
“They cursed you,” Odin-Vann said, his voice as calm and pedantic as if he’d been standing in his own classroom in broad daylight, “because you startled them with a contraband incendiary device. You attacked them. They responded on instinct. You might consider yourselves fortunate that they merely stunned you.”
“But…!” Edgecombe spluttered, his eyes bulging as he glared at James, then Ralph and Rose. “But they were performing illegal magic!”
“Mr. Deedle and Mr. Potter were practicing a prescribed class exercise. This is the only classroom they can do it in. I gave them permission to unlock the door. You, however, were skulking around the halls looking to cause trouble. Do you perhaps have any more Weasley Wizard Wheezes contraband merchandise in your pockets?”
Edgecombe’s face clamped shut tight, clearly understanding that the odds had turned against him. Polly Heathrow slid her feet to the floor and gave Ogden a sharp jab with her elbow. He groaned and stirred.
“We were only having a little fun,” she said sulkily, throwing James a black glare.
“Ah,” Odin-Vann nodded sadly, “the myriad gleeful horrors that have been committed in the name of ‘a little fun’. I suggest you three go directly back to your dormitory before I determine to investigate the matter any further. And if I so much as sniff that you’ve mentioned a word of James’ misfortune to anyone— a misfortune I would be careful to point out was entirely your fault— I shall see that you receive every ounce of the consequences that you are due. Am I quite clear?”
Edgecombe got to his feet, his cheeks burning red and his eyes sullen. He deigned not to reply, but the angry submission in his eyes was answer enough. Head down, he stalked out of the room, followed closely by Polly Heathrow. Quincy Ogden, still swaying on his feet, bumped the doorframe with his shoulder as he ambled along after.
Odin-Vann hunkered down in front of James, pocketing his wand. “Feeling a bit more put together, are you?”
“A bit,” James admitted. “Thanks for handling those three for us.”
“Hush,” Odin-Vann said, glancing back toward the door. “Nary a word. They had it coming, meddling in a first-time Disapparation.
Things might have turned out much worse. Don’t let it rattle you.”
“What was that spell you used, Professor?” Rose asked, sighing and plopping to the floor next to James. “I’ve never heard of a Priori Invortu incantation.”
Odin-Vann glanced at her, then down at his own wand again.
“It’s a… proprietary spell of my own devising,” he answered vaguely. “It simply reads another wand’s most recent spell and automatically performs a counter-spell, if one exists.”
Ralph leaned against the nearby desks and frowned. “So since first-time Apparators usually use their wands to help make the magic happen, your wand was able to undo James’ attempt using a… what?”
Odin-Vann shrugged and pushed his wand into a pocket of his robes. “Couldn’t tell you, precisely. Not because I don’t know, but because the process is purely automatic. I’ve been programming counter-spells and anti-jinxes into my wand for months now, but tonight, I admit, was my first chance to really test it out. If I had to guess, I’d say it probably used a modified lanyard charm to retrieve James’ doubled form and undo his interrupted Apparation.” He seemed both quietly proud of this, and carefully evasive, as if he deeply wanted to talk more about it, but felt the need to protect his methods. Perhaps he didn’t want to reveal too much until the process was perfected.
“I’m just glad it worked,” James said, giving his head a firm shake, as if to clear his mind.
“One of you should probably follow our new friends,” Odin-Vann said, glancing aside at Rose and Ralph. “Just to assure that they abide by my command and return directly to their dormitory. An evening with their thoughts should suffice in convincing them to keep their mouths shut, but if they should meet anyone in the halls tonight, their anger may still get the better of them.”
Ralph nodded, pushing away from the desk. “I’ll do it. They have to listen to me, at least.” He tapped the badge on his chest and shrugged. “See you lot tomorrow. And let’s not do this again sometime.”
As Ralph left, James thought he could sense just the slightest spring in the big boy’s step. Now that the disaster of James’ botched Apparation was over and the trio of little prats had been put in their place, Ralph could at least enjoy the fact that he had succeeded at his own first Apparition, unlike James.
“You’ll be fine at it, next time,” Odin-Vann said, as if reading James’ thoughts. He seated himself on the floor and held up a hand.
“Don’t try to get up just yet. Your body needs a few minutes to get reacquainted with itself. Tell me, James,” he peered at him with a slightly cocked head. “What was it like?”
“What, you mean being nearly split into two copies?” James asked, a wave of embarrassment washing over him again. “It felt like being a massive failure, that’s what. But it also felt…” He paused and narrowed his eyes, “a little like being strung out between two cliffs, with nothing but empty space between them. Part of me was stuck there, floating in the nothing. I could feel it, and see into it a little.”