James Potter and the Crimson Thread (James Potter #5)

On the table, the enormous Christmas pudding rocked on its platter. Slowly, subtly, the pudding rose an inch off the table, resting on a cushion of magic.

James blinked at the elf, alarm rising in his chest. Her eyes squinted with grim malice as she glanced out over the darkened room, toward the seated guests and family members. The pudding edged across the lip of the table, then floated into the shadows. None of the servants noticed, being too intent on Edmund’s rousing speech.

Amazingly, inexplicably, the elf seemed prepared to dump the pudding onto the floor, or worse, onto the very head of someone in the audience. Blake, being seated nearest the pudding, would get the blame.

With a start, James understood: the elf intended to sabotage Blake, and all of the Muggle servants by association.

James lifted his wand, drew a breath to call a warning, but the elf saw him. Her gaze sharpened, and she snapped her fingers again. James’ wand hand twisted away, pointing toward the opposite wall. He gasped in surprise.

“Sailors and men!” Edmund cried, jabbing his own toy wand toward the ceiling, “forth draw ye wands and wits to fight the violent seas this night!” The family members and guests joined in, jubilantly reciting the famous lines with him: “That by the morn we’ll hold our win, or lie in beds of ocean sand: our beaten glory’s shrine!”

A cheer went up throughout the room. Even the Muggle servants grinned and applauded, if a bit bemusedly. James tried to call out a warning as the pudding lofted through the darkness over Mrs.

Vandergriff’s shoulder, but his own voice was lost in the happy commotion. He struggled to aim his wand, but his arm was wrested firmly away, captured in an invisible vice, pointing in the opposite direction at a high window.

Pointing, in fact, toward Balor, who stood against the glass like a lanky statue.

And suddenly, with perfect clarity, James thought he understood the Cyclops’ strange secret.

He stopped resisting the elf’s magical influence and pointed his wand at the tall man-shape instead. With a flick of his wrist, he muttered the first incantation he had ever learned: “Wingardium leviosa!”

Balor’s chauffer hat popped off his head, freeing the man’s whispy white hair in a dandelion-like fluff. More importantly, however, it revealed the huge, closed eye in the centre of the Cyclops’ high forehead. Balor’s two human eyes snapped shut as the giant Cyclops eye opened, revealing an inky black orb the size of a lemon. The eye swiveled immediately toward the buffet table, homing in on the elf’s secret subterfuge.

“STOP!” Balor called, his voice a deep bellow that overrode the happy cheers, cutting through them like a knife. His arm pistoned up, pointing one long, bony finger at the elf beneath the table. Her own eyes bulged even more prominently in shock as the entire assembly turned to look, to spy her in her hiding place.

But it was too late.

Mrs. Vandergriff’s sudden scream of surprise was partially muffled by the splat of the pudding as it dropped onto her, breaking over her head and squelching down her front, onto her lap, and all around the sofa on which she sat.

Mr. Vandergriff leapt to his feet, clapping his hands once so that the overhead chandelier flared instantly aglow, bathing the room with light. Every eye except Balor’s swept toward Mrs. Vandergriff as she arose with a choked gasp, flinging gobbets of pudding in all directions.

The people seated nearest her gasped and recoiled, eyes wide.

On the makeshift stage, Millie clapped both hands over her mouth, her eyes boggling at her mother’s predicament. James at first thought that she was horrified at the sight, but then he saw her shoulders convulse and realized that she was, just barely, restraining a bray of shocked laughter.

Mrs. Vandergriff shook her head, her own eyes blazing. Then, with a decisive jerk, she turned toward the buffet table. The elf had not moved. Her knobby shoulders slumped and her gaze dropped to the floor, but the set of her scowl, defiant and hopeless, did not change.

“Heddlebun,” Mrs. Vandergriff called hoarsely, her voice only faintly trembling. “Would you please step out so I can address you properly?”

The elf complied with no hesitation. She seemed to know what was coming. Eyes still on the floor, she sidled from beneath the table and silently approached her mistress.

Mrs. Vandergriff raised her hands and, with as much dignity as she could muster, daintily tugged at the fingertips of her left ivory glove, which was now smeared with chocolate, studded with wet crumbs. She withdrew it, allowed it to dangle in her right hand, and then dropped it into the waiting hands of the elf.

It was Millie’s father who spoke next, his voice low.

“Heddlebun, I don’t know why you’ve done this. And, quite honestly, I don’t believe I care. You’ve served this family for as long as I can remember. But you are a free elf now. It breaks my heart to say it, but please be off the premises by midnight tonight. Am I understood?”

Heddlebun’s voice was small and calm. “Yes, Master.”

“I’m not your master anymore,” Mr. Vandergriff said. The words seemed to pain him. “Please, take your glove and go.”

“Yes, M’lord.”

James thought that Heddlebun might offer some explanation for her action, but she did not. Holding the glove draped across her hands as if it were a dead frog, the elf turned and threaded for the door, her large feet making no noise on the carpet. Topham looked down at her, and then away, averting his eyes as if from a rude gesture. Mr.

Vandergriff tilted an eye at Balor, who nodded gravely. Without a word, the tall Cyclops retrieved his cap from a nearby chair and moved to follow the elf, apparently to assure that she vacated as ordered.

Heddlebun sensed this and paused at the door, waiting for Balor to escort her. She glanced back only once, but not at the Cyclops. Instead, her gaze landed on James, briefly but unmistakably. There was blame in her glare, but it was cold, strangely emotionless.

James couldn’t help feeling sorry for the elf, in spite of the mess that she had made. Mr. Vandergriff may not wish for any explanation, but James thought that her intention had been painfully clear.

Heddlebun had resorted to one final, desperate measure to regain her duties from the Muggle servants.

Instead, she had lost her service entirely.

Blake, for one, seemed to understand this. He watched the elf go with a placid expression, then looked askance at James. Silently, he mimed wiping a bead of sweat from his brow, and then winked. There was something conspiratorial in the gesture, as if James and Blake had somehow plotted for the elf to be sacked, rather than merely watched it happen. James frowned and shook his head.

Many voices began to speak now, in low, urgent tones. Millie still had her hands clamped over her mouth, but she seemed to have lost the urge to laugh. She swiveled her eyes toward James, speechless at what had transpired.

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