James Potter and the Crimson Thread Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue – Four years earlier

  1. – The interview

  2. – Winds of change

  3. – The Midnight Summit

  4. – Secret of the Dagger

  5. – Junior Aurors in training

  6. – Ordinance Thirteen

  7. – The tryout he didn’t miss

  8. – The thread and the brooch

  9. – Peeves plays his part

  10. – Hagrid’s letter

  11. – Blackbrier quoit

  12. – Midnight rendezvous

  13. – The triumvirate revisited

  14. – The Elven Uprising

  15. – The one to stand for all

  16. – Hagrid makes a plan

  17. – Conspiracy of the dragon

  18. – A brief reprieve

  19. – Back to London

  20. – World in collapse

  21. – Disintegrating Plans

  22. – The end of the beginning

  23. – Chaos Descends

  24. – The blood of dearest love

  25. – The Time Between the Times

  26. – the Shackle of the brooch

  27. – The triple-six enigma

  Epilogue – Nineteen years later

  Except possibly not.

  James Potter and the Crimson Thread

  G. Norman Lippert

  Dedication

  For “Tabitha Corsica”.

  You know who you are.

  Prologue – Four years earlier

  Keynes could sense her coming.

  The lights had blinked out while he was on the stairs, causing him to stumble and eliciting a chorus of startled exclamations from his entourage. A second later, when the lights flickered back on, he was alone.

  He glanced around quickly, turning on the spot, taking in the painted brick walls and the concrete steps. Gone were the guards that had accompanied him, as well as the official court Obliviator. Keynes barely noticed. What mattered most was the little girl, Isabella Morganstern.

  He’d been gripping her by the wrist, squeezing with the full force of his fist, as tight and merciless as a cuff. He knew that he was hurting her, and not just because of her incessant screams. His anger made him vengeful. The thought that he might be bruising the girl’s wrist made him squeeze even harder, viciously grinding the fine bones of her forearm. He’d been furious with her for running away from him, but even more, for embarrassing him. This squalling, unmagicked, precocious, British dimwit had dared to defy Albert Keynes, General Arbiter for the Wizarding Court of the United States. She’d actually had the audacity to make him chase her.

  Fortunately, even though the rest of his entourage had somehow vanished, the girl was still there, dragging behind his fist, her eyes wide as the lights flickered back on. Her hair swung in sweaty blonde curls around her face as she looked up and down the stairwell, searching. For a moment, Keynes thought she was looking for the missing guards, but then he understood otherwise. She was looking for her sister. Petra Morganstern, the young woman whose name the little brat had been shrieking only seconds earlier, the young woman whom they had just left, sleeping the cursed sleep of guilt, lying on a bare bed in a guarded basement cell.

  “Don’t be foolish,” he said, mocking the little girl’s hopeful expression. His words were lost, however, obliterated in a sudden gust of cold wind. It flapped the brim of Keynes’ black hat, threatening to whip it from his bald head like a teasing ghost. The whickering air was so cold that he fancied he could feel flecks of ice in it, stinging his cheeks and eyes.

  The blonde girl turned to look at him for the first time since being recaptured. Her mouth was still pressed into a worried frown, but her eyes glittered like emeralds, suddenly expectant, even eager.

  He shook his head at her, not quite daring to speak again, and wagged an admonishing finger at her with his free hand. He tugged her forward again so that she stumbled up the steps, dragged by his white-knuckled fist. He didn’t know what was going on, but unexpected magic was no surprise in his line of work.

  The stairs stopped at the next landing, leading to a single door, thrown open so wide that its handle had cracked the brick hallway wall beyond. Keynes stopped, momentarily confused. They’d been climbing from the basement. There were at least nine more flights of stairs to the top of the building. How could they have reached the top already?

  The air was still icy with cold. His breath puffed before his face, chugging with just the faintest tremor of a shiver.

  And of course he understood how he’d gotten to where he was after all. His entourage hadn’t been vanished away. He had. He’d been magically transported up nine flights of stairs in the blink of an eye, during the flash and flicker of the lights. The only reason the girl had come with him was that he’d been holding onto her so tightly.

  The girl hadn’t performed the magic. But the glimmer in her eyes told him she knew who had.

  “You’d better let me go,” she said with quiet emphasis.

  Keynes tried to imagine fear and petulance in her plea, but he knew there was none. Instead, she almost seemed to be taking reluctant pity on him. As if she was giving him one last chance to avoid something awful.

  “You’re a little fool,” he growled at her, hissing forcefully through his teeth so that spittle flew. His breath puffed pale clouds into the air. “Your sister is guilty. You have no legal magical guardian. The court has spoken, and I intend to carry out its orders. You will be officially obliviated. You’re only making matters worse for—”

  Another burst of wind, even harder and colder than before, bowled over him, ripping his hat from his head and flapping his robes like a flag. He clutched at the doorframe with his free hand but the wind forced him through, slamming the stairwell door behind him so violently that its tiny window shattered, spraying the hallway floor with crumbles of glass. Keynes scrambled around, grabbed at the door handle and shook it, tugged it so hard that it rattled in its socket. The door was jammed shut, as immovable as stone.

  And still his hand remained viced onto the girl’s wrist, dragging her with him.

  She was coming. The girl’s sister. It was impossible, but she had awoken from her cursed sleep. She had been summoned by the blonde brat’s incessant screams. That was why the girl had stopped calling for her. That was why she was no longer afraid.

  Her fear had transferred itself onto Keynes. Amazingly, this fact infuriated as much as disconcerted him. He was accustomed to being the one instilling the fear. Of course, the fright he inspired was righteous and true, the fright all wrongdoers feel when finally confronted with the cold hand of justice. Perhaps he did secretly relish being that cold hand.

  Perhaps wielding the scales of power and vengeance did award him an unforgiving thrill. But was that such a bad thing? He took pride in his work, that was all. There was no evil in it. At least, nothing that deserved the terror he now felt creeping over him, prickling his skin, swallowing him whole like a snake slowly digesting its prey.

  “You stay away from me,” he commanded into the seemingly empty hallway, producing his wand from his robes. To his own ears, his voice sounded small, trembling. The wand in his outstretched hand shook. “You stay away from me! I’m carrying out my duties! In the name of the wizarding court of the United States of—”

  “Let her go,” a woman’s voice said. It was low and bloodless, vibrating from the walls all around. Like the blonde girl’s before it, the voice seemed to be offering a reluctant warning. It sounded like a voice that wanted to be disobeyed.

  “You stay back!” Keynes cried out, e
xtending his wand full length ahead of him, gripping it fiercely. He waved it back and forth as he edged along the hall, dragging Isabella with him.

  The hallway was long and drab, lined with bricks enameled a pale, industrial green. The bare concrete floor radiated cold. Black doors lined both walls, all closed, marching away for what seemed like miles. But that was an illusion, of course. Keynes knew there were stairwells at both ends of the building. If he could make it to the other end, he could take the girl back down. Her sister could not stop him.

  She was guilty. She was chaos.

  Keynes firmed his jaw and straightened his back. He was justice.

  He was order.

  The lights flickered again and buzzed. The bulbs overhead were old, clear glass glowing with bright Goblinwire filaments. They required no Muggle electricity to burn, and yet, one by one, they began to extinguish. Each one popped like a miniature bomb, spraying glass and cold sparks. Darkness marched down the hall toward Keynes, but he forced himself to walk into it, increasing speed and raising his chin to face it.

  “Chaos cannot defeat me!” he cried out, calling into the approaching dark. “I am order! Order trumps chaos!” He marched faster, his fist still cinched onto Isabella’s hand, squeezing her wrist hard enough to bruise the very bones, dragging her forcibly along with him.

  The bulb directly over Keynes clouded suddenly with frost. Its light dulled, went cold, then flashed brilliantly, exploding. Glass and sparks rained down on him, peppering his bare head.

  Petra Morganstern’s voice came from directly ahead of him.

  “I’m not chaos,” it said, and suddenly she was standing before Keynes, her silhouette slight, but rushing with cold wind, somehow towering.

  She was like a woman-shaped black hole, full of compressed gravity and seamless dark. “And you’re not order. I just want my sister back.”

  Keynes halted clumsily and even stumbled back a step, his eyes bulging wide at the shape before him. “Oh, no you don’t!” he said stridently, shrilly. “You think you can simply defy me?!” He shook his head furiously, his rage somehow equaling his terror. “You’re a condemned criminal! You have no legal rights! You… you…!”

  Petra’s arm stretched out toward Keynes. He couldn’t tell if she was reaching for the girl in his grip or for his own neck. The blackness of her silhouette seemed to pull him in. He resisted, pressing his lips into an enraged line. Violently, he jerked Isabella forward in front of him, using her like a human shield. He hooked his left elbow under her chin, forcing her head back against his chest, and raised his right fist, brandishing his wand. In a second, it was jabbed against the blonde girl’s temple.

  “I’ll do it myself!” he shrieked in a fevered rush, his eyes widening with zeal. “I’m not as good as the official court Obliviator, but I know the spell! She may never be capable of forming another memory again.

  But I can do it! I will do it! You’ll force me to it! The court has spoken!”

  He screamed the last sentence, hoarsely enunciating each word as if it was a talisman.

  “Put down the wand…” Petra said, her voice dropping to an icy monotone. Her form seemed to elongate, to grow in size, looming against the dimness of the walls. The walls themselves bulged away from her. Cracks raced along the bricks, spurting broken mortar like fireworks. Distantly, windows shattered and walls groaned. “Let. Her. GO!”

  Keynes sucked in a sudden breath, filling his chest and preparing to shout. “OBLIVIA—”

  Along the length of the hall, every door blew open like an explosion, erupting with clouds of icy steam. Petra’s arm lanced forward like a snake, clamping onto Keynes’ throat and propelling him backwards, straight out of his shoes. His hands scrabbled helplessly, first releasing Isabella and his wand, and then groping uselessly at the icy fist wrapped around his throat, locked beneath the shelf of his chin. And still Petra’s form drove him backwards along the hall, faster and faster, floating in pursuit, flying, her hair streaming around her like the snakes of a medusa. Her shape was a black nightmare of shadow except for her eyes, which blazed like starlight through sapphires. Keynes’ heels stuttered wildly backwards along the hall, scattering broken lightbulb glass.

  “I’ve killed once before!” Petra’s voice boomed. The sound was like cracking glaciers, echoing, ringing along the bulging walls like a gong. “Horror that she was, the woman I killed was still the better of a deluded insect like YOU!”

  “Petra!” a small, unexpected voice interrupted. It was a girl’s voice, familiar enough not to shatter Petra’s rage, but to surprise and pause it, at least for a second. Pent lightning crackled along the hall from Petra’s eyes and free hand, longing to be unleashed, and yet, reluctantly, she halted. Keynes was still thrust forward in her extended fist, his own hands clamped around hers, uselessly struggling, his mouth frozen in a silent, choked gasp, his eyes bulging up at her face.

  “Izzy?” Petra said without turning, blinking the cold blue glow from her eyes.

  “No,” the voice said meekly. “It’s me. Lucy.”

  Petra finally looked back over her shoulder. Her hair hung around her face like black ribbons, revealing only one eye. She blinked again, ignoring the struggling Keynes.

  Lucy was standing next to Izzy. As Petra watched, the girls drew a step closer together. Without looking, Lucy reached for Izzy’s hand, and Izzy gave it to her, lacing their fingers together. And with that gesture, Petra understood something. While she had been asleep, under the influence of Mother Newt’s poison apple, something had happened between Lucy and Izzy that had bonded them. They were friends now.

  Other than Petra, Izzy had never before had a true friend. Despite everything, the sight of the girls’ clasped hands both broke and gladdened Petra’s heart.

  “Don’t kill him, Petra,” Lucy said. Her dark eyes were calm, neither begging nor demanding. “Not because he deserves to live. I don’t know. He does seem like a pretty awful man. He may deserve to die. But you don’t deserve to kill.”

  Petra glanced from Lucy’s dark eyes to Izzy’s green ones. The blonde girl was nodding slowly. “It’s not like with my mother,” she said in a low voice. “She was so miserable and ugly inside that she almost wanted to be killed. She nearly begged for it. But this… it’s different.”

  Petra’s grip slowly tightened on Keynes’ neck, creaking the joints of his vertebra. His jaw dropped as his mouth gaped like a beached fish.

  His thin chest hitched silently. Petra ignored him, still staring back over her shoulder at the two girls, at their laced hands.

  “But… he almost ruined you, Iz…” she said. There was something like a plea in her voice. “He’s a human wreck. He deserves nothing but to be ended.”

  Izzy nodded. Lucy frowned worriedly. “He probably does,” she admitted reasonably. “But you don’t deserve the stain that ending him would leave on you. On your soul.”

  Petra heard the words, and knew in her deepest heart, the eye of her rage’s storm, that they were good. Lucy was right. And yet…

  And yet another voice spoke up inside her thoughts. A voice that she, Petra, had not heard in almost a year.

  KILLING IS NOT A STAIN, the voice exclaimed, screaming the words in the centre of Petra’s mind, drowning out every other thought like an impatient observer that can no longer remain silent. KILLING IS THE POWER OF IMMORTALITY! KILLING IS BEING AS A GOD!

  “Yes,” Petra said to herself, her expression going calm again as she turned back to Keynes. She desperately wanted to agree with the Voice of the Bloodline in her mind. It felt so good to go along. “And he does deserve it…”

  Keynes saw the resolve forming in Petra’s eyes and tried to shake his head. His eyes bulged from their sockets, even as his face drained of all color, turned as pale as wax.

  He deserves to die… The Voice agreed, now dropping to a greedy whisper. They ALL deserve to diiie!!

  “We all deserve to die,” Lucy agreed from behind Petra, almost as if she could also hear the viciou
s Voice in Petra’s mind. Her words were like a lilt of sanity in the frozen air, unavoidable and persistent.

  “We all deserve to die, Petra, the moment someone with power decides they have the right to kill.”

  Petra blinked again.

  She paused.

  Lucy was right. Of course she was. Petra wanted desperately to refuse it. The Voice that haunted her thoughts railed against it, cursed against it, would have turned and killed Lucy herself just to silence her if it could. But the Voice didn’t control Petra anymore. Despite its strength, and despite the occasional dark persuasion of its logic, the Voice of the Bloodline was no longer a curse. It was just a part of her, and she was a part of it.

  Grudgingly, hating herself for doing it, she let go of Keynes.

  He dropped to the floor and crumpled like a doll made of loose sticks.

  Petra stared down at him, unmoving and unmoved. She yearned to kill him still. Her fingertips arced and crackled with icy power at the thought. But somehow she resisted.

  Warmth approached her from behind. The two girls took Petra’s hands, one each, warming them and stifling the killing power that wanted to lance out, that yearned for expression.

  You can hold it in for a time, the Voice seethed petulantly, diminishing once again into the background noise of Petra’s mind. But you can’t control it forever. And when you finally unleash it, it won’t care who is standing in your way…

  “Is he still alive?” Lucy asked, looking down with morbid fascination at the crumpled form of the Arbiter.

  “He’s alive,” Petra admitted reluctantly.

  Lucy nodded. “I’m glad, Petra,” she said, and then glanced up at her, her dark eyes somber and sincere. “I’m glad you didn’t kill him.

  Because some things can’t be undone. Some lost things can’t be unlost.

  No matter how much you might want them to be.”

  Later, barely an hour from that moment in the hallway with the three girls standing hand-in-hand, Petra would remember Lucy’s words.

  They would come to her in a flash of light and a moment’s horror— a moment that would turn into an endless ringing note, growing louder rather than softer with every passing day and month and year. Petra would know all too painfully well how much one might wish for a lost thing to become unlost.