The Vault of Destinies (James Potter #3) by G. Norman Lippert Read Free Book Online

VENEZUELA, BLAMED ON "ALIENS"'.
    "The whole thing's gone all international now that there's been bigwig kidnappings both here and in the States," Ted sighed, dropping the newspaper. "I don't envy your dad one bit, James. It was one thing teasing the American press into believing it was little green men that nicked their building. Getting a bunch of foreign agencies to work together is like getting horklumps to play chess."
    Damien frowned askance at Ted. "How would you know about such things, Lupin?"
    "I do this thing called 'reading'," Ted said, tapping the side of his nose. "I learned it from Petra. You should try it sometime!"
    "It's 'Morgan' now, remember?" Sabrina corrected without looking up. "She calls herself Morgan ever since that whole debacle at her grandparents' place."
    "Talking of which," Ted said, sitting up in his chair, "she and the new Headmaster are having themselves a serious little chat right about now, up in his office. I heard Uncle Harry discussing it with the old man himself, and she admitted it when I got back to the castle. Seems there's some question of whether she's going to be allowed to come along on this little jaunt of yours, Potter."
    "What's that mean?" James asked, watching Ted dig something out of his robes. "She's of age now. They can't stop her if she wants to go on a trip."
    "Can't they now?" Damien mused, leaning back and steepling his fingers. "I mean, there's detention, and then there's detention , if you know what I mean. There's some tricky legal questions, after all, what with both of her grandparents ending up dead. The Muggle police don't know much of anything, thanks to Merlin, but that hardly means everything's all sunshine and rainbows. The stuff we saw at that farm, well, let's just say it makes Professor Longbottom's Snapping Thornroot look like daffodil salad. Our Petra is one complicated little witch, if you ask me."
    "That doesn't mean she's guilty of anything horrible," James said, sitting up. "She and her sister are lucky to be shut of the lot of them. Sounds to me like they were pretty rotten to both of them."
    "They've been staying with you and your parents since the day they got out of there, right?" Rose asked, raising her eyebrows. "Did they tell you what happened that day?"
    James sat back again, looking out over the common room. "Well, not really. She said that her grandfather had denied his wizard powers for the sake of his Muggle wife, some awful woman named Phyllis, who was just beastly. And she said that Phyllis tried to send Petra's sister Izabella off to some work farm place for people who are soft in the head. Petra told me that they did what they had to do to get out of there together."
    "I guess that's close enough to the truth," Damien nodded. "Although it isn't all of it. That's for sure."
    "What do you know about it?" James asked, meeting Damien's eyes.
    "Not a whole lot more than you do, but I'm just saying—there was magic going on there the likes of which I've never seen. Merlin made us swear secrecy about it, which is fine by me. You probably wouldn't believe it anyway. All I know is that if Petra was doing it, then that wasn't the Petra I thought I knew."
    "'Morgan'," Sabrina corrected again, holding up her neatly folded auger. "What do you say, Lupin? You ready to go six circles with the reigning champion?"
    "Not now, not now," Ted answered distractedly, producing a rather surprising amount of miscellany from his pockets and dumping it all onto the table. "There's Gremlinery afoot. Where are they, then…"
    James, Lucy, and Rose leaned over the table as Ted rooted quickly through the pile of odds and ends. A dog-eared origami frog leapt out of the detritus, limping crookedly. Every Flavor Beans and loose Knuts rolled every which way. "Aha!" Ted announced triumphantly, sitting back and producing a velvet bag tied with a silver cord. "Gather 'round, comrades. This could be interesting."
    Sabrina put down the auger and frowned studiously as Ted