The truth was he still might.
Judith knelt on one knee, still looking down at the puddle. She finally had what she needed. Such a common thing, really, and yet so very hard to find, at least in this benighted age. She held her hand over the puddle, formed into a fist. A dagger jutted from it, its handle encrusted with jewels, its blade dark and wet. She allowed something red to drip from the tarnished knifepoint. It pattered onto the surface of the puddle, forming ripples and making the oily sheen begin to swirl, to form cloudy shapes. Such elemental magic, she thought, and yet so rare. She understood it instinctively, of course. After all, it was how she had come to be.
"Show me," she said to the puddle. "Show me where they are. The boy James; his brother Albus, the snake; his sister Lily, the flower; his father Harry, the legend; his mother Ginny, the torch. Show me where they are that I may seek them, and find her."
Harvey Blagwell's blood fanned across the puddle and the oily sheen deepened, intensified, formed a picture. The Lady of the Lake leaned close, anxious and pleased, watching the image solidify. There were forests, a lake, and then a castle, huge and sprawling, spiked with turrets and towers, glittering with windows. The image blurred, zoomed, focused, showing her what she needed to know.
Everything was clear now. Judith knew her task and where she must go. Soon, this world would be awakened, terribly and irreversibly, and chaos would follow. Judith loved chaos. She breathed it like air. She hungered for it, even now. She straightened, smoothing the faded rayon of her waitress dress, and began to walk. She would change soon, dressing herself in a manner that better suited her status. In the meantime, she was pleased. Her mission was begun. She would find the girl, and then she would simply watch.
The girl was her fate—her sister and her daughter, her nemesis and her ally. They were intertwined, inextricably and permanently. Whether she wanted to or not, the girl would help Judith. The girl would take her exactly where she needed to go.
Judith wiped the dagger, her birthright, absently on her dress as she walked. She began to hum.
1. HOGWARTS FAREWELLS
Not so very far away, the sun shone on a broad hilltop, warming the early autumn air and
inspiring a vibrant chorus of cicadas in the marsh and birdsong in the nearby forest.
Butterflies and bumblebees meandered and flitted, stitching invisible patterns among the flowers. The shadow of an enormous castle stretched over the face of the hilltop, its shape blurring as the wind made ripples across the overgrown lawn. A boy ran across the castle's shadow, leaving a rambling wake in the tall grass.
"What are you waiting for?" the boy, Albus Potter, called, glancing behind him.
"You're out of bounds," his brother James yelled from some distance away, cupping his hands to his mouth. "The field ended back by that big boulder, you nimrod. You can't even see the ball under all that grass."
"That's part of the challenge!" Albus called back, grinning. "Are we playing wizard football or what?"
"It's all right," a girl's voice called from some distance away. James glanced aside and saw his raven-haired cousin, Lucy, crouched in front of a stand of young trees, shuffling slowly sideways. "The goal's moved away from him. I'm trying to keep up with it, but it's a bit of a challenge. Oh, there it goes again!" Sure enough, the saplings that formed the goal behind her seemed to sidle away across the grass, walking on their roots like very tall, woodsy squid. Lucy scuttled to keep up with them while simultaneously keeping an eye on Albus.
"I'm open, Al!" Ralph Deedle called, catching up to his friend and fellow Slytherin. He waved his hands helpfully. Albus nodded, turned, and booted at something in the grass. A threadbare football appeared momentarily as it arced through the air. Ralph squared himself to trap the ball, but it never reached him. Instead, it jigged mysteriously into the sunlight and spun away at an angle.
"Hey!" Albus and Ralph both called in unison, looking in the direction the ball was hurtling. It dropped to the ground near the feet of a red-haired girl, who ran up to it, brandishing her wand.
"Are we playing wizard football or what?" she hollered, kicking the ball toward the opposite side of the hilltop.
"Rose!" James called, running to catch up to his cousin. "Look out behind you! It's Ted!"
Rose ducked as a cloud of blue moths suddenly blew over her, conjured from the end of Ted Lupin's wand. He hooted as he ran past, aiming his foot for the ball, but she was very quick with her own wand. With a flick of her wrist and a flash, she transfigured a dead leaf into a banana peel. An instant later, Ted Lupin's foot landed on it and it squirted away beneath him, hurling him to the ground.
"Good fundamentals, Rosie!" Ron Weasley bellowed from what was, for the moment, the sidelines. "Bring it on home now! James is in the clear! Their Keeper's still fending off that Tickling Hex! Aim low!"
Rose bared her teeth grimly and kicked the ball toward James, who trapped it easily and began to maneuver it toward the outcropping of rocks that was currently serving as his team's goal. Standing before the goal, George Weasley, who was notoriously ticklish, struggled to pay attention as a large white feather darted around him, occasionally pecking at him and making him convulse with angry laughter.
James was about to shoot for goal when a voice cried out next to his ear. "Yargh! Leggo the ball! Get 'im!" Shadows fell over him and hands grabbed at his hair and cloak. James tried to bat them off without looking, but it was no use. His younger cousins, the twins Harold and Jules, circled around him on toy brooms, grabbing at him and chomping their teeth like airborne piranhas. James glanced up at them in exasperation, tripped over his own feet, and went down into the grass like a sack of bricks. Harold and Jules glanced at each other for a moment and then dove into the grass to continue their attack. The football rolled to a stop nearby as George ran forward to kick it.
"Barricado!" James cried, stabbing out with his wand as Harold grabbed double fists of his hair.
A tiny brick wall suddenly erupted out of the ground next to the football, a split second before George Weasley's foot came into contact with it. The ball sprang off George's foot, immediately struck the tiny wall, and shot up into the air, arcing high over George's head. He craned his neck to watch. With a dull thud, the ball bounced between the rocks behind him.
"Goal!" James shouted, throwing both of his hands into the air.
"Cheat!" Harold and Jules called out, falling on James again and driving him to the ground.