The Vault of Destinies (James Potter #3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

eyes roaming, watching. There was a secret sense of weighty matters and carefully unspoken fears in the air between the men, even when they were smiling. James knew what some of it was about although he didn't understand any of it very much. He only knew that whatever it was, it was the reason that everything in his life had suddenly, messily, been turned on its head, like the world's most indiscriminate Levicorpus jinx. He sighed angrily and looked up at the castle, soaking in the sight of it. Sunlight glimmered from the windows and glared off the blue slate of the highest turrets. Lucy fell in step next to him.
    "It really is a shame, you know," she said, as if reading his thoughts.
    "Don't remind me," he muttered darkly. "Tomorrow's the first day of school. We already missed the Sorting yesterday. Someone else has probably already claimed my bed in Gryffindor Tower."
    "Well," Lucy replied carefully, "I hear that your bed still has the words 'whiny Potter git' burned onto the headboard, even though they don't glow anymore. So maybe that's not such a bad thing, is it?"
    James nodded, not amused. "It's easy for you. You won't know what you're missing."
    Lucy shrugged. "Is that better, somehow?"
    "Forget it," James said, sighing. "We'll be back soon enough. Probably after Christmas holiday, like my dad says."
    Lucy didn't reply this time. James glanced at her. She was two years younger than him, but in some ways she seemed older, much more mature, strangely enigmatic. Her black eyes were inscrutable.
    "Lucy," a voice announced, interrupting James just as he opened his mouth to speak. He glanced aside and saw his Uncle Percy, Lucy's father, approaching, resplendent in his navy blue dress robes and mortarboard cap. "Come along now. We can't afford to be late. The usher is waiting for us. Where were you anyway? Never mind, never mind."
    He put a hand around her shoulder and led her away. She glanced back at James, her expression mildly sardonic, as if to say this is my life, aren't you jealous? Percy rejoined his wife, Audrey, who glanced down at Lucy, registered her presence for one second, and then returned her attention to the woman standing next to her, who was dressed in a red robe and a fairly ridiculous floral hat with a live white owl nested in it. Molly, Lucy's younger sister, stood next to their mother looking bored and vaguely haughty.
    James liked Molly and both of Lucy's parents although he knew them rather less than he did his Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron. Percy traveled an awful lot, due to his job at the Ministry, and he often took his wife and daughters with him when he went. James had always thought that such a life might be rather exciting—traveling to faraway lands, meeting exotic witches and wizards, staying in grand hotels and embassies—but he'd never thought it would actually happen to him. Lucy was used to it even if she didn't seem to particularly enjoy it herself; after all, she'd been accompanying her family on such trips ever since she'd been a baby, since they'd brought her home from the orphanage in Osaka, before Molly had ever been born. She'd had time to get so familiar with the routine of travel that it was virtually drudgery. James knew his cousin well enough to know that she had been looking quite forward to the consistency and pleasant predictability of her first year at Hogwarts.
    Thinking that, he felt a little bad about telling her that the coming trip would be easier for her. At least he'd had two years at Hogwarts already, two years of classes and studies, dorm life and meals in the Great Hall, even if all of it had been overlaid with some fairly spectacular events. Just when Lucy had been expecting to get her first taste of such things, it had gotten neatly snatched away from her. Considering Lucy's personality, it was easy to forget that she was, if anything, probably even more upset about it than he was.
    "Welcome back, James, Albus," his father said, smiling and tousling the boys'