The Vault of Destinies (James Potter #3) (33 page)

James turned back to the Chancellor in time to see him scoop the coin from the bowl of the Disrecorder. The grassy hilltop and the happy centuries-old witches and wizards vanished instantly.

"So," Franklyn said proudly, pocketing the coin, "simple as can be. Any event can be recorded for future witness and study merely by converting any object at hand into a magical receiver. The object then becomes one of our many artifacts and goes into the Archive's collection."

"Just like Ted's new Extendable Ears," James said, thinking of the peppermint that Ted had enchanted to act as a receiver for the Ears. "Er, sort of."

"An apt analogy, I would say," Merlin nodded, smiling crookedly.

"Marvelous!" Dolohov proclaimed happily. "And where is this collection of artifacts?"

"Why right here, of course," Franklyn answered, turning and walking across the empty room. "The chamber of the Disrecorder is only the top level of the Archive. The bulk of the space is used for the artifact library. Just through this door in the back."

Franklyn produced a tiny golden key, which he socked into a keyhole in a nondescript door. Rather than turning the key, he touched it with his wand. The key glowed brightly for a moment, and then turned on its own. The door cracked open and a breath of cool air escaped, sighing mysteriously. Franklyn gripped the handle and heaved the door open.

James followed his father into the space beyond and shivered. It was, indeed, quite cold. The temperature, however, was forgotten immediately as James got his first glimpse of the space. It was monstrous, far larger than the exterior of the Archive could account for. Tall wooden shelves ranged around the space along curved walls that met in the dim distance, some three hundred feet across a vast, deep chasm. Thousands of artifacts rested on the shelves, in the form of books, jars, dishes, shoes, spectacles, wands, globes, stuffed animals, tools, hats, and innumerable other objects. Larger shelves held chairs, beds, even a very old car that James recognized as a Ford Model T. Every object bore a tiny white tag, apparently cataloging the contents of the event recorded within it.

Slowly, the group walked toward a low brass railing that ran around the huge opening in the floor. As James neared it, he saw that a stairway led down into the space, curving along the inside of the chasm. The stairs appeared to lead to another, lower floor, equally filled with shelves of artifacts. When James finally reached the railing and peered down, he saw that there were more floors below that, descending into the bowels of the earth in a dizzying spiral. On the opposite side of the chasm, an ornate, brass-framed elevator hung, its shaft descending deep into the floors below.

"There must be millions of artifacts here," Harry breathed. "It's overwhelming."

Franklyn nodded. "Quite so. We have a staff of students whose sole job is maintaining the catalog, updating and cleaning the artifacts as needed. Our Archival custodian, Mr. Hadley Henredon, lives here year round, guarding the artifacts and overseeing their preservation."

"What, Chancellor, is that object at the very bottom?" Merlin asked, leaning slightly over the railing with his eyes narrowed.

"Ah, that," Franklyn nodded. He peered over the railing himself, and James followed suit. In the darkness at the base of the chasm, a large object flashed and glimmered with purple light. It appeared to be spinning, but in a complicated, unpredictable fashion, as if it was made out of a dozen golden leaves and prisms, all revolving independently around some blindingly bright core.

"If the Disrecorder can be called the brain of the Archive," Franklyn said soberly, "then that down there… is its heart and soul."

Dolohov adjusted his spectacles and blinked down at the distant gold and purple blur. "Is it another artifact?"

"Not exactly," Franklyn answered. "It is, in fact, a very ancient form of distinctly American magic. None of us knows how it works or even
why
it works. We only know what it does and that it is dreadfully, devastatingly important."

"American magic," Harry said, glancing aside at the Chancellor. "It can't be all that old then, can it?"

"You misunderstand me," Franklyn said gravely. "America is indeed an old, old land. Much older than the government that now occupies it. It was here before the first settlers arrived at Plymouth Rock. It was here when this land's original inhabitants roamed the prairies and woodlands, living in teepees and hunting the buffalo that roamed in herds many miles long. America is a strange and ancient place although it was not always known by that name. We call it the great melting pot, but its attractions have been evident since long before our arrival here.

"Many other peoples and cultures visited this land in the ages of its existence, many of them magical, many of them long forgotten in the eons since. That object down there, the one encased in our best magical protections and guardian charms… was left by one of those visiting magical peoples. Our best guesses tell us that it was the ancient Persians or Babylonians, who were among the first magical communities to ply the oceans. Perhaps they left it here, on the prairies of this wide open land, quite by accident. Then again, perhaps they abandoned it deliberately, either because they didn't need it anymore or, more likely, because they feared it, feared the dangers of this thing that their vast magical arts had wrought. We discovered it, and preserve it, but we did not create it. And we most certainly do not control it."

"Every magical society has its mysterious treasures," Harry commented. "I've been inside the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry of Magic, so I've seen many of our own. This object of yours I think I may have heard of, although I understand that its existence is kept secret from the general public. Is this so?"

"For their good, as well as its own," Franklyn nodded.

"So what is it?" Merlin asked once more. James looked up at him, and saw the purple flash of the object even this far up playing on the Headmaster's stern features.

"It is the ultimate record of all things," Franklyn said simply. "It is our history, and by that, I do not mean the history of Alma Aleron or the city of Philadelphia or even the entire United States. It is a record of all things that have ever been in this universe, from the very dawn of time. It is History, recorded in its entirety exactly as it happens, with magic so ancient and delicate that none dare to touch it. Only a very few of us have ever seen it with our naked eyes, and that only happens once a century, when we check it just to make sure it is still working."

Dolohov cleared his throat. In a small voice, he asked, "What does it look like?"

Franklyn peered down at the flickering glow and smiled slightly. He shook his head slowly as he said, "Friends, I don't think you'd believe me if I told you. It is so simple, so basic, that you would find it silly. And yet I think it is anything but."

"So what happens," Harry asked seriously, "if it stops working?"

"Why, none of us knows for sure, my dear Mr. Potter," Franklyn replied, looking slightly startled. "But I have the strongest suspicion that life—that is, everything we know and ever will know, the totality of existence—is inextricably connected to the object stored in the bowels of this very Archive. I think that if
it
stopped working… so would everything else."

Merlin frowned doubtfully. "I have known my share of very powerful magical objects," he said in a low voice. "And they all make their marks on the fabric of existence. I have never heard tell of a single magical object that bears the fabric of existence within itself. Are you quite sure of your theories about this object, Chancellor?"

"Alas," Franklyn answered, chuckling wearily. "No. We know very little, in fact. Theories are as myriad as they are improvable. We only know what the object does. We do not know why, or how, or, in fact, what would happen if it were to stop."

"In that case," Merlin said, smiling at the Chancellor, "your prudence is the most obvious and respectable choice. I am glad to know that such mysterious magic is in the hands of those so very aware of its potential gravity. What do you call it?"

Franklyn sighed and looked back down, through the depths of the artifact laden floors, to the flashing purple and gold glow far below.

With a relatively anticlimactic sniff, he answered, "We call it the Vault of Destinies."

After dinner that evening, James, Zane, and Ralph ran back to the common dorm, cutting across the lawns and weaving through the shadows of the huge elms and chestnuts. Inside, they stripped off their blazers and stowed them in the top floor room that still housed the boys' trunks. When they finally made their way back downstairs and out the rear door of the common dorm, the lowering sun had painted the sky a fierce tangerine, fading to navy blue at its zenith.

"There," Zane nodded, pointing.

The boys angled toward a line of battered metal trash cans ranged along the back wall. A drift of elm leaves lay like snow around the trash cans, carpeting their lids, but the yellow 'Z' on the can in the middle was immediately visible. James drew a breath, held it, and then lifted the lid from the marked can.

"What is it?" Ralph frowned, peering in.

"Oh man," Zane grinned. "Oh buddy. You got the granddaddy of all pledge dares. Either Warrington thinks you two are bonafide Zombies or he hates your guts."

James reached into the can and retrieved a handful of cloth. It was thick, comprised of black and yellow fabrics all sewn together in a neat pattern. There seemed to be acres of it.

"It's a flag," Ralph said, grabbing a handful and helping James pull it out of the can.

"It's the Hermes House flag," Zane said reverently. "See? It's got the Zombie crest on it, the yellow and black shield bearing the skull with crossed out eyes. Do you know what this means?"

James looked from the enormous flag in his hands to Ralph to Zane. He shook his head, not particularly liking where this was going.

"It's an old dare, but one of the most revered. The legendary flag switch. I hear that it hasn't been done by any house in years. That means the school administration's probably going to be on the lookout for it. There may be boundary charms, guard hexes, even lookouts. Oh man, it's going to be such a blast! I can't believe I'm not allowed to come along!"

James wanted to throttle the blonde boy, but his hands were too full of flag. "What is it, you big dope? Tell us, already!"

Zane grinned and helped grab the rest of the flag out of the trash can. He wadded the mass of fabric, stuffed it into Ralph and James' arms, and then led them around the building. When they stood in front, overlooking the fountain with the gargoyle birdbath, he put an arm around James' shoulder. With his free hand he pointed across campus. "See that? Up there over the trees, on top of Administration Hall?"

"What?" Ralph asked, squinting in the twilight. "The clock tower?"

"Higher," Zane prodded, grinning even wider.

James pushed up on tiptoes to see over the trees. "Er, the belfry?"

"Higher," Zane encouraged.

James looked higher. His eyes widened and he began to shake his head slowly. "No. No way."

"The flag?" Ralph said, turning to look at Zane. "Way up on the top? That's got to be two hundred feet up! You can't be serious!"

"Two hundred and thirty-three at the point. Don't worry," Zane soothed, but his eager grin had quite the opposite effect. "There's a fire escape on the back of the Hall that takes you all the way to the bell tower. From there, there's a spiral staircase up to the belfry and a ladder up to the belfry roof. Piece of cake! Except for the bats, of course, but they're no match for a committed Zombie."

"You want us to switch this flag," James said, hefting the mound of thick fabric in his arms, "with that flag way up there?"

"Well, switching the flags is only the first half of the challenge. That flag up there is the university's original stars and stripes, 'Old Betsy'. You can't just hide her under your bed in the common dorm or anything, unless you want a posse from Werewolf House to hunt you down and clobber you ten ways from Sunday. You have to run Old Betsy up the Zombie House flagpole. Later tomorrow afternoon, we'll turn Old Betsy back in at the Administration Hall and get an honorary punishment. You'll probably just get a day's suspension."

"Wait," Ralph said, frowning. "If we succeed in this dare, we get in trouble with the school?"

"You can't think of it that way," Zane said, clapping Ralph on the shoulder. "It's a pledge dare. A day's suspension is like a badge of honor. Think of it as a paid vacation."

James sighed. "All right then. We'll do it. But after this, it's all over, right? We'll be Zombies, officially?"

"You pull this off," Zane said heartily, "and we may make you both House Presidents for a day."

James nodded grimly. A minute later, the three carried the Zombie flag up to the dorm room and hid it in the closet. Chasing each other, they crossed the campus again, heading for the theater and Professor Longbottom's assembly.