James nodded soberly. “Yes, Petra is my friend.”
“You speak in the present tense, James,” Skeeter clarified, as if she thought she might have misheard him. “Surely you don’t mean to suggest that you are still friends with Ms. Morganstern. She is, after all, the most notorious witch in our lifetimes, perhaps in all lifetimes. The only female Undesirable Number One in history. The mastermind behind at least two murderous and chaotic plots to undermine the very foundation of our world. Of course, at the time, she had been living under the protection of your family, isn’t that right? And she had spent the previous summer in the Potter household, after the mysterious tragedy of her grandparents’ farm, where both of them ended up dead.”
She paused, allowing her words to sink in, studying James’ face. “What do you say to the people who claim that this represents a serious lapse in judgment for a head Auror? Who claim that he should not only be dismissed from the position, but brought before the Wizengamot for negligence and conspiracy?”
Skeeter was clearly trying to provoke James, and had been since the interview began. It was beginning to work. James glared at her, calm but heating with anger. “I’d say none of them were there when Petra showed up and told her story.”
“Perhaps you can tell it to us yourself,” Skeeter suggested.
James had grown both bolder and slightly more jaded over the past two years. He did not rise to her bait. “No one would believe it,” he sighed, glancing at the door behind Skeeter. “And it’s not my story to tell.”
“Are you still friends with her, James? Are you in contact with Petra Morganstern?”
James was not surprised by the question. He’d even prepared himself for its eventuality. He shook his head. “No. How could I be?
She’s been in hiding for years now. She may not even be alive anymore, for all we know.”
Without thinking about it, he closed his right hand into a loose fist, enclosing the thread of coldness he sometimes still felt there.
The Quill scribbled on, capturing his words.
“Now James,” Skeeter chided mildly. “You know as well as I that Ms. Morganstern is still alive. Reports of her sightings, along with her Muggle sister Isabella, show up regularly in the press. Surely your father, and therefore you, hear about even more sightings than the rest of us. And yet she somehow continues to elude capture. Just last month, in fact, there were reports that she had appeared in the International Armory of Forbidden Books and Artifacts. What do you believe she was looking for?
James didn’t have to lie this time. He shook his head. “I don’t have any idea. I wish I knew.”
“Many believe she is up to something far worse than the Morrigan Web. You and your family hosted her and considered her a friend. Do you have any insight into what her plan might be?”
James sighed deeply. He wanted to say that Petra wasn’t the real enemy, that it was all a diversion created by a terrible watery demoness, an agent of chaos summoned by a broken magical bargain. He wanted to say that Petra had cracked the Vow of Secrecy in order to save his father and prevent further bloodshed. More than anything, he wanted to say that Petra was beautiful and innocent and the very reason that the Morrigan Web had been defeated. But the last few years had shown him that it would do no good. There was an inertia to these things. The world had decided that Petra was the focus of all villainy—the “She-Voldemort”, as some had begun to call her—and James now knew that there was no way to reverse such a tide without getting buried and drowned beneath it.
And after all, in a sense, public opinion was correct about Petra, albeit in a way that very few could guess: she did carry the last shred of Voldemort inside her. She was the Bloodline, cursed to bear the last flicker of the villain’s soul inside her own, even if she had tamed it and forced it into submission, as she claimed, and James fervently believed.
“I thought this interview was going to be about how young people like me were adjusting to some new perilous world?” He asked, looking up into Skeeter’s eyes where she still sat on the edge of the desk.
He expected her to be perturbed but she gave no sign to that effect. Her smile, in fact, perked a little wider. Behind her, the Quill scratched and wrote.
“Tell our readers about Headmaster Merlinus Ambrosius,”
Skeeter said smoothly. “There is great curiosity about him. A figure of lore and legend, he is. Would you say that he lives up to the mythology?”
James nodded, feeling that he was on slightly firmer ground discussing the headmaster, who was more than capable of handling himself, regardless of what the press said about him. “He does. He can be a bit scary sometimes, but never in a bad way. He always comes down on the right side, and he knows how to keep order, that’s for sure.
And he does it without just piling on reams of rules.”
“You Potters never did much care for rules,” Skeeter smiled.
“Isn’t that right, James?”
James shrugged, feeling slightly bold. “Like the rules about registering as an Animagus?”
Skeeter’s smile snapped shut like a jewelry box. She glared at him, her green eyes nearly sparking. Of course, she was registered nowadays. But if it hadn’t been for James’ Aunt Hermione, Skeeter would likely still be secretly using her abilities to illicitly eavesdrop and report on delicate conversations. She glanced back at her Quill and notebook, then briskly produced her wand and tapped the Quill. It stopped, backed up, and scribbled out a long line. Then, with a practiced force of will, she turned back and smoothed her features. She seemed content to change the subject.
“As we said earlier, James, we live in a world where the Vow of Secrecy crumbles more every day. You were there two years ago when Hogwarts hosted its first Muggle exchange students, the very spearhead of the Ministry’s plan to soften the blow to Muggle society, should the veil between our worlds finally fall. While that program was not considered a smashing success, more such programs are attempted elsewhere each day. Do you and your friends support such measures?”
James began to grasp Skeeter’s real reason for the interview. She had an agenda in mind, as she always did, and she meant to either pressure him into agreeing with it, or outing himself as its small-minded detractor.
“You said it yourself,” he said, glancing at the window to hide the mixture of unease and growing anger on his face. “The Hogwarts Muggle exchange wasn’t tried again after the whole disaster in the Great Hall when everyone, students and world leaders alike, were almost killed by the Morrigan Web. That doesn’t give me a load of faith in any other programs like it. But if you want to know what my ‘friends’ think, there are loads of them right here on the train. Feel free to ask.”