Annie woke him up, out of a sound sleep the next morning, far sooner than he would have liked. He was so startled; he almost drew his wand on her, and blearily recognized her voice just in time to stop the dangerous reflex.

"Hey," Harry said, "What'd you want to wake me up for?" He rubbed his eyes drowsily and found his glasses on the floor between the mattress and the wall. Annie was already up and dressed in fresh clothes, a short flaring skirt and a silky blouse that looked like a white version of the black one he was still wearing from the evening before.

"Get up," she said, "we're going to those auditions I told you about." Harry looked at her with alarm.

"I'm not going to any auditions," he said as firmly as he could.

Annie said, "Oh, come on. You do want to get some work that pays regular for a few weeks, don't you?"

That made Harry sit up. He thought he'd do almost anything to get out of going back to the Black Jack and reading palms or singing on the street corner at Covent Garden.

He yawned hugely and asked, "So what do we have to do? There's a catch to it, isn't there?"

Annie replied, "Not really. Not everybody gets in, of course. Every drama student in town and everyone like me who wants to act shows up. See, if you get on as an extra, you can start a CV, curriculum vitae, and put this gig on it. If you have any experience, even if it's just walking on in a crowd, it sets you out from the rest."

Harry said, "So exactly how many people get jobs?"

Annie said airily, "Oh, it depends on the play and how much money they've got. The main people get paid by contract, but the extras just get a weekly stipend, see. And the best thing is, they usually have all kinds of free food, so we don't have to go to the Garden too often."

Harry yawned again and said, "Well, free food and no singing on the street...that sounds pretty good to me. All right, then, let's go." Annie made a noise of disagreement.

"You can't go looking like that! They'll chuck you out before you even sign the register. You've got to look sharp. Sometimes they pick people just because they have a certain look or are the right size for the costumes."

Harry shrugged and washed up as quickly as possible. He had put on his last clean pair of jeans and another too big T-shirt, but Annie made him change.

"You can't go like that. They're not looking for the grunge look, these people." She thought a moment and said, "Too bad you've wrinkled up that satin job from Black Jack. I reckon they'd have liked that look. Never mind, have you got something like you wore the other day, the schoolboy look?"

Harry said, "I thought I ought to look a bit older, less schoolboy."

She shook her head and said, "No. If you have a tie to wear with it, you might get away with saying you're a student at one of the Universities, London maybe, or even Exeter."

Harry shrugged and put on his uniform including his Gryffindor house tie minus his robes. Annie went ecstatic over that.

"I bet you're a shoe in. They'll take one look at that tie and want you for sure. Especially if you get to read a line or two. Sometimes just having the right voice can get you in and you've got a great one, posh and sort of husky sounding." She made him hold still while she attempted to cover up his bruised cheek and his scar.

She clucked when he winced at the touch on his bruise and said, "You want to watch yourself with Black Jack, Jamey, luv. He's a bad man to get on the bad side of. We were all that scared for you last night." She shook her head and said, "It's funny though. He actually almost apologized to you. I've never seen him do that before." She added, "Maybe I'll ask you to read my fortune tonight. You can tell me if I'm going to be a star."

"I'm not going back there!" Harry said.

Annie said, "I dunno, Jamey. Once Black Jack gets a hold on you, you don't escape him so easy."

Harry said nothing, but he thought, watch me. He made sure the money Black Jack had given him was tucked inside a pocket out of sight and his wand was well concealed inside his dress shirt and tucked well into his waistband. Undoubtedly, Mad-eye Moody would have had another lecture for Harry on wand safety, but, he thought with a pang, he would never see Mad-eye again now he'd been expelled. It was with that grim thought in mind that he followed Annie to the little old theater near the Embankment where the auditions were taking place.

There must have been over two hundred people crammed into the tiny theater. There were two lines, one for those with experience and one for those with none. Annie and Harry stood in the line for the people with none, along with about a hundred seventy five others. Harry said,

"I thought you'd done this before."

"Well, I've auditioned before," Annie said, "but I've never gotten picked."

Harry said nothing. He didn't want to be mean, but he had doubts whether they'd get past the dragon of a woman taking names and having people sign the register.

The people in front of them were talking about the parts they'd had in school and the girl behind them was saying, "Well, you know, my Mum knows someone who knows the director. I've heard he's a bit eccentric and every so often likes to pick someone with no experience. They say he has an eye for it, who can do."

Harry thought that he and Annie probably had no chance, now that he saw what it was really like. Neither of them had lessons, experience or knew anyone who was anyone. And he rather thought that there was no magic quill to tell the director who had talent and who didn't.

It took nearly an hour just to get to the dragon lady with the register. Annie gave her name and whipped out her National Insurance card when the lady asked for it. Harry felt his heart sink somewhere down to his stomach. He would have gotten his soon after his sixteenth birthday, but it would go to the Dursley's house, which was his legal address, and he was not going back there to get it. He remembered to give his name as James Black when the lady asked and he tried to slink away quickly before she could ask for his card, but it was no go.

The lady said, "Your card, please."

Annie jumped in quickly and said, "He's left it behind. Well, he's my cousin, you know, and he's just up in town from the country. Just got done at Harrow, you know."

The dragon lady said, "How old are you? You don't look quite old enough."

Annie said for him again, "He's eighteen. More than old enough."

Harry was about to say, never mind. He didn't want people looking at him or asking questions. What if they called in the police or the Social Services people, then he'd really have trouble.

Another man came over and said, "What's the hold up here? I want to get started sometime today."

The dragon lady said, "This one doesn't have his Insurance card and I doubt he's old enough to work. And he doesn't seem to be able to speak for himself either."

The man, who was quite tall and had a lot of curly brown hair and a bread and was wearing jeans that looked almost as ratty as Harry's said, "You do have a card, don't you?"

Harry answered quickly for himself and technically, perfectly truthfully,

"It's at my Aunt's house. I left it behind when I came up to London, as I wasn't expecting to apply for work. Annie thought I might like to audition along with her, so I came for a lark." He hoped that sounded convincing.

The dragon lady said, softly, "Harrow? Well, he's got the voice, anyway."

The man said, "You think acting is a lark? This is a serious business. If you're not here to try to work at it, you ought to leave."

Harry said, "I know it's serious. I just meant...erm, I thought I'd try out. That is, I'd like to try. I'm not a shirker. I'm really not."

He thought, really good, really good. How to get tossed out before you even get a chance. The director looked at him assessingly. Harry felt much the same as when Black Jack Crowley had inspected him the other night, embarrassed and ready to bolt.

After a minute, the director said, "Well, let him have a try. Some of the best ones have looked and sounded worse than he does when they tried the first time." He walked away and began conversing with another man, a very thin fellow with large soulful blue eyes who was in the line for those with experience.

After everyone had registered, they were each given a sheet with some lines on it and told to wait for their names to be called. Every seat in the tiny theater was crammed full and there were people sitting on the side aisles and even onto the steps leading up to the stage.

The director went up to the stage and said, "Right, everyone. Thank you for coming today. As you may or may not know, this is a small, and very underfunded company. We'll be putting our play on with a combination of grants from the City of London Council for the Arts and a public schools education grant. We'll rehearse for two weeks and then do three performances. Two will be here in the theatre and the third will be in the park and will be free to the public. That will be filmed for the public education foundation and the film, if it's good enough, might be used at local schools for education classes in literature and theatre.

"I'll be asking everybody to read lines, even those who may be extras. Our group is quite small, so if you can't speak, you don't get a part, not even a walk-on."

Harry's stomach went bump at that. He reminded himself sternly that he had to make his own way in the world now. No one would give him handouts and he wasn't asking either. And what could be worse than being attacked by Lord Voldemort. Not saying a few lines in front of some people who had no clue who Harry Potter was. The director was still talking.

"The play we'll be performing is Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, of course. I expect most of you have read the play at least once for school, but just in case," and his voice was heavy with sarcasm here, "just in case you've never read it or have forgot what you read, a summary of the story is on your sheet along with the words of the most famous soliloquy in English. Everyone will read the lines from the soliloquy, no matter what part you're auditioning for, no matter whether you're male or female. That way, everyone has an equal shot at the available parts. You will also be asked to walk, run, jump and hold a sword, in case you need to be used in one of the many action scenes."

Harry thought, at least he could run, walk and jump. And had even held a sword once and used it. Unbidden, the image of the silver sword with rubies flashed through his mind, and he thought, if I can kill a basilisk, I can get up and read a few lines and walk and jump if it'll get me a job. And get me away from Black Jack Crowley.

Harry read the summary of the story. He'd never read the play because literature wasn't in the curriculum at Hogwarts. The closest thing they had to literature was History of Magic, and that consisted of boring lectures from Professor Binns and readings from ancient books with language he suspected was more tortured than the lines on the sheet before him. The summary sounded both grim and full of action. Murder, ghosts, sword fights, even pirates. He tried reading through the words of the lines and decided to just listen to some of the others first before trying to make sense of it.

Annie was frowning, "I was hoping for something more modern."

Harry said, "Didn't you know what the play was?"

She shook her head glumly. "I dunno. I'm not sure I can read this stuff the way they want. They'll really want the fancy accents for this. I'd do better with a comedy or a musical."

A girl behind them said, "But there is a part where Ophelia sings, you know. She goes mad from grief or something and sings in at last one scene."

Annie perked up at that and said, "Maybe I'll try to sing a couple of lines. Show them I have the voice for it."

The first actor, an older man, began reading the lines. He was very dramatic and used huge sweeping arm motions. He'd also apparently memorized the whole set of lines, becuase he didn't use his paper at all.

However, the director said, "That's enough, thank you," before the man had finished speaking and didn't ask him to walk or jump or anything.

There was a man who sat on the edge of the stage and read the lines as if he were whispering them to himself. The director cut him short as well. There was the woman who read the lines in a shriek that sounded nearly as awful as a banshee. There was another girl who inserted phrases like, "Like," "You know", and "tragic" in the lines. She got to read the entire speech before she was thanked and sent off, but Harry thought it was because the director was so befuddled by this that he forgot to tell her to stop. There were people who tried singing, as Annie had thought of, but they were summarily stopped before they could get four lines out.

Harry leaned over to Annie after that and said, "I think you'd better forget the singing."

She nodded her head anxiously. It was nearly one o'clock. They hadn't eaten breakfast and there were still easily seventy-five people who had to read yet.

The director got back up on stage and said, "Break for lunch. You'll find there are eateries about for those of you so inclined and we also have a modest spread for any who would like. We'll start again at two sharp, and if you're called and miss it, that's it. So don't linger."

Harry was thrilled. He didn't care if they were having turnips and asparagus, two of his least favorite foods. He would eat anything they had. Annie smiled for the first time since they'd been handed the lines to read and motioned him over to the front lobby of the theatre where there was a long table full of lunchmeats, cheeses bread and fixings. Harry made himself two sandwiches. He ate one hungrily and handed the second to Annie to put away in her bag for later.

She patted him on the arm and said, "See. This is the best gig if you can get in."

The first one to be called after lunch was the thin man the director had been talking to before. He also knew the lines by heart, but the director let him speak the entire piece all the way through. He noticed that the thin man spoke the words as if they were normal sentences, not poetry. And they sounded almost simple, sensible. For the first time he realized, the speech was about death, or was it? He looked back through and tried to find the periods and the commas that would break it up and let him find the gist of it. The director had the thin man walk and run and jump and use the sword. Harry thought he was by far the best of everyone and the one he'd have picked if he were doing the choosing.

He had to think again when the next one was called. This man was blond and tall and beautiful and reminded Harry of Lucius Malfoy, but without the nastiness. He also spoke the lines as if he understood them, but he said them differently, more despairingly, and his walking and running and jumping weren't as graceful as the thin man who was still Harry's favorite. A lady from the other line came next. She was older, perhaps about Mrs. Weasley's age and she read the lines with a more poetic lilt in the most beautiful voice Harry had ever heard. He turned to say so to Annie, but saw that something was wrong.

"What is it?" he whispered.

"I'm not sure they're even going to give the rest of us over here a chance." She bit her lip in distress and said, "They've gone to the experienced ones. I think they might have chosen the others already."

Harry said, "That'd be too bad. But at least we got lunch." He said, "Anyway, you don't know that for sure. Most of the others looked awful, and he didn't even have a lot of them walk and move like he said."

They went through everyone in the experienced line first, before moving back to the novices. Annie turned quite pale when her name was called, but she walked bravely up to the stage clutching her sheet of lines in her hand. She smiled and said her name and tried stumblingly to read the lines. Her reading wasn't very good, but Harry thought she looked nice up there. She wasn't all that pretty really, but on the stage, her round eyes were wistfully appealing and her round, curvy figure was attractive to the eye. The director must have thought so, too, because he made her walk and run and jump and even hold the sword.

Then his name was called, or rather, James Black. For a few seconds, Harry quite forgot that was supposed to be his name, and he jumped when Annie gave him a little push. He dropped his paper and almost tripped going up the stairs.

He could have sworn the dragon lady said, "Good gad. Do we have to suffer through any more of this?" Harry waited for someone to tell him to start, but when no one said anything, he tried to say the first two lines.

The director said, "I can't hear you." His voice sounded tired, but it wasn't mean like Professor Snape would have been.

He said, "Sorry," and cleared his throat and tried again trying to read it like normal speech and not poetry.

"To be, or not to be, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune; or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them--To die, to sleep, No more: and by a sleep to say we end the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished..." Harry trailed off, almost shocked at the meaning of it. Death was a sleep to end all trouble? Death was something to be desired? Had Sirius, he thought, somehow wanted his death, when he had recklessly gone out with Harry to the train station, and come to the Ministry knowing that he would likely be arrested at the very least? A voice startled him back out of his reverie.

"Go on," the director said. He stumbled through the rest of it, feeling sadder and sadder as he read it. Dreams after death--nightmares, he thought. What if death were really more like a nightmare, than the next great adventure? He stumbled on to the end and was truly surprised when the director asked him to walk and run and jump and hold the sword.

The director started to say thank you and then interrupted himself to ask, "How old are you?"

Harry remembered to say, "Eighteen, sir."

The director looked at him with that assessing look again and said, "Thank, Mr. Black. If you'll just wait out front with the others." The afternoon wore on.

Finally, the director returned to the stage and said, "Thank you everyone. For those of you who did not get parts, I thank you especially for your efforts, and if you are serious about acting, come back again. We will have another show in September and notices will be posted for the audition date in the usual places. I'll just read the cast list, both leads and extras. There will be a total of forty altogether, and most extras will be asked to speak at least one line." He commenced reading the names for the parts. The thin man Harry liked was Hamlet and the tall blond man was someone called Laertes. The lady with the rich voice was Gertrude and the old man who made too many gestures was someone called the Head Player. Then the director started calling out the names of extras. When he called out James Black, Harry was nearly as astonished as when the goblet of fire had spit his name out for the Triwizard contest. Annie was literally praying next to him and she gave a barely contained shriek when Annie O'Hara was called to be an extra too. She hugged Harry and gave him a kiss on the cheek, which made him blush furiously.

The director said, "Rehearsal call is for ten am sharp. If you're late, we'll call someone else to take your place. We have two short weeks for rehearsal to do one of the longest and most challenging plays in all of theatre." All Harry could think of was, someone will pay me to walk and run and jump? This was the easiest thing he'd ever had to do.

Annie danced up the four flights of stairs to the loft and sang out as they entered, "We did it! We did it!"

Nora squealed and said, "Both of you? That's wonderful."

Dave said, "That's great. How much did you make?"

Annie said, "You don't make anything just for auditioning, Davey. You have to work a week first to get paid."

Dave said, "A whole week? And no money till then? Well, did you at least stop at the Garden to catch the lunch trade?"

Annie said, "No, dearie. We had to wait till the end of the day to get called for our turn and we couldn't leave until they called out who was in, now could we?"

Dave glowered. "So what're we supposed to eat tonight? And tomorrow night? Nora and I can only nick so much fruit without being caught." Harry's jaw dropped. He hadn't realized they'd been stealing the fruit everyday. He couldn't imagine how they got away with filling a grocery bag full of it everyday. And what about the beer and soda? Where were they getting that?

Dave said, "Never mind, then. We'll just have to cadge some food from the main kitchen at Black Jack's. But we can't do that every night. Black Jack doesn't like it. He thinks we're stretching his generosity as it is."

Harry said, "Erm, but, I thought you work there? Don't you get paid?"

Dave said, "What do you think gets us this loft and the electric and the water and the heat? I work for Black Jack in exchange for them, and the loft is worth twice in rent what I'd get in salary. So it's up to the rest of you to get the money we need for food an all." This sounded like a rather dodgy arrangement to Harry.

He was not at all happy when Dave said, "We'd better get going then. Best get over there early tonight if we want a shot at some dinner."

Harry said, "I'm not going."

"What's that?" Dave asked.

"I said, I'm not going back there," he repeated. Dave eyed him rather like a bulldog would eye an escaping cat.

"Oh, yes, you are," he said. "Black Jack expects you. And what Black Jack expects, he gets."

Harry said, "Well, maybe this time he'll be disappointed. I'm not going back. I am not giving fake fortunes and I am not going to be at the mercy of a villain like that." He added, "I've got this acting job. I can contribute the money from that, and Annie and I can sing at the lunch breaks for the rest."

Dave said, "You can contribute, what? A few lousy pounds for a whole week's worth of time? Think again, Prince James. Black Jack is expecting you, and if you don't come up to scratch, you'll find yourself sleeping on the park bench where Annie found you, cause I won't be sharing my flat with anyone who badmouths Black Jack." He looked at Harry and said, "Do I make myself clear?"

Harry stared back at Dave and very nearly told him just to shove it. But a quick finger of panic stole down his spine at the thought of being out on the street without even this dubious shelter and no way of getting anything better. He was certain to lose the one thing he had if he couldn't at least show up clean and rested. Slowly, he nodded. He thought bitterly, if only he hadn't been so stupid as to call attention to himself. If only he had run the other way when Dudley's gang had approached. If only...he could be sitting right this minute...at the Dursleys' waiting for Aunt Petunia to shriek at him and Uncle Vernon to threaten to lock him up without food, or Dudley to land his huge fist in his face. He could easily have ended up in the same place anyway, because the policeman had been watching Dudley's gang and would have searched the house and Harry's room anyway. And he would still be expelled. Without a hearing. And no one, not Dumbledore, not Ron, not Hermione, not Mrs. Weasley, not Hagrid, no one seemed to have troubled to find him and just see if he was all right.

The Black Jack was just the same as it had been the past two nights: Dark, smoky, and filled with a smell of old beer and the desperation of lost souls. Black Jack smiled very slightly when Harry walked in, although he gave his clothing, especially the Gryffindor tie with its proud rampant lion a questioning look.

He said, "What's this costume? You look like a puling schoolboy from some fancy public school that's been cast in a bad vesion of a pirate tale."

Harry said, "All the better. You can cheat the customers even more because they'll think I'm some innocent angel."

Black Jack roared with laughter. "You have got cheek. But you see, angels don't play in a place like this. Our customers want that little edge of fear and danger. That's what they like. And a feeling that they're buying something that might be forbidden, even if it's knowledge. That's what we sell, Gypsy Jack. In the end, we sell the knowledge of good and evil, and mostly it's the knowledge of evil. But I suspect you've not had much acquaintance with it yet."

Harry said softly, not dropping his eyes from the old man's cold onyx gaze, "You'd be surprised what I've seen in the way of evil. And what I've seen makes this place looks quaint and safe."

The old man looked more than surprised at that, but he gestured to Harry and said, "No matter. Sit up here and shuffle the cards a bit and see if you can spot some trickier moves. And we'll find you something later to take the innocence out of that get up you're wearing."

Harry shuffled the cards over and over, until they flowed smoothly in his hands and called out the cards Black Jack had slipped up his sleeve, or altered in the cut, or changed in the deal, and never once missed. He refused the beer once again, and made a meal out of soda and crisps, and then sat in the back corner and pretended to look at the crystal and to read people's palms. Black Jack had dressed up his "costume" by making him wear a red leather jacket that clinked with chains and made him feel like a motorbike hood gone color-blind.

He couldn't believe how many people lined up to pay money to listen to him tell them that they needed to go to the doctor or change their jobs or forgive the loved ones with whom they'd had some bitter fight. He felt the guilt twist his insides again, but he thought, well if they make a change that helps them, does it matter if I've pretended to See something when I haven't? Somehow, he felt uneasily, that it did matter. He felt Black Jack's eyes on him and wanted desperately to be somewhere else. By the end of the night, he felt the ceiling closing in on him, pressing down, and the tiny bar was like a small little cell that had no exit. He felt as if he would be there forever, locked into a charade, a play of deception, in which there were no winners, and everyone got cheated.

It wasn't until two in the morning when he fell wearily onto his bare mattress that he realized his sixteenth birthday had come and gone. Not one owl had shown a feather. Not Hedwig, not Errol, not Pigwidgeon, not even an ordinary post owl. He wondered whether there were ways that even your owl could be prevented from returning to you if you were expelled. And why had they closed everything off to him, but not bothered to snap his wand? Was it because of Voldemort? Did they think he would still somehow be able to fight Voldemort, even if he had been thrown out in to the Muggle world to fend for himself? Or was it because they felt it was somehow...unsporting...to send him to his certain death without at least a token weapon of defense? He waited in a fog of fatigue and fear and faltering defiance for the others to fall asleep before slipping his money from the last two nights into the small cache wrapped in his Invisibility cloak.

The city of York was an ancient one, going back to the time of the Vikings or before. They had driven through the picturesque town center, but having arrived after dark, they saw less than they might have otherwise. Edgar had liked the superintendent from the York Police Authority. He had given them free access to all of the files, the autopsy report, and had expressed his annoyance with the medical examiner in choice unprintable words that made him laugh. The autopsy report looked exactly like Nancy Bell's. No drugs, no health problems, no injuries, except a faint burn about the face that was very likely sunburn. It had been a hot July in Yorkshire.

Margaret Miller was from a middle class suburb and her family lived in a sprawling cottage on an out of the way road. Mrs. Miller was more than happy to talk to them.

"York Police haven't done anything. My Margaret was a good girl and they kept wanting to know if she took drugs or took up with strange boyfriends. I told them, I said to that policeman, my Margaret never did anything like that. She was a good girl she was." the woman's face would ordinarily be pleasant but grief and anger had taken the softness out of it.

"Was she still in school?" Fay asked. Mrs. Miller shook her head.

"No. She graduated a couple of years ago. We let her take a bit of time off, travel, see the world. But she was just getting ready to start a job and now this."

Edgar asked, "Did she have friends from school nearby whom we could talk to?"

Mrs. Miller said, "She had friends here, but her best friends were scattered about. She went to a very small public school. Few people have even heard of it. But it was the best one for her, with her talents and all."

Fay asked, "Might we see her room, Mrs. Miller? We need to look through her things and see if there's anything, however small, that might point us toward how she died."

Edgar noticed that Fay was very careful not to say how she was killed. Apparently Fay still wasn't convinced that any of the deaths were murders. But that was all right.

In some respects, Margaret Miller's room was very much like Nancy Bell's. The main difference was that the Millers were more well-to-do and the room was large and jampacked with furniture and the usual modern toys that cost parents the earth these days. Edgar, however, noted immediately a thing or two that caused his eyebrows to raised and that faint frisson of fear or knowledge to crawl up his spine. Besides the usual computer, CD player, and posters of rock stars, there was a tank that had a small frog swimming in it, a pewter pot with feathered quills and rolls of parchment sticking out of it, a telescope, brass scales for measuring things, a small crystal ball on brass legs, and a very small armillary that looked like an antique. The books on the shelves included Unfogging the Future by Vlabatsky, One Thousand and One Magical Herbs by Arsenius Jigger, and the Standard Book of Spells, Grades 1 though 7, by Miranda Goshawk. Edgar took out Grade 1 and found among other spells, one for unlocking doors, and one for levitating objects.

Fay looked at it incredulously and said, "She was into magic? Was she a Wiccan? Or a Goth?"

Mrs. Miller said very sharply, "Of course she wasn't a Wiccan or a Goth. We're good Christian people and so was our Margaret."

Fay responded, "But she's got all these books on witchcraft. What were they for, and did she have any acquaintances that were also into this...hobby?"

Mrs. Miller said, "Margaret had talent, Sergeant Kray. She was a witch, but not the kind you think. She could actually do things. Make things float in the air, turn frogs into teacups. But that didn't make her wild or bad or odd."

Having silenced Fay by her fierce response, Mrs. Miller said more matter of factly, "We've always had a witch or two in the family from time to time. My Great-grandmum, she was a witch, and I've a second cousin who is too. I never had any talent myself, and my husband, bless him, his family is completely talentless; but the talent is respected in our family, in these parts."

Fay said, "What is this, the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter can read minds and see the future?" Edgar bit back annoyance and interrupted. He didn't want to lose Mrs. Miller's cooperation, and it looked like it could give them the break they needed.

"Where is her wand, Mrs. Miller? Do you know? Did she have it on her, when she went out the day she died?"

He could feel Fay staring at him in disbelief, but he ignored her and saw Mrs. Miller's face relax.

"That's the strange thing," she answered, "Margaret had it on her when she left that morning. She always kept it on her because, well, never mind that. But when the police found her, they never said anything about it. So I don't know if she lost it, or what." She added, "If she'd had it, maybe she would be alive. Maybe she'd have been able to defend herself."

Edgar cast about for some excuse to get Fay out of the girl's room. He wanted to do another search, but was afraid she would see a thing or two that he was sure she should not. Come to think of it, Fay had already seen far more than she should have, but still didn't have a clue what it all meant.

He said abruptly, "Mrs. Miller, would you be so kind as to let Sergeant Kray use your phone? I'd like for her to call the York Police and see if they kept any of Margaret's effects for potential evidence."

Fay, he could see, was wondering why he hadn't had her use her mobile. He drew her aside and said, "It will make her feel better, to have something to do to help." Fay nodded and her champagne colored hair swung about her face and shoulders, hiding her expression. He waited until the women had left and then began turning books out looking for letters and searching in every cubby, corner, and drawer for something that could give him a clue as to why a nineteen year old girl who had yet to start her first job might have been murdered by Death Eaters, for he was certain that they must be behind it.

He found more potions ingredients and a stash of sweets from Honeydukes including Bertie Botts' Every Flavor Beans and a huge bar of chocolate. The wand wasn't anywhere, but among the scrolls of parchment in the pewter cauldron, there were several issues of the Daily Prophet. He heard footsteps coming back up the stairs, so he tucked them into the slim soft-sided briefcase he'd brought to accomodate his growing file of papers, notes and items for later examination.

"The superintendent says there's a catalogue of effects that they found on her or nearby when the body was discovered." Fay reported. "He said we're welcome to come back to the station and check them out at any time."

Edgar nodded and said, "Mrs. Miller, we are very sorry for your loss and we may well return to ask you some follow up questions, if that's all right with you?"

Mrs. Miller nodded, and walked them courteously to the door. She said as they left, "I'd very much appreciate it if you didn't bother my husband about this. He doesn't have anything more to add than I've told you and he's very cut up about it. He's a solicitor, you know, and he doesn't take kindly to unanswered questions. And that's all we have, about Margaret's death, unanswered questions."

Fays said with surprising gentleness, "That's what we're here for Mrs. Miller, to answer those questions for you. And we will."

Edgar found himself impressed with Fay all over again. He wondered how she was going to react when he had to tell her that witches ans wizards were absolutely real, and that some were more like your average good fairy from the fairy tales and others who were straight out of the Brothers Grimm, or worse.

Back at the York Police offices, Edgar and Fay signed out the box off effects that had been gathered from Margaret Miller's body, or from her nearby surroundings. There was a fairly capacious red leather bag with some designer's initials, which Fay eyed with approval. Inside the bag, they found a mobile phone, a wallet with seven pounds and a small leather coin purse which contained what Edgar knew to be five gold galleons, ten silver sickles and a few odd knuts.

Fay said, "Looks like she'd been collecting junk on her travels. You don't think that could be real gold, do you?"

Edgar took the coward's way out and shrugged, but pocketed the coin purse and said, "I'll add these to the things that need to be checked out."

The leather bag also had a paperback novel by Anne Rice and an assortment of cosmetics from several pricey European companies. Edgar looked in the box and found a scarf with the label Hermes and a Swiss made watch with a leather band that had stopped working at six o'clock. He still didn't see the wand.

He went back to the leather bag and struck paydirt. There was an inside pocket he had missed the first time. From the concealed pocket, he drew out a slender fine wand made of willow. So she had never even had a chance to defend herself, he thought grimly. Fay stared at the thing with fascination.

"That's a wand?" she asked. Her blue eyes were wide and hid her thoughts. She held out her hand for it and Edgar passed it to her being careful not to wave it or make a motion that might draw sparks. She examined it from handle to tip and gave it a wave, but of course, nothing happened.

"It feels more like a conductor's baton, doesn't it? It doesn't look like my idea of a magic wand at all." Edgar stared at her in disbelief.

She said with the faintest of blushes, "Well, I think of a magic wand as being more like Disney, you know, gold and shiny and with glitter and jewels. Not a, just a stick of wood."

Edgar refrained from telling her that was very likely an Ollivander and from the best wandmaker in the world. He took the wand back from her and saw that the evidence list did not have the wand noted as one of the items. After only the minutest internal debates, he added the wand to his briefcase and but not to the York Police's list. He was startled to realize that the presence of a wand, even one that wasn't his, gave him a greater feeling of security than if he had pocketed a gun.

Harry woke with a start to find three faces staring at him. Annie's and Nora's were full of concern. Dave's was full of suspicion and something that might have been satisfaction. His scar was buzzing painfully again, and he had been back in the stone cell with the old man, who had once again fumbled whatever his task was and been punished for his clumsiness, or was it defiance? He rubbed at the scar absently and simply didn't answer when Dave said, "Some kind of nightmare?"

Harry went straight to the tub and pulled the plastic curtain between him and their watching eyes. The water was barely lukewarm and reminded him of swimming into the underwater cavern littered with stones and jewels.

He got out reluctantly when Annie said, "Hey, Jamey. I want a wash, too, before first day of rehearsal. Speed it up, please."

He put his clothes back on wet because he'd been so flustered he had forgotten to get a towel and sorted through his trunk looking for something decent to wear. The only clean things were the jeans he had changed back out of yesterday, and another ill-fitting T-shirt. But having seen the clothes the director had worn, Harry was no longer concerned they'd throw him out. He also surreptitiously palmed a couple of pounds for the money he had squirreled away in his cloak. He was starving and figured he could get Annie to show him a place where they could buy something for breakfast. Fruit and soda were not his idea of an ideal meal.

When Annie came out dressed in the same skirt, but with a fresh shirt, he asked, "Erm, how do we get our clothes washed? Is there a washer here we can use?"

Dave said, "In this building? This is really a warehouse. You'll have to a find a laundry and that costs, or you can do what we do, which is wash your things in the tub here and let them dry the old fashioned way. It's free."

Harry said, "But you do have soap, don't you?" Dave pointed to the bar of soap they had been using to wash with and which was almost melted away entirely.

He added, "Almost gone. And seeing as how you're quite the prissy prince for cleaning, Jamey boy, I recon you can be the one to contribute the next bar." Harry shrugged and mentally reduced the amount he would buy for breakfast in order to fit in a small bar of soap and, if there was enough, some shampoo and laundry detergent. Unless he could persuade Annie to run over to the Garden at their lunch break and try to bring in a few pounds singing again.

On the way to the theatre, Harry pulled Annie aside after a couple of blocks and showed her the money he had snuck into his pocket.

"Let's get breakfast, okay? I'm beyond starving." She smiled ecstatically and found a small teashop close to the theatre that sold pastries, croissants, rolls with butter and cheese and teas and coffees. Annie took the white paper bag with the croissants for her and the roll and cheese for Harry and put it in her bag for them to eat at the theatre. She was terrified of being late and losing her place.

They were actually a few minutes early. Rehearsal had been called for ten, but owing to Harry's, apparently rather noisy nightmare, they had all been up quite early. Harry sat down in one of the auditorium seats and hungrily devoured his roll and tea and wished he had bought two more. He thought wistfully of the meals at Hogwarts, where the tables were always heavily laden with food of all kinds and the kitchens, where you could sneak in to have food offered to you by the trayful by house-elves eager to please. He closed his eyes and wished he could open them and find himself there. Hogwarts was the only place he had ever felt at home and he missed it so badly, it was an ache worse than the nagging ache that came and went in his scar.

The dragon lady called them at five minutes to ten and asked them all to sign the daily register. They would have pre-rehearsal instruction in various things like voice, movement, method, and fencing, and then the actual play rehearsal would start at two pm, after an hour's lunch break, and run until eight o'clock at night. Or later, if the director felt it necessary. No one seemed surprised by the hours or the least bit bothered by it, and Annie was thrilled about the instruction part.

"That's another good thing to add to your CV. You put on that you had lessons with the director whilst working on the play."

Harry found that the first day established a routine. The morning preparation was as strange and arcane to him as the rest of the actors would likely find a class in potions or charms. For the first segment, the dragon lady, whose name was Beryl, had them make sounds and sing notes, and hold them or repeat them. This, she said, was to develop their vocal capabilities and ability to project their voices to the audience. They had to breathe deep, shout, whisper, say sounds as if weeping, and laugh in all sorts of ways. Harry found the whole thing a bit of a laugh, but it was a whole lot easier than trying to make a poton with Snape standing over him and criticizing his every move.

The next "class" as Harry came to think of it, was in something called the method. He liked this one the least of all. The director himself ran this class, and he had them talk about emotions and memories and then try to connect them to other things and to characters in the play.

"Let's start with anger," the director said. He pointed to the tall blond fellow who played Laertes--Harry thought of all the people by their play names--to tell them when he had most recently been angry. The blond man said glumly,

"My girlfriend walked out on me last month. She took most of the furniture and my collection of theatre memorabilia. I was that mad I could have..."

The director said, "You could have, what? Killed her?"

Laertes said, "Yeah, that's how I felt. Then after, I just felt low and ashamed and rejected."

The director said, "Can you remember that feeling? Think about it. Taste it. What's it like?"

The blond man said, "I felt, oh, a physical shock, like someone hit me at first. Then, for a minute, I swear my vision sparkled, and the taste in my mouth was like acid."

Silence fell. Everyone shifted uncomfortably, but the director said, "Now, I want you to take that emotion, that feeling, and try to be there when you read the part where Laertes storms in to see Claudius after finding out is father has been killed."

Harry found it rather creepy when the actor read the lines, and they were infused with a vicious violence that made you believe the actor might very well kill someone had he the means to do it. It also made him cringe to think that someone felt that kind of rage over something like a girlfriend leaving him. He wondered what the fellow would do if he had seen his godfather killed right before his eyes. And he was terrifically relieved when the director did not call on him to talk that day. He supposed being an extra meant you got to watch more than do.

Harry avoided the question when Annie asked what his angry memory would be by asking for hers. He didn't listen though. He was thinking more of how he had felt when he had thought Sirius was his parents' betrayer, how he had almost killed him. He was thinking of how he felt when he had used the Cruciatus curse on Bellatrix Lestrange, the fury, a thing alive in him. He tried to feel ashamed of that action and found he could not. He knew he ought to: Use of the curse, an Unforgiveable, was worth a life sentence in Azkaban. He even knew how it felt. Voldemort had used it on him at the graveyard after Cedric's death. And he had felt it through his dreams, through the connection of his scar, when Voldemort had tortured Wormtail for his lapses, and now the old man he held prisoner in a stone cell.

Harry was sure that the old man was really a prisoner. Or was he? Was this another ploy to get Harry to show up some place so Voldemort could kill him? It was harder and harder to tell when he was watching the things that happened and when he was Voldemort, when the snake that lay dormant reared its head and struck. He shivered and wondered if that was why he had been expelled. Was Dumbledore afraid Harry would do something terrible under Voldemort's influence, possession? And had he been banned to wander until Volodemort either killed him, or Harry found the necessary evil, power, to kill Voldemort instead?

After a short break, they had movement instruction and fencing from a different teacher. This one was a thin Russian man with a funny mustache and the incredible flexibility and control of a gymnast. The movement part was like some odd cross between yoga, mime, ballet, aerobics and gymnastics. The director spoke about the importance of 'an integrated performance', one that used all of the skills an actor had to have, vocal, emotional, and physical, to create a whole person for the part. Harry let his attention wander when the director was speaking, and he found the movements foreign, but he managed to lose himself in the activity. It was far better than thinking about how he might try to use an Unforgiveable curse on Bellatrix Lestrange again, if she were to appear in front of him just then.

For the last part, they were given swords, blunted for safety, but real swords, and this part Harry loved. It was something like flying, that seemed to come easily, and it helped that he could track the sword's movements as he would track a snitch. Only it was easier. The sword only had one range of direction, pointed right at him. A snitch flew every which way, and changed direction any second, and was faster by far than his partner's parries. The instructor pulled Harry aside after a while and asked if he had any other fencing classes. His eyebrows, which were very black and thick, flew up on his forehead when Harry said, "Erm, no." He was pretty sure that flailing around at a basilisk didn't count.

The lunch break was finally called. Harry dragged Annie to the table quickly so they could grab a pile of sandwiches and run out for Covent Garden to sing.

"What's the rush," Annie said. "We're getting paid on Friday." Harry said stubbornly,

"Come on, Annie. You don't want to have to eat crisps and beer for dinner again, do you?"

Annie said, "We had a very nice hamburger at the pub last night. What's wrong with that?"

"What's wrong with that," Harry said, "if you had a hamburger while I shuffled cards for hours for Black Jack. And he might not be so generous tonight. And I want to try to save some extra aside, so I can get out of there, and away from Dave and Black Jack. You should, too." Annie looked panicked at that thought, and for a minute Harry was terrified that he had made a mistake confiding in her.

But then she said, "But where would you go? Where could we go?"

Harry said, "I dunno. We'll have to think about it carefully. I'm not staying with Black Jack, that's for sure. I'm not having him use me and turn me into a--a criminal, or something, like he is. And you shouldn't want to either."

Annie said, "I think we should find a different place to sing then. Just in case Davey comes by to check and wants the money then. He can be mean if he thinks you're holding out on him."

They found a place nearer than the Garden, a street where little eateries had outdoor tables set up, and Harry and Annie sang their best until a small pile of money had filled her guitar case.

They ran all the way back to the theatre just in time for afternoon sign in, and swallowed their sandwiches in their seats while they waited for the extras to be called and given parts. Harry got to be a pirate and a courtier and a soldier. He thought sardonically that the most realistic one was the pirate. He had no lines for that one, but had to jump around and fight with the sword, so that bit was fun.

The director didn't dismiss them until ten o'clock that night. The best part about it was that they had brought in more food for dinner and Harry had filled himself up, figuring that breakfast was likely to be a long way away, and might not be in the cards for the next morning at all. He was dead tired and wanted to go back to the loft, but Annie insisted on dragging him to the Black Jack.

"It's better if you go, even if it's late. You won't get into so much trouble that way." When they arrived at the pub, Harry let Annie give their excuses and found himself comparing the dark confining pub unfavorably with his small room in Privet Drive. There, he could shut himself up and be let alone. Here, he was never alone and less free than ever.

Black Jack made him shuffled the cards and taught him to slide them up his sleeve, under another, exhanging and altering the deal each time, until Harry could have done the moves with his eyes closed. He learned to count the cards so he could tell what three cards other players held, and when the game started, Harry had to watch from the stool in case anyone made trouble like the big angry player had the first night. When Dave shoved a beer his way, he forgot and drank the first few sips without thinking. Fortunately, Madam Blavatsky was back and giving readings from her crystal ball. When they were about to leave, Black Jack caught his arm, and said,

"Be here tomorow by eight o'clock." Harry went very still.

He said very politely, "I will be here as soon as I can after my first job lets me off."

Black Jack said, "They don't pay you as well, as I do, laddie."

Harry answered, "I don't know what you pay me. You give me a hand out from time to time, when you feel like it."

Black Jack looked mean as a snake about to strike and Harry had to quell the impulse to hiss at him in parseltongue.

"Aye, that's right," Black Jack answered. "You work for me, and I give you what I think you deserve. So be here."

Harry said, "I'll be here when my first job lets out."

He looked at Black Jack's raised hand and said, "I thought you were a man who keeps his promises."

The older man's hand lowered, and the look in his black eyes was both abashed and furious. Harry walked out feeling the eyes on his back and the hair on his arms lifting in reaction.

Dave said as they walked back to the loft, "You've got a hell of a nerve. Don't you blow this gig for the rest of us, Prince Jamey."

Harry said, "Don't worry, Byrd, you had this gig, for what it's worth, before me, and I'm sure you'll have it after me. Just hope it doesn't bring you to misery, because that's all that Black Jack really has to dish out, hatred and misery and maybe worse."

Trying to put on a production of Hamlet in two and half weeks was worse than preparing and fighting a small war, the Director reflected. It was not, after all, just a matter of drafting your soldiers, training them, and putting them in the places they needed to be for the fight. No, there was that extra thing, the ineffable mystery of transforming a ragged bunch of people who hardly qualified as actors into the characters who would breathe life into the greatest play of all. He felt more like a magician, stirring his cauldron in a complex piece of magic, and hoping that the result would be a piece of the supernatural, a glimpse of the divine.

His Hamlet was a frail vessel on which to rest the weight of such a play. He'd had talent once, but had thrown it away in a fast lifestyle and series of drunken crashes. The Director hoped he would hold up for the two and half weeks of grueling rehearsals and three, gut wrenching performances. There could be no harder part to play than Hamlet, unless it was Lear--but that one was almost impossible.

Then there were the others. Pedestrian actors who lived on the edges of the profession, traveling from regional theatre to regional theatre and never finding a home. Only his Laertes was really an up and comer. The others, even his Gertrude with her rich voice, was sliding on her way down due to a truly awful temper and a bad habit of leaving productions early in some snit. And then there was Ophelia. One of the private backers had provided a good deal of money and all the free food they needed in exchange for ensuring his very aristocratic niece got the part she wanted to launch her acting career. She looked the part, being nearly anorexically thin, and having long, wispy blond hair; but she couldn't act at all, and had no presence to speak of.

The extras were another story. Most of them were even lamer than usual and had trouble keeping track of stage directions and no amount of crash instruction in movement and fencing could make them look like they belonged in a Shakespeare play. There were only two of them that were at all interesting. One was the round eyed, curvy girl from Stepney or Shoreditch. Her voice was pleasant but the accent had to go. He would have rather had her for Ophelia, though, than the bland girl who'd been foisted on him. This one had a pleasing charm and could easily be turned into the rather naive but earthy girl some people liked to see as Hamlet's doomed lover.

And then there was her boyfriend, or whatever he was, the one with the mane of jet-black hair and the voice of a runaway from Cambridge, or more likely Eton. The Director was quite sure that one had lied about his age. He had to be no more than sixteen, not eighteen. He hoped devoutly that the kid was at least sixteen or he could be in trouble for having an underage kid working the hours they were.

The kid was a shy one, but lots of actors were shy. He was withdrawn to the point of remoteness in the method training, which gave the director pause. Teenagers were normally blissfully narcissstic, and loved nothing better than to babble about their trials and pains and emotional ups and downs. This one said nothing unless he was asked and followed everything with green eyes that recorded everything and revealed nothing but some great loss and sorrow.

All of that should have made him the most unsuitable one of all, except that he had something. Some kind of charisma that made the eye wander to him, even when he was at the edge of the action and hadn't a word to speak. And when he moved, which was the only time he looked animated, he had the grace of a cat, and had taken to fencing with the perfection of an adept. And he wasn't afraid of heights, which was also a plus. His Hamlet wasn't liking the staging for the pirates fight, one of the best pieces of action, or for the bit by Ophelia's grave. The Director wanted his Hamlet to leap dramatically into the grave from the platform above, as was called for in the play. His actor wanted to run down the slope of the platform and charge down to the grave so he wouldn't have to jump. Maybe he would have the kid, who was thin and dark haired, jump from the platform and say the one line before it, and then his Hamlet could slip out from under the platform to do the remainder of the scene. He mused, that would keep the great dramatic movement of the scene and put his actor on warning that he needed to give just a little more to his character.

They had only three days left of rehearsal when the director found himself staring down the yawning maw of disaster. His Hamlet had called in sick and had only shown up after lunch wrapped dramatically in a blanket and whispering on account of "laryngitis." The Director was quite certain he'd been on a binge, but he was definitely not going to be worth anything during rehearsal today, and maybe not even tomorrow. And today was to be a full run through. The Director decided he would do the run through any way. One of the extras would have to step in, and it didn't matter if he could act, only that he could follow directions sufficiently so that the rest of the actors could actually get the rehearsal they needed. He cast about for a reasonable substitute. The most experienced one they had was the one who played Osric. But he was a whiny, annoying fellow, and the Director had taken him only because he actually had a credit or two and went to drama school somewhere. There was a tall redhead, who talked in real life with smooth confidence and crumbled when he had to say a line on stage. That wouldn't do either.

He walked up and down the aisles, examining his extras anew, as if he were shopping for a very important suit for a very important interview. As he crossed the back standing room only area, he nearly tripped over a recumbent form wedged into the far back corner. He took a closer look, and saw that it was his baby public school boy. The kid was curled up loosely with his head pillowed on his arms and sleeping deeply and soundlessly. The Director wondered if the kid had been on a binge himself the night before. He was within an inch of throwing the kid out when the girlfriend came up and whispered,

"Don't wake him, please, till we have to start. He's just worn out." The Director looked at her. The curvy figure and pleasing voice softened him.

He said, not nearly as bitingly as he normally would, "Been on a bit of bender, has he?"

The girl's round eyes widened and she said, "No way. Not Jamey. He just was up till three in the morning working his other job last night is all."

The Director didn't even want to ask, but he found himself saying, "Other job?"

She nodded. "It's hard, see, cause you can't live on the money you pay extras. So we have to work other jobs till we can get enough experience to get paid like the real professional actors."

The Director looked down at the boy. In repose, the face looked younger than ever. The long, thin body was not fully adult, and his hands and feet were still out of proportion to the rest of him. The thin face was all bones and angles, and paler than any boy of eighteen? sixteen? should be. And on the forehead, poorly concealed by the wrong color make-up, was a jagged scar in the shape of a lightning bolt. The attempt at concealment gave the Director a jolt of concern. That was quite a distinctive mark, and the only good reason for concealing it would be to avoid recognition. There was something here he didn't like.

"So, you and your...cousin, work second jobs?" The girl nodded and explained.

"Yeah. Well, I, we, go down to the Garden and places and sing you know. Street singing. And then Jamey, he does this other gig at a local pub." The director thought cynically, maybe he's been tippling the pub's beer on the sly?

He took advantage of the girl's trust and said quickly, "You're not really his cousin, though. And he's not really eighteen, is he?"

The girl's frozen look of alarm told him everything.

"So, Annie, is it?" He went on when she nodded. "Who is he really and how old is he really?"

She bit her lip and said, "Well, he's not really my cousin. I just said that cause that old bat who does voice was making trouble and I wanted Jamey to have a chance."

"So, how do you know him then? And don't lie. You're not a good enough actress yet to get away with it."

The girl flushed and said, "Not yet?"

He smiled at her and said, "Who knows? Maybe some day. You've got something. You need training, though, and voice lessons." He looked back at the still sleeping boy. The fact that he was still sleeping gave away the kid's state of exhaustion most clearly.

"Well?" he asked the girl.

She whispered, as if she were telling a very great secret, "I dunno really how old he is or where he's from. I found him sleeping on a park bench a few weeks back. I sat on him, to tell the truth."

The Director said, "You found him sleeping on a bench, and what, took him home with you?"

The girl, Annie, nodded and said, "I could tell he was dreadful young, too young to be out on the street alone like that. And he was all bruised up. Had a terrible bruise on his cheek and his face was puffy, and there were bruises on his arms and ribs like someone had a real go at him. I reckoned he got beat up and ran away from home."

The Director felt weariness. He'd heard the story a time too many. Sometimes, it was even true. He said, "So the kid's not legal, is he?"

Annie frowned and said, "I dunno. He told me he's eighteen. I would've guessed younger, but who'm I to ask him for proof?"

The kid sat up abruptly. His black hair was an unruly mess and his green eyes were excessively wary and unexpectedly alert for someone who had been so deeply asleep just moments before.

He stood up in a single fluid motion and said, "Is it time to start again, then?"

The Director said, "Yes. And be warned, I almost fired you a few moments ago."

The green eyes flared with panic and anger. "I wasn't sleeping on rehearsal time," he protested. "It was lunch hour. There's nothing that says you can't rest on the lunch hour, is there?"

The Director considered that and stared at the boy. "Been working two jobs I hear. Sometimes three?"

The boy frowned and said, "I don't know if you can call any of it a proper job."

The Director said, "You don't think acting is a proper job?" The kid couldn't know that was one of his peeves.

The kid raised an eyebrow and said, "Well none of it is what my Uncle Vernon would call a proper job. Of course, he doesn't think anything's very respectable unless it's being a business director or a professional of some kind and making lots and lots of money. I'm quite sure he'd be perfectly horrified if he saw what I was doing."

The kid paused reflectively and added as if he were amused, "I'm quite sure my Uncle Vernon wouldn't think I was respectable even if the Queen gave me a medal."

The Director considered the young face before him. There were still faint shadows beneath the eyes that said an hour's nap wasn't enough to overcome the weight of a bone grinding fatigue. The pale skin was stretched tight over the bones, and there was none of the softening young puppy-like flesh that usually filled out the face youth. But the green eyes held a sparkle of amusement, a mischief still unquenched.

"This Uncle of yours, what does he do, and where does he live?" the Director asked.

"He's no Uncle of mine really," the boy said. "He's my Aunt's husband and he's a director of his own company. He sells drills." The boy said this with the utmost loathing, as if there were no fate in the world more dreadful than to be stuck selling drills. The Director was starting to like the kid.

He said wanting to be sure he could wring permission from the right guardians if necessary, "So why do you live with your aunt and uncle? What about your parents?"

The spark of mischief in the green eyes died, and the face was abrubtly remote and unreadable. "They're dead," was the plain flat answer.

The Director said, "It's a hard loss, that is. You must miss them. I'm sorry."

The kid shrugged and said, "They were killed when I was a year old. I don't really remember them."

"So you've been living with your aunt and uncle since then?"

The kid simply nodded.

"And do they know you're here?"

"No," he said. The single word was dragged out reluctantly and the face remained closed.

"So what happened then? Your Uncle beat up on you and you ran away?"

"My Uncle?" the kid shook his head. "No, I had a fight with my cousin. Well, actually, I ran into him and his lot of toadies, friends, he hangs out with and he got in my face and I got back in his if you know what I mean."

The Director nodded and said, "Go on."

"Well, anyway, one of them decided to throw a punch and then they all got into it, and I had five of them coming at me. It got broken up by the local Constable and he wanted to cite all of us for breaking the Anti-Social Behavior regs, so I told him my cousin was teaching me how to box. He's a boxing champ, my cousin." The tone was full of loathing and contempt.

The Director said, "And how was it you ended up in London? You ran away?"

A corner of the kids mouth quirked up. "The police came back, not because of that fight, but because my cousin's lot had been beating up the neighborhood kids, and shoplifting. So naturally, when the police came, Dudley tried to put the blame on me. And when they didn't buy that, they took him up to the police station to write up a citation. That's probably less respectable than acting."

He shrugged, the time honored teenager shrug that said, I don't care, and said, "I knew my aunt and uncle would believe him and throw me out, so I left before they could. You could say it was a parting of mutual dislike." The kid added before the Director could respond, "You're not going to fire me are you? I won't sleep at lunch hour again, if it's a problem."

The Director said, "No. But I want you do a bit of work today to help out."

The kid's face relaced and he said, "Sure. What do you want me to do?"

The Director said, "I need someone to fill in for Hamlet today. He's got, er, laryngitis, and can't rehearse, but the others can't lose a day."

The kid, said, "Me? Why me? I mean, you've got lots of people there that know the whole thing by heart and have experience."

The Director said, "Ah, but they have to rehearse their parts. We're doing a complete run through, or as close to it as possible, and I want to repeat it even if time permits. We only have three days left. So I need a body who hasn't got a major speaking part to stand in and move where I say and read the lines." He looked at the face and saw with relief that the kid understood. He added, "I'm not worried about your performance. Just do what I say so I can get the rest of them through it, okay?"

The kid said, "You want me in as a kind of relief player. That's okay. It's not the real game, anyway."

The first scene went by easily, and the Director pointed the kid to sit at the front and side of the stage.

His Hamlet said, "What's this? You're putting in a green kid as my understudy?"

He answered, "We're doing a full run through. And you are not able. So I need a body, and one that won't leave a major gap somewhere else."

He added with more annoyance, "This isn't the West End. You don't get a certain number of contract days just to be out drunk."

He had to make them start the scene again and Claudius was irritated, too, now as he had been in the middle of his speech. But he began again as smoothly as ever, thank god for reliable professionals, and the Director risked a glance at the kid. He was sitting where the Director had told him to and following the scene, glancing from the script to the actors and back again. He looked as if he were listening, and the faint frown and body language expressed disbelief, as if the words he were hearing were heard for the first time. The Director thought, it probably was.

The kid continued to take in the scene and the Director began to be fascinated with his posture, the natural slouch of youth, the faint curl of the lip at the words, and although he had to be poked just a little to say his part, the tone was perfect. The sullen, bitter rudeness of disillusioned youth. The Director thought, my guy is too old. He saw the part more in perspective, the rebellious teenager, dragged home from school unwillingly to watch the poisonous political machinations of a hated uncle. And to discover that the loathed one had been the killer.

Queen was admonishing the kid, "Do not, forever, with thy veiled lids, Seek for thy noble father in the dust: Thou knowst, tis common; all that lives must die, assing through nature to eternity."

And the kid responded, with just the right tone of sarcastic disrespect and emphasis on the final word, "Ay, madam, it is common."

The Director sat up and so did everyone else watching. They continued, the Queen asking, "If it be, Why seems it so particular with thee?"

The response, again, was perfect. Swift and savage, full of icy contempt and grief: "Seems, madam! Nay, it is: I know not seems... I have that within, which passeth show, these but the trappings and the suits of woe."

And when the King chimed in to tell him to get over it, as the Director thought of that speech, and to tell the kid he would not have permission to return to school, the expression of disgust and contempt were precisely right, as was the flinch away from the Queen's touch when she asked him to stay for her, and the emphasis in the right place when he said, "I shall in all my best obey you, madam."

It would have been impossible, of course, the Director thought, for the kid to have got through the whole play without stumbling, or one false note. But as the afternoon wore on, he had a wild desire to fire his leading man and put the kid in the part, unschooled as he was.

The kid had stumbled through the first solioquy, but his performance in the scene with the ghost was utterly different. His Hamlet had been playing all the ghost scenes as if they psychological struggles, the emanations of a grief sticken heart, teetering on the edge of madness.

The kid looked straight at the ghost and responded to the ghost as if he were having a real conversation with it. As if the ghost were real, and the information given, the story of the murder horrified him.

The Director stopped him and said, "Why are you reading it that way?"

The kid said, "What way?"

"As if the ghost is there. You're having a conversation with him."

The kid frowned and said, "Of course, I'm having a conversation with him. He's supposed to be my father's ghost. It's what the script says, isn't it?"

The Director said, "Yes, but if you read it through more, you see, well, most critics believe, he just imagines it. It's a projection of his distress, but it's not really there."

The kid said, "Well, that sounds stupid to me. It says there's a ghost. Why shouldn't there be a real ghost? Real ghosts are even weirder than that." Then the kid blushed, as if he knew he'd said something he shouldn't.

The Director said, "That's interesting." He thought, real ghosts? "But then how do you explain why he sees the ghost later and Gertrude doesn't?"

The kid shrugged. "Maybe she just can't see ghosts. Maybe some people can and some people can't. Maybe the ghost doesn't want her to see him. Anyway," he added, "I thought you just wanted me to read it as best as I can."

The Director waved him on and sat back to watch the rest with deep attention. He was quite frankly astonished at the level of rage the kid produced when speaking of the murderous king, and amused when he refused to kiss Ophelia in the scene where she tried to return the letters. They had a bit of discussion at that, too.

His own Hamlet said, "Hey, he's supposed to kiss her. He's supposed to yell at her and kiss her." And Ophelia nodded vigorously. This was her best scene, where she had next to nothing to do but stare at Hamlet and let him kiss her.

The kid said, "Well, that doesn't make any sense. Why's he going to kiss her when she just dumped him and he figured out she's spying for her daddy and the king."

He added, "I'd sooner kiss a snake than a girl who betrayed me like that."

The Director sighed and said, "But you are not Hamlet." But he had a feeling of sheer pleasure anyway. It wasn't often you got a total novice to forget he wasn't the part he was playing.

The kid said, "No. But I thought we're supposed to, erm, put ourselves in the character's place or something. And besides," he said, "I don't think the character would kiss her either. I mean, he thinks the king murdered his dad and that she's spying for him now. That's why he's so mean to her."

His Hamlet muttered, "I bet he's never even kissed a girl. What a baby. Does he even shave?"

The Director felt more annoyed. The kid had made a valid point. He waved them on. It was going to take forever to do a full run through if they kept stopping. He made the decision to do a second one, no matter how late they had to stay.

They limped on with it. Until the end, that is, when from the confrontation with Laertes, to the final sword fight, kid came alive again. With a sword in his hand, he could have stopped speaking altogether and it wouldn't matter. The kid jumped from the highest point of the platform ten feet straight to the stage without a blink and he fought the sword fight with a sizzling conviction.

So much so, that Laertes said, "Whoa, kid. What're you trying to do, kill me?"

The kid blinked at him and said, "That's what it's about, isn't it?"

They broke for dinner before the second run through, and the Director felt another twinge of worry when he watched the kid devour his food as if he hadn't eaten in months. He tried to remember if he had eaten like that when he was a teenager, and was shocked to find he simply couldn't. Ophelia was flirting with the kid, too. She seemed to have decided that even a stand-in rated higher, and of course, having heard him speak, she must have decided he was close enough to her own class to merit a conversation.

She said in a pouty, rather, flirty way, "I don't see why you wouldn't kiss me. He does it, no problem. If you want to act, you can't mind kissing someone in front of others."

The kid looked at her like she was some foreign object, from a galaxy far, far away, and said, "Well, it doesn't make sense." He seemed to be casting around for some way to explain it, although the Director thought she might have unwittingly hit on something--this was a kid who didn't parade his feelings to the world.

The kid added, "It's not some goofy romance, you know. It's not even, erm...Romeo and Juliet. That's Shakespeare, too right?"

Ophelia was having as much trouble getting the kid as the character had with Hamlet in the play.

She said, "So what about the ghosts. You sounded like you've actually seen one."

The kid looked a bit alarmed and embarrassed at that, but Ophelia went on blithely,"I've a girl friend, Helen, well she's Lady Devon, the Earl of Devon's daughter, and she says they have a couple of ghosts in one of their castles. So, do you, like, live in a really old house like that?"

The Director thought with amusement, little cat: she just wants to know if he's really rich or got some title coming to him.

The kid said, "Really?" like he was genuinely interested and said, "It's my school that has ghosts. It's in this really old, old...well I suppose you'd call it a castle. Anyway, some of the ghosts are really dead annoying. They pop up and sit next to you and they freeze the air. But they don't talk to everybody and they don't show their faces for everybody."

Ophelia looked at him and said, "Are you still at school? Don't you have to be eighteen at least," and the kid quickly replied, "I'm eighteen, and I guess I'm done with school now."

The Director thought, you're no more eighteen than my two-year-old nephew. And he thought he'd look up the list of public schools and see how many of them might be quartered in castles with ghosts. He didn't think even Eton could make that claim. The kid's other friend was watching this conversation with annoyance. He could see her feeling inferior and left out.

The girl from the wrong side of town, She said, "I think Jamey's right about the kissing thing. It doesn't belong there."

Ophelia didn't like that and said, "Well where do you think it belongs," as if Annie's opinion were far less valuable than hers.

Annie, bless her, had spunk and said, "I could see it in the scene where they're watching the play and he tells her to sit in his lap, or even before she comes out weeping and saying how he came to her all messed up and acting crazy, like he was saying good-bye or something."

The Director was surprised. The girl had a point. He hadn't had that scene acted out but left it to the audience's imagination from Ophelia's description. Now he was thinking, have them do that, without words, then after have her rush in and tell it? But they were two days from the first performance. Too late to add it.

They started the second run through. His Hamlet had gone home looking washed out and muttered he might not be up to things again the next day. The director was more alarmed than ever. He was starting to think the actor didn't have the guts or the stamina to get through a full performance. He kept them at it till after midnight and put Annie in to do a few lines at the end when Ophelia started whining about how exhausted she was. He got another surprise there. Annie sang the sweet seemingly innocent songs with a breathy voice and her round wide eyes and curvy figure made an interesting counterpoint to the character's madness. More adolescent despair. He was thinking, this is what happens when adults betray their young or abandon them, use them for their own corrupt purposes. They turn mad, suicidal, or homicidal, because they haven't the foundation to stand when the earth's been rolled out from underneath them and they're left walking an invisible tightrope in a vacuum.