James Potter and the Curse of the Gatekeeper jp-1

by G. Norman Lippert

  “It’s Joseph, sir,” the boy replied, shaking himself and glaring nervously down at the floor.

  “Joe, yes, certainly. The point, of course, is not to harm the poor creature, but simply to get its feet off the ground. If it cannot touch the ground, it cannot charge. If it cannot charge… well, the rest is elementary, as you can see. Brace yourself, Joe.”

  Joseph barely had time to thrust his hands out in front of him before Debellows tapped him with his wand. The boy toppled to the mat.

  Debellows looked brightly out over the students. “Any questions?”

  Graham shot his hand into the air. “What was that incantation, sir?”

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Debellows chided, ticking his finger at Graham. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Mr., ah, young man. ‘Stamina before spells’ is my motto. Did you happen to notice the maneuver I used to get the werewolf into the air first? That is the key to the entire affair. The spellwork is merely the icing on the cake. No, in this class, we will apply ourselves to the discipline of physically preparing ourselves for the challenges we may face as defenders of right. Did you know, class, that a fit-enough wizard may overcome even the Imperius Curse if he has enough stamina and mental force of will? It is true. For too long, the focus of civilian Defence Against the Dark Arts has been quick and dirty spellwork, protection charms, and tricky hexes. Here, I will not make you merely proficient in theory. Here, I will make you into warriors!”

  He beamed out at the room, his dark crew cut bristling. After a moment, Kevin Murdock began to clap. The rest of the class joined in halfheartedly.

  “I know you probably aren’t excited about my approach,” Debellows said, raising one hand. “There are those who do not utilize the same methods as I do; those who do not respect the importance of physical prowess, who believe that Expelliarmus spells and Patronuses are more than enough to battle the most evil of foes. In the Harriers, we call those people ‘Aurors’.” He grinned, and there was a smattering of laughter. Kevin Murdock smirked back at James, nudging a fellow Slytherin. Debellows went on, “But I think you’ll find my approach quite effective in the long run. And I promise you: I will not ask any of you to do anything that I am not willing to do right alongside you. And now!” He clapped his hands together eagerly. “Let us see where we stand. How many of you have ever heard of the Gauntlet?”

  James glanced around the room. No one raised their hand this time. Debellows seemed undeterred.

  “The Gauntlet is an ancient tool used by those training for battle. It is a sort of clockwork obstacle course. Granted, being wizards, we have outfitted ours with certain, er, specialized capabilities. There is no point to the Gauntlet other than to surpass it. Surely, you have all heard the phrase ‘run the gauntlet’? I am about to illustrate what that phrase actually means.”

  Debellows paced briskly across the room and stopped at the end of the line of clockwork apparatuses. He clasped his hands to his elbows and twisted back and forth at the waist, jumped from foot to foot half a dozen times, and then finally dropped to a crouch. He extended one arm, pointing his wand at the line of devices.

  “Defendeum!” he barked.

  Immediately, the apparatuses ratcheted, whirred, and clanked to life. Debellows launched forward, tucking and rolling beneath the first device as it swung a padded club across his path. With a grunt, the man leapt into the remaining clockwork. He moved in a sort of muscular ballet, lunging, crouching, and leaping through the mechanical melee. He dodged spinning wheels of padded fists, ducked under Stunning Spells fired from a bank of pop-up wands, leapt over kicking pommels and snapping padded jaws, and finally dove, flipped, and landed neatly on his feet at the end of the Gauntlet.

  There was no applause this time. James stared, horrified, at the wildly thrashing clockwork monstrosity.

  “So!” Debellows called over the noise of the Gauntlet, jamming his fists onto his hips. “Who’ll be first up, then?”

  “He’s completely daft!” Graham exclaimed as he limped his way to History of Magic. “He must’ve taken one too many Stupefies to the brain when he was a Harrier or something!”

  “No spells until Year Four,” Ralph said, shaking his head. “And what was that stuff at the end? Who’s Artis Decerto?”

  “It’s not a who, it’s a what,” Rose said, falling in next to Ralph. “It’s a sort of magical version of karate.”

  James nursed his elbow where it’d been pummeled in the Gauntlet. “Where are you going, Rose?”

  “History of Magic,” she replied primly.

  Ralph glanced at her. “Our History of Magic?”

  “I don’t know what you mean by that,” Rose said, pulling herself to her full height, which was approximately to Ralph’s Adam’s apple. “My schedule has me in History of Magic, second period, Professor Binns. I can’t help it if my advisor suggested I skip to some higher-level classes. So things didn’t go so well with Professor Debellows?”

  “We aren’t supposed to call him ‘Professor’,” Graham said sourly. “He wants to be our mate, don’t you know.”

  “The kind of mate that makes you do fifty pushups if you can’t manage to avoid getting plastered by a giant, padded fist,” Ralph said mournfully.

  “I hate to say it, but it will probably do some of you some good,” Rose said, eyeing the boys appraisingly.

  “Just wait until you have your first class with him,” James growled. “See how perky you are afterwards.”

  As they filed into the History of Magic classroom, the ghostly Professor Binns seemed to be in midlecture. His back was turned as he wrote on the chalkboard with a piece of phantom chalk. Strangely, he seemed to be writing notes on top of older notes, creating a nonsensical mish-mash. There was the distinct impression that the chalkboard contained years of the professor’s ghostly writings, layer upon layer fading into dimness. As James knew, Binns had only the slightest grip on temporal reality. Last year, Ted had told James that the school had tried to move the History of Magic classroom to another wing so as to make space for the visiting Alma Alerons. Unfortunately, Professor Binns continued to promptly appear in the old room every day to perform his lectures despite the fact that the classroom had been temporarily converted to an Alma Aleron girls’ dormitory. No amount of persuasion could convince the ghost to relocate his classes, and the room was shortly converted back to a classroom.

  Awkwardly, the students found their seats and began to produce parchments and quills. After a minute, Rose cleared her throat rather loudly and called the professor’s name. Binns stopped writing on the chalkboard and turned, peering mistily back at Rose through his spectacles.

  “Yes, Miss Granger?”

  There was a ripple of laughter and Rose reddened. “I’m not Miss Granger, sir. I’m Rose Weasley, her daughter. I, er, think we missed the first part of your lecture.”

  “Another generation already,” Binns muttered to himself. “Very well, then.”

  The ghost reached for a phantom eraser and began to swipe it across the chalkboard, producing absolutely no effect.

  “You’ll never make sense of his notes. You just have to listen to his lecture,” Graham whispered confidentially. “It’s a challenge, but the good news is that he’s been giving the same tests for forty years. The answers are carved right into the tops of the desks. See?”

  James had had Professor Binns last year, but he’d not heard this particular legend. He looked down at the worn graffiti carved into the desktop. Sure enough, buried in the center, was a list of numbered terms and phrases. At the top, like a headline, was the phrase, ‘WHEN IN DOUBT, JUST SAY “GOBLIN REBELLION”’.

  “That’s cheating,” Rose said without much conviction. “Er, technically.”

  “You will recall,” Binns said, removing his glasses and wiping them absently on his ancient, ghostly lapel, “last year, we completed our studies with the end of the magical Dark Ages, in which men and wizards finally parted ways after centuries of unrest. The magical world allowed the
Muggle kingdoms to believe that they had dispersed and eventually died out. Contrariwise, of course, the magical world developed in secret, as it has existed ever since, bypassing the typical frictions inherent in the interaction of the magical and the nonmagical. This brings us to the very beginnings of the modern age of wizard history, in which strictly magical establishments came into existence. This year, we will study the histories of those establishments, from governments to economy to education. Initially, nearly all of those details were managed inside the same walls, and by the same people. You may be aware that this very castle was the center of the magical world for quite some time before it was exclusively classified as a place of learning.”

  Rose studiously scribbled notes on her parchment. Ralph was watching her with curious fascination, either because of her persistence in taking notes or because her handwriting was so meticulously precise. James wished Zane was here to make an amusing drawing of Professor Binns. Idly, he doodled on his own parchment.

  “Magical photography,” Binns continued, “while much older than the Muggle equivalent, was still in its infancy at the founding of Hogwarts. Here, in what was, at the time, still an experimental medium, we see the only remaining photographic representation of the original founders of Hogwarts.”

  James looked up to see the professor pointing his ghostly wand at a small, framed picture on the wall. James squinted at it but couldn’t quite make it out. He hadn’t known there were any photos of the founders and he was quite curious to see what they really looked like. He glanced around the room, but no one else seemed to be having any difficulty making out the ancient photo. James pressed his lips together. It was going to have to happen sooner or later. As quietly as he could, he reached into his bag and found the little pocket that held his new glasses. He slipped them out and, as surreptitiously as possible, put them on. Immediately, the ancient photo came into focus.

  “Technically, it is not a photograph as we would know it, but a sort of flash-painting created with specially hexed paints. In any event, the result is a faithful, if crude, image. Here we see all four of the original founders standing in front of their statues in the original rotunda. This was taken rather late in their careers, upon the occasion of the naming and dedication of Hogwarts as a school of witchcraft and wizardry over ten centuries ago.”

  James studied the ancient image. It was indeed very grainy and only in black and white. Still, he could clearly make out the four figures, two witches and two wizards. Godric Gryffindor’s long face wore his famous mustache and pointed goatee. Salazar Slytherin’s features were pinched, with sharp cheeks and chin. He was perfectly bald. Helga Hufflepuff was tall and severe-looking, with long braided hair. Rowena Ravenclaw wore her greying black hair loose, framing a beautiful, smiling face with large, dark eyes. Behind them could be seen their statues, but only from the waist down. The statues had indeed been very large.

  “Look,” Graham whispered, pointing at the photo, “there’s the ghost in the plinth! You can see it off on the side, next to the statue on the far right, just like in Rita Skeeter’s book!”

  Ralph looked puzzled. “The ghost in the plinth?”

  Rose made a pained face. “It’s just a myth, Ralph,” she whispered. “It was in a book that came out a few years ago: The Founders’ Codex. It says that there are secrets buried in a bunch of ancient paintings and pictures and things. Supposedly, there’s a ghostly face hidden in the shadows of the statue plinth in the founders’ photo.”

  “It’s right there,” Graham rasped. “Skeeter says it was hexed into the photo by Salazar Slytherin himself as a warning of his final curse. It’s supposed to be the face of the heir of Slytherin. Of course, that’s old news now. The Chamber of Secrets is well-known. It was on the Hogwarts tour up until a few years ago when they shut it down for being unsafe.”

  A Hufflepuff named Ashley Doone whispered from the row behind James, “I can see the ghost in the plinth, too! It looks like… like it’s wearing glasses! Why, James,” she said conspiratorially, “I think the ghost in the plinth is you!”

  James spun to glare back at her. She grinned and covered her mouth. When James turned back, Rose and Ralph were also looking at him.

  “Since when do you wear glasses?” Ralph asked in a whisper.

  “I don’t!” James rasped. “I just need them to see… things. Far away. Sometimes. Hardly ever!”

  “They’re kind of cute, James,” Rose smiled. “In a brainy sort of way.”

  James yanked the glasses off and jammed them back into his bag. Rose looked back at the ancient photo as Professor Binns burbled on obliviously.

  “And Ashley’s right,” Rose whispered, smiling playfully. “The ghost in the plinth does look a little bit like you. I didn’t even see it at first.”

  “Go jump off a turret,” James mumbled, returning to his doodling.

  That evening, after dinner, James and Rose sat amongst a pile of books and parchments at a corner table in the Gryffindor common room.

  “It’s only our first day back,” James complained. “I can’t believe I’m already sick of homework.”

  Rose dipped her quill. “If you’d stop complaining about it and just do it, it wouldn’t seem like so much work.”

  “Thanks for the pep talk,” James grumbled, flipping randomly through an enormous dusty book. “So how many classes am I going to be sharing with you this year anyway? I mean, besides History of Magic and Transfiguration. It’s a little embarrassing, you know.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” Rose said without looking up from her parchment, “it’s no reflection on you that I got my mum’s grasp of basic magical principles. You, on the other hand, got your dad’s grasp of slouching off your studies until the very last minute. It’s simple genetics.”

  James sat up. “You’re already done with your Transfiguration homework, then? Maybe you could give me a hand with mine since you’re so smart. After all, we’re family.”

  “You obviously have me confused with someone else,” Rose said, stuffing her books into her bag and zipping it. “That might’ve worked on my mum back in the day, but that’s only because she had an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. My Weasley heritage offsets that nicely. By the way, shouldn’t you be wearing your glasses to do your homework?”

  James threw her a wilting look. “I only need them to see far away, thank you very much. I’d appreciate it if you kept the whole glasses thing to yourself.”

  “It’s no big deal. Lots of people wear glasses.”

  “Lots of perfect spods,” James groused dismally.

  “Damien wears them,” Rose pointed out. “And Professor McGonagall. Fiera Hutchins wears them and they look totally cute on her, even if she is a Slytherin. And Clarence Templeton, and Scorpius…”

  James nearly knocked his books off the table. “Scorpius wears glasses? How do you know?”

  Rose blinked at James. “I saw him wearing them in Herbology. He needs them to read, I would guess. Unlike you, he seemed perfectly comfortable wearing them in class. They look rather sporting, in fact. They’re rimless, with tortoiseshell sides—”

  “All right, all right,” James said, waving his hand dismissively. “This isn’t making it any better.”

  “Despite what you may think,” Rose said, leaning in and lowering her voice, “he’s not stupid. He may not be the nicest boy in school, but he knows his stuff.”

  “He knows how to cast a few spells, big deal,” James said, crossing his arms. “His parents probably hired him one of those goblin tutors just to make sure he could show the rest of us up.”

  Rose shrugged and looked pointedly across the room. “Looks like he’s done with his homework, at any rate.”

  James followed his cousin’s gaze. Scorpius sat slouched in the high-back chair near the fireplace. He was idly flicking his wand, floating a bit of paper folded to resemble a bat. It bobbed and swooped easily.

  “Bloody show-off,” James grumbled under his breath.
>
  Cameron Creevey saw James looking. He stood and approached the table tentatively. “Hey, James! How was your first day?”

  “Lousy,” James griped. “You any good at Transfiguration, Cameron?”

  Cameron shook his head. “I haven’t even had my first class, sorry. I just wanted to ask you: is it true about last year? About the aligning of the planets and how you were there for Merlin’s return and all that stuff about how you sent that Muggle news fellow packing?”

  “Well,” James began, and then shrugged tiredly, “yeah, sure, I guess. It’s probably all true enough, but it wasn’t like it sounds. I was trying to stop Merlin’s return, you know. So really, it was all a big bust.”

  Cameron grinned, showing a lot of pink gums. “That’s totally excellent!” he exclaimed. “My dad, he’s Dennis Creevey, he went to school with your dad, Harry Potter, right?”

  “Sure, if you say so,” James agreed, smiling. The boy’s enthusiasm was rather contagious. “But I’m not like him, Cameron, really. I’m just a kid. See? No lightning bolt scar. Besides, I had loads of help.”

  “Yeah, I heard,” Cameron nodded. “Ralph Deedle, whose dad’s real name is Dolohov! Nobody saw that one coming, did they? Still, makes sense in hindsight. At least that’s what my dad says.”

  Rose smirked and pretended to read one of James’ books. James shook his head wonderingly. “Where did you get all this, Cameron?”

  “Oh, all the first-years have been talking about it. We can’t wait to see what you get up to this year!”

  James frowned. “This year?”

  “Sure!” Cameron enthused. “I mean, it’s just like in your dad’s day! Every year, he got in some great adventure, didn’t he? We’ve got all the old Daily Prophet articles at home as well as the novelizations. I know the books are a little exaggerated, but my dad, he was there for some of it, and he says they don’t even do the real stories justice. My favorite is the one about the Triwizard Tournament, especially the bits with the dragon!”