James Potter and the Curse of the Gatekeeper jp-1

by G. Norman Lippert

  “But it couldn’t have been him!” James insisted, looking to Ralph for support. “I mean, the thing in the swirling robe was obviously ten kinds of evil, and that bloke that showed up first had to have been an old Death Eater. I mean, it was Voldemort’s ruddy grave site!”

  “I’d appreciate it if yeh didn’t say that name at my table, James,” Hagrid said gently, setting a cup and saucer in front of him. His hands trembled slightly. “I know the battle’s long over, but old habits die hard, yeh unnerstand.”

  Rose stirred in her seat. “Hagrid, do you think it could’ve been Merlin we saw?”

  Hagrid poured steaming water into the cups before he answered. Finally, he settled himself onto one of the chairs, producing a strained creak. He looked hard at Rose, and then stirred his tea with surprising delicacy.

  “They say that the Headmaster’s a good man with a garden,” Hagrid said, as if changing the subject. “I don’t do a whole lot of readin’ myself o’ course, but everyone knows that Merlin the Great was a keen one for nature and plants and such. I been hearin’ stories about how he spoke to the birds an’ the trees since I was a wee lad. So when he came on as Headmaster early this summer, I thought I’d go up an’ make my acquaintance. I invited him to come down to the hut so I could show ‘im my own little garden. Next day, sure enough, he takes me up on the offer. He traipses all over the garden, not sayin’ the slightest thing. He just walks up and down, in and out, tapping that big staff o’ his on my pumpkins and squashes and cabbages. Finally, he looks up, out toward the Forest. I looks too, ‘cause there’s something rising up out of the trees.”

  Hagrid still had the teaspoon in his huge hand. Gently, he set it next to his saucer. He looked at James, Ralph, and Rose one by one. “It was a Djinn. Like a raven, but bigger; black as night with glowing red eyes I could see from where I stood. I’d never actually seen one before, but I knew of ‘em. Dark and mysterious creatures, they are; portents, according to legend. Very reclusive. I’d always been told they only come out at night, and if yeh see one on your path, it’s a sure sign to turn right back ‘round and run home, for the Djinn is s’posed to be a warning of horrible danger for those yeh love. Well, when I saw that black creature rise up out of the trees, I was about to call out to the Headmaster. But I knew he’d already seen it, an’ he didn’t seem any too worried about it. So I just watched. That black bird flew right over, wheeling once above the garden an’ coming to land right on top of one of my pumpkins, right there next to the Headmaster. An’ Merlin, he just watches it the whole time. The strangest thing was the way the two of ‘em looked at each other. They didn’t make any sounds, but it seemed to me plain as day that they was talking to each other somehow. After ‘bout a minute, that Djinn looks over at me in that funny way that birds do, with their heads turned aside so one eye is pointing right at yeh. That bright red eye stared me right down, an’ it was all I could do not to heave a rock at it like I was a scared kid.”

  Hagrid looked imploringly at the three students at his table. “I loves magical creatures,” he declared. “Dragons to Skrewts. Yeh lot know that s’well as anyone! I teach Care of Magical Creatures, fer goodness sakes. But that’s the way that ‘orrible bird made me feel. That glowing red eye just looked at me, an’ all I wanted was to put it out, make it so that it’d never look at anyone else ever again. It sent chills down me. Still does.”

  Hagrid stopped and finally took a sip of his tea. He cleared his throat and went on. “Finally, the thing took to flight again, flapping its great, greasy black wings. It flew back to the Forest and disappeared. The Headmaster watched it go, an’ then he walked back over to me, still tapping his staff on the ground. He gets next to me an’ turns back to the pumpkin patch, looking out over at the west corner. ‘You’ve been having a dead spell in that corner,’ he says to me. Well, it’s true an’ no denyin’. That west corner hasn’t raised more’n thorns and thistle for five, six years. ‘So I have,’ I says to ‘im. He looks me in the eye an’ says, ‘There’s a fox who died with all her young, buried in her den under that corner of your garden, Mr. Hagrid. The dead spell arises from their bones, crying for a morning that’ll never come. Dig them up, rebury them in the Forest, and sprinkle the earth with Sorrowshot powder. Professor Heretofore can provide some, with my compliments. That will end your trouble.’”

  Rose’s mouth was turned down in a grimace of dismay. “Did you do it, Hagrid?”

  Hagrid glanced up at her, raising his eyebrows. “Well, o’ course I did! Found them bones and no mistake! Did just as the Headmaster said, right down to the Sorrowshot powder. An’ you can see plain as day that it did the trick. That corner has my biggest Fiendscorn squash in it. A fine green Tigerstripe variety. You’ve seen it, o’ course. But the point is…”

  Hagrid stopped again and fiddled nervously with his teacup and saucer. He took another quick sip, as if to silence himself.

  “What, Hagrid?” Ralph asked, exasperated. “What’s the point?”

  Hagrid looked at him, as if struggling with whether to speak. Finally, he leaned slightly over the table and said in a low voice, “The point is it seems pretty plain to me that the Djinn told the Headmaster about that dead fox an’ ‘er young! The point is, not only are all the old stories true about Merlin the Great talkin’ to the trees and the birds, he even talks to the mystical creature-birds of the night! If that great black bird had shown its red eyes in my presence any other time, I’d have turned on my heel an’ run! But Merlin, he watches the thing fly over almost as if he called it, almost as if he knows it by its ruddy first name!”

  James listened with his mouth pressed into a thin line. Finally, he straightened in his chair and said as plainly as he dared, “That doesn’t mean he’s evil.”

  Hagrid blinked at him. “Well, o’ course not! Who said he was evil?”

  James was perplexed. “But you just said—”

  “Now hold on, James, an’ the rest of yeh. I want to be clear,” Hagrid said seriously. “All I’m saying is that the Headmaster comes from a much different time, a time that would probably scare the hair off most of us. He lived in that time and worked in it. It’s what he knows. Things that we would call evil an’ bad in this day and age, well… let’s just say things weren’t so black and white in the time he comes from. That isn’t to say that the Headmaster himself is bad. I’ve got every reason to trust him, and trust him I do! He’s just a wee bit… well, wild. If you take my meaning. That’s all.”

  “But Hagrid,” Rose exclaimed, “in the Mirror! We saw him with that… that awful thing in the swirling black cloak!”

  “If that was the Headmaster,” Hagrid replied stubbornly, “then he had a very good reason to be there. Yeh said yourself, Rose, that none of yeh could hear what the man said. Maybe he was confronting them. Maybe he was… well, I dunno, but the point is yeh dunno neither.”

  “That’s what I’ve been saying all along,” James said petulantly, glaring across the table at Rose.

  “Fact is,” Hagrid went on, “none of yeh know the slightest bit about what yeh was seeing from start to end. Yeh said Merlin told yeh that the Mirror showed the past and the future as well as far-off places, didn’ya? Maybe what yeh were seeing wasn’t even from the here’n now. Did yeh think o’ that?”

  “Actually,” Ralph said thoughtfully, “no, we hadn’t.”

  “But the gravesite!” Rose insisted. “That wasn’t from a long time ago! Volde—er, He Who Must Not Be Named hasn’t been dead all that long! But his grave was all covered with moss and vines, so it couldn’t have been from the past…”

  “Let it go, Rose,” Ralph shrugged. “You might be right, but what would we do about it anyway? All we can do is hope Merlin’s as good as his word, like Hagrid says. If he is, we don’t have anything to worry about. If he’s not… well, what are we going to do against a bloke that can make the earth open up and swallow whole armies?”

  Rose fumed but didn’t respond.

/>   A short while later, the trio finished their teas and bid Hagrid goodbye. As they left, James peered over into the west corner of the garden. Sure enough, a very large orange-and purple-striped squash rested there on its bed of leaves, still glistening with last night’s rain.

  “I don’t care what anyone says,” Rose said gravely as they skirted the Whomping Willow, “I don’t trust him. He’s not what he says he is.”

  “As much as I don’t agree with Rose,” Ralph answered, “this whole thing does make our new Defence Club seem all the more important.”

  “How so?” James asked.

  “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? If what we saw in the Mirror was true and was from the present day, then it means some really bad stuff might be coming. We might actually have an enemy to fight. I, for one, want to be ready for that.”

  “Ralph,” Rose said in a different voice, “if I didn’t find you generally thick as a brick, I’d be impressed by that.”

  Ralph blushed a little. “Thanks, I guess.”

  As they rounded a stand of bushes on the far side of the Whomping Willow, they ran into Noah, Damien, and Gennifer Tellus, the Ravenclaw Gremlin. The three were crouched just out of range of the branches, studying the gnarled tree trunk. The branches of the Willow shifted and twitched, sensing their presence but not quite able to reach them.

  “Hey,” Ralph called as they approached the hunkered Gremlins, “we got permission to start the new Defence Club—”

  “Shh!” Noah hissed, raising a hand. “Hold on a minute.”

  James, Rose, and Ralph crept up behind the three Gremlins, who were rasping at each other tensely.

  “A little lower,” Damien hissed. “It’s the big one that looks like an Adam’s apple on a really skinny bloke.”

  Noah shook his head. “We tried that one time before last! I keep telling you it’s on the other side, facing away from the castle. I remember from last year, with Ted.”

  Gennifer held a long stick. Biting her tongue in concentration, she held it out, reaching toward the tree trunk with the stick’s tip. The tree leaned slightly and, almost lazily, whiplashed a branch at the stick. Gennifer exclaimed painfully as the stick was wrenched from her hand. It spun off into the thickets and the Willow relaxed again, almost smugly.

  “I told you to hold it lower!” Noah exclaimed, stepping away from the tree and straightening.

  “Look, you want to give it a go?” Gennifer replied, looking back over her shoulder. “Be my guest. But you’ll need to go find yourself yet another stick.”

  “I can’t help if you have longer arms than me,” Noah proclaimed. “It’s not my fault you’ve got the reach of a weregorilla.”

  “I’ve got another stick,” Damien said patiently. “Here, give it another go, Gen. We’ll hit it eventually.”

  James watched as Gennifer reached carefully toward the tree trunk again. The Willow swung its branches, feeling for the stick but not quite reaching it this time. James asked Noah, “What’s this all about?”

  “Secret passage, possibly,” Noah answered, wiping moisture and grass clippings from his hands. “We’ve been coming out and testing it every year since I first came. It was Ted’s idea. Hit the right knot on the trunk and the tree goes tame enough to get inside.”

  Rose’s eyes brightened. “It leads to a secret passageway? But I thought all the old secret passages had been sealed off?”

  “Well, there’s sealed off and there’s sealed off,” Noah replied. “Thing is, Hogwarts being as magical as it is, the passages have ways of opening back up on their own after a while. Either that or new ones get discovered nearby. Petra discovered the Lokimagus passage just down the hall from the statue of the OneEyed Witch, and that statue was supposed to lead to a secret passage back in your parents’ day.”

  “I remember Mum talking about that one,” Rose agreed. “She said it went down to Hogsmeade. I was hoping that one still worked. I wanted to see Hogsmeade myself this year even though first-years aren’t allowed to go on Hogsmeade weekends.”

  “Ahh, Hogsmeade,” Noah sighed. “Making miscreants out of model students for as long as I can remember. Ted works down there now, at Weasleys’. We plan on getting him to buy us Butterbeers at the Triple Sticks when we go. All of us except Petra, of course.”

  “What’s going on with Petra?” James asked suddenly.

  Noah glanced at James. “Oh, nothing major. She just doesn’t want to go because she and Ted used to be a bit of an item. Apparently, it all came to an end when Ted started seeing Victoire. They kept it secret most of the summer, but now the whole world knows about it. Somebody blabbed about it back at King’s Cross.”

  “I didn’t blab!” James exclaimed before he could stop himself. “Ted told me to tell! He wanted to get the word out but didn’t want to make a big thing of it!”

  “That was you?” Gennifer said, peering back at James over her shoulder.

  James rolled his eyes. “So that’s what Petra’s all upset about?”

  “She hasn’t said so,” Noah said, sighing. “Who can tell? She and Ted were never all that serious, if you ask me. I admit I expected her to end it first, though. Ted’s just a bit too wild for a girl like Petra. She needs a different kind of man.”

  “A man whose initials are N. M., you think?” Damien called, grinning.

  James felt his face heat. It bothered him that he might have inadvertently caused Petra’s melancholy by revealing Ted and Victoire’s relationship, even if Ted had asked him to do it. For some reason, it also bothered him that Noah might be interested in taking Ted’s place. Nonchalantly, James asked Noah, “What kind of man does a girl like Petra want?”

  Noah shrugged. “Well, Petra’s smart. Smarter than most people know. She’s going places. She needs a bloke who can hunker down and take life seriously with her. Ted, he’s great and we all love him, but he’s not the take-life-seriously type.”

  Rose interjected, “I heard Petra might get the part of Astra in the play. She’d be great for the role with her long dark hair and blue eyes.”

  Noah nodded. “If she can get her head around it. It’s down to her and Josephina Bartlett, and Josephina really wants that part.”

  “It’s just the thing Petra needs to get her mind off of Ted Lupin,” Rose said emphatically. “She’s prettier than Josephina any day of the week. I’ll help her prepare for the role if I can. She has one more audition, doesn’t she?”

  “Later this week,” Noah agreed. “I hope she gets it. I’m still hoping to land the part of Donovan.”

  “And Donovan and Astra get to dance,” Damien sang mistily.

  “That’s nothing,” Noah replied. “Astra and Treus kiss at the end of the play, and the script calls it ‘the kiss of true and everlasting love’.”

  “They won’t really kiss,” Rose said, shaking her head. “In plays, they just press their cheeks together with their heads turned. The audience just thinks they’re kissing.”

  “Close enough for me,” Noah muttered. “How we doing with that secret knot, Tellus?”

  “Don’t hassle the maestro while she’s working…,” Damien said, still hunkered down next to Gennifer. The Willow was growing restless. Its trunk creaked ominously as it leaned, trying to lower its branches to walloping distance. Gennifer’s stick weaved nervously near the leaning trunk.

  Ralph was looking apprehensively at the big, swaying tree. “So you’ve already been down in the secret passage beneath the Whomping Willow? Where does it go?”

  “As of last year, nowhere,” Noah admitted. “It was all blocked off by a cave-in after a little way. That’s why it never occurred to us to mark the secret knot. Still, it always seems like it’d have been a good idea when we come back the next year.”

  “We can’t mark the knot,” Gennifer said through gritted teeth. “Otherwise, everyone would be able to use it. We have to just… remember it… there!”

  Gennifer jabbed the stick at the trunk, hitting a large knot near one
of the tree’s twisted roots. The tree suddenly straightened and went still.

  “Come on!” Noah cried, bolting toward the tree. “We don’t have long!”

  James threw a look at Rose, then Ralph. Simultaneously, all three turned and ran toward the tree, following the three Gremlins. Gennifer was the first to reach the trunk. She ducked and threw herself forward, disappearing into a deep crack between two enormous roots. Damien and Noah followed. James hoped there was room inside for six since he was the last in. As Ralph scrambled into the narrow space, James glanced up. He’d never been this close to the Whomping Willow before and it looked huge and deadly as it loomed over him. As he watched, its branches began to move again. The trunk groaned ominously as it reanimated, angry and looking for something to whomp. James ducked and threw himself into the crack between the roots just as a branch swung past him, buffeting him with its passage.

  “Wow,” Gennifer said, clambering up, “six people with one knot push! I’d say that’s a new record. Everybody all right?”

  “I’ll be fine when James gets off my back,” Rose complained, grunting.

  “Sorry, Rose. I didn’t have time to look where I was landing.”

  Noah lit his wand and held it up. The space was low, ceilinged with the massive roots of the Whomping Willow. A stone-walled passage led down into darkness. The Gremlins began to descend it, followed closely by James, Rose, and Ralph. After about thirty paces, the group came to a halt. In the lead, Noah held his wand higher, whistling through his teeth.

  “Eureka,” Damien said excitedly.

  “What?” Rose exclaimed, standing on her toes to see over James’ shoulder. “I can’t see! What is it?”

  “Hogwarts finds a way,” Gennifer replied. “It looks like there was a flood down here last spring. Washed a bunch of the dirt and gravel away. Look, there’s room to squeeze through if you don’t mind getting dirty.”