James smiled proudly as he folded and sealed the letter. He’d debated about the best way to announce his house to Mum and Dad (and everybody else, since they’d all be waiting to hear about it from his parents), and had decided that just saying it straight up would be best. Anything else would have seemed either too casual or unnecessarily grand.
“Hey, Nobby,” James whispered. The bird raised its head halfway, revealing one great orange eye. “Got a message for you to deliver. How about a nice fly home, hmm?”
Nobby stretched, ruffled his feathers so that he seemed to double in size for a moment, and then stuck out his leg. James opened Nobby’s cage and attached the letter. The owl sidled carefully to the window, unfolded his wings, hunched, and then launched himself easily into the bright daylight beyond the window. James, feeling almost absurdly happy, watched until Nobby was a speck between the distant blue mountain peaks. Whistling, he turned and ran noisily down the stairs.
He had lunch at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall and then met up afterwards with Zane and Ralph as the rest of the school began to assemble in the main courtyard. A small student orchestra had assembled to play the American national anthem upon the arrival of the United States delegation. The cacophony as they tuned their instruments was deafening. Zane commented with conviction that it was the first time he’d ever heard The Star-Spangled Banner played on bagpipes and accordion. Students milled and congregated, filling the courtyard. Finally, Professor Longbottom and another professor who James didn’t know yet began to move among the crowd, pressing the students into orderly arrangements along the walls. James, Zane, and Ralph found themselves near the great front gates, watching for the arrival of the Americans with growing anticipation. James remembered the stories his parents had told of the arrival of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang delegations back when the Triwizard Tournament had been held at Hogwarts: the gigantic horses and flying carriage of the one and the mysterious submarine galleon of the other. He couldn’t help wondering how the Americans might choose to arrive.
The gathered throng watched and waited, voices hushed. The student orchestra stood on a small tiered grandstand, instruments held at the ready, blinking in the hazy afternoon sunlight. Headmistress McGonagall and the rest of the teaching staff stood, watching the sky, arranged along the portico which led into the main hall.
Finally, someone pointed and voices called out. All eyes turned, straining. James squinted into the golden haze over the distant mountain peaks. A dot resolved, growing larger as it approached. As he watched, two more became visible, closely following the first. Sounds drifted into the courtyard, apparently coming from the approaching objects. James glanced at Zane, who shrugged, obviously mystified. The sound was a low, droning roar, growing quickly louder. The objects must have been moving at a great speed because they were already swooping down, taking on shape as they approached the courtyard. The sound of them became lower, vibrating, a beating thrum as of giant insect wings. James watched as the objects slowed appreciably, lowering to meet their shadows on the courtyard lawn.
“Cool!” Zane called out over the sound of them. “They’re cars!”
James had heard about his grandfather Weasley’s enchanted Ford Anglia, flown once by his dad and Uncle Ron to Hogwarts, where it took refuge in the Forbidden Forest and was never seen again. These weren’t like that at all. One difference was that, unlike the photos James had seen of the Anglia, these cars were shiny and immaculate, with chrome accents throwing darts of sunlight all around the courtyard. The other difference, which produced a sustained sigh of appreciation from the gathered Hogwartians, was the wings which folded out of the rear half of each vehicle. They were exactly like giant insect wings, thrumming loudly, catching the sunlight in blurring rainbow-colored fans.
“That’s a Dodge Hornet!” Zane called, pointing at the first one as it landed. Its front wheels touched down first and rolled slightly forward as the rest of the car settled behind them. It had two doors, and was a fierce yellow color, with long wasplike wings. The second, according to Zane, who seemed to be an expert on the subject, was a Stutz Dragonfly. It was bottle-green, low and long, with swooping fenders and chrome pipes curling from its tapered hood. Its wings were also long and tapered, making a deep, beating drone James could feel in his chest. Finally, the last one landed, and James didn’t need Zane to identify it. Even he knew what a Volkswagen Beetle was. Its bulbous body rocked back and forth as the flaming red car descended, its stubby wings thrumming underneath two hard outer wings which were unfolded from the back of the car just like a real beetle. It settled onto its wheels as if they were landing gear, and the wings stopped thrumming, folded delicately, and disappeared beneath the hard outer wings, which closed over them.
The Hogwartians erupted into a great, exhilarated cheer at the same moment that the orchestra began to play the anthem. Behind James, a girl’s voice scoffed over the noise, “Americans and their machines.”
Zane turned to her. “That last one’s German. I’d have thought you’d known that.” He grinned at her, then turned away, enjoying the applause.
As the Hogwarts band plodded its way through the anthem, the doors of the cars opened and the American delegation began to emerge. Three identically dressed adult wizards appeared first, one from each car. They wore dark, thigh-length grey-green cloaks, black vests over high white collars, and loose grey pants that gathered just above their white socks and shiny black shoes. They stood for half a minute, blinking and frowning about them as if surveying the crowd. Apparently satisfied with the security level of the courtyard, the men stepped away from the open doors of each vehicle and assumed guard positions nearby. James could see a bit into the open door of the nearest car, the Beetle, and wasn’t surprised at the disproportionately large and sumptuous interior. Figures moved inside, and then the view was blocked as they began to climb out of the car.
The number of figures that emerged from the cars surprised even James, who’d camped inside wizard tents on many occasions and knew how flexible wizard spaces could be. Porters in burgundy cloaks moved to the boots of each vehicle, producing small flat carts and unloading innumerable trunks and cases onto them, forming dizzying, swaying piles. Young wizards and witches in surprisingly casual robes, some even wearing jeans and sunglasses, began to fill the center of the courtyard. Official-looking adult witches and wizards followed, their light grey cloaks and charcoal tunics identifying them as the members of the American Department of Magical Administration. They gravitated, smiling, hands outstretched, toward the portico, where Headmistress McGonagall and the staff were descending to meet them.
The last to emerge from the cars were also adults, although their variety of dress and ages implied they were neither department officials nor students. James guessed these were the teachers of Alma Aleron, the American wizarding school. There appeared to be one per car. The one nearest, climbing from the Beetle, was as stout as a barrel, with long grey hair parted to frame a pleasant, blocky face. He wore tiny, square glasses and smiled with an air of vaguely arrogant benevolence at the Hogwartians. Something about him rang a faint bell in James’ memory, but he couldn’t quite place it. James turned, looking for the second professor, and found him emerging from the Stutz Dragonfly. He was very tall, white-haired, with a long, grey face, unsmiling and severe. He surveyed the crowd, his bushy black eyebrows working on the slab of his forehead like a pair of caterpillars. A porter appeared next to him and held out a black leather case. Without looking, the professor grasped the handles of the case in a great knobby-knuckled hand and moved forward, approaching the portico like a ship under full sail.
“I’m making it my New Year’s resolution to avoid any classes with that guy,” Zane said gravely. Ralph and James nodded.
James found the third professor from Alma Aleron just as she was climbing slowly, imperiously out of the Dodge Hornet. She raised herself to her full height and turned her head slowly, as if examining each face in the crowd. James gasped, and without thinking, ducke
d down behind Ralph’s bulky form as her gaze moved over the crowd. Carefully, he peeked over Ralph’s shoulder.
“What’re you doing?” Ralph asked, straining to see James out of the corner of his eye.
James squinted through the crowd over Ralph’s shoulder. The woman wasn’t looking at him at all. She didn’t appear to be looking at anything, precisely, despite the scrutinizing expression on her face. “That tall lady over there. The one with the scarf tied down over her head. I saw her the other night on the lake!”
Zane stood on tiptoe. “The one over there that looks like a gypsy mummy?”
“Yeah,” James said, suddenly feeling foolish. The scarfed lady looked a lot older than he remembered. Her eyes were a dull grey, her dark face bony and lined. A porter handed her a large wooden cane and she accepted it with a nod. She began to make her way across the crowded courtyard slowly, tapping the cane ahead of her as if feeling her way.
“Looks to me like she’s blind as the proverbial bat,” Zane said doubtfully. “Maybe it was an alligator you saw in the lake instead of her. It’d be an easy mistake.”
“You guys know who that other teacher is?” Ralph suddenly interjected in a low, awed voice, indicating the stout man in the square spectacles. “That’s…! That’s…! He’s the five… no! Wait, the fifty…!” he babbled.
Zane looked at the portico, frowning. “The little dude with the John Lennon glasses and the weird little ruffled collar?”
“Yes!” Ralph rasped excitedly, beckoning to Zane as if trying to pull the man’s name out of his head. “That’s… oh, whossname! He’s money!”
“How surprisingly hip of you to say so, Ralph,” Zane said, slapping Ralph on the back.
Just then, Professor McGonagall touched her wand to her throat and spoke, magnifying her voice so that it echoed throughout the courtyard. “Students, faculty and staff of Hogwarts, please join me in welcoming the representatives of Alma Aleron and the United States Department of Magical Administration.”
Another burst of perfunctory applause filled the courtyard. Someone in the student orchestra, mistaking the announcement as a cue, began to play the American anthem again. Three or four other musicians joined in, hurriedly trying to catch up, before they were silenced by Professor Flitwick’s frantic waving.
“Esteemed guests of Hogwarts,” the Headmistress continued, nodding at the crowd of newcomers, “thank you for joining us. We all look greatly forward to a year of mutual learning and cultural exchange with such long-standing and steadfast allies as our friends from the United States. And now, representatives from Alma Aleron, if you would be so kind as to step forward so that we may introduce you to your new pupils.”
James assumed that the tall professor with the steely features would be the leader, but this was not so. The stout wizard with the square glasses approached the portico and bowed gallantly to the Headmistress. He turned and addressed the crowd without using his wand, his clear tenor voice carrying expertly, as if speaking in public was something he was quite used to.
“Students of Hogwarts, faculty and friends, thank you for such a warm welcome. We’ve come to expect no less, though I assure you that we require nothing so grand.” He smiled and winked to the crowd. “We are thrilled to be a part of your schooling this year, and let me assure you that the learning will certainly go both ways. I could, at this point, stand up here in the sun and regale you with endlessly impressive anecdotes of all the assorted similarities and differences between the European and American magical worlds, and I promise that such a diatribe would be, of course, endlessly engaging…” Again, the smile and the feeling of a mutual, inside joke. “But, as I can see that my own delegation of students are eager to rid themselves as quickly as possible of our administration for the afternoon, I can only assume that the same is true of our new Hogwarts friends. Thus, I shall merely provide the necessary introductions so that you may know who will be teaching what, and then release you all to your assorted devices.”
“I like this guy already,” James heard Ted say from somewhere behind him.
“In no particular order,” the stout wizard called out, “let me introduce Mr. Theodore Hirshall Jackson, Professor of Technomancy and Applied Magic. He is also a three-star general in the Salem-Dirgus Free Militia, so I’d advise you all to call him ‘sir’ as many times as possible whenever you address him.”
Professor Jackson’s face was as impassive as granite, as if he had long since grown impervious to his associate’s joking. He bowed slowly and gracefully, his chin raised and his dark eyes hovering somewhere over the crowd.
“Next to him,” the stout professor continued, gesturing expansively with one arm, “Professor of Divination, Advanced Enchantments, and Remote Parapsychology, Desdemona Delacroix. She also makes a rather, er, intimidatingly delicious gumbo, although you’ll consider yourselves very fortunate indeed if you are allowed to taste it.”
The dark woman with the scarf over her hair smiled at the speaker, and the smile transformed her face from that of a skeletal hag to something resembling a desiccated but pleasantly mischievous grandmother. She turned and her blind eyes roved, unfocussed, over the crowd, crinkling as she smiled. James wondered how he could have thought that blind, milky gaze had been the same one he’d seen piercing him through the darkness across the lake the evening before. Besides, she’d just arrived, he reasoned. She couldn’t even have been there the night before.
“And finally,” the stout professor said, “last and, quite possibly, least, allow me to introduce myself.
Your new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, head of the Alma Aleron debate team, and unofficial, but very willing, wizard chess contender, Benjamin Amadeus Franklyn, at your service.” He bowed deeply, arms wide, his stringy grey hair drooping.
“That’s who I was trying to think of!” Ralph whispered harshly. “He’s on your money, you goon!” He elbowed Zane in the ribs, nearly knocking the smaller boy off his feet.
Minutes later, James, Zane, and Ralph were pounding up the stairs toward the Ravenclaw common room.
“Benjamin Franklin?” Zane repeated disbelievingly. “That can’t be the original Ben Franklin. He’d be…” He thought for a moment, frowning. “Well, I don’t know how old, but he’d be really, really old. Crazy old. Older than McGonagall even. No way.”
Ralph wheezed, trying to keep up. “I’m telling you, I think these wizard types-us wizard types--have ways of sticking around for a long time. It’s not all that surprising when you think about it. Ben Franklin almost seems like a wizard when you read about him in the Muggle history books. I mean, the guy caught lightning with a key on a kite string.”
James was thoughtful. “I remember my Aunt Hermione telling me about some old wizard they learned about in their first year. Nicholas Flannel or something. He’d made a sort of stone that made him live forever, or close to it. Of course, it was the sort of thing that always seemed to be falling into the wrong hands, so eventually he destroyed it and ended up dying just like everybody else. Still, I think there probably are lots of ways for witches and wizards to prolong life for a long time, even without Flannel’s stone.”
“Maybe you should get his autograph on one of your hundred dollar bills,” Ralph mused to Zane.
“I don’t have any hundreds. I gave my last five to that elf doorman downstairs. It was all I had.”
“He wasn’t a doorman!” James tried again to convince Zane.
“Well? He got the door for us,” Zane said placidly.
“Ralph knocked him over when he shoved it open! He wasn’t trying to open it for us!” “Well, I’m out of money anyway. I just hope the service doesn’t suffer.”
Zane stopped in front of the door to the Ravenclaw common room. The eagle door knocker spoke in a high, trilling voice. “What is the significance of the hat in magical mastery?”
“Ahh, sheesh, these are supposed to be the easy ones,” Zane complained.
“Are you sure it’s all right for us to go i
n there?” Ralph said, shuffling his feet. “What’re the rules for hanging out in common rooms other than your own?”
“There aren’t any rules about it that I know of,” James said. “I just don’t think people do it much.” This didn’t seem to ease Ralph’s mind. He looked up and down the corridor fretfully.
“The hat… the hat…,” Zane mumbled, staring at his shoes. “Hat, hat, hat. Rabbit out of a hat. You pull things out of a hat. It’s probably like a metaphor or something. You wear a hat on your head… your brain’s in your head, under the hat. Ummm…”
He snapped his fingers and looked up at the eagle door knocker. “You can’t pull anything out of a hat that you haven’t already put in your head?”
“Crude, but close enough,” the door knocker replied. The door clicked and swung open.
“Wow!” James said, following Zane into the common room. “And your parents are Muggles?”
“Well, like I said, my dad makes movies, and my mom has E.S.P. about anything I try to sneak past her, so I assume I am unusually prepared for the magical world,” Zane said in an offhand manner. “So this is the Ravenclaw common room. Not an electric light or a Coke machine in sight. We do have a really cool statue, though, and a talking fireplace. Saw my dad in it last night. He’s adapting to all of this a little too well, if you ask me.”
Zane toured them through the Ravenclaw rooms, apparently making up details whenever he didn’t know them. Ralph and Zane tried to teach James how to play gin rummy with a deck of Muggle playing cards, but James couldn’t get interested in King, Queen and Jack cards that didn’t actually attack one another. When they got bored, Ralph took them to the Slytherin common room, leading them through a maze of dark, torch-lit cellar passages. They stopped at a large door that dominated the end of a corridor. Set in the middle of the door was a brass sculpture of a coiling snake, its wedge-shaped head protruding menacingly, open-mouthed.
James Potter and the Hall of Elders' Crossing Page 6
