James Potter and the Hall of Elders' Crossing

by G. Norman Lippert

  As he entered the common room, he stopped and looked around. Ralph and Zane were there, sitting with the rest of the Gremlins around the table by the window. They all looked up.

  “There’s our little alien,” Zane said happily. “We’re trying to work your broom-handling skills into the routine. What do you think of a Roswell crash kinda gig? Ralph’s got his wand all ready to catch you.”

  Ralph wiggled his wand and smiled sheepishly. James rolled his eyes and went to join them.

  James awoke late Monday morning. He ran into the Great Hall hoping to grab a piece of toast before Transfiguration class and met Ralph and Zane, who were just coming out.

  “No time, mate,” Ralph said, hooking James’ arm and turning him around. “Can’t be late to first class. McGonagall teaches it and I’ve heard bad, bad things about what she does to tardy students.”

  James sighed and trotted along with them through the noisy, busy corridors. “I hope she doesn’t do terrible things to students whose stomachs growl during class as well.”

  Zane handed something to James as they walked. “Check that out when you get a chance. I already showed it to Ralphie and it blew his mind, didn’t it? I’ve marked the spot for you.” It was a thick, bedraggled book. The cover was clothbound in frayed fabric that had once probably been red. The pages were yellowed, threatening to fall out of the binding in chunks.

  “What is it?” James said, unable to read the embossed title, which was ghostly faint with age. “Between Jackson and Flitwick, I’ve got enough reading to last me until next term.”

  “You’ll be interested in this, believe me. It’s the Book of Parallel Histories, Volume Seven,” Zane said. “I got it from the Ravenclaw library. Just read the section I marked.”

  “Ravenclaw has a private library?” Ralph asked, struggling to wrestle his Transfiguration textbook out of his overstuffed backpack.

  “Do you Slytherins have dragons’ heads on your walls?” Zane shrugged. “Sure. To each his own.”

  As they filed toward the Transfiguration classroom, they passed through a cluster of students standing beside the door. Several of them wore the blue ‘Question the Victors’ badges. More and more students seemed to be wearing them as the days went by. Signs on some of the bulletin boards had identified the badges as the mark of a club called the ‘Progressive Element’. James was dismayed to see that not all of the students wearing them were Slytherins.

  “Your dad’s coming today, eh, Potter?” an older boy called out, smiling crookedly. “Going to have a little meeting with his cronies from the States?”

  James stopped and looked at the speaker. “He’s coming today, yeah,” he said, his cheeks going red. “But I don’t know what you mean about his ‘cronies’. He hasn’t even met the Americans before. Maybe you should read a little before you open your mouth.”

  “Oh, we’ve been reading, believe me,” the boy replied, his smile disappearing. “More than you and your father would like us to be, I’m sure. Your kind can’t hide the truth forever.”

  “Hide the truth?” James said, anger overcoming his caution. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Read the badges, Potter. You know exactly what we’re talking about,” the boy said, hoisting his backpack and moving casually down the hall with his friends. “And if you don’t, you’re even stupider than you look.” He turned his back on James.

  James blinked in anger and amazement. “What was that all about?”

  Ralph sighed. “Come on, let’s get a seat. I’ll tell you, although I don’t understand much of it myself.”

  But they had no time to discuss it before class. Headmistress McGonagall, who had taught Transfiguration to James’ mum and dad, taught it still, and with apparently the same degree of businesslike briskness. She explained the basic wand motions and commands, illustrating by transforming a book into a herring sandwich. She even asked one of the students, a boy named Carson, to eat a portion of the sandwich. Afterward, she transformed the sandwich back into the book and showed the class that the book still bore the bite marks Carson had made. There were sounds of awe and amusement. Carson looked at the bitten chunks and pressed his hand to his stomach, a look of thoughtful dismay on his face. Near the end of class, McGonagall instructed the students to produce their wands and practice the motions and commands on a banana, which they were to attempt to transfigure into a peach.

  “ Persica Alteramus, emphasis on first syllables only. Don’t expect to make much progress your first time,” she called over the noise of the students’ attempts. “If you produce even a banana with a hint of peach fuzz, we will consider that a success for today. Do be careful, Miss Majaris! Small circular flicks only, please!”

  Zane stared furiously at his banana and flicked his wand at it. “Persica Alteramus!” There was no apparent change. He pressed his lips together. “Let’s see you try, James.”

  Shrugging, James raised his wand and flicked it, speaking the command. The banana flopped over, but remained decidedly a banana.

  “Maybe they’re transforming on the inside,” Zane said hopefully. “Maybe we should peel it and see if it’s all peachy in there, eh?”

  James thought about it, and then shook his head. They both tried again. Ralph watched. “More wrist movement. You guys look like you’re directing jetliners.”

  “So easy to criticize, so hard to create,” Zane said between attempts. “Let’s see you have a go, Ralphinator.”

  Ralph seemed reluctant to try. He fingered his wand, keeping it under the edge of the desk.

  “Come on, Ralph,” James said. “You’ve been pretty excellent at wandwork so far. What are you worried about?”

  “Nothing,” Ralph said, a little defensively. “I don’t know.”

  “Rats!” Zane said, dropping his wand arm and grabbing the banana with the other. He plunked his wand onto the table and pointed the banana at it. “Maybe I’d have better luck doing it this way, you think?”

  James and Ralph stared at him. He rolled his eyes. “Oh, sheesh, come on Ralph. Make with the peach. You know you can do it. What are you waiting for?”

  Ralph grimaced, then sighed and raised his gigantic wand. He flicked it lightly at his banana and said the command flatly, almost as if he was trying to get it wrong. There was a flash and a noise like a pine knot exploding in a fireplace. The rest of the class heard the noise and glanced over at Ralph. A puff of heavy smoke lingered on the table in front of Ralph, who had pushed back from it, his eyes wide and troubled. As the smoke dissipated, James leaned in. Ralph’s banana was still lying there, completely untouched.

  “Well,” Zane said into the sudden silence, “that was a whole lotta--”

  A small, squishy noise came from Ralph’s banana. The peel split slowly and began to separate, opening like a pulpy yellow flower. There was a prolonged gasp from the students as a green tendril grew out of the center of the peeling banana. It seemed to sniff the air as it grew, twisting and lengthening like a vine. The tendril began to straighten as it rose, snaking up from the table with a graceful, writhing motion. More tendrils came out of the banana. They spread along the surface in a starburst pattern, found the edges of the table, and curled under them, gripping tightly. Branches began to separate from the main shoot as it grew, thickening and turning lighter, until it was a woody, yellowish grey. Foliage sprouted from the branches in great, sudden bursts, growing from tender shoots to full leaf in a matter of seconds. Finally, as the tree reached a height of about four feet, there came a series of soft pops. Half a dozen peaches sprouted from the ends of the lower branches, weighing them down. Each one was fuzzy, plump, and pristine.

  James tore his glance away from the tree and looked around the room. Every eye was on the perfect little peach tree Ralph had conjured, mouths dropped open, wand hands still frozen in mid-flick. Headmistress McGonagall stared at the tree intently, her mouth a frown of complete surprise. Then motion returned to the room. Everyone exhaled and spontaneous, awed applause brok
e out.

  “He’s mine!” Zane called, standing and throwing an arm around Ralph’s shoulders. “I saw him first!” Ralph broke his eyes away from the tree, looked at Zane and smiled rather blankly. But James remembered the look on Ralph’s face when the tree was growing. He hadn’t been smiling then.

  Moments later, in the corridor outside, Zane spoke through a mouthful of peach. “Seriously, Ralph. You’re creeping me out a bit, here. That’s some serious wizarding you’ve got going on. What’s the deal?”

  Ralph smiled his uncertain, worried smile again. “Well, actually…”

  James looked at Ralph. “What? Tell, Ralph!”

  “All right,” he said, stopping and pulling them into a windowed alcove. “But this is just a guess, right?”

  James and Zane nodded enthusiastically, gesturing for Ralph to go on.

  “I’ve been practicing a lot with some of the other Slytherins at night, you know,” Ralph explained. “Just the basic stuff. They’ve been teaching me a few things. Disarming Spells and some tricks and pranks, stuff to pull on your enemies.”

  “What enemies have you got already, Ralph?” Zane asked incredulously, licking peach juice from his fingers.

  Ralph flapped his hand impatiently. “You know, just average enemies. It’s just the way the guys in my house talk. Anyway, they say I’m better than average. They think I’m not really just a plain old Muggle kid who got some random magic genes. They think maybe one of my parents is from one of the great wizarding families and just don’t know it.”

  “Seems like a pretty big thing not to know, doesn’t it?” James said doubtfully. “I mean, you said your dad made Muggle computer stuff, didn’t you?”

  “Well, yeah, him,” Ralph said dismissively, and then dropped his voice. “But my mum… I didn’t tell you guys she was dead, did I? No,” he answered himself. “Of course not. Well, she is. She died when I was really little. I never even knew her. What if she was a witch? I mean, what if she was from one of the great old pureblood wizarding families and my dad never even knew it? It happens, you know. Magic types fall in love with Muggles and can never tell them the secret their whole lives. Pureblood types don’t like it, I guess, but still…” He trailed off and looked back and forth at Zane and James.

  “Well,” James said slowly, “sure. I guess it’s possible. Stranger things have happened.” Zane raised his eyebrows, considering. “Would explain a lot, wouldn’t it? Maybe you’re, like, a prince or something. Maybe you’re an heir to fabulous riches and power and stuff!”

  Ralph grimaced and stepped out of the alcove. “Let’s not get carried away. It’s just a guess, like I said.”

  James walked with Zane and Ralph until it was time for his next class. Neither of the other two had Herbology class with him, so he told them he’d see them that afternoon and struck off across the grounds toward the greenhouses.

  Professor Longbottom greeted James by name as he entered, smiling warmly. James had always liked Neville, even though he was much quieter and thoughtful than his dad or Uncle Ron. James knew the stories of how Neville had fought back during his last year of school, when Voldemort had taken over the Ministry and Hogwarts had been under his control. In the end, Neville had been the one to cut off the head of the great snake, Nagini, Voldemort’s last link to immortality. Still, it was hard to imagine the gaunt and rather clumsy professor doing such things as he arranged pots and planters on the table at the front of the greenhouse classroom.

  “Herbology is--” Neville began, gesturing and knocking over one of the smaller pots. He interrupted himself, righting the pot quickly, spilling dirt onto his papers. He looked up and smiled in a harried sort of way. “Herbology is the study of… well, herbs, of course. As you can see.” He nodded to the greenhouse at large, which was packed with hundreds of plants and trees, all growing in a bewildering variety of containers. James thought Professor Longbottom would probably be quite interested in examining the peach tree currently growing on the Transfiguration room table.

  “Herbs are the root, er, so to speak, of much of the most fundamental practices of magic. Potions, medicine, wand construction, even many charms, all rely on the essential cultivation and processing of magical plants. In this class, we will be studying the many uses of some of our most important vegetable resources, from the lowly bubotuber to the rare Mimbulus mimbletonia.”

  Out of the corner of James’ eye, he saw something moving. A plant was spreading a vine along a windowsill next to a first-year girl, who was furiously scribbling the names Neville was listing off. The vine separated from the windowsill, tapped lightly along her back, then curled into her earring. The girl’s eyes widened and she dropped her quill as the vine began to pull.

  “Ow! Ow, ow, ow!” she cried, scrambling sideways off her chair and clapping a hand to her ear. Neville looked around, saw the girl and came bounding towards her.

  “Yes, grab the vine, Miss Patonia! That’s right.” He reached her and began to carefully extract the vine from her earring. It twisted slowly as he pried it loose. “You’ve discovered our Larcenous ligulous, or rather, it has discovered you. I apologize for not warning you before you sat down. Bred by pirates several hundred years ago because of its innate attraction to sparkly objects, which it uses to magnify sunlight for photosynthetic purposes. Nearly extinct, after having been systematically hunted and burned during the Purges.” Neville found the base of the plant and wrapped the vine methodically around it, pinning its tip into the dirt with a diamond topped hoop. Patonia rubbed her ear and stared at the vine as if she’d like to do some burning of her own.

  Neville returned to the front table and began talking the class through the long line of potted plants he’d arranged there. James yawned. The heat of the greenhouse was making him rather drowsy. In an attempt to stay awake, James reached to get his parchment and quill from his backpack. His hand bumped the book Zane had given him. He pulled it out, along with his parchments, and cradled it in his lap. When he was sure Neville had descended deep enough into talking about his favorite subject not to notice, James opened the book to where Zane had marked it. His interest was immediately piqued by the heading at the top of the page: Feodre Austramaddux. He leaned over the book and read quickly.

  Proponent of Reverse Precognition, or the art of recording history through counter-chronological divination, the Seer and historian Austramaddux remains known to modern wizardry mainly for his fantastic accounts of the last days of Merlinus Ambrosius, legendary sorcerer and founder of the Order of Merlin. Austramaddux’s account, which is recorded in its entirety in his famous Inverse Histore of the Magickal Worlde (see chapter twelve) deals with his acquaintance with Merlinus at the end of the latter’s career as special magical regent to the kings of Europe. Having grown disenchanted with the corruption of the magical world as it became ‘infected’ by influences from the growing non-magical kingdoms, Merlinus announced his plan to ‘quit the earthly realm’. Further, he claimed he would return to the society of men, centuries or even millennia later, when the balance between the magical and non-magical worlds was more, as Austramaddux put it, ‘ripe for his ministrations’. These predictions have been the source of many plots and conspiracies in the centuries since, usually led by those of a revolutionary bent, who believe that the return of Merlinus would facilitate their plans to overcome and subjugate the non-magical world via politics or outright war.

  James stopped reading. His mind was racing as he considered the implications of what he’d just read. He’d known of Merlin his whole life, in much the same way that Muggle children knew about Saint Nicholas: not as a historical figure, but as a sort of mythical cartoon character. It had never occurred to James to doubt that Merlin had been a real person, but it had also never occurred to him to wonder what kind of a man Merlin might have been. His only references were silly sayings he’d grown up with, like ‘by Merlin’s beard’ or ‘what in the name of Merlin’s pants’, none of which implied much about the character of the great sorc
erer. According to Austramaddux, Merlin had been a sort of magical advisor to Muggle kings and leaders. Was it possible that, in Merlin’s time, witches and wizards lived openly in the Muggle world, with no laws of secrecy, no hiding, no Disillusionment Charms? And if so, what did Merlin mean by saying the wizarding world had been ‘infected’ by the Muggles? Even more, what had he meant by the creepy prediction that he’d return when the world was ‘ripe for his ministrations’? It was no wonder that dark wizards through history had tried to make Merlin’s prediction come true, to bring the great sorcerer back into the world somehow. Dark wizards had always sought to rule the Muggle world, and apparently, there was some basis to believe that Merlin, the greatest and most powerful wizard of all time, would help them bring that about.

  A sudden thought occurred to James, and his eyes widened. He had first heard the name Austramaddux via a profile created by a Slytherin. Slytherin had always been the house of dark wizards intent on domination of the Muggle world. What if the enigmatic mention of Austramaddux wasn’t just a meaningless coincidence? What if it was a sign of a new dark plot? What if the Slytherin who had made that profile was part of a plot to facilitate the predicted return of Merlinus Ambrosius, who would lead a final war against the Muggle world?