James Potter and the Hall of Elders' Crossing

by G. Norman Lippert

  “I want lights and reflectors on the left side of the steps, angled toward the doors. That’s where I’ll do my final commentary and conduct interviews. Eddie, you have the chairs? No? All right, that’s fine, we’ll stand. Sitting might seem too, you know, established, anyway. We want to keep the feeling of exposé alive the whole time. Which cameras do you have, Vince? I want the thirty-five-millimeter handycam on everything. Double film the whole shoot with it, got it? We’ll edit the footage in here and there for that hidden camera feel. Perfect. Where’s Greta with the makeup?”

  The crew completely ignored the assembly of students and the Headmistress and Ministry officials on the steps. All around the trucks was the well-oiled bustle of men assembling cameras, attaching electrical cords to lights, stringing microphones onto long poles, and saying “Test,” and “Check,” into smaller microphones meant to be clipped to Prescott’s shirt. James noticed a few individuals moving among the group that didn’t seem preoccupied with the technical preparations. They were dressed rather better and seemed curious about the castle and the grounds. One of them, an old, balding, friendly-looking man in a light grey suit, ambled up the stairs toward the Headmistress.

  “Quite the fuss, isn’t it?” he proclaimed, glancing back toward the trucks. He bowed slightly toward the Headmistress. “Randolph Finney, detective, British Special Police. Not quite retired, but close enough not to matter. Mr. Prescott may have mentioned me? He made rather a big deal of my being here, it seems. Between you and me, I suspect he’d hoped for someone a bit more, er, inspiring, if you take my meaning. So this is some sort of… school, I understand?”

  “Indeed it is, Mr. Finney,” Sacarhina said, stretching out her hand. “My name is Brenda Sacarhina, head of the Department of Ambassadorial Relations for the Ministry of Magic. Today is going to be a very interesting day for you, I suspect.”

  “Ministry of Magic. How perfectly quaint,” Finney said, shaking Sacarhina’s hand rather distantly. His gaze hadn’t strayed from the Headmistress. “And who might you be, Madam?”

  “This is--,” Sacarhina replied, but McGonagall, long accustomed to overriding unwelcome noises, spoke easily over her.

  “Minerva McGonagall, Mr. Finney. Pleased to meet you. I am Headmistress of this school.”

  “Charmed, charmed!” Finney said, taking McGonagall’s hand reverently and bowing again. “Headmistress McGonagall, I am delighted to meet you.”

  “Please, do call me Minerva,” McGonagall said, and James saw just the slightest pained look pass over her face.

  “Indeed. And call me Randolph, I insist.” Finney smiled at the Headmistress for several seconds, then cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. He turned on the spot, taking in the castle and grounds. “I’d never known there was a school in this area, to tell you the truth. Especially one as magnificent as this. Why, it should be on the register of historic places and no mistake, Minerva. What do you call it?”

  Sacarhina began to answer, but nothing came out. She made a tiny noise, coughed a little, and then covered her mouth daintily with one hand, a look of mild puzzlement on her face.

  “Hogwarts, Randolph,” McGonagall answered, smiling carefully. “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

  “You don’t say?” Finney replied, glancing at her. “How wonderfully whimsical.”

  “We like to think so.”

  “Detective Finney!” Prescott suddenly called, trotting up the steps, his face covered in pancake makeup and tissue paper stuffed into the collar of his shirt. “I see you’ve already met the Headmistress. Miss Sacarhina and Mr. Recreant are here to conduct the tour, of course. The Headmistress is just along for, er, color, as it were.”

  “And she performs her role quite well, doesn’t she?” Finney said, turning back to McGonagall with a grin. James saw that the Headmistress was refraining rather heroically from rolling her eyes.

  “You have met Miss Sacarhina and Mr. Recreant, then?” Prescott plowed on, moving between Finney and McGonagall. “Miss Sacarhina, perhaps you will tell Detective Finney a bit of what it is you do here?”

  Sacarhina smiled charmingly and stepped forward, threading her arm through Finney’s in an attempt to lead him away from Headmistress McGonagall.

  “…” Sacarhina said. She paused, then closed her mouth and tried to look down at it, which produced a rather odd expression. Finney regarded her with a slightly furrowed brow.

  “Are you quite all right, Miss?” “Miss Sacarhina is feeling just a tad under the weather, Detective Finney,” Recreant said, adopting an ingratiating grin that was no match for Sacarhina’s practiced smile. “Do allow me. This is a school of magic, as the Headmistress has already mentioned. It is, in fact, a school for witches and wizards. We--” Recreant’s next word seemed to catch in his throat. He stood with his mouth open, staring at Finney and looking rather like an asphyxiating fish. After a long, awkward moment, he closed his mouth. He tried to smile again, showing far too many large, uneven teeth.

  Finney’s brow was still furrowed. He disengaged from Sacarhina’s arm and glanced between both her and Recreant. “Yes? Spit it out, then, why don’t you? Are you both ill?”

  Prescott was very nearly hopping from foot to foot. “Perhaps we should just begin the tour, then, shall we? Of course, I know my way around the castle a bit now. We can begin as soon as… as soon as…” He realized he still had tissues jammed into the collar of his shirt. He grabbed at them and stuffed them into his pants pockets. “Miss Sacarhina, you had mentioned that there would be someone else? An expert in explaining things to the uninitiated? Perhaps now would be a good time to introduce this person?”

  Sacarhina craned her head forward, her eyes bulging very slightly and her mouth open. After a few seconds of strained silence, the Headmistress cleared her throat and gestured toward the open courtyard. “Here he is now, I suspect. You know how Mr. Hubert tends to be rather late sometimes. Poor man will forget his own head one of these days. Still, he is a genius in his own way, isn’t he, Brenda?”

  Her mouth still open, Sacarhina turned to follow McGonagall’s pointing hand. At the opening of the courtyard, another vehicle was entering. It was ancient, its engine choppy and puttering a pall of blue smoke. Finney frowned a little as it chugged slowly across the courtyard. Sacarhina and Recreant stared at the vehicle with twin expressions of pure bewilderment and disgust. The crowd of students gathered near the steps moved back as the vehicle squeaked to a stop in front of the first Landrover, pointing at it. The engine coughed, sputtered, and then died, slowly.

  “That’s a Ford Anglia, isn’t it?” Finney said. “I haven’t seen one of those in decades! I’m amazed it still runs.”

  “Oh, our Mr. Hubert is very good with engines, Randolph,” McGonagall said crisply. “Why, he’s almost a wizard, really.”

  The driver’s door squeaked open and a figure clambered up out of it. He was very large, so that the car rose perceptibly on its springs as he arose from it. The man squinted at the stairs, smiling a little vacantly. He had long, silvery blonde hair and a matching beard, both of which were offset by a gigantic pair of black, horn-rimmed glasses. The man’s hair was pulled back in a natty, almost prim ponytail.

  “Mr. Terrence Hubert,” McGonagall said, introducing the man. “Chancellor of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Welcome, sir. Do come and meet our guests.”

  Mr. Hubert smiled and then glanced aside as the passenger’s door of the Anglia screeched open. “I hope you don’t mind, everybody,” Mr. Hubert said, adjusting his glasses. “I’ve brought my wife along with me. Say hello to the folks, dear.”

  James gasped as Madame Delacroix climbed awkwardly out of the car. She smiled very slowly and deliberately. “Hello,” she said in a strangely monotone voice.

  Hubert grinned mistily at her. “She’s a dearie, isn’t she? Well, shall we begin, then?”

  Sacarhina coughed, her eyes widening rather alarmingly as she watched Delacroix join Mr. Hubert in front of
the Anglia. She nudged Recreant with her elbow, but he was as mute as she was.

  “Chancellor?” Prescott said, looking back and forth between Hubert and McGonagall. “There’s no chancellor! Since when is there a chancellor?”

  “I do apologize, sir,” Hubert said, climbing the steps with Delacroix by his side. She grinned a bit wildly. “I’ve been away for the past week. Business in Montreal, Canada, of all places. Wonderful little distribution warehouse there. You know, we only use the highest quality magical supplies here, of course. I inspect all our materials by hand before ordering anything. Oh, but I shouldn’t say any more, of course. Heh, heh!” Hubert tapped the side of his nose with an index finger, grinning conspiratorially at Prescott.

  Prescott’s face was tight with suspicion. He stared at Hubert, then at Madame Delacroix. Finally, he held up his hands and closed his eyes. “All right, who cares? Mr. Hubert, if you are our guide, then guide away.” He threw a glance over his shoulder at the camera crew, gesturing wildly with his eyebrows, and then followed Hubert into the gigantic open doors. “Chancellor Hubert, can you tell us and our audience what you do here at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?”

  “Why, of course,” Hubert said, turning as he reached the center of the Entrance Hall. “We teach magic! We are, in fact, Europe’s premiere school of the magical arts.” Hubert seemed to notice the camera for the first time. He grinned a little nervously into it. “Students, er, come from the farthest reaches of the continent, and even beyond, to learn the ancient arts of the mystical masters of the craft. To acquire, to absorb, to, er, steep, as it were, in the secret arts of divination, illumination, prestidigitation, and, er, etcetera, etcetera.”

  Prescott was staring very hard at Hubert, his cheeks reddening. “I see. Yes, so you admit that you teach actual magic within these walls?”

  “Why, certainly, young man. Why ever would I deny it?”

  “Then you do not deny,” Prescott said in a pouncing sort of voice, “that these paintings, which line this very room, are magical, moving paintings?” He gestured grandly toward the walls. The cameraman spun and walked as quickly and smoothly as he could toward a group of paintings by the doorway. The boom microphone operator lowered his apparatus, so as to be sure to capture Hubert’s response.

  “M-moving paintings?” Hubert said in a distracted voice. “Oh. O-ho yes. Well, I suspect they could be said to move. Why, that painting there, no matter where you are in the room, the eyes in the painting are always upon you.” Hubert raised his hands mysteriously, warming to the subject. “They seem, in fact, to follow you everywhere you go!”

  The cameraman took his eye away from the viewfinder and frowned back at Prescott. Prescott’s face darkened. “That’s not what I mean. Make them move! You know they can! You!” He spun on his heels and pointed at McGonagall. “You had a conversation with a portrait in your office just yesterday! I watched you! I heard the painting talk!”

  McGonagall made a face that was so comically surprised that James, who was standing just inside the doorway with the rest of the assembled students, had to suppress a giggle. “I can’t imagine what you mean, sir,” the Headmistress replied.

  “Here, now, you leave the lady out of this, why don’t you?” Finney said archly, taking half a step in front of the Headmistress, who was a full head taller than him. “Just you conduct your almighty investigation, Prescott, and let’s get this over with.”

  Prescott boggled for a few seconds, and then composed himself. “Ooookay. Forget the moving paintings. Silly me.” He turned back to Hubert. “I presume class is currently in session, Mr. Hubert?”

  “Hm?” Hubert said, as if startled. “In session? Well, I… I guess so. I wouldn’t expect--”

  “You wouldn’t expect we’d like to see, would you?” Prescott interrupted. “Well, we would. Our viewers have a right to know exactly what is going on here, right… under… our… noses.”

  “Viewers?” Hubert repeated, glancing back to the camera. “This is, er, live? Is it?”

  Prescott dropped his head forward and slumped a bit. “No, Mr. Hubert. It isn’t. Didn’t any of you tell him how this works? We record it, we edit it, we broadcast it. Miss Sacarhina, you understood all of this, am I correct?” He glanced aside at Sacarhina, who smiled and spread her arms. She mouthed a few words, and then gestured vaguely at her throat. Recreant cinched his grin a notch higher. His forehead was beaded with sweat. “Great,” Prescott muttered. “I see. Marvelous. Continuing.” He straightened and glared at Hubert again. “Yes, our viewers would very much like to see what happens in these so-called ‘classrooms’, Mr. Chancellor. Please lead the way.”

  Hubert turned to Delacroix. “What do you think, dear? Divination or Levitation?”

  “Dey are both equally impressive. Honey,” Delacroix said, forming the words rather awkwardly. She seemed to want to say more, but despite the workings of her jaw, her lips clamped tightly shut.

  “My wife is foreign, as you can see,” Hubert said apologetically. “But she does her best.”

  “The classrooms, please, Mr. Hubert,” Prescott insisted. “You can’t keep the press out, sir.” “No, no, of course not. We appreciate the publicity, in fact,” Hubert said, turning to lead the crew down a hall. “Prestigious as we are, sometimes, it’s hard to keep our heads above water. Magic is a, er, specialized study, to say the least. Only a certain kind of individual has the patience and grace to learn it. Ah, here we are then. Divination.”

  Prescott walked briskly into the open doorway of the classroom, followed by his camera crew and boom microphone operator, scrambling to keep up with him. Finney remained near the back of the group, staying as close to Headmistress McGonagall as he could. Harry and James, at the head of the crowd of curious students, leaned in through the door to watch.

  “Here, our students learn the ancient art of predicting the future,” Hubert said grandly. A dozen students were scattered around the room, staring grimly down at the objects on the desks in front of them. At the head of the class, as if on cue, Professor Trelawney raised her arms, producing a musical jingling from the assortment of bangles on her wrists.

  “Seek, students!” she cried in her mistiest voice. “Stare deep, deep into the face of the all-knowing cosmos, represented in the swirling patterns and designs of the infinite! Find your destinies!”

  “Tea leaves!” Finney said happily. “My own mam used to read fortunes in tea leaves for the tourists! Got us through some hard times, back in the day. How perfectly picturesque, keeping such traditions alive.”

  “‘Traditions’, pah!” Trelawney said, arising from her seat and swirling her gauzy robes dramatically. “We find the embedded nature of perfect truth in the leaves, sir. Past, present, future, all bound together for those who bear the eyes to see!”

  “That’s just what my mam used to say, too!” chuckled Finney.

  “This is how you tell the future?” Prescott said, staring disgustedly into one of the students’ cups. “This is ridiculous. Where’re the crystal balls? Where’s the swirling smoke and the ghostly visions?”

  “Well, er, we have those things, too, Mr. Prescott,” Hubert said. “Don’t we, dear?”

  “Advanced Divination. Second semester. Two hundred-pound lab fee,” Delacroix replied mechanically.

  “Covers the crystal balls,” Hubert said behind his raised hand. “Those things aren’t cheap. We have them special made in China. Real crystal and everything. Of course, the students get to take them home at the end of the school year. They’re kind of a memento.”

  “I believe you mentioned levitation!” Prescott said, marching out of the room. His entourage followed swiftly, clanking and unrolling more electrical cord.

  “Certainly, yes. A staple of the magical arts,” Hubert replied, following Prescott across the hall and into another classroom. “We combine that class with Basic Prestidigitation. Yes, right in here.”

  Zane stood in the center of the classroom with a wand in his hand. A
few dozen other students sat along the wall, watching in amazement as the bust of Godric Gryffindor floated and bobbed around the room, apparently at the behest of Zane’s waving wand. There was a gasp and sigh of amazement from Prescott’s crew. The cameraman squatted slowly, zooming in on the action.

  “Aha!” Prescott said excitedly. “Real magic! Being performed by children!”

  “Just as promised,” Hubert said proudly. “Mr. Walker here is among the best in his class. Mr. Walker, what year are you, by the way?”

  “First year, sir,” Zane said, grinning happily.

  “Excellent form, my boy,” Hubert replied. “Try a loop, why don’t you?”

  The students applauded politely as the bust raised and spun slowly in the air. Then, suddenly, it dropped, falling onto a mattress which had been placed in the center of the floor.

  “Oh, too bad, Mr. Walker. So close,” Hubert chided.