The figure in the doorway was small and thin. Its skin was a purplish green, its large head was nearly featureless, with the suggestion of large, almond-shaped eyes barely visible in the glare of light from the open hatchway. It began to walk down the ramp toward Frank, and its footsteps seemed unusually careful, almost awkward. It ducked slightly to clear the doorway, then, suddenly the figure tripped on the lip of the hatch. It stumbled forward, pinwheeling its arms, and seemed about to throw itself upon Frank. He scrambled backwards desperately, terrified. The small figure toppled forward, its disproportionately large head zooming towards Frank, filling his vision.
In the moment before Frank blacked out, he was distracted only by the rather strange fact that the figure seemed to be wearing, if nothing else, a fairly ordinary dark green backpack slung over its shoulders. Frank fainted with a look of rather worried confusion on his face.
James awoke blearily the next morning. He pried his eyes open, taking in the unfamiliar shapes of his surroundings. He was in a four-poster bed in a large, round room with a low ceiling. Sunlight beamed cheerily in, lighting more beds, most of which were disheveled and empty. Slowly, like owls coming in to roost, he remembered the previous night: the Sorting Hat, standing before the portrait of the Fat Lady and not knowing the Gryffindor password, meeting Ted, and then the rest of the Gremlins.
He sat up in bed quickly, reaching for his face. He patted his cheeks, his brow, the shape of his eyes, and then sighed with relief. Everything appeared to be back to normal. Something flopped onto his bed next to him, a newspaper James didn’t recognize. It was turned to an article with the headline: ‘Local Man Insists Martian Rockets Steal His Tomatoes’. James glanced up. Noah Metzker was standing at the foot of his bed, a wry look on his face.
“They misspelled ‘Wocket’ again,” he said.
2. Arrival of the Alma Alerons
By the time James had dressed and made his way down to the Great Hall for breakfast, it was nearly ten o’clock. Less than a dozen students could be seen moving disconsolately among the detritus of the morning’s earlier rush. At the far corner of the Slytherin table, Zane sat hunched and squinting under a beam of sunlight. Across from him was Ralph, who saw James enter and waved him over.
As James made his way across the Hall, four or five house-elves, each wearing large linen napkins with the Hogwarts crest embroidered on them, circled the tables, meandering in what at first appeared to be random paths. Occasionally, one of them would duck beneath the surface of a table and then reappear a moment later, tossing a stray fork or half a biscuit casually onto the mess of the table. As James passed one of the elves, it straightened, raised its spindly arms, and then brought them swiftly down. The contents on the table in front of him swirled together as if caught in a miniature cyclone. With a great clattering of dishes and silverware, the corners of the tablecloth shot upwards and twisted around the pile of breakfast debris, creating a huge clanking bag floating improbably over the polished wood table. The house-elf leaped from floor to bench to tabletop, and then jumped, turning in midair and landing lightly on top of the bag. It grasped the twisted top of the bag, using the knot as if it were a set of reins, and turned the bag, driving it bobbingly toward the gigantic service doors in the side of the Hall. James ducked as the bag swooped over his head.
“Phew,” Zane muttered as James plopped down next to him and reached for the last piece of toast. “These little waiters of yours may be weird-lookin’ buggers, but they know how to make a good cup of coffee.”
“They’re not waiters, they’re house-elves. I read about them yesterday,” Ralph said, happily munching half a sausage. The other half was speared on the end of his fork, which he used like a pointer, indicating the elves. “They work downstairs. They’re like the elves in that kids’ story. The ones that came at night and did all the work for the cobbler.”
“The what?” Zane asked over his coffee mug. “The guy that makes shoes. He had all these shoes half finished and just lying around, and he was about to fall over from all the work. You know that story, don’t you? So he falls asleep, and in the middle of the night, all these little elves show up and whip out their hammers and go to town, fixing up all the shoes for him. He wakes up and bammo, everything’s cool.” Ralph bit the rest of the sausage off his fork and munched it, looking around. “I never pictured them wearing napkins, though.”
“Hey, alien-boy, I see your face is back to normal,” Zane said, examining James critically.
“What passes for it, I suppose,” James replied.
“Did it hurt at all when Sabrina zapped you?”
“No,” James said. “It felt weird. Really weird. But it didn’t hurt. It just went back to normal overnight.”
“She must be an artist. You looked great. Webbed feet and all.” “What are you two talking about?” Ralph asked, looking back and forth between them. They told him all about the previous night, about raising the Wocket, and the farmer who’d fainted when James, the little alien, had stumbled and fallen on top of him.
“I was hiding in the corner of the yard, near the shed, and I about gave myself a hernia trying not to laugh when you tackled him. Attack of the Martian Klutzes!” He dissolved into laughter and after a moment, James joined him.
“Where’d they get the spaceship?” Ralph asked, bypassing the humor. “It’s just a bunch of chicken wire and papier-mâché,” Zane said, downing the last of his coffee and clapping the mug onto the table. He raised his arm and snapped his fingers twice. “Sabrina and Horace made it last year as part of a float for a Christmas parade down in Hogsmeade. It used to be a giant cauldron. Now, with the help of some paint and something Gennifer called a ‘Visum-ineptio charm’, it’s the R.M.S. Wocket.”
A very small house-elf approached Zane, frowning. “You, er, snapped, young master?” The elf’s voice was gratingly deep despite his size.
“Here you go, buddy,” Zane said, handing the elf the empty coffee mug. “Nice work. Keep it up. This is for you.”
The elf looked down at the piece of paper Zane had just handed him. He raised his eyes again. “Thank you, young master. Will there, er, be anything else?”
Zane flapped his hand dismissively. “No, thanks. Go get some sleep or something. You look tired.”
The elf looked at Ralph, then James, who shrugged and tried to smile. With a barely perceptible roll of the eyes, the elf tucked the five dollar bill into his napkin and disappeared under the table.
Zane looked thoughtful. “I could get used to this.”
“I don’t think you’re supposed to tip the house-elves,” Ralph said uncertainly.
“I don’t see why not,” Zane said airily, stretching. “My dad tips everybody when he’s travelling. He says it’s part of the local economy. And it fosters good service.”
“And you can’t just tell a house-elf to go get some sleep,” James said, suddenly realizing what had just happened.
“Why the heck not?” “Because that’s exactly what he’ll have to go and do!” James said in exasperation. He was thinking of the Potter family house-elf, a sad little pug of an elf whose moroseness was only offset by his sheer bloodyminded determination to do exactly what was asked of him. It wasn’t that James didn’t like Kreacher. It was just that you had to learn precisely how to ask things of Kreacher. “House-elves have to do what is asked of them by their masters. It’s just the kind of beings they are. He’s probably heading back to his cupboard, or shelf, or wherever it is he sleeps even now and trying to work out how he’s going to sleep in the middle of the morning.” James shook his head, and then realized it struck him funny. He tried not to smile, which only made it worse. Zane saw it and pointed at him.
“Ha ha! You think it’s funny, too!” he chortled.
“I can’t imagine that they have to do everything we ask of them,” Ralph said, his brow furrowed. “We’re just students. We don’t own the place or anything. And we’re just first years.”
“You remembered the name o
f the spell Sabrina used to make the Wocket look like a rocket?” James asked, turning to Zane, impressed. “ Visum-ineptio,” Zane said, relishing the sound of it. “It means something like ‘eye-fooling’. If you work through the Latin, you can sort of figure it out. Horace says it just helps people see what they think they are going to see.”
James frowned. “So when that beam of light came out of the sky onto that farmer, he, sort of, expected to see an alien spaceship?”
“Sure. Everybody knows that a beam of light, at night, in the middle of nowhere means the little green guys are coming.”
“You’re a strange guy, Zane,” Ralph said, not unappreciatively. Just then, James sensed someone standing behind him. All three of them turned, looking up. It was the Slytherin girl from the previous night, the one who’d led the applause for James before his Sorting. She was looking down at him with a pleasant, vaguely indulgent expression. She was flanked by two other Slytherins, a boy with handsome, rather sharp features whose smile showed an awful load of teeth, and another girl, who wasn’t smiling. Heat rushed to James’ cheeks as he remembered he was sitting at the Slytherin table. Before he could think, he scrambled to get up, a chunk of toast still sticking out of his mouth.
“No, no!” the pretty Slytherin girl said, raising her hand toward him, palm out, stopping him in his tracks almost as if she’d used magic. “Don’t stand. I’m happy to see you feel comfortable enough to sit at the Slytherin table with us. These are quite different times than those of your father. But I assume too much. Mr. Deedle, would you be so kind as to introduce me to your friend?”
Ralph coughed, clearing his throat in embarrassment. “Uh, this is my friend, James Potter. And this is Zane. I forget his last name. Sorry.” He said the last to Zane, who shrugged, grinned at Ralph, then jumped to his feet and reached across the table to shake the Slytherin girl’s hand.
“Walker. Zane Walker. It is a distinct and heartfelt pleasure to make your acquaintance, Ms…”
The girl’s smile broadened a tiny bit and she tilted her head, still looking at Ralph. “Oh!” Ralph said, jumping a bit. “Yes. This is, um, Tabitha Corsica. She’s a prefect in Slytherin House, a sixth year, I think. Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch Team. And the debate team. And, um… she has a really cool broom.” Having exhausted himself of everything he could think of to say about her, Ralph slumped as if exhausted.
Tabitha finally accepted Zane’s hand, holding it lightly, then releasing it. “I’m glad to have officially made your acquaintances. Mr. Potter, or may I call you James?” she said, turning to him. Her voice was like silver bells and velvet, lower than James’ own, but rather beautiful. He realized she’d asked him a question, shook himself, and answered.
“Yeah. Sure. James.” “And I’d be delighted if you’d call me Tabitha,” she said, smiling as if this gesture of familiarity pleased her immensely. “I’d just like to say, on behalf of Slytherin House, that we are glad you are among us, and we hope sincerely that any remaining,” she glanced upwards with her eyes, considering, “prejudices will be left in the past, where they forever belong.” She turned left and right, encompassing the two Slytherins with her. “We all have nothing but the highest respect and, yes, regard for you and your father. Can we, I hope, expect to all be friends?”
The boy on Tabitha’s right continued to smile down at James. The girl on her left studied a spot on the table somewhere between them, her face expressionless.
“S-sure. Friends. Of course,” James stammered. The silence of the rest of the hall seemed a huge thing. It swallowed his voice, made it tiny.
Tabitha’s smile warmed even further. Her green eyes twinkled. “I’m pleased that you agree. And now we will leave you to finish your, er, breakfasts. Tom? Philia?”
The three turned on the spot and swept away down the aisle.
“What did you just agree to?” Ralph asked as they stood and followed the Slytherins at a careful distance. “I think James here has either just made a gorgeous friend or a sultry enemy,” Zane said, watching the swoop and drape of Tabitha’s robes as she turned the corner. “I can’t say for sure which I am rooting for.”
James was thinking hard. Things certainly had changed a lot since Dad’s and Mum’s day. He just couldn’t quite tell if they were, in fact, better.
The three of them spent the rest of the morning exploring the school grounds. They visited the Quidditch pitch, which looked to Zane and James remarkably different in the bright, hazy sunlight than it had in the dark. Zane’s mouth fell open when he saw a group of older students playing a scratch three-onthree Quidditch match. The players swooped in and out of formations, barely missing each other, calling out plays and occasional swear words.
“Brutal!” Zane proclaimed happily as one of the players walloped a Bludger at an opposing player’s head, knocking him into a barrel roll around his broomstick. “And I’ve been to a rugby match.” They passed Hagrid’s cottage, which looked empty and dark, with no smoke in the chimney and the door shut tight. Shortly after, they ran into Ted Lupin and Noah Metzker, who led them to the edge of the Forbidden Forest. A gigantic, ancient-looking willow tree dominated the edge of the clearing. Ted held out his arm, stopping Ralph as he moved toward it.
“Close enough, mate,” he said. “Watch this.”
Ted loosened the mouth of a large laundry bag he’d been dragging behind him. Out of it, he produced an object shaped roughly like a four-legged animal with wings and a beak. It was covered in multicolored scraps of paper whose colors shifted and swam in the light breeze.
“No! It’s a piñata!” Zane exclaimed. “In the shape of a… a… don’t tell me! A… sphinxoraptor!”
“It’s a hippogriff,” James said, laughing.
“I like his name better,” Ralph said.
“Me too!” Noah added. “Silence!” said Ted, raising his hand. He lifted the piñata in his other hand, hefted it, and then threw it as hard as he could into the curtain of branches hanging from the willow. It vanished into the dense foliage, and for a moment, nothing else happened. Then there was a rustle among the whiplike branches. They writhed, as if something large was moving beneath them. Suddenly, the tree exploded into a violent flurry of motion. Its branches flailed wildly, slapping, groaning, and creaking. The noise it made was like a very localized windstorm. After a few seconds, the piñata was caught up visibly in the branches. The tree embraced it in dozens of coiling, angry whips, and then all of the branches pulled at once. It was as if the piñata had been dropped into a blender. Shreds of multicolored paper and wizard candy exploded as the ballistics charm core of the piñata triggered. Confetti and candies peppered the tree and the surrounding clearing. The tree thrashed in apparent annoyance at the sudden colorful mess in its branches, then seemed to give up. It settled into its original shape.
Ted and Noah laughed uproariously. “Behold the death of the Sphinxoraptor!” Noah proclaimed. James had heard about the Whomping Willow, but was still impressed by both its violence and the other Gryffindors’ casualness about it. Zane and Ralph simply stared, mouths agape. Without looking, Ralph plucked an Every Flavor Bean out of his hair and stuck it in his mouth. He chewed meditatively for a moment, and then glanced at James. “Tastes like taco! Cool!”
James separated himself from the group a little later and made his way up the stairs to the landing outside the Gryffindor common room.
“Password,” the Fat Lady sang out as he approached.
“Genisolaris,” he replied, hoping it hadn’t changed already.
“Proceed,” the painting answered, swinging open. The common room was empty, the fireplace cold. James ascended to the sleeping chamber and headed for his bed. He was already feeling a warm sense of belonging in this room, even in its dozing, midday emptiness. The beds had been neatly made. Nobby, James’ huge, brown barn owl, was sleeping in his cage with his head tucked under his wing. James flopped onto the bed, took a sheaf of parchment and a quill, and began to write, being careful not to spil
l ink onto the blankets.
Dear Mum and Dad, Arrived last night with no problems. Met some cool new friends so far. Ralph turned out to be a Slytherin, which I’d have never guessed. Zane is a Ravenclaw, and he’s about as crazy as Uncle George. They’re both Muggle-born, so I’m learning a lot even though classes haven’t started yet. With their help, Muggle Studies should be a breeze. Ted showed us the Whomping Willow, but we didn’t get too close, Mum. Some new teachers here. Saw Neville yesterday, but didn’t have a chance to give him your greeting. Oh, and a delegation of American wizards and such is arriving later today. Should be interesting since Zane is from the States himself. Long story. More later.
Your son,
James
P.S. I’m a Gryffindor! 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.
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