James Potter and the Curse of the Gatekeeper jp-1

by G. Norman Lippert

  “Forgive me, Severus,” Dumbledore said, looking him evenly in the eye, “but what if you do not live that long?”

  “I have more than one reason to stay alive, Albus,” Snape answered, slipping the dagger back into his robes. “And as you well know, destroying this mysterious object is not even the most important. Trust me, I shall be careful.”

  On Snape’s last word—careful—the memory rippled and faded. Swirling, silvery smoke filled James’ vision and he realized he was leaning on something hard. It was uncomfortable, so he pushed back from it. As he did, he drew his face away from the bowl of Dumbledore’s Pensieve, disoriented and dizzy. Ralph and Rose pulled away at the same moment. They clutched at each other, struggling to stay upright.

  “Did you see it?” Scorpius asked. James blinked, recovering his balance. Scorpius was seated on a trunk in the corner of the storage room, leaning languidly against the wall. “Did you see the dagger?”

  “I did,” James said. “Did you, Rose? And Ralph? I never saw either of you in there.”

  Rose shook her head in dismay. “I saw it all. I saw Headmaster Dumbledore and Professor Snape talking about the possibility of some sort of successor. And then… I saw him. He Who Must Not Be Named. He was awful.”

  “I didn’t understand a lot of what he said, but I think I got the gist of it,” Ralph said, his face pale. “Those Horcrux things were supposed to keep little bits of Voldemort’s soul safe, so even if he got killed, he wouldn’t really die, right?”

  “But the last Horcrux, the one embedded in his father’s dagger, was different,” Rose nodded. “He couldn’t reclaim that part again, no matter what. It was meant to be passed on to a baby boy, carrying that bit of his soul to a new life.”

  James furrowed his brow. “But why would someone so obsessed with immortality waste a Horcrux on someone else’s life?”

  Ralph shrugged as if the answer was obvious. “It’s still his life, but hidden away. Who’d suspect it? As long as Voldemort was inside Voldemort, all the good wizards in the world were gunning for him. He knew that at least a few people, like your dad, James, would never stop until every last Horcrux was destroyed and every shred of Voldemort was killed. Hiding one last little bit of his soul in some anonymous new baby was sort of genius. I mean, you saw the way Voldemort looked. It wasn’t like he could pass himself off unnoticed in a crowd, was it? But if he was part of some little kid, who would ever think to look there? It’s the perfect disguise.”

  “But even so, he wouldn’t be that little kid,” Rose said, screwing her face up in disgust. “That little bit of his soul would have to compete against the whole soul of the person it was inside of.”

  “Or work with it,” Scorpius said. “If it could find some weak place in the host soul, it could exploit it, somehow bend it to Voldemort’s will. Even a tree can be bent if it’s manipulated from the time it’s a seedling. Voldemort was very patient and wily. His essence would take the time to prune and bend that new soul to his will.”

  “So what happened to the dagger?” Rose asked, seating herself on a crate. “We have to assume that Professor Snape was killed before he got a chance to destroy the Horcrux. But did he succeed in hexing the dagger to fool your grandfather?”

  “Not according to him,” Scorpius said, smiling grimly. “My grandfather knows nothing of the Pensieve or the memories it contains. He tells the entire story rather differently, of course…”

  Scorpius launched into the rest of the tale as he knew it.

  It began, he explained, with the death of Severus Snape at the hand of Voldemort, killed not because the Dark Lord suspected his divided allegiance—Scorpius himself hadn’t even known of that until he’d discovered it in the Pensieve’s stored memories—but because of the mistaken notion that Snape must die for the Elder Wand, the unbeatable instrument of magic, to belong fully to Voldemort. Snape had not expected this, and thus had not destroyed the dagger Horcrux. Snape had, however, been wily enough to hide the dagger extremely well, and to tell no one of its location. Shortly thereafter, after Voldemort himself had been killed and his Death Eaters scattered, Lucius Malfoy had gone after the dagger Horcrux, fanatically intent on fulfilling his duties to his dead master. He crept into the school shortly after the battle was over, while its defences were still very weak. He used every art at his disposal to search for the dagger, but even though he could sense its presence, he was utterly unable to find its hiding place. It drove him mad with fear and rage, for he believed that if he failed, the Dark Lord would exact his revenge even from beyond the grave.

  While he was still searching Snape’s Headmaster office, Lucius’ presence in the castle was detected. He fled, masked and cursing everyone and everything in his way. As he escaped through the Forbidden Forest, however, his heightened sensitivities detected a powerful magical object lost there. He had no time to search for the object, but he determined to return as soon as he could, for he believed he had quite by accident stumbled upon the hiding place of the dagger Horcrux.

  Time passed, however, and Lucius was unable to return to the Forest. Most of his fellow Death Eaters were in hiding or had already been captured and imprisoned. Lucius covered his tracks exceptionally well, but lived in abject fear that he was being watched, that at any moment, he would be found out and apprehended. His wife, Narcissa, had left him shortly after the battle, and even his son, Draco, seemed to want little to do with him, so Lucius went into hiding. He used the last of his money to buy a rundown manor house on Cannery Row, protecting it with the best secrecy methods he knew. There, alone, he began to plan his return to Hogwarts castle to capture back the dagger.

  Unfortunately, in the time that had passed, Hogwarts had been rebuilt and fortified. There was no way for someone like Lucius to get inside the grounds undetected. He needed partners and he needed money. Soon enough, he encountered both in the form of Gregor Tyrannicus, a soft but hate-filled refugee from his own royal wizarding family in Romania. Gregor came with a small fortune in gold, granted to him by his father in an effort to assure he left quietly and never returned. Gregor was instantly enthralled by Lucius’ tales of his dealings with the famous Dark Lord, and vowed every bit of his treasure in support of the search for the mysterious dagger Horcrux. In exchange, he merely asked for his own position of power once the predicted pureblood kingdom was instated. Lucius graciously accepted Gregor’s support, even catering to the man’s rather obsessive infatuation with collecting relics from the Dark Lord’s life.

  Together, they assembled a small team of thieves and murderers, training them for the death-defying siege of Hogwarts castle. In reality, Lucius had no intention of accompanying the siege. He planned to use the distraction created by the siege to sneak alone into the Forbidden Forest and seek out the hidden dagger. Despite his and Gregor’s training, in fact, Lucius fully expected the siege team to be captured and sent to Azkaban. Frankly, so long as they provided the short distraction Lucius needed, he didn’t care. They would be one small sacrifice in the ongoing work of the fallen Dark Lord.

  The siege never happened though. Less than a week before the planned trip to Hogwarts castle, Lucius was alone in the manor house on Cannery Row when one of the thieves he’d hired for the siege team, a young man named Malcolm Baddock, stepped out of the shadows, a knife glittering in his hand. The man grinned, ordering Lucius to turn over the gold hidden somewhere in the house.

  “Give it to me and maybe I’ll only cut out your tongue, old man,” Baddock had said.

  Lucius had merely sighed. He closed the book he’d been reading and, almost lazily, produced his wand. He fingered it idly, not really pointing it at Baddock. “And what makes you believe, young man, that you won’t be killed where you stand by this very wand?”

  Baddock’s grin widened eagerly. “Because this here’s my lucky knife, it is,” he said, displaying the darkly glinting blade. “It’s not failed me yet. It’ll kill you three times before you hit the floor, you daft old c
oot. No wand’s ever been any good against it before, and yours won’t be any different. Now take me to the gold!”

  Lucius narrowed his eyes. “Tell me, my friend,” he said silkily, “does your lucky knife know when a wizard is going to do this?”

  In one deft movement, Lucius drew a short flick in the air. A thin red line slashed across Baddock’s throat and he flinched. Blood began to bead from the cut. It dribbled down his throat and Baddock tried to look down at it, frowning rather comically. His face contorted with rage and he reared, hoisting the knife by its tip. As he opened his mouth to speak, however, his head quietly toppled backwards off his shoulders, separating neatly along the line of blood. It fell to the floor with a thunk.

  Lucius was already pocketing his wand and wondering if he’d tell the rest of the team what had happened to Baddock when something poked him in the stomach. He looked down curiously and noticed the hilt of Baddock’s knife protruding from his robe. A moment later, he heard the thump of the man’s headless body striking the floor, dead. Truly, it had been a lucky knife if Baddock had succeeded in finishing the throw he’d begun while his head was still marginally attached.

  Lucius reached for the knife to extract it from his stomach. It would hurt, but it wouldn’t be fatal, not to a wizard like Lucius. He stopped, however, before his fingers touched the hilt. His eyes widened slowly as he stared at it. The bit of hilt he could see protruding from the slowly darkening folds of his robes was quite ugly and jewel-encrusted. Lucius recognized it. Slowly, he wrapped his fingers around the silver hilt and pulled the blade out of his gut. He barely felt it. He slid to his knees, holding the dagger up, turning it, and watching the firelight play on its dark, bloody blade. He began to laugh.

  “Thank you, my Lord,” he cried through his laughter. “Even dead, your word rings true! Your final Horcrux has found me! Thank you! I will not fail you! Your final task will be completed!”

  Lucius laughed until he was hoarse, only remembering to heal the wound in his stomach when he noticed the blood soaking the front of his robes and pattering to the floor.

  It had been over two years since the Battle of Hogwarts, since the inconceivable death of the Dark Lord, but Lucius was finally able to complete his duty. He told Gregor of the surprising appearance of the dagger, and they dismissed the rest of the siege team with a small pay-off in gold, warning them that if they told anyone what they knew, they would experience the same fate as had befallen their mate, Baddock.

  Lucius had long since determined the family that would play host to the Dark Lord’s ‘gift’. They were pureblood, but lowly and poor. Lucius spied on them and discovered that a young woman in the family had just become pregnant. Her name was Lianna Agnellis and her husband had recently been apprehended by the Ministry, suspected of low-level involvement with Death Eaters in the last days of Voldemort’s reign of terror. Lucius had vaguely known the man, whose name was Wilfred. He had indeed been a tool of the Death Eaters, although he himself barely knew it. The young man had been extremely simple and gullible, and Lucius himself had even used him as a messenger. It was Lucius who had anonymously informed the Ministry of Wilfred’s Death Eater connections, knowing full well that the pathetic man would never be able to implicate anyone by name; Lucius and his cohorts had been far too careful for that. Wilfred was interrogated by the Wizengamot and eventually imprisoned in Azkaban until such time as he might choose to divulge the names of his purported accomplices.

  After Wilfred’s imprisonment, Lucius paid a visit to the young, quite pregnant Lianna in her tiny flat. He ingratiated himself to her, claiming to be a concerned friend and former associate of her incarcerated husband. Lianna made tea for the two of them and they sat at her rickety kitchen table. Lucius explained that he had both the money and the influence to see to her husband’s release if she was willing to perform a small service on behalf of her husband’s benefactors. Lianna was desperate: she fell upon Lucius, sobbing and promising she’d do anything to get her Wilfred back home. She asked what Lucius required of her, and he balked, suggesting that she might think twice once he told her. He asked her to take a moment to consider it while she refilled his tea.

  As she returned to the stove, sniffing and wiping her eyes, Lucius peered into Lianna’s empty teacup, examining the shreds of tea leaves scattered in the bottom. He had to be sure that the child in the woman’s womb was a boy child; surely, Lucius was wizard enough to ascertain something as simple as that. He looked closely, squinting, but for some reason, the tea leaves blurred before his eyes. He blinked, trying to focus, to concentrate. In his robes, the Horcrux dagger seemed to vibrate. He felt it reaching into his mind, calling him. It was distracting him. Lately, Lucius never went anywhere without the dagger, but now he suddenly wished he’d left it at the manor house. And then, just as Lianna was returning, settling Lucius’ own cup onto the table, the strew of sodden leaves became clear. Lucius stared at them, even reaching for the woman’s cup and tilting it to the light. Yes, there it was. There was no question: the child in the woman’s belly was a boy child. The leaves proved it. Lucius sighed and smiled with relief. The dagger in his robes went still again.

  “What?” Lianna had said nervously, sitting back down. “What do you see in the leaves? Am I going to get my Wilfred back?”

  Lucius looked at her with gently shining eyes. He placed his hand on hers comfortingly. “You will both be together very soon,” he promised, “if you do as we require. You may do it today, this very afternoon if you wish. I will assist you. But you must do it with no hesitation and no questions. It may shock you and even pain you, but only a little, and it will be over in mere minutes. Can you do that, my dear Mrs. Agnellis?”

  She nodded, nervously but with great resolution. “I knew that Wilfred’s bosses weren’t the nicest of people, and that the things they made him do were sometimes awful. I told him then what I’m telling you now, sir: I don’t want to know anything about it. I’ll do what you want me to do, but don’t make me know any more about it than I have to. I just want my Wilfred back, and after that, we’ll take our leave of the lot of you, if you don’t mind.”

  Lucius nodded understandingly, patting her hand, but Lianna seemed to have nothing more to say. The firm line of her mouth proved to Lucius that the simple-minded woman had determined to do nearly anything to get her husband back. She seemed to sense it would be rather horrid, but she had a look on her face that Lucius knew well. It was the look that said I will do whatever it takes, and then I will never speak of it or think of it again. No one will know, and I will forget it myself. I am already forgetting it. My mind is a blank. Please just get it over with.

  When Lucius was quite confident that the look of resolve was fully solidified on Lianna’s face, he reached slowly into his robe, maintaining his expression of kind concern. He produced a folded black cloth and laid it on the table.

  “Unwrap it, Mrs. Agnellis,” he said quietly. “It is for you.”

  She reached and pulled the folded cloth to herself. She unwrapped it and stared blankly down at the ugly silver dagger.

  Lucius continued to smile at her. “It’ll only hurt for a moment,” he said reassuringly. He began to explain to her what she must do.

  “That’s absolutely horrible,” Rose said, her voice shaking. “Your grandfather is a monster!”

  Scorpius didn’t respond. He looked away, glancing at the dusty Mirror of Erised.

  Ralph frowned. “So how did that Baddock bloke get the dagger Horcrux?”

  “He was a seventh-year student at Hogwarts right before the battle,” Scorpius said. “My grandfather thinks the dagger somehow allowed Baddock to find it, knowing it could use him to get to where it wanted to be.”

  “Poor stupid git,” Rose said, sighing.

  “But if the dagger was with Baddock,” James asked, “then what was the magical object your grandfather sensed in the Forbidden Forest—” He stopped suddenly as the answer came to him. Rose’s eyes widened as she also made the co
nnection.

  “The Resurrection Stone!” she breathed. “That’s how they found it! He got lucky enough to get near it when his senses were on high alert! He felt the lost Resurrection Stone and mistook it for the hidden dagger!”

  “He must have realized that as well,” James nodded gravely. “He probably didn’t know what it was, but after Baddock tried to attack him, he knew the thing in the Forest couldn’t have been the dagger. Eventually, he snuck out into the Forest to look for it. Bloody hell! He must have wet himself when he found out it was Slytherin’s half of the Beacon Stone!”

  Scorpius shook his head. “I don’t know anything about that part, but yes, it would make sense.”

  “So,” James asked, “that’s the end of the story, then? This poor Lianna woman scratched Voldemort’s initial on her belly and gave birth to a baby with part of Voldemort’s soul in it?”

  Scorpius nodded, still averting his eyes, “She was sick with what she’d done, and of course, my grandfather did nothing to see that her husband was released from Azkaban. Not that he really could even if he’d wanted to. All of that had been lies. Eventually, as Wilfred wasn’t released, Lianna became convinced that she’d done something awful, and for no reason. She became very sick and was taken to St. Mungo’s hospital. That night, she died giving birth to her baby.”

  Ralph’s lips were pressed into a thin line. He shook his head and said, “This is awful. I didn’t need to know any of this.”

  Rose looked up, her eyes shining. “Whatever happened to the baby’s father?”

  “Wilfred stayed in Azkaban for years. He knew his wife had died giving birth to his child, but he never saw the baby. He demanded to be let out so he could raise his child. He became irrational and was put into solitary confinement. A short while later, he was found dead in his cell. My grandfather believes he was thrown into the Dementor pit by some of the guards.”