James Potter and the Hall of the Elders' Crossing

by G. Norman Lippert

  “Don’t worry about it, Ralph,” Zane said, but his voice was less confident than usual. “We’ve got James’ magic map here. We can check it again, but according to it, most of your buddies are out watching the Slytherins practice for the tournament. Right, James?”

  James had the Marauder’s Map unfolded in his hands. He studied it as he walked. “As far as I can tell, there’s only a couple of people in the Slytherin dorms, and none of them are people we need to worry about.”

  “Are you sure you’re reading that thing right?” Ralph asked, plugging his ring into the eye socket of the snake sculpture on the gigantic wooden door. “Last I heard, you said you couldn’t even remember how to get it to work.”

  “Well, it’s working, isn’t it?” James replied testily. In truth, he was worried about the accuracy of the map. He had remembered the phrase to get the map to open and display the grounds, but as his dad had feared, the castle had changed rather a lot since the map had been created by Moony, Prongs, Padfoot, and Wormtail. Irregular chunks of the map were completely blank, and each blank section was marked with a notation that read redrawing required, please see Messrs. Prongs and Padfoot for assistance. James could only guess that his grandfather and Sirius Black had been the chief artists who’d plotted the map, but since both were long since dead, there would apparently be no redrawing of the map to fill in the rebuilt areas. The tiny names that marked the locations of everyone on campus could still be seen moving here and there, but as they entered one of the blank areas, their marker and name would flicker out. Fortunately, the Slytherin quarters were under the lake, and therefore had been very little damaged in the Battle of Hogwarts (Ralph had learned that only the main entry had been destroyed in the siege). James could see the entire warren of Slytherin rooms and halls on the Marauder’s Map.

  The snake sculpture asked its questions. Ralph announced himself and explained who James and Zane were, and that they were friends. The glowing green snake eye examined Zane and James for a long moment, and then unlocked the complicated system of bolts and bars that secured the door.

  The three boys couldn’t help skulking as they moved through the apparently deserted Slytherin common room. The brackish green sunlight, filtered by the lake water above the stainedglass ceilings, filled the room with murky shadows. The fire was a dull red glow in the gigantic fireplace, which was sculpted in marble to resemble an open snake’s mouth.

  “Nothing like reading a good book in front of gaping doom,” Zane murmured, passing the fireplace. “So where do they keep their broomsticks, Ralph?”

  Ralph shook his head. “I told you already, I don’t know. I just know there isn’t a common locker or anything, like the Gryffindors or Ravenclaws. Most of these guys don’t trust each other all that much. Everybody has a private closet with a special magical key. Besides, their brooms aren’t here now, anyway, are they? They’ve all got them out at the Quidditch pitch.”

  “We aren’t here to grab it now,” Zane answered, peering around the common room. “We’re just here to scope out where they might hide them.”

  Even in the middle of a spring day, the Slytherin rooms were a pall of shifting green dimness. “Lumos,” James said, illuminating his wand and holding it aloft. “This hall goes back to the boys’ quarters, right Ralph?”

  “Yeah. The girls’ rooms are on the other side, up those stairs.”

  Zane threaded through the furniture of the common room, aiming for the stairs. “Panty raid in the Slytherin girls’ quarters. I’m on it.”

  “Wait,” James said sharply. “It’ll be charmed, you know. No boys are allowed in any of the girls’ quarters. You go up there, it’ll be sure to set off some sort of alarm.”

  Zane stopped, glancing at James, and then turned back to the stairway. “Drat. They thought of everything, didn’t they?”

  “Besides,” Ralph said from across the room, “they’re called ‘knickers’ around here.”

  “You say ‘potato’, I say ‘patata’���,” Zane muttered.

  “Can we get back to why we’re here, after all?” James said as loudly as he dared. “We’re supposed to be looking for ways to get to Tabitha’s broom. Even if all we can do is figure out where she keeps it.”

  “Believe it or not,” Zane said primly, “that’s what I was thinking of. For all we know, she sleeps with the thing. Even if she doesn’t, you can bet she keeps it near enough to guard. That means getting into the girls’ quarters, doesn’t it?”

  James shook his head. “Not possible. I’m beginning to see how helpful it was for my dad to have Aunt Hermione as part of his crew. He could’ve sent her up to check things out. We’re pretty much stuck, though.”

  As James finished speaking, a noise came from the stairway. The three boys froze guiltily, looking toward the stairs. There was a shuffling of small feet, and then a tiny house-elf came down balancing a basket of rumpled clothing on its head. The elf stopped, seeing the three boys staring at it.

  “Many pardons, masters,” the elf said, and James could tell by the timbre of its voice that it was a female. “Just collecting the washing, if you please.” Her bulbous eyes flicked between the three of them. She seemed disconcerted to have elicited such keen interest. James realized she was probably used to being completely ignored, if she was seen at all.

  “Not a problem, Miss���” Zane said, affecting a small bow and taking a step back from the stairs.

  The elf didn’t move. Her eyes followed Zane’s movement with increasing consternation. “Excuse me, master?”

  “Your name, Miss?” Zane replied.

  “Ah. Er. Figgle, master. I apologize, master. Figgle isn’t accustomed to masters and mistresses speaking to her, master.” The elf seemed to be nearly vibrating with nervousness.

  “I’m sure that is true, Figgle,” Zane said understandingly. “You see, I’m a member of an organization you may have heard of. We’re called the��� uh���” Zane glanced back at James, his eyes wide. James remembered telling Zane and Ralph about Aunt Hermione’s equal rights for elves organization.

  James stuttered, “Oh. Yeah, S.P.E.W. The Society for the Promotion of, uh, Elfish Welfare?”

  “Yes, what he said,” Zane said, spinning back to Figgle, who flinched. “S.P.E.W. You’ve heard of us, no doubt. We help those who elf themselves.”

  “Figgle hasn’t, master. Not a bit. Figgle has loads of work, master.”

  “That’s exactly the point, my dear Figgle. We at S.P.E.W. are working to lessen that load. In fact, as an act of good faith, I’d like to help you now. Please, might I help you carry that?”

  Figgle looked positively horrified. “Oh, no, master. Figgle couldn’t! Master shouldn’t mock Figgle, sir!”

  James could see where Zane was heading with this charade, but was doubtful it would get anywhere. House-elves, especially those who worked amongst the Slytherins, were often mistreated and tricked by their masters. Figgle looked as if she was about to burst into tears from fear.

  Zane knelt down, bringing himself eye-level to the trembling house-elf on the second step of the stairs. “Figgle, I’m not going to hurt you or get you into trouble. I promise. I’m not even a Slytherin. I’m a Ravenclaw. You know Ravenclaws?”

  “Figgle does, master. Figgle collects the Ravenclaws’ wash on Tuesdays and Fridays. Ravenclaws use less scent than Slytherins, master.” The elf was babbling, but she seemed a bit calmer.

  “I’d like to help you, Figgle. Surely there is more to carry. May I carry it for you?”

  Figgle pressed her lips together very hard, obviously caught on the knife edge between her fear of a mean prank and her duty to do what she was told. Her tennis ball-sized eyes studied Zane, then, finally, she nodded once, quickly.

  “Excellent, Figgle. You’re a good elf,” Zane said soothingly. “There is more laundry upstairs, isn’t there? I see you’re piling it there by the door. I’ll gather the rest for you.” He made to step forward onto the stairs.

  “Oh,
no, master! Wait!” Figgle said, raising her hand. The basket on her head wobbled a bit and she steadied it easily. “Master will break the boundary. Figgle mustn’t let the others see she is being helped.” Figgle jumped lightly down the last two steps and turned toward the stairs. She raised her hand and snapped her fingers. Something changed about the doorway. James would have sworn that something like a light had been turned off, although the actual lighting in the room hadn’t changed. “Now master can go up. But please, master���” Again, Figgle seemed tortured on the edge of fear and obedience. “Please, master mustn’t touch anything but the basket. Then Figgle will take all the wash to the basements. Please?” She seemed to be pleading to get this over with and be gone as soon as possible.

  “Of course,” Zane answered, smiling. With only the slightest pause, he put his foot on the first step. Nothing happened. “I’ll be right back, guys,” Zane said over his shoulder, then trotted up the steps.

  James let out a pent breath and heard Ralph doing the same. Figgle watched Zane tramp up the stairs, then glanced worriedly back at James and Ralph. Ralph shrugged at her and smiled. It was, James thought, a rather ghastly smile. Figgle didn’t seem to notice. She weaved through the furniture, balancing the huge basket easily, and then tipped it onto a large pile near the door.

  “James,” Ralph said quietly, “the map.”

  James nodded and opened the Marauder’s Map again. He looked first toward the upper right area of the map, where a set of neat drawings illustrated the Quidditch pitch and grandstands. Dozens of names were crammed together there, most in and around the grandstands, but a few swooped around the pitch. The Slytherin practice session was still going on, although there seemed to be fewer people on brooms at the moment. They were probably gathered on the ground nearby, talking strategy or something. He glanced over the names ranged between the pitch and the grandstands. There was Squallus, Norbert, Beetlebrick, and a few others James didn’t know.

  Figgle raised her hands in the same gesture James had seen the house-elves in the Great Hall use to gather up the tablecloths. The pile of laundry clumped into a large ball and a bed sheet cocooned around it, the four corners tying at the top. Figgle tossed a small puff of pink powder onto the gigantic ball of laundry and snapped her fingers again. The ball of laundry vanished, presumably to reappear in the basements. She looked nervously at the stairs.

  “Well?” Ralph asked James in a tight, worried voice.

  “I can’t see Tabitha,” James answered, trying to keep his voice calm. “Or Philia Goyle. They aren’t out on the pitch anymore as far as I can see.”

  “What? Well, where are they?”

  “I don’t know. They seem to be off the map at the moment.”

  Figgle was looking at them, her eyes wide and alert. She seemed to sense something was even more wrong than it had been a minute ago. James studied the Marauder’s Map keenly, watching the huge blank spots to see if Goyle and Corsica would appear out of them. He kept a sharp eye on the blank spot at the door to the Slytherin quarters.

  “Oh, no,” he said, his eyes widening. “Here they come! What are they doing here now?”

  “Get rid of the map!” Ralph said, his face going pasty white. “Come on! Zane!” he called up the steps. There was no answer.

  Figgle’s expression had gone from alarm to raw panic. “Mistress Corsica is coming! Figgle has done an awful thing! Figgle will be punished!” She bolted for the stairs, snapping her fingers as she went. There was that sudden sensation of change, as if an invisible light had popped back on, and James knew that the Boundary Charm over the stairs was in place again. There was a clatter of footsteps and muffled voices both from upstairs as well as from the front door of the common room. James balled the Marauder’s Map roughly and jammed it into his open backpack. Ralph threw himself onto the nearest couch, trying to affect a scene of lazy indolence. The door swung open just as James re-shouldered his backpack and turned.

  Tabitha Corsica and Philia Goyle stepped through the doorway. Their eyes fell on James and both of them went silent. Tabitha was dressed in a sport cloak and black capris, her broomstick over her shoulder. Her hair was in a neat ponytail, and even though she had, only minutes before, been swooping over the Quidditch pitch on her unusually magical broom, she appeared as cool and fresh as a tulip. She spoke first.

  “James Potter,” she said mildly, having almost instantly recovered from her surprise at seeing him. “What a pleasure.”

  “What are you doing here?” Philia demanded, scowling.

  “Philia, don’t be rude,” Tabitha said, moving into the room and passing James breezily. “Mr. Potter is as welcome among us as I’m sure we would be amongst the Gryffindors. If we don’t have goodwill during these difficult times, what have we got? Good afternoon, Mr. Deedle.”

  Ralph croaked something from the couch, looking remarkably awkward and uncomfortable. Philia continued to stare hard at James, her expression openly hostile, but she remained silent.

  “It’s a shame about the Gryffindor Quidditch team,” Tabitha called from a corner of the room as she hung up her cloak. “We always love a Gryffindor versus Slytherin match for the tournament, don’t we, Ralph? I’m sure it pains your friends not to be out scrimmaging with us as we speak, James. Please give them our sympathies. By the way���,” Tabitha crossed the room again, heading toward the stairs to the girls’ sleeping quarters, “I saw several of the Ravenclaw players out at the pitch studying our drills. Interesting that your friend, Zane, wasn’t among them. You haven’t seen him, have you?” She tapped her broomstick on the floor idly, watching James’ face.

  James shook his head, not daring to speak.

  “Hm,” Tabitha murmured thoughtfully. “Curious, that. Nevertheless. Come, Philia.”

  James watched, horrified, as Tabitha and Philia began to climb the steps. He thought furiously, trying to invent a quick diversion, but nothing came.

  “Sod off!” a pair of muffled voices suddenly squeaked.

  Both Tabitha and Philia stopped in their tracks. Philia, on the first step, whipped around angrily. Tabitha, ahead of her, turned much more slowly, a look of polite wonderment on her face.

  “Did you say something?” she asked James slowly.

  James coughed. “Er, no. Sorry. Got a, uh, frog in my throat.”

  Tabitha watched him for a long moment, then tilted her head slightly and narrowed her eyes at Ralph. Finally, she turned away and disappeared up the rest of the stairs with Philia following, glancing back furiously. After a few moments, their footsteps could be heard from above. There were no angry screams or sounds of struggle.

  “Grotty blighter!” quacked the muffled voices again.

  “That crazy loon!” Ralph rasped, jumping up and grabbing his bag. “What’s he doing?”

  “Come on!” James said, lunging toward the door. “If he’s still up there, we can’t help him.”

  They both ran out into the hallway and threaded their way around several random corridors before finally stopping. Panting and hearts pounding, they dug their rubber ducks out of their bags, each examining his own even though they were identical. Two words were scrawled on the bottom of the ducks in black ink: Laundry room!

  “That crazy loon!” Ralph said again, but he was almost laughing with relief. “Figgle just took him down to the cellars with the rest of the dirty sheets! I say we leave him there.”

  James grinned. “No, let’s go get him before they try to stick him in the wringer. He probably deserves it, but first, I want to know what he might have found out.”

  The two boys ran to find the washrooms in the cellars. James stopped only once to ask directions from an annoyingly observant servant in a painting of a gaggle of dining knights.

  “I hardly had two minutes to look around before Figgle came up the stairs like a cannonball,” Zane told James and Ralph when they found him in the washrooms. “She threw a handful of pink dust at me, and then pow! I’m down here.”

  Ralph wa
s looking around in awe at the enormous copper vats and the clanking machinery of the washers. Elves bustled around them, ignoring the three boys completely as they moved through the hive of their basement work space. Two elves on a catwalk above the vats were dumping wheelbarrows of powdered soap into the frothing water. White flakes filled the air and stuck like snow in the boys’ hair.

  “Trust me, this all gets a lot less interesting after two minutes or so,” Zane said tersely. “Especially when the Lollipop Guild here won’t let you leave.” Three elves were clustered around Zane, looking at him with obvious hostility.

  “Figgle brings a human down to the washrooms, we keeps him until someone explains why,” the oldest and grumpiest elf said in a gravelly voice. “S’policy. Humans interfering with elf work is against Hogwarts Code of Conduct and Practices, section thirty, paragraph six. So, then, who be you two?”

  James and Ralph exchanged blank looks. Ralph said, “We’re his��� well, we’re his friends, aren’t we? We came to bring him back upstairs.”

  “Did you, then?” the elf said with a penetrating glare. “Figgle tells a story about this human trying to do her work, she does. Says he was going on about elf welfare and such bilge. She was fair upset. Can’t ‘ave that sort of thing, you know. We gots a coalition agreement with the school.”

  “He won’t do it again,” James soothed. “He meant well, but he’s a bit dim about such things, isn’t he? I’m sorry. He got out of our hands for a minute. Won’t happen again.”

  Zane acted offended, but stayed wisely silent. The head elf scowled thoughtfully at James. James was used to elves being subservient and meek or at least politely surly. Here, in their working realm, the rules appeared to be quite different. The elves had a coalition agreement with the school, the head elf had said. It almost sounded like they’d unionized, and that an essential rule of the elf union was that only elves did elf work. Perhaps they viewed it as job security. James wasn’t sure if Aunt Hermione would view this as an improvement or a setback.

  Finally, the head elf grumbled, “I’m going against my better judgments, you know. The three of yous are on probation. Anymore interference with elfish protocol and I’ll ‘ave you before the Headmistress. We gots a coalition agreement, you know.”