James Potter and the Hall of the Elders' Crossing

by G. Norman Lippert

  “The castle, as I have mentioned, is positively huge,” Martin said into the small microphone clipped to his lapel. The microphone was connected to the phone on his belt. “I’ve travelled much of this continent and seen quite a variety of castles, but I’ve never seen anything so simultaneously ancient and yet immaculately maintained. The windows, apart from the one I was forced through those months ago, are beautifully sturdy and colorful. The stonework here doesn’t show so much as a crack���” This wasn’t entirely true, but it was true enough. “It is a beautiful spring day, fortunately. Clear and relatively warm. I am not hiding myself at all as I cross to the enormous gates, which are open. There��� there seems to be a gathering over to my right, on a sort of field. I��� I can’t quite tell, but it looks as if they are playing football. I can’t say that I expected that. They don’t seem to be paying me any attention. I am continuing to the gates.”

  As Martin entered the gates, he finally began to be noticed. He slowed, still maintaining a steady course onward. His goal was simply to get as far into the castle as possible. He had purposely left his still camera behind. Cameras, in nearly every circumstance, incite resistance. People with cameras get thrown out of places. Someone simply walking into a place, walking confidently and purposely, may be met with curiosity, but they are not usually stopped. At least, not until it is too late. The courtyard was dotted with young people moving here and there in knots. They wore black robes over white shirts and ties. Many carried backpacks or books. The ones nearest Martin turned to watch him past, mostly out of curiosity.

  “There are��� there are what appear for all the world to be��� school pupils,” Martin said quietly into his microphone, sidling past students as he worked across the courtyard. “Young people in robes, all school age. They seem surprised at my presence, but not hostile. In fact, as I am now approaching the entryway into the castle proper, it appears that I have elicited the attention of virtually everyone. Excuse me.”

  This last was said to Ted Lupin, who had just appeared in the doorway with Noah Metzker and Sabrina Hildegard. All three of them stopped talking instantly as the strange man in the white shirt and loosened tie slipped between them. The quill in Sabrina’s hair wobbled as she turned to watch him.

  “Who’s he talking to?” Ted said.

  “And who the ruddy hell is he?” Sabrina added. The trio turned in the open doorway, watching the man work his way carefully into the entry hall. Students parted for him, recognizing immediately that this man was rather out of place. Still, no one seemed particularly alarmed. There were even a few puzzled grins.

  Martin went on speaking into his microphone. “More and more of what I must, for the time being, call students. There are dozens of them around me at the moment. I am moving through a sort of main hall. There are��� chandeliers, great doorways. Statues. Paintings. The paintings��� the paintings��� the paintings���” For the first time, Martin seemed at a loss for words. He forgot the students gathering around him, watching him, as he took two steps toward one of the larger paintings lining the entry hall. In the painting, a group of ancient wizards were clustered around a large crystal ball, their white beards illuminated in its glow. One of the wizards noticed the staring man in the white shirt and tie. He straightened and scowled. “You’re out of uniform, young man,” the wizard exclaimed sternly. “You look a fright. I daresay you have a leaf in your hair.”

  “The paintings��� the paintings are���,” Martin said, his voice an octave higher than normal. He coughed and gathered himself. “The paintings are moving. They are��� for lack of a better term, like painted movies, but alive. They are��� addressing me.”

  “I address equals, young man,” the wizard said. “I command the likes of you. Begone, ruffian.”

  There was a smattering of laughter from the crowding students, but there was also a growing sense of nervousness. Nobody was ever amazed at the moving paintings. This man was either a nutter of a wizard, or he was��� well, it was unthinkable. A Muggle could not get into Hogwarts. The students formed a large circle around him, as if he was a mildly dangerous animal.

  “The students have hemmed me in,” Martin said, turning around, his eyes rather wild. “I’m going to attempt to break through, however. I must move further in.”

  As Martin proceeded, the perimeter of students broke apart easily, following him. There was a murmuring now. Nervous chatter followed the man, and he began to raise his voice.

  “I’m entering a large chamber. Quite high. I’ve been here before, but late at night, in the dark. Yes, this is the hall of moving staircases. Very treacherous. Remarkable mechanics at work here, and yet no sound of machinery at all.”

  “What’s he saying about machinery?” someone in the crowding students called. “Who is this bloke anyway? What’s he doing here?” There was a chorus of confused responses.

  Martin pushed on, turning past the staircases, almost shouting now. “My presence is beginning to cause some resistance. I may be stopped at any moment. I��� I am bypassing the stairs.”

  Martin turned a corner and found himself in the midst of a group of students playing Winkles and Augers in a bright alcove. He stopped suddenly and recoiled as the auger, an old Quaffle, stopped three inches from his face, floating and turning slowly.

  “Oi, what’re you thinking just walking right into the middle of the sodding match, you?” one of the players called, yanking his wand up and retrieving the Quaffle. “Dangerous, that is. You need to watch yourself.”

  “Flying��� things!” Martin squeaked, straightening himself and smoothing his shirt frantically. “I��� wands. Actual magical wands and levitating objects! This is perfectly remarkable! I’ve never seen���!”

  “Hey now,” another of the Winkles and Augers players said sharply. “Who is this? What’s he going on about?”

  Someone else yelled, “Who let him in? He’s a Muggle! Got to be!”

  “It’s the man from the Quidditch pitch! The intruder!”

  The crowd began to yell and jostle. Martin ducked past the Winkles and Augers players, losing some of the pursuing crowd. “I’m pressing in further still. Corridors leading everywhere. Here is��� er, as far as I can tell, it is a hall of classrooms. I’m entering the first one���”

  He burst into the first classroom on his right, followed by a stream of confused, yelling students. The room was long and recessed. The students attending the class turned in their seats, seeking the source of the interruption.

  “Relatively normal, it seems, on the surface, at least,” Martin yelled over the growing din, scanning the room. “Students, textbooks, a teacher of some kind, who��� who, who, whooo���”

  Again, Martin’s voice rose and he seemed to be losing control of it. His eyes boggled and he ran out of breath. His mouth continued to work, making hoarse raspy sounds. At the front of the class, the ghostly Professor Binns, whose grasp on the temporal realm was tentative at best, had not yet noticed the interruption. He droned on, his voice high and chiming, like wind in a bottle. The professor finally noticed the gasping form of Martin J. Prescott and stopped, frowning. “Who is this individual, might I ask?” Binns said, peering over his ghostly spectacles.

  Martin finally dragged a great gulp of air. “A ghooooossst!” he declared tremulously, pointing at Binns. He began to totter. Just as the students near the doorway were shoved roughly aside by the advancing figures of Professor Longbottom and Headmistress McGonagall, flanked by Ted and Sabrina, Martin fell over in a dead faint. He landed hard across two desks at the rear of the room. The students occupying the desks threw their hands up, lunging to get out of the way. A bottle of ink fell to the floor and shattered.

  Headmistress McGonagall approached the man swiftly and stopped a few feet away. “Can anyone please inform me who this man is,” she said in a strident voice, “and what he is doing fainting dead away in my school?”

 
James Potter shouldered his way to the front of the crowd. He looked at the man collapsed across the desks. He sighed deeply and said, “I think I can, ma’am.”

  Fifteen minutes later, James, McGonagall, Neville Longbottom, and Benjamin Franklyn bustled into the Headmistress’ office, with Martin Prescott stumbling between them. Martin had regained consciousness halfway to the office, and had instantly shrieked in horror at the realization that he was being levitated along the corridor by Neville. Neville, in turn, had been so startled by Martin’s shriek that he’d nearly dropped him, but had recovered in time to lower the man fairly gently to the floor. Apart from James’ explanation that the intruder was the very same man he’d accidentally knocked through the stainedglass window and later seen on the Quidditch pitch, the trip to the Headmistress’ office had progressed with very little conversation. Once the door to her office had closed behind them, McGonagall spoke up.

  “I only want to know who you are, why you are here, and most importantly, how you managed to gain entry,” she said furiously, stalking behind her desk but remaining upright. “Once we have resolved that, you will be removed forthwith, and with nary a glimmer of any memory of what you have seen, I can promise you that. Now speak.”

  Martin swallowed and glanced around at the assembly. He saw James and grimaced, remembering the shattering glass and the sickly fall afterward. He took a deep breath. “First of all, my name is Martin J. Prescott. I work for a news program called Inside View. And second of all,” he said, returning his gaze to the Headmistress, “I have been injured upon these grounds. I don’t wish to make a legal matter of it, but you must be aware that it is entirely within my rights to pursue compensation for those injuries. And somehow, I don’t get the impression that this domicile is insured, exactly.”

  “How dare you?” McGonagall exclaimed, leaning over her desk and meeting Martin’s eyes. “You break into this castle, trespass where you have neither the right nor the understanding to carry yourself���” She shook her head, and then went on in a lower voice. “I will not be baited by threats. You are obviously of Muggle origin, so I will practice a modicum of patience with you. Answer my questions willingly or I will be more than happy to resort to more straightforward means of interrogation.”

  “Ah,” Martin said, trying to sound confident despite the fact that he was trembling visibly. “You must mean something along the lines of this.” He reached into his shirt pocket and produced a small vial. James recognized it as the one he had seen in this man’s hand when he’d encountered him in the Potions closet. “Yes. I see by your faces that you know what this is. Took me a time to figure it out. Veritaserum, indeed. I put two drops into a coworker’s tea and I couldn’t get him to shut up for an hour. I learned things about him I hope I live to forget, I’ll tell you.”

  “You tested an unknown potion on an unsuspecting person?” Franklyn interrupted.

  “Well, I had to know what it did, didn’t I? I figured two drops wouldn’t hurt anyone.” He shrugged and lifted the bottle again, looking at the light through it. “Truth serum. If it was dangerous, you’d hardly have kept it right there on the shelf where just anyone could get to it.”

  McGonagall’s face was white with fury. “In these halls, we rely on discipline and respect rather than cages and keys. Your friend is fortunate indeed that you didn’t happen upon a vial of Narglespike or tharff sap.”

  “Don’t try to intimidate me,” Martin said, obviously quite intimidated in spite of himself. “I just wanted to show you that I know your tricks. I’ve been watching and studying you for quite some time. You won’t be getting me to drink any of your potions or performing any brainwashing tricks on me. I’ll answer your questions, but only because I expect you to answer some of mine, as well.”

  Neville fingered his wand. “And why, pray tell, do you believe we won’t just bring in an Obliviator, have your mind wiped of all memory of this place, and drop you off at the nearest turnpike?”

  Martin tapped the tiny microphone clipped to his lapel. “This is why. My voice, and everything all of you are saying, is being sent through my phone to a computer at my office. Everything is being recorded. In a small town not three kilometers from here is a film crew and a group of experts in a variety of fields whom I have asked to assist me in my investigation—”

  “Investigation!” the Headmistress repeated incredulously. “Absolutely and unequivocally out of the question!”

  Martin overrode her. “One of those individuals is an agent of the British special police.”

  James felt a palpable silence descend over the room at the mention of the Muggle police. He knew from conversations he’d heard between his dad and other Ministry officials that it was one thing to Obliviate a single person or even a contained group, but things could get extremely complicated if any official Muggle investigative bureaus became involved.

  “It pays to be owed favors in high places,” Martin went on. “It took quite a lot to get a ranking agent out here, but I am confident that this is the sort of story one calls in large favors for. There is no official charge yet, of course. Merely curiosity, since there is no record of any establishment of this size in the area. The point is this: if they do not receive a phone call from me in the next two hours with directions for how to get their gear onto the grounds, they are to return immediately to the office, retrieve the recording of this conversation and everything that has occurred to me here so far, and broadcast it however they see fit. It may seem preposterous to most people, I grant. A school in a castle in the dead of nowhere teaching kids how to work real magic, wands and all. But your secret will be out, nevertheless. Your students may attend here, in this secret location, but they do sometimes go home, do they not? And I am willing to bet those homes are nowhere near as protected as this. There will be investigations. You will be revealed. One way or another.”

  Headmistress McGonagall’s face was as hard and white as a tombstone. She merely stared at the skinny man in the white shirt. Franklyn broke the silence.

  “My good sir, you cannot comprehend what you are asking.” He took off his glasses and stepped in front of Martin. “Your plan would undeniably result in the closing down of this school and possibly many others like it. All those present, and many, many more, would lose their livelihoods and educations. More importantly, what you are insisting upon is the re-introduction of the entire magical world into the world of Muggles, whether either is prepared for that or not. And to what end? Not for the betterment of mankind, I expect. No, I suspect that your aspirations are far more��� myopic. Please, do think before you continue. There are forces at work here that you do not comprehend, although you may well be acting on behalf of some of them. I sense that you are not a bad man, or at least not yet a very bad man. Think, my friend, before you make a choice that will condemn you in the eyes of generations.”

  Martin listened to Franklyn’s words, and seemed to actually consider them. Then, as if snapping out of a daze, he said, “You’re Benjamin Franklin, aren’t you?” He grinned and waggled a finger at Franklyn. “I knew you looked familiar! That’s amazing. Look, I know you’re not in a position to discuss this right now, but I have two words for you: exclusive��� interview. Think about it, right?”

  “Mr. Prescott,” the Headmistress said, her voice stony. “You cannot expect us to make a decision regarding this in a matter of minutes. We simply must discuss this.”

  “Indeed,” Neville added. “Even if we do agree to your conditions, you must conduct yourself upon our terms. How that can be of any benefit to us considering the sheer magnitude of what you are undertaking, I do not yet know. But regardless, we must have some time.”

  “As I said,” Martin replied, seeming far more comfortable now that he believed he had the upper hand, “you have two hours. Well, ninety-four minutes, actually.”

  “Answer me this, Mr. Prescott,” Franklyn said, sighing. “How did you get onto the school grounds? Before we go any further with this charade,
we must know that.”

  Martin sighed lightly. “Got a chair? It’s rather a story.”

  Neville pointedly produced his wand. Never taking his eyes off Martin, he pointed the wand at a wooden chair in the corner and levitated it rather brusquely. The chair shot forward, nearly scooping Martin off his feet. The man plopped gracelessly onto the seat and the chair thunked to the floor.

  “Do continue,” Neville said, half sitting on a corner of the Headmistress’ desk. McGonagall settled into her chair, but remained ramrod straight. Franklyn and James continued to stand.

  “Well, I first got the letter telling me about this place in September of last year,” Martin said, leaning forward and rubbing his backside while staring angrily at Neville. “The View offers a hundred thousand pound reward for proof of paranormal activity, and the gentleman that wrote the letter seemed to think that this Hogwarts place would offer such proof in spades. Honestly, we get thousands of letters a year from people hoping to collect the reward. They include everything from blurry pictures of tossed pie plates to actual slices of toast with the faces of saints burned onto them. The View never actually had any plans to reward the money. They like a nice dash of the inexplicable in the news from time to time, but when it comes to belief, most of them are the most cynical bunch of hardheads imaginable.