James Potter and the Hall of the Elders' Crossing

by G. Norman Lippert

  “You have rather a talent for looking beyond the flat of the mirror, James Potter,” Merlin said, his voice low and his face impassive. “But I will admit that I did hear everything your Professors Franklyn and Longbottom, and the Pendragon, and yes, your father, said about me. I was amused and angered that they presumed to know me so. And yet I am no slave to arrogance. I asked myself if what they supposed was true. I left then, and I visited my old lands. I went in and out, to and fro. I studied my own deep soul as Franklyn supposed I should. And I found there was a shadow of truth in their words. A shadow���”

  Merlin paused for a long moment. James decided not to say anything, but simply watched the wizard. His face remained utterly immobile, but his eyes were distant. After no less than two minutes, Merlin spoke again.

  “But a shadow was not enough to bring me back to the mire of double-speak and confused loyalties that pass for battle-lines in this benighted age. I was far-off, exploring, seeking space and land and uninterrupted earth, already sinking into the deep language of the wind and the rain, when there was a new note in the song of the trees. Your message, James Potter.”

  James was amazed to see that there was finally emotion on the enormous man’s face. He looked at James nakedly, his eyes suddenly wet. James felt shame for the man’s raw expression of anguish. He even felt a little guilty for his own words, words that had apparently, shockingly, pierced this enormous man’s hidden heart. Then, as if the anguish had never been there, the massive, stony face composed itself. It was not a matter of masking the emotion, James realized. He was simply witnessing the workings of emotion in a man whose culture was utterly alien to him, where the heart was so close to the surface that deep emotion could pass over the face shamelessly and completely, like a cloud obscuring the sun but for a moment.

  “Thus, James Potter,” the wizard said, standing slowly, so that he seemed to fill the room. “I return. I am at your service. My soul does indeed require this. I have learned much of this world during my travels this day, and I love little of it, but there is a present evil, even though it is masked with duplicity and etiquette. Perhaps defeating that evil is secondary even to stripping that evil of its fa��ade of respectability.”

  James grinned and jumped up as well, not sure whether to shake Merlin’s hand, hug him, or bow. He settled for pumping his fist once in the air and proclaiming, “Yes! Er, thank you, Merlin. Er, Merlinus. Mr. Ambrosius?”

  The wizard simply smiled, his ice-blue eyes twinkling.

  “So,” James said, “what do we do? I mean, we only have a few hours before Prescott and his crew gather to film the school and everything. I guess I have to explain all that to you. Sheesh, this is going to take a while.”

  “I am Merlin, James Potter,” the wizard said, sighing. “I have already learned as much as I need to know about this world and how it works. You’d be quite surprised, methinks, to learn how much the trees know of your culture. Mr. Prescott is not your problem. We simply need a council of allies to aid us.”

  “All right,” James said, plopping back onto the bed. “What sort of allies do we need?”

  Merlin’s eyes narrowed. “We require heroes of wit and cleverness, unafraid to foil convention in order to defend a higher allegiance. Battle skills matter not. What we need at this moment, James Potter, are scoundrels with honor.”

  James nodded succinctly. “I know just the group. Scoundrels with honor. Got it.”

  “Then let us have at it, my young counselor,” Merlin said, smiling a little frighteningly. “Lead on.”

  “So,” James said as he led Merlin down out of the portrait hole, “do you think we’ll win?”

  “Mr. Potter,” Merlin said breezily, stepping out onto the landing and placing his fists on his hips, “you won the moment I decided to join you.”

  “Is that the famous Merlin pride talking?” James asked tentatively.

  “Like I said,” Merlin replied, turning to follow James with his long, slow stride, “nine-tenths of magic happens in the mind. The last tenth, Mr. Potter, is pure and unadulterated bluster. Take note of that and you’ll do very well.”

  After the bright, misty morning, the day progressed into a hazy stillness of unseasonable warmth. Headmistress McGonagall had insisted that classes continue, even during the tour of Martin J. Prescott and his entourage, but in spite of her order, dozens of students had gathered in the courtyard to witness the arrival of the Muggle reporter’s crew. Near the front of the group, James and Harry stood side by side. Only a few feet away, Tabitha Corsica and her Slytherin compatriots were looking decidedly bright-eyed and eager. On the top of the main steps, Headmistress McGonagall was flanked by Miss Sacarhina and Mr. Recreant. Martin Prescott, on the lowest step, glanced at his watch.

  “Are you sure they can get their vehicles in through the way you described, Miss Sacarhina?” he said, glancing up to where she stood, squinting in the sunlight. “They will be driving vehicles with wheels, as I’ve said. You know. Wheels. There aren’t any magical mud bogs or bridges with trolls living under them or anything, are there?”

  Sacarhina was about to answer when the sound of automobile engines became audible in the near distance. Prescott jumped and spun on the spot, craning to catch a glimpse of his crew. James, standing near the front of the crowd of students with his dad, thought Headmistress McGonagall was handling herself pretty well, considering everything. She merely pressed her lips tightly together as the huge vehicles rumbled into the courtyard. There were two of them, and James recognized them as the sort of enormous off-road trucks Zane called ‘Landrovers’. The first one ground to a halt directly in front of the steps. All four doors popped open and men began to emerge, blinking in the hazy sunlight and carrying large leather bags covered in thick pockets. Prescott scampered down among the men, calling them by name, pointing and yelling directions.

  “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 expos�� 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, hornrimmed 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?”