James had just decided to turn back, worried that Hardcastle would be looking for them, when the moon came out. As the silvery light spread across the woods, James stopped, a slow, gravid chill shaking him from head to toe. The crickets had fallen suddenly and completely silent. James felt rooted to the spot, frozen except for his eyes, which roamed the surrounding woods. The silence of the crickets wasn’t the only change. The perpetual, myriad flashes of the fireflies had also ceased. The wood had gone completely and suddenly still in the wash of moonlight.
“James?” Zane’s voice came, tentative in the sudden, oppressive silence. “Is this… you know… normal?” He joined James at the edge of the lake. “And what’s the deal with that place?”
James glanced at Zane. “What place?” He followed Zane’s eyes, and then gasped.
The island that lay just off the shore had changed. James could tell that no individual part of it was different, exactly. It was just that, what had appeared as totally random trees and bushes a minute before, now, in the silvery moonlight, looked much more like a hidden, ancient structure. There was the unmistakable suggestion of pillars and gates, buttresses and gargoyles, all crafted out of the island’s natural growth as if it were a sort of incredibly complex optical illusion.
“I do not like the look of that joint,” Zane said emphatically, his voice low.
James looked further. The group of trees that had fallen across the water, connecting the island to the shore, had changed as well. James could see that there was order to them. Two of them had fallen together so that they formed what was obviously a bridge. The bridge was even stylized, fashioned to resemble a gigantic dragon’s head. A brown rock jutting from the upturned roots served as the eye. Two more trees, only half collapsed, formed the open upper jaw, jutting out over the bridge as if to snap down on anyone that attempted to cross.
James walked carefully toward the bridge.
“Hey, you’re not going in there, are you?” Zane called. “That doesn’t look so healthy to me.”
“Come on,” James said, not looking back. “You said you wanted adventure and really wild stuff.”
“Well, actually I think I just want those things in little bitty doses. I had enough with that crazy monster we saw already, if you don’t mind.”
James skirted an outcropping of bushes and spindly trees and found himself standing at the mouth of the bridge. Closer to, it was even more perfect. There were handrails formed by fallen birches, smooth and easy to grip, and the two trees that formed the floor of the bridge were so close together, with vines and leaves packed between them, that they made an easy walking surface.
“Fine, stay here,” James said, not really blaming Zane for his reluctance. The mystery of it was strangely attractive to James, though. He stepped onto the bridge.
“Ahh, sheesh,” Zane moaned, following.
On the island side of the bridge, a complicated growth of vines and small trees had formed into a set of tall, ornate gates. Beyond them was impenetrable shadow. As James crept closer, he could see that the vines formed a recognizable pattern across the gates.
“I think it spells something,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. “Look. It’s a poem, or a rune or something.”
As soon as he was able to make out the first word, the rest sprang into view, as if he’d just had to train his eye to see it. He stopped and read aloud:
When by the light of Sulva bright
I found the Grotto Keep;
Before the night of time requite
Did wake his languid sleep.
Upon return the fretted dawn
With not a relic lossing;
Bygone a life, a new eon,
The Hall of Elders’ Crossing.
Something about the poem made James shudder.
“What’s it mean?” Zane asked when he’d read it over twice.
James shrugged. “ Sulva is an old word for ‘moon’. I know that. I think the first part just means you can only find this place when the moon shines on it. That’s got to be true, because when I first saw it in the dark, it just looked like some ugly old island. So this must be the Grotto Keep, whatever that is.”
Zane leaned in. “What about this part? ‘Upon return the fretted dawn’. Sounds like we’re supposed to come back when the sun comes back up, eh? Sounds pretty good to me.”
Ignoring Zane, James wrapped his hands around the gates and gave them a hard yank. They rattled woodenly, but didn’t budge. The action seemed to trigger a response from the island. A sudden, creeping sound came from beneath the boys’ feet. James glanced down, and then jumped backwards as tendrils of thorny vines grew up from underneath the bridge. The vines twined through the gate, weaving up it with a noise like a newspaper in a fire. The thorns were an ugly purple color, as if they might contain some sort of venom. They grew longer as James watched. After a minute, the gates were completely entwined with them, obscuring the words of the poem. The noise of their growth died away.
“Well, that settles that, then,” Zane said in a strangely high voice. He was standing behind James, backing away slowly. “I think this place wants to be left alone, don’t you?”
“I want to try one more thing,” James said, pulling his wand out from beneath his cloak. Without really thinking about it, he aimed his wand at the gate. “Alohomora.”
There was a streak of golden light, and this time, the result was immediate and powerful. The gates repelled the spell, obliterating it in a burst of sparks, and the entire island seemed to shiver, to tense menacingly. There was a sound like a thousand people suddenly breathing in, and then a voice, an entirely inhuman, swarming sort of voice, spoke.
“Get… Thee… Hence!”
James stumbled backwards at the vehemence of the response, tumbling into Zane and knocking them both to the floor of the bridge. The bridge shuddered beneath them, and then James saw that the gates were swaying, leaning over them. The trees overhead, the ones that were fashioned to appear as the upper jaw of the dragon’s head bridge, were creaking down, looming, their broken branches looking more and more like teeth.
“Get… Thee… Hence!” the island said again. The voice sounded like it was comprised of millions of tiny voices, whispering and raspy, speaking in unison.
The floor of the bridge buckled, tearing loose of the shore. The upper jaws crackled and began to collapse, ready to devour the two boys. They scrambled backwards, tumbling wildly over each other, and fell onto the weedy shore just as the bridge ripped loose. The gigantic jaws snapped and gnashed ferociously. Broken branches and bits of bark exploded from the writhing shape, peppering James and Zane as they scuttled away, their hands slipping on dead leaves and pine needles.
The ground rumbled under them. Roots began to burrow up from the dirt, tearing the earth apart. James felt the shore disintegrate beneath him. His foot slipped into a sudden hole and he yanked it out, narrowly avoiding a dirty, carrot-like root that writhed up out of it. He struggled for purchase on the collapsing shore, but it sank beneath him, dragging him back toward the water’s edge. The surface of the lake roiled, rushing into the forming sinkhole. The boys’ feet splashed into the muck, and it sucked at them, pulling them in. Zane grasped at the shore as he was pulled slowly into the frothing water. James groped for purchase, but nothing seemed solid. Even the tree roots revealed by the crumbling earth grew loose and slippery under his hands, covered in a horrible slime that came off in coats.
Then, suddenly, there was Grawp. He dropped to his knees, gripping a nearby tree trunk with one hand and reaching for Zane, who was nearer, with the other. He plucked the boy from the murk and plopped him onto his shoulder. Zane grasped for a handhold on Grawp’s shirt as the giant lunged down to retrieve James, who was nearly submerged in the thrashing waters. A horrible, hairy root snaked across the water and curled around James’ ankle, yanking him back. He hung there, caught between Grawp’s grip and that of the horrid root, and James was sure he’d be torn in half by the force of it. The
root slipped on his pant leg and yanked his shoe off. James saw it twine hungrily around the shoe and pull it under the surface.
Grawp tried to stand, but roots were ripping up from the ground all around him. Huge, crackling wood tentacles twined his legs. Green vines grew with lightning speed up the thicker tentacles, sewing themselves into the fabric of his pants with tiny, threadlike roots. Grawp roared and yanked, ripping his pants and tearing the roots further out of the ground, but their combined force was too strong. They pulled him back to a kneeling position, and then lunged up, circling his waist, climbing his back and shoulders. The vines battened onto James and Zane, threatening to pull them off. Grawp roared again as one of the green vines twisted around his neck, forcing him lower, pulling him down into the sinkhole.
Just as James began to slip off Grawp’s shoulder, pulled back toward the ground by a dozen muscling vines, sudden, shocking light filled the air. It was a vibrant golden green, and it was accompanied by a low humming sound. The vines and roots recoiled from the light. They loosened, repulsed by it, but were dreadfully reluctant to abandon their prey. Waves of the light washed over them, and each wave loosened the tangling mass until the smaller vines fell away as dead and the larger roots retreated, sucking back down into the earth with a nasty, gurgling noise.
Grawp, James, and Zane half fell, half crawled up the bank until they found firm ground. There they collapsed, panting and heaving, amid the dead leaves and broken branches.
When James rolled over and pulled himself to a kneeling position, there was a figure standing nearby, glowing faintly with the same golden green light that had repulsed the vines. James could see through the figure, although what he saw through it was both brightened and refracted, the way things might look if seen through a raindrop. The figure looked like a woman, very tall and very thin, in a dark green gown that fell straight from her hips and, apparently, right through the ground. Her whitish-green hair spread and flowed around her head like a corona. She was beautiful, but her face was grave.
“James Potter, Zane Walker, Grawp, son of the earth, you are in danger here. You must leave this wood. No human is safe under this canopy now.”
James struggled to his feet. “Who are you? What was that?”
“I am a dryad, a spirit of the wood. I have managed to silence the Voice of the Island, but I won’t be able to hold it back for long. It grows more restless with each day.”
“A spirit of the wood?” Zane asked as Grawp helped him rather roughly to his feet. “The woods have a ghost?”
“I am a dryad, a tree sprite, a spirit of a single tree. All the trees in the wood have spirits, but they have been asleep for ages and ages, seeped down into the earth, almost diminished. Until now. The naiads and dryads have been awakened, though we know not why. Those few humans that once communed with the trees are gone and forgotten. Our time is past. Yet we are summoned.”
“Who summoned you?” James asked.
“We have not been able to know that, despite our greatest efforts. There is disharmony among us. Many trees remember only the saw of man, not his replanting. They are old and angry, wishing only to do harm to the world of men. They have gone over. You have experienced their wrath, though not as they would have it.”
“What do you mean they’ve ‘gone over’?” Zane asked, taking half a step closer, squinting at the dryad’s beauty. “Is it that place? The island? The… the Hall of Elder’s Crossing?”
“Man’s time is short on the earth, but we trees watch the years march past like days. The stars are motionless to you, but we watch and study the heavens as a dance,” the dryad said, her voice becoming soft, almost dreamy. “Since our awakening, the dance of the stars has become dire, showing a thousand dark destinies for the world of men, all swinging on the balance of the coming days. Only one possible destiny bears good. The rest are heavy with bloodshed and loss. Great sorrow. Dark times, full of war and greed, powerful tyrants, famines of terror. Much will be determined within the closing of this cycle. We tree folk can only watch, for now, but those of us who remain faithful to the memory of harmony between our world and the world of men, when the time comes, we will help as we can.”
James was almost hypnotized by the dryad’s voice, but he felt a rising sense of helplessness and frustration at her words. “But you said there is one chance we can avoid this war. What can we do? How can we make the one good destiny happen?”
The dryad’s face softened. Her large, liquid eyes smiled sadly. “There is no way to predict the path of a single action. It could be that you are already doing that which will bring about peace. It could also be that the very things you do to for good are the things that will result in war. You must do what you know to do, but only with an unclouded mind.”
Zane risked a derisive laugh. “Helpful stuff, there, Sensei.”
“There are greater dangers in the fabric of destinies than you yet know, James Potter,” the dryad said, slipping closer to James so that her light played across his face. “The enemy of your father, and of all who know love, is dead. But his blood beats within a different heart. The blood of your greatest enemy lives still.”
James felt his knees grow watery. He wobbled, and then threw his hand out, pressing it against a nearby tree for support. “Vol-Voldemort?” he whispered.
The dryad nodded, apparently unwilling to say the name. “His preferred plan was thwarted forever by your father. But he was infinitely crafty. He prepared a second plan. A successor, a bloodline. The heart of that bloodline beats today, at this moment, not one mile hence.”
James’ lips were trembling. “Who?” he asked in a barely audible voice. “Who is it?”
But the dryad was already shaking her head sadly. “We are prevented from knowing. Not from without, but from within. Those trees that have gone over work against us, fog our vision, keep many of us asleep. We can only know of that heartbeat, that it is there, but no more. You must beware, James Potter. Your father’s battle is over. Yours begins.”
The dryad was fading. Her eyes slipped shut and even as she drifted into nothingness, she already seemed to be asleep.
There was a creaking groan, then a splash from the island.
“Well,” Zane said with manic cheerfulness, “what say we jump back onto our giant buddy’s shoulders and make this place a memory before it does the same to us?”
The three of them met Titus Hardcastle before they were halfway back to their starting point. His face was like a thunderstorm, but all he said was, “Is everyone safe?”
“Safe enough,” Zane called down from Grawp’s shoulders. “But let me tell you, we’ve had one weird time of it.”
Grawp bent down to allow Hardcastle to climb onto his back. “It’s going around, then, isn’t it?” Hardcastle grunted.
Zane held a hand out, intending to help Hardcastle climb up and almost getting yanked from his seat instead. “So what was that thing you were chasing, anyway?” he said, puffing.
“Spider. One of old Aragog’s kin, no doubt. They’ve grown dumb in the last decade or two, but that one had gone and found himself a toy.” Hardcastle held something up, and James saw that it was the little handheld video camera that the intruder had been using on the Quidditch pitch. “It was still working when I caught up to the brute, the little screen all lit up. Got broken when I, er, dispatched the beast. At least it’d had a good last meal.”
James shuddered involuntarily as Grawp began to make his way back through the woods. “You really think it… ate the guy?”
Hardcastle set his jaw. “Circle of life, James. Strictly speaking, though, spiders don’t eat people. They just suck their juices out. Ugly way to go, but at least he’s not a problem anymore.”
James didn’t say so, but he had a feeling that the real problems were just beginning.
Wednesday morning, James felt sluggish and prickly as he entered the Great Hall for breakfast. It was a thoroughly glum morning, with a low, bruised sky filling the top portion of the Hall and a
fine mist speckling the windows. Ralph and Zane were seated at the Slytherin table, Zane blowing on his traditional morning coffee and Ralph attacking an orange with a butter knife, sawing through it, peel and all. They didn’t appear to be talking much. Zane wasn’t typically a morning person, and he had been out just as late as James had been. Neither Zane nor Ralph looked up, and James was glad. He was still angry and disgusted with Ralph. Under that, though, he was sad and hurt about the boy’s betrayal. He tried not to feel resentment toward Zane for sitting with Ralph, but he was too tired to make much of an effort, and the mood of the morning wasn’t helping.
James made his way to the Gryffindor table, glancing up at the dais as he went. Neither his dad nor Titus Hardcastle were anywhere to be seen. James figured that, despite the lateness of the previous night, they had still risen and breakfasted shortly after dawn and were already about their morning’s business. The thought that his dad’s and Titus’ day was already well underway, probably full of exciting meetings and secret intrigues, while he was just now having breakfast on his way to a day of gloomy classes and homework, filled him with melancholy. He found a seat surrounded by happily babbling Gryffindors, plopped into it, and began to eat methodically, joylessly.
The night before, James had been up with Titus Hardcastle, his dad, and Headmistress McGonagall for almost two hours after their return from the perimeter of the lake. Titus had sent up a wand signal as soon as they’d reached the castle, summoning Harry, Ted, Prechka, and Hagrid back from their forays. When they’d all assembled again by Hagrid’s cottage, the Headmistress dismissed Grawp and Prechka, thanking them both formally, and offering them a barrel of Butterbeer for their efforts. After that, the group convened in Hagrid’s cottage, congregated around the huge, rough table, drinking Hagrid’s tea, which was suspiciously cloudy and brown and tasted vaguely medicinal, and avoiding some rather stale biscuits.
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