The Curse of the GateKeeper (James Potter #2) (47 page)

James felt both angry and hurt. How could she just accuse him like that? Sure, he'd borrowed the Cloak and the map last year, but he'd had very good reasons for it. He'd accepted his punishment, hadn't he? He didn't have any plans of borrowing the Cloak and map at all this year. But who could have taken them, then? And then, with a start, James remembered the morning they'd left for the train when Albus had been mysteriously late about packing his trunk.

"That little Skrewt!" James breathed, furious.

"What?" Rose asked. "Who?"

"Albus! The little Slytherin imp! He stole them! It had to have been him! The morning we left for the train, he was moping around, half-packed. Then, all of a sudden he left the room for a few minutes. Mum and Dad were downstairs getting the car around. He must have sneaked into their room and stolen the Cloak and the map out of Dad's trunk. He knew they'd blame me!"

"You can't know that," Rose admonished.

"I can't," James agreed, nodding. "But I do. Just wait until I get my hands on him. I'll make him send an owl to Mum and Dad confessing the whole thing. See if I don't."

"In the meantime," Ralph interjected, "we're still dying to hear about your wild adventure yesterday. Can we put this little detail behind us for the moment?"

James was still seething, but he agreed. He'd just have to see if he could track Albus down later that afternoon. Maybe he'd take Ralph up on his offer to escort him down to the Slytherin common room.

Ralph went on, "We've been thinking about it and we've come up with a great place to meet Zane and hear your story. Go grab your cloak and meet us by the rotunda entrance. And bring your wand."

A few minutes later, James once again met Ralph and Rose by the broken remains of the founders' statues. The huge rotunda gates had been closed against the wintry day, but a small door set into the left gate remained unlocked. Rose led them to it.

As James crossed the marble floor, he felt very strange. He remembered the statues as he'd last seen them, intact and new. He looked up as he passed through the main arch. The engraved name of the school was worn, almost lost in the dim recesses of the vaulted ceiling. James imagined that if he went over to the statue plinth, he might still find bits of the broken silver-framed mirror in the cracks of the floor. He shivered.

As they went through the tiny doorway, the three students squinted in the blinding, snowy brightness of the day. The lake was indeed half-frozen, with white edge-ice fading to black near the center where waves lapped onto the brittle surface. The wind was bitter and harsh, carrying flecks of snow like sand. None of the three spoke as they worked their way around the castle, huddled against the cold, and James was amused to see that they were walking toward the ancient stone barn in which Hagrid housed his menagerie.

"It'll be warm in here," Ralph called, yanking the main door open. "And we can be pretty sure nobody else will come out here today. Too bitter!"

It was indeed quite warm in the barn, thanks to Norberta's occasional flamings. Wall-mounted lanterns lit the dirt floor gaily, contrasting against the cold, white light which streamed through the barn's small windows. The beasts in their cages snuffled and barked as the students passed.

"There're benches over by the larger pens," Rose pointed out. "Let's have a seat. I've packed a flask of hot chocolate and some Cockroach Clusters."

"Blimey, Rose," Ralph said appreciatively. "You think of everything!"

Rose unpacked her bag, setting out the flask and some cups. "Too bad for Zane," she commented. "He can't have any, not really being here."

"I brought my own," Zane said happily, appearing in midair between them. The three students jumped back, and then looked up at the suspended shape. Zane floated two feet off the ground, apparently seated on nothing and happily munching a chunk of sausage on a fork. "It's barely breakfast here, you know, and I'm not normally a morning person. But I wouldn't miss this for anything. Good to see you made it back, James."

"Er, thanks," James replied. "But this is a little weird. You're, er, off a bit."

Zane glanced around, munching the sausage. "Ah, yeah. Hey, Raphael, what do we do when the Doppelganger insists on levitating?"

There was a pause as Zane listened. He nodded. "Sorry, guys. It's apparently part of the Doppelganger's basic intuition. It wants to make the apparition float. It's supposed to be creepier that way. Maybe it'll calm down in a little while if it gets bored."

"You've harnessed a Doppelganger of yourself and are using it to project messages?" Rose said incredulously.

"You didn't explain it to her?" Zane asked, looking at James. "She's pretty quick though, isn't she?"

"But that's patently and completely impossible!" Rose spluttered. "Doppelgangers are just myths! This is worse than the bit about the Chaos Butterfly!"

"It's a little late to be claiming it won't work, Rosie," Ralph said, munching a Cockroach Cluster.

"We can maintain this as long as we need to," Zane said, putting his fork down. It seemed to float alongside him, unsupported. "Just so long as you occasionally shoot me with a Stinging Hex or something, just to boost the magic a little. Truth is: Franklyn's glad for the testing time. So go to it, James. Tell us all about your adventures in the Stone Age."

James plunged into his tale, trying to remember everything. He explained his trip through the Mirror, and where he'd ended up, becoming, against all probability, the mysterious 'ghost in the plinth' as Ashley Doone had joked. This required a little further explanation as Zane had never seen the photo of the founders nor heard of the conspiracies about the shadowy face hidden in the background. James then went on to explain his capture at the hands of Salazar Slytherin, and the subsequent overheard conversation between Slytherin and the Merlin of that time. He described the duel on top of the Sylvven Tower, and the adventure of finding Slytherin's twin of Merlin's Amsera Certh. Finally, he relayed the words of Rowena Ravenclaw, warning what Merlin's return meant and how he was the Ambassador of the Gatekeeper. To cement her words, James produced the tabloid clipping Lucy had sent, obviously alluding to the work of the horrible entity.

By the time James had finished, the hot chocolate and Cockroach Clusters were long gone, and the three had had to shoot Stinging Hexes at Zane nearly a dozen times.

"Sounds like there was something going on with that Mirror back in the founders' day," Zane commented, "based on the way Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw responded when you found it."

"It does," Rose agreed. "It sounds like they'd known about it but believed it had been destroyed somehow. Obviously, Slytherin staged that so he could hoard the Mirror for himself. In the end though, the other founders got it back, but without the Focusing Book, apparently, which Slytherin had probably hidden elsewhere. James, you affected history!"

"He couldn't have," Ralph said, frowning. "Obviously they'd captured the Mirror of Erised back from Slytherin even before James went back in time. It figures pretty importantly in your dad's story, doesn't it, James?"

James nodded. "Yeah, I've heard him talk about it lots of times. He saw his dead parents in that Mirror. It really meant a lot to him. Almost too much, according to Dumbledore."

"This is why Time-Turners have been outlawed," Rose sniffed. "Time travel is just too complicated and weird. If James travelled back in time, then I guess it stands to reason that he'd existed in the past all along. He
was
the reason the Mirror was captured back from Slytherin on the night he was found out. That's why his face appeared in the shadows of the founders' photograph even before he went back."

Ralph screwed his face up in concentration. "That doesn't make any sense at all."

"No, using Doppelgangers to relay personal messages doesn't make any sense," Rose replied, glancing aside at the floating figure of Zane. "This is just improbable and complicated."

"But we did learn what we needed to know about Merlin," James said sadly. "We can't trust him. He's the Ambassador of this Gatekeeper creature. We might even have to fight him if we hope to send it back."

"Not me," Ralph said vigorously. "I've got part of his staff as my wand. It'd probably turn on me!"

Rose shook her head. "It doesn't work that way, Ralph. It's yours now. It obeys the wizard that wins it."

"It may not come to fighting Merlin," Zane said, his expression thoughtful. "It sounded like Merlin wasn't really excited about the descent of the Gatekeeper, but he knew it was possible. He took the Beacon stone from Slytherin so he could control it if it followed him back. Maybe he means to send it back. After all, like I said before, the fact that you three are still breathing means he can't be all evil. He knows you know. Especially now."

"He only has half of the Beacon stone," Rose replied. "Slytherin had the other half. He meant to pass it on, so that whoever was still alive when the Curse descended would be able to control it. The fact is that neither Merlin nor this other person can control the Gatekeeper completely. Somebody would have to put both rings together to banish the Gatekeeper back to the Void."

"Or to unleash it fully on the world," Ralph shuddered. "This thing's out there even now? That's what we saw that day in the Magic Mirror talking to Voldemort's grave statue, isn't it? It's already happening!"

"So maybe Merlin's trying to find the other half of the stone," Zane mused. "I just can't buy that he's gone over to the dark side."

"He wouldn't need to 'go over'," James said suddenly. "Ravenclaw said he was dead dangerous! Rose was right; Merlin was just a magical mercenary. He only stopped killing and cursing for hire when he fell in love with the Lady of the Lake. Then
that
turned out completely horrible and Merlin went mad with revenge. He ended up killing her without even knowing it! After that, he hated the whole world, magic and Muggle alike, so he took Slytherin's Beacon Stone and allowed the descent of the one creature who could end it all! We're fooling ourselves if we don't believe that."

Zane shook his head gravely. "I hope you're wrong, James, but if you aren't, you three better be very careful."

"The whole world better be careful," James answered morosely. "Not that it'll matter much. There's only one thing we can do to help now."

"What's that?" Rose asked.         "Watch Merlin," James answered meaningfully. "And try to find the two halves of the Beacon Stone."

With the Christmas holiday fast approaching, James found time slipping by in a blur. He had been determined to ask Ralph to take him down to the Slytherin common room so James could confront Albus about the missing Invisibility Cloak and Marauder's Map, but each evening seemed to magically fill up with homework and studying, preparations for the week's Defence Club meeting, play rehearsals, and costume fittings.

By the evening of the last Quidditch match of the year, James had still not spoken to Albus. He determined he would do it that night after the match. As an early winter dusk descended over the grounds, dark, ominous clouds were pushing in from the east. By the time James and Rose were sidling into their seats in the Gryffindor grandstand, fat snowflakes had begun to fall. The snow made a thick, white curtain, transforming the pitch into a ghostly shadow play. Across the pitch, the Slytherin grandstand was nothing but a tall grey monolith.

The players streaked from their holding pens, foregoing the traditional displays of aerial acrobatics for fear that they might crash into one another in the fog of snow even before the match began. Far below, barely visible, Gryffindor Captain Devindar Das shook hands with Tabitha Corsica, Slytherin's Captain. Shortly thereafter, the two captains kicked off, joining their teams in the air. Cabe Ridcully, the match official, released the Bludgers and Snitch and tossed the Quaffle into the waiting team formations. The teams sprang into action and the match was underway.

James found it a very difficult match to watch, and not just because of the thick, blinding snowfall. He was still smarting from his failure to make the team for the second year in a row, and especially because he'd simply been too distracted to remember when try-outs were. He cursed himself repeatedly, thinking it should be him out there facing off against Albus as Seeker. It was nothing short of completely humiliating that Albus was showing him up on the broom. Fortunately, being a Gryffindor, James could legitimately cheer for Albus' opponents without it seeming like sour grapes. When Noah swatted a well-placed Bludger at Albus, striking him in the back and nearly throwing him off his broom, James leapt to his feet, hooting derisively. A moment later, he felt slightly guilty. Then he remembered that, most likely, Al had nicked the Invisibility Cloak and Marauder's Map and left James to take the blame for it. He hooted some more, shouting for Noah to aim for the head next time.

In the end, despite a very closely played match, Gryffindor had won. Tara Umar, Gryffindor's Seeker, did a victory lap around the grandstands, Snitch held high, while the air rang with cheers and raucous commotion.

James clumped down the stairs two at a time, meaning to catch Albus while he was still on the field. He ran out onto the snow-dusted grass, looking left and right for his brother. Finally, he saw him with his broom slung over his shoulder and his head down, apparently in deep conversation with Tabitha Corsica and Philia Goyle. Feeling a mixture of triumphant spite and righteous anger, James charged directly toward them.