G. Lippert - JAMES POTTER AND THE VAULT OF DESTINIES

"So what are you writing now?"

Walker pursed his lips and shook his head. "Just a little story."

James narrowed his eyes at the man. For some reason, he suspected that Mr. Walker was purposely avoiding any further explanation. James peered toward the screen of the laptop. Without his glasses, the image was merely a blur of lines, but he thought he could make out a group of words in boldface. The title, perhaps? For a moment, he thought he saw his own name there. He shook his head and blinked. That was ridiculous, of course.

Mr. Walker turned the computer slightly, and clicked a button. The text on the screen disappeared.

James noticed a small volume perched on the end of the desk. He gestured toward it. "Is that one of your books?"

Walker scooped the book up. "This? No. This is a classic. I was using it for research. It's called 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'. Ever hear of it?"

James shook his head.

"It's an old story," Walker said, letting the book fall open on his palm. "A horror story, but a psychological one. That's what makes it so scary, really."

"What do you mean?" James asked, peering at the book.

Walker flipped the pages until he came to an illustration. In it, a man in coat-tails and a top hat was standing before a floor-length mirror. He was staring with wide-eyed terror at his own reflection, and it was no wonder: the reflection in the mirror was a different man entirely. The figure in the mirror was leering, grinning, with hands hooked into claws and boggling, mad eyes.

"Because," Walker replied thoughtfully, "this isn't just a story about a madman wreaking havoc on the innocent. This is a story where the villain and the hero cannot physically fight one another, where there is no clear-cut moment of confrontation between them, where one can win out over the other."

James stared at the image on the page and felt a pall of uneasiness settle over him. "Why not?" he asked in a low voice.

"Well, it's very simple," Walker said, glancing up at James seriously. "It's because the villain and the hero… are the same person."

James nodded slowly, unable to take his eyes away from the illustration on the page. In it, two different personalities stared at each other from within the same body, divided only by the mirror glass.

In the warmth of the small office room, James shivered.

A moment later he dismissed himself and went to find Zane and Ralph. All of a sudden, he wanted nothing more than to be around his friends, to hear their raucous laughter, and to forget that strange, old illustration.

The return trip to Alma Aleron, like all post-holiday journeys, was melancholy and quiet. Zane spent the train ride with his nose buried in a thick book called The Varney Guide to Who's Who in the Wizarding World . James tried to read over his shoulder at one point, but almost immediately found the book unforgivably boring. Instead, he challenged Ralph to a game of wizard chess, using a miniature box set of chess pieces that Ralph had taken to carrying with him wherever he went. James hated playing chess with Ralph since he nearly always lost to the bigger boy, but even losing was better than simply staring out the windows at the passing, dreary cities and rainy sky.

The next day, Zane cornered Ralph and James in the hall outside of Mageography.

"I know who Rowbitz is," he said, his eyes bulging in his face.

"What?" Ralph frowned. "I thought you said he wasn't anywhere in that book?"

"He wasn't," Zane agreed. "It was a complete waste of time. Now, my head's all stuffed full of useless names and trivia, and all for nothing. Like, did you know that the wizard who invented the skrim was some crazy dude named Vimrich who was just looking for a way to nap while he was riding his broom? He never got it to work—the flattened broom just kept flipping over and dropping him on the floor—but after he died, some of his nephews found the homemade brooms in his workshop and tried standing up on them. The rest is history."

"Fascinating," James said impatiently. "Get to the Rowbitz part."

"Hey, if I had to learn it, you have to put up with hearing about it," Zane proclaimed, poking James in the chest. "But anyway, when I took the book back to the library this morning, I noticed something hanging on the wall. You know how the Vampire girls are always making those charcoal etchings of the gravestones in the school cemetery? Well, a bunch of them are hanging up by the librarian's desk; must have been some kind of class art project or something. The point is, guess whose name showed up on the one right by the return cart?"

Ralph surprised.

Zane nodded eagerly. "Right there, plain as day! It was spelled a little different than I expected—R-O-E-bitz, but close enough to play Clutch, as we Zombies say. He was just some old guy from way back in the day, lived and worked here on campus, apparently. Probably he was like Magnussen's servant or gardener or something!"

"'The Nexus Curtain lies within the eyes of Roebitz,'" James quoted, nodding. "Maybe the key to the Curtain is buried with the guy!"

"Oh no," Ralph raised his hands, palms out. "I'm not going and digging up any old graves."

Zane put an arm around Ralph's shoulders, standing on tiptoes to reach. "Don't worry, Ralph," he said soothingly. "We won't need to dig anybody up, all right?"

"We won't?" the bigger boy replied skeptically.

Zane shook his head. "Nah. I could tell by the etching that it was from a mausoleum. We don't need to dig at all. We just need to pry the door open with a crowbar."

"Oh," Ralph sighed sarcastically. "Well, that's loads better."

Over the following days, James, Ralph, and Zane explored the campus cemetery, which was surprisingly large, huddled in the northwest corner of the campus and surrounded by a tall wroughtiron fence. Fortunately, the main gate was almost always left open, even at night, which meant that they wouldn't have to climb the fence if they had to sneak in by moonlight. After a few attempts, the three finally found the mausoleum belonging to a wizard named Leopold Cromwel Roebitz, which sat embedded in a hill in the shadow of an ancient oak tree. The mausoleum door was made of copper, weathered to a pale green patina. Zane gripped the handle and gave it a tentative tug, but the door didn't budge.

"Well, so much for Plan A," he said, nodding. "Door's locked. Anyone want to try an Unlocking Spell? How about you, Ralphinator? You're the spellmeister of the group."

Ralph grimaced, but produced his wand. He leveled its lime green tip at the door. "Al ohomora," he said tentatively.

There was a golden flash, but the door remained firmly closed. Zane yanked the handle once more to no avail.

"I guess that means Plan C, eh?" James said.

Ralph asked hopefully, "Can't we just try it now?"

"And risk getting hauled into the office as vandals?" Zane replied, batting Ralph on the shoulder. "Trust me, it's one thing to get caught hexing your name onto a statue. Messing around with the dead means a whole different kind of trouble. You saw how serious they took it when Magnussen was stealing bodies to dissect them."

Ralph sighed. "Fine. But if we have to do this at night, I'm not going inside. I'll be waiting right here next to this old tree while you two go bumping around with the skeletons. Got it?"

James agreed. "Wouldn't have it any other way, Ralph."

It was the following weekend before the three boys could summon the courage to make the nighttime trek to the cemetery. Even Zane, whose audacity normally seemed to be limitless, appeared jumpy about the endeavor. On Saturday night, James and Ralph stayed up late in the game room of Apollo Mansion, playing ping pong and enduring the constant critiques of Heckle and Jeckle. Finally, when the grandfather clock in the corner struck midnight, the boys crept up the stairs and eased open the front door. They looked at each other, standing between the coldness of the night and the warmth of the hall behind them.