G. Lippert - JAMES POTTER AND THE VAULT OF DESTINIES

"Hey, Mr. Potter," Zane grinned, plopping onto a nearby chair.

James settled onto a low, bowed sofa and sighed. "So you heard, eh?"

"I suspect most of magical Philadelphia knows by now," Harry replied. "You're a Potter, after all. Your picture will probably be on the front page of the Daily Prophet by tomorrow morning, along with a pithy caption written by Rita Skeeter herself."

James slumped on the sofa. "Bloody hell. You really think so?"

"Who cares? You won't be there to see it, at least."

Zane stroked his chin. "Knowing Rose, she'll cut it out and send it to you, though." He glanced at Ralph, who nodded.

" However you got here," the man on the sofa next to Harry smiled, "Bigfoot House is proud to have you." The man was relatively young and quite thin with a neat dark haircut and mild features. James could tell by his lack of American accent that he was not originally from the United States.

"Yeah, well, we're glad to finally have a home, I guess," Ralph commented. "Even being a leftover is better than being stuck in the common dorm."

"Oh, we don't have leftovers in Bigfoot House," the House President said, straightening and producing his wand from a back pocket. "All Bigfoots are essential members of the clan. One for all and all for one. Go orange and blue!" With that, the man pointed his wand at James. There was a flash and James startled. He glanced down at himself and saw that his black tie had been transformed to a bright autumn orange, and his blazer was now dark blue. Another flash lit the room and Ralph's uniform was transformed as well.

"Not so handsome as Zombie yellow," Zane said critically, "but better than plain black at any rate. You were starting to look like those stiffs from the Magical Integration Bureau."

"Everyone listen up," the president of the house announced loudly, taking his feet off the disarmadillo and sitting up straight. "This is James Potter and Ralph Deedle, the newest members of Bigfoot House. Let's show them a nice welcome, eh?"

Halfhearted cheers and applause filled the room, lingering rather pathetically as the president beamed at James and Ralph. The disarmadillo wandered slowly away, sniffing at the skirts of the sofas and munching the occasional piece of stale popcorn. When the noise of the cheers finally petered out, James flopped back into the depths of the sofa again.

"So how do you two know each other anyway?" he asked, looking back and forth between his dad and the Bigfoot President.

"Oh, your father and I go way back," the president smiled. "I helped make him the man he is today, in fact. Gave him his first shot, back when he was just a little squitter who barely knew how to hold a wand."

"I think it was Professor McGonagall who actually got me on the team," Harry corrected, shaking his head and smiling. "You just taught me what I needed to know to not get killed on the pitch."

"And a good job I did, too!"

"Anyway," Harry laughed, "as it turns out, James, yours and Ralph's new house is headed up by one of the best professors on campus. He came to the States years ago and, for reasons I can't even begin to guess, decided not to leave. James, Ralph, this is my old friend and fellow Gryffindor, your new president, Oliver Wood."

"Wood!" Zane proclaimed, smacking his forehead. " That's your name, not Birch. I was close, though, wasn't I?" He grinned aside at James and Ralph.

"Hey," Wentworth said, tapping James on the shoulder. "There's this big owl on the stairs out front, hooting like crazy and trying to get in the front door. I'm guessing he's yours. You want me to show him to the tower? Or will he be, um… staying with you?"

"Nobby's here!" Zane said climbing to his feet. "Home sweet home all over the place. Come on. I'll help you Bigfoots carry your stuff over from the common dorm. No house-elves in the States, so you gotta do all the footwork yourself. Get it?" he grinned, nudging James. " Foot work?"

"I got it," James said, smiling helplessly. He rolled his eyes, and the three boys clambered back up the steps, heading outside.

One hour later, James stood in the middle of the upstairs bedroom of the common dorm and stared down at his right hand, his eyes wide. On the floor at his feet lay his duffle bag, unzipped and gaping open, where he had just dropped it. He was surprised that he could still hear Zane and Ralph in the hallway outside, struggling to fit Ralph's things into the rickety dumbwaiter. In the center of James' right palm, a soft silver glow was still fading away, like a ball of stormlight.

He shuddered, not knowing what had just happened, but knowing that whatever it was, it was very important. It simply didn't make any sense.

"Merlin," he whispered to himself, his eyes wide. Merlin would understand. He would know. James had just come from seeing him, as per the Headmaster's request, but it wasn't too late to go back again. He hunkered down carefully and reached to zip his duffle bag again, careful not to brush his fingers against the small parchment packet just inside.

After visiting his new house and meeting Oliver Wood, the Bigfoot House President and inexplicable friend of his father (Wood's name had rung a faint bell in James' memory, but if his father had talked about him, it had been a long time ago), things had gotten decidedly weirder as the night progressed.

On the way to the common dorm, James had remembered to stop in at the guest house in the hopes of catching Merlinus before his departure. Seeing his father in the basement of Apollo Mansion had reminded James of his appointment with the Headmaster, and he was very curious about whatever it was the old man meant to give him. Merlin had indeed been there, engaged in what appeared to be a serious discussion in the parlor with Chancellor Franklyn and Neville Longbottom. The room had quieted almost immediately as James, Ralph, and Zane had entered, and James had the distinct sense that it was an uncomfortable pause, brittle as glass. Merlin had welcomed the boys and excused himself from the gathering, claiming that he'd only be absent for a moment.

In the upstairs rooms of the guest house, Merlin had shown the boys to his trunk. Ralph and James had seen it before since it was the very same trunk that they had helped the great wizard retrieve from an ocean cave early last year. It was unusually small—deceptively so, since its nested doors and drawers could open onto still more nested doors and drawers in a rather eye-bending display of conserved magical space. For now, however, Merlin had slipped only one drawer open. The drawer was long and shallow, containing a flat, square object wrapped in cloth. Merlin retrieved it and held it out to James with both hands.

"Last year," he said, "I told you about the effects of very magical objects upon the earth. I told you how they tend to leave very large footprints on the landscape of reality, and that the age of very magical objects was drawing to a close. Upon further reflection, I have determined that this is far truer than even I had known. Contrary to what I originally believed, the balance of the wizarding world is very precarious in this time. The weight of the extremely magical is enough to affect that balance. I realized that, in the name of that balance, I must do something that I very much did not wish to do. This is the result."

James accepted the object, which was about the size of a small tray and about the same shape. Carefully, he unwrapped it and looked down at it in his hands.

"Cool," Zane said, peering over James' shoulder. "Now you can comb that bird's nest you call a haircut."

Ralph shook his head over James' other shoulder. "Somehow, I think that's for something besides just checking your hair on the way to class."