G. Lippert - James Potter and the Curse of the Gatekeeper

James took another step backwards, wilting in the ferocity of that mad gaze. "You… you can't really believe that," he stammered. "No one controls the Gatekeeper. It'll bring doom to everyone and everything. Even its human host will be killed by it in the end."

Tabitha smiled slowly. "How curious that you believe no one can control the Gatekeeper. And yet I know why you have clung to that belief. You persist in trusting Merlinus Ambrosius, whose very presence in this age is your doing. You convince yourself that, in the end, he will not side with us. This offers you a shred of hope, doesn't it?"

James nodded. He hadn't known it until this moment, but Tabitha was right. In the deepest part of James' heart, he did trust Merlin. He didn't know exactly why, but he did. Despite his doubts and fears and despite all the evidence to the contrary, James simply didn't believe that Merlin would use the Beacon Stone for evil. He believed that Merlin would use it instead to battle the Gatekeeper, even if it was a losing battle.

Tabitha's smile grew indulgent. "Cherish that hope as long as you can, James," she said, almost whispering. "And when the Gatekeeper is ours, when Merlin hands the stone over and joins us, I hope I can be there to see the light of that hope die in your eyes. I really do."

James finally began to feel some anger. He drew himself to his full height and took a step forward. "You're lying," he said firmly. "You're just trying to scare me. You know that your plans can still be stopped. It isn't too late, no matter what you say. You can tell whoever put you up to this that you've given me your message, for all the good it did. But I'm not going to back down. We'll find the other half of the Beacon Stone."

Tabitha's smile vanished as James said this. She looked at him with something like open bewilderment. And then, slowly, the smile resurfaced, dawning on her face like a sunrise. "The other half of the Beacon Stone?" she said in an amused voice. "You don't yet realize it, do you? No wonder you've been so full of vim and vigor! My dear James, we already have the 'other half' of the Beacon Stone! It's been in our possession for years! We used our arts to seek it out. It wasn't particularly difficult, you know. Your father simply dropped it in the Forbidden Forest. He left it for anyone to find if they had an inkling of where to look. I was there on the very night that it was pulled from the earth!" Tabitha laughed again, lightly, and yet James heard a tinkling madness in it. She stopped, inhaled, and shook her head. "How dreadfully unfortunate for you, James. But, oh! That's what that letter to your father was about, wasn't it? You were asking him where the stone had gone! Oh, I really am so sorry that you've wasted your time. But now you do see how precarious your situation is, don't you? It really is only a matter of Merlinus' rather famously fickle loyalties. How deliciously exciting this must be for you!"

James' anger hadn't abated in the face of this revelation. If anything, it had intensified. "I don't believe you, Corsica. You'll say anything just to keep me from working against you. It won't work! Even if your people do have half of the Beacon Stone, Merlin won't join you. I won't let him! So tell your cronies that I got your message, and that I told the lot of you to stuff it where the Nargles don't bite."

With that, James turned on his heel and began to stalk away. After a few steps, he stopped and looked back. "And I'll tell you one more thing, and this is just for you, Corsica: I know you think you've got my brother wrapped around your little finger, but if you get him involved in this in any way, I will personally come for you. Don't think I don't mean that."

"Albus?" Tabitha said, the smile now gone from her face. "I think he's big enough to make his own decisions, don't you?"

James narrowed his eyes and nodded slowly. "You bet he is."

As James turned again and stalked off, Tabitha called after him, her voice echoing in the corridor, "Cherish that hope, James… Cherish it for as long as you can…"

James was shaking by the time he climbed back through the portrait hole. The encounter with Tabitha had completely unnerved him despite his brave words. It was all too overwhelming. Was it true that James' dad had simply dropped the Resurrection Stone in the Forest before his confrontation with Voldemort? If Tabitha and her secret cohorts did indeed have half of the Beacon Stone already, what hope was there? James now realized that, in spite of everything, he did trust Merlin not to side with evil. But was it that Merlin was trustworthy, or that James simply couldn't face the possibility that the famous sorcerer might betray them? With a shudder, he remembered that Judith, the Lady of the Lake, had also trusted Merlin, right up until the point that he'd killed her. Strangely, in the face of all of this, all James wanted to do was go to bed and sleep.

He climbed to his dormitory, stripped off his clothes, and fell into bed. The moon shone in through the small window across the room, needling at his eyes. James rolled over, pulling his pillow over his face. It wasn't until he was almost asleep, just as all of his racing thoughts were finally quieting, that one final, strangely worrying question popped into his head. James sat up, staring out the window at that bright, silvery moon while the question repeated itself in his mind: how had Tabitha Corsica known that he was at the Owlery?

James stared hard at the moon, but it offered no answers. He flopped back onto his pillow. Finally, eventually, he fell asleep.

17. THE B LOODLINE

The next week seemed to shuttle past with the inertia of a freight train. As the end of the term loomed, the library grew busier and busier. The older students moved about in a sort of harried fog, studying and drilling each other on topics James could barely understand. Even the Gremlins seemed tense. Noah, Sabrina, Damien, and Petra sat on the couch before the fireplace, surrounded by loose parchments, books, and candy wrappers. James waved at them as he passed, heading down to the library.

"Hey, Damien," he said, "thanks for helping out in the Headmaster's office the other day."

"Just doing my job," Damien muttered, his nose buried in a huge book of star charts.

On the way down to the library, James considered the events of the previous days. It was all moving so fast that it was becoming hard to keep track of. On Monday, James had informed Scorpius that he, Ralph, and Rose had been ordered to shut down the Defence Club as punishment for sneaking into Hogsmeade. Scorpius had been strangely unperturbed.

"A pity that you won't be able to keep attending," he'd said blithely, looking up over his glasses from the book he'd been studying.

"I don't think you understand," James said, sitting down. "The club's been disbanded. Merlin ordered it."

Scorpius looked down at his book again, turning a page. "I understand it as well as I wish. As far as I'm concerned, you three have been banned from leading the club. As co-teacher, I've no intention of shutting it down. We'll rename it if necessary. We'll call it, oh, 'Scorpius' Army'."

"That's not funny," James said, shaking his head.

"No?" Scorpius replied. "Well, I sat up all night thinking of it. So, drat."

James thought about it for a moment, and then asked quietly, "You'll really keep teaching the club? Even though Merlin thinks it's been shut down?"

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Scorpius answered. "If the Headmaster has determined that the Defence Club should be dissolved, then dissolved it will be. It's pure and simple coincidence that I, along with the Specter of Silence and the Grey Lady, will be teaching an entirely new club that happens to meet in the same place at the same time to study the same topics. Surely, the Headmaster would recognize the difference."