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

She glanced meaningfully at James. He saw her in the mirror as he brushed his teeth.

"What's wrong with Albus?" Lucy asked, standing and putting away her brush.

James rinsed his toothbrush. "What do you mean?"

"He was awfully quiet tonight. It's not like him."

"Well, I guess everybody is a little quieter than usual," James replied. He glanced aside at Lucy and smiled crookedly. "Well, almost everybody."

She bumped him playfully as she passed him. At the door, she stopped and looked over her shoulder.

"We'll probably be gone when you get up in the morning," she said simply. "We have to get back to Denmark first thing, Daddy says."

"Oh," James said. "Well, happy travels, Lucy. Sorry about all that. Uncle Percy's quite the man at the Ministry, according to Dad. Things won't always be like this, don't you think?"

Lucy smiled. "It won't much matter by next year, will it? I'll be with you, Albus, Louis, Rose, and Hugo at Hogwarts. Won't that be fun?"

James nodded. There was something rather disquieting about talking to Cousin Lucy. It wasn't that he didn't love her. In many ways, he liked her better than many of his other cousins, particularly Louis. She was just so different. It made sense that she would be different, since she'd been adopted by Uncle Percy and Aunt Audrey back when they believed they couldn't have kids of their own. Talking to Lucy, much like talking to Luna Lovegood, was a rather literal affair. She was extremely, almost eerily, intelligent, but unlike most people, Lucy didn't much joke or tease. She always said exactly what she was thinking.

"Write me a letter or two this year, won't you James?" she said, her black eyes serious. "Tell me how school is going. Make me laugh. You're good at that."

James nodded again. "OK, Lucy. I will. I promise."

Gently, Lucy closed the door to the bedroom she shared with her sister. James turned toward the door to his own bedroom when a movement caught his eye. He stopped and glanced aside, following the motion. It had been in the hall adjacent. The door was slightly open, but the hallway beyond was dark. Someone was probably waiting outside for him to finish. He pushed the door open and leaned out.

"I'm done," he announced. "Bathroom's all yours."

The hallway was empty. James looked in both directions. The stairs at the end of the hall were notoriously creaky; he'd surely have heard someone on them. He frowned, and was about to turn away when the movement came again. It flickered in the moonbeams cast by the landing's large window. A shadow danced for a moment and then went still.

James stepped out of the bathroom, keeping his eyes on the pale window shape cast across the floor and wall. He could no longer see whatever had moved. He took a few steps toward the landing and his foot creaked on a floorboard. At the sound, a shadow leapt in the moon-glow. It scampered over the shape of the window like some kind of lizard, but with much longer, many-jointed arms and legs. There was a suggestion of a large head and pointy ears, and then, suddenly, the shape was gone.

James stopped in the hall, the hairs on his arms prickling. The shadow had made a noise as it moved, like dead leaves blowing on a stone. As James strained his ears, he could still hear it. A faint scuttling came from the stairs below the landing. Without thinking, he followed.

As always, the stairs were unbearably creaky. James had completely lost the sound by the time he reached the main floor. The Weasley family clock ticked to itself in the darkness of the parlor as he crept through, heading for the kitchen. One candle guttered in a volcano of wax on the windowsill. Moonlight played across the room, reflected from the dozens of pots and pans that hung over the counter. James stopped and cocked his head, listening.

The scuttling came again, and he saw it. The tiny shadow flickered and jumped over the fronts of the cabinets, flashing in and out of the moonlight. It seemed to scamper up the pantry. James glanced around quickly, trying to locate the figure that was casting the shadow, but he couldn't find it.

The shadow stopped in a corner of the ceiling and seemed to look down at James for a moment. The tiny shape looked a little bit like a house-elf except for the proportions and the unusual number of joints in the arms and legs. Then it leapt again, out of the shadow. James lunged in the creature's direction, sensing the thing was heading for the back door. To his surprise, the back door was wide open.

James jumped out into the cooling night air. He looked around wildly, straining his ears for the tiny, scuttling sound. There was no sign of the tiny shape.

"Good evening, James," a voice from behind him said, and he nearly barked in surprise. He spun around and saw his dad seated on the woodpile, a small glass in his hand. Harry laughed.

"Sorry, son. I didn't mean to startle you. What are you so wound up about?"

James looked around again, his brow furrowed. "I thought… I thought I saw something."

Harry glanced around as well. "Well, there's a lot of somethings to be seen in this house, you know. There's the ghoul in the attic, and the garden gnomes. They usually stay out of the house, but there are always a few brave ones that'll sneak in at night and nick a turnip or two. They think harvesting the vegetables is stealing from them, so they get a little mercenary about it sometimes."

James padded over to the woodpile and climbed up next to his dad.

"What are you drinking?" he asked, peering at his father's glass.

Harry laughed again, quietly. "It's more a question of what I'm not drinking. It's Firewhisky. Never got much of a taste for the stuff, but tradition's tradition."

"What's the tradition?"

Harry sighed. "It's just a way to remember. A sip to commemorate your grandfather and all he meant to us. I did this with Grandfather and George on the night we buried your Uncle Fred."

James was silent for a while. He looked out over the yard and the dark orchard. Just below the crest of the hill, the peak of the garage could be seen in the moonlight. Crickets chirred their constant summer song.

"I'm glad to have you out here with me, James," Harry said.

James glanced up at him. "Why didn't you come and get me, then?"

Harry's shoulders lifted once. "I didn't know I wanted you here until you appeared."

James leaned back against the smooth stone of the house's foundation. It was pleasantly cool after the warmth of the day. The sky was unusually clear. The misty band of the Milky Way stretched like an arm across the sky, reaching down toward the glow of the village beyond the orchard.

"Your granddad was like a father to me, you know," Harry said. "I was just sitting here thinking about that. I used to call him that all the time, of course, but I never really thought about it. I never realized how true it was. I guess I didn't need to, until now."

James looked up at the moon. "Well, it would make sense. I mean, your own dad died when you were just a baby. You never even knew him."

Harry nodded. "And my Uncle Vernon… well, I wish I could say he did his best to be a father to me, but you've heard enough about how things were with them to know that's not true. Honestly, I never even knew what I was missing. I just knew that things weren't the way they were supposed to be."

"Until you married Mum and became an honorary Weasley?"

Harry smiled down at James and nodded. "I suppose."

"You suppose?"

The smile faded slowly from his dad's face. He looked away again, out over the darkness of the yard.

"There was Sirius," Harry said. "He was the first father I ever knew. Technically, he was my godfather, but I didn't care. He asked me to come and live with him, to be family. But it didn't work out. He ended up on the run from the Ministry, moving from place to place, always in hiding. Still, he did his best. Bought me my Firebolt, which is still my favorite broom of all time."