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

Ralph said the incantation. There was a slight pop and the doorway appeared. The light of the sunset flooded the cave. James squinted out at Ralph and Rose as Merlin extinguished his staff.

"What'd I do?" Ralph exclaimed, stumbling backwards a step. "I sealed them in! The entrance disappeared!" Even Rose's eyes had widened in fear.

"What's wrong with you two?" James asked, stepping through the doorway with Merlin right behind him.

Ralph's eyes widened even further. "Whoa," he said, awed. "You just, like, walked right through a stone wall. You're not, er, dead, are you?"

"They're fine, you prat," Rose grinned, smacking Ralph on the shoulder.

"One-way stone," James shrugged, glancing back at the now solid wall of the cave. The door was completely invisible. "Is it closed forever?"

Merlin nodded. "I require it no more. Let us return. The daylight will be gone soon and the tide rises even as we speak.

James looked and saw that the waves were slopping over the lip of the cavern mouth. Each wave pushed more water onto the rough floor. Merlin still carried the small box under his arm as he turned to lead them up the narrow, curving stairway.

"So that's it?" Ralph called up from the rear. "You have all your stuff in that little box?"

"Are you surprised, Mr. Deedle?" Merlin replied. "Would you prefer to heft a pile of trunks?"

Ralph chuckled humorlessly. "You'd be on your own if that was the case. I can barely manage to drag myself out of here."

The return trip across the peninsula bridge was rather easier than it had been on their first crossing. The cliffs of the shoreline were a welcome sight and the wind was less than it had been an hour ago. Merlin was the last to cross. When he joined James, Rose, and Ralph on the crown of the promontory overlooking the peninsula, he turned to look back. Almost casually, he thrust his staff out over the bridge.

"Discordium," he said quietly. There was no flash of light or obvious magical blast of power, and yet the middle of the bridge shuddered visibly. As if in slow motion, the spine of rock disintegrated and crumbled massively into the ocean below, sending up enormous, crashing geysers of water.

"Well, that's that then, isn't it?" Rose said, impressed.

Merlin smiled down at her. Finally, just as the sun touched its golden reflection on the ocean horizon, they turned to depart.

As they made their way back, following in Merlin's enchanted path, Rose drew close to James again.

"Ralph and I heard you talking in there," she said quietly. "But it didn't sound like you were talking to Merlin. Was there something in there we couldn't see from the doorway?"

James didn't answer right away. For some reason, he felt reticent to tell Rose and Ralph about the skeleton of Farrigan. He glanced at Rose. "That was me," he said, shrugging. "I was just… talking to myself. It was creepy in there while Merlin went for the box."

Rose tightened her lips and looked closely at James as she walked. He knew she knew he was lying. He looked away and trotted closer to Merlin.

"Headmaster," he said after a while, "what are the Borleys?"

Merlin was walking directly in front of James, his long stride cruising straight through the Forest like a knife. The last shreds of dusk on his robes gave him a vague, ghostly cast.

"As I explained to you on the train, Mr. Potter, the Borleys are shadow creatures."

"Yeah, I remember, but where do they come from?"

Merlin's normally deep voice dropped a bit lower. "Your companion in the cave was talkative, wasn't he?"

James followed Merlin closely. He wished he could see the wizard's face. They moved through the darkening woods swiftly, making very little noise. The wind shifted capriciously in the trees, rustling them, almost as if to cover Merlin's voice.

James went on, "He said that the Borleys came with you from between the worlds when you returned."

Merlin's voice was still low and rumbling. "There is a grain of truth in all fictions, Mr. Potter. Perhaps you know what barnacles are? Disgusting creatures that accumulate on the hulls of ships after a long sea journey. They weigh down the ship and must eventually be removed and destroyed. You may think of the Borleys as the magical equivalent."

"So they did come back with you?"

"This is so. I have been hard at work hunting them since my return. Most remained near me and were easy to capture. Two followed Mr. Deedle and Mr. Walker. Those I was able to track and capture before either boy became aware of them. Yours, Mr. Potter, was rather wilier. I believe it is the last of them."

James had been curious about something ever since that day on the train. "How do you catch them if you can't use magic on them?"

"Old elements, James Potter," Merlin replied, and his voice had that strange, hypnotic quality that James had last heard when the wizard was talking a confession out of Denniston Dolohov, Ralph's father, last spring. The Forest was becoming quite dark, and James wished again that he could see Merlin's face. He had the creepy sensation that Merlin was talking to him without using an audible voice. Merlin went on, "Old elements that few in this age even know of, much less understand. I have a very curious bag, a Darkbag, which has nothing in it. When I say that it contains nothing, Mr. Potter, I do not mean that it is merely empty. The bag is full, packed even, with the last remaining relic of pure darkness, left over from the dawn of time. It is into this bag that the Borleys go, for there is only one thing that a creature of shadow needs to exist in, and that is light."

"Does it kill them?" James asked quietly.

"Nothing can kill a Shade, Mr. Potter. They can only be contained. They remain locked in the Darkbag, starved for magic, desperate for escape, but utterly diminished with no light to define them. The Ministry of Magic has utilized a similar, albeit crude, method for containing Dementors ever since they were deemed untrustworthy as guards of Azkaban. They are sealed in the cellars of their old ward, Azkaban itself, captive in chambers rendered magically lightless. There, their powers are greatly diminished, though not decimated. They howl, Mr. Potter. I am told it is a dreadful sound, and I believe it."

James shivered. After a minute, he asked, "So what happens if the Darkbag gets torn open?"

For the first time, Merlin turned. James saw one eye of the wizard looking back at him over his shoulder. Still, he didn't break his stride. "The Borleys would escape as a swarm, of course, Mr. Potter. Starved for magic, they would attack the first source of magic they found and devour it."

"D-devour it?" James said. "But you said they were harmless. Like barnacles."

"I said that one Borley, in its entry state, was mostly harmless. Many Borleys, some in advanced states, and all desperate from their imprisonment, would be anything but harmless. In the event of the Darkbag's destruction, the barnacles would become piranhas. But this is impossible, Mr. Potter. I am the keeper of the Darkbag, and that means it is utterly safe."

James sighed. "Is that the famous Merlin bluster you told me about last year?"

Merlin finally stopped. He turned and squatted, his eyes level with James. He smiled and his eyes twinkled in the rising moonlight. "No, Mr. Potter," he said in his normal voice. "That is the famous Merlin oath you have not yet learned of. You may count on it."

"Finally," Ralph said as he and Rose caught up to them. "A break. Rose, you still have those biscuits? How about a sharesy?"

When they finally reached the castle, Merlin led them straight through the halls and up the spiral staircase to his office. Apart from the enormous desk and the dozens of portraits that lined the walls of the Headmaster's office, the room was unnaturally empty. James glanced around and saw the portraits of Severus Snape and Albus Dumbledore, his brother's two namesakes. Both portrait frames were, for the moment, unoccupied.