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

"When he looks down again, the rest of the mice are all gone. Only the big golden cat remains, and it is staring right at him with its big green eyes. The man is scared of the cat, so he turns on his heels and runs as fast as he can out of the woods. He doesn't stop running until he gets back on the path, and he runs the whole path all the way back to his own land and into his own house. That night, the man sits down at dinner with his family. He tells them everything he saw that day, and the last thing he says is, 'That cat was surely the King of the Mice!' Just then, the big old family cat, which up to that moment had been sleeping in front of the fire, jumps up on its hind feet and says, plain as day, 'Then I am the King of the Cats!' And it leaps up the chimney and is never seen again."

Ralph finished telling the story and the room fell strangely quiet. Professor Revalvier had her eyes closed, as if soaking in the story. The bright morning sunlight made the room feel strangely sleepy. It seemed to buzz with warmth, trancelike, as if time had slowed down while Ralph spoke.

"That was a wonderful telling, Mr. Deedle," Professor Revalvier said, opening her eyes slowly. "It was indeed slightly different than the version I remember from my youth, but interestingly so. Have any of the rest of you heard that story before?"

There were no hands in the room. Ralph glanced around, apparently rather surprised.

"What is curious about that story?" Revalvier asked the class. "Can anyone point out a specific difference from this tale and the others we mentioned earlier?"

Murdock raised his hand. "For one thing, it doesn't make any sense."

The professor inclined her head slightly. "Is that so? Does anyone else agree with Mr. Murdock's judgment?"

There were nods throughout the room.

"Not that I didn't like it," Morgan Patonia added, raising her hand. "It was nice. But it was also a little creepy."

Revalvier narrowed her eyes. "And contrary to what might be expected, the creepiness is somewhat appealing, yes?"

More nods in the room, although they were accompanied by puzzled looks.

"Why do you suppose your parents might not have told you this story, apart from Mr. Deedle, of course?"

There was a long pause. Finally, Rose raised her hand.

"All the stories I got told when I was growing up were nice stories," she said. "They sometimes had evil witches and wizards in them, but they didn't have any dead mice or anything. And they all ended happily, or at least had a moral to them that made them seem happy even if the main characters were unlucky or did the wrong thing."

Revalvier looked thoughtful. "And this story is not happy? Nor has a moral?"

James knew not to respond to an obvious question like that. Obvious answers were never the right answers. Revalvier seemed to approve of the silence.

"Tonight's homework, students, is for you to write down the story of The King of the Cats," she said, walking behind her desk. "I'd prefer that you not consult each other about how the story went. The point of this exercise is not to perfectly repeat the story as told by Mr. Deedle, but to write it as you remember it. If your version is somewhat different, all the better. Looking at how magical stories change through retelling is a very interesting way to learn things about the teller of the story. In this case, the teller is you, yourselves. We shall see after you have finished this task if you still feel that the story has no moral."

Revalvier sat down behind her desk and put her reading glasses back on. "You are exempted, of course, Mr. Deedle. A reward for your delightful recital of the story. And now, class, please turn in your textbooks to chapter one."

The remainder of the class was spent in a lecture about the historical background of the golden age of magical literature, from which sprang some of the most well-known (and least read) wizard classics. Revalvier assured the students that she would do 'everything necessary' to make the stories relevant to them, and James had some hope that she might actually succeed in that endeavor. He was quite curious about how she meant to do it, and looked forward to finding out.

As they left the class, James said to Ralph, "Nice work, speaking up like that. You saved yourself an essay."

Rose asked, "Did your dad really tell you that story when you were a kid?"

"Actually, no," Ralph admitted. "My grandma did, whenever I went to stay with her."

James glanced at Ralph. "I assumed it'd been your dad too. After all, he had the wizard background, growing up."

Rose commented, "Well, it's just like Professor Revalvier said. Lots of wizard stories leak out into Muggle culture as legends and myths. Obviously, The King of the Cats is like that. That's how Ralph's grandma knew it."

Ralph nodded. "She was full of stories like that. They were all a little weird and eerie, but I liked that about them. They were… well, they were sort of magical. I had really mad dreams whenever she told me those stories. Not bad dreams exactly, but…" He shook his head, unable to find the right word.

"That happens to me whenever I eat my Uncle Dmitri's special paprikash," Graham interjected. "He makes it every Christmas. He says the magic ingredient is powdered Mandrake root, but Mum says the magic ingredient is a pint of goblin rum."

James had expected the Wizlit essay to be fairly easy, but as he sat in the library that night with his quill and parchment, he found himself staring out the window at the moon, tapping his quill idly. Finally, he shook his head as if clearing it.

"It's really strange," he commented to Ralph, who was bent over his Arithmancy problems. "I can totally remember you telling us the story in class. I could probably sit here and tell it back to you right now. But when I try to write it down, it goes all murky in my head."

Ralph sat back and stretched. "What do you mean? If you could tell it, why can't you write it?"

"Beats me. I mean, I know it starts with a guy walking through the woods. I write down that much, and suddenly, I can't remember if it's day or night when he's walking. I start to imagine where he might be walking to. Why's he so far away from his own home? And why is it no one else lives anywhere around for miles and miles? It's mice he sees, right? Only, when I start to write, I keep imagining squirrels. Or voles."

"Voles?" Ralph repeated, making a face. "What in the world is a vole?"

"I don't know," James said, throwing up his hands. "Some kind of little animal, I guess. But that's just the thing. The story sort of squirts away whenever I try to write it down. It's like it wants to become something else entirely."

Ralph thought about it and finally shook his head. "That doesn't make a bit of sense. You want me to tell you how it goes again?"

James sighed. "No. Revalvier said we're not supposed to do it that way. She made it sound like we were supposed to write it down however we remembered it. I just didn't expect it to fight back. I mean, it's just a bedtime story."

Ralph shrugged. "Well, it is a magical bedtime story."

"Not your version," James replied. "Your Muggle grandma told you. I figured it had to be your mum's mum because as far as you knew, your dad was an orphan."

Ralph nodded but remained silent.

James was about to make another attempt at his version of The King of the Cats when Petra Morganstern walked slowly around the end of a nearby bookshelf.

"Hi, Petra," James said, trying to keep his voice low enough not to earn a stern look from the librarian.

Petra was rather listlessly scanning the bookshelf, her bag dangling from one hand. She seemed not to have heard him.