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

James listened with his mouth pressed into a thin line. Finally, he straightened in his chair and said as plainly as he dared, "That doesn't mean he's evil."

Hagrid blinked at him. "Well, o' course not! Who said he was evil?"

James was perplexed. "But you just said—"

"Now hold on, James, an' the rest of yeh. I want to be clear," Hagrid said seriously. "All I'm saying is that the Headmaster comes from a much different time, a time that would probably scare the hair off most of us. He lived in that time and worked in it. It's what he knows. Things that we would call evil an' bad in this day and age, well… let's just say things weren't so black and white in the time he comes from. That isn't to say that the Headmaster himself is bad. I've got every reason to trust him, and trust him I do! He's just a wee bit… well, wild. If you take my meaning. That's all."

"But Hagrid," Rose exclaimed, "in the Mirror! We saw him with that… that awful thing in the swirling black cloak!"

"If that was the Headmaster," Hagrid replied stubbornly, "then he had a very good reason to be there. Yeh said yourself, Rose, that none of yeh could hear what the man said. Maybe he was confronting them. Maybe he was… well, I dunno, but the point is yeh dunno neither."

"That's what I've been saying all along," James said petulantly, glaring across the table at Rose.

"Fact is," Hagrid went on, "none of yeh know the slightest bit about what yeh was seeing from start to end. Yeh said Merlin told yeh that the Mirror showed the past and the future as well as far-off places, didn'ya? Maybe what yeh were seeing wasn't even from the here'n now. Did yeh think o' that?"

"Actually," Ralph said thoughtfully, "no, we hadn't."

"But the gravesite!" Rose insisted. "That wasn't from a long time ago! Volde—er, He Who Must Not Be Named hasn't been dead all that long! But his grave was all covered with moss and vines, so it couldn't have been from the past…"

"Let it go, Rose," Ralph shrugged. "You might be right, but what would we do about it anyway? All we can do is hope Merlin's as good as his word, like Hagrid says. If he is, we don't have anything to worry about. If he's not… well, what are we going to do against a bloke that can make the earth open up and swallow whole armies?"

Rose fumed but didn't respond.

A short while later, the trio finished their teas and bid Hagrid goodbye. As they left, James peered over into the west corner of the garden. Sure enough, a very large orange- and purple-striped squash rested there on its bed of leaves, still glistening with last night's rain.

"I don't care what anyone says," Rose said gravely as they skirted the Whomping Willow, "I don't trust him. He's not what he says he is."

"As much as I don't agree with Rose," Ralph answered, "this whole thing does make our new Defence Club seem all the more important."

"How so?" James asked.

"Well, it's obvious, isn't it? If what we saw in the Mirror was true and was from the present day, then it means some really bad stuff might be coming. We might actually have an enemy to fight. I, for one, want to be ready for that."

"Ralph," Rose said in a different voice, "if I didn't find you generally thick as a brick, I'd be impressed by that."

Ralph blushed a little. "Thanks, I guess."

As they rounded a stand of bushes on the far side of the Whomping Willow, they ran into Noah, Damien, and Gennifer Tellus, the Ravenclaw Gremlin. The three were crouched just out of range of the branches, studying the gnarled tree trunk. The branches of the Willow shifted and twitched, sensing their presence but not quite able to reach them.

"Hey," Ralph called as they approached the hunkered Gremlins, "we got permission to start the new Defence Club—"

"Shh!" Noah hissed, raising a hand. "Hold on a minute."

James, Rose, and Ralph crept up behind the three Gremlins, who were rasping at each other tensely.

"A little lower," Damien hissed. "It's the big one that looks like an Adam's apple on a really skinny bloke."

Noah shook his head. "We tried that one time before last! I keep telling you it's on the other side, facing away from the castle. I remember from last year, with Ted."

Gennifer held a long stick. Biting her tongue in concentration, she held it out, reaching toward the tree trunk with the stick's tip. The tree leaned slightly and, almost lazily, whiplashed a branch at the stick. Gennifer exclaimed painfully as the stick was wrenched from her hand. It spun off into the thickets and the Willow relaxed again, almost smugly.

"I told you to hold it lower!" Noah exclaimed, stepping away from the tree and straightening.

"Look, you want to give it a go?" Gennifer replied, looking back over her shoulder. "Be my guest. But you'll need to go find yourself yet another stick."

"I can't help if you have longer arms than me," Noah proclaimed. "It's not my fault you've got the reach of a weregorilla."

"I've got another stick," Damien said patiently. "Here, give it another go, Gen. We'll hit it eventually."

James watched as Gennifer reached carefully toward the tree trunk again. The Willow swung its branches, feeling for the stick but not quite reaching it this time. James asked Noah, "What's this all about?"

"Secret passage, possibly," Noah answered, wiping moisture and grass clippings from his hands. "We've been coming out and testing it every year since I first came. It was Ted's idea. Hit the right knot on the trunk and the tree goes tame enough to get inside."

Rose's eyes brightened. "It leads to a secret passageway? But I thought all the old secret passages had been sealed off?"

"Well, there's sealed off and there's sealed off," Noah replied. "Thing is, Hogwarts being as magical as it is, the passages have ways of opening back up on their own after a while. Either that or new ones get discovered nearby. Petra discovered the Lokimagus passage just down the hall from the statue of the OneEyed Witch, and that statue was supposed to lead to a secret passage back in your parents' day."

"I remember Mum talking about that one," Rose agreed. "She said it went down to Hogsmeade. I was hoping that one still worked. I wanted to see Hogsmeade myself this year even though first-years aren't allowed to go on Hogsmeade weekends."

"Ahh, Hogsmeade," Noah sighed. "Making miscreants out of model students for as long as I can remember. Ted works down there now, at Weasleys'. We plan on getting him to buy us Butterbeers at the Triple Sticks when we go. All of us except Petra, of course."

"What's going on with Petra?" James asked suddenly.

Noah glanced at James. "Oh, nothing major. She just doesn't want to go because she and Ted used to be a bit of an item. Apparently, it all came to an end when Ted started seeing Victoire. They kept it secret most of the summer, but now the whole world knows about it. Somebody blabbed about it back at King's Cross."

"I didn't blab!" James exclaimed before he could stop himself. "Ted told me to tell! He wanted to get the word out but didn't want to make a big thing of it!"

"That was you?" Gennifer said, peering back at James over her shoulder.

James rolled his eyes. "So that's what Petra's all upset about?"

"She hasn't said so," Noah said, sighing. "Who can tell? She and Ted were never all that serious, if you ask me. I admit I expected her to end it first, though. Ted's just a bit too wild for a girl like Petra. She needs a different kind of man."

"A man whose initials are N. M., you think?" Damien called, grinning.

James felt his face heat. It bothered him that he might have inadvertently caused Petra's melancholy by revealing Ted and Victoire's relationship, even if Ted had asked him to do it. For some reason, it also bothered him that Noah might be interested in taking Ted's place. Nonchalantly, James asked Noah, "What kind of man does a girl like Petra want?"