G. Lippert - James Potter and the Hall of the Elders' Crossing

"He emails me back next day and says if I really want to see tricks, I just need to follow the signal he'd send me. Sure enough, the day after that, there's another package from him. A little one. Contained everything I needed to lock onto the signal here. There was no way those faithless turds in management would equip me with a crew to investigate the origin of a jumping chocolate frog, even if I showed them the froggy footprints. Fortunately, I had some vacation time coming, so I decided to give it a go on my own. A little camping out would do me good. So I packed my own cameras and caught a train.

"Getting into the general vicinity was easy enough, of course. I spent the first night on the other side of the forest, knowing by the signal that I was within a few kilometers of the source. Next day, I was on foot by dawn. I followed the direction I knew I was supposed to go, but sure enough, every time, I'd find myself heading right back out the way I'd come. It never seemed like I'd turned around or even veered off my course. It was as if I had succeeded in getting to the opposite side of the forest, but somehow the planet had turned around right underneath me. I tried using a compass, and it'd tell me I was dead-on as well, until all of a sudden I'd be stepping right back out into my camp and the needle would spin away as if it'd forgotten what it was for.

"This went on for three solid days. I was getting frustrated, I'll tell you that. But I was also getting determined, because I knew something was trying to keep me out. I wanted to know what. So the next day, I got out my little package and located the coordinates. This time, though, I kept it in front of me the whole time, watching that little flashing dot. Soon enough, the ground seemed to force me away. I'd run into an old creek bed with sides too steep to climb. I'd angle away only to run into a deadfall of trees or a low cliff. Everything seemed to be working to turn me off my course. I pushed on, though. I climbed and scurried. I pushed through thorns and the thickest undergrowth I've ever seen. Then, even gravity seemed to be working against me. I kept feeling as if the earth was tilting up beneath me, trying to throw me backwards off it. No such thing was happening, of course, but it was a dreadful sensation nonetheless. I became nauseous and unaccountably dizzy. But I followed my direction, crawling at the last.

"And then, suddenly, the sensations were gone. The forest seemed to snap back to normal, or at least what passes for normal in this neck of the woods. I had made it through. Ten minutes later, I came out for the first time on the edge of the clearing overlooking this very castle. I was stunned, needless to say. But what amazed me far more than the castle was the scene that I very nearly walked into the midst of.

"There, not twenty feet before me, was the largest man I had ever seen. He looked almost like a grizzly bear that'd been taught to walk upright. But then, standing next to him…" For the first time in his story, Martin paused. He swallowed, obviously shaken by the very memory. "There was something so monstrously huge that I at first thought it must be a kind of dinosaur. It had four legs, each the size of a pillar. I raised my eyes and saw that it was, in fact, two creatures standing near each other, and they were both human-shaped. The tallest one's head was above the treetops. I couldn't even see its face. I scrambled back into a hiding place, certain they'd heard me, but it seemed not to be so. The smallest one, the one that looked like a walking bear, talked to the other two, and they answered, sort of. Their voices vibrated the ground. Then, to my horror, they turned and headed towards me, into the forest. The largest one's foot came down right next to me, shaking the earth like a bomb and leaving a footprint three inches deep. Then they were gone."

Martin drew a huge sigh, obviously content with his telling of the tale. "And that was when I knew I had found it. The greatest story of my life. Possibly the greatest story of this century." He looked around as if he expected applause.

"There is one small detail you have failed to explain to my satisfaction," Headmistress McGonagall said coldly. "This device you mentioned. It was somehow able to point you to this school. I must know what it is and how it works."

Martin raised his eyebrows, and then chuckled and sat up. "Oh, yes. That. It's been acting pretty wonky ever since I got here, but at least it maintained the signal. A simple GPS device. Er, please forgive me. You are probably unfamiliar with the term. A global positioning system device. It allows me to locate any point on earth within a meter or so. Very helpful bit of, er, Muggle magic, if you will."

James spoke for the first time since entering the room. "But how did you pinpoint the school? How would that device know where to find it? It's unplottable. Not on any map."

Martin turned to look at him, his brow furrowed, apparently uncertain whether he should even deign to answer James. Finally, seeing that everyone else in the room expected him to respond, Martin stood up. "Like I said, I was sent the coordinates. They were provided by someone on the inside. Really, very simple."

Martin reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled something out. James knew what it was even before he saw it. He had known it somehow even before he'd asked the question. His heart sank as if through the very floor.

Martin flourished a Gamedeck. It was a different color than Ralph's, but of exactly the same make. He plunked it unceremoniously onto the Headmistress' desk. "Wireless uplink for online competition, including chat capability. Pretty standard stuff. So anybody here go by the screen name 'Austramaddux'?"

"You can't do this to me!" Martin exclaimed as Neville led him unceremoniously into the Room of Requirement, which had arranged itself into a rather quaint turret-top prison cell, complete with a barred window, a cot, a bowl of water and a crust of bread on a plate. "This is unlawful imprisonment! It's an outrage!"

"Think of it as field research," Neville instructed politely. "We have much to discuss, and after your ordeals in the forest, we thought you might like a bit of a breather. Take a load off, friend."

James, who was standing in the hall behind Neville, couldn't help smiling a little. Martin saw him, scowled angrily, and made to shove past Neville. Neville whipped out his wand so fast that James barely saw his robes twitch. "I said," Neville repeated with low emphasis, not quite pointing his wand at Martin, "take a load off. Friend."

James' smile faltered. He'd never seen Neville Longbottom so intense. Of course, James knew the stories of how Neville had cut off the head of Voldemort's snake, Nagini, but that was before James had been born. In all his memory of the man, Neville had been a kindly figure, soft-spoken and a bit clumsy. Now Neville's wand hand was so immobile and purposeful that it might have been carved out of marble. Martin blinked at Neville, saw something in the man's posture and the set of his face that he didn't like, and backed up. The back of his knees struck the cot and he sat down hard. Neville pocketed his wand and stepped back into the hall, pulling the door of the Room of Requirement shut behind him. Martin, seeing the wand put away, immediately jumped up and started to yell again, but his voice was cut off as the door slammed shut.

"You know, we do have dungeons, Madam Headmistress," Neville said in his normal voice.

Seeing the door closed, Headmistress McGonagall turned on her heel and walked briskly down the corridor as the others followed. "We have some rather antique torture devices as well, Professor Longbottom, but I believe this will suffice for the moment. We only need to hold him until we receive word from the Ministry of Magic about whatever recourse we may or may not have against the dilemma Mr. Prescott has foisted upon us. In the meantime, Mr. Potter, I must ask you: do you know anything about the game device that has apparently led this… person into our midst?"