James Potter and the Curse of the Gatekeeper Read online

Albus sat up and stared at the door of the room. James glanced aside to where Albus was looking. They'd seen it a thousand times before: the inside of the door was covered with worn etchings and carved words. This room had belonged to many people throughout the years, and most of them had made some sort of mark on that door, to Grandma Weasley's constant annoyance. Still, she'd made no effort to fix the door, which wouldn't have been all that difficult for a witch. James thought he knew why. In the very center of the door, much older than the rest of the carvings, was a series of carven hash-marks, the kind used to mark off days. Above the hash-marks were the words 'Days To Freedom!' Below the last set of hash-marks, which was very large, the same hand had scrawled 'Fred And George To HOGWARTS And BEYOND! Long Live Fred And George!'

  "You think Grandma will really sell the place?" James asked, still gazing at the carvings on the door.

  Albus didn't answer. After a moment, he rolled over, facing the wall and pulling most of the covers with him.

  James stripped off his shirt and grabbed his pyjama top. He slid to the floor and padded toward the bathroom door to brush his teeth.

  The bathroom was shared by three bedrooms and the third-floor hallway. Lucy, Percy's daughter, was sitting on the edge of the ancient claw-foot tub, studiously brushing her glossy black hair.

  "Hi, James," she said, glancing up briefly.

  "Hi, Lucy."

  "It's good to see you. I missed everybody this summer," Lucy said, drawing the brush over a lock of her hair. "Daddy says we'll be able to spend more time at home next year. I was pretty happy about that until today. I mean, by next year…"

  James nodded. "Yeah."

  "Did you like your first year of school?" Lucy asked, looking up. "Are you looking forward to going back?"

  James nodded and picked up the glass that stood on the side of the sink. It was packed with the family's toothbrushes. He grimaced and turned the glass, trying to find his own.

  "I can't wait to start school," Lucy said, returning to her brushing. "Daddy says I should enjoy being free while I can, but it doesn't feel free living with him and Mummy in hotel rooms for weeks at a time. Mummy says it's best for us to travel with him on all his international trips, so we can all stay together as a family. She likes all the travelling though. She's always dragging Molly and me out to some historical thing or other, telling us to smile while she takes pictures of us in front of this statue or that rock that some famous person from some great battle stood on or something. I write lots of letters, but not that many people write back, or at least not as often as I'd like."

  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 quest
ion 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."

  Harry stopped. He reached up and took off his glasses. James remained silent.

  "So I was just sitting here thinking about how Granddad is really the third father I've lost, that I'm back to where I started. If you want to know the truth, son, I was sitting here feeling sorry for myself. Sirius was killed before we had the chance to take even a single family picture to remember him by. Sometimes, I can barely remember what he looked like, except for in his wanted poster. But the hole he left in my heart has never been filled. I tried to fill it with my old Headmaster Dumbledore for a while, but then he was killed, too. Granddad made me forget for a long, long time, but now, even he's gone. I mean, honestly, this should be a bit easier for me. I've had… I've had practice. And yet, if you want to know the truth, I think your mum is handling it even better than me. I'm angry, James. I want the people back that I've lost. I can't seem to just move on like the rest. Just now, I was sitting here thinking that Granddad was just one too many. I didn't want to accept it anymore. But what could I do? There's no way to bring them back, and wishing for it just makes us bitter. I was thinking all those things, and then do you know what happened?"

  James looked up at his dad again, his brow furrowed. "What?"

  Harry smiled slowly. "You jumped out that door like a jack-in-the-box and scared me so that I nearly dropped my glass."

  James smiled back, and then laughed. "So when you startled me, you were just getting back at me, eh?"

  "Perhaps," Harry admitted, still smiling. "But I realized something in that moment, and that was why I was glad you came out here, that you sat down with me. I remembered that I have another chance at the father and child relationship, but from the other side. I have you, and Albus, and Lily. I can try my best to give you three what I missed for so much of my life. And you know what's really magical? When I do, I get a little of it back, like a reflection, from all three of you."

  James looked hard at his dad, frowning a little. He thought he understood, but only very dimly. Finally, he looked down at the glass in his dad's hand.

  "So are you going to drink that?"

  Harry lowered his eyes to the glass of Firewhisky, and then raised it. "You know, son," he said, examining the moon through the amber liquid, "I think it's time to start some new traditions. Don't you think?" He held the glass a little higher, at arm's length.

  "This is for you, Arthur," he said firmly. "For the father you were to all of us, not the least of which to me. And for you, Dumbledore, for doing your formidable best right to the end… and for my real dad, James the First, who I never knew but have always loved…"

  James stared at the glass in his dad's hand as Harry paused. Finally, in a softer voice, he finished:

  "And for you, Sirius Black, wherever you are. I miss you. I miss you all."

  Almost casually, Harry flung the Firewhisky from the glass. It made an arc in the moonlight, sparkling and spreading, and vanished into the dimness of the yard. Harry drew a deep breath and sighed, shuddering a little as he let it out. He leaned back and put his arm around his son. They sat that way for some time, watching the moon and listening to the crickets in the orchard. Eventually, James drifted to sleep. His dad carried him to bed.

  2. The Borley

  "You'll be fine, James," Ginny said as she backed the car carefully into a slot next to the footpath. "It doesn't hurt, you know. Your dad's been wearing them since he was six. You're lucky you went this long without needing them."

  James fumed in the front seat. Behind him, Lily whined for the tenth time, "I want to wear glasses too!"

  Ginny blew the hair out of her face and jammed the shifter into 'Park'. "Lily, if you're fortunate, you'll never have to wear anything other than sunglasses, but those you can wear all you want, love."

  "I don't want to wear sunglasses," Lily pouted. "I want real glasses, like James. Why does he get real glasses?"

  "My eyes aren't that bad," James insisted, not moving to get out of the car. "I can read my school books just fine. I don't see why—"

  "They aren't that bad yet," Ginny said firmly. "These are corrective lenses. Hopefully, they'll keep your eyesight from getting any worse. Why are you being so difficult about this?"

  James scowled. "I just don't want to wear them. I'll look like a sodding idiot."

  "Don't say that word," Ginny said automatically. "Besides, they don't make your father look like an idiot. Now come on. Lily, you stay here with Kreacher and have a little snack, OK? I'll be able to see you from the window and I'll be back out in just a minute. You'll keep an eye out, won't you, Kreacher?"

  In the backseat, Kreacher squirmed in his bright blue child seat. "It'd be an easier task if Kreacher wasn't imprisoned in this Muggle torture device, Mistress, but as you wish."

  "We've been through this, Kreacher. Regardless of what Muggles think they see when they look at you, children are required to ride in a safety seat. It's bad enough that you insist on wearing nothing but a tea towel. People aren't accustomed to seeing a five-year-old in a nappy."

  "It's the best disguise poor Kreacher can manage, Mistress," he croaked morosely. "Kreacher has never been accustomed to the society of Muggles, but Kreacher does his best with what small magic he has at his disposal."

  Ginny rolled her eyes as she climbed out of the car. "Just tap the horn if you need anything, all right? Your 'small magic' can manage that, I'm fairly certain."

  Ginny led James toward the office.

  "Why do we have to go to a Muggle eye doctor anyway?" James complained quietly. "Aren't there magical eye doctors with, like, invisible glasses? Or spells that magically fix your eyes?"

  Ginny smiled. "Not everythi
ng has a magical solution, James. A Muggle eye doctor is as good as a magical one, and this one's more convenient than Diagon Alley. You've already been here for your exam. I don't see what you're so afraid of."

  "I'm not afraid," James said disgustedly as they entered the lobby of the office. He looked around at the tiny waiting area. It was exactly the same as the last time he'd been there, right down to the number of fish in the grimy aquarium and the magazines on the end table.

  "James Potter," Ginny told the fat woman behind the glass partition. "We have a two o'clock appointment with Doctor Prendergast."

  James plopped into the same chair he'd sat in the last time he'd been there. He kicked his heel on the thin carpet, grumbling to himself.

  A few minutes later, Dr. Prendergast emerged, smiling, skinny, and red-cheeked. He tucked his own glasses into a pocket of his white coat.

  "Do come back, James," he said jovially. "Your mother can come too if she likes."

  Ginny glanced at James. "Do you want me to? I can go get Lily and bring her back with us."

  He sighed and stood up. "No. Go ahead and check on her. Kreacher's probably trying to feed her caviare for a snack again."

  Ginny grinned at Dr. Prendergast and then threw a quick warning look at James. "The glasses are already paid for, James. Just come out to the car once you're done with the doctor, all right?"

  "Is Kreacher some sort of family pet?" Dr. Prendergast asked James as he led him into the examination room.

  "He's my half-brother," James replied. "He lives in the basement. We feed him a bucket of fish heads twice a week."

  Dr. Prendergast blinked at James, his smile growing somewhat brittle. "That's very, ahem, amusing, James. What an interesting imagination."

  James sat on the edge of the examination chair as the doctor put on his own glasses and rummaged in a cabinet. He produced a box and opened it on the table.

  "Here we are," he said happily, extracting a pair of black eyeglasses. To James, they looked three times wider than his head. He slumped.

  "Let me just help you get them on and we'll test the prescription. Won't take a minute."