James Potter and the Curse of the Gatekeeper

and in need of a home for myself. The offices at the school are quaint, but a wizard of my temperament desires room to spread out. I find this cottage to be perfectly suited to my needs, if perhaps a bit too large. That is why I was hoping I might persuade the previous owner to stay on, to keep me company and manage the place during the school terms.'

        'You want Grandma Weasley to come live here again?' Rose cried happily. 'Hooray! That's wonderful!'

        Ron asked, 'Are you serious? You'd really want Mum to keep living here?'

        Merlin nodded dismissively. 'Perhaps she'd indulge me with a cup of tea now and then. I, on the other hand, can help her to magically support the place. Seems a fair trade, does it not?'

        Hermione grinned happily. 'You'd have to lock Molly in the attic to keep her from making tea for you. Really, Merlinus, this is more than we could have hoped for. But where did you get the money?'

        Merlin narrowed his eyes conspiratorially. 'Did you know that Gringotts bank is over twelve hundred years old? It's truly remarkable what a small investment can turn into over a thousand years. Let's just say that I will not be lacking for income for quite some time.'

        'You made a deposit before you zapped through time?' Ron exclaimed, his eyes going wide. 'That's genius!'

        'What fun is it being a sorcerer if you cannot manipulate temporal loopholes to your advantage?' Merlin agreed, matching Ron's grin.

        'Let's go get Grandma and Lily!' Albus said excitedly. 'Before she does anything stupid like renting some flat in the city! We can move her back in today, right? Right?'

        'I don't see why not,' Harry laughed. 'If it's all right with Merlin.'

        'I'd not have it any other way,' the big man replied. 'In fact, we can take your grandfather's delightful vehicle. I believe we'll all fit inside if we don't mind getting rather close.'

        'The Anglia?' James asked as everyone began to clamber into the old car. 'It'll take us forever to get into the city in that.'

        'I think you'll be surprised,' Merlin answered, climbing into the driver's seat and smiling cryptically. 'Hold on to something, everyone. This might be a little bumpy.'

        Carefully, Merlin pushed a large button on the car's dashboard. With a jerk and rattle, the huge canvas wings erupted from the car's sides, protruding from behind James' head where he sat in the backseat. Noisily, the wings began to flap up and down, assuming a steady rhythm.

        'The wings work!' Albus laughed. 'You got the wings working! Excellent!'

        Slowly, accompanied by a rising cloud of windy dust, the car lifted off the drive. Ron whooped from the passenger's side window as Merlin steered the car in the air, aiming it toward the western horizon. To the sound of delighted laughter and Hermione's shriek of happy terror, Merlin stepped on the accelerator, pushing it to the floor. The wings buzzed, and the car nosed down, darting like a bumblebee over the yard of the Burrow and casting its shadow over the garage as it went.

        For miles around, Muggle children looked up, wondering about the mysterious sound of laughter that passed quickly, fleetingly overhead.

The End

Dear Reader,

So this is the second book. Thank you so much for reading!

Just as James Potter and the Hall of Elders' Crossing was, at least in part, a retelling of C. S. Lewis' haunting novel That Hideous Strength, I came to discover that Curse of the Gatekeeper was very much inspired by Ms. Rowling's own second work, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. As always, I doff my hat with the greatest of respect to Ms. Rowling, whose imagination has spawned a world so fertile and inspiring as to feed the imaginations of so many others. Similarly, I'm sure I am not the first author to realize that my writing tends to reflect the works of whoever I happen to be reading at the time, thus I should extend additional thanks to Orson Scott Card and Stephen King, whose ideas and themes are also peppered throughout this work. If fan-fiction is simply reheated leftovers of another writer's creation, at least I can hope that this story is a casserole.

Special thanks should be offered to all my friends at the Grotto Keep forum, whose constant encouragement and inspiration are chiefly responsible for this story's existence.

I'd also like to mention Ms. Julianna So, who edited this work in the same way that I wrote it: for no compensation and merely for the love of the story. Her painstaking effort and love of the world of Harry (and James) Potter were invaluable all through the editing process. Every correct detail in this story can be credited to her; every incorrect detail is probably a result of my ignoring her suggestions.

Also of great assistance was Mr. Derek Kelley, whose grasp of language, history, and all things English was of immense help. Among many other things, he is responsible for the Shakespearean 'translation' of all the passages from the Triumvirate, giving my clumsy lines the metre of true poetry.

Finally, of course, many thanks to my wife, who endured my reading every new chapter to her each night as I finished it, and whose sincere enthusiasm and feedback was the first step in helping these stories to happen.

In all honesty, I wasn't sure there really would be a sequel to James Potter and the Hall of Elders' Crossing, even though, as I was writing that first book, I knew it was part of a much larger story. Now that I've finished Curse of the Gatekeeper, I can see that there is still an awful lot of story to tell. Will Scorpius win the struggle against the inertia of his pureblood heritage? How will Ralph cope with the ongoing baggage of his own family name? What of Petra, whose struggle between her own goodness and the last shred of the Dark Lord so closely mirrors the struggle we all have in our hearts? Will James ever be able to face Petra if she allows darkness to rule her? And most importantly of all, what was the meaning of James' last, mysterious dream, in which Petra and Albus stood at the edge of that freshly dug grave beneath the green glow of the revived Dark Mark?

As I sit here, two months before the official release of JPCG, I wonder how this story will be received. Will people be angry about what happens with Arthur Weasley? Will people hate the story, since it is so unlike JPHEC in many ways? Or will they be asking, when it is finished, 'What happens next? Will there be a book three?'

And will there be? The answer to that question is: I don't know. I have an idea of how this whole story is meant to play out, of course, but it is exhausting writing stories grown in someone else's creation. Not because the ideas won't come, but because the seeds aren't mine. They belong to Ms. Rowling. I cannot sell these stories, and there are loads of legal restrictions about what can be done even with a free distribution. In short, there is only so much practical benefit to writing more James Potter stories. I should probably write some of my own stories, don't you think? It scares me a little bit, but I think I can do it. I think I will do it.

But do you want to know a secret, dear reader? I am almost positive I will eventually, in some way, shape or form, write the rest of James Potter's story, even if I never release it. Why? Because I, myself, want to know what happens! You may laugh, but it's true. I know the basic outline, but I don't know the details at all, and I'm very, very curious to find out. Does James' growing love for Petra win her over? Does Albus change Slytherin, or does Slytherin change him? And what, oh what, really happens in that scene in the graveyard beneath the eerie glare of the Dark Mark? Someday, somewhere, I believe I will write the rest of these stories, because I want to find out for myself. And if I do, I probably will share them.

…probably.