appeared next to him and held out a black leather case. Without looking, the professor grasped the handles of the case in a great knobby-knuckled hand and moved forward, approaching the portico like a ship under full sail.
'I'm making it my New Year's resolution to avoid any classes with that guy,' Zane said gravely. Ralph and James nodded.
James found the third professor from Alma Aleron just as she was climbing slowly, imperiously out of the Dodge Hornet. She raised herself to her full height and turned her head slowly, as if examining each face in the crowd. James gasped, and without thinking, ducked down behind Ralph's bulky form as her gaze moved over the crowd. Carefully, he peeked over Ralph's shoulder.
'What're you doing?' Ralph asked, straining to see James out of the corner of his eye.
James squinted through the crowd over Ralph's shoulder. The woman wasn't looking at him at all. She didn't appear to be looking at anything, precisely, despite the scrutinizing expression on her face. 'That tall lady over there. The one with the scarf tied down over her head. I saw her the other night on the lake!'
Zane stood on tiptoe. 'The one over there that looks like a gypsy mummy?'
'Yeah,' James said, suddenly feeling foolish. The scarfed lady looked a lot older than he
remembered. Her eyes were a dull grey, her dark face bony and lined. A porter handed her a large wooden cane and she accepted it with a nod. She began to make her way across the crowded courtyard slowly, tapping the cane ahead of her as if feeling her way.
'Looks to me like she's blind as the proverbial bat,' Zane said doubtfully. 'Maybe it was an alligator you saw in the lake instead of her. It'd be an easy mistake.'
'You guys know who that other teacher is?' Ralph suddenly interjected in a low, awed voice, indicating the stout man in the square spectacles. 'That's…! That's…! He's the five… no! Wait, the fifty…!' he babbled.
Zane looked at the portico, frowning. 'The little dude with the John Lennon glasses and the weird little ruffled collar?'
'Yes!' Ralph rasped excitedly, beckoning to Zane as if trying to pull the man's name out of his head. 'That's… oh, whossname! He's money!'
'How surprisingly hip of you to say so, Ralph,' Zane said, slapping Ralph on the back.
Just then, Professor McGonagall touched her wand to her throat and spoke, magnifying her voice so that it echoed throughout the courtyard. 'Students, faculty and staff of Hogwarts, please join me in welcoming the representatives of Alma Aleron and the United States Department of Magical Administration.'
Another burst of perfunctory applause filled the courtyard. Someone in the student orchestra, mistaking the announcement as a cue, began to play the American anthem again. Three or four other musicians joined in, hurriedly trying to catch up, before they were silenced by Professor Flitwick's frantic waving.
'Esteemed guests of Hogwarts,' the Headmistress continued, nodding at the crowd of newcomers, 'thank you for joining us. We all look greatly forward to a year of mutual learning and cultural exchange with such long- standing and steadfast allies as our friends from the United States. And now, representatives from Alma Aleron, if you would be so kind as to step forward so that we may introduce you to your new pupils.'
James assumed that the tall professor with the steely features would be the leader, but this was not so. The stout wizard with the square glasses approached the portico and bowed gallantly to the Headmistress. He turned and addressed the crowd without using his wand, his clear tenor voice carrying expertly, as if speaking in public was something he was quite used to.
'Students of Hogwarts, faculty and friends, thank you for such a warm welcome. We've come to expect no less, though I assure you that we require nothing so grand.' He smiled and winked to the crowd. 'We are thrilled to be a part of your schooling this year, and let me assure you that the learning will certainly go both ways. I could, at this point, stand up here in the sun and regale you with endlessly impressive anecdotes of all the assorted similarities and differences between the European and American magical worlds, and I promise that such a diatribe would be, of course, endlessly engaging…' Again, the smile and the feeling of a mutual, inside joke. 'But, as I can see that my own delegation of students are eager to rid themselves as quickly as possible of our administration for the afternoon, I can only assume that the same is true of our new Hogwarts friends. Thus, I shall merely provide the necessary introductions so that you may know who will be teaching what, and then release you all to your assorted devices.'
'I like this guy already,' James heard Ted say from somewhere behind him.
'In no particular order,' the stout wizard called out, 'let me introduce Mr. Theodore Hirshall Jackson, Professor of Technomancy and Applied Magic. He is also a three-star general in the Salem-Dirgus Free Militia, so I'd advise you all to call him 'sir' as many times as possible whenever you address him.'
Professor Jackson's face was as impassive as granite, as if he had long since grown impervious to his associate's joking. He bowed slowly and gracefully, his chin raised and his dark eyes hovering somewhere over the crowd.
'Next to him,' the stout professor continued, gesturing expansively with one arm, 'Professor of Divination, Advanced Enchantments, and Remote Parapsychology, Desdemona Delacroix. She also makes a rather, er, intimidatingly delicious gumbo, although you'll consider yourselves very fortunate indeed if you are allowed to taste it.'
The dark woman with the scarf over her hair smiled at the speaker, and the smile transformed her face from that of a skeletal hag to something resembling a desiccated but pleasantly mischievous grandmother. She turned and her blind eyes roved, unfocussed, over the crowd, crinkling as she smiled. James wondered how he could have thought that blind, milky gaze had been the same one he'd seen piercing him through the darkness across the lake the evening before. Besides, she'd just arrived, he reasoned. She couldn't even have been there the night before.
'And finally,' the stout professor said, 'last and, quite possibly, least, allow me to introduce myself. Your new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, head of the Alma Aleron debate team, and unofficial, but very willing, wizard chess contender, Benjamin Amadeus Franklyn, at your service.' He bowed deeply, arms wide, his stringy grey hair drooping.
'That's who I was trying to think of!' Ralph whispered harshly. 'He's on your money, you goon!' He elbowed Zane in the ribs, nearly knocking the smaller boy off his feet.
Minutes later, James, Zane, and Ralph were pounding up the stairs toward the Ravenclaw common room.
'Benjamin Franklin?' Zane repeated disbelievingly. 'That can't be the original Ben Franklin. He'd be…' He thought for a moment, frowning. 'Well, I don't know how old, but he'd be really, really old. Crazy old. Older than McGonagall even. No way.'
Ralph wheezed, trying to keep up. 'I'm telling you, I think these wizard types--us wizard types--have ways of sticking around for a long time. It's not all that surprising when you think about it. Ben Franklin almost seems like a wizard when you read about him in the Muggle history books. I mean, the guy caught lightning with a key on a kite string.'
James was thoughtful. 'I remember my Aunt Hermione telling me about some old wizard they learned about in their first year. Nicholas Flannel or something. He'd made a sort of stone that made him live forever, or close to it. Of course, it was the sort of thing that always seemed to be falling into the wrong hands, so eventually
