fer jewelry an' weapons. Comes to the same thing when yeh're twenty feet tall, I s'pose. Anyway, they worked that all out and now they're happy as can be again.'
James asked, 'Is she still living up in the foothills, Hagrid?'
'Sure she is,' Hagrid said, a little reproachfully. 'She's an hon'rable girl, is Prechka. And Grawp, why, he bides his time in his hovel most days. Got 'imself a right nice firepit and a lean-to of birches. These things take time. Giant love is… well, it's a delicate thing, don'cher know.'
Ralph coughed a little on his tea.
'Hey, Hagrid,' James said, changing the topic. 'You've been around Hogwarts for a long time. You probably know lots of secret stuff about the school and the castle, don't you?'
Hagrid settled into his chair. 'Well, sure. Nobody knows the grounds s'well as myself. Except maybe Argus Filch. I started out as a student, I did, a-ways back before even yer dad was born.'
James knew he had to be very careful. 'Yeah, that's what I thought. Tell me, Hagrid, if somebody had something really magical they wanted to hide in the castle somewhere…'
Hagrid stopped petting Trife. He turned his great shaggy head toward James slowly. 'And what would a first-year pup like yerself be needin' to hide, might I ask?'
'Oh, not me, Hagrid,' James said quickly. 'Somebody else. I'm just curious.'
Hagrid's beetle black eyes twinkled. 'I see. And this somebody else, I'm wond'rin' what they might be up to, then, hidin' secret magical items here and there…'
Ralph took a large, deliberate sip of the his tea. James looked out the window, avoiding Hagrid's suddenly penetrating gaze. 'Oh, you know, nothing particular. I was just wondering…'
'Ah,' Hagrid said, smiling slightly and nodding. 'Yeh've been told a lot of stories about old Hagrid from yer dad and Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron, I'm guessing. Hagrid used to let slip some details that maybe he was supposed to keep secret. S'true, too. I can be a bit thick sometimes, forgettin' what I should and shouldn't be saying. Yeh may recall stories about a certain dog named Fluffy, among others, yes?' Hagrid studied James intently for a few moments, and then heaved a great sigh. 'James, m'boy, I'm a good bit older than I was then. Old Keepers of the Keys don't learn much, but we do learn. Besides, yer dad clued me in that you might be getting up to dickens and asked me to keep an eye out for yeh. Soon as he noticed yeh'd, er, borrowed his Invisibility Cloak and the Marauder's Map, that was.'
'What?' James blurted, turning so quickly he almost knocked over his tea.
Hagrid's bushy eyebrows rose. 'Oh. Well, there yeh go, then. I don't s'pose I was meant to tell you that.' He frowned thoughtfully, then seemed to dismiss it. 'Ah, well, he didn't actually tell me not to mention it.'
James sputtered, 'He knows? Already?'
'James,' Hagrid laughed, 'yer dad's the Head of the Auror Department, in case yeh forgot. Talked to him about it last week right in me own fire, here. What he's most curious about is whether or not yeh've gotten the map to work yet, since so much of the castle's been rebuilt. He forgot to test it when he was here. So, had any luck, then?'
In the adventure of capturing the Merlin robe, James had completely forgotten about the Marauder's Map. Sulkily, he told Hagrid that he hadn't tried it yet.
'Prob'ly for the best, yeh know,' Hagrid replied. 'Just 'cause yer dad knows yeh nicked it, doesn't mean he's happy about it. And so far as I was able to gather, yer mum doesn't know about it at all, yet. If yeh're lucky, she won't, neither, although I can't imagine yer dad keepin' that kind of secret from her fer long. Best just to keep yer contraband packed away rather than hidin' it anywhere on the grounds. Trust me, James. Keepin' suspicious magical items around the school can cause a lot more trouble than it's worth.'
On the way back to the castle, bundled against the windy cold, Ralph asked James, 'What's he mean about getting the map to work? What's it do?'
James explained the Marauder's Map to Ralph, feeling vaguely worried and annoyed that his dad already knew about his taking it and the Invisibility Cloak. He'd known he'd get caught eventually, but had assumed he'd get a howler about it rather than a ribbing from Hagrid.
Ralph was interested in the map. 'It really shows everybody who's in the castle and where they are? That'd be seriously useful! So how does it work?'
'You have to say a special phrase. Dad told me a long time ago, but I can't remember it off the top of my head. We'll give it a try some night. Right now, I don't want to think about it.'
Ralph nodded and let the subject drop. They entered the castle through the main portico and parted at the stairs leading to the cellars and the Slytherin quarters.
It was getting late and James found himself alone in the corridors. The wintry night was cloudy and starless. It pressed against the windows and sucked at the light of the hall torches. James shivered, partly at the cold and partly at a sense of icy dread that seemed to be seeping into the corridor, filling it like a heavy fog from the floor up. He walked faster, wondering how it could be that the halls were so dark and empty. It wasn't particularly late, and yet the air had a sense of chilly stillness that felt like the dead of morning or the air of a sealed crypt. He realized he'd been walking rather farther than the corridor should have allowed. Surely he should have come to the intersection with the statue of the one-eyed witch by now, where he'd turn left into the reception hall, leading to the staircases. James stopped and glanced back the way he had come. The hall looked the same, and yet wrong somehow. It looked far too long. The shadows of it seemed to be in the wrong places, teasing his eye somehow. And then he noticed there were no torches on the walls. The light hung empty, ghostly, bleeding its color from flickering yellow to shimmery silver, fading even as he watched.
Fear leaped onto James' back, icy cold and undeniable. He spun back to the front, meaning to run, but his feet failed him when he saw what was ahead. The corridor was still there, but the pillars had become the trunks of trees. The ribs of the vaulted ceilings had turned to limbs and vines, with nothing beyond but the vast face of the night sky. Even the pattern of the tiled floor melted into a lacework of roots and dead leaves. And then, even as James watched, the illusion of the school corridor evaporated completely, leaving only forest. Cold wind barreled past him, whipping his cloak and threading the hair back from his temples with ghostly fingers. James recognized where he was, even though the last time he'd been here, the leaves had still been on the trees and the crickets had been singing their chorus. This was the wood bordering the lake, near the island of the Grotto Keep. The trees groaned, rubbing their bare branches together in the wind, and the sound was like low voices moaning in sleep, wrapped in fever dreams. James realized he was walking again, moving toward the edge of the trees, where the reeds swished and bobbed at the edge of the lake. A great, dark mass rose beyond, blotting out the view. As James approached, apparently helpless to stop his plodding feet, the moon unveiled from a bank of dense clouds. The island of the Grotto Keep revealed itself in the moonglow, and James' breath caught in his chest. The island had grown. The impression of a secret fortress was stronger than ever. It was a gothic monstrosity, decked with grim statues and leering gargoyles, all somehow grown from the vines and trees of the island. The dragon's maw of the bridge lay before him, and James forced himself to stop there, without setting a foot onto it. He remembered the gnashing wooden teeth as it had tried to devour him and Zane. In the silvery moonlight, the gates at the other end of the bridge were quite visible, as well as the words of the poem. When by the light of Sulva bright I found the Grotto
'Keeper of the relic,' said the voice. 'Your duty is satisfied.'
As James stood and watched, looking across the bridge into the darkness of the open doorway, a light formed there. It condensed, solidified, and assumed a shape. It was, James recognized, the gently glowing shape of a dryad, a woman of the wood, a tree sprite. It wasn't the same one he had met before, however. That one had glowed with a green light. This one's light was pale blue. She pulsed slightly. Her hair flowed around her head as if in a current of water. A quiet, almost loving smile was on her lips and her huge, liquid eyes twinkled gently.
