JAMES POTTER AND THE VAULT OF DESTINIES

       Zane's mother sighed with weary affection.

       'Hi Greer!' Zane called to his younger sister, waving, and then turned to James and Ralph, shaking his head happily. 'Some things never change. Come on inside, I'll show you my room!'

       Thanksgiving at the Walker family home turned out to be not unlike any family gathering that James had known back at Marble Arch. The dining room was rather small, and by the time Zane's aunt and uncle had arrived with their two younger children, the house rang with a cacophony of overlapping sounds: laughter and conversation, the clank of dishes, the burble of Christmas carols from the kitchen radio, the staccato of clambering footsteps as Zane's cousins and sister ran about the small house. Zane and Ralph spent a goodly amount of time playing video games on the family television, although James could never quite get the hang of them. The food was excellent and apparently never-ending, so that by Thanksgiving evening, James felt utterly stuffed. The family gathered around the table to play board games and James joined in, even though he had never heard of any of the games, and had no idea how to play them.

       'Sorry, James,' Zane announced happily as James marched his marker around the board. 'You owe me two hundred bucks. Enjoy your commute, and thank you for patronizing Reading Railroad.'

       'He's ruthless about those railroads,' Ralph commented as James counted out the last of his brightly coloured play money. 'If I had known how much money those could make, I wouldn't have wasted all mine on these stupid utilities.'

       James had no idea what any of it meant, but he didn't mind. It was an excellent time, no matter what. He grinned as he handed the play money to Zane, and reached for one of the last cookies on a nearby plate. One more bite couldn't hurt. He decided he'd take chocolate-cherry cookies over fake money any day.

       Over the course of the holiday weekend, James and Ralph shared the Walkers' guest bedroom, sleeping on a pair of narrow old beds. On Sunday afternoon, while Ralph, Zane and Greer played video games, James explored the small house alone. In the small corner office, he found Mr. Walker hunched over his desk, tapping furiously away at a laptop computer. His face was tense and scowling, as if he was wrestling with the tiny keys.

       'What're you working on?' James asked, leaning in the doorway.

       Walker looked up, his eyes wide and surprised, and James realized that the man hadn't noticed his approach.

       'Ah!' he said, and smiled. 'Sorry. I get pretty wrapped up in this sometimes. Hi James.'

       'I didn't mean to interrupt you or anything,' James said quickly. 'I was just curious.'

       Walker sighed and leaned back in his chair, stretching. 'It's fine. I need people to remind me to take a break sometimes. Zane's mother says that when I'm writing, it's like I'm a hundred feet underwater. It takes a long time to get down there, and a long time to swim back to the surface, so when I am there, it's easy to forget everything else.'

       'I thought you made movies?' James asked, frowning.

       Walker shrugged and bobbed his head. 'I make stuff,' he said. 'Sometimes I make things for movies, sometimes I draw pictures, sometimes I write stories.'

       James was curious. 'Do people read what you write? Like, are your stories in bookstores and stuff?'

       Walker laughed and shook his head. 'No, my books don't end up on any store shelves. Fortunately, though, I do get paid for the other things I make. Well enough, in fact, that I have the freedom to do some things just for the fun of it. That's what the writing is for.'

       James frowned quizzically. 'You write for fun?'

       'No better reason,' Walker sighed, flexing his fingers.

       'So what are you writing now?'

       Walker pursed his lips and shook his head. 'Just a little story.'

       James narrowed his eyes at the man. For some reason, he suspected that Mr. Walker was purposely avoiding any further explanation. James peered toward the screen of the laptop. Without his glasses, the image was merely a blur of lines, but he thought he could make out a group of words in boldface. The title, perhaps? For a moment, he thought he saw his own name there. He shook his head and blinked. That was ridiculous, of course.

       Mr. Walker turned the computer slightly, and clicked a button. The text on the screen disappeared.

       James noticed a small volume perched on the end of the desk. He gestured toward it. 'Is that one of your books?'

       Walker scooped the book up. 'This? No. This is a classic. I was using it for research. It's called 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'. Ever hear of it?'

       James shook his head.

       'It's an old story,' Walker said, letting the book fall open on his palm. 'A horror story, but a psychological one. That's what makes it so scary, really.'

       'What do you mean?' James asked, peering at the book.

       Walker flipped the pages until he came to an illustration. In it, a man in coat-tails and a top hat was standing before a floor-length mirror. He was staring with wide-eyed terror at his own reflection, and it was no wonder: the reflection in the mirror was a different man entirely. The figure in the mirror was leering, grinning, with hands hooked into claws and boggling, mad eyes.

       'Because,' Walker replied thoughtfully, 'this isn't just a story about a madman wreaking havoc on the innocent. This is a story where the villain and the hero cannot physically fight one another, where there is no clear- cut moment of confrontation between them, where one can win out over the other.'

James stared at the image on the page and felt a pall of uneasiness settle over him. 'Why not?' he asked in a low voice.

       'Well, it's very simple,' Walker said, glancing up at James seriously. 'It's because the villain and the hero… are the same person.'

       James nodded slowly, unable to take his eyes away from the illustration on the page. In it, two different personalities stared at each other from within the same body, divided only by the mirror glass.

       In the warmth of the small office room, James shivered.

       A moment later he dismissed himself and went to find Zane and Ralph. All of a sudden, he wanted nothing more than to be around his friends, to hear their raucous laughter, and to forget that strange, old illustration.

       The return trip to Alma Aleron, like all post-holiday journeys, was melancholy and quiet. Zane spent the train ride with his nose buried in a thick book called The Varney Guide to Who's Who in the Wizarding World. James tried to read over his shoulder at one point, but almost immediately found the book unforgivably boring. Instead, he challenged Ralph to a game of wizard chess, using a miniature box set of chess pieces that Ralph had taken to carrying with him wherever he went. James hated playing chess with Ralph since he nearly always lost to the bigger boy, but even losing was better than simply staring out the windows at the passing, dreary cities and rainy sky.

       The next day, Zane cornered Ralph and James in the hall outside of Mageography.

       'I know who Rowbitz is,' he said, his eyes bulging in his face.