Book 1 - James Potter and the Hall of Elders' Crossing

ackwards desperately, terrified. The small figure toppled forward, its disproportionately large head zooming
towards Frank, filling his vision.
In the moment before Frank blacked out, he was distracted only by the rather strange fact that the
figure seemed to be wearing, if nothing else, a fairly ordinary dark green backpack slung over its shoulders.
Frank fainted with a look of rather worried confusion on his face.
James awoke blearily the next morning. He pried his eyes open, taking in the unfamiliar shapes of
his surroundings. He was in a four-poster bed in a large, round room with a low ceiling. Sunlight beamed
cheerily in, lighting more beds, most of which were disheveled and empty. Slowly, like owls coming in to
roost, he remembered the previous night: the Sorting Hat, standing before the portrait of the Fat Lady and
not knowing the Gryffindor password, meeting Ted, and then the rest of the Gremlins.
He sat up in bed quickly, reaching for his face. He patted his cheeks, his brow, the shape of his eyes,
and then sighed with relief. Everything appeared to be back to normal. Something flopped onto his bed next
to him, a newspaper James didn’t recognize. It was turned to an article with the headline: ‘Local Man Insists
Martian Rockets Steal His Tomatoes’. James glanced up. Noah Metzker was standing at the foot of his bed,
a wry look on his face.
“They misspelled ‘Wocket’ again,” he said.
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