Shortly, the group left the traffic bridge behind and descended into a warren of densely populated city blocks. Small businesses and gas stations eventually gave way to crowded residential areas. The houses and apartments pressed together like patrons at a bar, shouldering for room in front of the narrow streets. Cars and trucks lined the pavement, glimmering softly in the glow of the streetlights. Trees ranged along the streets as well, huge and old, their roots pushing the footpath into unruly hills and valleys. Finally, the group crossed a narrow intersection and approached a stone wall, just high enough that no one could see over it. Bits of broken glass were embedded into the mortar along the top.
"Here we are, then," Zane said, nodding approvingly.
Albus was unimpressed. "This is it, is it? I see what you mean about the size of it. You could get lost bending down to tie your shoe."
James looked back and forth along the cracked footpath. The stone wall was no longer than a Hogwarts corridor, with leaning brick pedestals at either end. Embedded in the center of each of the brick pedestals, worn almost to illegibility, was a stone block with a stylized symbol engraved onto it. The symbol appeared to be a shield with two letter 'A's on it, perched upon by an eagle with spread wings. A wrought-iron gate stood in the middle of the wall, facing the street, but the gate was so choked with vines and weeds that the view beyond was completely hidden. Franklyn approached the gate and pulled some of the vines aside, peering in.
"It is I, Flintlock," he said quietly. "Chancellor Franklyn. Our visitors have arrived."
James, Albus, and Lucy crowded through the travelers, eager for a glimpse beyond the overgrown gate.
"It's just a yard," Albus complained. "Where's this big giant campus you were talking about?"
"It's not there yet," Franklyn answered.
"The Timelock!" Ralph said suddenly, remembering. "My dad told me about it last year! Excellent!"
"In time, Mr. Deedle," Franklyn smiled. "So to speak."
James pushed the vines aside and craned to look over Albus' shoulder. Sure enough, the space inside the wall was simply an old yard, choked with weeds and bits of trash. Only two objects seemed to occupy the space. One was a rather fat and overgrown willow tree. The other was a very large jagged boulder.
"He's asleep, Chancellor," Professor Burke sighed, turning away. "Shall I toss a rock at him?"
"You know how irritable he gets when we do such things," Franklyn replied impatiently. "Nobody likes having their own genetic material chucked at them. Let me try once more." Raising his voice a bit, Franklyn cried out again, "Flintlock! It is I, your Chancellor! Do wake up! Our guests are waiting!"
From the yard came a grating snort followed by a low grinding noise. James glanced around, looking for the source of the sound, and was surprised to see the boulder moving slightly. Apparently, it wasn't one boulder, but many smaller rocks piled together, for they began to move independently, not falling apart, exactly, but shifting position, forming a shape that looked strangely, teasingly alive.
"Cool!" Albus cried out suddenly, forgetting the quiet street around him. "It's a rock troll! I've always wanted to see a rock troll!"
The stony shape stood up and began to lumber toward the gate, moving ponderously but heavily, its footsteps shaking the ground faintly.
"Meet Flintlock," Franklyn said, gesturing with one hand. "Our security chief. He's been a part of Alma Aleron ever since… well since before my time. Isn't that right, Flintlock?"
The troll fished a large key from the depths of his rocky crevices and socked it into an iron padlock. In a deep grating voice, the troll said, "I came over with the Mayflower, sir. I remember it like it was yesterday."
Professor Burke smiled wearily. "Of course, in rock troll years, it probably was yesterday."
As the gates swung open, squeaking noisily, Albus peered up at the stony creature. "But you must weigh a thousand tons!" he exclaimed. "How would any boat carry you?"
"It didn't carry me," Flintlock replied slowly. He leaned forward, and in what passed as a whisper, he added, "I followed it."
The others passed by Albus as he stared up at the troll, wide-eyed, considering.
"To the Tree," Zane pointed. "This is the best part. Come on!"
Franklyn stopped, allowing everyone else to pass by in front of him. "Yes, yes, as Mr. Walker says, everyone under the Tree. I am sure we are all quite ready for this journey to be over."
James, Ralph, and Lucy joined Petra, Izzy, and the rest in the moonshade of the Tree's drooping branches. James no longer felt tired. Instead, he was filled with a certain giddy excitement, fuelled partly by the misty night air, and partly by the mystery of whatever was about to happen.
"He followed the Mayflower here!" Albus rasped, stabbing a thumb over his shoulder at Flintlock. "He just walked right along the bottom of the ocean, watching the ship way up on the surface! Isn't that the coolest thing you've ever heard in your life?"
"Isn't he coming with us?" Ralph asked, peering aside as the troll stumped back toward the gate, padlock in hand.
"No!" Albus answered, grinning. "He stays here all the time! ALL… the TIME! He says that sometimes Muggle teenagers climb over the walls, glass shards or not, looking for places to get into mischief. He bops 'em to sleep and tosses them in a nearby alley with an empty bottle or two, makes them think they just fell over drunk!"
"Let's see," Franklyn said, crowding under the Tree. "I daresay, what with our visitors, Professor Remora, and her returning students, we are exceeding the legal occupancy limit of the Warping Willow."
"Please, Chancellor," Remora sighed. "Even for creatures such as myself, it has been a very long night. Let us get it over with."
Franklyn nodded and produced a complicated brass instrument from the depths of his robes. James recognized it from his previous experience with the Chancellor. It consisted of various-sized lenses held in hinged loops. He twisted two of the lenses into alignment, raised the instrument, and peered through it at the moon.
"Ah yes," he said, and then muttered to himself, apparently doing calculations in his head. Finally, he nodded and pocketed the brass instrument. A moment later, he raised his wand and touched it gently to the gnarled trunk of the Tree. In a singsong voice, he said, "Warping Willow, take us hither, days and years or all or none. Wend your way, we travel thither, home to Alma Aleron."
Next to James, Ralph shifted nervously. "I know about Whomping Willows," he whispered, "but what's a Warping Willow do?"
Zane whispered back, "Have you ever seen a square-dance?"
"No!" Ralph rasped. "We've been through this already."
Zane bobbed his head back and forth. "Think about what the Zephyr did with up and down," he said quietly. "And now think of the Zephyr as the Warping Willow, and up and down as now and then."
"It's technomancy again, right?" Ralph moaned as the Tree began to move around them, shifting mysteriously, stirring wind in its long branches. "I hate technomancy."
A cool breeze whistled around the Tree's twisted trunk, threading through James' hair and making the branches sway and hiss. A dull crackle emanated from the depths of the Willow, sounding like pine knots in a fireplace.
In front of James, Izzy gasped. "Look!" she cried, pointing. "The sun's coming up!"
Zane peered at the pinkish glow as it expanded on the horizon. "I may be mistaken," he said, "but I think that's the sun going down. Er, in reverse."
The pink glow spread and brightened, turning orange, and then, sure enough, the sun peeked over the stone wall of the overgrown yard. The yellow orb climbed into the sky with eerie speed, casting hard shadows inside the yard, and then swiftly shortening them. Warm air blew through the Tree and James squinted, finding himself in a sudden hot noontime. The sun began to move faster, sliding back down the sky on the other side of the Warping Willow, which sighed and shushed all around, its branches swaying like curtains.
"What's happening?" Lily asked with a note of fear in her voice.
Ginny pulled the girl up into her arms. "It's all right, Lil," she soothed. "We're still traveling, I think. Only now, we're traveling in time."
Night spread across the sky again, filled with glimmering stars. Now, the moon waltzed overhead, its bony crescent chasing the clouds. Moments later, the sun followed once again, moving so fast that it seemed to be rolling across the sky like a marble. The wind in the Tree increased, shushing the whip-like branches, and James felt movement beneath his feet. He glanced down and saw the Warping Willow's roots twisting through the earth, spreading and shifting like tentacles.
The sky dimmed to night and lightened again to noon, beginning to cycle with dizzying speed. The sun and moon chased each other across the sky, and then blurred into streaks, and then vanished into seamless, silvery arcs of spinning time. The arcs curved across the sky, and seasons began to drift past the outside of the Tree. The grass grew brown, and then grey and listless. Suddenly, snow covered it, sparkling white and piling high, forming drifts against the interior walls of the yard. The snow vanished away again, and now autumn leaves carpeted the ground. Almost immediately, the leaves evaporated, leaving the grass green and lush, peppered with white butterflies. James turned on the spot, transfixed, watching the yard all around as it cycled past seasons and into years, faster and faster, blending into a flickering tableaux of decades, even centuries. And through it all, Flintlock hunkered unmoving, looking like nothing more than a craggy boulder, through flashing eons of sunshine and snow.
Finally, the cycle began to slow, until the seasons became distinct again, and then the streaks of the sun and moon, and finally the alternating lights and darks of days. The Tree sighed and whispered, settling, until the sun lowered for the last time and the sky grew dark, flooded with stars. The moon was a high, full orb now, frosty in the darkness. It slowed, climbing, climbing, and finally crawled to a stop. The Warping Willow relaxed and went still.
In the sudden silence, Neville Longbottom exhaled a pent breath. "So…," he asked slowly, "when are we?"
Chancellor Franklyn glanced at him, and then at the watch that hung from a chain around his prodigious waist. "It's eleven twenty-one," he answered. "September fourth. Er, seventeen fifty. Give or take a few seconds. It's hard to be especially accurate about such things."
"Oh my," Petra said from behind James. He turned to glance back at her, saw the expression of rapt wonder on her face, and then turned around again, following her gaze.
Beyond the curtains of the Warping Willow's branches, the yard had grown. The gate was still visible nearby, but the wall it was set in was much wider; so wide, in fact, that James couldn't see either end. In every other direction, moonlight sifted down onto manicured lawns, sprawling colonial brick buildings, statuary, fountains, and flagstone footpaths. Flickering lampposts dotted the campus, their lights dim and entrancing under the full moon.
"Well," Percy said, and even he sounded awestruck, "it looks like we've finally made it to Alma Aleron."
7. Alma Aleron
James had wanted to explore the grounds that very night, but his parents, along with the rest of the adults, had insisted on getting everyone to their rooms and into bed.
The guest quarters were housed in a large brick mansion that overlooked the grounds, relatively near the Warping Willow. Shortly, James had found himself in a surprisingly sumptuous bedroom with a gigantic marble fireplace, nearly as tall as he was, and three four-poster beds so high that they had little wooden stepstools next to them. Albus claimed the one nearest the window and James took the one in the middle. Within minutes, despite the excitement of the night, and the thrill of finally arriving, James had dropped into a deep dreamless sleep.
He seemed to wake almost immediately and blinked at the bright sunshine that beamed through the window, swimming with dust motes. Bird song twittered nearby and as James sat up in his high bed, he could see people moving on the flagstone walkways of the campus below the window. He grinned and saw that Albus was already awake.
"I smell bacon," Albus said, nodding. "The kitchens are in the basement. Come on, let's see if we can nick a little nosh!"
"Way ahead of you," Ralph announced from the other side of the room, shrugging into a very oversized white robe. "Come on, there are two more. One for each of us. Man, this is living."
"I can't imagine that this is what life will be like in the dorms," James replied, grabbing one of the robes, "but when in Rome…"
Together, the three boys tramped down the stairs and down a high, richly paneled hall. Display cases on one side showed a variety of trophies and awards as well as a collection of strange leather sporting balls, most dull and worn with age. On the other side of the hall, framed portraits and photographs peered down. James recognized some of the faces in the images—Abraham Lincoln and George Washington among them—but most were completely unknown to him. Very few of the images moved and James assumed that most of the paintings were, in fact, non-magical.
The boys passed a large sitting room and a coat closet and stopped as they neared a busy dining room, filled with bright morning light from two tall windows. Most of the adults were already gathered around the table, babbling, passing plates, and pouring steaming cups of coffee and tea. Happily, James, Ralph, and Albus ran into the room and found seats around the long table.
"Robes and pyjamas?" Lucy said, blinking aside at James as he climbed into the chair next to her.
"Al smelled bacon," James shrugged. "Be glad he's dressed at all."
Percy spooned sugar into his tea as he spoke, apparently in the middle of a conversation with Chancellor Franklyn, who sat across from him. "So, in order to maintain security and remain hidden in Muggle Philadelphia, Alma Aleron exists in a time bubble in the year seventeen fifty."
"Actually," Franklyn replied, leaning back in his chair and dabbing at his chin with a napkin, "we are now back in the twenty-first century, as of this morning. Twenty forty, I believe. We try to use round numbers, but even so, it can be monstrously difficult to keep track of."
Georgia Burke spoke up next. "The time bubble roams daily, spanning approximately four hundred and fifty years. The historical target of any given day is determined by a complex algorithm based on the actual date, the phase of the moon, and… er… the mood of a certain Kneazle-cat."
"Yes," Franklyn nodded. "Patches, the administration pet. The wizard who designed the algorithm is a believer that there needed to be a single random variable to prevent outsiders from cracking the timecode. He figured that only those that truly deserve to be on campus would know Patches the cat, and her moods. Ingenious, really, but somewhat obtuse, since cats, even of the Kneazle variety, really only have one mood."
"Sullen," Burke agreed. "With various shades of petulant, haughty, aloof, and bored. Still, as a security concept, it is fairly solid."
"Oh, we know all about Kneazle-cats," Izzy commented from across the table. "Remember Crookshanks? Rose's family's cat?" she asked, looking aside at Petra, and then turning to address everyone else at the table, her voice sober. "But Crookshanks isn't sullen at all. He's a sweetheart."
"To you, perhaps," Harry muttered.
"So what if someone hops over the school wall from the inside?" Albus asked around a mouthful of toast. "Would they be able to go explore the future or the past? What if they got lost? Or went and screwed up history somehow?"
Franklyn laughed lightly, as if this were a question he'd had to answer many, many times. "Fortunately for history, the time bubble stops at the boundary of the campus: the stone wall we all observed last night. The moment you climbed over, you'd leave the Timelock and find yourself in the normal flow of time, only locked out of the campus, and with Flintlock to convince to let you back in."
"Ah," Albus said, disappointed.
"At any rate, we have a full day ahead of us," Ginny announced placing her napkin next to her plate. "Lily, we need to get you and Izzy settled in at your new school, elsewhere in the city, and we need to get ourselves squared away with our
own flat."
Franklyn cleared his throat. "Harry, I've arranged for an indefinite Floo visa for you and your charges, effective as of this morning. It will allow you free access to the Crystal Mountain and any domestic magical destinations you may require for the duration of your stay."
"That will do nicely," Harry agreed. "But what about communication with my associates abroad? I understand that you have an entire department dedicated to international experimental communications. As you know, Titus Hardcastle, my second-in-command, will be joining me periodically during the investigation. It will be necessary for me to communicate with him regularly and international post is notoriously slow."
At the end of the table, Merlin spoke. "I have foreseen just such a requirement, Mr. Potter. Speak to me in my quarters when you have the opportunity."
Franklyn blinked at Merlin, and then turned to Harry. "And of course, the Department of Experimental Magical Communications will assist you in any way that you might require. I will equip you with a pass that will grant you immediate access to the campus through the main gate. Flintlock knows you now, and will escort you through the Timelock. As you can imagine, however, you cannot Apparate onto the campus from outside of the time bubble, nor can it be accessed via Floo. Alas, our security measures, foolproof as they are, do present their own unique limitations."
"I don't plan on leaving campus at all during my stay," Neville Longbottom announced, smiling. "I've a meeting with the Head of the Flora Department, Professor Sanuye, later this morning, in preparation for my presentation tomorrow night. Frankly, I admit, I'm a wee bit nervous about it."
"You shall do splendidly," Audrey announced confidently. "There is no greater expert on the subject of herbology than you, Professor Longbottom."
"Well," Neville replied, blushing, "that may be stretching it a bit far…"