James, momentarily distracted by the thought of Hagrid's half-brother, who was a full giant, performing mating rituals with a mountain giantess, had completely forgotten about Ralph. "Oh! This is my friend, Ralph Deedle. He's a first year, like me. Hagrid, are you telling us Grawp's in love?"

        Hagrid grew vaguely misty. "Aww, it's sweet to see the li'l fella and his lady friend together. Why, they're both just as happy as a pair of hippogriffs in a henhouse. Giant courtships are very delicate things, yeh know."

        Ralph was having some difficulty keeping up with the conversation. "Grawp, your brother, is a giant?"

"Well, sure," Hagrid boomed happily. "He's only a li'l one. Sixteen feet or so. Yeh should see his lady friend. She's from the Crest-Dweller's tribe, twenty-two feet if she's an inch. Not my type of girl, o' course, but Grawpy's just smitten by her. Not surprising, really, since the first step in any giant courtship is smitin' the mate over the head with a big hunk of tree trunk. She laid the li'l fella right out cold for the best part of a day. After that, he's been as google-eyed as a pup."

        James was afraid to ask, and suspected he knew the answer. "Did Grawp bring his girlfriend back home with him?"

        Hagrid looked taken aback. "Well, sure he did. This is his home, now, isn't it? He'll make a good wife of her, once they're done a-courtin'. She's made herself a nice little hovel up in the hills behind the forest. Grawp's there now, helpin' her settle in, I expect."

        James tried to imagine Grawp helping a twenty-two-foot giantess 'settle in', but his exhausted imagination shut down. He shook his head, attempting to clear it.

        "I hear your dad's comin' in for a meetin' next week, James," Hagrid said as they entered the shadow of the main gates. "Havin' a meetin' of the minds with the muckety-mucks from across the pond, eh?"

        James puzzled over Hagrid's terminology. "If you say so."

        "Ahh, it'll be nice to have yer dad over for tea again, just like old times. Only without all the secrecy and adventure. Did I tell yeh about the time yer dad and Ron and Hermione helped my Norbert escape?"

        "Only about a hundred times, Hagrid," James laughed, pulling open the door of the Great Hall. "But don't worry, it changes a little every time I hear it."

        Later, when dinner was almost over, James approached Hagrid where he thought they could have a more private conversation. "Hagrid, can I ask you a, sort of, official question?"

        "O' course yeh can. I can't guarantee I'll know the answer, but I'll do my best."

        James glanced around and saw Ralph sitting at the Slytherin table on the edge of Tabitha Corsica's group. She was talking seriously, her pretty face lit in the candlelight and the deepening light of the dusky ceiling. "Do people ever get, I don't know, sorted wrong? Is it possible that the Hat could make a mistake and put somebody in the wrong house?"

        Hagrid sat down heavily on a nearby bench, making it groan appreciably. "Well, I can't say as I've ever heard of it happ'nin' before," he said. "Some people may not like where they're placed, but that doesn't mean it's not a good fit. It might mean they just aren't happy with who they really are. What is it yer worried about, James?"

        "Oh, it's not me I'm thinking of," James said hurriedly, taking his eyes off Ralph so as not to implicate him. "It's just a, sort of, you know, general question. I was just wondering."

Hagrid smiled crookedly and clapped James on the back, making him stumble half a step. "Just like your dad, yeh are. Always lookin' out for other people when yeh ought to be watchin' your own step. It'll get yeh in hot water if yeh aren't careful, just like it did him!" He chuckled, making a sound like loose rocks in a fast river. The thought seemed to bring Hagrid a great deal of hearty pleasure. "Nah, the Sorting Hat knows what it's up to, I expect. Everything'll come out all right. Yeh wait and see."

        But as James walked back to his table, making eye contact with Ralph for a moment as he passed the Slytherins, he wondered.

        James Potter sat up in his bed, stifling a gasp. He listened very intently, peering around the darkened sleeping chamber. All around him were the small sounds of sleeping Gryffindors. Ted rolled over and snorted, muttering in his sleep. James held his breath. He'd awakened a few minutes earlier with the sound of his own name in his ears. It had been like a voice in a dream: distant and whispered, as if blown on smoke down a long, dark tunnel. He had just about convinced himself that it had, in fact, been the tail of a dream and drifted back to sleep when he'd heard it again. It seemed to come out of the walls themselves, a faraway sound, still somehow right next to him, like a chorus of whispers saying his full name.

Very quietly, James slipped out of bed and shrugged into his bathrobe. The stone floor was cool under his feet as he stood and listened, tilting his head. He turned slowly, and as he looked toward the door, the figure there moved. He hadn't seen it appear, it was simply there, floating, where a moment before there had been darkness. James startled and backed into his bed, almost falling backwards onto it. Then he recognized the ghostly shape. It was the same wispy, white figure he'd seen chase the interloper off the school grounds, the ghostly shape that had come to look like a young man as it came back to the castle. In the darkness of the doorway, the figure seemed much brighter than it had appeared in the morning sunlight. It was wispy and shifting, with only the barest suggestion of its human shape. It spoke again without moving.

        James Potter.

Then it turned and flitted down the stairs.

        James hesitated for only a second, then wrapped his bathrobe more tightly about him and followed the figure, his bare feet slapping lightly on the stone steps.

        He reached the deserted common room just in time to see the ghostly shape glide through the portrait hole, passing through the back of the portrait of the Fat Lady. James hurried to follow.

        James expected the Fat Lady to scold him as he snuck past her, but she was deeply asleep in her frame as he closed it gently. She was snoring a remarkably tiny, ladylike snore, and James wondered if it was an enchanted sleep cast by the ghostly figure.

        The halls were silent and dark, it being the very pit of night. Silvery blue moonlight sifted through the few windows. It occurred to James that he should have brought his wand. He couldn't do much with it yet, but he did know a basic Illumination Spell. He glanced around the pattern of moonlight and shadows that was the hall, seeking the ghostly shape. It was nowhere in sight. He chose a direction at random and trotted along it.