James Potter and the Curse of the Gatekeeper

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Rain fell in great sheets, hitting the pavement hard enough to send up a blattering, dirty mist. A small man stood on the corner, under the only working streetlamp, and studied the street.

          Abandoned apartment buildings lined one side, dark and hulking, like dead dinosaurs. The other side was dominated by an equally dismal factory behind a chain-link fence. Warning signs on the fence squeaked and rattled in the wind. One car was parked along the street, looking as if it had been there long enough to become part of the local ecosystem. The small man shuffled his feet, his bald head glistening with rain. He glanced back, toward the busier streets from which he'd just come, and then made a harrumphing noise. He pulled his fist out of his overcoat pocket and held it up to the light. When he opened his hand, there was a small, sodden bit of parchment inside it. He read the words on the parchment for the tenth time. Blue-inked letters spelled the street name and nothing else. The man shook his head, annoyed.

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