The next morning, James, Ralph, and Zane entered the Great Hall for breakfast and headed purposefully toward the far end of the Gryffindor table.

        "Are you sure about this?" Ralph asked as they crossed the Hall. "We can't go back after this, you know."

        James pressed his lips together, but didn't answer. They crowded in with Noah, Ted, and the rest of the Gremlins, all of whom were seated conspicuously in a tight knot.

"Ah, the very man," Ted announced as James squeezed between him and Sabrina. "We were just taking bets on why you asked all of us to meet you for breakfast. Noah thinks you want to officially join the ranks of the Gremlins, in which case we've prepared a series of grueling challenges for you to complete. My favorite is the one where you don Sabrina's old Yule gown and run through the school singing the Hogwarts tribute as loud as you can. There's plenty more, although Damien's challenges tend to involve too many slugs and mustard for my taste."

        James grimaced. "To tell you the truth, the reason I asked to talk to all of you is that Ralph, Zane, and I have something we need to ask of you." To their credit, none of the Gremlins seemed surprised. They simply leaned in a little as they continued to eat. James didn't exactly know where to begin. He had awoken that morning with the simple realization that, on their own, he, Ralph, and Zane would not succeed in capturing the Merlin staff in one day. They had no plan. The portrait of Snape had been some help, but Snape didn't even believe that Tabitha Corsica had the staff. So who could they turn to? He acted on his first impulse. He could ask the one group of people in all the school who were experts in the subtle arts of chaos and tomfoolery. It might take too long to explain everything to Ted and his fellow Gremlins, and even if he could, they still might not agree to help, but it was his best, last hope. James sighed hugely and stared at his glass of pumpkin juice. "We need your help to… to borrow something."

        "Borrow something?" Noah repeated, his mouth full of toast. "What? Money? A cup of sugar? A decent haircut? Doesn't sound like you need us, exactly."

        "Quiet, Metzker," Ted said mildly. "What is it you want to 'borrow', James?"

        James took a deep breath and then simply said it. "Tabitha Corsica's broom."

        Damien coughed into his juice. All the other Gremlins glanced at James with widened eyes. All except Ted. "Whatever for?" Sabrina asked in a low voice. "Tonight's the tournament match between Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Is that it? Are you trying to ruin Slytherin's chances? I admit that there's something highly suspect about that broom of hers, but cheating doesn't exactly seem like your style, James."

        "No! It doesn't have anything to do with the match," James said, and then faltered. "It's a lot to explain. And I'm not even allowed to talk about some of it. McGonagall asked me not to."

        "Tell us as much as you can, then," Petra said.

        "All right. Zane, Ralph, help me out. Fill in any bits I miss. It's going to sound pretty mad, but here goes." Between the three of them, they explained the entire story of the Merlin conspiracy, from the first glimpse of the shade of Madame Delacroix on the lake to the adventure at the Grotto Keep to Ralph and James' mysterious confrontation with the creepy dryad demanding the Merlin robe. They had to back up then, and explain how they'd come to capture the robe from Professor Jackson. James was worried that the story had become so fragmented that the Gremlins wouldn't be able to follow it. Ted listened intently the entire time, simply eating and watching whoever was speaking. The rest of the Gremlins asked clarifying questions and responded with a mixture of skepticism, awe and excitement.

        "You've been working this whole plot out all year and you're only now telling us about it?" Damien asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Like I said, McGonagall warned us not to tell anybody about the Grotto Keep," James said sincerely. "And we were worried that you wouldn't believe the rest of it, anyway. We had a hard time believing a lot of it ourselves. For a while, at least. So what do you think?"

        "I'm confused," Sabrina said, frowning. "The whole thing seems pretty patched together. It's one thing to shoot off Weasley fireworks during the debate, but it's something else entirely to go and steal the broom of one of the most prominent, and frankly, scary witches in the school. That's thievery, that is."

        "It's only thievery if what we're saying isn't true," Zane reasoned. "If Tabitha's broom is the Merlin staff, then it isn't hers, really. I don't know whose it is, but no matter what, she had to have stolen it somehow herself."

        Damien didn't seem convinced. "Even if she did, we'd be the only ones who knew that. If she hauls us all into the Headmistress' office claiming we stole her broom, what would we say? It's all right because she stole the broom herself from somebody, we don't know who, and besides, the broom is really the magic staff of the most powerful wizard ever, so we were really just doing the world a favor taking it out of Corsica's hands? That'll fly like a dead owl."

        "Well, why wouldn't it?" Ralph interjected. "If it's true, it's true."

        "And that came from the mouth of a Slytherin," Noah said, grinning crookedly.

        "What's that supposed to mean?" Ralph said, firming his jaw.

        James shook his head. "It's all right, Ralph. He's ragging you. The point is, yes, even if it is true, we might not be able to prove it. I won't tell you we might not get in trouble over this. I can only tell you that if it is true, then being hauled to McGonagall's office and called a thief is the least of our worries. I can't ask any of you to get involved if you don't want to. It's risky. We could all get in loads of trouble. We could even fail despite our best efforts."

        "Now wait a minute," Noah said, "this is the Gremlins you're talking about."

          Petra sat up straight and looked around at the group. "The thing is, if James, Zane, and Ralph are wrong, we'll know by tomorrow. If we did 'borrow' Corsica's broom, we could return it, somehow. Probably anonymously. No harm, no penalty. Everybody will just think it was a Quidditch prank, right? But if this story is true, and the broom really is the Merlin staff, then nobody will be dragging anybody to the Headmistress' office."

        "Why not?" Sabrina asked, interested.

        "Because Tabitha will have bigger fish to fry," Noah answered thoughtfully. "If she's part of some big Merlin conspiracy and she fails to come through with the staff, she'll be in some serious outs with her cronies. People like that don't tend to be very forgiving, you know. Why, we might never even see her again."