over to them, he said, “Mr Spectre, is everything all right?”
“Yes, sir,” the ticket collector replied, “I was just about to help these souls on their way.”
“Good,” the stationmaster replied. “We don’t want anymore lost souls around here, we have far too many as it is.” Having said that, he retired to his office where the sound of sombre music could be heard playing.
While Harry produced the two platform tickets for inspection, Box whispered to himself, “What sort of a place is this?”
Inspecting the tickets, the collector said, “Ah, so you’re from Muddleland. It’s a queer time to be going to Hagswords. Don’t you know that term began some time ago?”
Ignoring his remark, Harry said, “Will you please clip our tickets and let us be on our way?”
Chastised, the man duly clipped the tickets and bid them good day.
As they departed the station, Box glanced back at it, over his shoulder, and he was sure that he could see people, faces, staring out from each and every window of the old building.
“Harry,” he said. “You will never guess what I have just seen.” Harry, however, was already halfway down the road, well out of earshot. “Hold on, wait for me,” Box shouted as he began running after her.
When he caught up with his fast walking and troublesome cousin, Box asked, “How far is it?”
“How far is what?” she replied obscurely.
“Hagswords, of course.”
Stopping, Harry pointed to a far-off mountaintop, and said, “That far.”
“Oh,” he said, daunted at the prospect of having to walk such a great distance. Then remembering the flying carpet, he said, “Have you forgotten about your magical carpet?”
Stopping again, Harry studied her Muddle-born cousin, like he was something that got stuck to her shoe.
Unnerved, Box asked, “What’s wrong?”
“You are,” she complained. Then she added, “Do you think I am stupid?”
“No,” he mumbled, his face dropping from the onslaught of such harsh words. “I was just wondering…”
Seeing his hurt, she said, “All right, perhaps I was being a bit hard on you. Come on, it’s a long way. I’ll explain as we go…”
As they rambled along the deserted road, the two cousins said more to each other during the following hour than they had said during their entire lives up until then. They spoke about Hagswords; Box about his concerns of what they might find when they got there, and Harry about her wishes to remain there for as short a time as possible. They also told each other some quite personal things that neither of them had confided with anyone before. Box told Harry all about his love of electronics, about his utter fascination with everything electrical, and his hopes that one day he could pursue a career in that field – perhaps even melding it with his newfound interest in magic? Harry, on the other hand, despite holding back from telling him her full plans, her real plans regarding the item she claimed to have left at school, did tell him about some of the things which had moulded her into the person she was today. After hearing this Box felt an understanding, a sense of sympathy with his troublesome cousin that he had up until then believed impossible.
“Well, that’s about it, cousin,” said Harry, signalling the end of their little talk. “We can’t use the flying carpet, for fear of being spotted.”
“But if they know we were on that train,” Box asked, “why don’t they simply send more owls to finish us off?”
Regarding the sky, Harry replied, “Remember what I told you; be careful of what you say…”
Ducking, Box whispered, “Are they coming – the owls?”
“No, I think you got away with it this time,” she laughed. Then hearing a noise, she turned round and saw a cart coming in their direction. “Quick!” she ordered. “Get your thumb up.”
“Like in thumbing for a lift?”
“Exactly like thumbing for a lift,” she said, raising hers.
Pulling hard on the reins, an old man, sitting high atop an equally old cart, said, “Whoa, whoa.” The cart, pulled by six enormous shire horses, came to a halt. Removing his glasses from where they were perched precariously on his craggy old nose, the man attempted to clean them in his grimy shirt before returning them to the same precarious position atop his nose. Having done that, he said, “Hello there.”
“Hello,” said Harry in her sweetest tone of voice. “Are you heading anywhere near Hagswords?”
“Students? You’re a bit late for Hagswords,” he said, taking off his glasses again, and examining them closely. “I could never see through these. I don’t know why I bother wearing them.”
“Do you mind if I take a look?” Harry asked, smiling serenely.
Passing her his spectacles, the man said, “I think they’re way past fixing. Too many scratches on ‘em, I’m afraid. I’ve just gotta face up to the fact that I need a new pair.”
Without letting him see what she was actually doing, Harry, withdrawing her wand, said ever so quietly, “Erotser selcatceps.” Returning the glasses to him, she said, “Try them now.”
Balancing them upon his weathered old nose, the man said, “Why, that’s wonderful – they’re as good as new. Thanks, thanks a lot. Come on, climb up, you just earned yourselves a free ride to school.”
Perched high on the cart, in the back, amongst the many bales of saved hay, Harry and Box settled down for the slow journey ahead. You see, while known and universally respected for their immense strength, shire horses are sadly lacking when it comes to speed – their journey to Hagswords, though assured, was certainly going to be slow. It was also dull, because the driver, with his newly repaired glasses, had no interest in talking; he was far too busy marvelling at everything around him, things that he hadn’t seen clearly for many a long year. And although this suited Harry and, to a point, Box they eventually bored with the monotony of the journey and both of them fell fast asleep.
Awakening with a start, feeling the cart travelling faster than before, much faster than shire horses are comfortable with, Box instinctively knew that something was terrible wrong. Feeling every bump, every pothole in the road, he looked for Harry, but he couldn’t see her, not anywhere, and he shouted, “Harry, where are you?”
“I’m up here,” she yelled.
Looking up, to where the old man had previously been sitting, Box saw Harry struggling with the reins as she tried to control the panicking horses. Scrambling his way through the falling, tumbling bales, Box made his way up front, where he joined Harry on the bench seat. The old man was there, lying at her feet, his face scratched almost beyond recognition.
“What happened to him?” he asked.
Harry glanced skyward. She said nothing. She had no need to, for the owls, hurtling down for another attack, said it all.
“I said it before and I’ll say it again,” Box yelled. “You must have really pissed someone off!”
Attacking, the owls dive-bombed the cart, relinquishing their lives to stop the renegade girl mystic
A particularly large owl, coming down with all the force of a dive-bomber, struck Box squarely in the chest, almost knocking him off the cart.
“Grabbing him, stopping him from falling to the ground, Harry said, “Hold on to the reins, I have an idea…”
Another owl, sensing a weakness, struck Box with such fury he almost fell backwards and into the hay.
“Hold on,” Harry shouted, as she unfastened the catches on her shoulder bag, taking out the magical carpet and placing it on top of the man’s body under her feet. “Step on it!” she yelled. Box obeyed her without question.
Screaming at the top of her voice, Harry said, “Up, up and away.” With that command the threadbare old carpet began trembling, shaking and quivering in a most alarming manner, before flying away from the cart so fast the two cousins were forced to hang on for dear life.
As the carpet zoomed high above the cart and the panicking horses, Box watched horrified to see that it was no
w completely out of control. And he was even more horrified when he saw the owls descending en masse upon it. The old man, if he had still been alive, hadn’t a chance of survival and nor had his horses.
Turning away from the sickening massacre, Harry guided the magical carpet in the direction of Hagswords. Neither Harry nor Box spoke; they were far too repulsed by what they had witnessed for the niceties of conversation…
Subterfuge and Some Berries
“Down, down, slowly down,” spoke Harry, directing the magical carpet to a secluded spot, a distance from Hagswords.
“Why are we stopping here?” Box asked, considering the welfare of his feet over the gravity of their situation.
Instead of wasting her time and energy in offering a reply, Harry simply gave him a stern look as she neatly folded the carpet and returned it to her bag. After studying the school for a considerable length of time, Harry said, “We must gain entry, but without being seen.”
“That sounds difficult, if not impossible,” Box groaned. “Considering it’s atop such a steep hill.”
It was true, sitting there atop a lofty, lonely hill, Hagswords had more in common with a fortified castle that a place of learning. Harry wondered why she had never before noticed this. “There is more than one way of skinning a cat,” Harry whispered, her eyes fixed doggedly on the school.
Imagining this scenario, Box squirmed at the thought of some unfortunate cat being skinned. Then returning to the present, he asked, “Well, what’s this plan of yours?”
Sitting on the hard, stony ground, behind the cover of a large boulder, Harry said, “The plan, my dear cousin, is to wait until darkness falls. Only then will it be safe to make our first move.” With that she closed her eyes, resting.
Gazing into the clear blue sky, again wishing that he had remembered to put on his watch, Box could see, and only too well, that nightfall was still a long way off. So following Harry’s example, he joined her on the ground and took advantage of this opportunity for a much needed rest. He even slept; in fact he slept for several hours, dreaming so many dreams, some good but some bad, horribly bad, especially the one where his face was covered all over with noses. Waking up, shouting, he cried out, “No more noses, no, no! No more noses!”
“Wake up, it’s only a dream,” said Harry.
“It was only a dream?” he asked. “But it was so real!”
“It was still only a dream,” she insisted.
“But I saw all these things… like owls, blood covered faces, trains, magic carpets, and all of those terrible, frightful noses!” Feeling his face, Box was relieved to find that he had only the one nose upon it.
“What time do you think it is?” Harry asked.
Studying the elevation of the sun, Box replied, “I’d guess it’s well past six. And my growling belly knows that only too well.”
“Then let’s see what we can find,” said Harry, standing up and strolling around the immediate area. Spotting a small, blue coloured shrub growing within a crevasse, she said, “Ah, here we are.”
Watching with interest, Box said, “That’s what I was asking you about, earlier.”
“You were?”
“Yes, when we were on the train,” he explained. “What are they?”
With a mischievous grin, Harry replied, “They’re called Rub-a-Dubs.”
“Rub-a-Dubs, what sort of a name is that?” Box asked, scratching his head.
“A silly name?” she said still grinning. “After you have had a taste – and they’re so good – you won’t care what they’re called.” Picking a handful of the small berries that were growing profusely on the plant, she offered them to Box.
Inspecting the bright blue coloured berries with even brighter orange stripes running down them, Box fingered them with some suspicion. But he eventually took one, asking, “They are safe?”
“As safe as you can expect anything in life to be,” Harry replied nonchalantly.
“That’s not much of an answer.”
“Go on – try it!”
Opening his mouth, Box tentatively placed the berry onto his tongue. At first, the only thing he tasted was something akin to the flavour of a blackberry, but the moment he began chewing it, a fiery, burning sensation erupted from the Rub-a-Dub, assaulting his taste buds with a vengeance. “It’s burning me!” he cried out, the tears streaming from his eyes. “Water, give me water!”
Laughing, Harry made absolutely no attempt to offer any assistance. On the contrary, she offered Box more berries to eat.
“What are you doing?” he gasped, “You must be mad if you think I want some more!”
“That’s the only way you can go on to the next stage…”
“The next stage?” Box screamed, “The first one is almost killing me! You’re bonkers if you think I’m going to risk eating any more!”
“Then you will have to suffer that burning sensation for another hour, perhaps longer.”
“And what will I have to suffer if I eat another one – untold pain, maybe?”
“No, untold pleasure,” she said quietly.
Although his mouth felt like the fires of hell were burning right through it, Box stopped dead in his tracks when he heard this, and he asked, “Untold pleasure?”
Harry nodded.
“It’s not a drug, is it?”
“No, it is not,” she said, hurt that he could think she was capable of having anything to do with so despicable a thing.
“Then what is it?”
“Try one, and find out, she whispered. “It’s perfectly safe…”
“You said something along those lines before I tried the first one,” Box mumbled. Then taking a second berry he popped it into his mouth and began chewing.
“Wow!” he exclaimed, “I see what you mean, “Wow, wow, wow!”
“Can I take it the burning sensation has eased?” she asked.
“Eased? It’s gone! It’s completely gone!” said Box, smiling happily as he chewed on the berry. “It’s been replaced,” he continued, “by a sensation so good, I can’t find words good enough to describe it!”
“Untold pleasure?” Harry suggested, reminding him of her previous description.
“Yep, that and a whole lot more,” he said, taking another berry and munching away happily on it.
When he had finished all the berries Harry had offered him, and then some, Box said, “I’ll just go get another few. Do you want some?”
“No thank you,” she replied. “And you’ve eaten far too many. No more berries for you.”
“Why?” he asked, rubbing an itch.
“Do I always have to explain everything?”
“I only asked why I couldn’t have a few more of those wonderful berries,” he said. Then approaching the bush, he pointed at it, saying, “Look, there are plenty of them left.” Feeling another itch, this time on his leg, just below the knee, Box began scratching it like mad. “
Harry smiled.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked, as another even itchier twinge erupted on his chest.
“Can’t you see?” she asked.
Ripping off his shirt, pulling it right over his head without undoing the buttons, Box began scratching his chest like his life depended on it. Then the penny dropped, and he realised why the plants were called Rub-a-Dubs. “It’s a side-effect,” he yelled. “Why didn’t you warn me?”
“Would you have listened?”
Box made no reply, he said no more, but he continued to scratch and to scratch and to scratch…
When the itching had finally subsided, Box bemoaned, “That was a very bad joke that you played on me.”
“A joke?” Harry replied candidly. “Who’s laughing?” Then changing the subject, she asked, “Are you still hungry?”
“No, as it so happens I am feeling perfectly full, thank you very much.” Looking at his wrist, where his watch should have been, he said, “It’s getting late. It will be dark soon.”
“
It will,” Harry agreed. “And owls, unfortunately, prefer if that way…”
By the time darkness had fallen, enveloping the two cousins within its inky black cocoon, they were fully rested and ready for the off. Box still had no idea what Harry had in mind, to gain access to Hagswords, and to be truthful he harboured some doubts as to her ability to carry it off, if she indeed had a plan at all. Harry, despite having some semblance of a plan, resisted the need to share it, preferring Box to follow her instructions without question. It was a stalemate; neither of the two cousins was prepared to offer their full, unfettered trust and cooperation to the other. This situation, however, was about to change…
A thin sliver of moon began to creep over the horizon, beginning its long nocturnal journey through the darkness of the heavens, offering the two cousins a faint, watery light in which to see through. “Come on,” Harry whispered, “it’s time we were off.”
Emerging from the shelter of the boulder, Box stumbled, stubbing his foot against a jutting rock. Stifling the urge to cry out, knowing only too well that if they were to have any hope of success, silence was all-important, Box followed Harry. As he wandered along in the near darkness, Box found his thoughts drifting, drifting back to his home, to his beleaguered parents that he still felt so guilty for leaving – especially so considering their delicate state of minds. “I hope they are feeling better,” he whispered, “I really do…”
The sliver of moon was a godsend, offering them enough light to make their way safely up the steep hill, towards Hagswords, but not enough to give away their presence. As the two cousins got closer and closer to the seemingly impregnable stonewalls of the old school, which loomed ever higher above them, Box felt impelled to speak, and he said, “Harry, what do we do, when we actually get there? We can’t just knock on the door and ask them to let us in!”
As was her way in times such as this, Harry said nothing. Being a loner, she preferred to work things out without the distracting aspects of wasteful speech.
Every now and then, Box thought he heard the flutter of wings, signalling the return of the dreaded owls, but, thankfully, nothing materialized. Finally, on reaching the base of the fortress like walls of the school, Box breathed a sigh of relief. “Phew,” he whispered, “I thought we might never get here.”
“Getting here in one thing,” Harry said warily. “But getting inside – and undetected – is another thing altogether.”
Box watched as Harry fingered the clasp of her shoulder bag. “Are you going to use the magical carpet?” he asked.
“No, that is out of the question,” she whispered coldly. “Unless you want every owl hot on our heels.” Harry continued searching through her bag.
“What are you looking for?”
Producing a shiny glass marble, Harry showed it to him, saying, “This!”
Studying the glass bauble, Box marvelled at the multicoloured lights within. “What is it?” he asked.
Wrestling with her thoughts, hoping that she wasn’t divulging too much of her plan, Harry said, “It’s a Philosopher’s Marble…”
“A philosopher’s what?”
“Marble,” she explained, wondering why Muddles had such
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