niceties of conversation. Ignoring her cries, he struggled to his feet. But no sooner had he stood up, did Miocene let rip with her own wand. “Take that,” she cried out with venom, “for being such a liar!”
Having no intention of letting Miocene have all the fun, Box aimed his stumpy wand, saying, “And see how you like this!”
Sensing a possibility of victory, Harry joined in with the attack.
Although Tumbledown was still standing, he was suffering from the wands combined attack. It was only the protective power of the marbles that kept him alive. They kept him alive – but only just. His power, his life force, was undeniably slipping away. And it was slipping so fast, the means of concealment that he had erected, behind which the ghost – Laughing Larry – had been banished, began to crack. And as it continued to crack, disintegrating before their very eyes, the partition between the seen and unseen grew weaker and weaker until everything became visible.
“Look!” Miocene shrieked. “It’s the devil!”
“And all of his minions!” Box yelled, with equal concern.
Seeing this, Harry, the girl mystic, the troublesome girl mystic, knew, without a shadow of a doubt, the dire trouble they were now in. The mad ghost, Larry, had been hidden behind the gates of Hades itself – which were now opening, disgorging all the terrible things it contained…
At Hell’s Gates
The gates of hell were opening, and if nothing was done to stop them, Laughing Larry would not be the only one freed from his bondage.
Flying out from the crack, so happy at having been freed, the mad ghost began singing, “I am Laughing Larry, Laughing Larry hey hey!”
“Not now, Larry!” Harry barked; her annoyance with the mad spirit patently obvious.
The mad ghost stopped singing and, gliding down, landed close to Miocene. “What’s ruffled her feathers?” he asked, pointing to Harry.
“Shush,” Miocene whispered, “have you no idea what’s happening?”
“I’m mad,” the ghost explained, “which makes it quite difficult to see things as they actually are.” Then giving her a wink, he added, “You can try to explain it to me, though.”
Miocene began to explain, to try and get through to the mad ghost just how dangerous a position they were all in. However, she was unable to continue, because the gates, creaking and groaning their disquiet, opened fully, offering free rein to the abominations lurking within.
“HARRY!” Miocene shrieked. “They’re open!”
Harry knew this, but she said nothing, she was far too busy, collecting her thoughts. Thinking fast, waving her electro magical wand like she had never waved it before, Harry began chanting, “Ral fay malnap ral fay mann, scry ro fearnus scry fornum, close these doors, these gates to hell, the way to darkness, to the place they fell.”
The three friends – and they were ever so frightened – stared through the cracked portal, into Hades itself, hoping against hope that they were about to mend, to close, and the threat of abomination within, disappear.
Their sight returning, Tumbledown and McGonagain tried to shield themselves from what had unwittingly been brought into being. “Do something!” McGonagain shouted, pushing the old man towards the gates.
Fumbling, all fingers, Tumbledown tried to open the pouch containing the magical marbles.
“Hurry!” the Professor shouted, her attention torn between the emerging beasts and the old man’s fingers that seemed to have lost all dexterity.
Beasts were indeed emerging. Shapes, dark figures, seething beings of pure hatred were slowly, ever so slowly making their way through the opening, into the light.
Her fears growing by the second, Miocene shouted, “Harry! Your chant, it isn’t working! The gates, they aren’t closing!”
She was right, the doors, the gates of Hades were in fact still opening, offering free exit to the depravities they had up until then contained.
“What can we do?” Box asked, hoping so desperately for an answer. “What about our wands?” he suggested. “Can Miocene and I help, using them?”
“No, it’s far too late for mere wands,” Harry replied, having finally given up on her chanting.
“Then we are surely lost,” said Miocene, in a whisper, hardly able to believe that she had just said it.
Professor McGonagain, tearing her eyes away from the old man’s fumbling fingers, turned to Harry, and she asked, “Are we really lost? Is it all over, about to end?”
“What’s it to you?” Box grizzled with hatred. “You’re as guilty as him.” He pointed at Tumbledown. The old man stopped his fumbling and began to listen.
Stroking her chin, thinking feverously, Harry’s young brain cranked up a gear. Then raising a finger, she said, “We might still be in with a chance…”
“A chance?” said Box, clinging to her promise like it was so much gold or precious jewels.
“Do you really mean it?” asked Miocene.
“What has to be done?” said the Professor, her eyes watching Harry ever so intently.
“Mind your own business,” Box growled at the woman. “It’s got nothing to do with you – or him.” He nodded in the direction of Tumbledown.
Listening ever more intently, the old man edged closer.
“But it has,” said Harry, in a whisper.
“It has? It has what?” said Box.
“It has got everything to do with McGonagain and Tumbledown,” she insisted.
The wind taken out from his sails, Box grumbled, “Well, I know that. What I really meant was we don’t need them, you know, after everything they’ve done.”
“But we do need them,” Harry insisted. “Box, Miocene – all of you, please hear me out…”
When Harry had finished explaining, telling them what she had in mind, her Muddling cousin, Box, was left scratching his head in bewilderment, Miocene was left in dismay, McGonagain was left in a quandary – and Tumbledown? Well, he was simply surprised that Harry had thought of it at all.
Turning her attention to Tumbledown, who was now quite close to her, Harry said, “Well, what do you think, Tumbledown?”
Stroking his long beard, the old man replied, “It’s a long shot…”
“But do you think it has a chance?” she asked. Harry hated having to do this, to talk with him, but her plan, if that’s what it could rightly be called, depended on Tumbledown as much as on herself, so gritting her teeth, she said, “Please tell me what you think our chances of pulling it off really are.”
Stroking his beard again, Tumbledown called for Harry to come closer. “To be honest,” he said, “I think our chances of pulling it off are quite slim, desperately slim if I am to be totally honest.”
Harry gulped hard.
Watching the first beast (although slow moving, it was now almost fully through the gates) with some considerable concern, Tumbledown continued, “But having said that, do we have any other options?”
Gulping again, Harry replied, “No...”
It was decided they were to work together, all of them, as a team (well, at least until the gates of Hell had been resealed)…
“I don’t want to be the harbinger of doom,” said Box, pointing to the first devil as it entered the room, “but that thing has other things on its mind than working together.”
“Okay,” said Harry. “Do you understand your roles, what you must all do?”
Miocene nodded that she did, Box nodded his upstanding, and the Professor, being the professor, begrudgingly admitted that she did.
Taking the initiative, Tumbledown said, “Being the senior person, the school Principal, I feel that it is my duty to begin. Are we agreed?”
Agreed? They were delighted that he was taking the first step, the most dangerous one of all, and if anything untoward did happen, they felt happy in the knowledge that he fully deserved it. McGonagain, however, took exception. She thought her beloved Principal had shown extremely bad judgement, joining the troublesome children, led by the even more troublesome girl mys
tic, Harry. And she had tried to make her feeling known, but Tumbledown would hear none of it, her words having fallen on decidedly deaf ears. But for the sake of her Principal, the pigheaded, but dear school Principal, she nevertheless went along with it.
“Okay,” said Tumbledown, unnerved by their enthusiasm for his suggestion. “Here I go…”
Harry’s plan depended on the full use of every resource at their disposal; wands (be they stumpy or otherwise), Arcanum and, of course, the Philosopher’s Marbles. And with time decidedly against them, speed was all-important. Bending down, Tumbledown picked up the four fallen marbles, which he handed to Harry, and then delving a hand into the pouch slung from his belt, he removed another four marbles, once again two for each hand.
“Miocene, child, are you ready?” he asked.
“I am,” she replied, tightening her grip on her wand, fearing the worst.
“Box, are you set?”
“Yes,” he declared, his eyes fixed firmly upon the approaching demon-beast.
“Professor?”
“Pardon?” she asked, her thoughts having been elsewhere.
“I said are you ready?”
“With nothing to use as a defence – no, I am not ready,” she bluntly declared.
Without saying a word, Tumbledown delved a hand into his pouch and took out a lone marble, which he handed to the Professor.
Inspecting the glass ball with some interest, she said, “Thank you.”
Last but not least, the old man spoke to Harry. “Harry, are you okay?”
After saying that she was, Harry nodded at the approaching demon-beast, the ruddy blacks of its eyes clearly visible.
Harry Rotter Page 25