Once Bagsy was safely back to the Hufflepuff dormitory, she hid in her private room, ducking through the door behind the armchair and ferns. She pulled parchment hurriedly out of her bag, grabbed a quill and some ink, sat down at her work bench and began writing to her sister. She asked if it was possible for her to come take her away from this awful school, tear drops smudging the ink. Bagsy didn't know a spell to fix the blotchy page, and even if she did, she couldn't cast it.
She could have walked to the owlery and sent the letter off, awaiting her sister to rescue her from Hogwarts but, instead, she sniffed one last time and crumpled up her letter, starting a new one. She told Bontie how difficult she was finding Hogwarts, and asked if there were any alternatives, but didn't mention dropping out of school this time, or a rescue. Hogwarts was horrid but Bagsy was determined to stay her course until she cast at least one spell.
Once she was done writing she got out her hornbeam wand and stayed up until well past midnight practising the counter to the leg lock jinx, determined she'd get it right, and spent most of Sunday like this, too. She had double Herbology on Tuesday – she needed to be able to block jinxes by then or she'd have another humiliating episode.
On Monday morning Mezrielda tried to get Bagsy's attention, but she ignored her, and Mezrielda didn't seem comfortable approaching the Hufflepuff table, so she left.
Greenda asked Bagsy if she'd reconsider coming to the Quidditch try-outs, now next weekend.
Bagsy shrugged. 'I just don't see the point – I won't be trying out.' Greenda let out a sigh, looking downtrodden. 'Why are you sad?'
Greenda glanced around. 'I'm nervous,' she admitted. 'I only got in last time because not many Hufflepuffs are good at Quidditch or even bother trying for the team.' She hung her head. 'To tell you the truth, I think I suck at Quidditch.'
Bagsy blinked, suddenly understanding why Greenda had reacted the way she had the first time she'd turned her down. 'You'll be great, Greenda, and of course I'll be there if it will make you feel better.'
Greenda's eyes lit up. 'Really? Thank you.' She smiled at Bagsy and placed her hand happily on her shoulder, who sat stiffly until she let go.
'Any time,' Bagsy laughed awkwardly.
In double Charms that morning Bagsy sat far away from Mezrielda and paid her little attention, though she couldn't help noticing how good Mezrielda was. They were learning wand movements and how to say incantations right, but Mezrielda was already hovering all sorts of items in the air, and only Tod Alden seemed able to match her, much to her annoyance. A few students tried casting hair jinxes at Mezrielda whilst Professor Starrett's back was turned, but she blocked them easily.
Bagsy tried to hurry from Charms but Professor Starrett asked her to stay behind and she noticed that the short professor was only a head taller than Bagsy, even with her ridiculously tall heels.
'Last lesson you made quite the scene, Miss Beetlehorn.' Starrett looked down her nose at Bagsy, her dark eyes scanning her face.
'Sorry, Professor.'
Starret asked, 'Was it you who cast that spell in my lesson last week?' Bagsy didn't hesitate to shake her head. 'No. You don't seem talented enough. Or, at least, you seem to want people to think you aren't talented enough.' Starrett's eyes narrowed. 'Only time will tell if you really are dim-witted and magicless, or simply being…' Her mouth twisted in an unpleasant way. 'Shall we say, deceitfully modest.'
Bagsy hunched in on herself, not sure at all what Starrett was talking about. 'I didn't cast the spell,' she managed to say, her voice quiet.
'If it wasn't you who was it?' Starrett asked. Bagsy felt vindictive satisfaction creep up her back, yet her tongue held still. Why she was passing up the opportunity to get Mezrielda in trouble she was unsure. 'You claim not to have cast the spell yet cannot name who did. Pity.' Starrett frowned. 'You should think on the impression you make on your professors more, Miss Beetlehorn,' she said, drawing out Bagsy's surname like nails upon a chalk board. 'Start putting real effort into Charms and stop this deceitful act of magical helplessness. Dismissed.'
Bagsy nodded, feeling miserable. 'Of course.'
After sleeping her way through History of Magic, experiencing another one of her odd dreams where something was just out of sight, Bagsy had finished her lessons for the day. Continuing her blanking of Mezrielda, she ignored her attempts to corner her and hid in the safety of her private room in the Hufflepuff dormitory, spending that evening and the next morning practising counter jinxes, so much so she was yawning half of the time in Professor Hilkins' Transfiguration class.
Hilkins was so soft spoken that his gentle pleas of 'Now, pay attention, if that's alright…' did little to keep the students' under control, which allowed Bagsy to doze without being caught, so she could conserve energy for her private study, where she would practise her spells more, but all too soon private study was over – Winifred had decided they didn't need to discuss their project yet as they hadn't been assigned one – and it was time to head to Herbology.
Winifred fell into step beside Bagsy as the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws neared the green houses.
'Heeey, reckon you can block at least one jinx this time? I bet my signed copy of Vampire Affairs Book Three: Stolen Sister that you could.' Winifred grinned at her, then walked ahead to laugh with her Ravenclaw friends. Bagsy looked at the floor miserably.
In the first half of Herbology Bagsy nearly forgot what was to come, her mind was so filled with facts about waxweed – a plant that had different effects when potted and watered in different ways. She couldn't decide if the upside-down waxweed, that made you see the world upside-down, or the dim damp waxweed, that made you very slippery and slimy, was her favourite.
Professor Wattleseed clapped his hands suddenly, and loudly, and Bagsy jumped in surprise.
'Alright – project time! Exciting, innit?' Wattleseed began ushering the students to their paired stations. 'Itsuki! Pluto fly traps are not toys!' Wattleseed snapped at the Hufflepuff boy with a mohawk, whose hand was inches away from a salivating, toothy plant. Bagsy couldn't help herself, her hand tentatively raising into the air. She'd read about Pluto fly traps before; despite their name they weren't plants, and why one was in the greenhouse, she didn't know. 'Yes, Just Bagsy?' Wattleseed asked, a cheeky grin lighting up his youthful face, and Bagsy thought she heard someone at the back of the class swoon.
'I was j-just wondering… what is a Pluto fly trap doing amongst plants?' she asked.
Wattleseed pulled off his square glasses, cleaning them on his shirt, before putting them back on and glancing at the Pluto fly trap behind him. 'Well – they're currently classified as magical creatures, Bagsy,' he explained. A few students let out bored sighs, realising this question had a long answer. 'Which is why we call the things Pluto fly traps. Pluto doesn't fit in with the planets in our solar system – yet still kind of feels like it belongs with them. Perhaps because we're used to the idea of it being there, you know? Or perhaps because there really is something about it that makes it similar to planets?' Wattleseed tickled the Pluto fly trap under its chin. It snapped at him and he withdrew his hand expertly, no alarm on his face. 'Pluto fly traps feel like they belong among plants, even if they aren't one.'
Bagsy didn't have to ask the next question.
'Why ain't they a plant, then?' Winifred said.
Wattleseed stroked his goatee. 'We're not really sure. Myth says that when a spell caster messes with the darker side of Herbology – don't laugh, seriously, there is a darker side – it can lead to nasty effects. Legend claims bad magic users can become a Pluto fly trap. A really horrible fate, if you ask me, spending all eternity unable to move, and hungering deeply after the souls of your former peers.' The class was silent. Wattleseed laughed, flashing perfectly straight teeth. 'Of course, that's just rumour. Now!' He clapped his hands loudly again. Bagsy jumped, again. 'Pay attention, I'm about to explain what your first project is going to be. Exciting, I know. I have tingles.'
Wattleseed swept over to a large wooden set of drawers. He gave one of the drawers a harsh tug and it slowly, and reluctantly, opened, and a disgusting smell filled the room. 'Oh, yeah, you may wanna put on those masks I've left on the work benches,' Wattleseed chuckled awkwardly. Bagsy hurriedly pulled her mask on. It looked like a translucent ski mask and felt slimy, but when Bagsy pulled it over her head the material sunk against her like a second skin and poked up her nose and into her mouth. It felt strange breathing through this odd magical mechanism, and when Bagsy looked around and saw students who looked like they had weird plastic bags pulled tightly over their faces, Bagsy wondered if there wasn't a better alternative.
'You can adjust the size at the nape of your necks,' Wattleseed added, hiding laughter behind his hand. Pressing against the back of her neck, Bagsy's mask inflated until it was a large bubble surrounding her head. She could breathe much more easily and see better too. Plus, she and the other students didn't look nearly as ridiculous.
Wattleseed put a strange, pulsing, brown substance in front of each pair that held the general shape of a star – each end of the star, like flaps, rolled in and out and splattered softly down on the work bench. There seemed to be bits of hair and dust in the substance, too. 'This is living stampelia,' Wattleseed explained. 'It smells like rotting flesh, to be frank with you all.' Bagsy looked at the substance with a queasy feeling in her stomach. She may not be able to smell it anymore, thanks to the bubble mask, but knowing that what she'd smelled earlier was like rotting flesh made her feel ill. 'Not pleasant, I know, but this smelly sod has some great uses.' Wattleseed paused. 'Pardon my language,' he added with a smile.
Bagsy heard a whisper now that she was paying attention for jinxes, unlike last lesson, and knew a student had shot one towards her. She panicked, knowing she had no hope of blocking it.
Strangely, nothing happened. A tall Gryffindor boy a few work benches away looked equally perplexed.
Winifred fist pumped the air under the table and then beamed at Bagsy. 'Nice one,' she whispered. 'You've just won me twelve sachets of talk-a-lot powder!' Bagsy's mouth hung open, she was unsure what to say. She couldn't have blocked the jinx herself, could she?
Bagsy heard a twig crack outside one of the green house windows that Winifred hadn't seemed to hear. When Bagsy looked outside suspiciously she couldn't see anyone.
Wattleseed said, 'Living stampelia are a tricky plant that takes a lot of care to mature – like, a lot. They need a well-balanced diet of flies, beetles and carrots picked at midnight.' Wattleseed gestured to the carrot patch one greenhouse over. 'And they need to have exactly three hours of monitored sunlight every day. No more, no less. I mean it, it won't work well otherwise. If you manage all this you'll be rewarded with a truly fantastic transformation, which I won't spoil for any of you.' Wattleseed shot them all another grin, half friendly, half show-boating. 'I picked some carrots at midnight last night, and there are boxes of dead flies in the drawers at the back and the beetles are next to the window.' Wattleseed pointed past Bagsy in the direction she'd heard a twig snap. 'Instructions for how much of each are needed, and where to place them on the stampelia, are already on your desks.'
Bagsy inspected the instructions. She was half-way through reading how to place the food on the sticky surface of the stampelia, where it would be absorbed into the main body, when she decided she should grab some of the beetles before all the best ones were taken. She moved next to the window, the living stampelia squirming on a board in one hand, her other rummaging through the beetles. She was casting curious glances outside in case the culprit of the twig snap earlier showed themselves, when an icy feeling crept up her back.
Realising she'd been hit with the cold-sneeze jinx, Bagsy tried to hold the board with the stampelia on it away from her face before she sneezed ice onto it and killed it. The trouble was, the sneeze was coming on so fast Bagsy knew she didn't have enough time to save the stampelia from the cold shock.
Just as her nose was beginning to tickle Bagsy heard a low muttering from outside the window she was standing next to, and the cold chill climbing her back warmed and subsided. Bagsy stood still, Winifred looking at her blankly, as the need to sneeze left her. The same boy as last time from a few work benches over looked confused. Bagsy shot him a glare and the boy averted his eyes. His friend next to him, an equally tall Gryffindor with her red hair tied up in a bun, seemed spurned on by Bagsy's defiance, wanting to out-do her friend.
'Locomotor Mortis!' Bagsy heard the girl whisper, and saw her flick her wand, sending a jinx in her direction. Bagsy reached for her wand with her empty hand, muttering the counter jinx she'd been practising. She couldn't fall while holding the stampelia – it would die for sure.
With frustration Bagsy felt her legs lock together and began tipping forward, her face seemed set to land on top of the stampelia that oozed ominously in anticipation.
'Arresto Momentum!' the voice outside the window responded quietly, followed by more muttering. Bagsy's fall slowed down to a crawl, and her legs unlocked from each other and she easily regained her balance, avoiding a tumble. She ensured the stampelia stayed on the board and didn't slip to the floor, before shooting a glare at the Gryffindor girl.
'Killian, Fiona? Everything alright?' Wattleseed asked the pair, who seemed so stunned by Bagsy's survival of their jinxes they'd forgotten about their stampelia completely.
Bagsy was happy she had avoided the worst effects of the jinxes by the end, and Winifred was a little kinder to her for it, clearly impressed that she could counter all those jinxes. Bagsy wasn't lying if she didn't correct her. Winifred hadn't been close enough to the window to hear what she had and that wasn't Bagsy's fault.
When the lesson ended, and Winifred dumped the stampelia on her, sealed in a smell-proof clear box, Bagsy was too busy walking over to the window and checking outside to care. She could practise her spells outside whilst she ensured the stampelia had its three hours of monitored sunlight a day and feeding it food wasn't a problem when she could fetch it from the greenhouse at midnight every now and then.
What she couldn't do was figure out who had been casting those counter jinxes for her. Whoever they were, she wanted to thank them.
Astronomy passed by without event the next morning, and soon Bagsy found herself facing the heavy double doors of the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, amazed at how quickly the first two weeks had passed. Mezrielda had the good sense to leave her alone in the classes they shared – in Astronomy that morning she'd taken the telescope furthest from Bagsy and spent the whole lesson quietly taking it apart and putting it back together, like all the students, without so much as a glance in her direction. Bagsy knew this because she'd spent more time making sure Mezrielda wasn't watching her than focussing on her own telescope.
While the students lined up outside the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom Mezrielda hovered at the back, as far from Bagsy as she could be. Bagsy couldn't have been more pleased about it.
Tod, on the other hand, walked right up to her with a smile. 'How are you doing?'
'Fine,' said Bagsy.
'I take it you're not banned from Defence Against the Dark Arts, then,' he commented.
'Yep,' she muttered awkwardly, feeling Mezrielda glare in Tod's direction from the back of the line. Bagsy smiled up at Tod. 'Want to sit next to each other?'
Tod looked surprised but not unpleased. 'Why not?'
That lesson Tod and Bagsy sat at the front. Fitzsimmons was an intimidating professor, to say the least. They spoke quietly, but harshly, and their large eyes were constantly scanning the students to ensure they were paying attention. Thankfully, the lesson didn't involve any wand work – only a brief use of their textbook Dark forces: A Guide to Self-Protection and the memorizing of wand movements and incantation pronunciations. When the double lesson ended, and the students filed out, Professor Fitzsimmons called for her to stay behind, and Bagsy's stomach fell in a mixture of anxiety and anticipation.
Whatever the Defence Against the Dark Arts test had been about, Bagsy was about to get some answers.