The muggle torch flickered on and off, casting weak illumination into the forbidden forest. Was it a trick of Bagsy's mind, or did those branches in the distance look like elongated arms with three fingered hands? It couldn't be, she told herself: the branches stretched out almost as long as some of the trees. No arms were that long.
But, then again, no branches were, either.
Bagsy gulped and ducked down, turning her torch off. 'I think I saw arms.' She couldn't see Mezrielda's face, her eyes were still adjusting from the torch light, but her silence said it all. And then, clearer than when she'd heard it the first time, Bagsy heard the noise that had set her on edge to begin with.
It was a faint, high pitched warbling, like the faintest note on a violin fluttering lightly on the breeze. It creeped up behind her and wrapped it's strange, distorted sound around her, like the whisperings of a ghost through a long, thin tube, mingled with the occasional click or harsh clacking noise.
'Do you hear that?' Mezrielda murmured quietly.
Bagsy nodded, not willing to speak her acknowledgement out loud. Steeling herself, she got back onto her knees and peered over the edge of the boab. Her eyes were adjusted to the darkness again, but the arm-like branches, or branch-like arms, she added fearfully to herself, were beyond her eyes reach. She lifted her torch back up. If something was stalking towards them, then it already knew they were there, and could see them, so there was little downside to turning the thing on and making a quick check. All the same, Bagsy hovered there, unable to act for at least a minute.
With a breath, she clicked the torch on once more. Stammering light shone into the dark and this time, when Bagsy searched for them, she couldn't see the branches that had concerned her the first time she'd looked. Her skin prickled as if someone was drawing their nails across a chalk board, and she turned her torch off, ducking back into the boab. 'The arms are gone.'
'Oh, stars.'
Out of ideas, they sat there, waiting. The same noise sounded again.
Mezrielda let out a sharp breath. 'It's closer.'
Bagsy internally agreed – the noise was partially louder this time, and it had moved, coming more from the right. 'I t-think it's hunting us…' Bagsy stammered, gripping the muggle torch as tightly as Mortem's bindings had bound Winifred and Robin. 'I can't…' Bagsy breathed, her heart racing as quick as a squirrel's. 'I can't take this...' Sniffing, she began to cry, salty tears forming in her eyes.
'We need a plan,' Mezrielda offered lamely, but her voice was shaking. Bagsy could tell she hadno plan to speak of. She'd lost her magic, and her wand. Bagsy reckoned this was perhaps the first time in Mezrielda's life she felt out of her element. She'd never seen the blood eyed beast in her first year and, at the end of their second when she'd been captured by the creature, she'd been knocked unconscious almost instantly. Evidently, Mezrielda wasn't in a position to steer them out of this.
Bagsy just kept softly sniffing, trying to keep her crying as quiet as possible. 'What do we do?' she worried around her whimpering. 'Should we run?' There was no response from Mezrielda.
Instead, the boab suddenly, and violently, shifted. Something heavy had pushed down on the other side, and where Bagsy was sitting she was thrown into the air. She hung for a second, torch spiralling away from her hand, before she landed in the leaves, roots and dirt of the forest floor. She let out a cry, scrambling for the torch in a hurried panic. Her hands landed on the cool metal and she turned it on, rolling onto her back and shining it at whatever had just happened.
A creature towered above her, draped in moss and vines and dying plants, with parts of its skin missing where ribs and muscles showed instead. It was almost as tall as the trees and its arms were longer, with multiple joints. One of them was holding something. Bagsy turned her torch upwards and at Mezrielda suspended upside down by her leg, where one of the pointed fingers of the creature's hand had gone through her calf and was poking out the other side. The light revealing just what had caught her, Mezrielda's paled features stretched out in growing dread. Her eyes widened, and her mouth pulled open in a silent cry.
The many jointed arms were long and branched out like a tree with three long, spindly fingers like sharp needles at the end of each. The arms were attached to the torso of a human, the face of which was covered by a white mask with a miserable expression carved into it. It had down turned black eyes and a gaping, weeping mouth. The head the mask covered looked far too large and lolled unnaturally from side to side as it shifted its hooved feet. Bagsy looked down in horror at the hooves, for the torso of the creature found itself attached to the back of a lichen covered, dark furred horse, whose equine face was covered by a mask smiling sinisterly down at her.
A Nuckelavee.
With a reverberating breath from the horse's mouth, the already dead looking trees around them wilted and shrivelled further. By the flickering of the torch's light, Bagsy saw the beast reach one of its freakishly long arms down towards her and scrape one of its needle-sharp fingers across her cheek. Bagsy could only watch, shaking and crying in fear.
'Bagsy, run!' Mezrielda forced out, voice thick with pain, but Bagsy didn't hear her. The creature's finger had retracted sharply on contact with Bagsy's cheek and the salty tracks her tears had left. The Nuckelavee turned and began to shamble away from Bagsy, taking Mezrielda with it.
Bagsy rushed to her feet, cupping her hands around her mouth. 'Mezrielda!' she shouted. 'You have to cry! It's a fresh water Nuckelavee, it's repelled by salt water!' Pointing her torch forward again, fixing the flashing light on Mezrielda, Bagsy followed. She was still terrified, but her fear was being overridden by anger at this beast and whatever it may plan to do to her friend. Her knees may have been shaking, her legs may have felt like jelly, and her heartbeat may have been thrashing in panic in her ears, but Bagsy would be damned if she wasn't going to get Mezrielda out of this alive.
'I can't!' Mezrielda called back, her response a half sob.
Bagsy was all too familiar with the stinging pain of something stabbing through you – only last year the blood eye beast had sank its many rows of teeth into her legs. She had only sympathy for Mezrielda's impaled calf and the pain it must be causing her. 'You have to, Mezrielda! Just cry! It will let you go if you do! It's why it didn't grab me!'
'No, I can't!' Mezrielda was sounding more panicked as the Nuckelavee picked up its pace, putting more distance between itself and Bagsy. 'My tear ducts… they're sealed. I can't cry. I'm physically incapable.'
Bagsy stopped in her tracks, nearly dropping her torch in her shock. 'What?!'
'Bagsy!' Mezrielda's panicked voice was getting further away; the Nuckelavee had broken into a trot, its long legs far too swift for Bagsy to keep up. She stood, watching with her flickering light as the monster disappeared into the swaths of trees and darkness, beyond her view.
Bagsy grit her teeth, turning her torch to the floor. The Nuckelavee was a massive creature, and it left obvious tracks. 'Don't worry, Mez,' Bagsy growled to herself, clenching her shaking fist in determination. 'This time, I've got a plan.'
The first thing she needed was some weeping weeds. Bagsy could only cry so much – for what she was planning she'd need far more salt than her tears could provide. The weeping weeds were weeping – Bagsy hoped that meant the zout they gave off was salty. Draught of silver cleanse, which used zout, tasted like salty toothpaste, so it seemed a reasonable assumption to make.
It didn't take her long – there seemed to be plenty of plants in the forbidden forest, and weeping weeds were the most numerous among them. Fishing a few empty vials out of her robe, thanking the stars she'd had it on when all of this had begun, she began to fill them by the stuttering light of her muggle torch. As she finished and stood up she heard the soft padding of paws on the floor behind her. She turned quickly and saw a wolf with two heads peering curiously at her, wriggling its nose and flicking its four tails in interest. It opened its mouth, scenting her, and then bared its teeth hungrily. But then, Bagsy heard a sound she certainly had not been expecting. The clank of armour announced the arrival of the creatures long before Bagsy could see the moonlight glinting off of their metal casings. Giving the approaching figures an uncertain look, the wolf left. In its place, six suits of armour, the ones who'd tormented Bagsy in her first and second years, stood looking silently at her.
She felt like a deer in headlights, holding the filled vials in one hand and her muggle torch in the other, staring in dread at them. Slowly, before Bagsy's petrified mind commanded her to run, the suits clink-clanked their way into a wide circle around her, their swords drawn. After what felt like an age, though, the suits made no movement to harm her, or even move closer.
'What do you want?' Bagsy asked, taking a step forward. The suits moved as she moved, maintaining a perfect circle around her. Beyond their line, she saw the movement of more wolves, but the creatures were keeping away now. 'Are you…?' Bagsy couldn't believe it. 'Protecting me?' That couldn't be right, she thought to herself, the suits of armour were minions of the blood eyed beast – why would they want to help her?
One of the suits of armour turned its head towards her silently. Bagsy took it as an invitation and, as if under a spell, cautiously walked towards it. She reached her hand out as slow as sludge, with only a foreign instinct guiding her, and placed a finger on the visor of its helmet.
She was hit with a vision so hard it almost knocked her off her feet. Instead, she reeled backwards, feeling the world shift around her. She wasn't Bagsy – she was a small child, eleven at the oldest, trapped in a corridor. There was rubble at either end, and five other children fearfully huddled around her. With a cry of fear, the children looked at the rubble at one end of the corridor as something moved it aside.
A figure, blinding white like the blood eyed beast, but in the shape of a tall human, walked towards them threateningly. Time raced by, and Bagsy could make little sense of it, but before she knew what had happened she was looking out through a visor. Somehow, she was trapped within a suit of armour.
Crying out in dismay, the world suddenly came back to Bagsy, and she tripped over a root on the forest floor, falling to the ground. Breathing heavily, she stared up at the suit of armour. 'Was that your memory?' she asked it, something telling her that had been exactly what it was.
The armour didn't respond. It only turned, sword drawn, and looked out into the forest, watching for danger. Swallowing, Bagsy got back to her feet, and pressed on with her plan. Whatever was happening here, she couldn't spare any time figuring it out. Instead, she fumbled through her robe, praying what she was looking for hadn't fallen out at some point. With a cry of triumph, she pulled a small metal cube from her pocket; the foldable forge.
The metal suits of armour followed her as she tracked the Nuckelavee. The creature had left massive hoof prints, and a line where its tail had dragged across the leaves. She would have asked the armours to stop following her, except that she realised they were serving a very useful purpose; wolves, hooded birds with multiple wings, giant spiders, and skeletal cats with bulging black eyes tried to approach her and her muggle torch, that attracted the denizens of the forbidden forest like a moth to a flame. Each time, the suits of armour would draw their swords with aggressive scrapes and stand imposingly in the way of the creatures as they tried to stalk forwards. As each of the monsters left, Bagsy would mutter a thank you to the suits of armour, weakened by her confusion and fear.
When her eyes caught a glimpse of something massive settled on the floor in the distance, however, she knew it was time to bid farewell to the armours. 'I need to go on alone,' she said. 'I have to be silent for this bit.' The suits only looked at her and then, when she moved, continued to follow. 'No!' Bagsy protested in frustration, allowing herself a foot-stamp in this very trying time. 'You must stay here!' But the suits didn't seem to care what she said. 'Fine,' she grumbled. 'I guess surprise is out the window.'
Thinking, she settled on a slightly different plan. Originally, she was going to bring the fight to the Nuckelavee but, now that she was surrounded by a constant serenade of clanks and clinks, she wouldn't have the element of surprise, and would be unable to set up before the Nuckelavee would either be upon her or have disappeared.
With a start, she realised she was thinking of the Nuckelavee like how she'd thought of Mezrielda during their game of tag at Christmas. She knew the creature was faster than her, and perhaps it was smarter, too. It wouldn't take much for it to be. But, if Bagsy set a trap for it, and controlled the environment in which they'd face off, maybe she'd get just one chance to do this.
Unfolding the forge, Bagsy walked to the middle of the set-up, where the weather machine was waiting patiently for her. Taking out her vials of zout, she set to work. First, she ripped the needle with the solidifying solution from where she'd affixed it. Quickly, she emptied the needle, and replaced its contents with zout. Bit by bit, and with much care, she injected the entirety of the zout she'd collected into the jar containing the snow storm, hoping it would work as she intended.
Lugging the weather machine off the floor of the foldable forge, and into the centre of the clearing she'd decided would be her trap, she finished setting up her plan. She folded the forge back up, placing the bronze cube into her pocket. She didn't have her mag-net bat and ball on her, but that was fine; her muggle torch would do the trick for what she had in mind.
Finally ready, she wasted no time in rushing to where she'd seen the large creature settled on the ground. The suits of armour ran on either side of her, making loud noises as they progressed. She didn't know if this was going to work, but she thought back to something Arice had said to her, about how she made educated guesses, and reassured herself that this was just another educated guess. It may not work, but the odds were in her favour.
As she grew nearer, Bagsy's suspicions were confirmed; the lichen covered form sitting on the floor was the Nuckelavee, its giant torso leaning over a very small magpie that was madly trying to fly away. Only, every time it looked like it had escaped the Nuckelavee's grasp, the monster would reach out one long arm and pull it straight back to the ground in front of it. With a pang of anguish, Bagsy saw one of the bird's wings snap in a way it wasn't meant to. With a piteous cry, the magpie landed on the floor, shifting back into Mezrielda, who held her right arm in pain, her left leg bleeding profusely from where the Nuckelavee had stabbed it. It hovered its needle fingers over her, looking like it intended to impale the rest of her body, too.
'Hey!' Bagsy called out, her voice tempered by fear, but forced out by the worry she felt staring at her bloodied and bruised friend. She wiped her cheeks, making sure all her tears were gone; she needed the thing to follow her. 'No more salt, see?' she added, gesturing at her cheeks before flashing the torch directly at the Nuckelavee's face, hoping to goad it. She quickly turned the torch away, nearly dazzling herself with it, so the creature could better see her tear-free face. She was shivering, and more tears were threatening to pour out of her, but with all her might she fought them back. Her friend's life depended on her not being a wimp just this once.
'Bagsy, no!' Mezrielda moaned weakly.
The creature impaled Mezrielda's leg again, who let out a cry of pain as she was lifted into the air. Then, with juddering movements, the half-horse half-human got to its feet, its too-large human head hanging to the side and its mournful mask staring with a dead expression at her.
Ignoring the tiredness pulling at every muscle and bone in her body, Bagsy forced as much thaumaturgic energy as she could into her legs. She felt the hairs on her arms stand on end in response, as if she were surrounded by an invisible static. 'Come on…' she muttered.
Finally, the beast began to move towards her. It was slow at first but as it moved, and gained momentum, its pace increased. Turning, Bagsy began to run. She was dimly aware that the suits of armour were falling behind, unable to keep up, or were swept aside and into the darkness by the long reach of the creature's arms. Glancing over her shoulder and casting her torch's light behind her, Bagsy watched as the lumbering horse cantered after her in earnest. Elongated arms reached out towards her through the darkness. With gritted teeth, Bagsy pushed off with her legs, throwing herself upwards and away from where it was targeting. With speed she hadn't expected the long, spindly hands closed on the thin air where she'd been just moments before.
Landing was far more difficult than jumping, especially because her jump had been far higher than she'd ever jumped in her life. Her legs collapsed below her as she collided with the ground, unable to carry her exhausted body any more. At least, Bagsy consoled herself, she'd reached the clearing where she'd set everything up. She rolled onto her back, looking up as the horse body came to a stop over her, the masked human face leaning down until it was almost touching her. Its cold breath washed over her, and Bagsy got the sense it was making sure her face really was clear of tears.
'Don't like salt, huh?' she hissed, closing one eye and running the calculation in her mind, but then she stalled. She'd planned to throw her torch at where she'd left the weather machine, activating it from a distance. She'd set it up to be an easy shot, but the weather machine she'd left in the clearing was behind the creature's leg. She didn't have a direct shot towards it, and her muggle torch wasn't an object she could rebound like she could a sphere.
The creature speared one of its fingers down towards her, aimed at her chest. Bagsy sucked in a breath and closed her eyes, unable to think of anything else to do.
There was an awful noise of something sharp spearing through flesh.
'Oooooh,' an arrogant voice drawled out with difficultly. 'That's gonna leave a mark…' Bagsy's eyes flew open. Winifred was standing in front of her. She'd stopped the Nuckelavee's attack with her own chest, becoming impaled through her torso. She glanced back at Bagsy, an orange glow beginning to form below her skin, her veins, muscles and organs lit up by it. 'This really hurts, huh?'
'Winifred?' Bagsy gaped.
'One and only. Hey, do me a favour? Step the hell back-' Winifred let out a snarl of pain as the Nuckelavee lifted her off the ground. The creature deposited Mezrielda on the floor, having lost interest in her, and instead inspected its new, glowing prize. 'Big mistake,' Winifred laughed, looking strained and aiming her hands at the beast.
There was fire. So much fire. It engulfed Winifred and the creature as Bagsy hurried to Mezrielda and threw herself over her injured friend, hoping to shield her from the heat.
'I thought it was weird Fitzsimmons had us learn about you!' Winifred was yelling above the roar of the inferno. The Nuckelavee, screeching a horrid cacophony that sounded like a thousand string instruments breaking at once, stabbed finger after finger into Winifred, piercing her arms, legs, side and even her head. Winifred just kept laughing, the fire growing around her with each attack. 'Go on! Keep at it! Keep hurting me! See what happens!' Wailing in frustration, the monster fastened a hand onto each side of Winifred's body and began to pull. 'Oi, Bagsy!' Winifred called down, seemingly unbothered by the onslaught she was experience. 'You miiight wanna look away for this bit – gonna be a bit gory.'
Bagsy didn't need telling twice. She ducked her head down, looking away, and thrust a hand over Mezrielda's eyes just in case she hadn't heard. Then, a ripping noise sounded through the forest followed by two wet thuds. Winifred was silent.
Bagsy felt the heat begin to die down. In spite of herself, she turned and looked. The Nuckelavee was whinnying in pain as the fire on its body began to burn out. At first, Bagsy couldn't see where Winifred had gone, but then her eyes landed on a mound of ash on the floor. She realised, dimly, that it had to be Winifred, and a horrified groan escaped her. Was she dead?
Enraged, the Nuckelavee turned towards her, spreading its arms wide and screeching to the heavens above. Bagsy and Mezrielda looked up at it in silence before the two masks the creature wore slowly edged closer to them, shadowed in fury.
Mezrielda gripped Bagsy's arm. 'Bagsy, thank you, for everything.'
Bagsy looked back at her, then up at the Nuckelavee. 'Don't thank me yet,' she grit out, closing one eye again. She'd protected Mezrielda from the heat, but she'd also repositioned herself, and the weather machine sitting innocently below the belly of the Nuckelavee was in plain view, the monster so large it dwarfed the contraption.
Mezrielda's brown eyes landed on where Bagsy was looking and narrowed in confusion. 'What-?'
She didn't get to finish her sentence, as Bagsy threw the torch towards the weather machine with all her might. It spun through the air, flickering a bright light as it went. Confused by the flashing light below it, the Nuckelavee paused, unable to react in time. With a thunk the torch impacted with the lever on the side of the weather machine, and the device turned on with a hum. Bagsy had modified the mechanism – instead of a needle poking a small hole in the lid, the entire jar was smashed to pieces.
A thick cylinder of glowing snow, like a luminous blizzard glinting the hue of the weeping weeds, burst upwards and surrounded the Nuckelavee on its way to the sky. The cry it let out was guttural and anguished, and far louder than the one it'd let escape during the fire. Thrashing around, the Nuckelavee's skin began to peel away, its arms withering and losing their ability to move, and the masks on its faces slipping as it desperately tried to hold them in place.
Within seconds, it had crumpled to the now snow-covered ground, its muscles twitching as the salty mush began to surround it. Bagsy and Mezrielda watched quietly, as the snow, filled with salt, slowly turned to water, pooling in the dirty ground they were sitting. The clouds ruptured, and a deluge of salty water began to pour down.
Mezrielda shook her head in amazement, then with fluttering eyelids and draining posture, passed out, blood flooding the water around her.
'Mezrielda!' Bagsy spoke in alarm, shaking her shoulders gently. 'Stay awake, please!'
Someone was approaching. 'What happened? What was all that light and noise?' they asked. 'Bagsy?'
'Bontie!' Bagsy recognised her sister's voice as she approached. 'Mezrielda's hurt,' she explained quickly. 'Please help her.'
Bontie swept her robes behind her as she crouched down. 'Lumos Maxima.' She summoned light to the tip of her wand, then flicked it up into the air. The orb of light floated through the rain, growing so bright it easily illuminated the dark clearing. Bontie's eyes fell on the form of the Nuckelavee and widened in dread. She rose to her feet and pointed her wand at it.
'It's okay,' Bagsy rushed out. 'It's raining salt water. It won't be a problem – but Mezrielda is really hurt and she needs help!'
Face pale and looking from her little sister to the mammoth, defeated creature before her, Bontie took a few seconds to process what Bagsy had said. With a nod, she lowered herself back down and inspected Mezrielda's injuries, casting a spell here and there to stop the bleeding or infection from setting in. 'I'm not learned in healing magics,' Bontie explained once she was done, summoning a stretcher below Mezrielda that hovered her into the air. 'But she should last until we get her back to Hogwarts. If Nurse Jones is half as good as he was when I was here, he'll be able to save her.'
'Winifred,' Bagsy suddenly remembered. 'She's-' she cut off, not sure how to describe it.
'Where is Winifred?' Robin's voice carried tiredly to her. Bagsy only now noticed, her concerns for Mezrielda quenched, that they weren't alone in the clearing.
Standing in vast numbers around them were countless magical creatures. The suits of armour were there, as were centaurs, people with multiple arms, or whose skin were a bright blue and hair flowing water. People with gills, claws, fur, tails, fangs, wings, stone skin or pure black eyes all looked at the scene in front of them silently.
'It's okay,' Bontie spoke softly. 'They're with me.'
Bagsy wasn't convinced, looking wide eyed around herself. 'Who are they?'
Bontie cringed. 'Do you remember the incident at the Ministry a few years back?'
'When all those magical creatures were stolen from the Ministry?' Bagsy checked.
Bontie nodded solemnly, then gestured at the gathered crowd, who were now beginning to disperse back into the darkness. 'We've been harbouring them in the forbidden forest.'
Bagsy stared at Bontie, slack-jawed. 'We?'
Robin pointed, her face lighting up. 'There she is!' she cheered happily. Bagsy turned around and saw, where the pile of ash had been, a fire was picking up. It gently grew and then formed into the shape of a young girl. Bontie aimed her wand at the shape and shot a spell at the newly formed girl. A robe appeared and fell over the naked Winifred, who nodded her bald head in thanks. Clearly, there were some incidents a fireproof robe couldn't survive.
Robin raced over to her reformed sister, who didn't have a scratch on her. 'Winifred!' she cried happily.
Winifred smiled and broke out into laughter as she hugged her sister. 'See?' she said. 'I told you everything would be alright.' Robin started balling into Winifred's side, crying about how scary Mr Mortem had been, and how she didn't want to be experimented on, all whilst Winifred soothed her.
'You can't return to the school,' Bontie said simply.
Winifred looked over Robin's head at Bontie coldly, nodding. 'Duh.'
'You're to stay with the magical beings,' Bontie continued. Winifred glanced to her side, where some of the creatures had stayed behind, waiting for them. Bontie addressed the gathered creatures. 'It's not safe here anymore. The Ministry will have to investigate this crash over the summer. The forest won't keep you hidden anymore.'
One of the creatures, a centaur, tilted his head. 'Where should we go, then?'
'I'll arrange something. Stay low. I'll return to take you somewhere safer before the night is through. Winifred, Robin, don't leave the group. They'll take care of you until we can get word to your parents. If you all do exactly as I command everything will be fine.'
Bagsy could only look from Winifred to Bontie and back again, floored at whatever this new revelation was.
Winifred led Robin towards the creatures. Before she disappeared into the darkness with them, she looked back at Bagsy. 'Don't think I don't know what you did,' she said harshly. 'They told me who ratted us out. Traitor.' Bagsy opened her mouth to defend herself, but she had nothing to say. Winifred continued. 'You're lucky I'm so kind – I didn't have to use a rebirth on you, but I did anyway. Don't make it be a waste, got it?' Winifred waved in a way that seemed threatening instead of friendly before walking into the shadows, away from her view.
Shivering from the coldness settling into her bones from the gushing rain, Bagsy looked up at her sister, whose hair was flattened to her face from the liquid.
'Let's go back to Hogwarts,' Bontie said simply, casting a cautious glance at the Nuckelavee lying still on the floor, and conjuring a red flare of light that flew up and above the trees, into the sky. Bagsy, who was going through seven different types of shock at once, felt herself begin to hyperventilate, her head growing dizzy. It felt like there wasn't an inch of her person, from her mind to the tips of her fingers, that hadn't been beaten black and blue by the events of that evening. 'Perhaps its best if you rest a little,' Bontie suggested, pointing her wand at Bagsy. 'I'm going to put you to sleep. Just relax. You'll be somewhere much safer when you wake up.'
Accepting her fate, Bagsy took the sleep charm from Bontie, and felt herself falling back onto another floating stretcher her sister had created.