In Which A Challenge Becomes Apparent

Ronnie had sent a message home, via Grimwald, a number of days earlier and had already received a reply, yet George was sat in his dormitory thinking he had not seen him since he had set off. "Probably got hungry on the way and ate so much he's too heavy to fly" he mused.

Just then Ronnie came in and was looking a little bemused, not only had he had his 3rd official warning letter of the term, this time for setting alight professor Wilson's robes, but he also hadn't seen Wilbur for a considerable time.

On hearing that Grimwald as also absent Ronnie could not help but wonder if Wilbur had met his maker, and guilty conscience accounted for Grimwalds absence. A point that George hotly disputed!

Just as they were discussing the possibilities of what had happened Jessie burst in to the dorm, utterly out of breath, and pointed to the window, struggling to tell what she was pointing to. Both of the boys looked out of the window and were stunned to see what was before them.

George's dorm overlooked the broom racing arena and in amongst swirling clouds, mist and driving rain they saw Grimwald, Wilbur and Jessie's cat Tabitha, all suspended in the rings which were sparking, threatening to burst into flame!

Without another word they grabbed their brooms and ran out to the arena.

George yelled "each go for your own, it's the quickest way or they will get burnt!" and with that he took to the air. George knew all to well that the burning rings were quite capable of incinerating the animals, on any number of occasions he had had, at the very least, singed robes.

George had a distinct advantage over the others in that his flying skills were considerably better but even so, in this weather, grabbing a kestrel out of thin air was going to be a challenge! As he climbed towards the middle ring containing Grimwald a flash of lightning carved its way across the sky almost hitting Jessie, George flinched as she darted out of the way. He looked back over his shoulder to see Ronnie speeding up to catch up with him.

George headed towards the ring and as he did so, he saw a halo surrounding the ring and realised that this may not be as easy as he first thought; it was not going to be simply a case of getting Grimwald as he flew through the ring! Then as he saw Jessie approach the ring containing Tabitha, he saw a similar halo around hers, but as she approached the halo, it seemed to warp into a face. Needless to say this scared the living daylights out of Jessie and she pulled away.

Beside him, George heard Ronnie yell, "it's bloody alive!" Ronnie had caught up with the other two just in time to see the ghostly image warp into being and then back again, and was now about as white as a ghost with a bad case of anaemia.

George approached the ring he was heading towards and the halo surrounding it began to warp into a face, just the same as the other had done. But this time it seemed to be a distinctly female face, a fact that did not escape George's attention.

He yelled to Jessie to approach her ring, the look on her face really had a tone of "bugger off you nutter" but none the less she trusted George and did as he asked. As she approached her ring again the halo warped into the face they had seen earlier but it was distinctly male, and somewhat familiar to George.

George called to Jessie to come back and motioned through the mist to Ronnie to come over for a plan. The three of them huddled, well, as much as you can when you are sat on a twig in forty mile per hour wind with mist swirling round your face.

"These halos are warping into our faces!" yelled George through the wind.

"I think it is the halos that are holding our hostages so we need to find a way of defeating the halos and then collecting the animals!"

"Well let's try to dispel the halos." Yelled Jessie, and with that she shot off towards her ring. As she approached the ring the others saw her pull out her wand as the halo again warped into a face… this time obviously the face of George!

As Jessie saw who the effigy was of she pulled back and stopped, staring in disbelief.

Jessie has stopped dead in her tracks and was staring at the face which had evolved before her. "If I dispel that effigy will it hurt George himself?" Jessie thought.

As she looked back at George, he urged her to go ahead and to try to dispel the face. Urged on by George she raised her wand again and from the distance behind her the boys both saw a pale green charge emminate from her wand and snake its way towards the face.

For George time slowed into slow motion and then as the charge finally landed on his effigy between his eyes, he felt himself thrown forcefully from his broomstick and before he knew it he was hurtling towards the ground.

Jessie saw the face dissolve in front of her face and with that she also saw her Tabitha suddenly fall towards the ground. In the flash of an eye she dived towards Tabitha and quickly caught up with her, grabbing her by the scruff of the neck and bundling her into her chest and to safety.

George on the other hand was fairing a little less well. He was accelerating towards the ground with every foot he fell. What he didn't see was that Ronnie had dived after his broom, caught up with it and had hurled it into Georges path. It was only at the very last second that George caught sight of the speeding shaft and grabbed hold of it,

pulling himself to safety.

As he climbed back towards the others George couldn't help but think to himself what a bloody close thing that was.

When he got back with the others, Jessie, who had joined them after her ordeal, threw her arms around George and sobbed. George reassured her and said that he would go next to save Grimwald.

This time and the next Jessie and Ronnie knew what to expect so were far quicker to save each other. None the less when they got back down to safe and solid ground they all agreed that they would have to stick together in any future occurrences!