'I was growing impatient, so I gave the girl a good reason to go into the shadows,' Cora hissed. 'The temptation of the corvid trials was taking too long. As gullible as those little brats are, they didn't just get on with it like I'd hope. They chose to prepare instead. That's why I always have a back-up plan, in case things don't go as intended.'

'And?' the other voice prompted.

'As I said. I gave the girl good reason to go into the shadows. You know how my minions enjoy stealing items of importance. She was already suspected, so I simply encouraged the suspicion to suit my needs. It's amazing how warped the priorities of children are. Once everyone thought she was a thief, she was so desperate to return the items that she practically leapt into the shadows.'

Bagsy blinked blearily as she came to her senses. Cora was talking, and then she was screaming, and then she was quiet. Bagsy sat up, Tod's boat rocking as she did so. Squinting through the darkness, she saw Cora held on her back in the shallow water by a worm that looked more like a giant snake.

'Where is the marked one? What have you done with her?'

'In my domain. I invoked the trials, or do you lack ears as well as a brain? There's no way an incompetent fool such as herself will complete them. She'll be dead within the hour.'

'And what of the other girl? How do we get her back from the beast?' the voice asked. Bagsy decided, in her groggy state, that the voice was the worm's voice.

Cora laughed. A worm shot out of the water and bit into Cora's cloak, only now Bagsy could see it was no cloak at all, but too stretching wings of obsidian feathers.

Mistress Foncée let out a cry of pain, her blood spilling into the water. 'You'd have to go in there yourself and kill the beast,' Cora grit through the agony. The worm's grip slacked. If a worm could look fearful, that worm did.

A sudden wave of surprise washed over Cora's face, her purple eyes flashing in Bagsy's direction. 'Well well… it seems she has, somehow, beaten the trials.'

The worm slowly turned its head to look back at Bagsy.

'You know me of old. You know the powers I have learnt over the centuries. Tell me, Aot, do you recall…' Cora whispered, 'that I and I alone can summon my followers to me, no matter how new they are to being members of the corvid family?' Cora took her chance and held out her hand. Bagsy felt as if every bone in her body was a mag-net ball, and Cora's hand was the bat. She shot out from the boat and raced towards Cora's palm, who was laughing maniacally. Cora's fingers curled, the sharp, elongated nails glowing a threatening violet as they waited for Bagsy's heart to arrive; five knifes ready to impale her.

Another worm surged out from the water and bit into Cora's side. She screeched, her arm flailing, the purple colour draining from her nails. The second her hand wasn't perfectly pointed towards Bagsy, the force pulling on her let go, and Bagsy dropped with a splash into the water, rolling along as the momentum left her.

'Go!' the worm encouraged Bagsy urgently. She fumbled fearfully to her feet and ran as fast as she could back to the boat. She threw herself into it and, as it began to rise, she grabbed the rudder, steering it up towards safety as the worm wrestled with Cora in the darkness behind.

Bagsy glanced over her shoulder. Cora looked seconds away from winning, pushing upwards and flapping her gargantuan wings, summoning an intense gust of wind. Then something else caught Bagsy's eye. Far behind Cora and the worm, glinting in the shadows cast on the underlake's walls, were two red eyes.

They were watching.

Waiting.

Bagsy looked at them, feeling the heat drain from her. She knew Mezrielda was in there, in the other Hogwarts trapped with the beast, and there the beast was, inviting Bagsy in. Inviting her to make the trade. Her life for Mezrielda's. Bagsy could escape, if she was quick enough. She could go and get help, but what if it was too late by then? What if Mezrielda died?

Bagsy stopped the boat in its tracks. She didn't care if it put her in danger – she was going back for her friend.

'No!' the worm growled, noticing her hesitation to leave. Bagsy glanced around herself, thinking fast. She couldn't run past Cora. She would catch her for sure. Bagsy needed something fast…

She gripped the edge of the boat with her spell-sponge gloved hands. Pulling as hard as she could, ignoring the pain of her cut palms, she splintered a plank of wood clean off the boat. It was about as long as her leg.

'Let's hope you're not mundane wood…' Bagsy murmured. 'Some kind of magical energy connected by metal…' Bagsy repeated the instructions for her task in her head. 'Of course!' She pulled the broken necklace from her pocket – it was made of metal – and slipped the two spell-sponge gloves from her hands – they had to be full of magical energy, given the attack they'd absorbed from Cora. With quick fingers, she tied the gloves onto the plank of wood using the necklace. It looked a mess, and not anything like what Bagsy was aiming for, and with the exhaustion in her muscles from all the running and dodging she'd done it had been shoddy work. Even so, it would have to do. She glanced up. Cora was almost done fending off the worm. She didn't have long. 'One more thing…' Bagsy murmured. The parts had to be combined using a spell. She felt in her robe pocket for her hornbeam wand but found something else.

The walnut wand.

Bagsy whipped the walnut wand out and pointed its dagger-sharp pointed tip down at the plank of wood, necklace and gloves.

Cora had broken free, her gleaming violet eyes finding Bagsy.

Bagsy knew she had one chance at this. 'Please!' she whispered, tensing her tired muscles, squeezing her eyes shut and thinking of Mezrielda trapped with the blood eyed beast.

A thrill of power ran through Bagsy like a bolt of electricity. It was the exact same sensation she'd felt when she'd completed the corvid trials, as if there was a deep well of power somewhere in the world she was stealing from. Like a bubble bursting, she felt it forcing itself down her arm and into her wand. It was breathtakingly painful, yet so quick that she didn't have time to cry out. When Bagsy opened her eyes the gloves and metal necklace had fallen into the wood, bound into the make-shift broom, ready to fly.

Bagsy didn't waste a precious second realising she'd managed to cast a spell. Instead she mounted the broom and kicked off.

Cora screamed in frustration and swiped at the air, sending slash after slash hurtling towards her like sharp disks of death, aiming her fingers to pull Bagsy towards her but missing as she flew past. It seemed if her hand wasn't perfectly pointed in her direction, she couldn't pull her towards her as she had done earlier. Bagsy just needed to keep moving and she'd make it – or so she repeated to herself in her mind.

Worms shot out of the ground around her like spurts of water in a fountain. Bagsy weaved in and around them, ducking below worm-made tunnels and around twisting collections of the creatures. They shielded her from the volley of deathly purple light seeking her flesh. Cora's attacks rarely got through and when they did Bagsy ducked her head or swerved to the side.

The broom rattled in her hands, barely chugging along as she pushed it to go faster and faster. It wasn't half the speed of Bagsy's Fleet Footed Fox, but it was twice as fast as her on foot.

The red eyes in the shadow grew as Bagsy approached them.

'What are you doing!?' the worms called in panic. As they did, the underlake began to tremble. Cora's attacks had carved deep cracks into the walls, and it was beginning to crumble. Bagsy shot to her left, narrowly missing a chunk of dirt and rock that fell heavily into the shallow waters, liquid splashing out from the impact.

Noise of collapsing earth filled her ears, as did the shriek of Cora, and the crunch of her body, as she was crushed by debris. Bagsy spared a glance over her shoulder and saw the tips of black wings poking through the rubble, bent at odd angles as the water around them turned red. Just like that, Cora was gone.

As more of the under-lake collapsed the tips of Cora's wings were hidden from sight. The power that had briefly thrilled through Bagsy once she'd beaten the corvid trials abruptly left her at her death, as if ropes holding her up from her head, shoulders, elbows and hands were suddenly cut, and she had to support her own weight. Whatever power she'd called on to cast the spell, it had been sucked down the drain along with the corvid queen herself.

Bagsy faced forwards, eyes wide from what she'd seen, heading straight for the shadow on the wall and not stopping. At the last second, she closed her eyes, fear prickling along her spine like a cold chill. She felt as if any second her back would be broken by falling rocks, or she'd collide with the shadowed wall she was soaring towards, every bone in her body shattered to pieces.

The noise of caving-in dirt and rocks stopped instantly as Bagsy passed through the shadow. She was met with pure silence. Slowly, she forced her eyes open and looked around. The area was identical to the underlake she'd just been in, and yet so different she barely recognised it.

The air wasn't damp, despite the water, but stale. There was dust hanging in the air like the floating candles of the great hall, and the water was entirely still, as if no one had been there for centuries. The walls weren't collapsing, she was relieved to find, and yet, where she had left it in the other Hogwarts, Tod's boat stood like a phantom, as still as the water it was upon. Bagsy rushed over to it, sending ripples over the virgin surface as her make-shift broom passed above them, before landing on the boat. The boat rose urgently as Bagsy directed it upwards, make-shift broom clamped in her other hand.

A bubble formed around the vessel as it ascended. Bagsy glanced around, barely any light penetrated the lake at this depth, but once the sunlight grew in strength she found the lake empty of all life – there weren't even any reeds. It was like a giant, empty pool.

The bubble broke the surface and Bagsy was looking up at Hogwarts – the other Hogwarts. Her stomach flipped.

The castle looked the same, but the stones were de-saturated, and no owls flew from perch to perch, no students rushed from classroom to classroom. It was as if someone had made such a perfect copy of Hogwarts that they'd lost all of the life and imperfections that made it what it was, leaving only a mannequin impression behind.

A groan echoed around Bagsy, filling the skies with its endless noise. Bagsy rushed off the boat and mounted her broom, hovering high in the air, her arms shaking so badly she feared she'd fall off. She gulped and dragged in slow breaths, forcing her heart to slow down.

Lumbering down the castle steps towards the lake, with a slow movement Bagsy knew was deceptive, was the blood eyed beast. It was as white as ever, like a tear in a rich, colourful painting. Its many arms moved around it like a grotesque human spider. Its long nails dug into the dirt as it jumped from the castle steps and landed heavily on the ground and its face fixed those unblinking, blood-composed eyes on Bagsy, dripping red tears as it approached.

Clutched in one arm was a small, squat person with grey skin and ears larger than their head. In the other Bagsy recognised Mezrielda, her face as pale as the beast itself. The grey-skinned, large-eared man had massive orb eyes looking fearfully at its captor whilst Mezrielda looked dead, her eyes closed.

The beast stopped below Bagsy, turning its disgusting face up to her and opening its mouth wide, waiting for her like a dog hungrily awaiting its rightfully earner treat. 'You are mine…' Bagsy heard the familiar voice of the beast in her mind. 'You are marked…'

Bagsy felt a buzzing in her left shoulder where the beast had scarred her last year. 'I am,' she agreed, her voice small and shaking. The beast heard it all the same, reaching four of its arms up towards her. 'Let my friend live, and I'll let you have me,' she promised, not thinking on what she was doing. If she thought about it, she wouldn't be able to do it.

For the first time, the beast blinked its wretched eyes. White eyelids that were crusty and wrinkled passed over the red sludge with an awful squelching noise. The red sludge oozed out as the top lids met the bottom and sucked back into place as they parted.

Bagsy felt her bottom lip wobble, her face seizing up and tears pricking her eyes. 'Put her down,' she commanded in a voice so quiet she was sure the wind swept it away from whatever the beast used to hear.

'You lie…' it whispered as if right next to her ear, the voice not coming from its mouth but simply speaking inside of Bagsy's mind on its own.

'No.'

The beast looked at Bagsy quietly. Then, miraculously, it laid Mezrielda and the small, grey-skinned man, down to one side. 'They won't be harmed,' the beast uttered harshly in the voice of a woman centuries old.

Bagsy began to lower her broom, her body trembling, her eyes fixed on the wood her hands were gripping. The beast reached up its hands, its claws waiting for her.

Bagsy stalled, seeing the white slashes of long fingers in her peripheral. She let out a sob. She didn't know what to do – what was stopping the beast from killing Mezrielda after it got a hold of her? But Bagsy couldn't just leave Mezrielda to its mercy. There seemed no way out of this.

She heard a pop and snapped her eyes onto the floor. The small man had disappeared from one side of the beast, and apparated on the other, next to Mezrielda. The beast turned its eyes onto the man, pouncing towards it with the speed Bagsy knew it had been hiding.

The big-eared man snapped his fingers and he and Mezrielda disappeared. The next second, a great weight pulled down on Bagsy's broom. Looking down, she saw the man, face turning white, hanging from her broom, clutching Mezrielda below him.

'Fly!' he croaked. Bagsy didn't need telling twice and pulled the broom upwards. It spluttered like a dying car engine, straining under the weight of three people, even if they were all child sized. The beast turned back to them and, to Bagsy's horror, leapt. They were high in the sky, the water of the lake below them, but Bagsy could see the beast would reach them in its one, powerful bound.

The small man clicked his fingers again and Bagsy heard a snap so loud she felt as if her ears would burst. The world around her shifted like a lens was curving and distorting the image. Then, suddenly, it snapped back. It took her less than a second to realise they were back in the real Hogwarts, hovering over the real lake. She saw owls, students and lit torches by the castle. She saw fish, reeds and tentacles below the water's surface and the air felt lively and fresh.

Bagsy only had a moment to appreciate the realness of it all before the broom gave out and the three of them plummeted into the water. She let out a yelp of surprise before she was engulfed in freezing, deep liquid. With difficulty, she rose back to the surface and found the small man and Mezrielda unconscious. Grabbing them both Bagsy struggled to keep her own head above the water as well as theirs.

A sharp-edged bird with white feathers and blue eyes flew above them.

Bagsy recognised Tod's gannet. 'Help…' she croaked, her throat felt like sandpaper. Seeming to understand, the gannet shot off like a bullet in the direction of the castle.

She was treading water for what felt like an age. Her legs were turning numb from cold and effort, and her robes dragged at her body, weighing her down. Bagsy's bushy hair stuck in her face and eyes, obscuring her view, and as she gasped in breath after breath water would spill into her mouth. Mezrielda and the small, grey man weren't waking. Bagsy was sure they'd all drown. She was trying her best to swim them to shore but it was slow and she knew she'd run out of stamina before they'd reach safety.

Thankfully, she felt someone else's hands secure themselves around the small man, pulling his weight from her. With just Mezrielda, Bagsy found it much easier to swim, and soon she and her assistant made it to the lake's edge.

Bagsy collapsed, the water lapping at her legs, breathing raggedly and spluttering up water. She was shaking violently and couldn't bring her eyes to focus on anything.

'Bagsy!' Tod's voice, who Bagsy realised must have been the person who'd helped her, snapped her back to attention.

She looked fearfully up at him. 'T-Tod?'

'What happened?'

'T-the…. the beast…' Bagsy stammered. Tod's eyes widened and travelled up. Bagsy felt a thud. A shock wave hit her back, then another. It felt like pressing her back against a door someone was trying to smash open.

'Bagsy.' Tod pointed upwards.

Bagsy turned onto her back and looked. White cracks like those of a broken mirror had appeared in the air where the small man had snapped them into existence. Bagsy had a bad feeling about what was causing those cracks.

'Run!' she urged in her rasped voice, forcing herself weakly to her feet and grabbing the back of Mezrielda's robes. More shock waves shook the air around them as the cracks widened and white hands began to force their way through. Bagsy dragged Mezrielda as fast as she could, working her tired legs fiercely. Tod hauled the small man, who Bagsy was now beginning to think was an elf.

They'd made it halfway to the castle when, like a chick forcing its way out of its egg, the blood eyed beast birthed itself through the cracks and fell into the water with a splash. Bagsy froze, dropping Mezrielda in her fear.

Tod did much the same with the elf. 'The teachers,' Tod breathed in fright. 'I told the paintings to fetch them… they should be here soon…'

The blood eyed beast rushed out of the water like an alligator, its arms hungrily eating up the ground between it and them. Bagsy was taken back to when the beast had tried to kill her last year. Back then, she'd collapsed and cried, waiting for her doom to happen. But now, it wasn't just her life on the line. She looked down at Mezrielda, her pale face slack, her dark, wet hair plastered against her face.

Bagsy looked back to the beast. 'You want to eat me?' she growled angrily to herself, pulling her walnut wand into her left hand, and her hornbeam into her right. 'Fine.' She took shaky steps forwards. The beast would be upon them in a few seconds and it would all be over. As it rushed it opened its mouth, and kept opening it, showing off ten rows of teeth and a circular mouth that could easily swallow an adult whole, let alone a child.

Bagsy envisioned it as a goal hoop, and broke into a run.

'Bagsy!' Tod exclaimed. Bagsy kept going, forcing herself to keep her eyes focussed, blinking away her tears, and ignoring the thudding drum of her heart in her head.

The beast lurched forward, arms outstretched, mouth yawning hungrily.

Bagsy leapt into the air, diving forward and into its mouth, waiting for teeth to close around her any second. There was a clack of teeth on bone as the beast clamped its mouth shut and Bagsy stopped moving with a jerk, feeling a sharp pain in her legs, as if someone had shoved them into a boiling furnace. She cried out in pain. The beast opened its mouth and Bagsy slid further down its throat.

For a moment she lost her focus, and nearly let herself be swallowed, but at the last second she took the walnut wand in her hand, with its four thin and long sides, and sharp end, and shoved it into the side of the beast's throat. The roar of the beast surrounded her as it travelled past her and out of its mouth, rattling her bones.

Bagsy took her hornbeam wand and did the same. It was much harder to piece the throat with the hornbeam wand, which didn't have a sharp end, but once it had found its home and Bagsy could use it as a hand hold, she pulled the walnut wand out and found herself going berserk.

It took a minute before she realised she was screaming as she drove the pointed wand into the beast's throat over and over, blood spilling down and around her. Everything was slow and fast all at once, razor sharp focussed and blurry, warm and cold. Before Bagsy knew it, the beast was letting out the groans and croaks of a choking animal, and then falling silent.

Bagsy held on, both wands embedded into the now still beast, crying and shaking, not sure where she was, what she was doing, or who she was meant to be. All she knew was she wanted to be out of this small, dark red space. She thought she must be losing her mind as she felt heat all around her, as if someone really had shoved her into a furnace.

'Where is she?'

Bagsy heard someone's muffled voice from outside. Outside? What was she inside of? Bagsy didn't know, her mind was drawing a blank as agonizing pain began to register in her senses.

'In that thing!' Bagsy heard a boy respond. The name Tod briefly came to mind.

'Levicorpus!'

Bagsy found herself being pulled by her feet backwards and out of whatever it was she'd been in, shooting past countless rows of small, sharp, pearl white triangles. What those were, she had no clue. Sunlight hit her face and she squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to look at something. What, she didn't know.

Then there was a pair of arms wrapping around her.

'Merlin's beard…' Someone, who's voice was incredibly rasped, breathed in shock. 'Look at her.'

'Professor Starrett?' someone else said.

'I'm on it,' the voice of the person holding Bagsy murmured gently. 'Tergeo.' Bagsy felt her robes dry. What had congealed on them her mind refused to tell her. She just kept on shaking – if felt like the only thing she could do.

Then, she heard someone walking away from them, towards the lake.

'Why is it on fire?' the rasped voice asked.

'Because it has died,' the person who'd walked away answered, sounding as if they weren't paying much attention to the other people, but rather to the thing that was burning. They seemed puzzled.

Bagsy felt something soft materialise beneath her as someone laid her down, and then felt the soft thing she was lying on lift into the air. 'You're fine, you're fine,' the voice closest too her soothed.

Something cool like glass was pressed against Bagsy's lips and she found herself drinking liquid that smelt strongly of lavender, then the world slipped peacefully away.