Sorry that this has taken so long to post, I was stranded for a week with no internet access… it was terrifying. I've had to split the last part of the story into two parts as it got a little out of hand. I hope to have the very final part up by the end of today or tomorrow at the latest.
It's been a blast.
"Oh no. No no no." Mildred kept repeating the word over and over again as the last few seconds replayed unbidden through her mind. All she could see was the blinding blue bolt that had launched itself from her fingertips and flown directly at Miss Hardbroom.
The energy that had coursed through her system was now however all gone and her arms dropped lifelessly to her side. She felt exhausted, completely spent, as though someone or something had completely sucked the life out of her. She tried to take a step forward but her knees buckled and she dropped down to the floor.
"No-one ever said magic was going to be easy Mildred Hubble." A voice muttered painfully from the darkness.
Mildred raised her head, as if fearing that she was imagining things.
"M…m…miss?" She stumbled fearfully.
"Don't sound so disappointed Mildred." Came the reply. There was the merest hint of amusement in Constance's tone, as her voice grew stronger.
"Miss Hardbroom." Mildred finally found her voice and her feet. She stumbled towards her potions teacher and tried to work out what had just happened.
"Well that wasn't quite what I was expecting." Constance admitted as she tried to get her thoughts in order. She looked at her wrists and saw that they were no longer bound together; instead, there was a large golden amulet on her right arm. Instinctively she raised a hand to her neck and breathed a sigh of relief as she realised that that band had been removed as well. She was still feeling decidedly unlike herself though. She knew that it was unlikely that she'd be able to stand without help.
She looked up to see Mildred Hubble staring down at her and despite herself her heart sank a little.
"Are you alright?" There was a hint of uncertainty in Mildred's voice.
"It wasn't exactly what I had in mind Mildred." Constance confessed. "But you do seem to have done it." She raised her arm to let Mildred see the amulet.
"Oh Miss." Mildred leant forward and without thinking gave Miss Hardbroom a hug.
Mildred felt Miss Hardbroom briefly return the action before she was pushed away and she rocked back on her heels.
"You must hurry Mildred. There isn't time to waste. Haldane will realise what's going on and be back here."
"But you're not wearing the bands any more Miss." Mildred protested.
"That may be the case Mildred but I certainly don't have the strength to do anything against Haldane."
"What can I do?"
Constance raised an eyebrow.
"What indeed!"
Mildred however had no time to do anything as the door to the room was flung open and the light from the passageway cast Haldane in silhouette.
"Well, well, well. What a surprise to find you here."
Mildred rose uncertainly to her feet and turned to face him.
"You don't scare me." She lied nervously. "You don't have the power anymore."
"And I suppose you are the one who is going to stop me from taking the amulet back?"
"Maybe." Mildred felt her frail confidence begin to falter and crack as she realised that in reality she was still the only person who could stand up to Haldane at the present time.
"And what do you say after seeing this?" Haldane raised his arms and Mildred saw the bands loosely hung around his wrists; they didn't bind his wrists in the same way that they had HB. Her heart sank and from behind her she heard Miss Hardbroom utter a string of expletives; words that she hadn't realised her teacher even knew existed.
Haldane laughed and shook his arms, causing the two bands to fall to the floor. He then reached up and removed the third band that hung loosely around his neck.
"That was a very risky thing to try Constance." He chided her and held out the remaining band towards her. "Someone up there must be smiling down on you because that little trick of yours could have killed you."
Mildred's mouth dropped open and she looked from Haldane to her teacher and back again.
Haldane noticed the look on Mildred's face.
"I kid you not." He assured her. "If you'd got one thing wrong then the charge from the bands would most probably have killed her." He smiled. "You'd have been famous within these walls as the pupil that killed her own teacher." He watched as Mildred turned to face Miss Hardbroom again. "I'd be angry with her if I were you Mildred. I can see that she didn't warn you of the consequences. Quite how she thought you'd cope with her blood on your hands is something of a mystery. I wonder if she'd be so kind as to clear the matter up."
Mildred wanted to tell Haldane to shut up but found that she was at a loss for words. She turned her attention instead to her teacher.
"Is he telling the truth?" Her voice was quiet and there was a quaver in the tone. There was no immediate response and so Mildred asked her question again.
"There was a risk." Constance finally told her, her voice sounding tired and flat. "I knew it was a possibility but the spell had to be tried."
"Did it?" Mildred's voice shot up an octave. "What if you had have been killed?"
"It was a calculated risk Mildred."
"It was downright irresponsible." Mildred snapped without thinking.
"And who are you to lecture me on the topic of responsibility?" There was a note of humour in Constance's tone.
"Ladies, ladies." Haldane interrupted the growing argument. "I think you'll find there are far more pressing matters to attend to." He smiled at Constance. "I know you've just been stalling for time to try and build your power back up but you've lost a lot Constance. It's going to take hours if not days to try and claw back what is yours." He let the band he was holding in his hand drop to the floor. "If I'd been wearing these then maybe you would have stood a chance of taking back what's yours. Without them you don't have a hope."
Constance looked down at the amulet on her wrist and was almost mesmerised by the way that the magic seemed to float and wrap itself around the golden band. She wanted to shut out Haldane's words. There had to be someway of getting her magic back, there just had to be. She could sense the magic in the air but she wasn't sure that there was a way of drawing it towards herself without the bands.
"I think I've wasted enough time on the pleasantries." Haldane told the two. "I want the amulet back."
Mildred looked immediately towards her teacher and was pleased to see her shaking her head.
"You think I'm just going to hand it back after all the trouble I went to to get it?"
Haldane smiled again.
"I think that you've got enough common sense to realise that I'm now the most powerful person in the room. You hand the amulet back or I make your life very uncomfortable indeed."
Constance arched an eyebrow.
"Your petty threats don't scare me Mr Harrington. A room full of 1st years and an enlarging potion inspires more fear than you."
"Talk is cheap Constance. You're not a match for me and you know it."
Mildred waited for Miss Hardbroom to tell Haldane that he was wrong but her teacher remained worryingly silent. She turned her head to look at her and saw the red and silver mist that was starting to gather around her. Mildred had never seen so much pure magic before and the beauty of it took her breath away. She narrowed her eyes and she could make out other colours that were spiralling around the amulet; they were fainter but they seemed irresistibly drawn towards the golden band. Mildred's heart surged with hope. Perhaps the bands weren't essential for HB to regain her magic; perhaps the amulet was strong enough to draw any magic to it.
She turned her head back towards Haldane. If the amulet was giving HB her strength back then she had to prevent Haldane getting his hands on it at all costs.
"Alvarix orcus…" She began intoning the first spell that came to her head but Haldane simply laughed at her and the next thing she knew, she was flying through the air to land at Miss Hardbroom's side.
"Sorry Miss." She automatically apologised but HB appeared to not be listening, her eyes were closed and it looked as though she was in some kind of trance.
"Is that all you've got?" Haldane demanded to know, the amusement plain in his voice.
Mildred clenched her fists and unsteadily climbed back to her feet again.
"Are you really intending to try and stop me?" Haldane asked her with more than a hint of amusement in his voice. "What an irritatingly persistent witch you are." He broke off from his next sentence as he spotted something moving out of the corner of his eye.
Raising a hand, he threw an energy ball into the air. It glowed for a few seconds before fading away. His eyes took in a grey tabby cat as it bolted across the room towards the two witches.
"It appears someone let the cat out of the bag." He remarked.
Mildred watched as Tabby scooted to hide behind Miss Hardbroom.
Haldane smiled and conjured up a glowing energy ball in the palm of his hand.
"You know I've grown inordinately fond of these things in a remarkably short space of time." He manipulated his fingers and watched mesmerised as the crackling ball of energy responded.
Mildred swallowed nervously and racked her brains, desperately trying to think of what to do next.
"There's nowhere left to run." He warned her as he raised his right arm.
Mildred closed her eyes and waited for the worst to happen.
She became aware of what sounded like a low humming coming from her side. She turned her head and saw that, rather than doing nothing, Miss Hardbroom had in fact been psyching herself up for action. Mildred was more than a little taken aback. She had assumed that her teacher would have been too weak to try anything so quickly.
She noted that HB's hands were together, her spell casting fingers touching. As Mildred watched she swore that she could see sparks of red jump between her extended fingers. The humming grew louder and formed into words. Mildred strained to hear but found that she couldn't make out what was being said.
She watched as Miss Hardbroom took a deep breath and pulled her hands apart. A blinding red crackle of light filled the space and Mildred gasped as the arc of light shot out in Haldane's direction.
"Oh no you don't." Haldane yelled and launched a counter spell.
The purple jet of power broke through and slammed into Constance. She gasped in pain as the bolt landed.
"A little help here would be useful Mildred." She hissed under her breath before returning all her concentration to the spell she was trying to cast.
Mildred was jolted back to reality and took a pace forward; unsure just what it was that she could do.
She looked at the way that Haldane was staggering under the effect from HB's spell. She was obviously attempting to claw her power back. Mildred assumed that she was in some way soaking up the magic that Haldane had used on her. The pained expression on her face showed plainly that the task was not an easy one.
Mildred raised her hands to cast a spell of her own but paused. What if her spell ended up counteracting the effects of the spell that Miss Hardbroom was going for? The potions teacher had spent a great deal of time explaining the dangers of combining spells when they had been in the first year. The talk had made such an impact on her that she'd had a nightmare for weeks where she got something wrong in a group spell casting session and turned everyone else in the room into Yorkshire Terriers.
Her mind went blank and she just stood there with her hands raised, at a loss as to what she should do.
Haldane's power found its way through to Miss Hardbroom again and she let out another cry as a bolt of pure energy slammed into her.
Mildred bit down on her lip. There was no time to worry about unwanted effects of spells. She had to do something and soon.
She closed her eyes and began reciting the first spell that came into her head.
"Alverix Orcus Transfrogamorphus floppylog donkeybrae, transferus asinae!"
She held her hands out in front of her and watched as the magic seemed to leap from her fingers towards Haldane.
Haldane took a step back as the effects of the spell struck him but it didn't take any effect in fact, it barely seemed to slow him down.
"I don't understand." Mildred called out, desperate to be heard above the noise of the magical duel that was taking place.
To her surprise, it was Haldane who turned to answer her.
"Isn't it obvious?" He taunted. "I'm too powerful now. I've too much magic for a little witch like you to be able to do anything to affect me."
Mildred looked towards Miss Hardbroom, hoping that her teacher would contradict him but she didn't.
Haldane laughed at the discomfort on Mildred's face.
"How does it feel to realise that you've met someone who can control more power than you thought possible?"
Mildred just shook her head in disbelief; there had to be something she could do.
The answer struck Mildred between the eyes. There was something she could do; there was one obvious answer to the problem. She waited until Haldane's attention was focussed once again on Miss Hardbroom and then made a dash for the door.
Haldane caught her exit out of the corner of her eye and let her go. He smiled and pushed more effort into his attack against Miss Hardbroom.
Constance knew that she couldn't hold out for much longer. What little strength she had gathered from the air around her was failing fast and although Haldane couldn't draw any more of her magic from her, he still had a sizable amount of power. She gritted her teeth and tried to push back against the latest onslaught.
"It seems that everyone abandons you." Haldane remarked. "No matter. I'll deal with the little witch later."
"You underestimate her." Constance warned him but Haldane merely smiled at her in return.
"I'll deal with you and then I'll take the magic from every witch in this school."
Haldane smiled triumphantly as Constance's red crackling streams of energy began to falter.
"Having a little trouble are we?" He sneered at her.
Constance felt the beads of perspiration that were forming on her forehead. This was one battle that she couldn't afford to lose but there was nothing she could do against someone who was wielding her own strength against her.
Mildred sprinted as fast as she could down the passageway, hoping that none of Haldane's gang were in the vicinity. There was only one way that they could take Haldane out and for her plan to succeed she'd need the help of her fellow pupils.
A small voice in her head told her that she had to hurry, there was no way that HB was going to hold out against Haldane for much longer.
She rounded the corner and immediately threw herself at the shadows as she spotted a figure up ahead. Her heart was thumping hard in her chest and she struggled to think clearly. She had to get whoever it was out of the way and fast. The only spell that was buzzing round in her head was the one that she had tried and failed to use only minutes earlier. She forced herself to take a deep breath; there was nothing for it, she had to try it. She tried to steady her nerves and then took a pace out into the light. She levelled her hands at the person in front of her and began the spell.
"Thought you said that I couldn't control the power?" Haldane taunted as he pushed harder against Constance's failing defences.
Constance's breathing was shallow and fast as she clung onto every ounce of strength that she could muster.
"No witty comebacks, no snappy retorts? How very disappointing." Haldane closed his eyes and concentrated on making a final push. He felt, rather than saw her power fail and as the smile spread across his face he heard the cry as he finally won the battle.
"Well I have to say that was very satisfying." Haldane remarked as he lowered his hands. His face was streaked with perspiration and he felt his heart pounding heavily within his chest. He glanced down at his hands and saw that they were shaking. He tried to clench his fists but found that he couldn't yet control his muscles. He concentrated all his efforts on trying to get his hands to move but the shaking didn't subside, in fact it seemed to be working it's way up his arms. Within moments his whole body was shaking. He tried to keep calm but panic was beginning to set in.
He glanced in Constance's direction to see if she was in any way connected to what was going on but her head was bowed. He was fairly certain that she was still conscious but he doubted very much that she had the strength to move.
Constance winced as she tried to move. Haldane's aim had been true and every bone in her body ached. The world around her was blurring as she struggled to remain conscious, she sensed Tabby at her side and heard the reassuring purr as the cat pushed himself against her side.
She raised her head as she heard the door being thrown open. Her vision was tunnelling as her strength was failing but she just about made out the group of people that were standing in the doorway. A faint smile reached the corners of her mouth. Now Haldane had something to worry about.
"You tried to pick us off one at a time." Mildred's voice broke the silence. "But I bet you can't take us all on at once."
Mildred stood in the doorway, flanked on either side by some of her fellow pupils. She was pleased to see that Miss Hardbroom was still with them. She nodded to the other girls and as one they raised their hands and began intoning a spell.
Haldane forced his hands out in front of him and threw a bolt of crackling energy in their direction.
Mildred closed her eyes as the bolt neared them, hoping that the barrier that Miss Cackle had thrown up was going to be strong enough to deflect the bolt away.
The vivid purple bolt was only centimetres from her head when it crackled and fizzed as it struck the invisible force field. There was a flash of green as the beam smashed against the barrier and Mildred was momentarily distracted by the beauty of what was happening in front of her.
"Mildred!" Her headmistresses' shout brought her attention back to the here and now and she turned her concentration back towards leading the power transference spell.
Constance's eyes widened as she realised what the girls were attempting to do. Transferring magic from one witch to another was frowned upon by the witches code; it dedicated no less than 15 paragraphs to possible punishments and potential side effects of attempting such a spell. The risks were there in print for all to see. Despite the situation, Constance was more than a little surprised that Amelia had agreed to such a spell being used.
Tabby rose from his place on her lap and arched his back as he sensed the build up of magic in the air. That much raw magic was something that he wasn't used to and he couldn't decide whether it presented a danger to him or not. He waited for guidance from the witch next to him.
Constance raised her right arm and saw the way that magic was now once again swirling around the intricate patterns that were engraved upon the amulet's surface. There were definitely more strands of magic in the air this time though and Constance began to think that maybe Tabby was right to be uneasy. She'd been the one to tell Haldane that there was magic in the walls of the castle; what she hadn't considered was the fact that the sheer amount of magic might prove too much for her to handle. She closed her eyes as she felt the energy work it's way into her system.
