dragging her in with it.
Screaming with fright, trying to save Harry, Miocene waved her garishly pink wand like she’d never stop. So also did Box with his two remnants, and every last pupil with theirs. As this last, desperate combined attack screamed its way towards Holdavort, they hoped and they prayed that it would be enough…
Finding its target – Holdavort’s huge hand – the power for good burned, searing its way through it, loosening his grip. Roaring with pain, Holdavort released Harry’s leg, letting her go. Battered and bruised, she crawled away from the gates, and Holdavort slipped into Hell.
“Quick, we must reseal it!” Harry yelled. “Join me in the chant, like the one we used before…” Chanting in Arcanum (and ever so quickly), they said, “Crioninous crionates shraholarman skryolait, return the beast – Holdavort – and reseal the gates. Crioninous crionocked, forever closed, forever locked. This must be done – never to be unlocked.”
The gates grating, groaning their disquiet, finally slammed shut – closed – then vanished from sight.
“Will it work, this time,” Miocene hesitantly asked Harry
“Will it, Harry?” said Box. “You know, you were able to reopen them easily enough, before.”
Harry nodded. “Yes, this time they will remain closed. We have sealed them forever.”
A Little Bit More Deception…
The world had been saved, Holdavort was defeated – gone forever, and everyone rejoiced. But amidst all this rejoicing, this wonderful merrymaking and celebration there was sadness. Hagswords, the special school for mysticism and magic, was in ruins, a burnt-out shell, with nothing to salvage not even one stick of furniture. And as for the paintings, the wonderful exquisitely magical paintings – they had gone along with it, the raging fires having consumed every last one.
“What will happen to you, and everyone from out of the paintings?” Miocene asked Lord Catchyfoe, when he had finished his own inspection of the fire damaged school.
The old man, his once shiny armour now blackened by soot and smoke, smiled sagely, and replied, “Sir Box has it all in hand.”
“I have?” he said, briefly taken aback. Then remembering his promise, he said, “Oh, yes, that’s correct, I will see to it, my Lord.”
“You will?” said Miocene. “And what’s with the ‘Sir’ bit?”
“It’s a long story, Miocene; I’ll fill you in later…”
Seeing the teachers returning, Harry, withdrawing her wand, had no intention of taking any nonsense from them.
“Please let us explain,” begged the first teacher, Mrs Versakili, a wizened old woman with thin lips and even thinner arms and legs. Seeing her, Box feared she was not long for this world.
“What do you want?” Harry asked, waving her wand as she spoke.
“I – we want to apologise…” the woman explained. “We were under a spell… We had no idea what we were doing…”
“Is that why you abandoned these children?” said Harry, her eyes narrowing. Although she was only a child herself, Harry talked about her fellow pupils as if they were years younger than her – but that was her way, she being Harry.
“We ran away– after the stampede came out from the paintings,” Mr Moriarty, another one of the teachers, a rather plump individual sporting a little goatee beard, said. “We were afraid …”
She knew it, Harry knew their words had a ring of truth to them, and lowering her wand, she said, “All right, I believe you. And since you are here, perhaps you can help us find a place for the children to sleep?”
The children were tired; in fact everyone was so incredibly tired no sooner had a place been chosen they all fell fast asleep, flat out on the grass, beneath the thin sliver of moon. Children, teachers, the occupants from out the paintings – even Lord Catchyfoe himself, they all enjoyed the best sleep of their entire lives.
Next morning, Box awoke with a start. Seeing Harry over to one side, talking to the mad ghost, he called out, “Hi, Larry, I had been wondering where you had gotten yourself to.” Looking across, Larry waved briefly, and then returned to his conversation with Harry.
“Humph,” I think I preferred him when he was mad,” Box grumbled.
“What’s the matter?” asked Miocene, waking up and rubbing her sleepy eyes.
“Oh, it’s probably nothing,” Box replied. “It’s just those two,” he pointed to Harry and the ghost.
“What about them?”
“I think they’re up to something…”
“Like what?”
“I have no idea,” he replied, “but they are up to something – I am sure of it!”
Miocene and Box watched as Harry and the ghost furtively made their way across to the ruins of the school.
“Come on,” Box whispered, “I want to see what they’re up to.”
She followed, Miocene didn’t like doing it, spying on Harry and the ghost, but she did, watching their suspiciously acting friends.
“I think they’re heading for the toilets,” said Box, ever so quietly.
“The toilets? Are you sure?”
Up ahead, Harry stopped walking and looked over her shoulder. Her pursuers dived for cover.
“Do you think she saw us?” asked Miocene.
Peeping out from behind a bush, Box said, “No, I think we got away with it.” Then pointing, he said, “Look, they’ve gone through that doorway.”
Inside, the ground crunched beneath their feet and the air smelt of smoke. Having lost sight of her quarry, Miocene whispered, “Where are they, Box?”
“Over there, in the corner,” he replied, pointing through a doorway.
“Isn’t that where Laughing Larry was, during most of the ruckus?”
Box nodded.
“What can they be looking for, there?” said Miocene, enraptured by the suspense of it all.
The two friends watched as Harry, guided by the ghost’s instructions, began to interfere with one of the stones in the wall.
“Look, she’s pulling it out,” Box whispered.
The block of stone fell with a thud and a crunch to the floor. Then delving her hands into the hole left behind, Harry grabbed hold of two small items and carefully removed them.
“What’s she got?” said Miocene, screwing up her eyes, trying to see that bit clearer.
“Let’s go ask her,” said Box, abandoning the doorway and his way forging across the litter-strewn floor. Crunch, crunch, crunch went his feet. As far as he was concerned, Harry and the ghost, Larry, had some explaining to do. Crunch, crunch, crunch.
“Hey, wait for me!”
“So, you decided to show yourselves,” said Harry as cool as a cucumber, when they approached her and the ghost.
“We – I wanted to know…” said Box, his voice trailing off, feeling more and more like a traitor.
“Ah, it’s okay,” said Harry, with a mischievous laugh. “There’s nothing untoward going on. I was going to tell you, later, after we had ensured they were all right.”
“All right? Ensured who was all right?”
“These,” she replied, offering the items for his inspection. When he saw them, Box could hardly believe his eyes, for two little people were standing on Harry’s upturned and open palms, two little people who looked incredibly like Professor McGonagain and Wan Measly.
“Is that, that?” he spluttered, at a loss for words, stunned to be seeing them at all, let alone so very small.
“It is,” Harry laughed, “and a good size too if I do say so myself,”
“But, but?” Box spluttered again.
“I’ll let Laughing Larry explain, if that’s okay with you, Box?”
“Yes, yes, it is,” said Box. “Please begin, Larry.”
“So you see,” Larry concluded, “Harry isn’t all bad…” On hearing this, Harry gave him a severe look. “Back there,” the ghost continued, “when she, when we were all in the thick of it, Harry had the foresight, the compassion to give these two,” he pointed to the Professor
and Wan, “another chance…”
“She never got rid of them?” said Miocene.
“No,” said the ghost. “And for a while I was fooled along with you… You see, what Harry had actually done, when she was supposed to have finished them off, was simply to reduce them in size, to a size where they were no longer a threat. And she sent them to the corner, as it were.”
“That’s why you hung around there – to protect them!”
“Yes, Miocene,” said the ghost. “And it was pretty hairy at times, if I do say so myself!”
“In fact it was so hairy,” said Box, butting in, “you decided to hide them in the wall.”
“Yes, but that was sometime later, when I came back” the ghost proudly admitted. Sensing he was nearing the end of his ‘fifteen minutes of fame’, Larry concluded, “Well, that’s about it, you know the rest from thereon.”
“But how were you able to do it? You know, to touch the wall, you being a ghost?”
With a wink and a nod Larry tapped the side of his nose, and said, “Now I can’t be telling you everything, can I?”
“What are you going to do with them, Harry?” Miocene asked, staring pitifully at the two little people.
“This,” she replied, placing them on the floor, and waving her wand. “Presto chango.” And with that, the Professor and Wan were restored to regular size.
“Thank you, thank you,” said the Professor, the very second she was full sized again. “I won’t let you down for this kindness. You can depend on me – you all can! Thank you, thank you.”
“Thanks, thanks,” Wan sobbed, after all the terrible things he had done. “I’m a changed boy, I really am.” Turning to Miocene, he said, “Miocene, I