Bagsy Beetlehorn and the Thorned Gauntlet (The Bagsy Chronicles 1)

Defence Against the Dark Arts

Bagsy didn't sleep that night. She stayed up in her room practicing the counter jinx for the leg-lock spell, hoping she was making progress, and checking outside her door for any suits of armour that might be creeping towards her. By the time the sun was poking over the horizon she'd taken a break from learning spells and look-out duty to write a letter to her sister. She knew her sister hated her full name as much as Bagsy hated her own, so naturally she addressed the letter to Rebontil Beetlehorn instead of Bontie.

She wrote about Hogwarts, and how it was as cramped as Bontie had told her. Mostly, though, she complained about how difficult she was finding everything – from the maze that was Hogwarts castle, to the mean tricks other students had been playing on her. She also wrote how nervous she felt about the double Defence Against the Dark Arts class she had tomorrow. She briefly mentioned that it wasn't all bad – Greenda Particularis, the girl she'd sat next to during the sorting ceremony, had seemed nice, and Tod Alden had been helpful.

She didn't mention the dark corridor and moving suits of armour, or the endless staircase. Bagsy worried she was imagining things, and worried even more that Bontie would think she was imagining things, too. Bagsy's hands shook as she wrote, just thinking of the strange events that had occurred, and all the torment she'd been through. She was tempted to ask Bontie to come take her home.

Resisting the urge to call for a rescue, and concluding that Christmas couldn't come soon enough, Bagsy signed the letter and pulled on her cloak.

The morning chill outside the castle walls was intense and Bagsy huddled beneath her thick cloak as her breath misted in the air. Her hands were cold from poking out of her cloak to hold the map as she checked it but besides that the temperature wasn't all that bad once she'd acclimatised.

The Owlery stretched high above her head and swarmed with birds. The floor was covered in large piles of hay that were scattered with owl droppings and the remains of mice and voles. Bagsy waited for one of the birds to swoop down to her and began attaching her note. Her sister still lived at home even if she had a job at the ministry, their house was so big there was little point in moving out, so Bagsy hadn't needed to memorise a second address.

She paused as she attached her letter to the outstretched owl's leg, noticing a boy on his hands and knees in the corner of the owlery trying to pull bricks from the wall. 'Um, hello?' Bagsy called out to him.

Tod Alden stood abruptly to his feet, letting go of the bricks he'd been trying to pry out, and looking like a dog who'd been spotted digging holes in the garden. 'Oh, goodness me, hello there.'

'What're you doing?' Bagsy asked. The owl on her arm was growing impatient and gave her hand a nip – luckily, not on the same finger she'd cut yesterday. Bagsy finished tying the note and the owl flapped off.

'I was going to ask you the same,' Tod responded, dusting his trousers importantly, 'but I deduce it has something to do with correspondence via parchment?'

Bagsy held back a giggle. Tod talked in an even worse way than Mezrielda. Perhaps the two were friends. Maybe Bagsy would ask Mezrielda if that was the case the next time she saw her.

'I couldn't sleep, so I wrote a letter instead. That's why I'm here so early.' Bagsy tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. 'It is very early, and I may be dumb, but there's no way you were sending a letter. Are you looking for something?'

'No, no, absolutely not.' Tod laughed as if Bagsy was being ridiculous. There was a moment of silence and Bagsy felt a shift in the air that she couldn't describe besides the fact it was cold. 'No, I was checking to see if the construction of the Owlery was up to scratch.'