Bagsy Beetlehorn and the Vampire Affairs (The Bagsy Chronicles 4)

Get Out of Jail Free Trip

As far as Bagsy was concerned, there was one thing worse than the blood eyed beast, the Nuckelavee, Mr Mortem and Cora Foncée combined.

Being. Grounded.

Bontie had been furious at her unacceptable behaviour at the end of Bagsy's third year at Hogwarts. She and Mezrielda had broken into the submerged, a secret Ministry ship that had been hidden within Hogwarts lake, to break out their friends, Winifred and Robin. It had ended in a crash landing in the forbidden forest, and a deathly encounter with the Nuckelavee that they'd barely survived.

'I'm only doing this to keep you safe,' Bontie had explained as she cast locking and sealing charms on all the sliding doors of the house.

'What if there's an emergency and I need to leave?' Bagsy had asked.

'Then you may use our Floo station or ask mum and dad for help.'

'You mean Florentchia and Himble,' Bagsy had spat ruefully to herself. She'd made a point of no longer referring to them as her parents – for all intents and purposes, they weren't.

Bontie had stuck fast on her grounding rules – Bagsy wasn't allowed outside of the house and was only permitted to come down to the dining area for food and water, plenty of which had been left in the ice slab that magically froze and prolonged an assortment of ready-when-you-are meals. She had also been forbidden any Dumplings and Dollops take away, so she couldn't even eat away her woes with ink toast.

Bagsy had read and re-read every book she had on Potions, Herbology, broom craft, wand craft and artificing so that she was beginning to recite them in her sleep. She'd invented and tested about a hundred different brews that could cure coughs, warm someone, or make their fingers turn into bubbles. She'd read Building for Beginners and practised metal work in the foldable forge most days or tinkered with her broom so much she could draw it perfectly from memory. She'd even made ten different wand training wheels but they'd all exploded on her so she'd given up on that particular invention.

She'd also played so much traitor, the game where you had to figure out which of the cards enchanted with a personality was lying, that she was actually becoming half-decent at it. She'd yet to actually win, but she didn't care, so long as she was improving.

The whole experience was driving Bagsy mad, especially given what she and Mezrielda had realised last term. The blood eyed beast may still be alive. The creature had the ability to mark and consume its prey, gaining the powers of those it devoured. It appeared to have burnt to ash at the end of Bagsy's second year, but the mark the beast had given her remained on her shoulder, something that was supposedly only possible if both the marked and the marker were alive.

The beast was an ancient creature so their concern was that it had, at some point, consumed a phoenix borne and gained the ability to come back from the dead through the healing power of fire. They had vowed to prepare for the possible return of the beast but being grounded wasn't 'conducive to preparation', as Mezrielda had put it.

One evening, as Bagsy had been building up the courage to tell her sister about the blood eyed beast and ask for her help, Bontie had arrived home from her work at the Ministry. She had looked exhausted.

Bagsy had found out that Bontie was spying on the Ministry for Fitzsimmons. Two things occurred to her as her sister flailed an arm tiredly through the ice slab, searching for her preferred dish of steamed cacti spines with syrup and rice. One, her sister had enough on her plate already and, two, if her sister mentioned to Fitzsimmons what Bagsy and Mezrielda knew, it could throw them into danger.

The memory Bagsy gained from the suit of armour played in her mind. A figure, who looked eerily like Fitzsimmons, had marked and devoured six children one by one, slowly transforming into the blood eyed beast. They could no longer trust Fitzsimmons or seek help from them regarding the blood eyed beast. It was unclear whether or not Fitzsimmons would want to protect them, or betray them to the beast, or if Fitzsimmons was the beast themself.