The Wizard's Guide to Timelords and Other Demons Book 1: The Forgotten War

Blowing Up Mandrakes

"You're not going to hurt him, are you?" Bathilda cried out.

"No, of course not," Lee Jordan assured. "Pastel Poppers magically conjure-up a powerful blast of compressed air inside a charmed ball of colored powder. They're biodegradable and guaranteed not harm people or local plant life."

"Oh, cool," said Jean.

Kendra just rolled her eyes. She thought Lee sounded a lot like a commercial for cat litter she had seen on the telly at home.

"Choking hazard. Not for use by small children," She added sarcastically.

The four of them, together with Professor Sprout, had gathered in a field at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, far from anyone who might accidentally stumble across their little experiment and be seriously injured by a wailing houseplant.

About twenty yards from where they stood, Lee and Kendra had buried an adolescent Mandrake root into the ground, together with two Pastel Poppers. The young Mandrake was quiet and content for now, but in a few moments, assuming their test was a success, he was about to become quite agitated.

"Ear protection at the ready," ordered Professor Sprout, and each of them made sure that their earmuffs were secure about their necks, ready to slip over their ears the moment the Mandrake started to holler.

"Go ahead, Mr. Jordan," she said.

Lee lifted his wand into the air, then raised to his mouth an old radio microphone that he had borrowed from the Quidditch field. It was attached by wire to a large speaker box resting on the ground beside him.

"Explicandam Pulveris," he shouted using his loudest voice, which was hardly necessary because the hefty speaker was more than adequate to blast his saturated voice across the field.

Off in the distance, a small mushroom cloud of lavender smoke burst out of the ground, together with a large amount of dirt and dried leaves. It was followed a fraction of a second later by a loud POP! For the first few seconds after the echo of the pop had diminished, all they heard was the gentle sigh of the late afternoon breeze, and they thought that perhaps their experiment had failed.

Kendra's head dropped in disappointment. This had been her idea and she had been so certain that it would...

"Sckreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerchk!!"

It was like hearing the sound of nausea assailing their eardrums. Kendra felt sick to her stomach as she immediately pushed up her earmuffs, almost passing out before they were securely covering her ears. She looked around and was grateful to see that the others had done the same, though Jean had dropped to the ground and placed her head between her knees.

Lee and Jean started jumping up and down, screaming in delight.

"Well, congratulations Miss Nott, it seems your little experiment worked," said Professor Sprout, though nobody actually heard her say it over the cry of the angry Mandrake. Then she raised her wand and shouted,

"Radix Silentium!"

The angry root stopped howling immediately. Sprout pulled off her earmuffs and gestured to the others that it was now safe for them to do the same. With their muffs removed, their attention was instantly drawn skyward by a thunderous crackling sound.

Kendra's jaw dropped. Thick, dark clouds were gathering in the atmosphere above them. The clouds came together with astonishing speed, quickly forming a colossal, spinning vortex that expanded rapidly until it was roughly 30 miles across. At the center of the vortex appeared an immense, glowing orb of light, from which giant arcs of lightning shot out and impacted the sides of the vortex.

As the intensity of the lightning increased, Kendra began to see occasional large bolts of energy striking the ground many miles away. It was unlike any storm she had ever seen.

"What is it, Professor?" cried Bathilda.

"I don't know," Sprout said, mesmerized by the roiling whirlpool of clouds and lightning.

"Some kind of spell?" Lee asked.

"I've never heard of any spell that could do that," Professor Sprout replied.

Then a different sound hit like the great booming of a thousand cannons going off in succession miles above them. It was not a deafening noise, yet it barreled down with such force that the ground trembled beneath them.

The great roar of cannons was accompanied by a sucking sound, as if a great vacuum cleaner were siphoning out the atmosphere miles above them. Then, all at once, a blast of fierce wind rushed across the earth, knocking them to the ground.

"I think we should get to shelter now!" shouted the Herbology professor.

They quickly bounded up the hill and took shelter in the greenhouse, just as the earth around them began to shake.