old man having any intention of budging one iota from their stated position. They simply stood there, each one eyeballing the other, two stubborn, pigheaded individuals with everything to gain and everything to lose.
“Well, old man,” said Harry, withdrawing her wand and waving it from left to right, “has it come down to this? You against me?”
“It’s your decision, child,” he replied. “This is not what I had intended, when I offered you a partnership.”
“A partnership? Hah!” Harry snapped. “If it were a true partnership, would you have kept the Philosopher’s Marbles for yourself?”
As if to justify his actions, he said, “I did give you some of them, earlier!”
“A cynical ploy, that suited you at the time – It was a means to an end.”
The expression on Tumbledown’s face changed, to one of sadness, and he said, “It’s a sad state of affairs… I had hoped you might be the child I never had…. that you would follow my example, in my footsteps as it were…. and one day, after I had gone… you might take over where I left off.”
For a moment, Harry felt something – an affinity – with the old man, Tumbledown, who might have be the father she never had, and she dropped her guard…
Seizing his opportunity, Tumbledown twirled the four marbles that he had secretly withdrawn from his pouch. Acting fact, working with an incredibly fast burst of speed, he sent a viciously cruel attack screaming its way towards Harry.
“DUCK!” That’s what Box wanted to say, to scream out, and to warn Harry. But all that he could do was watch helplessly, as the life and death story played itself out.
Harry had no warning, she had warning at all, and the cruel, vicious attack tore into her flesh, sending her flying backwards, smashing her head against one of the wash hand basins. Blood pumping out from head, gushing out from her head, soaking into her clothes, the wash hand basin was smashed to pieces. Harry slumped to the floor.
“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT, HARRY?” That’s what poor Miocene wanted to say, to scream, to ask, but she was also was spellbound, struck dumb by the wily old man. She said nothing.
Standing over Harry’s motionless body, all signs of his feigned melancholy and sadness gone, Tumbledown gloated, saying, “So, the girl mystic has fallen?”
On the cold, cold floor, her clothes drenched in blood, her golden hair soaked in the copious red liquid, Harry lay silent. Kicking the broken body, Tumbledown said, “I am disappointed, so disappointed. He kicked it again. “It was easy, far too easy, to see off the famous girl mystic, the ‘troublesome’ girl mystic. An overrated tag if ever I heard one.”
Leaving Harry for dead, Tumbledown turned his attention to Miocene and Box. “And as for you two,” he said, wallowing in his triumph, “I have something – what was that expression she used? – Oh, yes, something quite dastardly planned for you two.” With that he let out a laugh, a wild, crazy laugh, and the two frightened children knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was quite insane.
“Just because I have loosened you binds,” Tumbledown warned, following Miocene and Box down the corridor, “doesn’t mean you should be getting any foolish ideas, like running away or trying anything you might live to regret.”
Trying anything foolish? If they were so lucky! Yes, the old man had indeed loosened the spell binding their hands and feet, but only enough to allow them to walk, and with some considerable difficulty. And as for the spell that was stopping them from uttering even the smallest of words, it was still firmly in place – so no luck there! He said they would ‘live to regret’ if they tried anything foolish. Well, that was certainly a laugh, considering he was fully intent on doing away with them, anyway. In silent brooding, Miocene and Box hobbled down the dimly lit corridor…
When they reached the entrance to the Great Hall, Tumbledown said, “Stop, that’s far enough.” Then bidding them enter, he watched as they hobbled their way across the debris strewn floor. Making their way in, Miocene and Box wished the contents of the pictures were still helping them.
“Ah, I so like this room. Do you?” Tumbledown asked. “Oh, silly me, I forgot that you are unable to speak. But I am sure that that you must. Why wouldn’t you? It’s so beautiful!” Waving an arm, pointing to the pillared balcony high above them, Tumbledown drew their attention to the children, every last pupil, staring down through the carved marble pillars, watching in silence. “And I so love an audience,” he said, laughing manically.
‘How did you do that? How did you get them up there?’ that’s what Miocene and Box wanted to ask, to shout at Tumbledown, but they couldn’t.
In the boys’ toilet, the ghost, Laughing Larry, having abandoned his corner, was kneeling next to Harry. He tried to touch her, but being a ghost his hands simply passed through. And he wanted so desperately to help, to tell her that everything was going to be all right… Because he had seen something, something the crazy old man had thankfully missed… that he, the supposedly mad ghost, had not. He could see that Harry was breathing; she was still alive, but being unable to offer her any physical assistance, he cried out in frustration, saying, “Harry, wake up. Harry, I am speaking to you!” But the girl mystic continued to lay there, in silence, unconscious upon that hard, cold floor...
Meanwhile, in the Great Hall… “I am sure that you are wondering what I have planned for you,” said Tumbledown, sinking deep in his seat, his throne, at the centre of the huge room, to Miocene and Box, “Please have patience for a little while longer, I promise you that all will soon be revealed…”
With a low groan, Harry began to regain consciousness. And when he saw this, the mad ghost cried out, “Harry! Harry! You must listen to me!”
Harry tried to listen, she also tried to speak, but she was so injured, her skull fractured, she struggled to regain consciousness. “What happened,” she asked, her voice so terrible weak and shaky.
“You were hurled across the room, into that wash hand basin,” said the ghost, pointing to its remains scattered far and wide.
“Who did it?” she asked, confused by his words.
“Who?” the ghost replied, “Tumbledown, of course!”
“Tumbledown, Tumbledown who?”
“Methinks, you are suffering form concussion,” the ghost told her gently.
“Concussion?” she said, confused by what he was saying. “Isn’t there an epidemic of that going around?” she asked.
“Epidemics of concussion?”
“Yes,” she groaned, fingering her hair, feeling the drying blood. “Box’s father caught it, so also did – what was that name you said?”
“Tumbledown?” the ghost suggested.
“Yes, that was it,” she said. “He also caught concussion, didn’t he?” Without listening for a reply, she began inspecting her blood soaked clothes. “Where did all of this come from?” she asked, tugging at her shirt, quite in surprise. “And why does my head hurt?” Throwing his eyes up, Laughing Larry let out a cry of utter frustration.
“Now, as I was saying, children,” Tumbledown continued, “I have something rather special devised for you.” Miocene and Box, still gagged by his spell, were unable to reply. “Oh, silly me,” he said, slapping his forehead in pretence of absentmindedness, “you would like to say something!” Removing a marble from his pouch, he twirled it, releasing them from both spells; binding and gagging.
“When I get my hands on you!” Box yelled.
Twirling the marble, the old man reinstated the spells with a vengeance. Then shaking a finger at Box, in mock anger, Tumbledown said, “I do hope that has taught you a lesson, to respect your elders.”
“You have a frightful crack in your skull,” said the ghost, floating over Harry’s head, inspecting it in fine detail.
Although she was concussed, confused, hurt and terribly weak, Harry pressed one of the buttons on her wand, and recited the following, “Brionius, briunum, save my brain, mend my skull.” In her concussed state that was all that she could think of. She hop
ed it was enough.
The wand, bursting into life, disgorged a figure, an apparition of a well-built matronly old woman wearing a nurse’s uniform. “What have we got here?” she asked, leaning over, inspecting Harry’s broken head. The ghost was so surprised he began laughing. The woman gave him a look so severe Larry forgot why he had been laughing, and so stopped. “Hmm,” she said, as she continued inspecting the deep crack in Harry’s skull. “You have lost a great deal of blood.” Harry lifted her shirt as if to emphasise this point. “But we’ll soon have you shipshape,” she continued, without even bothering to look into Harry’s face, to address her personally.
After removing the binding and dumbfounding spells for a second time, Tumbledown warned, “I hope you will behave this time. I will not be so lenient with you again.”
“Are you okay, Miocene?” Box asked the very second he could speak.
“I’m fine,” she said, rubbing her wrists, trying to return the circulation to her hands. “But I am worried for Harry,” she whispered. “She’s not really dead, is she?”
Opening his pouch, the old man, Tumbledown, peered into it, admiring the marbles within. Then pouring them out, he watched as the colourful glass balls ran freely into his robed lap. “Such a pretty sight is it not?” he asked, admiring the marbles as if they were diamonds. To him, they far more valuable than mere diamond trinkets, they were a