Harry Rotter

by Gerrard Wllson

second time, Harry watched as a blue milky substance spew out from the end of her wand, onto the floor.

  “The pipsqueak is making waters,” Horrid boomed from above in great peals of laughter.

  Turing his attention to Miocene, Box saw that she was still struggling against the encircling sparkles. He tried against his, but it was useless, he was as trapped and helpless as she was. Returning his attention to Harry, Box watched as the blue liquid – and so much of it – continued to spew out from her wand.

  Harry was also watching the blue liquid, and she continued to watch as it formed a large puddle, where, partially solidifying, it began to grow, getting larger and larger, and bigger and bigger until it resembled a man, a giant blue man as tall as Horrid himself.

  “Wow!” Box gasped. “Wow!”

  “So yous think you can be of the outsmarting to me?” Horrid growled, turning his attention to the blue coloured giant.

  Twiddling with a button on her wand, Harry watched as the blue coloured giant turned away from Horrid, like he was trying to escape.

  “Look, he’s runnings away,” Horrid laughed triumphantly, “and I should thinks it be so.” But when the blue figure stopped, and turned its attention to the circles of light threatening Harry, destroying it with one sweep of a hand, Horrid’s laughing abruptly ceased. Turning its attention to Miocene and Box, the blue giant grabbed hold of their constraints, one in each hand, crushing them easily.

  “Hurray!” Box shouted in triumph. Checking to see if Miocene was okay, he asked, “Are you all right, Miocene?” She nodded, and said, “What about you?” “Me?” he replied, “Oh, I’m fine, just fine.”

  Pointing to her new ally, Harry said, “Now it’s you against him, Horrid. That’s if you’re up to it?”

  Fuming, definitely not laughing, Horrid boomed, “I’ll be getting to yous, Harry, after I haave put the bad finishing touches to this blue toy yous haave given for me to play with.” Pointing his enormous wand at his adversary, Horrid sent a torrent of lightning bolts shooting towards him. But his opponent’s body, being essentially composed of liquid, absorbed the deadly lightning bolts with ease, and they passed harmlessly through.

  “Hah?” how cans that be?” Horrid gasped.

  “It can, and it will be – the finish of you, you nasty old thing!” Miocene shouted, “Go on, Harry, give him one for me!”

  She did, over the following minutes Harry, the girl mystic, with the aid of her electro magical wand, guided her blue coloured accomplice on to a stunning victory, against the giant who could have been so nice if he had so chosen.

  In its last move, the blue giant, grabbing Horrid by the shoulders, pulled him into his sticky body, absorbing his rival into his own watery, gooey flesh. It was over – Horrid had been defeated, he was gone. After letting out a tremendously loud belch, the only audible sound it had made during the entire struggle, the blue coloured giant simply melted away.

  Patting Harry on the back, in congratulations, Box said, “Phew, that sure was some fight!”

  “Is he really gone?” Miocene asked, staring at the only thing left from the fracas – a blue coloured puddle.

  “He’s gone all right,” Harry concurred, with a grin.

  As the three friends stood there, in the Great Hall, they realised just how big the place really was.

  “I’ve never seen it empty,” said Miocene. “It’s usually full of pupils… Harry – where are all the pupils?”

  It was true, in their excitement they had forgotten all about the children, and it worried them.

  “Harry, what do you think Tumbledown’s done with them?” Miocene asked.

  “Where is he – and McGonagain?” said Box, his eyes scanning the hall for any signs of life.

  “Like I said, earlier,” Harry replied, speaking slowly, choosing her words carefully “It was a slowing tactic…”

  “To gain them time?”

  “Yes, Box, but only to a point,” she said, her thoughts rushing ahead of her chosen words.

  “To a point?” said Miocene, sensing that Harry had more to say.

  “I’m afraid so,” she replied. “Let me explain…” What Harry then said to them took Miocene and Box totally by surprise, for although they knew that the

  Philosopher’s Marbles were the goal of the troublesome girl mystic’s intent they had up until then no idea that she harboured designs for the top job at Hagswords, herself.

  “You can’t be serious!” said Box, in denial, feeling that he must have missed something along the way.

  Harry nodded that she was.

  “What about Tumbledown?” Miocene asked.

  “Do you really think he should remain in control?” Harry replied, thinking Miocene had surely missed something, asking such a stupid question.

  “Well, no, not really,” she confessed. “I’m just so confused by it all,” she said, embarrassed by her muddlement on the subject. Then ever so timidly, she asked, “Does he know about your ambitions?”

  “Of course he knows,” Harry snapped. “Do you think he would go to all this trouble – for fun?”

  “What do you intend to do when you are in control of Hagswords?”

  “Close it?” she replied, without giving it a second thought.

  “Close it!” Miocene screeched, almost choking on her words. “But why?”

  “Less distractions…” Harry replied coldly.

  “Less of everything, if you ask me,” Miocene said frantically. “If you close it, then where will I go? Where will all the pupils go?”

  Getting tired of the discussion, Harry said, “That is not my problem…”

  Miocene was so flummoxed she was unable to say anything more; she just glared at Harry, in total disgust.

  Realising that his cousin had no intention of saying anything more on the subject, Box decided to leave it for later. So he said, “Any idea where Tumbledown might be?”

  “I might,” she replied.

  “And?”

  Pointing, Harry focused his attention on to a plaque at the far end of the hall.

  “That’s a list of all the House captains since Hagswords first opened,” said Miocene.

  Examining the plaque, a slab of mahogany timber darkened by the passage of time, Box ran his fingers along line after line of neat writing, seeking something – anything to help them to understand what Tumbledown was up to. Taking off his glasses, breathing on the lens and giving them a rub in his pullover, he said, “All that I can see are names, names and yet more names.”

  Turning to Miocene, Harry said, “What about you? Can you see anything else?”

  Miocene looked, but all that she saw were the same boring words Box had already gone over. She was no more enlightened than him. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but, no.”

  “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” said Harry, ticking both of them off. “That’s why I’m the girl mystic, the only person who deserves to replace old Tumbledown. She had said it, she had done it Harry had returned to the very same subject she had only minutes earlier refused to comment on.

  “I think you are far too big for your boots!” said Miocene, doing her own bit of reproaching.

  “Looking down at her feet, Harry sarcastically replied, “For your information I am not wearing boots, but even if I were, I can assure you they would be of a most comfortable fit.”

  “Humph!” Miocene grumbled, as she took her own turn in refusing to speak any more on the subject.

  “Well?” said Harry, turning to her cousin. “Have you anything you would like to add, Box?”

  He had, but shaking his head he lied, thinking it better – and safer – to save it for later…

  Approaching the plaque, Harry pushed them aside, and after studying it for a moment, she pointed to a name in the bottom right hand corner, and said, “See this?”

  Inching closer, Miocene and Box took a look. The writing, however, having been tampered with was quite difficult to see. Someone had obviously
gone to a great deal of effort trying to remove it.

  “What does it say?” Box asked, removing his glasses and cleaning them again.

  Screwing up her eyes, butting it, Miocene said, “I think it says – ‘Redbrick Fortune, Blytheryn Hole cartoon 1882 to 1845.’ That makes no sense!” she grumbled.

  With a hint of a smile, Harry said, “You’re almost there, but not quite. What it actually says – or said, was Fredrick Fortitude, Blytheryn House captain 1842 to 1845.”

  “I don’t know why,” said Miocene, “but that name rings a bell…”

  “And so it should,” said Harry, tapping the writing with a finger.

  Confused, Miocene asked, “It should?”

  “Yes, certainly, if you studied your school history...”

  “It hasn’t been one of my strongest points,” Miocene admitted guiltily, fidgeting with her fingers, uncomfortable with this admission.

  “Are you sure one of your parents wasn’t a Muddle?” Harry asked, with no thought as to the pain it might cause. Without waiting for a reply, she continued, “That person, Fredrick Fortitude, was the great, great grandfather, on his mother’s side, of Laughing Larry himself!”

  “WHAT?” Miocene and Box cried out in astonishment.

  “Fredrick Fortitude, or should I say – Frederick Lawrence Fortitude was the great, great grandfather of Laughing Larry.”

  “But how does this tell you where Tumbledown is?” Box asked, steering the conversation back to its original point.

  “It tells me – lots,” Harry replied rather cryptically.

  “Lots?” asked Miocene. “How?”

  Exhaling loudly, as if she were dreadfully tired, Harry said, “Who do you think tried