Zak Turner - A Twist In Time (9 page)

Straight after lunch the Moncero first years found themselves heading for Aquila House, together with the Leo first years, to visit their potions classroom, which was under the lake.  Zak and Tallion both noticed that Shaul Malchus was arrogantly lagging behind the group by himself, and that the other Leos didn’t seem to involve him in their conversations.

Unlike when they’d visited Aquila House during the summer with Barty, this time they entered via a shortcut from the main corridor which took them directly to the Aquila classrooms without going near the common room and dorms.  It seemed that potions and alchemy were both taught here, much like in Lofthouse Castle, and they would be studying both subjects under the lake.

Well, the
Mhonarr
Castle
students would be studying under the lake, the two
Lofthouse
Castle
students would be studying these subjects in their classrooms in Yorkshire.

A group of fifth years were in the middle of concocting some lurid green potion as they came into the first classroom, and their potions master, Professor Meltham, was berating a carelessly dressed boy about his poor ingredient preparation!  The badly diced plimpet roots on the table in front of him vanished with a wave of the professor’s wand, and an un-diced version appeared in their place.  The professor told the boy to start again, and then batted him over the head with a textbook he had in his hand.

The first years kept as quiet as mice as the textbook was slammed back down on the desk, and the irate professor glared first at the fifth year and then at the cowering first years who were watching.  The fifth year was smirking as the professor turned back to the front of the class, and exchanged a few quiet words with his friends as he set to work dicing up his fresh plimpet root a bit more carefully this time.  He looked familiar to Zak and Tallion, but they couldn’t work out why.

After watching the fifth years for a few minutes, which included witnessing a cauldron boiling over and the resultant pool of bright green liquid apparently chasing its squealing female creator round the classroom, they headed to the room next door.  In it a group of fourth years were starting an alchemy experiment under the watchful eye of Madame Maxine Cheycoeur, the only French professor on the staff.  It looked quite boring because all the fourth years were doing was assembling arrays of flasks and tubes following a design in their textbook. 

“Ze alchemy is a slow process, we do nossing fast ‘ere, all slowly and carefully,” explained the professor, as much to the watching first years as to the smirking fourth years.

After a few minutes, the two groups of first years left the Alchemy class, and made their way to the Balayage pitch.  All of the boys, and a good number of girls had been looking forward to this, and they were excited to find that three sixth year house teams were having a practise match in preparation for the inter-house tournament which was due to start on the first weekend in October.

Balayage was part of the Physical Activities curriculum, which for the first years included general fitness, learning to fly a broomstick, the game of Sauteur (which was a bit like playing tag except that you had to use telekinesis to move yourself rather than your legs), sailing and swimming (in the lake), physical self-defence, and of course Balayage!

The three houses that were playing were Moncero, Leo and Aquila, and it was no accident that the Leo and Moncero first years were outside to watch the match.  The Aquila first years piled into the stadium five minutes later when they got back from their visit to the forest with Bernard Ungis. 

Although it was only a practise match it was very combative, and Leo were attacking as the first years arrived.  There was a great deal of cheering and shouting from the spectators as the Leo team tried to get their Pelotts into the pit, while Aquila and Moncero tried to block them out.  Some of the broomstick aerobatics by the defenders, as they used their broomstick tails to ‘brush’ the Pelotts away, were breath-taking!  Zak would never have believed flying a broomstick upside down was possible, but with enough practise it clearly was!

Eventually, with time running out, the Leos all hurled
themselves
at the wall of defenders to try and force their way through into the pit, and several players from each team came off their brooms and crashed to the ground.  By the time Aldo Flight, the games master and referee, blew his whistle, all five Leo players had scrambled home, the last one tumbling off his broom on top of his team-mates heads just as the whistle blew!

The Leo first years were all cheering, including Shaul, who seemed to have got carried away with something other than his own arrogant self for once.  There was a pause while Aldo and his two assistant referees went round all the players casting spells and charms to fix up their injuries, cuts, and bruises.

As they waited, one of the Aquila players jumped back on his broom, flew over to the Moncero first years, and stopped right in front of Zak and Tallion in the stand.  They grinned in surprise to see Cygnus Proudfoot smiling at them.

“How are you enjoying your first day boys?” he asked.

“It’s great Cygnus, everything I hoped it would be and more!” answered Zak.

“I didn’t know you played Balayage, Cygnus!” called out Tallion.  “You need to come up to the castle and help us train Bjarne, he’s mad about it!”

“I will, no problem.  I wasn’t in the first team until this year, but a couple of other sixth years decided they didn’t want to play so I got a chance!  Don’t think Dad will be too impressed though, he says it’s ‘way too dangerous’!  Are you staying a bit longer?  Aquila is attacking next, so you’ll see me trying to get into the pit!”

“Dunno, we still have to go to the forest, the boathouse, and the greenhouses, but I think we might be here for a bit longer yet.”

Just then Aldo Flight blew his whistle and Cygnus flew back to join his team-mates.  After another minute, the whistle blew again, and instantly Aquila attacked, trying to get past the defending Leo and Moncero players. 

Cygnus was number one and had to get his Pelott into the pit first.  He’d decided to try and catch the defenders off guard by flying
with
the Pelott right through them rather than trying to throw it past them.  He headed straight for a Leo defender who stood his ground defiantly, and at the last second Cygnus dived and rolled so that he flew underneath the defender, rolling upright again just as his head would have hit the low wall round the pit.  There were gasps and cheers as he threw his Pelott straight into the pit and soared vertically upwards to help his team-mates.  The Aquila number then two lobbed his Pelott straight at Cygnus who was still directly above the pit.  The long blond curls of the Yorkshire wizard flashed in the sunlight as he batted the Pelott hard, straight down to join his number one Pelott at the bottom of the pit.

The defenders were momentarily thrown off guard by the swiftness of the Aquila attack, and too many of them turned to chase Cygnus away from the pit to stop him getting anymore Pelotts in from above.  Ready for it, the number three Aquila spotted a gap in the wall of defenders and hurled his Pelott straight through it, achieving a perfect trajectory, and landing it fair and square with the previous two at the bottom of the pit. 

The number four defenders had realised what was happening and charged the number four Aquila, trying to make him drop his Pelott, but he simply lobbed it to Cygnus who was already flying overhead.  However, the defenders closed in round Cygnus too, and he had to pass back rather than taking a shot. 

The momentum of the initial attack fizzled out, and Aquila now found it very difficult to get their fourth Pelott in.  Eventually, their number two player tried to barge his way through the defenders, carrying the number five Pelott, and when the defenders crowded him, the number four player threw his Pelott over the top, trying a sneaky lob-shot.  A Leo player managed a breath-taking upside-down tail swipe to send the Pelott soaring through the air to the boundary.

With just two minutes to go, the Aquila players charged the defenders to try and get
themselves
into the pit before the whistle blew, and one by one they scrambled in.  Their number five player though found himself completely blocked by about five defenders, and he soared off to the boundary before flying back at full speed towards the pit.  The defenders stood their ground, and the Aquila player hit them hard, just as the whistle blew, knocking three of them clean off their brooms.  He fell headlong into the pit, where he landed just as the whistle stopped blowing.

The first year Aquilas danced about cheering wildly, the Balayage was certainly living up to expectations even though this was just a practise match!  The injuries from the last challenge, however, were substantial.  A dislocated shoulder, a broken jaw, eight broken ribs, a broken leg, a broken arm, a broken wrist, two broken noses, and rather a lot of blood!

Zak began to realise what Tallion had meant about the game being dangerous, and understood why so many parents were reluctant for their children to get involved.

“That was a bit extreme though, Zak,” said his friend as they walked off into the forest with the other excited first years.  “That’s the sort of move you’d normally see in a cup match, not a school practise match!  I bet Aldo Flight tells him off about it!  You’re not supposed to do things like that in a practise!”

“No-one will mess with him next time though,” grinned Zak, who could see the tactical advantage of the move.  It might have hurt, but that Aquila player would have a reputation as being prepared to do anything in future!

The walk round the forest seemed quite tame compared to the Balayage, and the students were all still chattering about the game by the time they got back to the greenhouses forty minutes later, having seen nothing except birds and squirrels.  For some reason they seemed to have skipped the boathouse and the lake, but no-one was complaining.

Professor Pruner nodded to Zak and Tallion as she greeted the class, and then launched off on a whistle-stop tour of her six greenhouses pointing out different plants that they’d be studying during their first year.  Last lesson on Wednesday afternoons was first year Herbology anyway, so there were no other students having a lesson as the enthusiastic witch showed her new first years some of the rather more exotic plants, including a Trugstork tree!

“Tallion, you’ve had an encounter with a Trugstork tree, can you tell everyone what they do?”

Tallion frowned sharply at the Herbology professor, but found her smiling mischievously at him.

“If you get too close to one it’ll grab you and crush you to death,” he said quietly, and then glancing at Zak he added, “unless your best friend manages to stop it.”

“Thank you Tallion, spot on.  Whatever you do, all of you, do not stand close to this tree with your back to it.  Once it’s got you, there’s no escape, and if Zak’s not around, then it’s probably lights out!  Right, let’s go and have a look at the talking water melons.”

The first years looked nervously over their shoulders at the tree, which now had a lethal reputation.  Quite a few of them also looked at Zak and Tallion with awed expressions, understanding correctly that a Trugstork had grabbed Tallion and that Zak had somehow saved his life!  There were a lot of muttered conversations as they moved along to the water melons.

* * *

Their tour of the greenhouse ended about three thirty, and the prefects took their charges back to their own houses where they had free time until dinner at five thirty.  As David and Sasha shooed the Moncero first years up to their dorms to freshen up, Zak and Tallion hung back.

“David, can we have a word?” asked Tallion as he approached the seventh year.

“Of course.  Sam told me what happened last night on the way back from the infirmary, is that what you want to talk about?”

“Well, not exactly.  Umm, did Professor McCathie or the headmaster tell you anything about us?”

“Not really no, why?”

Tallion took a deep breath and after glancing at Zak launched into an explanation.

“Well, we’re not going to be doing much studying here at Mhonarr Castle, we’re mostly going to be studying at Lofthouse Castle in Yorkshire.  We’re registered as ‘associate students’, part of the school, but not living and studying here very often.  We’re going back to Yorkshire tonight, right after dinner.”

David couldn’t stop his eyebrows disappearing into his hairline, but his face ended up wearing a smile.

“I don’t know
why
you’re doing that, but in view of what happened last night, it sounds like a smart move.  That’s not why you’re leaving though is it?” he asked, suddenly serious.

“No.  It would take more than a threat from Sargas Malchus to make me run away.  I’d love to face him down right here in the castle!  Studying in Yorkshire has always been the plan.  My future role there means that I need to grow up in a non-magical environment as much as possible.  It seems a bit mad I know, but we’re both going to the local non-magical academy to study during the week, and then learning magic at the weekends and during the holidays.  We’re going to be attending
two
schools!”

David managed to simultaneously look both surprised and sceptical at that bit of news, and then he blew out his cheeks.

“Two schools?  And non-magical school?  Blimey, you
are
mad!”