Bagsy Beetlehorn and the Corvid Trials (The Bagsy Chronicles 2)

A Broken Broom

Just as practise was finishing, Emmeline, who'd been guarding the goal posts with not particularly strong results, suddenly dropped out of the sky. Emmeline's broom seemed to have lost all power and shot down, its owner letting out a scream.

Ford, a yellow blur, rushed down after her. As Ford reached her, Emmeline's broom jerked and rose sharply upwards, the captain's hand barely brushing her quidditch jumper. Tossed by the momentum, Emmeline was thrown from her broom, but her quidditch gear had caught in one of the stirrups, and her foot was tangled over the top, so the girl found herself being hauled upwards with it.

Bagsy watched Ford sharply redirect his broom and rush up after her, exclaiming in panic. Bagsy's thoughts raced. She pictured her blueprints in her mind – the coils and charmed wires and modulators inside of the broom.

She shot up after Emmeline.

Emmeline's broom was going all over the place, jerking right and then left and back again, as if trying to buck the girl off who, now so high from the ground, was holding on for dear life. Ford was struggling to get in close enough to grab her, it was moving about so unpredictably.

'Emmeline!' Bagsy yelled once she'd caught up, hovering at Ford's side.

'Not – now!' Emmeline managed, her blonde curls coming out of her tight bun as she was tossed about. Her foot slipped, and Emmeline was dangling for a horrifying moment before she got her foot back onto the broom. Greenda and Kat were circling below, ready to catch her if she fell. Teresa was zooming away from the pitch, presumably to get a teacher.

Bagsy narrowed her eyes. Despite the broom darting about, she easily tracked it, and saw the faint lines hinting at the panel within. It was one of the brooms Bagsy had modified last year – which meant the fault was most likely one of the components she'd added. 'Ford, I can help fix her broom, but I can't reach, you have to make her do exactly as I say!'

Ford looked from Bagsy to Emmeline, panic in his eyes. 'Emmeline, listen to her!' he yelled. Emmeline didn't respond.

'Emmeline, there should be a panel on the bottom side of your broom,' Bagsy called urgently. 'Pop it off!' Emmeline didn't seem to hear at first, but then she managed to grip the underside of her broom and pull it off. The wood fell and, after a long pause, clattered on the ground far below them. Bagsy gulped. 'Okay, inside there should be a coil and on either side of it two metal blocks. Attached to each end of those should be some coloured wires and, surrounding those, feather shaped wood.'

'I see-' Emmeline cut off as the broom jerked her around. 'I see the coil, but there are– there are no metal blocks!'

'Merlin,' Ford cursed. Bagsy's heart skipped a beat. If there were no metal blocks then there were no flight modulators, either main or back up. If that was the case, then...

'Bagsy, what are you doing!' Ford hissed in surprise as Bagsy popped the under panel off her own broom.

'Improvising!' Bagsy hissed, reaching inside and feeling around. Her hand clasped onto the right-hand metal block within the broom and Bagsy tugged it as hard as she could, hoping the back-up flight modulator would do its job. With a pop, and a shock to her hand that stung up and down her arm, Bagsy lifted the block out of the broom.

She hovered there, watching Emmeline's broom jerk around, Emmeline barely clinging on, and narrowed her eyes once more, trying to work out where the broom would move to next. 'Catch!' Bagsy yelled, deciding the broom was about to rise upwards. She threw where she thought it was going to be and found that, as the modulator neared the end of its arch, Emmeline's broom had lifted her high enough to grab it.

Years of being a quidditch keeper served Emmeline well as she, for once, deftly caught the object approaching her. 'Shove it in?' Emmeline called, the broom dropping a few feet sharply and Emmeline crying out in shock, her grip briefly giving. Ford was now waiting below with Greenda and Kat, holding his hands out ready to grab her.

'Shove it in!' Bagsy confirmed. 'To the left of the coil, in the slot between the wires and feather shaped wood!'

There was a second's pause in the broom's juddering, in which Emmeline placed the small, thin metal block inside the small compartment, and it instantly stilled. Emmeline, hands and legs wrapped around the broom as she swung below it, hung her head with a relieved sigh before clambering the right way up.

Bagsy heard a whoosh like air rushing through a pipe and found Professor Kim astride a broom stopping abruptly next to Emmeline, asking what had happened. Emmeline didn't respond, instead she looked at Bagsy with an unsure expression.

Bagsy looked down and saw how high she was and felt very faint all of a sudden.

'Bagsy?' Greenda's voice was urgent. Bagsy's eyes fluttered open, her head spinning. There were multiple hands on her and she saw Greenda, Kat and Ford were holding her aloft between them. She glanced down and saw her broom laying on the ground far below them. She had fainted.

The four of them were descending, Professor Kim and Emmeline above them.

Once they were on the ground, Kim fixed them all with a harsh stare. 'What in Morgana's name happened?'

'My broom freaked out for no reason!' Emmeline exclaimed, looking angrily at her ancient Swift Witch.

'Professor,' Bagsy managed, feeling rather queasy and swaying on her feet, 'the flight modulators were gone...'

'The what?' Kim asked, narrowing her eyes.

'I use them to make the broom's flight follow the instructions of the user...' Bagsy drawled, feeling weak. Greenda's arms found their way below Bagsy's, holding her up. 'They're reliable, and I always add a back-up, but...' Bagsy took a second, her head was still spinning.

'Both of mine had disappeared!' Emmeline hissed, folding her arms, her face red with rage. 'Someone must have stolen them!'

'No,' Bagsy managed. 'P-please, if I may. It's impossible for a broom to fly correctly without them, yet you were fine at the start of try-outs... they must have been in the broom to begin with. They must have.'

'So, someone magicked them away while I was flying?' Emmeline asked in disbelief, raising her hands to the heavens and looking around the pitch sarcastically. 'Who would-?' her words stuttered to a stop as her eyes caught sight of Mezrielda, who was sneaking away from the pitch, hunched over and looking very guilty. Emmeline's eyes narrowed. 'I don't know why she's wearing yellow. She's not a Hufflepuff, professor.'

As she turned to look at the sneaking girl, Professor Kim's lips pursed so tightly they were but a thin line.

Bagsy's stomach dropped. 'No, she wouldn't,' she pleaded. 'I invited her here, she's here to support me, not mess with the brooms!'

'How else did they go missing mid-flight?' Emmeline challenged Bagsy. 'That girl was trying to kill me!' she protested to Professor Kim, who mounted her broom and flew towards Mezrielda, calling her name. She caught up to her and Mezrielda was forced to stop, finding her wand confiscated by the flying professor. Kim noticed a shape in Mezrielda's pockets and said something to her Bagsy couldn't hear. Whatever it was, Mezrielda didn't look happy. Then, reluctantly, Mezrielda emptied her pocket, to reveal the flight modulator she'd vanished from Bagsy earlier. In the distance, Bagsy saw Kim tap her wand to Mezrielda's confiscated white one. A blue wisp floated out the end, depicting a flight modulator-like shape vanishing and reappearing, revealing to Kim what the last spell Mezrielda had cast was. The expression on Kim's face was of grave disappointment, whilst Mezrielda's was seething barely contained fury.

Bagsy watched, miserably, as Professor Kim escorted Mezrielda back to the castle.