With the constant requests for premonitions, quidditch practise and the private lessons with Starrett, Bagsy once again found herself with more activities than she could manage. Not to mention that, every few nights, her dreams were plagued by visions of floating rocks, trippy illusions, and a mirror that showed her something she never wanted to see again.
Mezrielda, unlike Bagsy, wasn't constantly bothered with polite requests for predictions. Instead, she was graced with demands to leave the school to avoid spreading 'bloody mouth-ness' throughout the student body. For once both of them looked like zombies in the morning as they tried to ignore the badgering from other students.
'I have an idea,' a confident voice said to Bagsy one morning as she and Mezrielda were worked their way silently through porridge.
Slowly, like an owl, Bagsy turned to look at Tod. 'Huh?'
'I came to get permission from Nevis and Kat to write a story about them and about being transgender. Nevis wasn't too keen on being in the spotlight, but Kat was all for it. It'll make a great story.'
'Cool,' Bagsy drawled, missing her porridge as she tried to scoop it up and eating air instead.
'Be gone, Tod,' Mezrielda grumbled, hunched over her breakfast like an dragon protecting the last of its stash.
Tod breezed on, 'I figured that to really make this issue pop, I could begin a premonition column.'
Bagsy blinked at him slowly, the feeling of life tingling in her fingers as words began to make sense and the world moved at a more comprehensible pace. 'A premonition column?'
'Yes. A horoscope, to be specific, provided by none other than our resident seer.'
'Who?'
Mezrielda sneered. 'He's talking about you, Bagsy.' Lifting her head up she glared properly at Tod. 'Don't tell me you believe in that nonsense, too?'
'No,' Tod scoffed. 'But my readers will.'
'Hey!' Bagsy protested. 'I can see the future. Sometimes. How else did I predict Primrose's word?'
Mezrielda folded her arms. 'A fluke with an explanation, I'm sure.'
Bagsy racked her brain. 'What about Nevis? I told him his name would become what he dreamed of it, and it did!'
Mezrielda scowled at her, entirely unconvinced. 'Only after he specifically asked you if you saw anything about his name in his future. You could have predicted anything, and it would have seemed to come true.'
Tod waved his hand dismissively. 'Yes, yes, you're so very observant and logical. Can I finish my point?'
Mezrielda stood up, her nose in the air. 'Clearly, I'm not welcome here. I'll see you in the nook, Bagsy,' she said tersely before leaving. Bagsy noticed a number of glares and concerned whispers rise as Mezrielda walked out of the hall.
Tod rolled his eyes. 'As I was saying you could write this horoscope every few weeks for the paper. I'd get loads of readers, and any time one of those pesky students asks you for a premonition you can simply refer them to Witchment Enrichment. Sounds like a plan?' Excitedly, Tod held his hand out.
Bagsy looked at his hand in thought. 'It would be nice not to have to answer all those questions every single day.' She decided that, yes, it was a rather good idea, and gave Tod's hand a shake.
'Brilliant. Bring me the first horoscope as soon as you can. See you.' Tod turned on his heel and hurried to a waiting Hamley.
Eager to get all the requests for future-vision off her back, Bagsy spent the Tuesday morning's free period scribbling out a horoscope. She worked through the twelve signs, trying her best to let whatever magic she had guide her in the correct direction. When she didn't quite finish in the first free period of the day, she was relieved to remember she had one in the evening. The only downside was that, unlike her morning free period, Bagsy shared her evening one with Mezrielda, who had Arithmancy on Tuesday mornings. Bagsy liked Mezrielda being around, but Mezrielda didn't like Bagsy working with premonitions.
'You're really constructing that nonsense?' Mezrielda sniffed disapprovingly that evening.
Bagsy answered, 'If it stops people from asking me questions and gives them good guidance, I don't see the harm.'
'But, Bagsy, you don't have the sight.'
Fixing her friend with a look, Bagsy drew in a long breath. 'Can't you trust me on this? I've predicted things that came true. How do you explain that without the sight?'
'Easily. Chance,' Mezrielda responded hotly. 'How do you explain that to write this horoscope you have to chuck a bunch of leaves onto a table and hope they make a shape to tell you what to do?'
Self-consciously, Bagsy tried to push the book A Guide to Reading Leaves back into her bag. 'If it helps it helps.'
'Let's see what you've written.' Mezrielda leant over, her hair falling onto the pages of Bagsy's scribbles as she peered at them. '"You will find something of interest. Pursue what you find interesting and you may find a new hobby."' She looked at Bagsy with the expression of a charging bull. 'You can't be serious.'
'I am!'
'These are such vague predictions it would be a miracle if they didn't happen!'
'I'm just letting my sight guide me.'
'Right into a river of crocodiles, by the looks of it.' Mezrielda went back to her own seat. 'It's not that I don't want you to have fun with this, it's more that I think you're playing a dangerous game. Eventually, you'll make a prediction that won't come true, and then they'll all turn on you.'
Bagsy fumed a little at that. 'Just because they turned on you doesn't mean they'll turn on me.' When she saw the injured widening of Mezrielda's eyes, and the sheer astonishment at what Bagsy had said, guilt clawed at her belly. 'Sorry,' she said quickly. 'That was a rotten thing to say.'
'Yes,' Mezrielda said, returning to what she'd been doing; staring blankly at her homework. 'It was.'
Her guilt not leaving, and hating seeing Mezrielda look like that, Bagsy stood up. She felt a pull towards Mezrielda like her spider gloves to a wall. Slowly, she put her arms around Mezrielda, wrapping her in a hug.
Mezrielda stiffened. 'What are you doing?'
'I really am sorry,' Bagsy emphasised. 'It was a nasty thing to say, especially given everything you're having to put up with right now.'
For the briefest of moments, Mezrielda melted a little into the hug, allowing herself to relax. 'You're correct. I've had to put up with you. I can't imagine anything worse.'
'Hey!' Bagsy gasped in mock insult, letting go and moving back. Mezrielda smirked at her and Bagsy knew she'd been forgiven.
She avoided bringing up her sight around Mezrielda from then on.
By the end of the day, she'd finished multiple horoscopes for multiple months to come, and happily handed her work to Tod.
'Brilliant,' he grinned, flipping through the pages. 'Any time someone asks you for a premonition, send them the way of my paper. You get out of the spotlight, and my paper gets in. It's win-win.'
The impact was immediate. Most people stopped asking her for premonitions altogether, knowing they could read their horoscope and get it that way, and those that did ask were pointed in the direction of Witchment Enrichment.
Even if she no longer had to deal with providing premonitions, Bagsy still had to deal with her lessons with Starrett. Her next Artifisiary lesson was upon her before she was ready. Bagsy was walking to the Charms classroom after some extra quidditch practise. Trying to spin a bludger using a bat was as difficult as ever even with years of perfecting the move. Each swing was one swing closer to success, though, so she didn't mind.
The halls were lightly seasoned with students who hadn't decided if they wanted to spend their evening in the library, courtyard or common room. Two seventh year Slytherins were walking, heads bowed together, ahead of Bagsy. Annoyingly, they were taking up the entire corridor and she couldn't get by them. To make matters worse, they were moving at a snail's pace as they read Tod's newspaper.
'It's like I was saying!' one of them said to their friend. 'I've always felt a little weird in my own skin. Clearly, I'm not the only one.'
'After reading this, I think I get what you mean, now,' the other friend, a tall girl with almost white hair, responded. 'So, you want to be a girl instead of a boy, is that it?'
'Not quite,' the friend responded. 'I don't really want to be either.'
'Oh! Like Professor Fitzsimmons.'
'Exactly!'
'Cool. Gotcha. Are you changing your name, too?'
'Nah. Alex is already gender neutral. Plus, I'm used to it.'
'It's nice we have this now,' the girl with the white hair responded, giving the newspaper a shake. 'I never would've known about this stuff, otherwise.'
Alex said, 'Or about the blood mouth.'
Bagsy stopped walking. The wood of her broom, that she was holding at her side, protested as she gripped it tightly.
'I know! I can't believe the school let one in and then didn't even tell us about it! I mean, you saw Vampire Affairs. Those kinds of people are savages. It shouldn't be allowed for such things to be loose in a school.'
'Well, they did let two inferno slip through last year, remember? It's amazing no one's been killed yet, what with all the freaks the teachers seem happy with walking the corridors.'
'Do you think she drinks other student's blood?' the girl whispered. 'Like, does she wait until they fall asleep or enchant them or what?'
Bagsy dropped her broom to the floor with a clatter. Startled at the realisation that someone was listening, the two Slytherins looked back at her. Moving like a robot, Bagsy pulled her mag-net bat and ball out of the quidditch bag she had slung over her shoulder. She had her quidditch gear on, not her school robes, so she didn't have much to work with, but an ugly anger was writhing inside and it demanded to be fed.
'Can we help you?' the girl asked, giving Bagsy a judging once over.
'Isn't that the girl who plays Rose? She's good at acting but doesn't she always faint?' Alex checked. 'Or the one who tells the future?'
'All of the above, I think?'
Bagsy hit the ball. With a loud clank, it ricocheted of the wall next to the girl's head. Moving like a bouncing tennis ball, it zig zagged off one wall and onto another before narrowly missing Alex's head and clinking back onto Bagsy's bat. 'Move out of my way,' she said in a low voice.
'Alright. No need to get upset,' the girl huffed, looking miffed more than afraid. The two stepped to the side and Bagsy, snatching her stuff up from the ground, barged past them. On her way, she snatched the newspaper out of Alex's hand.
'Hey!' they protested but Bagsy ignored them and made her way to the Charms classroom, her nose in the paper as she went.
Tod had written an article on the rumours regarding Mezrielda being a blood mouth. He'd listed a few students who'd provided testimony as evidence for her and sprinkled in a tiny paragraph at the end about how it was all hearsay and no one knew for sure.
As she reached the Charms classroom Bagsy crumpled the newspaper up and threw it to the floor.
What had Tod been thinking?
Clearly, her anger was evident on her face.
'Oh, dear,' Starrett tutted as she watched Bagsy enter and throw her quidditch bag, broom and bat angrily down on one of the benches. 'What did your broom do to you?'
'Nothing,' Bagsy sulked, crossing her arms in a huff.
'This is a school. Do try and behave like it.'
Wanting to get this over and done with, Bagsy moved to the middle of the room, her quidditch boots clunking in frustration as she went.
'Drop the attitude, Miss Beetlehorn.'
'Sure.'
'Alright, if you don't want to be polite, if you want to let whatever has angered you consume your mind, then we'll have to do something different.' Starrett twiddled her red wand in her thin hands, walking over to Bagsy. 'We'll tackle a favourite of yours.' Bagsy looked at Starrett with mistrust. Starrett held her hands wide, grimacing. 'Spellcasting.'
'But–!'
'No protests. This is what you get if you behave poorly. Now, what spell do you think would be the most useful to learn how to cast?'
'Professor, there's no point. I've practised for years. I... I'm not sure I'll ever–'
'Talk like that is as welcome in my class as your tantrum was. Answer my question.'
Bagsy stamped a foot in frustration. 'But I'm telling you, it's no use. I can't do it.'
'Beetlehorn, if I ever catch you saying that word again, or stamping your foot like a two-year-old, I'll throw you out of this school myself.'
Recoiling in mild fear, Bagsy looked at Starrett. 'W-what word?'
'Can't,' Starrett clarified harshly. 'Tell me, Miss Beetlehorn, what spell do you think would be the most useful to learn?'
Bagsy fretted, realising that she was now facing a lesson of Starrett getting mad at her while she failed to cast spells. 'Lumos?'
Starrett didn't seem convinced. 'Are you sure about that?'
'Wait!' Bagsy cut in. 'No, that wouldn't be the best.' No matter what she chose, it wouldn't work, so she decided she may as well choose something more interesting. Besides, she already had a muggle torch and while it did flicker it still got the job done. 'Protego.'
'Better. Do you know the incantation and wand movement?'
'Yes.'
'Let's see it.'
Bagsy fetched her wand from her quidditch bag. She squared her shoulders, planted her feet, and razored her focus in. 'Protego!' she tried and was unsurprised when nothing happened.
Starrett, however, looked somewhat impressed. 'I must admit,' she said, as if each word pained her. 'Your incantations and wand movements have always been spot on.'
'They have?' Bagsy's heart sank. If they were perfect, then what was the problem?
Starrett began to pace. 'I'm going to ask you to do something strange. I'll need you to trust the process. Will you comply?'
With even more dread filling her than before, Bagsy gulped, but nodded.
'I want you to run up to the top of that row of benches, and then back to me.'
Bagsy stared dumbly at Professor Starrett.
'Did I stutter?' said Starrett. 'Go!'
Startling herself into action, Bagsy raced up the benches, worried Starrett would animate one of them and have it attack her.
'And again,' Starrett said when she returned. Bagsy kept running. 'What is about to happen may feel painful. It may be intense. Stay calm and know that under my supervision you will be safe.' As Starrett came to the end of her sentence Bagsy, to, came to the end of her running, reaching Starrett once more.
With a clap of her hands, Starrett looked severely at Bagsy. 'Cast it again. Right this second, Miss Beetlehorn!'
Taking a few moments to catch her breath and feel entirely confounded by the situation, Bagsy planted her feet and cast the spell. 'Protego!'
Nothing happened.
Starrett, however, seemed optimistic. 'Again. And this time, don't wait so long after you stop running to cast it.'
Bagsy spent the rest of the lesson running up and down the rows of seats. Every few laps Starrett would ask her to cast the spell and nothing would happen. Eventually, when her muscles felt like corn shredded from the cob, Starrett changed her instruction. 'Close your eyes. Imagine the spell is in your heart, or near your lungs. Imagine there are a thousand and one obstacles between it and your wand. Now take a long breath in and force it to be slow, and gently guide that magic through your body.' Bagsy was about to protest, but Starrett cut her off. 'You'll do as I say or you'll have to do all that running again.'
Huffing, but obeying, Bagsy planted her feet, took in a slow breath, and shut her eyes.
Instantly, she felt something that stuck in her brain like a thorn. It was like there was a delicate bubble in her chest trying to burst out, but the exits where too small for it to squeeze through. Taking Starrett's advice, she imaged she was carefully guiding it through her body, around obstacles and to her wand.
'Protego!'
Bagsy's feet skid across the floor as a force pushed her back. Her eyes flew open as she crouched against the weight shoving at her from her wand.
A bright blue beam of light gushed from the tip of her walnut wand and into the air where it blossomed into a turquoise shield as tall and round as a Clostra Boab.
Bagsy gaped up at it as her wand pushed her backwards, her feet sliding across the floor with its power. Overwhelmed, Bagsy lost her footing and was thrown across the room, her back hitting the furthest wall.
In her shock, she lost her focus on that feeling of a bubble inside of her, and the shield crumbled like a melting wall of ice, turning into weak mist that gathered on the floor. Leaning against the wall she'd impacted with, numbly aware that Starrett had charmed it to cushion her impact, Bagsy stood very still. She didn't dare breathe. All she could do was stare at the dissipating fog. 'But how... I don't... what even was that... Was that... was that me?'
'See,' Starrett quipped. 'It pays to follow my instruction.'