Magic dragon the dragonstone

There, look.”
“Where?”
“Next to the tall Griffin with the blue and yellow fur.”

“Wearing the glasses?”
“Did you see his face?” “
Did you see his scar?”

Whispers followed Spike from the moment he left his dormitory the next day. Creatures lining up outside classrooms stood on tiptoe and hoovfs to get a look at him, or doubled back to pass him in the corridors again, staring. Spike wished they wouldn’t, because he was trying to concentrate on finding his way to classes.

There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Celestia School: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. Then there were doors that wouldn’t open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren’t really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot. The creatures in the portraits kept going to visit each other, and Spike was sure the coats of armor could walk.

The ghosts didn’t help, either. It was always a nasty shock when one of them glided suddenly through a door you were trying to open. Nearly Headless Blue Blood was always happy to point new Manticorears in the right direction, but Discord the Spirit of chaos was worth two locked doors and a trick staircase if you met him when you were late for class. He would drop wastepaper baskets on your head, pull rugs from under your feet, pelt you with bits of chalk, or sneak up behind you, invisible, grab your nose, and screech, “GOT YOUR CONK!”

Even worse than Discord, if that was possible, was the caretaker, Cranky Doodle Donkey. Spike and Gallus managed to get on the wrong side of him on their very first morning. Cranky Doodle Donkey found them trying to force their way through a door that unluckily turned out to be the entrance to the out-of-bounds corridor on the third floor. He wouldn’t believe they were lost, was sure they were trying to break into it on purpose, and was threatening to lock them in the dungeons when they were rescued by Professor Rover, who was passing.

Cranky Doodle Donkey owned a cat called Steven Magnet, a scrawny, purple and orange-colored creature with bulging, lamplike eyes just like Cranky Doodle Donkey’s. He patrolled the corridors alone. Break a rule in front of him, put just one toe out of line, and he’d whisk off for Cranky Doodle Donkey, who’d appear, wheezing, two seconds later. Cranky Doodle Donkey knew the secret passageways of the school better than anyone (except perhaps the Gruff twins) and could pop up as suddenly as any of the ghosts. The students all hated him, and it was the dearest ambition of many to give Steve Magnet a good kick.

And then, once you hadmanaged to find them, there were the classes themselves. There was a lot more to magic, as Spike quickly found out, than waving your wand and saying a few funny words.

They had to study the night skies through their telescopes every Wednesday at midnight and learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets. Three times a week they went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology, with a tall athletic country mare called Professor Applejack, where they learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi, and found out what they were used for.

Easily the most boring class was History of Magic, which was the only one taught by a ghost. Professor princess Platinum had been very old indeed when she had fallen asleep in front of the staffroom fire and got up next morning to teach, leaving her body behind her. Princess Platinum droned on and on while they scribbled down names and dates, and got wendigos the Evil and King Sombra the Nightmare Moon mixed up.

Professor Twilight Sparkle, the Charms teacher, was a purple alicorn who had to stand on a pile of books to see over her desk. At the start of their first class she took the roll call, and when she reached Spike’s name she gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight.

Professor Granny was again different. Spike had been quite right to think she wasn’t a teacher to cross. Strict and clever, she gave them a talking-to the moment they sat down in her first class.

“Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Celestia School,” she said. “Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned.”

Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. They were all very impressed and couldn’t wait to get started, but soon realized they weren’t going to be changing the furniture into animals for a long time. After taking a lot of complicated notes, they were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle. By the end of the lesson, only Yona yaker had made any difference to her match; Professor Granny Smith showed the class how it had gone all silver and pointy and gave Yona a rare smile.

The class everyone had really been looking forward to was Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Rover’s lessons turned out to be a bit of a joke. His classroom smelled strongly of garlic, which everyone said was to ward off a vampire he’d met in Romaniapony and was afraid would be coming back to get him one of these days. His turban, he told them, had been given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but they weren’t sure they believed this story. For one thing, when Feather Bangs Fmasked eagerly to hear how Rover had fought off the zombie, Rover went pink and started talking about the weather; for another, they had noticed that a funny smell hung around the turban, and the Gruff twins insisted that it was stuffed full of garlic as well, so that Rover was protected wherever he went.

Spike was very relieved to find out that he wasn’t miles behind everyone else. Lots of creatures had come from Muggle families and, like him, hadn’t had any idea that they were magic creatures. There was so much to learn that even creatures like Gallus didn’t have much of a head start.

Friday was an important day for Spike and Gallus. They finally managed to find their way down to the Great Hall for breakfast without getting lost once.

“What have we got today?” Spike asked Gallus as he poured sugar on his porridge.

“Double Potions with the Cockatriceas,” said Gallus. “Torch’s Head of Cockatricea House. They say he always favors them we’ll be able to see if it’s true.”

“Wish Granny Smith favored us,” said Spike. Professor Granny Smith was head of Manticorear House, but it hadn’t stopped her from giving them a huge pile of homework the day before.

Just then, the mail arrived. Spike had gotten used to this by now, but it had given him a bit of a shock on the first morning, when about a hundred owls had suddenly streamed into the Great Hall during breakfast, circling the tables until they saw their owners, and dropping letters and packages onto their laps.

Pee-wee hadn’t brought Spike anything so far. he sometimes flew in to nibble his ear and have a bit of toast before going off to sleep in the owlery with the other school birds. This morning, however, he fluttered down between the marmalade and the sugar bowl and dropped a note onto Spike’s plate. Spike tore it open at once. It said, in a very untidy scrawl:

Dear Spike,

I know you get Friday afternoons off, so would you like to come and have a cup of tea with me around three? I want to hear all about your first week. Send us an answer back with pee wee. Rutherford

Spike borrowed Gallus’s quill, scribbled Yes, please, see you later on the back of the note, and sent pee wee off again. It was lucky that Spike had tea with Rutherford to look forward to, because the Potions lesson turned out to be the worst thing that had happened to him so far.

At the start-of-term banquet, Spike had gotten the idea that Professor Torch disliked him. By the end of the first Potions lesson, he knew he’d been wrong. Torch didn’t dislike Spike he hated him.

Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons. It was colder here than up in the main castle, and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls.

Torch like Twlight Sparkle, started the class by taking the roll call, and like Twlight Sparkle, he paused at Spike’s name.

“Ah, yes,” he said softly, “Spike Drago. Our new celebrity.”

Garble and his friends Crackle and Steam sniggered behind their hands. Torch finished calling the names and looked up at the class. His eyes were black like Rutherford’s, but they had none of Rutherford’s warmth. They were cold and empty and made you think of dark tunnels.

“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making,” he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word like Professor Granny Smith, Torch had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. “As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through magic creatures veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses. . . . I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death if you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.”

More silence followed this little speech. Spike and Gallus exchanged looks with raised eyebrows. Yona Yaker was on the edge of her seat and looked desperate to start proving that she wasn’t a dunderhead.

“Potter!” said Snape suddenly. “What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of lionwood?”

Powdered root of what to an infusion of what? Spike glanced at Gallus, who looked as stumped as he was; Yona’s hoof had shot into the air.

“I don’t know, sir,” said Spike.
Torch’s lips curled into a sneer.
“Tut, tut — fame clearly isn’t everything.”
He ignored Yona’s hoof.

“Let’s try again. Drago, where would you look if I told you to find me a beebear?”

Yona stretched her hoof as high into the air as it would go without her leaving her seat, but Spike didn’t have the faintest idea what a beebear was. He tried not to look at Garble, Crackle, and Steam, who were shaking with laughter.

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Thought you wouldn’t open a book before coming, eh, Drago?”

Spike forced himself to keep looking straight into those cold eyes. He had looked through his books at the Riders’, but did Torch expect him to remember everything in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi?

Torch was still ignoring Yona’s quivering hoof.

“What is the difference, Drago, between monkshood and wolfsbane?”

At this, Yona stood up, her hoof stretching toward the dungeon ceiling. “I don’t know,” said Spike quietly. “I think Yona does, though, why don’t you try her?” A few creatures laughed; Spike caught Feather Bangs’s eye, and Feather Bangs winked. Torch, however, was not pleased. “Sit down,” he snapped at Yona. “For your information, Drago, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren’t you all copying that down?”

There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. Over the noise, Torch said, “And a point will be taken from Manticorea's House for your cheek, Drago.”

Things didn’t improve for the Manticorears as the Potions lesson continued. Torch put them all into pairs and set them to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils. He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone except Garble, whom he seemed to like. He was just telling everyone to look at the perfect way Garble had stewed his horned slugs when clouds of acid green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon. If squeak had somehow managed to melt Feather Bangs’s cauldron into a twisted blob, and their potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in creatures’s shoes. Within seconds, the whole class was standing on their stools while pipsqueak, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs.

“Idiot colt!” snarled Torch, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand. “I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?”

Pipsqueak whimpered as boils started to pop up all over his nose.

“Take him up to the hospital wing,” Torch spat at Feather Bangs. Then he rounded on Spike and Gallus, who had been working next to Pipsqueak.

“You Drago why didn’t you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he’d make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That’s another point you’ve lost for Manticorear.”

This was so unfair that Spike opened his mouth to argue, but Gallus kicked him behind their cauldron.

“Don’t push it,” he muttered, “I’ve heard Torch can turn very nasty.”

As they climbed the steps out of the dungeon an hour later, Spike’s mind was racing and his spirits were low. He’d lost two points for Manticorear in his very first week why did Torch hate him so much?

“Cheer up,” said Gallus, “Torch’s always taking points off Gilda and Feather. Can I come and meet Rutherford with you?” At five to three they left the castle and made their way across the grounds. Rutherford lived in a small wooden house on the edge of the everfree forest. A crossbow and a pair of galoshes were outside the front door.

When Spike knocked they heard a frantic scrabbling from inside and several booming barks. Then Rutherford’s voice rang out, saying, “Back, orthros back.”

Rutherford’s big, hairy face appeared in the crack as he pulled the door open.

“Hang on,” he said. “Back, orthros.”

He let them in, struggling to keep a hold on the collar of an enormous Brown two-headed dog.

There was only one room inside. Hams and pheasants were hanging from the ceiling, a copper kettle was boiling on the open fire, and in the corner stood a massive bed with a patchwork quilt over it.

“Make yerselves at home,” said Rutherford, letting go of orthros , who bounded straight at Gallus and started licking his ears. Like Rutherford, orthros was clearly not as fierce as he looked.

“This is Gallus,” Spike told Rutherford, who was pouring boiling water into a large teapot and putting rock cakes onto a plate.

“Another Gruff, eh?” said Rutherford, glancing at Gallus’s blue feathers. “I spent half me life chasin’ yer twin sisters away from the forest.”

The rock cakes were shapeless lumps with raisins that almost broke their teeth, but Spike and Gallus pretended to be enjoying them as they told Rutherford all about their first lessons.
orthros rested his heads on Spike’s knee and drooled all over his robes.

Spike and Gallus were delighted to hear Rutherford call Cranky Doodle Donkey “that old git.”

“An’ as fer that cat, Steven Magnet, I’d like ter introduce her to orthros sometime. D’yeh know, every time I go up ter the school, he follows me everywhere? Can’t get rid of him — Cranky Doodle Donkey puts him up to it.”

Spike told Rutherford about Torch’s lesson. Rutherford, like Gallus, told Spike not to worry about it, that Torch liked hardly any of the students.

“But he seemed to really hate me.”
“Rubbish!” said Rutherford. “Why should he?”

Yet Spike couldn’t help thinking that Rutherford didn’t quite meet his eyes when he said that.

“How’s yer sister Coraline?” Rutherford asked Gallus. “I liked her a lot great with animals.”

Spike wondered if Rutherford had changed the subject on purpose. While Gallus told Rutherford all about Coraline’s work with dragons, Spike picked up a piece of paper that was lying on the table under the tea cozy. It was a cutting from the Daily Prophet:

NIGHTMARE ZONE BREAK-IN LATEST

Investigations continue into the break-in at nightmare zone on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of Dark creatures unknown. Nightmare zones bat ponies today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day. “But we’re not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out if you know what’s good for you,” said a Nightmare zone spokes bat pony this afternoon.

Spike remembered Gallus telling him on the train that someone had tried to rob Nightmare zone, but Gallus hadn’t mentioned the date.

“Rutherford!” said Spike, “that Nightmare zone break-in happened on my birthday! It might’ve been happening while we were there!”

There was no doubt about it, Rutherford definitely didn’t meet Spike’s eyes this time. He grunted and offered him another rock cake. Spike read the story again. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied earlier that same day. Rutherford had emptied vault seven hundred and thirteen, if you could call it emptying, taking out that grubby little package. Had that been what the thieves were looking for?

As Spike and Gallus walked back to the castle for dinner, their pockets weighed down with rock cakes they’d been too polite to refuse, Spike thought that none of the lessons he’d had so far had given him as much to think about as tea with Rutherford. Had Rutherford collected that package just in time? Where was it now? And did Rutherford know something about Torch that he didn’t want to tell Spike?

To be continued