How It All Goes Down
Boggarts and Witches
- Tom and the Spook head toward the Spook's house on the outskirts of Chipenden.
- When they arrive, the front gate opens all by itself, and there's a huge spread of hot, delicious food waiting for them in the kitchen.
- The Spook sends Tom to bed after they eat. Since this is the Spook we're talking about, of course he has a warning: "You'll hear a bell ring when breakfast's ready. […] Don't come down too early either" (5.39).
- Tom thinks his bedroom is pretty nice, although he's not sure what to make of the big Wall o' Names on one side of the room. It seems like the Spook has had more apprentices (apprentii?) than Donald Trump.
- The last name on the wall is Billy Bradley. Before drifting off to sleep, Tom wonders what could have happened to Billy Bradley...
- In the morning, Tom isn't sure if he's heard the breakfast bell or not, so he heads down anyway.
- Uh oh. The bell hasn't rung yet, and something invisible wallops him on the back of the head. The Spook comes downstairs and tells Tom that he needs to learn an important lesson: "the difference between waking and dreaming" (5.59).
- After breakfast, the Spook shows Tom around the grounds. He sees lovely sights, like the garden and the witch graves.
- Wait. Witch graves? That's right, the Spook has a handful of witches buried around the property. One's dead and one's still alive, buried head down so she can't get out.
- The upside-down, live witch's name is Mother Malkin. And she's "just about as evil as you can get" (5.80).
- In the Southern Garden, the Spook shows Tom a grade one boggart that has been artificially bound to a rock. While we're not sure exactly what that means, we do know this: stay away from that rock.
- The Spook also reveals that "one of [his] apprentices got into serious trouble trying to bind a boggart" (5.91). Hm. Sounds like foreshadowing to us.