Chapter:23 Peeves' Revenge

"So let me get this straight,"

Said Charlie while pointing his fork, a piece of apple still stuck to its spikes, at the twins, 

"You two dunderheads went off on a night tour on your first day, well that's a bit of a stretch, first evening at Hogwarts,"

One of the twins shook his head while the other nodded,

"Somehow ended up on the sixth floor,"

He droned on,

"Found Peeves' secret stash of joke items,"

Proud, the twins beamed simultaneously,

"Attempted to rob him by switching out the number plates of the rooms with another corridor's classrooms,"

One of the twins raised his hand,

"Uh-uh, borrow. We attempted to borrow his stash. Of course, without the knowledge of the owner."

"Bloody brilliant plan too if you ask me."

"Shut your mouths will ya."

Groaned Charlie before continuing,

"And during your act of supposed 'Borrowing,' you encountered Filch's cat,"

The twins exchanged a rather peculiar, irritated expression, which was mirrored by many of the listeners.

"And in your attempt to escape, you stumbled across Professor Flitwick."

Another nod,

"This unfortunate encounter led to you two climbing the staircase where you were caught by Professor Vector,"

A sad look was exchanged between them,

"Professor Vector, Professor Flitwick, and Filch caught you two and questioned about the curfew of which you denied any knowledge,"

A grunt came from the right-hand side of the crowd where an oddly human-shaped drop of sparkling slime was slumped on the table. 

"So the professors sent Filch to retrieve Charlotte, who, upon reaching the location agreed to meet on, encountering a very angry Peeves,"

The slime shuddered,

"And so you six spent half the night escaping Peeves."

The twins nodded their heads sadly while the sparkling slime sobbed,

"Why didn't you bring me along!"

Charlie expressed his dissatisfaction only for his sentence to end in a twitch as his girlfriend stomped on his foot.

Isabella, after having disciplined her boyfriend, slid near the sloppy pile that was Charlotte and attempted to soothe her only for the poor girl to burst into an even more uncontrollable wailing. 

McGonagall glanced over at the Gryffindor table and her eyes fell upon the sparkling bob and she sighed sadly.

Peeves had used a magical superglue, multiplying glitter sand, and a unicorn's saliva to create an almost uncleanable slime that he promptly dropped over the poor girl. At first, it was only a droplet but when she used a cleaning charm on it, the smile multiplied and covered half her body. Flitwick made a similar attempt only for it to cover her whole body. 

Madam Pomfrey also attempted to clean the slime but it fell out of her area of expertise and all she could do was to make sure that Charlotte could at least breathe properly. 

"Did you try and burn it?"

Asked a curious first-year,

"No, the fire would have roasted her alive."

Said Fred in an unapologetic tone.

It may have been her fault for not mentioning the curfew, but that was the duty of another student, who was currently lying in the Hospital Wing straddling his broken sides. 

"Then what about cutting it off?"

asked an interested second year only to get the same answer,

'As of yet, there was nothing the professors could do to free the poor girl from her slimy prison.' 

After breakfast, Victoire began exploring the castle, accompanied by Angelina, Alicia, and the Weasley twins, she managed to pinpoint the location of most of her classrooms except for the astronomy tower which was off-limits to the students unless accompanied by a teacher.

They even found the damp and gloomy classroom allocated for potions class. But they had a bad feeling about it and decided to return to the Great Hall. 

Fred and George bolted up the staircase while Victoire, Angelina, and Alicia were to follow after them. However,

"What are you lot doing here?"

Asked a sneering voice from behind the group of friends,

Turning around, Victoire saw that the voice came from a bulking kid their age. 

How did she know his age? Well, there was his height, and she had seen his ugly face during the sorting ceremony.

"Nothing zat might 'ave offended you, Montague."

She was not in the mood to fight, not to mention that the dungeon was, in a way, 'Slytherin Turf' with their 'Big Boss' Professor Snape right behind one of these wooden doors, waiting for any sign of commotion so he could come out and deduct points off of other houses. 

 "'zat might 'ave offended me'"

Mimicked the boy in a funny tone that seemed to amuse his companions. Behind Montague, stood two more first years whom Victoire recognized as Sebastian Blackwood and Tobias Flint. 

They too chortled as if his mimicking was something to be amused by.

'Keep it cool, no need for a bloodbath on the first morning.'

She tried to keep her head cool and turned around to walk away from the fight.

"Gryffindor, huh? More like Gryffin-bore. You're not even a proper witch!"

Montague continued hurtling insults at her as she quickly walked towards the stairs leading up into the main corridor. She felt the need to cool off before she accidentally killed someone.

"I've heard Veelas can't help themselves around men. Is that why you're here?"

This one might have been a bit over the top. 

Alicia, who was dragging off Angelina with her, turned to stare at Montague. She gave the boy a dirty look before saying,

"Don't listen to him Tory, you are twice the wizard/witch he could ever be."

It appears that Montague didn't take well to being on the receiving side of an insult, his gaze shifted from Victoire who had stopped in her tracks to Alicia who was sending him a seething glare. 

"Look who's come to the damsel's rescue, the filthy little half-blood. Your mum charmed any muggle tramp recently?"

He was referring to Alicia's father. She had a much worse story than most of the half-bloods in the school.

Her mother was the last descendent of a pure-blood family that didn't take the dark lord's side, as a result, her husband's company in the muggle world went bankrupt due to the Deatheater's intervention and soon he was drowning in depth. Her mum tried to lighten his burden by exposing him to the magical community but all it did was strain their relationship and ultimately, he committed suicide. 

Poor Alicia saw the body of her father hanging from the ceiling at the tender age of three. 

" 'Poor Ali is getting a new daddy' "

Montague said in a horrible singsong manner that seemed to drain all the blood from Alicia's face. 

Now it was Angelina trying to drag her toward the stairs.

Thankfully, Fred and George had climbed the stairs just before Montague appeared or else they would already be bashing each other's head in.

"Hey Dirt-blood, watch out for that Veela friend of yours, heard they bring loads of boys into their dorm at Beauxbaton. Or maybe you can join in sometimes."

Now that does it. She might be patient but he was going too far.

Victoire no longer cared if Snape was staring at them or not, she simply wanted to make these bastards hurt a bit, nothing severe but she would make sure they regret it.

And before anyone could react or even let out a peep, Victoire whirled around, her wand in her hand and a flash of light hit the trio of Slytherin even before the incantation sounded left her lips.

"Langlock!"

The trio didn't even react till their tongues were sticking to the roof of their mouths. 

Silencing them was merely the first step of her revenge. Before the other two girls could even react she had already shot a couple more spells at the fumbling Slytherins,

"Glabrus Calvus! Fulgur Fumus! Adhaerofix!"

The first spell was a simple make-up charm that removed any excess hair on one's body. However, when used offensively, the spell acted like a sharp razor and shaved the Slytherin trio's head and eyebrows.

The second spell was a distraction spell, or maybe a conjuring charm, with a multitude of uses. It conjures a burst of charcoal dust usually used to set fire to a large area or as a getaway preparation. But in their case, the charcoal dust painted them black, making them look like a moving lump of charcoal. 

Now, it was the third spell that was meant as a punishment for the trio. It was a variant of the Anchoring charm, sticking objects to something directly above their heads instead of below. 

However, the spell was quite dangerous when performed in an open space. For example, if someone performed the spell on another person out on the lawn, then the caster would die of severe exhaustion, and the victim would keep flying upwards until the caster was dead. It meant that there was not yet a counter-curse invented for it and that the spell drained energy until it stuck the intended victim to the object overhead be it the ceiling of a room or the moon itself.

But inside the dungeon, the spell merely stuck the three bullies to the ceiling and would do so for the next twelve hours until someone unstuck them.

Satisfied, Victoire turned to look at her two friends giving her a strange look, almost as though what she did was unusual for her. Well, it was since most of the time she was either quietly reading or simply listening to others and therefore this sudden outburst came as quite a bit of a shock.

"What's the holdup?"

Came the voice of Fred as he peeked over the stairs and spotted the three girls standing at the foot of the stairs,

"Coming."

Shouted back Angelina as she dragged the two girls behind her.

***

Moments after they were gone, one of the dungeon doors was pushed open, and a rather annoyed-looking Snape strode out of a dimly lit room. 

This was his favorite ambush spot, all the students had to pass by this place if they wanted to reach the potions classroom and he made full use of the fact that the Slytherin common room was not far from here.

He would hide in one of the rooms and whenever an argument or row erupted in the corridor, he would stride out and begin deducting points like it was no one's business.

Today too was one such leisure day of his life, it was barely the beginning of the term and he had already deducted seven points from Gryffindor and another five points from Ravenclaw. It appears that this year too, the house cup would make for a nice decoration in his office. 

However, he couldn't help but feel as though he had just missed a big fish. An odd feeling to have on such a fine, gloomy day. Before he could enter another room, his stomach made a sudden grumbling sound and he thought it prudent to recover his strength before returning to his work. 

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As you might have noticed, I am reducing the chapter length from 3k words to a minimum of 1.5k with no limit. This decision was due to my studies.

Anyways, you can read 3 chapters ahead on my Patreon at:

https://patreon.com/user?u=96555942

Well, you can always wait for around 24 hours to read another chapter. Also, in December, I would post chapters on alternate days.