The corridors of Hogwarts were no longer safe; they had become a dark domain where Peeves reigned supreme.
His revenge spread like a plague. Every moment back in the castle became his personal carnival.
Buckets of paint were dumped with precision onto the heads of hurried prefects.
The range of the vanishing stairs was deliberately expanded.
The corridors were constantly smeared with sticky mud.
Suits of armor were stuffed with captured goblins, clanking noisily throughout the night.
Apart from the Bloody Baron, all ghosts were subjected to Peeves's relentless harassment with bits of chalk.
The young wizards complained bitterly, and Filch was beside himself with rage.
Peeves's shrill laughter echoed through every corner of the castle, like a madman who had just escaped confinement.
Sagres came upon this chaos in a secluded corridor.
Peeves floated in midair, putting the finishing touches on a portrait of a sleeping nun.
He held a piece of blue cheese stolen from the kitchen, gleefully smearing it across the canvas. The pungent, sour smell mixed with the vulgar songs he composed on the spot, echoing down the corridor.
Sagres said nothing, raising his wand silently.
A dark red surge of magic erupted at once, coiling around Peeves's legs like a venomous serpent.
Peeves's laughter stopped abruptly. He struggled wildly, his small, malicious eyes darting about in panic.
Sagres stepped forward slowly, watching the bound poltergeist in silence.
The moment Peeves saw him, his mouth spewed a torrent of vile curses and insults at astonishing speed.
Mixed within were crude slanders and insults directed at Sagres's family and his origins.
"I'll shove your gutter-bred, stinking face into a troll's—"
The stream of abuse cut off abruptly as Sagres produced a familiar crystal vial.
Peeves's pupils shrank in terror. He struggled desperately, but the powerful magic suppressed every ounce of his strength.
"It seems your last experience taught you nothing, Peeves."
Sagres's voice was calm. "Your behavior remains nothing more than chaotic destruction. Apart from creating noise and disorder, it serves no purpose."
"Let me go! You black-hearted freak, a cross between a Mudblood and an Inferi! What do you want to do to the great Lord Peeves this time?!"
Peeves shrieked, though the tremor in his voice betrayed his fear.
"Endless repetition bores me. So I will give you two choices. This is my final act of mercy."
He raised the crystal vial, pointing its opening at Peeves.
"First," Sagres said calmly, "I will permanently seal you and send you to Mr. Lyle Lupin. At the same time, I will assist him in extracting your core consciousness and linking it to a perpetual magic-draining array."
As Sagres described it, Peeves's face gradually paled.
"Every trace of your energy will be slowly drained, becoming nourishment for magical instruments, until the end of time."
Peeves's curses immediately turned into terrified whimpers.
After their previous encounter, the name Lyle Lupin had become as frightening to him as the Bloody Baron.
And Sagres did not appear to be joking.
"Second," Sagres continued, "I will confine you within the stone monument replica in the dueling arena. You will become one of its 'random variables.'"
"You will be able to appear randomly within the replicas, creating trouble and increasing the difficulty for students in every way you can imagine."
Peeves stopped struggling. The malicious gleam in his small eyes gradually shifted into curiosity.
Being able to cause trouble for those annoying young wizards… and legally, at that. That sounded…
"Of course," Sagres's voice cut through his thoughts, "all your actions will be monitored and restricted. You will not be able to leave the range of the replica, nor will you be allowed to cause real harm to students. Your purpose will be to test and train their ability to adapt in real situations."
He raised his wand slightly, as if ready to carry out the first option at any moment. "So, what is your choice?"
Peeves did not hesitate.
The fear of losing his freedom and becoming an experimental subject overwhelmed everything else.
"The second! I choose the second! Lord Peeves wants to stay at Hogwarts! Let me go, you—"
He never finished the sentence.
Sagres flicked his wand, and the invisible force surrounding Peeves tightened, compressing him into a distorted, semi-transparent grey shadow that was sucked into the crystal vial with a sharp whoosh.
The stopper sealed itself automatically. Peeves thrashed and cursed inside, but his voice was completely muffled, leaving only a faint, blurred shadow.
"Remember your choice," Sagres said calmly. "And I sincerely hope you will be more cooperative when you are integrated into the stone monument."
That night, Hogwarts's dueling replica system underwent a silent update.
From then on, students who challenged the replicas would not only face powerful magical constructs and intricately designed trials, but would occasionally encounter some extremely troublesome new "situations."
Teammates who had been painstakingly gathered would suddenly be separated by a prank smoke bomb. A slippery trap would appear out of nowhere on the crucial path to victory. A bucket of ice water would suddenly pour over their heads while they were in the middle of casting a spell…
At first, Peeves enjoyed it for a while.
Watching those young wizards panic and stumble under his tricks seemed to nourish his confined spirit.
The students suffered miserably. Cursing "Peeves in the replica" became a routine before every challenge.
However, they gradually realized that while Peeves in the replica was still troublesome, some of his abilities had been stripped away.
He could no longer freely pass through walls as he did in the corridors, and their spells could now truly affect and even capture the troublesome poltergeist.
The turning point came with the appearance of a new side objective on the stone monument—Punish Peeves, the Disruptor.
In a replica jointly challenged by Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, Peeves attempted his usual trick, preparing to drench the team with a large bucket of sticky mud.
But just as he tipped the bucket, Cedric, who was leading the group, deftly stepped aside. At the same time, he pointed his wand backward and cast quickly:
"Repello!"
It was a simple deflection spell, but the timing and angle were perfect.
The bucket of foul mud struck what seemed like an invisible elastic barrier and rebounded even faster, splashing all over Peeves from head to toe.
Peeves froze in disbelief.
Sticky mud dripped from his pointed hat, and the stench was overwhelming.
He could hardly believe what had just happened.
The Ravenclaw girl in the group flicked her wand, and several bands of light shot out, coiling around him like nimble snakes, instantly binding Peeves into a mud-soaked bundle.
"Descendo!" Cedric followed up immediately.
Peeves lost his ability to float at once. With a shriek, he crashed heavily onto the cold ground.
The rest of the team reacted swiftly. Several more binding spells struck him, tying him up tightly like a wriggling worm.
Peeves cursed and struggled on the ground. At that moment, several iridescent bubbles, shimmering with a dangerous glow, drifted toward him from different directions.
He instinctively tried to squirm away, but the bubbles were faster than the bound "worm." One by one, they touched him and burst silently.
Instantly, an unbearable, intense itch spread across Peeves's entire body.
He twisted frantically, trying to relieve it by wriggling across the ground, letting out shrill cries that were half laughter, half agony. "Ow! Haha! No! Stop—hahaha—stop! Lord Peeves is so itchy!"
The young wizards gathered around, their faces lit with triumphant smiles.
"It seems we were right," the Ravenclaw girl adjusted her glasses. "The replica rules do restrict him, and our magic can affect him."
"So the 'Punish Peeves, the Disruptor' quest gives extra points, right?" another Hufflepuff student guessed eagerly.
From that day on, Peeves's life within the replica changed completely.
He was no longer the nightmare that made young wizards blanch at the mention of his name. Instead, he became an entertaining special challenge event, and the universally acknowledged "best punching bag" among all teams.
Students even began forming Anti-Peeves Strategy Groups, sharing capture methods and creative spells.
The Gryffindor Weasley twins devoted themselves to inventing new counter-items: Itchy Bubbles, Stink Bombs, Color-Changing Ink Spray. Peeves became their most popular, and most miserable, test subject.
Other students also delighted in using all kinds of ridiculous spells on him.
Peeves would often discover, to his horror, that he had suddenly grown a pair of enormous donkey ears that flapped nonstop, or had been frozen midair by a thick layer of ice, becoming the subject of everyone's laughter. Some even magically added ugly tattoos and absurd women's clothing to him for a time.
His screams and curses remained part of the replica's background noise, but the emotion behind them had long since shifted from arrogance and smugness to pure frustration and fury.
"Don't steal Lord Peeves's hat!"
"Let go! Lord Peeves is not your practice target for the Levitation Charm! Ow!"
"That's my trap! You thieves! Scoundrels!"
"Greengrass! Professor Greengrass! Let me out! I want the first option! Send me to Lupin!"
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