The Fat Friar's voice was soft, but it carried through the crowd of ghosts. Several spirits looked away, sorrow flickering in their translucent eyes.
Douglas let out a quiet sigh. In moments like this, what comfort could he offer? The living and the dead walked separate roads—he couldn't even give a simple hug.
He turned to Peeves, who was still howling, tied up like a ball.
"Peeves, I distinctly recall telling you that my private supplies in the kitchen are off-limits!"
Peeves shot back, stubborn as ever,
"I didn't!
That was unwanted stuff!
Stinky stuff!
The agreement says I can—"
Douglas cut him off with a cold snort.
"Hmph! That 'stinky stuff' was brine I painstakingly brewed for stinky tofu—a culinary masterpiece in the making. Every house-elf in the kitchen knows I use magic to ferment it daily. It was almost ready, and now you've ruined it. All that effort wasted… And now you've gone and splashed it all over my office door.
Let's not forget—I'm a Professor at Hogwarts now.
Not a student."
The last line was aimed squarely at the watching ghosts. Peeves tormenting students was one thing; provoking a professor was quite another.
Peeves tried to wriggle out of it,
"It wasn't on purpose!
I was aiming at those two brats…
You broke the agreement by attacking me…
I'm going to tell the Professor Boss on you..."
Filch bellowed, voice ragged from retching,
"Don't believe a word out of his mouth, Professor Holmes! Use the Peeves Banishment Charm—quickly!"
The moment he said it, every ghost—and every living soul—turned to stare at him.
The ghosts' eyes burned with fury. The castle filled with their angry shouts:
"Shut up, you fool!"
Then, as if realizing their own volume, the ghosts looked anxiously at Douglas, many with pleading in their gaze—terrified he might actually listen to Filch.
Filch shrank under the weight of a hundred furious spirits, the air around him growing icy cold. Even the stinking water dripping from his robes seemed to freeze.
Huddled under their makeshift tent, the Weasley twins shivered, not daring to make a sound—this was far juicier than any nighttime adventure. They'd always wondered about the real story between the Professor and Peeves. Now, they realized even the ghosts seemed to bear a grudge against Douglas. No wonder, when students asked about his school days, the ghosts always dodged the question or made a hasty retreat.
Tonight, detention in Professor Holmes's office was proving far more entertaining than a midnight stroll. Just listen to what they'd learned:
A non-provocation pact between Peeves and the Professor…
The Immortal-Binding Rope Curse—which could tie Peeves into a peach-shaped bundle…
And now, the mysterious Peeves Banishment Charm—they'd never heard of it before, but it sounded absolutely legendary!
Douglas shot Filch a look of exasperation. Was he trying to remind the ghosts of that incident on purpose?
He turned back to Peeves.
"Tsk, tsk. Who'd have thought you'd learn to exploit loopholes, Peeves? So, as long as you're not 'deliberate,' it's not provocation? What a clever little dodge."
Peeves puffed himself up, a hint of pride in his voice.
"Anyway, I didn't break the agreement! See? The contract didn't backfire on me..."
Douglas's eyes narrowed in disdain.
"Peeves, I doubt you ever read the fine print. The agreement said: '…while enrolled as a student, will not actively seek conflict with Peeves, nor transfer or sell the Peeves Banishment Charm or any similar product or spell to others…'
I'm sorry to say, the moment I graduated, that contract expired."
He'd anticipated Peeves's little trick years ago, when he first drafted the contract. Even Dumbledore, who'd served as witness and guarantor, hadn't found fault with that clause.
Peeves froze, then let out a wail of pure despair.
"Devil… liar…"
The Weasley twins stared, awestruck. How had he been so brilliant as a student? Their own mischief seemed paltry in comparison.
But it was the ghosts who truly panicked. The expiration of the pact meant the Peeves Banishment Charm could return to Hogwarts. For Peeves, it meant being trapped. For the ghosts, it meant real, tangible harm.
This was the root of their enmity toward Douglas—he'd invented something that could hurt ghosts without the need for powerful Dark Magic.
Back in his school days, Douglas had produced dozens of Peeves Banishment Charms and sold them to students. At first, they were just a way to fight back against Peeves's pranks. But one day, some student with a "brilliant" idea had thrown one at Moaning Myrtle, trapping her in midair outside the girls' bathroom, wailing non-stop.
That day, students discovered a whole new world—by nightfall, ghosts all over Hogwarts had suffered varying degrees of injury.
The final straw came when someone used the charm on Professor Binns, the ghostly History of Magic teacher. His body's transparency dropped by half, and for the first time in Hogwarts history, History of Magic was canceled for a month due to the professor's "personal reasons."
Dumbledore himself had intervened, forbidding Douglas from ever selling such charms again. Douglas agreed on the spot, and even proposed a peace treaty with Peeves.
From then on, Hogwarts's ghosts regarded him with a mixture of fear and resentment. As Sir Nicholas once put it, ghosts were those too afraid of death to move on, lingering as mere shadows in the world—existing in the most meager way possible.
(Not all ghosts become ghosts out of fear; only wizards can choose to linger, and some stay for other reasons.)
But the day ordinary wizards could harm ghosts, panic spread through their ranks.
Douglas's school years had been the ghosts' most miserable era. They'd finally breathed a sigh of relief when he graduated—only for him to return three years later.
They'd hoped to simply ignore him, keep their distance, and survive the year in silence. But now, seeing him wield his ghost-harming magic again—and hearing that the old agreement had lapsed—unease and fear swept through the spectral crowd.
Some ghosts were already contemplating fleeing Hogwarts for a year, though none knew where else to go.
Under the bedsheet, the twins exchanged glances.
"Genius, that's what he is!"
"A legend!"
"He's got Peeves running scared!"
"Makes our little blunders look like nothing!"
Then George whispered,
"Fred, do you reckon that rule about not throwing charms at ghosts has anything to do with the Professor?"
"George, look at those ghosts—they're practically begging him to recite the rule to their faces!"
Douglas could feel the temperature in the corridor drop as the ghosts' fear spread.
He turned to the Fat Friar, but his words were for all the ghosts:
"Friar, I am a Professor of Hogwarts—a part of this school. As a Hogwarts Professor, I promise you: no student, or professor, will ever get hold of charms I've created. And I give you my word: during my tenure, I will never use that spell on any ghost except Peeves. You know as well as I do—the last time was just an accident..."
The Fat Friar nodded, muttering,
"I know, I know. I've always told them you never meant harm to the ghosts."
Only Peeves kept wailing, "Why me?!"
The other ghosts, hearing Douglas's promise, could only accept it. The power was in his hands—at least he'd sworn as a Professor. They couldn't exactly force him to make an Unbreakable Vow not to teach the spell to anyone else, no matter how much they wished he would.
It was all Peeves's fault, really—always provoking trouble he couldn't handle.
At that moment, a cold voice rang out from the far end of the corridor:
"Langlock!"
A jet of magic shot toward Peeves, and his howling stopped short.
The newcomer sneered at Douglas:
"Professor Holmes, this is your idea of night patrol?
A hundred ghosts gathered in one place?
Almost livelier than your own after-hours escapades as a student!"
P.S.: Peeves Banishment Charm
Invented by Professor Holmes during his student years, this charm was inspired by ancient Eastern talismans. By combining ancient runes with positive magic, he created a charm capable of targeting spiritual entities, whose effects could last up to three days.
To use it, simply throw the charm at Peeves—it would trap him in an invisible space for half an hour. The front of the charm depicted a bound Peeves, and after being hit, Peeves would loudly threaten to leave Hogwarts "forever," earning the charm its affectionate nickname among students.
On May 20, 1986, after a student used the charm on a school ghost, Professor Binns was forced to suspend classes for a month. Following a secret agreement with the ghosts, the charm was permanently banned at Hogwarts. Only Mr. Filch still keeps three expired charms, hoping to one day scare Peeves off.
Why don't ordinary spells affect ghosts?
Wizards have always considered ghosts a part of humanity, and because ghosts can barely affect the real world, no one ever thought to research spells that might work on them. Only certain advanced Dark Magic can harm ghosts.
References:
Newt Scamander noted in his book that ghosts object to being classified as human, believing it implies they're "yesterday's news." Thus, the Ministry of Magic created a separate classification and a Ghost Office.Professor Snape documented several Dark spells effective against spiritual entities in his Advanced Potion-Making textbook.
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