"Victor, are you alright?!"
Because the Ravenclaw table was at the very edge of the Great Hall, Penelope and the other students saw Victor slide down the wall and rushed over to ask if he was okay. This made Hermione, who had already stood up, huff and plop back down into her seat.
"I'm fine!" Victor said, rubbing his red forehead. He suddenly came to his senses, his eyes blazing as he looked around. "Damn it, where is that Peeves?!"
"He went right through the wall behind you and then disappeared. We don't know where he went!" Penelope said.
"Blast it! My new spell didn't even work on him!" Victor said, running a hand through his hair in frustration. He had spent a whole week, tirelessly working with materials from the Hogwarts library and the Ravenclaw common room, to create this spell that could capture ghosts. To test its effectiveness, he had tried it on other Hogwarts ghosts, and it had worked wonderfully! But to his dismay, it was useless against Peeves.
"What did Peeves do to you that you're so determined to catch him?" Penelope asked.
"You'll find out eventually," Victor replied vaguely. "But I wanted to ask, do you know of any other books or sources about ghosts? The new spell I made didn't work on Peeves, so I can't catch him."
"Actually, Victor, what you're doing might not be effective," Ivanna, who was standing beside Penelope, said suddenly. "If you're only focused on the ghost aspect, you might never be able to catch Peeves."
"Huh? Why not?!"
"Because Peeves might not be a ghost!" Ivanna explained, taking a book from a student next to her and handing it to Victor. "Peeves has been around since the founding of Hogwarts. No one knows where he came from. The name 'Peeves' was given to him by Helga Hufflepuff. This book says that not long after Hogwarts was founded, Peeves just appeared out of thin air and has never left the castle since."
Victor took the book, A History of Hogwarts. The leather cover was old and faded, the title was illegible, and the edges were frayed with soft tufts of hair. It looked incredibly ancient.
"This book has always been in the most secluded corner of the library, on the highest shelf. Aside from a few Ravenclaws, no one knows it exists," Ivanna continued. "I thought this might help you, so I borrowed it for you."
"Oh, thank you so much, Ivanna!" Victor's eyes lit up as he held the book. Now he wouldn't have to worry about modifying the spell to catch ghosts. Gods knows how exhausting it was to create a new spell with his Origin magic. Victor felt like he had lost millions of brain cells over the past week, and his eyes were about to fall out from all the work he put into adjusting the magical formations.
But just as Victor was celebrating, his battle with Peeves was not over yet. Peeves, who had disappeared from the Great Hall, returned with a stack of papers he had found somewhere. He flew over the Great Hall, scattering the papers and shouting, "Tomato-head! I found your prank! Hahahaha!"
"Huh? What's that?!" A bad feeling rose in Victor's heart. He quickly grabbed one of the papers that floated down in front of him and saw that it was a page from the comic book he had made to annoy Voldemort.
"Oh, hell! That's my manuscript! How did Peeves find it?! I hid it in the Room of Requirement!" Victor's scalp tingled.
When he created the comic, he based it on a series from his childhood, Peanuts, which had been beloved across the English-speaking world for nearly half a century.
In the world of Harry Potter, magic was an isolated society, almost completely cut off from modern Muggle technology. This had led to a complete stagnation in the wizarding world's entertainment industry. Aside from things like TV, computers, or video games, even non-tech entertainment was limited to wizard chess and novels, which was a very limited selection.
This was why Gilderoy Lockhart's terrible, melodramatic novels were so popular in Europe's magical community. The severe lack of entertainment products in the Harry Potter world meant that the comic Victor had created was a game-changer for the innocent students of Hogwarts.
Victor had foreseen this, which was why he had secretly removed his name from the author's section of the comic and hidden the manuscript deep within the Room of Requirement, hoping to avoid a fan frenzy and any unnecessary trouble.
But that wasn't the most important thing. The most important thing was that his comic was a setup for something else he was planning, and Voldemort was just a pawn. But now, Peeves had found the manuscript and shouted "Tomato-head!" This had completely thrown his plan into chaos.
Just as Victor was wringing his hands, the Hogwarts students, who were initially suspicious if Peeves' "Tomato-head" was Victor, had their doubts cleared by Victor's unconscious words. As expected, students started gathering around Victor, asking excitedly: "Dreyar, did you really draw this? When is the second book coming out?!"
"Yeah, that's right! This comic is so funny, but it's too short!"
"When will the next one be out? I'll pay in Galleons! And I'll add more if you need me to!"
"Can… can I get your autograph?"
This is it… Victor thought. His worst fears had come true. He would probably be hounded by students for new comics everywhere he went.
More and more students swarmed him. The young Ravenclaws who were initially trying to protect him were quickly overwhelmed and squashed into a meat patty.
Victor, the source of all the chaos, had turned a ghostly white. A wisp of his soul floated out of his mouth as he said weakly, "Ugh… stop… stop pushing… you stupid Peeves…"
After an unknown amount of time, Professor McGonagall rescued Victor from the crazed fans, and he was taken to the Head of Gryffindor's office.
Inside the office, Professor McGonagall stared at Victor, who was dangling in midair, and said sternly, "Mr. Dreyar, stop pretending!"
Victor opened his eyes and immediately recovered, smiling as he scratched his head. "Thank you for saving me, Professor McGonagall!"
"Don't thank me yet. I'm asking you, did you really draw this?!" Professor McGonagall asked, holding the comic up.
"Um… no, I didn't draw it!" Victor quickly shook his head and tried to deny it.
"Mr. Dreyar, do you not realize that your actions have put every student at Hogwarts in danger?!" It was clear that Professor McGonagall didn't believe Victor. Seeing his shameless attitude, she was fuming. "If you could write that name, then you must know who the owner of that name is. By spreading a comic that makes fun of him throughout Hogwarts, you're making everyone a target!"
"Relax, Professor McGonagall. In Voldemort's current state, what can he do? He's too busy hiding from Professor Dumbledore to even think about hurting students right under his nose," Victor said with a wave of his hand. "Besides, even without Dumbledore, do you think Voldemort would dare to make a move? Let's not forget that many people don't even know Voldemort's real name. The comic I made is, at most, just a children's book. Why would Voldemort attack students over this? Wouldn't that just prove that the comic has a point? That he is Tom Marvolo Riddle?"
"Admitting that Tom Marvolo Riddle and Voldemort are the same person. Professor McGonagall, what do you think would happen if that news got out, especially to his followers who aren't driven by fear, but by pure-blood glory? This is a calculated move. Don't you and Professor Dumbledore understand that Voldemort's most powerful weapon has never been his own strength, but his ability to rally those pure-blood fanatics with his ideology?"
Victor's words rendered Professor McGonagall speechless.
Since the first day of school, when he saw the animosity between Harry, Ron, and Malfoy, Victor had been thinking about what he could do. He felt that Hogwarts, as a school with a long history, shouldn't have such a divided student body.
He had learned from chatting with the ghosts that just a few decades ago, Gryffindors and Slytherins could sit and eat at the same table, laughing and chatting. But at some point, a new rule was added to Hogwarts's regulations: students of the same House must sit at the same table for everything, whether it was eating, reading, or doing homework. The official reason was to make it easier to manage the students.
When Victor saw this rule, he ranted about it. It was no wonder the school spirit was so poor. This rule actively cut off communication and contact between students, forcing them to be divided and confrontational.
Gryffindors liked to call others cowards. Slytherins liked to call others dirty Mudbloods. Ravenclaws liked to call others imbeciles. Hufflepuffs liked to call others fake.
On top of that, there was the highly subjective House Cup. It was as if they were afraid Hogwarts was too peaceful, and they wouldn't rest until another Dark Lord rose up.
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