Peeves the Poltergeist

Book 5

WARNING: SPOILERS!!!

The following are exerpts from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which contain mention of Peeves the Poltergeist.

You SHOULD NOT read any of this file if you do not want to read spoilers.

LAST WARNING!!!

Do not continue unless you want to read spoilers!!!

This is your final warning.

'Take this to Professor McGonagall, dear,' said Professor Umbridge, holding out the note to him.

He took it from her without saying a word, turned on his heel and left the room, not even looking back at Ron and Hermione, slamming the classroom door shut behind him. He walked very fast along the corridor, the note to McGonagall clutched tight in his hand, and turning a corner walked slap into Peeves the poltergeist, a wide-mouthed little man floating on his back in midair, juggling several inkwells.

'Why it's Potty Wee Potter!' cackled Peeves, allowing two of the inkwells to fall to the ground where they smashed and spattered the walls with ink; Harry jumped backwards out of the way with a snarl.

'Get out of it, Peeves.'

'Oooh, Crackpot's feeling cranky' said Peeves, pursuing Harry along the corridor, leering as he zoomed along above him. 'What is it this time, my fine Potty friend? Hearing voices? Seeing visions? Speaking in -' Peeves blew a gigantic raspberry '- tongues?'

'I said, leave me ALONE!' Harry shouted, running down the nearest flight of stairs, but Peeves merely slid down the banister on his back beside him.

'Oh, most think he's barking, the potty wee lad, But some are more kindly and think he's just sad, But Peevesy knows better and says that he's mad -

'SHUT UP!'

A door to his left flew open and Professor McGonagall emerged from her office looking grim and slightly harassed.

'What on earth are you shouting about, Potter?' she snapped, as Peeves cackled gleefully and zoomed out of sight. 'Why aren't you in class?'


'I would not go that way if I were you,' said Nearly Headless Nick, drifting disconcertingly through a wall just ahead of Harry as he walked down the passage. 'Peeves is planning an amusing joke on the next person to pass the bust of Paracelsus halfway down the corridor.'

'Does it involve Paracelsus falling on top of the persons head?' asked Harry.

'Funnily enough, it does,' said Nearly Headless Nick in a bored voice. 'Subtlety has never been Peeves's strong point. I'm off to try and find the Bloody Baron… he might be able to put a stop to it… see you, Harry.'


'The Establishment!' said Professor Trelawney, in a deep, dramatic, wavering voice. 'Yes, those with eyes too clouded by the mundane to See as I See, to Know as I Know… of course, we Seers have always been feared, always persecuted… it is - alas -our fate.'

She gulped, dabbed at her wet cheeks with the end of her shawl, then she pulled a small embroidered handkerchief from her sleeve, and blew her nose very hard with a sound like Peeves blowing a raspberry.


They were allowed to remain inside over break due to the downpour outside. They found seats in a noisy and overcrowded classroom on the first floor in which Peeves was floating dreamily up near the chandelier, occasionally blowing an ink pellet at the top of somebody's head. They had barely sat down when Angelina came struggling towards them through the groups of gossiping students.

'I've got permission!' she said. To re-form the Quidditch team!'

'Excellent!' said Ron and Harry together.

'Yeah,' said Angelina, beaming. 'I went to McGonagall and I think she might have appealed to Dumbledore. Anyway, Umbridge had to give in. Ha! So I want you down at the pitch at seven o'clock tonight, all right, because we've got to make up time. You realise we're only three weeks away from our first match?'

She squeezed away from them, narrowly dodged an ink pellet from Peeves, which hit a nearby first-year instead, and vanished from sight.


'Yes,' said Hermione, staring at the window again. 'Yes, that's what made me think maybe it wasn't a good idea after all…'

Peeves floated over them on his stomach, peashooter at the ready; automatically all three of them lifted their bags to cover their heads until he had passed.


An ink pellet whizzed past them, striking Katie Bell squarely in the ear. Hermione watched Katie leap to her feet and start throwing things at Peeves; it was a few moments before Hermione spoke again and it sounded as though she was choosing her words very carefully.


Hermione bit her lip and did not answer. The bell rang just as Peeves swooped down on Katie and emptied an entire ink bottle over her head.


December arrived, bringing with it more snow and a positive avalanche of homework for the fifth-years. Ron and Hermione's prefect duties also became more and more onerous as Christmas approached. They were called upon to supervise the decoration of the castle ('You try putting up tinsel when Peeves has got the other end and is trying to strangle you with it,' said Ron), to watch over first- and second-years spending their break-times inside because of the bitter cold ('And they're cheeky little snot-rags, you know, we definitely weren't that rude when we were in first year,' said Ron) and to patrol the corridors in shifts with Argus Filch, who suspected that the holiday spirit might show itself in an outbreak of wizard duels ('He's got dung for brains, that one,' said Ron furiously). They were so busy that Hermione had even stopped knitting elf hats and was fretting that she was down to her last three.


'Yerse… I've been telling Dumbledore for years and years he's too soft with you all,' said Filch, chuckling nastily. 'You filthy little beasts would never have dropped Stink Pellets if you'd known I had it in my power to whip you raw, would you, now? Nobody would have thought of throwing Fanged Frisbees down the corridors if I could've strung you up by the ankles in my office, would they? But when Educational Decree Number Twenty-nine comes in, Potter, I'll be allowed to do them things… and she's asked the Minister to sign an order for the expulsion of Peeves… oh, things are going to be very different around here with her in charge


It was just like the night when Trelawney had been sacked. Students were standing all around the walls in a great ring (some of them, Harry noticed, covered in a substance that looked very like Stinksap); teachers and ghosts were also in the crowd. Prominent among the onlookers were members of the Inquisitorial Squad, who were all looking exceptionally pleased with themselves, and Peeves, who was bobbing overhead, gazed down at Fred and George who stood in the middle of the floor with the unmistakeable look of two people who had just been cornered.


'STOP THEM!' shrieked Umbridge, but it was too late. As the Inquisitorial Squad closed in, Fred and George kicked off from the floor, shooting fifteen feet into the air, the iron peg swinging dangerously below. Fred looked across the hall at the poltergeist bobbing on his level above the crowd.

'Give her hell from us, Peeves.'

And Peeves, who Harry had never seen take an order from a student before, swept his belled hat from his head and sprang to a salute as Fred and George wheeled about to tumultuous applause from the students below and sped out of the open front doors into the glorious sunset.


But not even the users of the Snackboxes could compete with that master of chaos, Peeves, who seemed to have taken Fred's parting words deeply to heart. Cackling madly, he soared through the school, upending tables, bursting out of blackboards, toppling statues and vases; twice he shut Mrs Norris inside a suit of armour, from which she was rescued, yowling loudly, by the furious caretaker. Peeves smashed lanterns and snuffed out candles, juggled burning torches over the heads of screaming students, caused neatly stacked piles of parchment to topple into fires or out of windows; flooded the second floor when he pulled off all the taps in the bathrooms, dropped a bag of tarantulas in the middle of the Great Hall during breakfast and, whenever he fancied a break, spent hours at a time floating along after Umbridge and blowing loud raspberries every time she spoke.

None of the staff but Filch seemed to be stirring themselves to help her. Indeed, a week after Fred and George's departure Harry witnessed Professor McGonagall walking right past Peeves, who was determinedly loosening a crystal chandelier, and could have sworn he heard her tell the poltergeist out of the corner of her mouth, 'It unscrews the other way.'


'Right,' said Hermione, twisting her hands together and pacing up and down between the desks. 'Right… well… one of us has to go and find Umbridge and - and send her off in the wrong direction, keep her away from her office. They could tell her - 1 don't know - that Peeves is up to something awful as usual

"I'll do it,' said Ron at once. Til tell her Peeves is smashing up the Transfiguration department or something, it's miles away from her office. Come to think of it, 1 could probably persuade Peeves to do it if I met him on the way.'

It was a mark of the seriousness of the situation that Hermione made no objection to the smashing up of the Transfiguration department.


Professor Umbridge left Hogwarts the day before the end of term. It seemed she had crept out of the hospital wing during dinnertime, evidently hoping to depart undetected, but unfortunately for her, she met Peeves on the way, who seized his last chance to do as Fred had instructed, and chased her gleefully from the premises whacking her alternately with a walking stick and a sock full of chalk. Many students ran out into the Entrance Hall to watch her running away down the path and the Heads of Houses tried only half-heartedly to restrain them. Indeed, Professor McGonagall sank back into her chair at the staff table after a few feeble remonstrances and was clearly heard to express a regret that she could not run cheering after Umbridge herself, because Peeves had borrowed her walking stick.