166 Small altercation

Most who didn't know what to look for wouldn't notice it but the castle had signs of age along it's walls and corridors. Small things like discoloration , hairline cracks and mold in dark areas that no one ever seems to see. Despite being the caretaker for the castle Filch actually didn't do much repair or cleaning in the school and it showed. Nick ran his hand along an old crack in the walls of the castle for a moment in thought. 'Even with generations of wizards living here this place still feels the passage of time.' he could help but imagine that he too may age like this castle in time , firmly standing but with many minor imperfections.-

He had made peace with the fact he would stop aging in his prime physically speaking but his mind would still grow old. What he feared most however was something that Celebrimbor warned that elves tended to suffer from which is time blur where he would seem to lose vast amounts of time just going through the motions of his daily life. To combat this Nick planned to remain in contact with the rest of the world and be stimulated by it constantly.-

This was the entire reason he planned to reveal his immortality to the world eventually in the future as otherwise it wouldn't be hard for it to be revealed anyways. The castle seemed to wake up as the people within it did so and began to go about their final day here. Nick watched as friends hung out for the last time in a decent amount of time , as students hurried to finish books from the library or to turn them in. Even enemies seemed to avoid conflict between them knowing that any conflict now was pointless.-

Nick himself chatted with the portraits that he had gotten to know fairly well in his time in the school. He was surprised when a male ghost approached him one that was covered in blood and had messy brown hair a old fashioned noble clothing. "Where has she gone?" the ghost asked as if knowing that Nick knew this information. Nick coldly stared down the ghost in question as one he was being rude and two those bloodstains belonged to Helena herself. This ghost was after all none other than the person who killed her , the bloody baron of Slytherin.-

"Now why would Slytherin house ghost want to know the where abouts of the Ravenclaw house ghost?" Nick asked mockingly. The baron frowned and stared down at Nick as if judging him but Nick made sure to stare straight into the ghost's eyes defiantly. "Don't mess with me boy or you'll regret it. Tell me where Helena went." the baron said threateningly. Nick merely laughed and purposefully walked through the ghost to show his lack of regard for it's words. The bloody baron could only watch him leave with gritted teeth and a angry glare before floating off to vent his frustrations on peeves.-

Nick had come to accept Helena as family so he very much did not like the bloody baron due to the ghost's act of killing her and then himself with that same knife. Helena may not act like she cared about how she died when she spoke of it but she avoided the Slytherin ghost still to this day because of it. Nick was sorely tempted to use the Nazgul ring on the ghost but didn't fall into that temptation as despite the ghost's actions he didn't deserve what the ring would do it him.-

Nick didn't let the confrontation bother him however and continued his tour of the castle without issue. Along the way he saw the twins pranking as many people as they could as if to get their fill while they could and Nick even noticed Peeves with them. While the twins knew better than to try and prank him the poltergeist did not and chucked at water balloon at him with a mad cackle. Nick merely smiled and pointed his wand at the balloon "WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA!" he said with a swish and flick freezing the balloon in mid air.-

With an upward flick the balloon reversed and flew straight back into the poltergeist's face and burst soaking it. Unlike ghosts a poltergeist like peeves could both touch physical things but also had a physical body as well so the water balloon worked no problem. "GAH! How dare you do this too me!" the jester looking creature screamed angrily. "WADIWASI!" Nick said while pointing his wand at Peeves causing a bolt of red energy to appear and strike the poltergeist making it vanish. This spell merely worked to temporarily banish poltergeist such as Peeves since as an amortal being it couldn't be destroyed.

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