Paragraph 5 - 33 : Poltergeist Heist

Several Professors were facing a slightly nasty problem around that time. A greenish stinking viscous liquid would flow on the floor from outside the classroom towards the teacher. And in the middle of the room, it would turn into a huge parchment, on which students could read, written in enormous letters, rude messages intended to be about the teacher. However, sometimes, the comment was about the wrong teacher : Professor Sinistra's students were able to read 'Fleetwick sinks' for example. Different teachers would yield varying reactions. When Professor Snape got a towering 'Sour Snapes', some students couldn't suppress a giggle in spite of the fact that they well knew what would follow, and sure enough, they lost points, two for those who were Slytherins, five when they belonged to Gryffindor. This caused the atmosphere to mostly return to its studious normalcy. Mostly, because a Gryffindor witch had not stopped laughing. Snape countered with his iciest voice :

Ten points from Gryffindor, for your shameful lack of respect for your classmates

Professor McGonagall ran into a big 'Old age is a wreckage'. When this occurred, her head moved suddenly back in surprise, but she was quick, and she changed the parchment into a beautiful flying ship, which led to some clapping. She then went back to her lesson, as if nothing had happened. The jokester clearly had a preference for Professor Snape, who got more mail. The second time, it read, in an ironically pleasant writing 'A thousand points from Slytherin, for having a thick oaf as Head of House'. It was in a Hufflepuff - Ravenclaw class, and many students relished this moment, because the prankster had been able to say publicly more or less the kind of thing any student that wasn't in Slytherin wanted to tell Professor Snape one day. Nobody giggled this time, but smiles were on almost every face, which prompted Professor Snape to give the whole class a ten parchments essay to write for the following day as homework, a serious blow ten days from the end of year feast. This very effectively wiped the grins off the students' faces. On the third and last instance, the text disparaging Professor Snape was made up of the words 'You are the fairest and fartiest of all.' This made a Ravenclaw girl whisper to her female neighbour :

Do you think that he has ever been handsome ?

And her neighbour replied, in the same hushed voice :

Why do you think he is a Potions Master ? With a massive store of Polyjuice, he can assume the resemblance of a different attractive witch everyday

The discreet conversation went on along the following line :

Yeah, but it lasts just one hour, not enough to take advantage of it

Then, a boy who had been listening from the row just behind the two girls leaned forward and supplemented the high-level talk with his own assessment :

There are enough dim-witted boys in Gryffindor and Hufflepuff to make it work

One of the two girls told her neighbour and the boy :

Gross

And the neighbouring girl concluded :

Yeah. But knowing potions is probably an asset to prevent one's farts from stinking

After which, all three students went back to their studying task, as if what they had uttered were common sense to them. Of course, teachers complained about the nuisance, and the suspicions fell on Peeves. No student could be rash enough to undertake such a perilous attack on the Professors. The Bloody Baron was therefore tasked with performing a thorough questioning of the aerial suspect. It turned out Peeves was probably eager by now to disclose his past mischiefs, which had met an overwhelming success, far greater than what the school had expected. For a start, the guided acid trick he had played on Filch over a month ago had just been the surface, and had deceived the school into believing he was finished with his plan. Then people had seen him using a bit of magic that was very similar to that used by the Slytherin student to try and frame the Gryffindors for allegedly cheating at Professor Sinistra's exam, and had deduced that the poltergeist had copied the Slytherin boy. But one should have been more wary when they had seen Peeves acting for once with long term in mind, for example when he had flown over the students with books without ever ditching them over anybody, nor cackling. Actually, he had collected every book and parchment he could find in the castle's public places, had retrieved from them every wily annotation that students or teachers had inserted in them, had copied these handwritten additions - leaving of course certain crucial points out - on several dozens of other parchments, then put said parchments in the belongings of random students. Not only that, but he had been the first to have in hand the trick for the viscous liquid that would flow on the floor before turning in a parchment - after the person who had added it in one of their books. Initially, it was just a potion in which the user would drop a parchment with the text to display in the future on it. It was possible to add features to the liquid, with extra ingredients : colour, smell, text animation. Then, the user just had to pour the liquid on the floor in the right direction, and on meeting an obstacle, for example a teacher's foot or a piece of furniture, the liquid would assume its original form : a parchment. Peeves had dropped the biggest parchments he had been able to lay his hands on. The Slytherin student had just been on the receiving end of one of Peeves' distributions. The young wizard had used spells to make the liquid flow to the exact locations needed and to prevent it from turning into parchment. These revelations, Eleanor said, implied that the secret of the Intuition Potion could have been leaked. The four friends had done their utmost to keep the potion-related elements out of their dormitories, which were the only places where they would have been safe from Peeves' snooping, because they had wanted to avert the discovery of the potion by other students. Those among these students who belonged to their House, year, and gender would have been able to see the suspicious things that the four friends were storing in the shared dormitories. On the other hand, they would keep out of unused classrooms. For it was most natural to consider that a room would remain empty and unused because it was useless, and nobody wanted to be wasting their time in a useless part of the castle. Peeves's perspective was the opposite. The dormitories were out of bound for him, whereas the seemingly abandoned rooms were no less than free opportunities to find something unusual. Consequently, Eleanor thought it would be nice to check if they all had their parchment describing the Intuition Potion. They stored these parchments in books in the Arch Room. Eleanor and Judith often cast Transfiguration spells on these books so that they would look like purposeless pieces of wood, but Sigismond and Ann were prone to forget to do it. After a few embroidered communications, they all ran at various speeds - Ann fastest, Sigismond slowest - to the Arch Room. Ann was first there, and could do nothing but realise that her book with the Intuition Potion parchment in it was gone. She transfigured every piece of wood in the room, and found this way Eleanor's and Judith's books holding the coveted bits of parchment - well, she was not sure, because she was absent-minded and hadn't paid attention to the appearance and title of the others' books, so she wasn't hundred percent positive these were Eleanor's and Judith's copies. Eleanor arrived then, and smiled when she saw the two books. Ann was puzzled by her reaction. She had been worried of being scolded for having been careless about such an important object - 42 Galleons ! - and therefore had panicked at the idea she had done something very wrong. Judith was next, and very much like Eleanor, was apparently relieved that they still had a copy of the potion - actually they at least had two. Sigismond was last, and barely reacted. He wasn't panting in the least. Ann asked him :

Do you have your copy ?

Sigismond dreamily replied :

I guess not. And you ?

Ann answered in a moaning and hesitant voice :

Err. No

Eleanor was quick to try and dissipate Ann's embarrassment :

Peeves most likely got copies and perhaps distributed them, but we don't have any evidence that somebody tried to make and drink them. If this had occurred, we would probably have seen unbelievable coincidences arise

On this reassuring note, the four friends decided to go to their meeting point near the lake. The weather was nice, and they could walk along a part of the route in the fresh shadow of trees. Ravenclaw had been making last ditch efforts to catch up with Hufflepuff at the House Cup ranking. They had been awarded thirty points lately for brewing a new potion, that would make the drinker forget about the existence of a person during a set amount of time that the potion maker could precisely adjust. They had been working on it for months, according to a rumour. Now, Hufflepuff was sitting on 753 points, while Ravenclaw had an astonishing 724, which was exceptional given that they had lost all their Quidditch games.