...It's very quiet…
Argus Filch had never liked children. In all of his time at Hogwarts, they had done little but damage his work. Even from the start of his time at Hogwarts, Filch had been troubled by many souls that wandered the halls day and night without regard for any rule. Peeves had been just a start; those damned kids calling themselves "The Marauders" setting off trouble at every step created a nightmare. He had nearly quit over the escapades they had been able to pull off. He had thanked whatever deity that coveted the stars above that, once he stole that infernal map from their grubby little hands, their ventures were much more easily stopped.
But seeing one of those Weasley twins, lying cold and dead on the ground, shook him to his whole core. Those twins, so full of life and vim and vigor, as annoying as he could be, made his job interesting. For him, each day felt like a tug of war. He was the hero, there to enforce justice as necessary. They were the villains, little hoodlums hellbent on causing mischief and mayhem. For as much as he wished to hang that child by his ankles, seeing the youth, whose life had faded from his piercing blue eyes, unsettled him. Seeing his twin, George, keeping vigil and sobbing over Fred's still frame, only caused further discomfort for the unsightly old man. So quiet...
As much as he had hated children, it had greatly disappointed him to see such promising youth fall to the side of the Dark Lord in the First Wizarding War. And it disappointed him even more greatly to see young talent wasted. He had taken it upon himself to escape, but, with him, he took droves of young children to safe hiding spots during the war. Because of him, so many young children, unprepared for the likes of war, were able to escape unscathed.
It felt… unlike him. I… guess it was my duty. I am a member of the Hogwarts staff, however hated I am by the students.
Bodies and body parts were strewn around every hall Filch had found himself wandering through. Looking up, he notices the stars and the moon lighting his path. When he looked back forward, he noticed a limp arm connected to something under a gigantic boulder, no doubt part of the ceiling that had collapsed in on him.
Filch, from the first glance, could not tell which side that arm belonged to. When they were all dead, they were all the same: Cold, lifeless bodies.
He grimaced but could only shake his head. No. Now is not the time for anger, Mr. Filch. He crunched his teeth together and moved on. Dust, dust… so much for him to have to clean up. But later. Now is the time to keep moving. What we need to do is too important to keep waiting.
He searched the doors, the ones that remained, for his. In the rubble, many doors lay destroyed. He thumbed each placard, as they had become so caked with dust that they became illegible. Sprout, Edgecombe… aha! Filch. It was at the end of the hall, as he remembered it. His door seemed relatively untouched, unlike further up the hall, which seemed relatively obliterated.
Despite the interior of his 'office', each door looked identical. He eventually thumbed the dust off of the placard to find the name Filch inscribed on it. He gingerly opened the door, careful to not cause further damage, and went inside. The room was exactly as it was left, a testament to itself. A single placard from a year gone by, 'Education Decree Number Twenty-Three: Dolores Jane Umbridge has been appointed to the post of Hogwarts High Inquisitor', was laid by the door. A woman whom he felt he had adored for so long, had been one of the catalysts to this chaotic mess. And to think I respected her… she gave me some dignity back, but...
Filch was immediately filled with a sort of irony. He realized that, in the wake of all of the rubble, his room had not been touched. The rubble that surrounded this room caked the entire hallway in a layer of dust. However… not a single speck, other than that which naturally accrued, could be found on his tidy desk in his cramped room.
An anger and frustration filled his being, reminded of all of the students who died. Reminded of the mess he would need to clean up. Reminded of his survival. Reminded of forcing himself to flee, reminded of that sham Kwikmagic, reminded of why he cannot do magic. Reminded of everything in his miserable life that amounted to pain and suffering. His irascible temper flared. Papers began flying from cabinets, from folders, from boxes, from books on shelves. The records that he had kept for decades on so many wizards now felt useless in the rubble of the magical school. His hands reached for any that he could find, and he laid them down in a misaligned stack on his normally neat desk over the span of a few minutes.
He grabbed that Decree, stood by the door for a few moments, and walked back out of the room. He left the door swung wide open. Standing by the window, Filch took a quick moment to stare outside at what he could see. Billowing pillars of smoke rose in the distance from other towers of the Castle of Hogwarts. Fires still rose from above the clouds, but, other than these rare disturbances, the morning was quiet. The sun began to rise over the mountains that surrounded the school, and a rosy dawn began to arise.
It was, with the new dawn, that Filch felt a power within him. His anger was simply too great to allow the old to stay. He lobbed the Decree at the window, completely shattering it. He immediately turned around, not caring to where the stone would land.
Returning to his room, he looked at the top of his stack.
It's that accursed James Potter… Even in thought, the words seemed bitter and acidic. Remembering the dead in a negative light felt… sacrilegious to the caustic old man. What had even been the charge? Sneaking out after curfew?
To either Potter, that seemed like a relatively minor charge in comparison to what they had done, and the punishment they had garnered for his existence. Filch crumpled up the report and tossed it in the wastebasket.
He grabbed half of the rest and cumbersomely toted them outside. He brought them to the window and, as with the placard, tossed them out for the wind to catch.
Each loose sheet of paper, with names both time immemorial and lost to time itself, began to float in the breeze, carried to the ends of the Wizarding World. The books of those reports joined that Decree, plummeting into the chasm that hung behind the window.
Filch felt liberated. All of those names hung like a heavy weight around his neck, dragging him down closer to the floor with every step he took. Some alive, many dead, all ghosts that now seemed to haunt him. The Placard that had once brought him pride, reminding him of a time where he thought he felt truly happy, now brought him shame. His involvement in a tyrannical regime felt like a black mark on his very soul, in hindsight.
Next, he grabbed those chains from the back of his room. The ones he'd say he would always use on the students, but never was able too. These followed the decree out the window, their weight counterbalancing an internal one casting away from his eternal soul.
He returned to his office and carted the second half of the stacks to the window. There, he reflected a moment, watching the bloody red sky slowly pool over the purple and black of the night. Perhaps… it is time for a little bit of a change.
As he tossed the rest of the papers out of the window, he gave a great sigh of relief, hunching over in exhaustion.
"Times have changed, eh, dear Filch?" A familiar voice floated above his head. Peeves… of all the people that could show…
"Indeed, they have." Filch's raspy voice was awash with sorrow and anguish. He took a few breaths to steady himself in the face of his mortal enemy. Not here. Not now.
"And I see you've thrown out that Decree. Shame really, it only added to the wonder decorum you built your room around." Peeves' voice was as malicious as it was playful, mixing a sinister umbrage with a jaunty, playful attitude.
"It's… It's time for a change, Peeves." Filch wearily and shakily responded to Peeves' taunt. "I've been at this cursèd task for too long."
"Oh, has Mr. Filch turned over a new leaf? Such a surprise! I wonder if you're going to become like me! All work and no play has made Filch a dull boy." Peeves began to dance around Filch while invisible, his voice taunting the weary old man from all angles. Argus could only move around, tracking the voice in a silent despair as it flittered through the hallway.
"All work! No play! All work! NO PLAY!" The voice chanted as it continued to dance around, always getting back into Filch's head.
Argus, holding a remaining binder in his hand, ready to toss out the window, instead cried out and launched it at the poltergeist who haunted his existence for the last three decades. Peeves went invisible, dodging the binder with an airy quickness. The binder, landing on the rug that lined the floor, broke apart, sending the papers scattering.
"Just. Leave. Me. ALONE!" Argus's choked cry raged through the corridor. He collapsed on his knees, tears streaming down his face and the look of horror etched in his visage as if he had just seen every face lost in battle all at once. Every regret, every ounce of hatred, every moment of despair in the face of the grand wizards… all returned to his head at once. Filch could not tell what to feel, whether it be the continued hatred that led him to cast aside all of his papers and souvenirs of the time gone by, or the regret of the students he could not save… or to look the face of destruction and desolation in the face and cry that he would not go calmly into the night.
He stood up, his face red and soaked with tears, and walked towards the binder he had tossed. The voice was gone; obviously, Peeves had escaped to go bother someone else… someone more annoyingly receptive and less broken. At least I can continue to have my motes of silence amongst the ruins…
The binder didn't contain much except a minute number of records. It was simply one that he had begun to collect on first years in the rise of the chaos that was the Administration of Snape and the Carrow twins. Filch noted that it was uncharacteristically bereft; despite the discrimination he had begun to experience as a Squib, he had felt it like the Umbridge Administration… albeit darker and more sinister.
Filch had been allowed to see what these heartless men and mice had wrought: A poison that had sought to decay the old order of the Wizarding World until it fell apart.
Filch fingered through the pages that he could collect, noting the names of the Wizards inside. The names rolled off of his tongue… Davies… Baldwin, that chaotic boy… Tomlinson, little Shafiq… and he could recount the actions of each student. He felt like he should be laughing in hindsight, laughing at their foolish actions, all characteristic of first years… but he felt as if he could do naught but hope. Hope for the safety of the students.
He collected these few pages and left the broken binder in the hallway. Locking the door behind him, Filch began to look around for what he had not tossed away.
The wastebasket contained that singular report of James Potter, one amongst the many others that had been scattered to the cardinal winds. Mrs. Norris still slumbered under his desk, despite all of the chaos that had occurred while she slept. The few photos he had been able to procure still laid silently on his desk. But the empty shelves, desk drawers, and boxes beckoned him to understand that everything, all those years of hard work was gone.
He grasped at that singular note tossed into the trash. "This is all that's left…" Filch huffed and collapsed into his chair, Potter's report still clutched in his thin, bony grasp. "He still lives… Potter still lives…"
Mrs. Norris had woken up as Filch had fallen over his seat. Her warm embrace on the sullen man's lap felt like a warm pillow, a purring beacon of light within a prison of darkness. "All those names are gone… but others still remain." Filch slicked back his hair and went to silently stroking Mrs. Norris, an action ingrained within him that brought comfort to his cold heart.
In the Aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts, all children who were not directly involved in the battle had been sent home for two weeks. That meant all those whom Filch had protected and diverted away could lie safe in bed, hopefully dreaming, as the cantankerous caretaker had begun to hope, of things other than the death and desolation of the world falling apart around them.
All others had been questioned on involvement. A few had been passed aside, like poor George Weasley, and others, like Filch, had a relatively short time dealing with the pestering inquisitors. He was happy that his time was short; in the First War, they were much more invasive and much less accommodating, him being a Squib and tensions against non-magical humans being at their height. Now, they were a lot more sympathetic. Perhaps, from this War, can come some good… Maybe I'll be treated a lot better after all this...
Rebuilding had been relatively quick. Construction wizards, who specialized in repairing and rebuilding magic, assisted Filch and a few other professors in returning Hogwarts to its former glory. Clean-up wasn't the easiest thing; in overturning the rubble, bodies were sometimes found. Many witches and wizards had to be evacuated due to hysteria when they uncovered familiar faces: friends, loved ones, brothers and sisters, all fallen in the horror of the Battle of Hogwarts on both sides, as it was to be christened. Filch understood. It had taken him a little while to recover from his own bout of it. It personally shocked him how, even to the mundane wizard, that the Battle would have had such a deep mark.
As much as it was painful to him, Filch soldiered on through the clean-up. The stench of their rotting corpses had been the worst part after the emotions dried up. One can only see so many dead bodies before it becomes an old thing. Still, it felt as if their souls hung on his like a yoke on an ox, laden with a wheelbarrow full of hay. Each painting, each shelf, each room cleaned to welcome the students back to a Hogwarts worth returning to. With Mrs. Norris by his side, the finishing touches on the school were set. Resting by his door, he looked out the last remaining project to be attended to... the window that he himself broke.
At the end of those two weeks, Filch could finally rest. His work was done. Each nook and cranny of the school had been explored and cleaned. The blood was washed from the walls and the floors. All the bodies had been cleared from the premises. It was a school safe for the students to return and complete their year.
Returning to his job, Filch expected things to return to how they were. After all, he had just done his job in saving all of those children from a near-certain destruction at the hands of a Death Eater. All he thought would come to him was a well-deserved rest in his chair, Mrs. Norris in his lap, wasting the day away in his office. Hopefully, the children wouldn't make him have to issue punishment or confiscate any gizmo, gadget, or whatever the Weasley twins, or… well, boy, had concocted.
As much as he had wished for a day of quiet, Filch actually was quite at peace with issuing a few punishments and confiscating a Weasley product or two. He felt a change, however, with how he ran his ship. The cold, callous rasp of his voice, doling out punishments both hypothetical and actual, was replaced with a warmer, yet authoritative tone. It felt… more befitting of him. After a great deal of time kept under wraps without any power of punishment, as the Carrow twins had seen fit to relieve him of many of his duties.
The upperclassmen still regarded him with the same sneer and cold shoulders that he had been used to receiving from the students. But, even from them, Filch began to notice the smallest molecule of respect. They no longer feared when he passed around unless they truly had something to hide from him. From the teachers, he even saw a few smiles as he went about his duties, keeping the house clean and free of blemish.
The first and second-years, however, seemed to almost regard him with the utmost respect. Many of them were those he got to safety in the midst of the chaos of war. His actions had saved a few from near-death, which was something he now took pride in. Amongst the other duties in his occupation as Caretaker of Hogwarts was, in particular, to place the well-being of the students above his own at all times. At the time, he begrudgingly accepted the task, realizing that he needed to get inexperienced witches and wizards out of the way of stray fire.
The positive regards he gets from the young ones, though, is something he now relishes.
Filch cleaned his desk off. The lower volume of the punishment reports to keep and do was a much more relaxing, a much more manageable load compared to the monolith that was his old stack. Mrs. Norris laid on his lap, purring contently. He wiped a few beads of sweat from his rigid brow before putting pen to paper, noting a final few details on the last report for the day. It wasn't long until curfew, and Filch was readying to make his rounds across the castle.
Suddenly, a knock on the door brought his attention. Maybe a teacher with some more paperwork for me to finish… Let's see which one it is… "Come in!" As much as what transpired after the Battle had changed a great deal about his personality, his voice still carried that gruff dullness to it.
The door slowly creaked open, and a small girl walked in. She should be in her Dorm. Little students need to be safely inside their dorm rooms by Curfew. Filch placed Mrs. Norris on the table and got up from his chair, leaving it outwards from his desk.
"Mr. Filch?" Her little voice squeaked from behind the desk. At that moment, Filch knew exactly who it belonged to. Miss Shafiq. A Slytherin.
"Yes? What is it, Miss Shafiq? What is so important that you would risk being late to curfew?" Filch responded to the little voice, curious to hear her response. Looking up at her, she was still dressed in her Slytherin robes. Dark, curly hair rose from atop her head and fluttered down towards her shoulder blades. Deep brown eyes bore into Filch's own soul. Her brown lips curled up into a deep smile, wrinkles beginning to form on her dark skin.
"I… was just coming to thank you, Mr. Filch. You kept me safe when all the wizards were fighting." Her light voice carried a great deal of gratitude that made Filch exuberant.
"It was just my job Miss Shafiq." Filch calmly responded, for a moment even able to suppress his rasp. "I need to make sure the students of the school stay safe. Now, you need to get to your Dorm. I'll walk you there, but, in the future, please try and adhere to curfew. You could have done this at any other time."
The little girl just smiled. "I was busy all day. I didn't have time to come to see you until now."
Filch walked out of his office, the little girl following his every footstep. Mrs. Norris stayed at Miss Shafiq's side, rubbing on her leg from time to time. Huh. Seems she finally came around to enjoying someone else's company. I'm surprised that she picked a Slytherin girl. Still, there's a first time for everything, I suppose.
Cantering down the halls, Filch in his lonely trot, Mrs. Norris in her characteristic canter, and the little Shafiq trying to keep up with the two, the three all kept each other company. The paintings kept their eyes on the three, but especially Filch. Each one was perplexed; this caretaker, a cantankerous one they had known for nearly three decades, seemed almost happy. Mrs. Norris actually took to a student, continuing to stick herself between her's and Filch's legs, dodging their errant feet as they passed by.
Reaching the door of the Slytherin dorms, the torches affixed adjacent to it lit up the three figures. Filch was never told the passwords except in extreme emergency- which only ever happened when catastrophe occurred, like during the Wars. "Password?" The Bloody Baron, guard of the Slytherin door, asked of the two. Noticing Filch, the Baron continued. "Little Slytherin, we mustn't let outsiders know the passwords. Away with you, Filch."
Miss Shafiq turned to Filch, who had given a glare to the ghost, and gave him a hug. "Again, I cannot thank you enough, Mr. Filch. The Shafiq family is in your debt." Filch did not reciprocate, having instead gave a light nod and ruffling little Shafiq's thick locks.
"Aye, little Shafiq. I need to get to my nightly watch, but you're welcome in my office at any time."
As Filch walked back to his office, he turned back for only a moment. Her departure in the dorm room was very uneventful, consisting simply of her almost phasing through the wall into her living quarters. When he fumbled with his keys to lock his office door for the night, he couldn't help but smile. He found a slip of paper in his pocket. And he knew exactly what the slip had written upon it: it was that note that he kept, of all the others he could have kept up with. But, it was this one that remained, of all those names.
And it was so with the other names, the Creeveys, Weasleys, Notts, Malfoys, Blacks, and others whom he had the pleasure- and displeasure- to meet in the halls of Hogwarts. And as he went to his small chamber to sleep, his dear cat along with him, they swirled about in his head, catching moments to bring themselves to the forefront of his thought. Bouncing like sheep, they were the names that once brought him clear agony. And the ones that he could save, the Shafiqs, the Potters, and so many countless others, now bought him the deepest peace.
A/N: I wanted to try my hand at a one-shot, and an idea popped into my head to try and write a small ending for Argus Filch. I hope you all enjoy the work. Any praise or criticism is gladly accepted in the Reviews. Again, I hope you enjoyed.
-C. Exodia