Friday Nights with Filch
Argus Filch, gasped for breath as he chased two boys down a hallway. They'd snuck into his office, the slimy gits, and stolen his confiscated Monster Book of Monsters, the most vicious one of the bunch this year. Argus had hoped against hope in his early career that he could write up that sorry excuse of a teacher, that Hagrid fellow, for some breach of contract, something about being careless with the safety of the students…
That was until Professor McGonagall started encouraging students to Transfigure things into sharp objects, Professor Sprout had them harvesting mandrake roots and Professor Snape charged underaged witches and wizards… underaged, could anyone believe it… with brewing the Drought of Living Death!
This particular book had already taken a chunk out of the Hufflepuff sofas, rampaged through the dormitories of the Gryffindor Tower, leaving strips of burgundy colored bed coverings in its wake, and had finally been cornered in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, between the Boggart cabinet and the chest of Dementors.
Too bad for him there would be no quiet Friday night with a pair of fuzzy socks and his favorite knitting needles in front of the fire. Argus grabbed his net and set off down the corridor after the skittering boys. This thing had to be put down, he decided, once he got his hands on it again. Perhaps that old flask of firewhisky and a sturdy match would do it in.
Sixth year boys ran way too fast.
Argus rounded the corner and hustled up the stairs where he could still hear the boys below and the snarls of the fugitive book. It was starting to wake up now, and it was only a matter of time before it bit off a finger and flapped off to terrorize one of the tapestries. The Dancing Trolls were going to be missing their slippers if he didn't hurry up.
He came to a halt in front of the second floor girls' lavatory, but then hearing the growling mess echo through the stone room in front of him, he burst through, yelling at the indecency of it all.
"Stop! Yer not allowed in here! Bring back that book!"
To his surprise, the sink had been strangely broken apart, and a large passageway sat in a place that he'd tried hard to forget about for many years.
"Blasted kids!" he muttered, and surged through. "Bound to get themselves killed down here."
Giant stone pillars surrounded the large, open-spaced room, lit with torches, and to his surprise, Argus and the two boys he'd followed weren't the only ones down there either.
A whole crowd of robed figures stood in the middle of the Chamber of Secrets, around what looked like a deep pit.
"Did you bring it?" someone yelled out.
"Sure did!" one of the boys called back, and dumped the snarling, snapping beast into the pit.
"Feisty one. Alright then, let's mark it." One of the boys lit his wand and sprayed a green mist down the pit. "That one's green. Everyone place your bets, this is going to be good!"
Argus slowed his limping gait to watch. He was more intrigued by what was going to happen, now that the book wasn't about to escape. There must be at least twenty students down here. He paused, calculating how many square feet of stone floor could get scrubbed during the next detention with that kind of man-power.
Let 'em dig themselves deep, and then he'd come down hard like a hammer.
Calls of sickles and galleons rose in the air, and several of the boys were busy scribbling down figures and names, and then, when the commotion settled down, one of the boys hefted a big bag over the pit.
"This one's been Hogwarts Champion for over three months. Nothing's beaten it yet. Let's see how it does against Greenie. Any last bets? No? Let's DO THIS THING!"
He threw the whole sack down in the pit.
An immediate ruckus came out of that pit. Growls and snarls, snapping and spitting and chomping… parchment bits flew and the whole group was covered in sprays of confetti.
Then, silence.
And a burp.
"Lemme through, lemme through!" Argus pushed his way to the pit and looked down. The green-tinted Monster Book of Monsters had eaten the other book down to the spine.
The group of boys murmured around him. "Hey, Finnegan. Thought you said the green one was yours."
"Err… I sorta nicked it from Filch here," the sheepish boy responded, giving Argus a don't-hurt-me-too-badly smile.
Before Argus could say anything more, the whole crowd went wild.
"That was the fiercest fight I've seen yet!"
"Did you use knives to sharpen its teeth?"
"That thing's so fast, oh my Godric, did you see it devour the other one?"
"Your book rocks!"
Argus Filch didn't give out any detentions that night. Instead, he left with his Monster Book of Monsters in his net, a bag of Galleons, and an appointment for next Friday night.