The Ghosts Of Hogwarts
It was a nippy December day and most of Hogwart's students had left early in the morning to catch the Hogwarts Express, which would take them home for the holidays. Only a handful of pupils remained, and the castle was at its quietest, save for the Filibuster Fireworks George Weasley had 'accidentally' set off inside early in the afternoon.
As the night started to draw in, there were only two students in the Ravenclaw common room, infact, only two Ravenclaw students in the whole school, and they went by the names of Pamela Clearwater and Hope Patil.
They were toasting marshmallows on the fire; their previous attempts the toast them magically failing abominably. But they weren't to blame for the scorch marks on the carpet, after all, they were only first years, they couldn't be expected to toast marshmallows successfully on their first try could they?
Well, that was their excuse at least. The truth was, both of them were perfectly capable of it, but what with the snow falling outside and all the warm butter beer they had consumed earlier, they were both far too excited and sleepy to concentrate on magic properly.
Tiredness hadn't stopped them being chatty though, as they had been talking none stop for most of the day, about nothing in particular. It was amazing how time flew when you were deeply involved in talking about nothing...
The time was five to eight, and they were still going strong.
"I am so glad mum and dad agreed to let me stay at Hogwarts for Christmas, I don't think I could have stood it at home. Penelope's bringing her fiancée Percy to tea on Christmas day, and they're both so dreadfully boring!" Pamela said, rolling her eyes. "And they're all lovey dovey too. Honestly, you can't move, they always seem to be everywhere you want to go, and they're always kissing," she rolled her eyes and made a disgusted face.
"Ugh, I'm glad my sisters aren't old enough to be getting married, it'd be even worse for me, can you imagine the both of them acting lovey dovey? Wait, that'd be no change to the ordinary. I sware Parvati and Padma have boys on the brain!" Hope made an equally disgusted face, and both the girls fell about in giggles.
"I can't wait till tomorrow, it'll be my first Christmas away from home," Pamela said, still giggling.
"You're lucky, your mum and dad gave in easily, I had to pester mine for ages and ages. They really didn't want to let me stay you know, seemed to think that Christmas was a time for family. I think they only let me because they knew you were saying. They think you're a good influence on me!" At this, both the girls fell about in hysterics.
"I don't quite think they'd feel the same way if they met me!" Pamela nearly fell out of her chair, she was laughing so hard.
"Why do parents have to be so...parenty?" Hope giggled, pulling Pamela back up. "Honestly Pammy, I'll die laughing one day, and it'll all be your fault!"
"I don't think anyone has ever been known to die of laughter before," came a silky voice from the corner of the room. Both girls turned around quickly - there shouldn't have been anyone else in their common room. But there was - a transparent woman dressed in very old-fashioned clothes.
"Oh, it's just the Grey Lady," Hope sighed, relaxing.
"Don't be mean, she isn't "'just"' the Grey Lady. Your meant to show respect for ghosts you know."
"Suck up," Hope stuck her tongue out at the girl sitting opposite her, as the Grey Lady sat down infront of the fire. She was silent for a long time, and the girls watched her with curiosity. It wasn't often they saw their house ghost, her utter shyness was what had given her the name 'The Grey Lady' as most of the time, she tended to blend in rather well with the background. Eventually, she seemed to remember the girls' presence in the room, and smiled at them gently.
"I suppose it's Christmas soon isn't it?" She asked, in a soft voice.
"It's tomorrow." Penelope informed her. "Don't ghosts remember stuff like that then?" The Grey Lady smiled, as if laughing at a private joke.
"Oh, we remember alright. It's just...time floats by so quickly. One moment it's Christmas and the next thing you know, oh, five years have passed and it's coming up to Halloween."
"Really? I didn't know time went by so quickly when you were dead," Hope pondered, chewing her lip.
"It doesn't go that quickly all the time. It's just very easy to shut off when you're dead. If there's something you have to do, then time passes as it does to any live person. Well, it does anyway, but it's possible to make it seem like things are going more quickly. Do you know, the last thing I remember doing was spending Nicholas's Death day with him nearly a month a go..."
"Nicholas? Oh, Nearly Headless Nick?" Pamela asked, interested.
"Well yes, I suppose so...silly nicknames, I really don't know where they came from..."
"Do all ghosts call each other by their proper names?"
"Well, ghosts that know each other. I happened to know alot of ghosts very well when they were alive, and it does seem so silly to call your old acquaintances by nicknames forced onto them by living people."
"Don't you like being called the Grey Lady?"
"Oh, I don't mind. Nobody's interested in me anyway. I much prefer staying out of the limelight, so people can call me what they want."
"What's your real name?" Hope asked.
"My real name?"
"Yeah, I, uh, just wondered...you don't have to tell us if you don't want to."
"No, of course I'll tell you, it's just, in all the time I've been dead, nobody's ever asked me that before."
"How long have you been dead?" Pamela butted in.
"Pammy, don't be rude!" Said Hope, shocked. The Grey Lady laughed, silkily.
"I don't mind you asking, although you must be very bored to want to talk to me...anyway, my name is Lyra Desriel. And I've been dead for five hundred and three years." Both girls gaped. 503 years? It seemed like an eternity to the both of them. Realising how stupid they look sitting there with their mouths open, Pamela said quickly:
"Desriel? That sounds like a posh name."
"It's my maiden name. My uncle was a king in a far away country. I married a Lord. I prefer not to take on his name for it was he who had me killed." They both sensed that this was an awkward subject, so Hope started to change the conversation's direction a little.
"You said you used to know alot of ghosts well when they were alive, did you know any of the ghosts at Hogwarts?"
"Oh, a few of them." She smiled to herself again. "Let me see there was Nicholas, Timothy, Richard, Igor...and why am I saying this, you don't have a clue who I mean do you?" The girls shook their heads. "You would know them better as Nearly Headless Nick, The Fat Friar, Peeves and the Bloody Baron I suppose...sill nick names, like I said."
"You knew them all?" Pamela giggled. In her minds eyes she could picture them all hanging out together as she and her friends did.
"Well, yes. I was closer to a few more than others, but we were all at Hogwarts in the same time period. Around the 1470's..." She closed her eyes, and looked as if she were drifting back, lost in an old memory.
"You were all at school together?" Hope gaped. She had never imagined that.
"Yes, in different years, but together none the less. Hogwarts was very small then, a handful of students in each year. You got to know everyone pretty quickly. Yes, let's see, when I was in my first year, so was Nicholas, Nearly Headless Nick. I think that Timothy was in his second year, he's the Friar, but he was a very dear friend of mine. And then Igor and Richard were in their fifth years."
"Igor's the Bloody Baron right?" Pamela checked. The Grey Lady, or Lyra as she had told them her name was, nodded.
"But then, that means that Peeve's name is Richard!" Hope fell about in hysterics, and Pamela joined in.
"A very sensible name if you ask me," The Grey Lady said, wondering what was so funny.
"Yeah, but, for Peeves? He's the least sensible person, or ghost even, I've ever even heard of!"
"Well, he always was a bit of a pain at school. Do you know, the sorting hat had such a hard time choosing where to place him it let him pick? He definitely wasn't Hufflepuff material, far too lazy, and too dense to be a Ravenclaw. That ruled them out immediately. He showed little courage, but not enough cunning to be a Slytherin. So the hat let him pick. And Igor had been placed in Slytherin, so he chose Gryffindor. He had only met him a few hours earlier on the train, but he was terrified of him. But then, Igor was a terrifying person..."
"Tell us about him! How did he die? I want to hear the story!" Hope exclaimed. Pamela elbowed her hard.
"You shouldn't ask how ghosts died, it's impolite!" She hissed. Hope glared at her.
"And you wondered why my mum thought you were polite? You're such a goody two shoes!"
"Now girls, don't fight, I'll tell you the story behind his death if you like. It isn't a particularly nice one, but it is nice to have someone to talk to..."
"Oh you're fun to talk to!" Hope said, as she snuggled into a cosy position in the armchair she was sat in.
"Well thank you. Anyway, this is how it happened. As I said, Richard, or Peeves, was always terrified of Igor, and with good reason. He was a Prince, which was supposed to be a secret, so naturally we all knew. His father was a King in Germany. Maybe I should just explain something to you. Alot of the students at Hogwarts at that time were related to royalty of some kind, however distantly. And Hogwarts was one of the only schools of its kind, and most definitely the best. So families would pay good money for their children to be taught here even if it did entail them learning a completely different language. It was worth it for the education they would receive.
And so Igor was a Prince. I think one of the main reasons Richard was so terrified of him was because of that, he was scared of what might happen if he used his 'power' against him. Richard himself was a young Lord, although nothing compared to a Prince. Anyway, as they grew into men, Igor married and his wife produced four children for him, four girls and a boy. His eldest daughter was certainly very fetching, I vaguely remember meeting her once at a dinner of some sort.
I believe her name was Elizabeth...not that it matters. She was a beautiful young woman, and all the men in the land were after her. But, in secret, she was already seeing someone. A man her fathers age. Which was why she had to keep it a secret.
Although it was a very clumsily kept secret. Igor soon caught onto the fact that she was secretly seeing his old childhood enemy, Richard de Cavlion. A scandal of this sort would have been enough to ruin his reputation, and he knew he must do something.
And so, he forced upon himself an invitation to spend the weekend in the castle of his foe. He strangled him while he was sleeping." She said this as if she were telling them the weather of the day it had happened, and they gasped, both at her calmness, and the fact they had just learnt that one of their school ghosts was murdered by another. Neither of them had ever imagined anything like this, even in their wildest dreams, and why would they have? After all, no one paid attention to the ghosts...
"You mean, the Bloody Baron murdered Peeves?" Pamela checked, still in shock.
"Why yes, I should imagine that it seemed the only thing to do at the time. After all, if it had gotten out that his own daughter was romancing with a man twice her age he would have been ruined. And there was only one way to stop it getting out, or so it seemed."
"So, he just killed him? Just like that?" Hope asked, amazed at the none plus way the Grey Lady was talking about murder.
"Well, yes. But you must understand, back then, murder was one of the best ways to solve a problem. It was quick, it was easy, and it wasn't as severely punished as it is now. Which isn't exactly true, it really depended on who you had killed. For if a beggar disappeared off the streets, no one noticed. However, when rich Lords were found throttled in their beds, it was quite another matter. Someone had to be punished. But, at the time, there was no clear evidence as to who had committed the murder. Igor would have gotten away scott free, were it not for the fact his own daughter had been hiding in the wardrobe in panic. She had hidden in there when her father had entered the room, and she had seen everything."
"Did she betray her own father?" Hope asked, eyes wide.
"She did. Quite an awful thing to do, but she was hysterical, having just seen her father murder her lover. She kept quiet for a while, but eventually she was driven to insanity and betrayed him."
"What happened to him?" Pamela asked.
"He was publicly stoned to death. Under ordinary circumstances, a person of such background would only have been hanged, or beheaded, which were much quicker ways of death. But Igor refused to go quietly. He demanded that they kill him in the way that they did. He was quite quite mad." She said this proudly, as if it were an honour to know someone of such insanity.
"And they both came back to Hogwarts?"
"Yes they did. You do know that only the most unhappy of people become ghosts don't you?" They both nodded. "Well many of the ghosts here at Hogwarts, myself included, came back to here because it was one of the only places they could remember being truly happy. I think that Igor however heard of Richard's where- abouts and turned up here for the simple purpose of being able to torture him from beyond the grave. And it worked, he's still terrified of him to this day, despite the fact there is no more he can do to him now they are both dead."
"Wow, I never ever would have guessed that they died like that!" Hope said, stunned. "Do you know how any other ghosts died? What about the Friar?"
"Oh yes, I know how he died alright. As I said, he was a very close friend of mine when I was at Hogwarts. He was such a calm person. And so very religious too...it came to be the downfall of him. He devoted his whole life to preaching God's ways, and there was never a material thing that he longed for. He was blissfully happy with what he had, and helped many, many people find happiness with God."
"Then how did he die? If only unhappy people become ghosts, something must have gone wrong mustn't it?"
"Yes, it did. Most terrible really. It was all the doing of one woman. I never knew her name, never even met her, but he told me all about her once he was dead. She drove him crazy. Enchanted him I think. And it was quite against his purpose of being for him to take on a woman. He hated the fact he was so hung up over her; the only person he was meant to feel for was God. It drove him to despair. In the end, he couldn't take it any more. He was too religious to succumb to her, but too caught up in her spell to force her away. He hung himself."
"He hung himself?" Penelope gasped. "But why couldn't he have just, you know, been with her. It's not against the law or anything..."
"Well, maybe not, although back then it wasn't something that was done often. But Timothy was the sort to get upset if anyone even mentioned doing something that detracted from the worship of God. He would never have taken on a woman. Killing himself seemed to be the only way out. He thought that he would find salvation in God. However, he was so miserable that he became a ghost. He's convinced that his mission is to help living people avoid making the same mistakes that he did."
"I never realised that ghosts were so interesting before," Hope announced. The Grey Lady looked rather amused by this statement.
"How did Nearly Headless Nick die?" Pamela asked. "I mean, I know they tried to behead him, but why?"
"A story very closely linked to my own death...I shall tell it if you like, but you shall have to bear with me, for it is a very upsetting subject."
"We will." Hope assured her, eager to hear more.
"You remember I told you that Nicholas and myself were in the same year at Hogwarts? Well we were very good friends. We were "'very"' close. Anyway, after we left Hogwarts, I married a Lord at my uncle's command, and I heard very little of my old school friends, save those I met at dinner parties and so forth. I heard that Nicholas had been knighted, but little else as to why. At the time, there was talk of me bearing children, something I would have been happy to do, as that was all ladies of high class were deemed fit for at the time. But there was one problem. My husband. I hated the man. He made me so unhappy that I would spend days and days doing nothing but imagining what it would be like if I could escape. Which was ridiculous of course, as it would never happen. Then, one weekend, quite by accident, I ran into my old friend Nicholas again. He was staying in our castle for the night by my husband's command. I waited until my husband had fallen asleep, and went to meet him in our drawing room. We spent the whole night talking; I was so tired the next day! And we arranged to meet again, in secret, for it would have been strictly disallowed for me to meet him any other way." She sighed, and was quiet for a long time.
"Before long, we had struck up an illicit love affair." Hope and Pamela tried to hide their giggles. "I loved him more than I had ever loved my husband. He was so...maybe we shouldn't dwell upon it, you are only young girls after all, I shouldn't be telling you this. But, in short, we were found out. We were caught by the parlour maid. Nicholas was sentenced to death immediately; it was quite against the law for one to carry on with another's wife. He was 'beheaded' with a blunt axe. Infront of a town full of people, to make him ashamed of what he had done. I was not present to watch, and I wouldn't have wished to have been for the world, for just imagining it makes me feel horrifically ill."
"What happened to you?" Pamela asked curiously.
"Well, for around a month my husband toyed with the idea of keeping me alive. I had not yet borne him any children and he needed an heir. But of course, it would not look good for his children to be borne by a woman who was unfaithful. I was hung around Christmas, though by then I had lost all grasp of time." She gazed into the dying flames of the fire sadly. "I have been at Hogwarts ever since." Pamela and Hope sat quiet, unsure of what to say. In the end they said nothing, for she rose quietly and whispered: "You will have to excuse me, I have managed to upset myself greatly. I will bother you no more." And she glided out of the room as silently as she had entered.
"Any money says she gone to find Nearly Headless Nick!" Hope giggled, once she was quite sure she was out of earshot. They fell about in fits of laughter, though both were a little more subdued for the remainder of the evening.