Just a old oneshot that I decided to post again. I've always been interested in Peeves. Who knows, maybe another story will come out of it. Maybe. :)
Terrel Seabrook Peele. That was my name when I was alive. Terrel means 'thunderer', Seabrook means 'sea-glorious', and Peele, which I inherited from my father, means 'the spire rock.' The reason I say that I inherited it from my father is that I never have been, nor will be, a spire rock. Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking. 'Well of course you can't be a rock!' Well, rock means sturdy, responsible, and solid, and I am none of those things, and never will be.
I'm sorry. I should introduce myself by the name you all know. Peeves the poltergeist. Oh the looks on your faces! Most people don't know I was alive at one point. There's a silly rumor going around that I came with the castle, but that's not true. There are many ways to get a poltergeist, and Hogwarts, being lucky, has the rarest form of poltergeist! Let me back up and explain.
When I was alive, I wasn't a very popular boy. In fact, I was just the opposite. I was the freak of the village, and all of the other children let me know it. I was different than everybody. Every time I got upset or scared, something violent would happen. I almost killed sixteen different people, some multiple times, before I turned eleven. I was shocked beyond belief when I got a letter. It told me about a magical school that I could go to! I could learn to control my abilities! My parents sent me off eagerly and I arrived to find other children, some my age, some older, arriving as well. Then four of the most amazing people I'd ever seen came out and started talking to us. They told us that we were special, that we contained magic that could be focused out to perform things we needed. Some of the kids had parents that could do the strange things they could, but most didn't. They were novelties just like I was.
As the first week went by, all of us got to know the newly constructed castle. We were separated into houses, one house under one of the four. There was Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin. I was put into Gryffindor's house, which thrilled me to no end. During the first week, the heads of houses pulled people away to make wands for them. It was a magical process that I was eager to try. When it finally came to my turn, Gryffindor took me aside and led me out to a grove of trees of all different kinds. There were barrels beside them. One contained shimmering silver unicorn hairs, another contained dark red dragon heartstrings, and yet another contained fiery orange phoenix feathers.
"Now, Terrel is it?" he asked. When I nodded he continued. "Hold out your hand and tell me which tree you're pulled to."
I found it to be a strange request, but I obeyed. I expected to feel something, but I got nothing. It was strange and after about three minutes I started to feel embarrassed that nothing had happened. I put my arm down and looked up at Gryffindor confused. He was frowning.
"My boy, didn't you feel anything?" His frown deepened when I shook my head.
"Trouble, Godric?" a low voice asked and we turned to see Slytherin walking towards us with a boy, Addison Jonadab I believe was his name, and sneering unpleasantly.
"Aye, Salazar. The boy does not feel a pull."
"That's ridiculous. All witches and wizards feel the pull," Salazar said with a laugh. "Come here now, boy."
I glanced nervously up at Gryffindor and he nodded. I walked over to the green-clad wizard and he placed his hands roughly on my shoulders, shoving me towards the trees.
"Now boy, which are you attracted to?"
After a minute of trying to feel something, I sighed and shook my head. "None, sir," I muttered, now more embarrassed than ever.
"Nonsense! How do you expect to get a wand when you lie to us so?"
"I am not lying, sir. I do not feel a pull from any of them."
"Perhaps you have one of those special wizards, Godric," a wise voice cut in. Ravenclaw strolled up to them, a black haired girl at her side.
"Special wizards, Rowena?" Gryffindor asked curiously.
"Yes. One of those Outlets."
"An Outlet! Ha!" Slytherin laughed then pulled out a wand. I recall that it was an oak wand, a good twelve inches, with dragon heartstring. The reason I know is I touched it and felt what was in it. Nowadays only wand makers have that ability.
"Salazar, what are you doing?!" Hufflepuff exclaimed, hurrying up with one of her own students.
"Rowena thinks this boy's an Outlet, Helga, so I'm going to prove it!" Slytherin turned his attention to me and brandished his wand. "Defend yourself boy! Serpensortia!"
A serpent leapt from his wand and I yelped as it slithered to me, mouth opened wide to show poisoned fangs. Gryffindor pulled his wand out and was about to point it at the serpent, but before he could something happened. As the other three children laughed at my fearful expression, I felt a fire burn inside me, and I looked at the snake, willing the fire to it. The laughter stopped when the green serpent burst into flames. I watched as it burned and smiled. I wondered what the flames would look like if they were blue, and they turned blue. I amused myself by changing the colors, forgetting about the people watching me. I started when a hand was placed on my shoulder and looked up to see Gryffindor staring at me.
"That is enough, Terrel. You have proven you are an Outlet."
I was confused. "Please sir, what is an Outlet?"
"It is a rare gift that allows the witch or wizard to do magic without a focus," Ravenclaw said gently.
"Focus?" I asked.
"A wand. We focus our magic through it where it is enhanced by the core, whether it is unicorn hair, dragon heartstring, or phoenix feather. An Outlet does not need a wand or any other focus. They are intensely powerful. As powerful as any of the magical things we normal magical folks use as an enhancer."
I was stunned that I didn't need a wand. At least I was at first. After a day the novelty wore off mainly because I was teased mercilessly. It hurt. It hurt me so badly that even in this special world I was a freak. My life was the same in either world, and two years passed me by quickly. Everything went wrong near the end of my third year.
It was a week before we were to go home. I was outside amusing myself by changing rocks into statues and pretending they were my friends, as I had none, when Addison Jonadab and his group came up to me. They were all in Slytherin's house, and they had teased me the most about my strange abilities.
"Hello," Jonadab drawled, his eyes showing anger. "And what exactly are you doing on Slytherin grounds?"
"This is Hogwarts ground!" I exclaimed, turning to look at them.
I was about to say more when I noticed their wands were all out. I suddenly felt scared. The difference in power between my Outlet and their wands meant that I needed more discipline to control it, and I still wasn't that good. To top that off, my weakest magic was protecting myself. I started to back up, but they all pointed their wands at me.
"Stay awhile, Peele," Jonadab crooned.
I turned and ran. A flurry of spells hit me in the back and I hit the ground, immobile. I was turned over roughly and found myself staring into Jonadab's angry black eyes. He was sneering down at me and I was helpless to stop anything he might do.
"Slytherin does not like that Gryffindor gets something special. We are going to be the ones to take away that something," Jonadab said, pointing his wand in my face.
I could do nothing but stare as his lips moved silently; I couldn't hear him speak over the blood rushing in my ears. I saw a bright flash of green light and it was over. Yet…I could still hear and see them. They were concocting a cover up story about how I fell, and it was believed. Even if it hadn't and they'd have found out that they'd killed me, their penalty wouldn't have been Azkaban or death. There was no law about that back then. There wasn't even an Azkaban! My body was buried on Hogwarts ground, and after the students all left, I sat up out of my grave and watched. I knew I was a ghost, but that didn't mean I didn't want to go home.
"I can never go back home," I whispered, floating a foot off the ground.
"No. This is now your home," a voice said. I turned to see Gryffindor looking at me gravely.
We had a long conversation and I found out that he knew what had happened, but even he couldn't reverse death. In the weeks that followed I changed my appearance and name so that nobody would recognize me. They are both as you know me now. So that's the story of how Hogwarts got its poltergeist. An Outlet died.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Peeves looked up from the parchment and into a mirror. His hair was thick and silver, a natural color that had died out years and years ago, and hung down to the middle of his back. His eyes were a startling sea blue-green that could change and ripple like the mysterious waters themselves. His skin was surprisingly pale, and his robes were those of ancient Hogwarts. His face was young and boyish, yet had already started to get some of the hardness of a man's. He was about five feet even, having been a bit short for his age, and lean with well defined muscles.
After looking himself over for a minute, Peeves sighed and picked up the parchment, placing it in a pile with the others. Peeves had nobody that would listen to him and his problems, so he'd taken to writing them down and storing them in a part of the Room of Requirements. It felt nice to get the story of his death off his chest; it had been weighing him down ever since he'd heard the students asking all the other ghosts how they'd died. The poltergeist looked back over into the mirror and smiled. He rarely ever donned his original form anymore, and it was nice to feel his hair caress his face and back again. In his other form, his hair was stiff and hurt his head. His gentle smile turned into a mean grin as he sniffed the air and smelled the end of the year feast. Because of his being so unpopular when he was alive, he enjoyed giving other people hell as if it would make up for the harshness of his past.
Even now, almost one thousand years later, he had no friends to talk to, and that only made him meaner to the students and staff. The only people he could really even relate to were the Weasley twins, but they had their own human friends to be with. Peeves took a deep steadying breath and looked in the mirror, willing his image to change. As he watched, his body and hair shortened the latter turning darker. His clothes became more clown-like and his face sharper. He looked at the finished product, grinning maliciously. This was who he was now. He had never shown anybody his other form, and he didn't plan to. The smell of the feast beckoned him on, and Peeves eagerly flew through the wall and hurried to make as much trouble as he could.