Hogwarts 1910 ―The Wizards' Nemesis

1.

"Just think how jolly it would be if a recognised day were set apart for the paying off of old scores and grudges, a day when one could lay oneself out to be gracefully vindictive to a carefully treasured list of 'people who must not be let off.' I remember when I was at a private school we had one day, the last Monday of the term I think it was, consecrated to the settlement of feuds and grudges..."

―From The Feast of Nemesis by Saki

"Ladies and Gentlemen," said Headmistress Urganda Spelvexit, "next Monday, as you know, will be the last Monday of term, which is traditionally celebrated here at Hogwarts as the Feast of Nemesis. The wisdom of our ancestors laid down that on this day any private scores accumulated by students over the course of the year might be settled without hindrance from professor or prefect. I should be the last to fly in the face of tradition; let me remind you that the knout is the traditional punishment for an assault on a Headmaster."

She spoke feelingly. At least six headmasters of Hogwarts had been severely wounded on the Feast of Nemesis, one Phineas Nigellus fatally. Apparently his young charges had felt that a knouting was a moderate price to pay for a crack at him.

"Let me warn you, this day is to be used for the settlement of old grudges only. All claims regarding unprovoked outrages will be subject to thorough examination, including the use of torture where warranted, and any student found guilty of mere random violence will be handed over to our caretaker, Mr. Ketch, who has returned invigorated from his stay at the asylum and is eager to prove himself. I must emphasise to Slytherin House that possession of Muggle blood is not in itself considered sufficient provocation. You have been warned. Let us have all affairs conducted in the clean, wholesome spirit of British revenge."


"I say," protested Orlo Queek, a first year with a face like curdled milk, "the Hedders was just rotting about this whole Feast of Nemesis business, wasn't she?"

"Rather not!" purred Aurelian Orphrey, stretching himself out like a young lion on a couch in the Gryffindor common room, with an indecent pleasure in finding the cushion of deep golden satin that best complimented his thick tawny hair. "The feast of Nemesis is one of our most sacred and ruthlessly guarded traditions. It was in 1857 that a Professor of Muggle Studies, a man of the most rigid principles and collars, agitated to have Nemesis Day banned on grounds of inhumanity. He was a Calvinist or Schopenhauerian or something, and absolutely hopeless in every other way as well. After a long and diligent search, including the use of specially trained Nifflers, he was identified by the gold stoppings in his remaining teeth."

"But what if the Slytherins imagine we've offended them?"

"I should acquire an unwonted respect for their intelligence. But I shouldn't worry too much about the Slytherins. Imagination of any variety is rather beyond them. They haven't the self-control to save up any really good schemes for Nemesis Day. They will lose their tempers and let fly with an ineffectual Crucio; and then of course you can have them sent off to Azkaban with a deep sense of having done your duty in removing an enemy of society, as well as the keener satisfaction of having removed an enemy of yourself. No, I should say it's the Ravenclaws one has to look out for—they're an uncomfortably ingenious lot—and, of course, the Hufflepuffs."

"The Hufflepuffs! But they're so decent!"

"Precisely why they're so dangerous on Nemesis Day. Where you or I, having been hit by a Jelly-legs or, worse, having a particularly flattering set of Quidditch robes pinched by a Slytherin, can relieve our feelings immediately by giving him six of the best with a Bludger bat, the poor Puffers are bound by their morbid consciences to smile like the more refined sort of virgin martyrs and 'pocket up these wrongs.' Naturally, when they turn out their pockets at the end of the year, the results are calculated to make strong Wizards shudder. Hell hath no fury like a saint given permission to be vindictive. What's more, when a Slytherin is offended, he lets you know it — indeed, the difficulty is to get him to shut up about it—and so one is on one's guard; whereas, with a Hufflepuff, you may have taken the last muffin at breakfast or mortally insulted his grandmother, and you realise he's been brooding over it all year only when you find yourself dangling by a hair over a cauldron of boiling pitch and he's holding a candle to the hair. Last year young Wilfred Diggory set a Manticore loose in the Slytherin common room."

"What!"

"It was only a transfigured one, of course, and about as dangerous as the tea-cosy he made it of. Honestly, where the Slytherins could have expected a second-year to have come up with a Class Five Restricted creature is more than I can fathom; but then all Slytherins are thick as library paste. Vulcanus Mulciber, the silly ass, threw a fireball at it: the Common Room was charred, and three Slytherins had to be sent to St. Mungo's to grow their skin back. Even I could scarcely have done better."

"You mean even you could scarcely have done worse. But what happened to Wilfred Diggory?"

"A week of detention (suspended); and a vote of thanks from the assembled student body."