Tom and Will arrived back home in Wyvern Hills well past midnight and slept until nearly noon. It was New Year's Eve, and their parents were having a small get-together later. This meant Tom and Will were busy all day putting the house in order. Tom and his dad put away Christmas decorations. Will accompanied his mom and Evie on a grocery run.

That night the Proctors rung in the New Year with some of their closest friends: the Cahills from down the street and the Gills. Mr. Gill worked with Will's dad at the Atlanta office of the U. S. Portkey Authority. Reggie Gill was on the Proudfeather Quodpot team with Tom, and the two of them spent the night talking about last night's Rapiers–Bombers game. Shortly after supper they sneaked up to Tom's room to listen to the Blaze–Gargoyles match-up on the wizard radio. Shortly before midnight, they descended to announce that the Rapiers would be playing the Detroit Blaze next week, which meant they had a decent chance of winning the entire tournament.

At midnight everyone drank champagne (or Fizzbang Soda for the children) and went out to the back yard, where Mr. Proctor and Mr. Gill used their wands to shoot blazing multicolored fireworks into the air.

Once again, Will got to bed far later than he was accustomed. Once again, he slept until almost noon. After a quick shower he stumbled downstairs. He gave his mother a good-morning kiss and she informed him that Tom had left to spend the day in Atlanta with his friend Reggie.

Will spent the afternoon helping his parents clean up from last night's party. When Mr. Proctor had to check in at the office and Mrs. Proctor left to run a couple of errands, Will was left babysitting his little sister. After the fourth or fifth tea party, he pulled his Shiny Thing from his pocket and turned it over to her. To Will's amazement and delight, something about it utterly fascinated her. The Shiny Thing kept Evie occupied until his parents came home, and gave him a couple hours to go over a list of potion ingredients Madame Glapion, his Potions teacher, had given them to study before Christmas.

When his dad came home from the office, Evie shot into his arms. Will smiled. Even a Shiny Thing can't compete with Daddy, he thought. Then he extended his arm, palm up, and concentrated on Tom's Christmas present. "I need my Shiny Thing," he said, and the glowing trinket silently materialized in his hand.

The rest of the week was a blur. On Sunday afternoon Tom and Will packed their bags and flooed back to the Powler Inn, then walked across the old covered bridge toward the wrought iron gate of Malkin Academy.

Will was the last of the third-year Proudfeather boys to return to campus. Phinehas Buzzard and his best friend, Rodney Walker, had spent the afternoon flying their brooms around campus. Phinehas was a tall, broad-shouldered African American boy who looked a year or two older than he really was. Rodney was tall and gangly like Will, but broader shouldered and with classic Native American features. His sleek black hair fell almost to his shoulders. They came in from flying about the time Will arrived and now were washing up before supper

Will's other two roommates, Marc Lantier and Adam Sizemore, were sitting at a corner table in the Proudfeather common room. An inviting fire warmed the entire area. Along the dark wood-paneled walls, a bald eagle soared from painting to painting. It seemed Marc and Adam were engaged in their usual pastime of getting into mischief. The two boys huddled around a table and dug through a magenta box somewhat larger than a shoebox.

"Wicked!" Marc said as he pulled the lid off a small tin of yellow candies. "Canary Creams," he read from the label. "Temporarily transfigures the eater into a canary. I've got to slip one of these to Neandro Robles from the Strongfoot Quodpot team! What've you got there, Adam?"

Adam was taller than Marc and fairer-skinned. In his hand he held something that looked like a lumpy ball of moss and ivy while gazing at a leaf of parchment.

"It's something called a Portable Swamp."

"What's going on?" Will asked.

"You gotta see what Adam's older brother got him for Christmas. It is awesome!"

"Yeah," Adam said, swelling with pride. "He sent it straight to school—so Mom and Dad wouldn't see it, no doubt. An owl only brought it today."

"Adam's brother works for a big potions company over in England. I guess these are really big over there."

Will picked up the magenta box lid, in the center of which a large golden W was printed in a whimsical script. Underneath the W was more writing.

"Weasley's Wizard Wheezes," Will read. "Junior Jackanape Sample Kit."

"Whoever this Weasley guy is," Marc said, "he makes Nestor's Novelties look like a bunch of amateurs." He held up the catalog that had come with the box. "Listen to this! They've got Wildfire Whiz-bangs, Skiving Snackboxes—looks like you've got one of those—Trick Wands… Adam, do you think your brother could place us an order if we sent him the money?"

Adam insisted that he and Marc use great restraint with his Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. After all, they only had a small sample kit to play with. He wanted it to last as long as possible. For their first victim, they set their sights on Daniel Wardwell, a lean, redheaded first-year who struck them as having an easy-going nature and not likely to get them in trouble. After supper that night, as they passed the time in the Proudfeather common room, they offered him a piece of toffee. As soon as he popped it in his mouth, his tongue began to turn purple and swell to gigantic size. It topped out at a bit over four feet long (Adam insisted on measuring it) and stayed that size for most of the evening.

After the Ton-Tongue Toffee incident, however, Proudfeathers were entirely too suspicious to try any sweets Adam and Marc offered them. The boys were grateful, however, that no one seemed quite as concerned about members of other houses.

Classes resumed promptly at eight o'clock the following morning. Proudfeather's first class was Care of Magical Creatures. Marc made a point of getting to class early and placing a Canary Cream and a card that read "From a secret admirer" on the desk of Victor Neumann, a Quickfang boy who always seemed far too serious for his own good. Of course, Marc feigned ignorance of who might have left the candy there.

Just as Ms. Hoskins's began her lecture on the mating habits of jarveys, Victor popped the sweet into his mouth and suddenly gagged. A second later his face turned yellow, and he began to shrink on the spot. He had, indeed, been transfigured into a tiny yellow canary. He peeped and flitted about the room while the rest of the class laughed and clapped. Ms. Hoskins's pet kneazle, Scratch, licked his lips and followed Victor with his eyes as the transfigured boy flapped around the ceiling.

It didn't take long, however, until the teacher grew tired of the interruption. Shooing Scratch to the floor, she pulled her wand from its leather sheath on the belt of her blue jeans and coaxed Victor to land on her desk, where she performed the appropriate untransfiguration spell. Victor assumed his proper size and shape and found himself standing on his teacher's desk with no clue what had just happened. Ms. Hoskins told him to return to his seat and cast an exasperated look around the class.

In the absence of any evidence, she had no choice but to let the matter drop.

Adam and Marc didn't dare play any more pranks that day, least of all in their final class, Transfiguration. Their Transfiguration teacher, Ms. Goates, was a stern and demanding witch who had no tolerance for any kind of frivolity in her classroom. Furthermore, as the Vice Principal of Malkin Academy, she had special responsibilities for addressing any rule-breaking or disruptive behavior. With her tall, thin frame, spiky gray hair, and severe demeanor, Ms. Goates inspired reverence—if not abject fear—in most Malkin students.

As if it were any other day and not the first day back from Christmas vacation, Ms. Goates lectured nonstop for the first half of class, filling four separate white boards with magical equations and principals related to inanimate-to-animate transformations. She then brought several stone animal statues out of her supply room and had students practice transforming them into actual living creatures.

At the command, "Wands out," there was a commotion at the back of the room. "Mr. Trimble? Mr. Neumann?" Ms. Goates said, "Is there something you'd like to share with the class?"

The two Quickfang boys looked up at their teacher. Malik Trimble said, "Ms. Goates, I-I can't find my wand!"

Ms. Goates frowned.

"It was in my backpack this morning!" he cried. "I know I had it at lunch."

"How very careless of you," Ms. Goates said, disgusted. "Have you not yet learned that a wizard's wand is his or her most basic tool? Ten points from Quickfang." Malik started to protest but Ms. Goates's blazing stare silenced him before he uttered a word. No one questioned the word of Vice Principal Goates. No one.

"There doesn't seem to be any point of you remaining in class," she rumbled as she gave Malik an icy glare. "You are dismissed, Mr. Trimble. And please remember to bring your wand with you to class on Thursday."

After class, Will went to the library with most of his classmates to study. It felt good to be back at school; but away from the comforts and distractions of home, his mind once again turned to the strange creature he saw—or maybe only thought he saw—the weekend before Christmas. Instead of working on the homework his teachers had assigned, Will wandered into the stacks to find the copy of Special Topics in Transfiguration he had seen Kevin Guinfort reading before Christmas. Now that he had plenty of time to read it, he was disappointed to find it was not terribly enlightening. There was nothing in it about dog-head spells of any kind. Nor could Will find anything in the Defense Against the Dark Arts section about werecreatures who only transformed from the neck up.

The mystery kept Will awake that night long past the time he would normally have been fast asleep. He tossed and turned in his bed, convinced he had once read something about a dog-headed man but unable to remember where.

Will lit his wand long enough to check the time. The alarm clock on his bedside table said it was 1:10 in the morning. His roommates were fast asleep. Will rolled out of bed, slipped on his robe and slippers, and sneaked down the hall to the common room. The fire in the fireplace had waned to a weak, reddish glow. Will wandered over to the small bookcase where the Proudfeathers kept copies of the most basic reference works on hand. He opened the glass cabinet and pulled the Dictionary of American Wizardry from the shelf. Sitting in an overstuffed chair by the fireplace, he read random entries by wandlight for the better part of an hour.

Will awoke with a start. He must have been sleepier than he thought. He stretched, returned his book to the shelf, and stumbled back to bed. He noticed that his breathing was labored, however, as if he had been exercising rather than sleeping. His muscles were stiff and sore.

Too much stress, he told himself.

The next day, Will stumbled through his morning classes still half-asleep from his restless night. By lunchtime, he had mostly recovered, although he still felt sore if he made any sudden movements.

That afternoon, as expected, Ms. Ruiz introduced the topic of Folk Charms. The Charms teacher was generally well liked, but she spoke very quickly, and some students found it hard to keep up with her. Fortunately, she never complained about repeating herself or rephrasing what she said when someone had trouble following her Spanish accent.

She demonstrated some of the spells she learned growing up in Arizona with incantations either in archaic Spanish or one of several Native American languages. Most of them seemed to work pretty much the same as the standard charms the class had already learned, although several of the boys said they wished they had known about her Frightening Jinx at Halloween.

She also permitted students to share some of the Folk Charms they had learned. Rodney Walker lit a candle using an Algonquian Fire Charm he said his grandfather had always used. Victor Neumann whispered a Hebrew charm that created an invisible barrier between himself and his roommate, DeAndre King. Everyone laughed as DeAndre pounded against the unseen wall, completely unable to get to Victor, no matter which way either of them turned. Victor explained that his mother had often used this charm to keep his fights with his older cousins from getting out of hand.

Malik Trimble had still not found his wand even though he swore he had looked everywhere. Ms. Ruiz gently warned him that if he didn't find it soon he would have to contact his parents about buying him a new one.

The rest of the week proved largely uneventful. Adam only attempted one more prank with his Wizard Wheezes. On Thursday in Herbology, he let off his Portable Swamp in the greenhouse where Mr. Corntassel was explaining how to re-pot a Mimbulus Mimbletonia. It took the old Native American wizard several minutes of strenuous Charms work to whisk away the muck and the stench of rotting vegetation with his eagle-tasseled wand. He docked Proudfeather five house points after coaxing a confession from the guilty party.

On Saturday afternoon, the weather was unseasonably warm. This pleasant surprise drew many students out of their dorms and onto the vast lawn behind Osserly Hall. Some rode brooms. A handful of younger kids had somehow gotten their hands on a deactivated Quod and practiced passing maneuvers out over Malkin's expansive rolling fields. A few Muggle-born students had conjured a ten-foot tall pole with a metal hoop at the top and took turns trying to throw an orange leather ball through it.

As usual, Adam and Marc had no problem amusing themselves. Will was walking with them near the broom shed when Marc produced a plastic disk from beneath his cloak. It was bright green in color, and along the edges was a row of gleaming white fangs. It snarled as Marc showed it to his roommates.

Adam, Marc, and Will tossed around the Fanged Frisbee for a good long while. They tried to invent a good game to play with it, but had a hard time settling on rules that were agreeable to everyone. They threw it for distance. They threw it for accuracy, trying to aim for one and then another makeshift goal. They tried to keep it airborne as long as possible with simple Hover and Levitation Charms. This seemed to Will the smartest game to play, since it tended to keep the players' hands and fingers safe from the nips and cuts the disk tried to inflict upon them.

Eventually other kids drifted over and joined the game: Kate and Felicia, who had gotten bored with broom-flying, suggested they form teams and mark off a proper playing field. Kenny Garlwood, a fourth-year Strongfoot, helped them transfigure a couple of benches into elevated goal hoops similar to those the Muggle-born kids had made.

The game was a hit. Will, Kate, and Adam squared off against Marc, Felicia, and Kenny, with each team trying to get the Fanged Frisbee into the others' goal basket. They decided that they weren't allowed to touch the disk with any part of their bodies—they had to either use magic or tap it with their wands—and that they were only allowed to move when they weren't controlling the disk.

This went on for some time, but eventually Adam and Marc started trying to make the game more "interesting" by injecting their own brand of unpredictability into it. As Kate took a shot at the hoop, Marc jinxed her with a swarm of gnats. Kenny blew a shot from Will off course with a sudden magical burst of air, which led to Adam throwing a Jelly Legs Jinx on Kenny the next time he had the disk.

The game ultimately sputtered out when Kate and Felicia decided they had had enough and wandered off the field. That was when Adam offered Kenny a Chocolate Frog as an apology for jinxing him.

As soon as the Strongfoot boy popped it in his mouth, however, he knew something was not quite right. His eyes began to bulge, and his skin began to turn the slightest bit green. When he opened his mouth to speak, the only sound that came out was a deep, rumbling croak.

Kenny glared murderously at Adam. He pulled out his wand and pointed it straight at him and shouted his incantation, but what everyone heard was, "Croak!"

Adam and Marc burst out laughing. "I've been wanting to try the Chocolate Croaker on somebody," Adam grinned. "Looks like it works!"

"Ribbet!" Kenny said, still trying to throw a jinx. When he realized spells wouldn't work, he lunged for Adam. In a flash, the two boys were barreling across the lawn, Adam still smiling but Kenny's eyes ablaze. The older boy finally caught up to him on the far end of the lawn, near the carriage house. He yanked on the collar of Adam's jacket and pulled him to a halt. The next second, the two boys were rolling on the ground. Marc and Will followed close behind, but before they could pull Adam and Kenny apart, there was a flash of light. The boys fell flat on their backs. Above them, in the doorway of the carriage house, stood the groundskeeper, Mr. Slackbrow.

"Tarnation!" the wiry, snaggle-toothed man thundered. "You boys wanna explain what's goin' on?" Will guessed from his oil-smudged hands he had been working on one of Malkin's school buses when he heard the commotion. The wind whipped his long, greasy hair.

"Br-r-rack!" shouted Kenny. "Brack-ack-ack! Kwa-ack! Kaw-a-a-ack!"

Mr. Slackbrow set his hands on his hips and glared down at Adam. "Just what did you do to this boy?" he demanded.

Adam and Marc shouted over each other to insist it was just a practical joke and the effects would wear off if Kenny would just be patient. Mr. Slackbrow didn't want to hear it. He removed the Encumbrance Charm he had used to pin the two boys down and hauled Adam up by his collar. The spidery-looking man was stronger than he looked! Kenny rolled over and struggled to his feet.

"I've a mind to let Ms. Goates sort this out. Is that what you want?" Adam's face turned pale at the mention of the intimidating Vice Principal.

"Ribbet!" croaked Kenny.

"Aw, come on!" Mr. Slackbrow said in resignation. "She'll need to fix you up anyways. Let's go!" The groundskeeper herded Adam in the direction of the faculty cabins, complaining the whole way about this unwelcome intrusion into his day. Kenny followed close behind.

Marc thought about following as well to speak up for his friend, but decided it was safer just to take his Fanged Frisbee and go back to the dorm.

Will noticed a glimmer of silvery light from inside the carriage house. Curious, he peeked inside. Two old yellow school buses were parked side-by-side, one of them with the hood raised and a greasy rag draped across the front. To the left was a cluttered workbench; to the right, a small open space for Mr. Slackbrow's gardening equipment: rakes and hoes, bags of fertilizer, and so forth.

In the center of this area a ghost hovered.

Will had never seen this ghost before, but he had heard older kids talking about Archie. This ghost apparently haunted an old dueling ground on Warlocks Ridge, just on the other side of Powler Creek, but he sometimes visited the campus and, for reasons he never shared with the living, liked to hang around the old carriage house. Archie looked like he had died in his early twenties. He might have been handsome in his day, but the left side of his face was now badly burned—as was the corresponding shoulder of his ghostly frockcoat.

"Sorry," Will gasped. "I didn't mean to disturb you."

The ghost looked Will over but didn't betray any emotion. He stood (or rather, floated) with perfect posture and an air of refined dignity.

"It's not right," the ghost finally said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"It's not right to go running to a teacher to solve all your problems. In my day, those two boys would have settled things properly, on the field of honor."

People said Archie was rather intense and a little bit crazy. Most were glad he never showed up at any of Malkin Academy's banquets or parties.

"Yeah," Will said. "Well…I'd better get going."

"You do that," the ghost said.

Will pulled his cloak more tightly around him and trudged off across the lawn.

Author's Note: My daughter wanted Weasley's Wizard Wheezes to figure in this story. What do you think?