A/N My first Fanfic so please be nice. The idea just kind of popped into my head so I wrote it without any planning or knowing what was going to happen.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this story or anything else that you might recognize.
Argus opened his eyes early that morning and the first thing he saw was the love of his life: Mrs. Norris. She was on his chest and staring at him with her huge yellow eyes that could detect any sort of misbehaviour in the castle. Mrs. Norris was the only one in the whole castle who truly understood how he felt and how the dirty little snot nosed brats deserved to be punished. He relied on her to fetch him quickly when a student went against his law. She had ironically been named after the last caretaker of Hogwarts, Mrs. Megan Norris. She had had the true abilities that a caretaker needed. Argus had known her when he was a boy and she had always been his mentor.
He sat up while gently placing Mrs. Norris next to him. He looked around his dingy room for the cat treats which he fed his cat one a regular basis. His room was small, stone walled and barley furnished. The few bits of furniture he did own were: a chair he made himself when he was eight, a wooden crate that contained all his clothing and personal belongings, a small cot and an elegant and very detailed cat bed. He had decided to skimp on his own needs and get Mrs. Norris the best he could afford. The only light in his room came from a small window high up on the wall. Argus didn't mind his living quarters; in fact he actually liked them. Dumbledore had offered him a much bigger room but he had declined. He did not like too much light and a lot of furniture would just crowd the cozy room.
He found the cat treats next to the bed and gave a couple to Mrs. Norris. He then proceeded to get up and dressed. Even though it was only five o'clock he still had a lot to do before the stuck-up students got up, generally around seven. Since he was a squib he had to do all the cleaning by hand with the aid of a few enchanted items. First he swept the hallways and mopped up any spills that occurred over the night. About one student wet the bed every night so there bedding had to be changed next. Usually the house-elves would do something like that but the pig nosed slobs ate so much that they were too busy making breakfast. He knew for a fact that they spent more than a half hour making food for just the red haired, over eating, pranksters. An amazing amount of students were up and about, vandalizing the school after he cleaned the halls at 10:30. Peeves usually stayed up all night doing damage that had to be repaired and cleaned up. There was also the odd student that was up early that needed to be watched in case they tried to pull anything off, like a bag of dung bombs in the dungeons.
Argus sighed heavily. Life was not fantastic and the amount of trouble that the occupants of the school caused was sometimes depressing. He walked out his door, holding his broom in his hand like it was a weapon. He started off for one of the towers to begin sweeping. Mrs. Norris went off to find anyone she could that had placed a toe out of line.
After the towers he slowly worked his way downstairs to the dungeons. Once there he used "Mrs. Norris' Dirt Banisher" on his final big pile of dirt that he had accumulated. He liked to see how big it was and mark it down on a chart in his main janitorial closet. Today's pile was nothing special, a little smaller than usual but not enough to contemplate telling the headmaster. Argus told the headmaster if there was anything unusual about the amount of dirt in the school hoping that all the students would get one big detention for making his life miserable. The smaller the pile the less students that had been out during the night.
Argus Filch went slowly to the main janitorial closet (from now on referred to as the M.J.C. or headquarters) (other closets are called J.C. or bases) hoping to see Mrs. Norris sprinting towards him through one of the passageways. Usually she had found a misbehaver by now. Maybe that Potter kid had tortured her again and hung her on the wall for his sick, twisted amusement. He had done that when he was only in his second year, wonder what he could do know that he was in his fifth. Probably give her a slow painful death that would cause her spirit pain for ever.
These thoughts worried him greatly so he rushed to headquarters, as he liked to call it, to find the tracking device he had secretly had Dumbledore install for him after she had been petrified. It was a simple stick that would point out whichever direction she was in. The small problem was that it had no regard for the walls so he often had to use confusing passageways to get there. This time he found that she was moving quickly along a hall perpendicular to him. Argus sprinted in the direction she was headed, this surely meant a student was after her!
As he turned the corner he saw her running straight for him. No one was in sight. Phew! She had only found a student that was out of line. Wait a minute; a student was out of line! Mrs. Norris cocked her head meaning that he was to follow her and ran in the direction that she had come. Together they made quite a team, often students had no idea that he was coming, so he caught them in the act.
As they were running Argus wondered what the students were doing wrong. Maybe they were stealing potion ingredients from a professor, going down an illegal corridor, writing in blood on the walls, or planning a huge attack that could get them expelled if they were caught. All of these Argus desperately wanted a student to do carelessly so that he could catch them in the act. He knew they had happened before; he just had yet to find them while doing it so that they were given the proper punishment. He had come close several times.
Mrs. Norris turned the corner and disappeared. This was the signal for Filch to just pop in on the trouble maker and punish them. He realized that now he was in front of on of the base's and that it was probably just students making out or someone trying to get all the brooms to fall on him at soon as he opened the door.
Filch was cautious when he opened the door. He had to be because he cleaned a school full of juvenile delinquents. He stepped out of harms way as soon as the door opened and peered in. Two dark shadows moved quickly.
"Show yourself you dirty kids! Making out in my closet, you have no right!" he yelled at them.
The two shadows appeared before him, Ginny Weasley and Dean Thomas. The amount of times he had caught the youngest Weasley was staggering, and most often she was with a different boy each time. The Dean Thomas guy however, had been her closet buddy for a few weeks now. A new record for her Filch reckoned.
Ginny was not shy and came out of the closet with a friendly smile on her face. That smile always melted his heart. He wished he had grand-kids so that they could smile at him like that. On the other hand his grand-kids would not be snogging in his closets.
"Hi Argus!" She exclaimed. "You seem well today, how was your morning?"
He noted the apprehension in her voice. It made him smile on the inside, she was still afraid of him just like any other student.
"Hello Ginny! Fancy meeting you here. I thought you understood yesterday when I told you not to be making out in my closets! Now get before I call the headmaster, or your brother!"
At the mention of her brother Ginny started. She always had trouble with her brother. Ah well, too bad for her. They got on there way quickly, sniggering as they jogged down the corridor.
The students were walking up now and heading for the great hall. During breakfast Filch ate with Mrs. Norris in a small room off the great hall. He used to sit at the staff table years ago but students had found it funny to get food to repeatedly pelt themselves at him and his precious.
When the students went to classes Filch cleaned up the great hall and the areas that the students had dirtied. This mess was generally not bad. The students in there classes did not require supervision but the students who decided to skip class felt his full wrath.
Patrolling the halls never found very many students but it was the best possible way. With him and Mrs. Norris out and looking, only the very devious ones got away.
Argus was walking down a corridor when he heard snickering. He rounded the corner and found the Weasley twins. The amount of times he had caught those two was unbelievable. They were in his office (M.J.C.) at least once a day. The two red heads smiled and waved. They were very familiar with him. They practically led the way to his office.
Once in his office the twins immediately sat own in the same chairs as always and started telling him the exact information that he needed to know to fill out his form.
"So we were in the hallway, out of class" started Fred.
"That gets us each on detention" finished George.
"We were in the hallway building a timed stink bomb that will go off…"
"Right about now"
A huge explosion was heard and Argus bolted out the door leaving the twins behind. He vaguely heard the twins laughing as he ran.
Argus stopped at a base to grab a gas mask and a stink container. He sprinted down the hall towards the ever growing stench. Just then the bell rang and students poured out of classrooms. They all started holding their noses and complaining about the smell. One of them gagged and then threw up their breakfast. Great! Thought Argus, gives me one more thing to clean up.
As he neared the bomb pulled out the stink container and pushed the button on the left side. A huge vacuum noise occurred and then the stench was suddenly gone. The students who had run back into their classrooms were now emerging and shoving past him. The majority of them were taller than him and looked down at him with dislike. Argus sighed and headed towards the nearest janitor closet to get some sawdust and a mop.
As he was moping up the vomit, nearly gagging himself over the half digested pancakes he wondered why Dumbledore wouldn't let him hang the students from the ceiling. He would never have had this problem with the Weasley twins then! He would have to go ask him for the eighth time this week.
While the students had lunch Argus cleaned up the classrooms. Someone had done something horribly wrong in potions and in the charms class room someone had conjured up a hundred dead frogs. He hoped it was accidental.
As lunch ended Argus decided that this would be the perfect time to go ask Dumbledore about hanging snot nosed brats from the ceiling.
Filch approached the headmaster's office and smoothed his hair, hoping that if he looked professional he might have a better chance. He stopped at the gargoyle and took a piece of parchment out of his pocket. The parchment had a list of all the passwords he needed to do his job well and for security reasons the list was only legible to him. To everyone else it looked like a form for a detention.
"Ice mice" Argus told the gargoyle who immediately jumped aside.
Argus stepped onto the staircase and stood still as stone as he made his way up to the headmaster's office.
He opened the door to find Dumbledore sitting at his desk fiddling with one of the silver objects.
"Good afternoon Argus, how might I help you today?" Dumbledore inquired.
"I'm fine sir thank-you. I would like to inquire if I might be able to get permission to enforce harsher punishments than the ones already being given."
"Argus I told you yesterday that the parents of most of the students would not stand for it. I'm very sorry but I would be going against many of my beliefs if we were to hang children by their ankles from the ceiling. It is not permissible today nor was it yesterday and nor will I allow tomorrow or any other day."
"Yes sir, sorry for disturbing you today"
"I believe that Peeves has caused some mayhem on the second floor, you may go now" Dumbledore said, giving Argus a good excuse to leave and yell and shout down the corridor in an attempt to vent out his anger.
Peeves was always doing something every to get on Filches nerves. His only respite was that he new that it was not personal. Peeves had made it his life goal to annoy the heck out of everyone he met. His only exception was the Bloody Baron.
Today Peeves had stolen a potion from a student, probably Neville by the looks of it, and had covered an entire classroom in the foul smelling goop. The worst part was that the goop was magic resistant. He was going to have to clean the whole classroom by hand. Wait a second he thought, which students have a detention tonight.
Argus made his way to headquarters to check the list of students he could inflict this sort of torture on.
The list told him that the Weasley twins had a detention to serve every night this week. It told him that some Hufflepuff boy and a Marietta Edgecomb from Ravenclaw also had detentions to serve.
Perfect. One big group detention scrubbing that classroom was in order.
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After dinner he had the students meet him at the classroom he gave them each a bucket full of soapy water and a sponge.
"Alright" He started "I want you to start on the desk so that I can use it and then continue to scrub the rest of the room. Unfortunately magic won't work but feel free to try. You will only leave the room once I have deemed it clean. Any questions?"
"No questions" they chorused and they all got to work. The desk was cleaned in fifteen minutes so Filch sat down and started scheduling detentions. He heard some whispering and looked up to see the twins sniggering.
"I want you two to work on different walls so that you don't talk to each other."
The twins obliged and soon (more like midnight) the room was clean. Argus sent the students to bed and patrolled the halls for students out of bed.
At three o'clock Argus stopped and went to his room. He got ready for bed and called for Mrs. Norris. She leaped on to the bed and curled up next to him. In his head Argus reviewed the day.
On the down side he had given only one detention caught just Ginny in a closet and the headmaster had turned him down again.
On the bright side however he had found a great punishment for those little delinquents that had had to scrub the whole room. He felt a little smug for discovering that. Another good thing was the fact that Mrs. Norris had not been tortured as he had feared. He felt like he was getting closer to being able to hang students from the ceiling, it was just a matter of time before Dumbledore kicked the bucket.
And with that being his last conscious thought, Argus drifted off to sleep dreaming of the ways he would punish the students when Dumbledore finally would let him or a new headmaster did.