Dumbledore dove behind his chair and shrieked, "PEZ!" and the chair descended beneath the head table, whisking him away from the turmoil of the hall. Teachers and students alike wailed in distress – the Grim was in the hallway. Professor Trelawney came out of her bottle of cooking sherry (it tasted vaguely of the meatloaf today) long enough to cackle and shriek, "If you see the Grim, you shall die!" She then splashed back into its murky depths.

"Lavender, are you all right?" asked a concerned Ron. He knelt beside her and tried to take her pulse – sadly he had never done that before and wasn't very good at it. A few moments later, she awoke and, looking at Ron queerly, asked, "Ron, what are you doing with my ankle?"

"I'm checking to see if you're dead or not!" Ron shouted, getting caught up in the emotion of the thing.

"You're just checking to see if I'm alive so you can snog with me! With CPR!" she cried, taking her shoe from the confused Ron's hands and running off into the teeming mass.

"But wouldn't you want me to be the one to give you CPR?" he shouted.

From the panicked throng, Pansy Parkinson winked and nodded in Ron's direction. Ron commenced dry heaving.

Mel stood up upon a chair, and shouted into the crowd, "Listen to me! I have something important to say!"

All eyes turned to her, for the briefest moment, the Great Hall was entirely silent. "Neither Lavender nor myself have seen the Grim in person – it has instead been scryed through crystal ball, tea leaves, the entrails of pigeons, and etcetera.

"Oh come on!" said Ron angrily (he hadn't gotten his free, and very public snog; also: meatloaf). "Trelawney was seeing Grims in everything for Harry like a thousand times a couple years ago. You got us upset because you muddled some tea leaves around until it looked like a Chihuahua?"

"I assure you, Ronald," said Mel, the steel in her voice matching the steel in her blue eyes and platinum hair, "my predictions are always correct, unlike certain drunkards who shall remain nameless."

Hagrid looked up at her vaguely, trying to figure out if she were making fun of him.

"Yes, let's all believe Mel!" cried the crowd with one accord.

"I suppose that I cannot go against the will of the people," said Ron, conformistly.

"Now, who shall go out and deal with this Spectre of Terror and Harbringer of Doom?" Mel beseeched, her honey'd voice begging for help and aid, which none could hope to resist against, as much as they couldn't resist desiring her long, blond locks of hair, or her warm brown eyes.

"I shall go," said Harry glumly. "I have naught left in this life to entice me to remain. Without my godfather, I am as nothing! I shall myself go, and hopefully I shall vanquish this grim Grim, and in doing so, give up my life to protect those whom I once considered my friends in this dismal and dark world! Oh Fate! I go to meet with thee!" Harry started to move forward, but as he did, he tripped on a piece of meatloaf and his ankle twisted! No longer could his powers of remaining aloft and upright combat the powers of gravity! Down, down he fell and with it, a horrible sound – the sound of breaking bone and tearing sinew!

"Oh!" cried Harry. "My ankle! I am unable to walk! The pain! Perambulation is beyond me! Oh, if only I could continue resolute and strong but I cannot! I cannot!" He fell into a heap upon the floor and wept soft cathartic tears.

Mel knelt down, and with a wave of her wand, she was wearing a nurse's hat which complimented her violet eyes and ebony locks. "Oh, Harry! You are hurt! You cannot continue in this endeavor to combat The Grim! I shall nurse you back to health with my restorative broths and soothing ministrations – I shall be as the goat which fed the babe Zeus, whose horn the cornucopia was, and you shall suckle from my milk of regeneration!"

"I am a failure!" Harry wept. "I am unable to bring back my godfather, and I am unable even to combat a terrifying ghostly dog!"

"Did someone mention ghost?" said Gil, as his silver-topped head bobbed up from the crowd; several girls gasped and more than one fainted as he passed them by. "I believe that, where you failed in this, I shall succeed," he said to Harry. "You see, I am half-ghost, and therefore, the Grim shall receive me as a brother – I shall not die by gazing upon his face!"

"Oh Gil," said Ginny, breathlessly. "You're so brave. And half-ghost."

"Yes," said Gil nonchalantly, "I am both of those things."

"I am the Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher," said Snape angrily. "I should be the one to deal with this minor menace."

"But, sir, are you endowed, such as I am, with all of the abilities of a half ghost? Do you normally wear spikes on your wrists such as I, perfect as both fashion statement and as weapon, if needs arise? I think not! This is a matter beyond your hands; it rests solely in mine to deal with it."

"You are, as always, correct," said Snape, backing off, because Snape knew that he couldn't hope to compete with Gil in this area, not being a half-ghost himself.

Gil whipped out his wand, a black ebony number made from the heartstrings of a dragon, pointy, very good for poking things and hexing, and as its dark shaft arced through the air in a complex series of symbols known and unknown to those watching – he said "Accio bass!" in his soulful, tenor voice.

Usually a summoning spell of this level would cause whatever object was desired to fly through the air to the summoner, but such was Gil's half ghost side that the instrument was called through the very æther itself, appearing in a brilliant flash of dark violet light. Gil's bass, an instrument made for one purpose – that purpose being to rawk out the very hearts of men and inspire desire in the hearts of women when coupled with the songs of sorrow that Gil sang. The bass had another purpose, and that was to battle the specters of the dead who threatened the living – because the dead never bought albums, so saving the lives of the living was in Gil's best interest.

"Darke Thorne – Bass of the Underworld!" cried Gil, holding it aloft.

The throng of girls surrounding Gil began to weep soft tears of joy.

Professor McGonagall swooned.

Gil started off for the doors, a hushed silence pervading over all, as the crowd watched this brave, attractive, mournful half-ghost go to save all of their lives with his bass playing.

Just as he reached the doors, however, Neville Longbottom rushed into the room, and shouted, "I have misplaced Trevor again! Also!" He held aloft a mangled black ribbon, which could only have belonged to Doloris Umbridge – not even Pansy Parkinson had such poor taste. "The Grim has just eaten Doloris Umbridge!"

The reaction was mixed as both cheers of "Good job the Grim!" and shrieks of "it EATS PEOPLE?" filled the hall.

Gil cranked his amp up to eleven.

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