THC Round 3

A03/ FF Net Name: turanga4

House: Gryffindor

Class: History of Magic

Category: Themed: "The Inclusion and Significance of Food"

Pairing: McGonagall and Peeves

Word Count: 1116

A/N: Minor canon divergence and, um, implausible use of Incarcerous Spell

Beta'd by: Celeste Magnolia, Jetainia


Between the years of 993 and 1996, Peeves had gotten himself banned from five hundred and thirty feasts, but the one scheduled for April 2nd, 1996 was one he simply couldn't miss.

Four years prior, Hermione Granger announced loudly on her first night in the Gryffindor common room that, according to Hogwarts, A History, Peeves had simply "come with the building". Some surmised that he was the spirit of some bawdy Pict interred in the ancient burial ground atop which the castle was built; others argued that he embodied all the innate naughtiness of children unstifled by the constraints of a British boarding school.

Well aware that this tome was not composed for students, and angry that he had not been asked by Bathilda to provide a definitive answer (he would not have, but still considered it polite to ask), Peeves composed a scathingly mocking ditty on the spot and then turned half the girl's socks orange and the other half lime green. "Hermione, Miss Granger, there's really no one stranger, she reads books instead of feeling things, her childhood's in danger."

The bushy-haired Gryffindor was not, by any means, the first precocious and insufferable young lass to get Peeves' conk, metaphorically speaking. Nor was Minerva McGonagall.

Over the course of his thousand years at Hogwarts, though, Minerva was one who made an impression. With her sleek black hair in a bun from the very beginning, she entered at eleven already better practiced in self-control than the majority of the professors. It would, again, have been polite to ask, but the child would most likely confess to no one: she kept such a tight lid on her magic because her staggering innate power had been the breaking point of the relationship between her secretive witch mother and a father who hadn't known.

Peeves delighted in mayhem, and this was not mayhem.

Prefect, Head Girl, the school's youngest Animagus–he tried dozens of tricks to thwart her achieving that one by dislodging the mandrake leaf from her mouth. All his attempts were unsuccessful. He was always unsuccessful with that child; she carefully filled out all the registration paperwork two days before actually shifting to the form of her cat.

"You again?" he had groaned at the Welcoming Feast in 1956, when she joined the high table for professors. She merely raised a thin eyebrow and shot the words back at him. He watched her fill her plate with appropriate proportions, no more, less, or different than she had while a child. The driest, palest cuts of meat, demure splashes of gravy, and peas that never slipped from a precisely wielded fork. Peeves himself could not remember ever having eaten and he resented this tremendously; he made it seventeen minutes through that meal before being chucked out.

Attempts were made in greater earnest to simply expel him during the year Dolores Umbridge taught Defense Against the Dark Arts. Her repressive chaos was not his form of chaos—its menace was intangible, a bomb without debris. He watched and his initially piqued interest gave way to bored indifference as he realized that no one would actually play out the violent impulses he felt rising within them all.

"Have a biscuit, Potter," he heard Minerva entreat a student he'd been tormenting for years with his ditties; when the boy stood up and left, Peeves took five for himself.

Still, there were times when their interests could align a bit. Educational Degree #21, forbidding Exploding Bonbons from, well, exploding, sent him through the corridors screaming "BONBONS CAN'T READ!" He considered his helpful tip responsible for the more tightly crafted Educational Decree #27. Making an elaborate bow to the Inquisitorial Squad, Peeves expressed with delight his intention to help confiscate all banned Muggle sweets.

Soon, one additional edict was passed.

Unseen and incorporeal, Peeves entered the Great Hall on the night of the Installation Feast for Dolores Umbridge, New Headmistress. Attendance was mandatory: no seats were available, but he needed no seat. He noticed a rather disconcerting number of bow-bearing kittens at the middle of each of the four broad tables, lapping milk primly from glittering golden saucers with the students looking on in ill-concealed horror. At the staff table, current Professor McGonagall sat defiantly next to erstwhile Professor Trelawney, a pinched look on her face and her robes not her best.

Standing from the high-backed chair that had previously been Dumbledore's, Umbridge raised her wand and flicked it decisively towards the ceiling. As the spell hit, every billowing house banner became pink.

"Hem hem."

Her chilling, girlish voice rang out through the hall. "How lovely to see so many little friends on this momentous occasion! It is for all of your own good—for, indeed, the greater good—that Hogwarts is making and marking this transition of power. With the Minister's full blessing, I humbly accept the authority I have been granted to shepherd us all into an enchanting new age!" She paused, and her hard, bulging eyes seemed to rest especially on the occupants of the Gryffindor table.

"Eat, and enjoy the spoils we provide you. I trust that from this moment on, this castle will experience the order it deserves."

It was impossible—Peeves had rendered it impossible on purpose—to tell who cast the opening salvo in the food fight that ensued. Peas buttered themselves again and then poured down like buckshot, filling the air and shattering on contact. Cornish pasties, roughly boot-shaped, mustered a low and savory army atop the shining plates. Turkey drumsticks bored quickly of clubbing one another and soared to the head table in search of a new mark. The Headmistress attempted to put a stop to the still-arriving food, but, doggedly, the house elves continued to provide. As the students dropped utensils in favor of their hands, months of frustration gave power to each new and helpful toss.

Peeves had the pudding course under chaotic control: he armed the troops, and they responded brilliantly. Liberated Ring Pops clattered like hailstones.

"Incarcerous!" someone roared, and BubbleTape unspooled, magically strengthened, wrapping the kittens in ribbons of chalky, spiteful twine. Hard little Now and Laters seized the present moment, flicking themselves in the air and raining down over the floating candles. Perhaps the spirit of a Pict rejoiced; perhaps it was true that child mischief was embodied. Perhaps neither. Perhaps both. Perhaps more.

"I. Will. Have. Order!" A hard edge had entered the once-breathy voice. Twenty kittens shook off their bonds and attempted to rally, forming a kindle that bristled and hissed between Dolores and Peeves. "Here, kitty kitty," he entreated, mirth and malice equally proportioned in his voice.

Transformed, resolute, cat eyes steeled with anarchic purpose, Minerva McGonagall entered the fray.