Chapter 15 – Chaos Reigns
"Professor Slytherin?" the small voice piped up from the back of the classroom. Salazar looked up from the essay he was marking and saw a waving hand through the smoke that rose from the surface of the potions the students were making.
"You have a question?" he asked, reluctant to leave his seat and enter the fumes unless it was absolutely necessary.
Isolde looked a little nervous but continued on in her quest for his attention. "Yes Professor."
"A question about the potion you're making?"
"Not exactly."
"Yes or no? Is the question about the potion?"
"Not really."
"Then I suggest you concentrate on your potion, which appears to be boiling over from what I can see, and save your question until after the class."
"But it's lunchtime after this lesson!"
"If you really want an answer to your question you'll sacrifice a few minutes of your lunchtime instead of wasting my lesson time. Now turn down the flames on your cauldron before you ruin it entirely."
Salazar had soon realised that most of the questions the students asked in class were in fact nothing more than time wasting devices that served to distract everyone from their tasks. By the time the end of the lessons rolled round most of the questions had been forgotten and nothing further was said. Therefore it came as something of a surprise to find Isolde hovering at the back of the dungeon as the rest of the class deposited their potions on his desk for marking.
"Richards, wait a moment!" he called out to one student who was trying to quickly duck out the door. Rufus Richards wandered, somewhat reluctantly back to the desk. "Why is your potion this rather alarming shade of orange?"
"I added some pumpkin juice to give it a nicer flavour," Rufus explained with a smile and a shrug.
"This is a cleaning potion," Salazar pointed out. "No one's going to be drinking it, so it doesn't matter what it tastes like."
"I thought we were making a wit-sharpening potion today?" Rufus asked in confusion. "I'm sure you said something about that one."
"I think you'll find that what I said was to keep your wits about you because you'll need to take your cauldrons off the flames at a rather precise moment."
"Are you sure? Because I'm sure you said…"
"Does it appear that anyone else misheard me?" Salazar asked as he gestured to the rest of the potions on his desk. For the most part the cleaning potions had been successfully made, although one appeared to be melting the vial it was contained in and another appeared to have the consistency of dough.
"But did I make it right?" Rufus asked, clearly not that bothered that he'd been preparing the wrong potion.
"Why don't you test it and find out?" Salazar asked. "I have the antidote here if you've done anything wrong. Or if you'd rather not then you can make up your marks by writing two feet on the preparation of cleaning potions before the end of the week."
"I'll do the essay," Rufus said.
"Thought you might," Salazar replied as he shooed him from the room.
"Professor Slytherin?" Isolde asked as she nervously placed her own potion on the desk. "You said you'd answer my question at the end of the lesson," she reminded him.
Salazar looked at the nervous girl who glanced quickly over to her friends who were hovering in the doorway waiting for her. "Well what is your question?" he asked, curious to know what could be more important to the girls than the daily race for lunch in the Great Hall.
"I…er…we…um…we were wondering if you could tell us who the school ghost is?" Isolde asked, glancing at her friends who were now edging their way back into the room.
"We don't have one," Salazar replied in surprise. "This castle is brand new. Built just this year. There aren't any ghosts here."
"But we heard it cackling!" Isolde insisted.
"Ghosts are wizards who have decided not to move on and have chosen to stay here. No one here has died. And even if they had I'm sure no self respecting ghost of a wizard would stoop to cackling."
"Are you sure?" Betsy asked as she approached the desk. "There's always a funny smell in the Divination classroom. It could be a dead body."
"I think you'll find that the smell is in fact a goat," Salazar said with a smile. "I think you can rest assured that the professors of this school would notice if someone had died."
"No one noticed when Rosalyn went down to Hogsmeade last weekend. She was there for two days."
"She was?" Salazar asked. "What was she doing there?"
"I think she was visiting her uncle," Betsy said after a moment of consideration. "Or it might have been her grandmother."
"Well I'm sure she had permission to go visit her relatives," Salazar assured the students.
"She did?" asked Isolde doubtfully.
"I promise you that nothing goes on in this school that the professors don't know about." The highly sceptical girls looked back at him before smirking at each other.
"But how do you explain the cackling?" Isolde asked. "We heard it but there was no one there when we went to look."
"Where was this?" Salazar asked, suspecting it was somewhere in the region of the hen house.
"In the Great Hall." Hmm, nowhere near the hen house then.
"It was probably just another student playing a prank on you."
"But it was in the middle of the night," Isolde said as her friends suddenly started backing towards the door and shooting glares in her direction.
"Then it was probably one of the professors patrolling the corridors. We do that to ensure that no students are out of bed. It's detention for anyone we catch."
"You patrol the corridors?" Isolde asked sceptically.
"Certainly we do," Salazar replied, crossing his fingers beneath the desk as he lied. If the students believed the professors had nothing better to do than wander the school all night maybe they'd stay in their bedchambers for more than ten minutes at a time.
"But there wasn't anyone around when we heard the noises," Betsy pointed out. "And why would a teacher be cackling?"
"Well it wasn't me, so I wouldn't know the answer to that one," Salazar admitted. "But I can assure you there are no ghosts at Hogwarts."
The girls weren't convinced and they left the room muttering to each other about the ghost.
Rowena had made it her practice to duck into the kitchen for a quick snack between classes and was doing just that when the sound of something crashing came from the Great Hall above.
Food forgotten, she ran up the stairs and into the Great Hall.
She stood in the doorway and looked at the mess the room was in. Godric arrived close behind her and swore under his breath as he too saw the state of the Hall.
"What happened?" he asked. "Did you see anyone leaving?"
"No one," Rowena replied.
"You wait here while I check the antechamber," Godric said as he hurried as fast as he could across the room. Admittedly this was not very fast because all the tables and benches were strewn across the room, creating something akin to an obstacle course.
Eventually Godric arrived at the door to the antechamber and Rowena watched him go inside. She expected him to emerge a few minutes later with the culprits but he reappeared alone.
"You don't think any of the students have an invisibility cloak, do you?" Rowena called across the room as Godric stumbled around the furniture on his way back to the door.
"I certainly hope not," Godric replied. "What sort of irresponsible parent would let their child loose with an invisibility cloak?"
"Er…I had one when I was fourteen," Rowena replied. "I lost it somewhere in the Highlands though. I put it on a pony to try to ride it so I'd be able to convince my cousin I was flying without a broom. But it ran off while wearing it and I never saw it again."
"Precisely why children shouldn't be allowed to run about in them," Godric muttered. "They're really valuable and very rare…"
"Yes, I had that lecture at the time, thank you," Rowena replied as she started to set the tables to rights.
"I don't think one student could have done this though," Godric said as he started to help her. "I was in here just a few minutes before I heard the noises and it would have taken several of them at least to cause all this mess in such a short amount of time. More students than can fit under an invisibility cloak at least."
"Unless more than one student has one," Rowena suggested.
"They're rare," Godric repeated. "I doubt even one of the students has one, let alone several."
"So who do you think did all this?" Rowena asked.
"I don't know," Godric admitted as the last of the benches slid back into place.
They turned to leave the hall, hurrying to their respective classes. Rowena thought she heard the sound of laughter behind her but when she turned round to see who it was, there was no one there.
"I think we all know why we're here," Helga said as she looked around the table at the other founders. "We seem to have a problem with some sort of…"
Her voice trailed off as she looked around the table. This was the problem; they had absolutely no idea what it was that had been causing so much trouble for the last few weeks.
The Great Hall had been turned upside down three more times since Rowena and Godric had straightened it. Nearly every classroom had been re-arranged and disrupted. The only one that had survived the chaos was the Divination classroom. Or at least they thought it had been missed, it was a little hard to tell, what with all the clutter and mess that was in there on a regular basis anyway.
There had also been more than a dozen reports from half-hysterical students, mainly first years, about the ghostly laughter and strange noises. At first the reports had been from students wandering the halls at night but as they'd gradually started to remain in their quarters the reports had become more widespread and the noises were now being heard at any time of the day.
"Could it be a ghost after all?" Godric asked. "I know that we built the place but could some wizard with a grudge against one of us have decided to haunt the place to try and get us shut down?" He looked around the table before finally holding his gaze on Salazar.
"Why are you looking at me?" Salazar asked. "It could be someone with a grudge against one of you."
"I think we should make a list of everyone we know who might want to get us shut down, and then check that they're all still alive," Helga suggested.
"That could take months!" Salazar pointed out.
"Only for you," Helga replied sweetly. "I have my list already." She waved the list in question, there seemed to be less than half a dozen names on it.
"I'm sure you've annoyed more people than that," Salazar pointed out. "You annoy me on a very regular basis," he added with a grin that took the edge off his words.
"I did wonder about adding your name," Helga replied. "But I didn't think this was quite your style."
"I still don't think it's a ghost," Rowena said. "Are we sure that none of the other staff we've hired aren't trying to sabotage us?"
"Why would they do that?" Helga asked. "If they shut us down, they won't get paid."
"Didn't they demand payment up front?" Godric asked.
"Doesn't mean they got it," Helga replied with a smug smile. "They'll get paid at the end of each term. They get board and meals anyway so they don't need much money and none of them are exactly destitute. If we're shut down then none of them will be paid at all."
"Er…Helga," Salazar said as he leaned back in his seat. "There seems to be something the matter with your hair."
Helga's hands flew to her head and she felt the tugging of her hair as it parted itself and started weaving into plaits. She squealed and jumped out of her seat. "Rowena was that you?" she accused.
"Godric's nearer to you than I am, why blame me?" Rowena replied with a sniff.
"Because I doubt that Godric has the first clue on how to plait hair," Helga pointed out.
"Was it you Salazar?" Rowena asked.
"Does Sal know how to plait hair?" Godric asked with a grin at the extra ammunition Rowena was providing him with.
"It wasn't me," Salazar replied with a glare at Rowena. "There's someone in this room apart from us." He pointed his wand at the door and locked it shut.
"If it's a student in an invisibility cloak he or she won't get out now," Rowena said. She started to reach out vaguely to see if she could get hold of the miscreant. The others were soon doing the same but there didn't seem to be anyone in the room apart from themselves.
Ten minutes later Helga crawled out from under the table with a groan. "No one under here," she muttered.
"There's no one in here," Salazar said. "But someone was messing with your hair."
Suddenly the unmistakable sound of cackling drew their attention upwards.
"What in the world is that?" Helga asked as they looked at the strange little man, hovering near the chandelier.
"Is it a ghost?" Godric asked as he hopped up onto the table for a closer look.
"He's too solid for a ghost," Rowena pointed out as she too clambered onto the table. "I think he's a poltergeist."
"In which case, why are you standing on the table?" Salazar asked. The poltergeist grinned wickedly as the idea that had already formed in Salazar's mind took a hold in it's own. Salazar grabbed Rowena just as the table tipped over. Godric unfortunately was not so lucky and fell to the floor with a crash.
He crawled out from under the now broken table, grabbed one of the broken legs and threw it at the poltergeist.
"Yes, that'll help," Salazar muttered as the poltergeist caught the leg and started to brandish it like a sword.
"So how do we get rid of it?" Helga asked.
"You don't!" the poltergeist said before it blew a raspberry at Godric and disappeared from sight, with a final cackle of joy.