The Exorcism Part II: Historical Peevesology

"So let me get this straight…you cast two unforgivable curses and summoned Death just to learn Peeves' name so you could invoke him to learn why he's a ghost on the off chance you can do something to satisfy his sense of injustice, thereby allowing his spirit to pass on to the next world and to leave ours in peace?" Sammy summed everything up, massaging her own face. "Don't you think that that is a ridiculous amount of peril for something that is really only a mild inconvenience?"

"What's wrong with you two?" Reagan snapped, slamming his fists onto the table. "I'm sorry," he quickly apologized, "it's just that you two have such little regard for your own lives. I worry about you!"

"That's not true! We love our lives. We just don't think about things before we do them." Cora objected.

"We're going to go find Peeves now. Do you wanna come?" Bridgit offered, being polite.

"No, we don't. We're guarding Harry like we're supposed to. Not creating situations that will put him in more danger." Sammy made her pointed comment. Ow.

"Yes. And you two should regard your own lives in the same way. You almost died once, why not take it as a sign to stop this madness?" Reagan implored them.

"Fine. We'll go guard Snape. And if he just happens to do something ridiculous and life-threatening, we can't be held responsible for it." Cora put her hands on her hips.

"Oh, whatever." Sammy muttered in irritation, clearly beyond caring.

Bridgit and Cora marched off to go find Snape, who would likely be in his own office. However, upon entering the frightening dungeon, they found that he wasn't there.

"Where could he be?" Cora asked half-heartedly.

"Wait! Wasn't there some kind of staff meeting going on?" Bridgit remembered.

"Wasn't that supposed to end half an hour ago?" Cora couldn't believe that teachers could have anything that important to discuss.

"Maybe it's running late. Let's go look in the staff room!" Bridgit skipped merrily off.

"Fine." Cora sulked after her friend.

A voice was drifting down the hallway as Bridgit and Cora approached the staffroom.

"You think that one's bad? This is appalling." Snape's voice drifted down the hallway. "'The Properties of My Cauldron by Padma Patil'" He read aloud in falsetto. "'My cauldron is pink and wonderful. I don't like writing essays, but you said we could choose our own topic as long as it related to potions and mine does ha ha. I bought my cauldron at Princess Sparklypoo Accessories. It is important because it holds my potions. If I had to do potions without it, I would burn my hands and look like a mutant. Everyone should have a pink cauldron because they are all fashion-less. Especially Hermione. Ugh. Her hair is icky and she thinks she's so great. But really, she is not. In closing, this is three inches.' I must admit, I will give her bonus marks for Grainger knocking…F+."

"Oh yeah? Well this one is Neville's about why he thinks you're a vampire." Professor Sumersong's challenging voice shot back.

"What? What kind of rubbish is that? 'My name is Neville,'" Professor Snape began doing impressions, "'I'm really whiny and I don't like learning. I wish my brain was more better, but then my grandma would father another baby and no one would love me.'"

"Yes, his grandmother is rather genderly ambiguous, isn't she?" Professor Summersong conceded.

"'Furthermore, I should be neutered.'"

"Oh yeah? Well, 'I'm Lavender. I have crush on every boy! Maybe even some girls. Whatever moves.'" Professor Summersong did a lovely rendition on her own student.

"Ugh. 'I'm Bridgit. My head doesn't work so good because my mom dropped me on it. She drank a healthy glass of aspirin a day.'" Snape also added random "duhhhh"s.

"Well, 'I'm Cora. I-'"

"Ahem!" Cora, not wanting to be the butt of anyone's joke, walked into the room.

The teachers quickly destroyed all the evidence by throwing it into the fire. Professor Sprout didn't like this very much.

"AGHHHHHH! I'M ON FIRE!" She screamed, running from the room.

"Ah…Miss Firecatcher. Miss Willowstaff. I see you've come for your detention. Let us away." Professsor Snape walked quickly from the room.

"They also have detention with me. I must also leave." Professor Summersong paused a moment, then awkwardly ran out the door.

The rest of the teachers looked sadly at the fire.

"Now what will we do for jollies?" Professor Flitwick's mournful voice cascaded over them in droves of sadness, as badly-written student papers were their main source of entertainment.

Madame Hooch raised her hand.

"I have some footage of first years trying to play Quidditch."

"Ooo!" Everyone leaned in.

"I wasn't dropped on my head…I think." Bridgit complained, trotting after Snape's brisk stride.

"Whatever." He muttered, barely paying attention.

"No, I agree. I think your mother did drink a healthy glass of aspirin a day. Her and her lovely husband uncle father." Cora smiled darkly.

"Hey! Well, I bet your Mom was really mean and you got all her mean genes and now no one will ever love you, so you'll have to turn Moonmist into a human in order to pretend that you're human. Oh, wait! You already did that!" Bridgit shot back.

"Touché." Snape dryly pretended this wasn't the most painfully unawesome thing of the day.

"Oh yeah? Well, I'm gonna punch you in the face!" Cora snapped.

"Nu u- oh!" Bridgit got punched in the face. "Ha ha ha! Now I look like you!" She laughed from her bloody teeth.

"Children, that's quite enough." Professor Summsersong reprimanded them.

"Hey! Don't you preach to us, Professor "I'm gonna make fun of everyone"!" Cora objected to this treatment.

"Yeah! And maybe you should be neutered! The way I see it, Neville's more helpful than you've ever been, Professor 'I'm angry and dress in black all the time!'" Bridgit, still delirious, crossed the line where Snape's sexuality was concerned.

Snape felt the inner rage boil. He couldn't expel her, he couldn't kill her, he could fail her…but that would be too obvious…what to do?

"I HATE YOU!" He kicked her in the back and pushed her down the stairs while lighting her on fire.

That was perfect. Nice and subtle.

Bridgit would have died had it not been for Mrs. Norris. Said feline-ish monstrosity had noticed some gum on the wall and had been shooting it with poison from her spinnerets. Bridgit landed on the hapless demon cat, breaking all of Mrs. Norris' bones and internal organs as well as some tendons.

"Stop, drop and roll!" Bridgit shrieked, doing just that.

As she put out the fire, Bridgit also smothered Mrs. Norris to death. Bridgit stood up, mostly okay. Then she noticed the casualty.

"Oh no!" She screamed in horror. "I scratched this painting!"

Bridgit quickly covered the mark on the painting with a fur hat she found on the floor. Satisfied that everyone would blame Hagrid, she dusted herself off and ascended the long staircase. When she got to the top, no one was there. She sighed, chuckled, and then limped off to go find them.

She found them ten minutes later in the library.

"Hey guys!" She waved to them.

"What took you so long?" Cora snapped.

"Oh, I almost died. Sorry." Bridgit pretended to be sincere while she secretly planted a stink bomb in Cora's back pocket.

That'll learn her! Bridgit thought to herself. Now everyone will think she farted.

"Peeves, stop this madness!" Madame Prince shrieked, shielding a book with her body. "Spiney never did anything to you! Please, leave him out of this! He's all I have left!"

Peeves only laughed mercilessly.

"What ho, Lord Byron! I have a sticky wicket with your name on it!"

Peeves had set up a massive battlefield in the library with all of the castle's suits of armor. He was using his poltergeist magic to animate his childhood dreams of battlefield carnage. Just like the '60s!

"No Byron, I'll fight him! You have to get back to fair Rosaline!" One of the suits of armor kicked Lord Byron's legs out so that Lord Byron could no longer endanger himself.

"Cromwell, noooo!" Lord Byron reached fleetingly out for his best friend's torso.

But Cromwell wouldn't listen. He picked up Picklefeather's helm and threw it at Madame Prince, temporarily stunning her as he picked up Spiney, the troll anthropology book.

"Let me away from this boulder…" Spiney whimpered.

"It's too late for that! This will cease your attempts to steal fair Bertha's flowers." Cromwell screamed, tearing pages from Spiney's spine and devouring them into his metal gullet.

"AGHHHHHHHH! IT BURNS!" Spiney writhed in agony.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Madame Prince shrieked. "He's the only one I love!"

"I do this for the good of my country: Cheeseland!" Cromwell continued his torment of Spiney as Madame Prince clawed at his legs.

"No, Cromwell! It will kill you too. Don't you know? Paper beats rock!" Lord Byron started dragging his torso to stop his friend's battle of madness.

"I will do it, by Jove! I will destroy Spinificus so that you may live to see fair Rosaline's 89th birthday!"

"She is my one true love." Lord Byron agreed. "But you were the best man at our wedding! We wanted you to be the one to bear our child!"

"I'm afraid that will have to be another cavalryman's duty, for mine is almost at an end." Cromwell continued eating Spiney alive.

"Faretheewell, dear, sweet, Cromwell. I will name my first born poodle after you." Lord Byron cried from the bottom of his heart.

As he swallowed/killed the rest of Spiney the Troll Anthology book, Cromwell screamed in agony and then fell to pieces in the cold bosom of death.

No one apart from Madame Prince or Peeves understood just what the hell had happened and stared in horror at his mad play.

"My dear Spiney." Madame Prince cupped the torn shreds of her only friend in her hands, tears spilling from her unprepossessing face onto Spiney's earthly remains.

Suddenly, she began devouring her lost love.

"Oh, Spiney!" She gasped in between mouthfuls, "Now we can always be together. Forever!" She wailed.

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaa!" Peeves cackled.

"Oh, what the hell?" Professor Summersong sighed, not even wanting to touch this one.

"The sooner we get rid of him, the better." Snape considered at length tearing out his own eyes. "And maybe we should take the cocaine away from Madame Prince…"

"This play is so sad." Cora sniffed.

"Cromwell!" Bridgit clawed at Cromwell's earthly remains. "Why didn't you listen? Paper beats rock! You were doomed from the start by the book's poisonous, paper nature!"

"What the hell are you lot doing here?" Peeves smirked at them.

"Let's get this over with." Snape stepped forward and scowled a scowl fit for the world. "Staniel GQ Slytherin, I invoke you by your true name and call upon you to answer for your crimes!"

"Oh bloody hell." Peeves shuddered and suddenly stretched up to full attention facing Snape.

"In the name of your father and mother and their fathers and mothers, I demand of you to tell the truth!" He continued.

"Do you really need to be so dramatic?" Cora, angry at the shift of spotlight, sulked in a corner of the library.

"I'll do as I damn well please!" Snape turned back to Peeves. "Tell us what it is that keeps you in this world. Why do you haunt us spirit? We who do so hate you?"

"It never changes." Peeves stared coldly in an uncharacteristic way. "Everyone always hates the Peeves."

"Where did you get the name Peeves? Because if I had to pick my own name, I would probably pick something more cool." Bridgit wondered aloud.

"One thing at a time." Professor Summersong shushed her student. "Peeves, why are you here? What is your unfinished business?"

"It was a crime. A crime I could not forgive." Peeves turned to face them and turned opaque as he was forced for the first time in a long time to tell the truth…as he saw it.

Sadness: The Tale of Peeves

'I was a beautiful child. My mother died several years after giving birth to me…I think it was ten. Ever since then, my father started drinking. He would go through bottle after bottle of troll until the house was filled with an ungainly stench and the blight of puberty. He used to say terrible things to me, like,

"You were a mistake."

"I wish you'd never been born."

"With the money I spent giving you clothing I could have bought and fed a pony."

But I sill loved him.

"I love you, Daddy Slytherin." I would say to him every day.

"Go away. I am poking the milkman what I caught in this hole I dug." My father would reply, beating me with his brasses.

"Only the good die young." My senile uncle would comfort me.

Little did he know how prophetic his insane ramblings would be.

One day in September, my father was to depart on a conference to play muggle polo. He was so broken up since my mother, Maudeline Badgersworth, had died an untimely death by vulture attack. She was his one true love and the last purest of the pure bloods of the Badgersworth line, which explained her extra fingers. Muggle polo was his only escape and the only thing he could feel that wasn't pain and self-loathing, so he would go outside, ride a horse and hit muggles with a stick. He was the best Muggle poloer in all of Sussex and Liverpool combined. When he went off on his tournaments, he would leave me in the care of his colleagues: Godric Gryffindor, Roweena Ravenclaw and Helga Hufflepuff. They were neglectful, morally debased and simple folk who would steal the good silver while my father wasn't looking. He would then blame it on the house elves and to punish them, he invented GOLF. GOLF was originally an acronym meaning Guillotined Off Little Folk. He would plant them in the ground and hit their heads off with a club. He would try to get the head to land in the hole with the milkman in it because muggles need to eat. He was a kind man at heart.

As I was saying, one September morning, he left the house for a Muggle Polo conference in Uruguay. Per usual, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw invaded our home in their monthly ritualistic babysitting. Little did I suspect it would be the last time I would ever be babysat again. I was nine years old and at the top of my game. Following in my father's footsteps, I had invented POOL so that he would notice and or love me. It didn't work…the house elf heads made the house smell and he called me Stella and yelled at me for the rest of the month. I was very upset when Helga sat on my POOL table and broke it (although everything she sat on usually broke). Ravenclaw kept on saying, "Oh, snap!" and wouldn't stop, even when I hit her repeatedly in the head. And worst of all, stupid Gryffindor was going to use a plastic container to heat me up some raisin stewp [stew soup] in the walk-in country burning coven. Father had locked his crazy aunts in a room and they would roast anything that came in, so we used them to cook our food.

"Gryffindor, you can't use that Stewp container! It is non-covenavable!" I protested, not wanting father's precious cookware to be country burned.

It all happened too fast and I was too young to react in time. Maybe if I'd known then what I know now, I could have stopped it. But alas, that is not how Lady Fate works.

"Fine! Then YOU hold it!" Gryffindor poured the Stewp into my surprised, cupped hands and pushed me into the walk-in country burning coven.

It was a slow and brutal end for Staniel GQ Slytherin. My aunts, blinded by age, set fire to my earthen vessel and also my stewp. It burned my hands and my body. But I did not die then, oh no. That would be too good for Staniel GQ Slytherin. No, I lay there for hours listening first to my father's colleagues wondering aloud where I had gone and then the drunken orgy that ensued after they found and freed the milkman. Finally, my father returned home, victorious after his latest Muggle polo escapade. I dared to hope that my salvation was at hand.

"Where's my son? Where's my Staniel GQ Slytherin?"

"We cooked him." Gryffindor, drunken on the loving of a tender milkman, easily confessed to his crime.

"Good. I'm hungry."

Then cannibalism ensued. Thus ended my tale of woe.'

"Ummm…Are you sure that's how it happened?" Bridgit ventured, having keenly noticed that his story could very well be medically classified as mentally retarded.

"YES! THAT'S EXACTLY HOW IT HAPPENED!" Peeves screamed, all caps.

"Thank you, Peeves, you may go about your business of urinating on students." Snape dismissed the one being he would light on fire without first exchanging pleasantries.

"That's not the half of it! You'll have a nasty surprise waiting for you in your office indeed!" Peeves took off, howling with rage.

"There's no way that was the truth!" Bridgit finally let her skepticism burst out. "Ignoring the fact that it's rubbish, he said his mother died when he was ten and that he died when he was nine, so how could his father go play Muggle Polo to vent his grief over her death if she was still alive?"

"And I'm pretty sure golf was invented when Bilbo Baggins' relative hit the head of an orc into a hole." Cora added her fifty cents.

"Well, obviously it was rubbish." Snape sighed.

"He told the truth, that much is certain. However, it's possible that what Peeves believes to be the truth is simply a delusion of his insane, childish mind. He was invoked to tell the truth and we can be certain that, as far as he is concerned, that's what he did." Professor Summersong hinted at the many mental problems that arise from child abuse, none of which were accurately represented in Peeves' tale.

"Well, then how do we find out what really happened so we can get rid of Peeves?" Cora sighed in exasperation.

"A séance." They heard a whimpering, defeated voice. "I can hold a séance to speak with the soul of my beloved." Madame Prince clawed at Stiney's remains.

"That was almost a convenient answer." Bridgit raised her eyebrows.

"Well, then, I guess the next step is clear." Professor Summersong began to walk out the door. "We must hold a séance and speak with the spirit of Godric Gryffindor."

Speechless and confused, Bridgit and Cora followed her. Snape took a look around the carnage that was the library, decided he didn't want to be held responsible, and chased after the party of idiots.

"You do realize that you need five people for a proper séance." He poured sour grapes in everyone's eyes.

Professor Summersong stopped abruptly and Bridgit and Cora ran into her.

"Shoot." She muttered. "Who can we-"

"Sybill!" Professor Summersong exclaimed as Snape yelled,

"No!"

"There's no way I'm going to spend another extended period of time with that wench winching-" He stopped and noticed Bridgit and Cora and a few other students around him. "I mean, sure." Staff bashing in front of students was expressly forbidden.

"Great! Off we go." Professor Summersong continued, finding an alcoholic staff member rather convenient.