Chapter 10 – Terror at Halloween

As soon as James returned to the Gryffindor common room he whisked Noah up to their dormitory, which was empty, and told him everything that had happened.

"You need to tell McGonagall," Noah said, a little bit in disbelief about what he had just heard.

"I can't because she'll start asking questions about what I was doing down there in the first place."

"What are you going to do then?" Noah asked.

"I don't know. Maybe there wasn't even any voice or writing on the wall. Maybe it was just my mind playing tricks on me. It was pretty dark down there."

Noah wasn't convinced and deep down neither was James. He just didn't want to have everyone knowing he was hearing voices now and give them something else to make fun of him about. He was still wondering how long it would take for everyone to forget about him fainting.

That night James had some very strange dreams. He dreamt about seeing more words written on the walls of the school, only he couldn't quite read them. The letters seemed to be jumbled and constantly moving. Then he dreamt he was out in Burns' pumpkin patch where he could hear that strange noise again and something was moving through the patch when suddenly the scarecrow came alive and started chasing him. That was when James woke up startled and covered in sweat.

James hadn't been able to get back to sleep after he was woken by his nightmare so by the time he actually had to get up and out of bed he was feeling rather tired. He took a quick cold shower, got dressed and then joined his dormmates and headed down for breakfast.

As he was just sitting down at the Gryffindor table, the caretaker Filch came bounding into the Great Hall and headed straight for the teachers table with his cat Mrs Norris following behind. After briefly talking to Professor McGonagall, she abandoned her breakfast and left hurriedly with Filch.

"I wonder what that's about?" Noah asked as they all tried to work out if the expression on McGonagall's face was one of concern or annoyance.

"Someone's probably left muddy footprints in the entrance hall again and Filch is having a tantrum about it," Leo joked and everyone laughed except James who was feeling too tired to laugh and didn't even have the strength to eat anything and was wondering if Filch had stumbled on the graffiti he had seen last night.

By the time he got to his Flying lesson James wasn't sure if he had the energy to hold onto a broom and was glad (though he was the only one) when Madam Hooch, who arrived late, told them they would be doing some theory work and broom maintenance today and started leading them all inside to an empty classroom.

As they were walking back up to the castle Polly noticed a lot of teachers gathered near to Hagrid's and Burns' huts in the distance.

"What's going on over there Miss?" Polly asked.

"Oh just a spot of bother," Madam Hooch replied after briefly turning around to look at what Polly was referring too and didn't seem all that concerned. "No doubt one of Hagrid's magical creatures wasn't put away last night properly. Something had a right old time in Burns' vegetable patch. All his pumpkins are ruined."

"Does that mean we won't have any for Halloween?" Anwar asked.

"Oh don't worry it's still a few weeks away. I'm sure they can grow some more."

As they continued walking to the castle James had a strange feeling of déjà vu and suddenly remembered his nightmare and being in Burns' vegetable patch and being chased by the scarecrow. What an odd coincidence he thought to himself.

After a very boring Flying class he headed to an even more boring one – double History of Magic. The only good side of this lesson was that James could take a nap through it and catch up on his sleep. Noah nudged him awake when the lesson was over and they both headed to lunch.

"I might go and see Hagrid. I bet he's feeling really bad if it was one of his creatures that did all the damage," James said, feeling a bit more refreshed now.

"Let's grab some sandwiches and I'll come with you," Noah replied.

After grabbing a selection of sandwiches they started to make their way down to Hagrid's hut. By the time they arrived, James had devoured four sandwiches, making up for his missed breakfast. They found Hagrid outside tending to his own vegetable patch.

"'Ello there," Hagrid called out to them sounding oddly cheerful.

"Hi Hagrid. Your vegetable patch didn't get attacked too did it?" James asked noticing piles of mud scattered around the edges of it.

"Oh yeh 'eard abou' that did yeh? No mine's all good. Just tendin' too me pumpkins now that they'll be needed for the 'alloween feast," Hagrid replied with a proud, beaming smile.

"Any idea what did it?" Noah asked as Fang came over to him, having smelt their sandwiches, and Noah tore off a chunk for him.

"They think it was me bein' careless. Said maybe I'd left one of the paddocks or cages open. But I checked this mornin'. Everythin' was locked up tight. I said maybe it was omething' from the forest. All sorts live in there."

"It was strange how only Burns' patch was attacked," Noah said innocently but Hagrid took deep offence.

"Are yeh sayin' I 'ad omething' to do with it?" Hagrid growled, holding a very large pitchfork upright in his hand and looking slightly menacing.

Noah went white as a sheet.

"No he didn't mean it like Hagrid," James interjected. "Whatever it was probably had its fill in Burns' patch and then headed off again. Isn't that right Noah?"

"Yeah," Noah replied and nodded his head furiously.

"Well yeah, yeh probably righ'" Hagrid said and turned back to his work.

"Anyway we should be getting back. We just wanted to check everything was OK," James said and Noah was all too glad to leave.

"Well come back any time," Hagrid called out after them. "You can see how me pumpkins are comin' along. They're gonna look amazin' at the feast."

James was glad to see there was some silver lining to the attack on Burns' vegetable patch. At least Hagrid was happy. He had conveniently got exactly what he wanted.

With Halloween now only a couple of days away the school was very much getting into the spirit of it. Not only had Halloween decorations started to be put up but many teachers were taking the opportunity to theme their classes around the occasion. Professor Longbottom was teaching them about Vampire Orchids that fed on human blood in Herbology and Professor Flitwick was teaching his students a Charm to make books shout out 'BOO' when they were opened. However soon many teachers were complaining how students were using this Charm to disrupt other lessons and Professor Pebblemore, the Ancient Runes teacher, almost had a heart attack when she opened her Rune dictionary and she fell over backwards off her chair when it screamed out at her. And Peeves was taking delight in scaring students by showering them one breakfast time with creepy crawlies. It took four teachers to clear the mess up but Peeves hadn't been seen for days since, no doubt the Bloody Baron gave him a good talking to.

James headed to his Transfiguration class and saw that Professor Sinclair decided to apply the Halloween theme to her attire. She was dressed in a black suit that seemed to be almost completely covered in cobwebs. What made it even more scary was that there seemed to be multiple spiders running all over it. Students didn't know whether these were real spiders of her suit was just enchanted to make it look like they were, but no one wanted to sit near the front of the class this lesson, not even Polly.

Professor Sinclair's lesson was far less scary than her outfit. She had them attempting to transfigure a feather into a spoon and James as usual was struggling.

"I'm definitely going to fail this class," James said in frustration as his feather refused to change even the slightest.

Noah had managed to turn his white feather a silver metallic colour, which he thought was a good start.

"You could just ask Polly for help," Noah suggested. "I know a few other students have. She's been helping Zander with his Herbology assignment. And she was more than happy to help Seth clean the graffiti off his bag. She seems only too happy to help people."

"And have her lord it over me for the rest of term? I don't think so," James fumed as he looked over at Polly who was clearly helping everyone around her, having already transfigured her own feather with no trouble.

"Suit yourself but I'm going to have to ask her if she can help me with my Charms essay. I'm really struggling."

"I thought we were going to do that together?" James said disappointedly.

"But you're even worse at Charms than I am. No offence."

James claimed no offence was taken but there was. He was annoyed that Noah was picking Polly, someone he couldn't stand, over him. In fact the only person at Hogwarts he disliked more than Polly was Greta.

"Well chaps how are you getting on?" Professor Sinclair asked as she approached James and Noah's desk.

Noah's feather was now metallic but more resembled a knife than a spoon, whilst James' feather was still very much a feather.

"Keep going Potter, you'll get it eventually. Perseverance, perseverance, perseverance," Sinclair encouraged but James was not feeling hopeful.

As the class ended Polly walked past James' desk and noticed his feather was exactly as it had been at the start of the lesson.

"Having problems were you?" she asked in what James thought was an overly smarmy sort of way. "It's terribly easy. Look watch me."

Polly pulled out her wand and made it look very easy as James' feather turned into a shiny silver spoon. "See."

Polly continued walking out of the class with a self-satisfied smile on her face.

"I wish someone would turn her into a gnome," James said through gritted teeth. "Then we'll see how good she is at magic."

"She'd probably still be better than you," Noah joked back but James didn't appreciate the humour.

The night before Halloween some of the students in the Gryffindor common room had decided to tell ghost stories. They had extinguished most of the lamps and people had gathered round the fire as a fifth year girl began her story about a cursed statue that chopped off the head of naughty students. After listening to another story about a werewolf who only had a taste for human eyes and a deranged Herbology teacher who liked to turn their students into plants if they failed their class, James decided it was time for bed. Though listening to scary stories hadn't done him much good and once again his dreams were filled with bizarre visions.

He dreamt he was alone in the Great Hall and heard the strange voice again speaking in the language he didn't recognise. Only suddenly he wasn't alone. The hall was filled with at least a dozen stone statues of knights, who all started fighting with each other. James had to duck several times to avoid being decapitated by a swinging stone sword and nearly tripped over something that was moving along the floor. After managing to escape the battle in the Great Hall and fleeing to the corridor he heard a blood curdling scream. That was when he woke up.

As he sat up in bed in a cold sweat he listened intently to make sure the scream had really just been in his dream. But he heard nothing except the sound of Leo snoring in the bed next to him. James lay back down and after what seemed like forever he finally got back to sleep.

By Saturday evening the whole school was buzzing with excitement for the Halloween Feast. James had spent the afternoon with Noah helping Hagrid to carve his pumpkins with scary faces and they looked spectacular. James had no doubt that the Great Hall would look equally as impressive. He had heard all about previous Halloweens at Hogwarts from his parents and aunts and uncles and how amazing they had been. He couldn't wait.

James was in the Gryffindor common room with his friends enjoying a bag of 'Trick or Treat Fudge' that his Uncle George had sent him that morning along with a few other bits from his joke shop. Some of the pieces of fudge were delicious flavours like strawberry or chocolate whilst other pieces had been jinxed to cause all sorts of horrible problems to whoever ate a piece like making you grow feathers on your head or causing your ears to triple in size. Leo had just eaten a piece that made his face go purple but luckily it faded back to its normal colour after a few minutes.

"Should we see if Polly wants to join in?" Noah asked, having spotted her across the common room, sitting alone and working on an assignment.

"Not unless you can guarantee she'd get a piece that would sew her mouth shut," James joked, but it seemed as if Polly might have heard as she looked around and shot James a stern look of disgust.

As the big clock on the mantlepiece in the common room struck seven and began chiming, students began to make their way to the Great Hall and everyone was thoroughly excited.

"I heard they bewitch skeletons to dance and do tricks," Anwar speculated as they headed down the stairs.

"Someone told me they have a choir of pumpkins sing for us," a first year girl suggested.

James wasn't paying attention to what everyone else was saying. He was examining the packaging of some of the other items his uncle had sent him that he had stuffed into his pockets before leaving the common room. 'Ghastly Ghouls – Guaranteed to frighten anyone. Just open and let the terror begin' one of the packets stated and it was too much for James to resist. As they neared the bottom of the staircase James ripped the packet open. Suddenly three small white blobs flew out of the packet and started to grow in the air above them. As the blobs grew they became more translucent until all three of them were nearly the same size as A person and each one had a face as terrifying as the other. One had sharp fangs and blood red eyes, another had three eyes and huge clawed hands and the last ghoul had numerous tentacles for arms. All three started circling over the students and everyone was pointing up at them and laughing. That was until they started swooping down on the students and covering them all in a thick gooey slime.

"What is going on here?" a deep voice bellowed as Professor Payne emerged into the corridor, not looking amused and he raised his wand. "Subsisto."

Suddenly the three ghouls disappeared into thin air, leaving students covered in gunge that was also oozing all over the floor.

"Who did this?" Payne demanded to know, his voice full of fury.

The students started to look at each other, no one wanting to dob James in for what had just been meant as a fun prank.

"Tell me now or there will be trouble!" Payne demanded.

"It was James Potter Sir," Polly said, wiping a small glob of slime from her shoulder, having been lucky enough to miss most of the attack.

"Potter. I should have guessed," Payne fumed as Professor Flitwick came by and surveyed the mess. "Ah Professor, please could you help these students clean up but leave the floor. Potter will be cleaning that up. Come with me Potter."

"Where are we going?" James asked and Payne gave him a look of repugnance that James dared question him.

"To get a mop and bucket from Filch so you can clean up your mess," Payne snapped back.

"But can't I just use magic?"

"No. You will clean it all by hand," Professor Payne seethed.

"But I'll miss the feast," James pleaded.

"Good. Then it will be a lesson learnt. And if you keep answering me back you'll be missing a lot more of school because I'll see to it that you're expelled. Now move Potter."

James said no more and followed Payne as Flitwick busied himself using a cleaning charm on the rest of the students.

By the time James got back with a mop and bucket everyone was in the Great Hall and he could hear them laughing and having a good time while Payne stood there, watching him like a hawk as he cleaned.

"You missed a bit," Payne said with pleasure when James thought he had finished nearly an hour later.

After James had mopped the last of the slime up Professor Payne did one last thorough inspection.

"Now take the mop and bucket back to Filch's office and then return to your dormitory."

"But the feast?" James said.

"No 'buts' Potter. Do as I say or it will be a detention for a week," Payne snapped back.

James trudged off to return the cleaning equipment as Professor Payne opened the doors to the Great Hall and slipped in. James heard a roar of laughter before the doors closed again.

"Stupid Polly being a teacher's pet and dobbing me in," James moaned to himself as he went.

When he returned to head up the stairs back to the Gryffindor common he passed the Great Hall again and could clearly hear the good time that was going on inside. He debated sneaking in, hoping Professor Payne wouldn't notice. But if the professor did catch him he'd probably get detention for a month. Though he thought to himself it would be worth it to get to enjoy the Halloween Feast with everyone else.

Suddenly James stopped dead in his tracks as once again he heard the strange voice speaking the language he didn't know. He spun around in every direction to see where it was coming from.

"Who's there?" James shouted, as he reached into his pocket and gripped his wand ready.

The voice continued but James could see no one in sight. He started cautiously walking in the direction the voice seemed to be coming from and followed it down another corridor. But every time he seemed to be getting closer to the source of the voice it moved further away until he was stood outside a girl's bathroom.

"Hello? Is someone in there?" James called out.

The only response James got back was a terrifying scream from within the bathroom. He grabbed his wand from his pocket and barged through the door without a second thought for what danger might lay inside. It took James a moment to realise what he was seeing. In the middle of the bathroom was a stone knight statue that was swinging it's sword towards the cubicles. A girl's scream was heard again as the sword smashed through the wooden side of the cubicle, sending splinters of wood showering everywhere.

"Stupefy!" James shouted and a red light shot from his wand and hit the statue right in the back. But the spell seemed to have little effect and it continued to hack away at the toilet cubicles.

James racked his brain for another spell he could use against the statue but Stupefy was the only defensive spell Professor Flitwick had taught them so far and Professor Payne hadn't taught them anything yet that might be useful in defending themselves. It was then that he remembered the spell that Payne had used against his Ghastly Ghouls.

"Subsideo!" James shouted and flicked his wand at the statue but nothing happened.

"Subsistance!"

Still nothing and the girl who must have been sheltering in the cubicles screamed again as the knight swung his sword through the whole line of cubicles.

"Sub… sub… subcease!"

The knight lifted his stone sword up high ready to strike again.

"Subsisto!" James shouted and the knight crumbled to the ground in several large pieces just as the bathroom door swung open. James turned around to see several teachers standing in the door way with Professor Payne at the front looking furious. James turned back around to the cubicles where he could now hear sobbing and slowly a figure appeared through the debris of the broken cubicles. It was Polly.

"Explain yourself Potter!" Professor Payne roared in fury.