CHAPTER 19: THE BOOGER NOSE
The chaps received a very stern telling off for sneaking around in that tunnel, shock there. McGonagall did not care that they were heroically trying to find and kill the Hogsmead werewolf. She said it wasn't their job, and if they were so scared (which they were not) they could talk to her, and if they ever set foot in that tunnel again they were going to be held back a year.
As if THEY were the criminals!
Gryffindor lost a whopping 500 points.
"Don't make plans for Valentine's day," she said. "Because you are going to host the Ghost Dating Night."
She wrote that down real quick. Her two new white hairs really suited her, gave her that distinguished look.
"At the cemetery?" Sirius asked, looking for silver linings.
"At the carrion fly farm."
There was a carrion fly farm?
"Now go ask nurse Campbell for some Iverclonos Potion to treat your colds."
They coughed and snivelled all the way to the hospital wing.
"Remind me again what the symptoms of tardichron is?" James asked tiredly.
"Experiencing any kind of sensation," Sirius reminded him.
"I think I might have caught the tardichron."
He sneezed his tardichron all over Sirius.
The waiting room was coughing up a tardichron storm.
"I don't have time for this!" said James. "I have scheduled the try-outs to practically right now!"
"Then let's just look for Pomfrey!"
They left the waiting room and walked the path that had become so familiar to them, wondering if Pomfrey was in the little room now. Would it be so wrong to look? Would it be such a terrible thing to just say hi?
"I mean," said James and sneezed all over Sirius's shoes. "Would it?"
Then Pomfrey came out wearing red robes. Red robes with patches of white. She looked like she hadn't slept for days and ten times older.
"What do you want?"
They asked for the time and then they backed away quickly, trying not to seem like they were running.
The few people who turned up at the try-outs, were crap. And those who were less crap tried to force their shitty ideas on James.
It was clear to him that he needed to find fresh talents before they found him. Look for fresh canvases to paint his genius on. Become a talent scout and get scouting.
Slytherins were traditionally the best beaters. Ravenclaws were traditionally the best keepers. Hufflepuffs were traditionally the best seekers. Gryffindors were traditionally the best at everything, so really, the other houses were just second best.
James was struggling to spot any hidden potential in anybody until at last, the Power that Was intervened.
He just happened to walk by when Denebola Crool and Isis Webb were beating up some girl bigger than them. He asked if they were interested and they were.
"The Power that Is has intervened," he said at dinner. "I've found me some beaters. Now I just need it to intervene some more times."
The Power that Was intervened again. The clouds broke and seemed to cast Roy in a spotlight when he was out on the Ravenclaw roof building a snow horse. A cabbage came flying towards the window behind him and he blocked it just in time.
Then finally, in home economics class, Simon and Stephen managed to fling their pies into the oven just as it was shutting.
And when it came to find a seeker, all James had to do was find a pile of Hufflepuffs, cover his eyes and see where his finger pointed.
It pointed at Fletcher.
"Damn. Best out of two."
So with the Graven Slypuffs assembled it was time to start training! HARD!
"Rising up! Back on the street!" James sang gutturally.
"What song is that?" Fletcher asked.
"A song I'm working on now get back up there shoo!"
Fletcher swooped back up. James watched them do the exercises he had given them.
And sure...
They all sucked.
Big time.
But they were newbies! Newbies with a genuine openness to learn! Blank canvases for him to paint on!
The best of the bunch were the beaters Crool and Webb, who had that special Slytherin brand of mean that made them ruthless and immensely unpopular.
The worst of the bunch was Fletcher, surprise there.
He was just so inactive!
"Don't just sit there!" James shouted at him. "Do something!"
"But I don't understand what I am supposed to do!" Fletcher shouted back.
Alas... James didn't either.
Nor had his coach before him, or his coach before him...
"You're not just suppose to sit back like that and do nothing!"
"I'm not, I'm looking aren't I?"
"You have to do more than that! You have to be... One step ahead! Figure out its path! You have to BE the BALL!"
Then a wooden bat came flying into the back of his head and knocked Fletcher off his Uranus.
"Not that ball!"
Crool and Webb were cackling their heads off. Webb came and got her flying bat. James sighed. It was probably time for a break anyway. The whistle was in his mouth.
HWEE!
"Take ten everybody."
Everyone came down. James gave the unconscious Fletcher a light kick in the back.
"Why in the world would you choose Fletcher!" Simon asked.
"I didn't choose Fletcher. The Power that Is chose Fletcher."
"But he is utterly rubbish!"
"I know but he's just there to protect me I mean us."
Ten minutes had not passed but James got bored.
HWEE!
"Ok break over!"
Everyone swooped back up. On his command. Just like that. Such power. In one hand. It was almost intoxicating. Today, The Graven Slypuffs. Tomorrow...
...The world!
Then he was nearly pushed over by a horrific clown show in moon boots.
"James!" came Sirius's excited voice, from somewhere under all that sparkling make-up.
James glanced at his moon boots.
"I didn't even know you had moon boots."
"Well I do."
"How did the audition go?"
Sirius snorted. So not well.
"Depends on what you mean by that dunnit..."
"It means: Did they like you?"
Sirius snorted.
"Can you be jealous of somebody, without liking them first, do you see my point? Like you won't be jealous of a car unless you like it and want it."
"So did Glitterbomb accept you in their band then?"
"No."
"Oh well."
He couldn't have been rejected because of lack of skill. After all, he could play Stairway To Heaven seamlessly.
"Maybe the look wasn't right for them?"
"My look wasn't the problem. Clarabeth's humongous ego is the problem. I explained to Clarabeth that the best thing for the band would be if I was lead guitarist but as lead guitarist he wouldn't accept that. So I called him a f dictator and told him that bands with dictators always fail, they are doomed. He said: Do you kiss your mother with that mouth? I said: No I kiss your girlfriend in your mum's bed! Then all of a sudden I wasn't in the band any more. Musicians can be so full of themselves. Maybe it is simply my fate to go solo, like David Bowie…"
"Did you say Clarabeth?"
"Are we still on a break?" Roy shouted from above.
"No!" Sirius shouted back and blew James's whistle. HWEE! "Take another ten!"
"Oi don't blow my whistle, I don't know what posters you have been kissing! You could be getting fly poo all over it!" James wiped the whistle.
"You know, seeing as I have a bit of an eye for the visual arts, maybe you would like me to do some design work for your team."
A fake eyelash came off and got in his eye and he began to blink a lot.
"Thanks but I'm doing that part, it will be awesome," said James.
Sirius shrugged and removed the fake eyelashes. Had he come for feedback on his face paint or what?
"I didn't know Uranus had rings," said James.
"It is Neptune. It is to signify my alien origins."
"Your face looks like Uranus to me."
"So remember how Dumbledore killed my granddad?"
"Do you finally have evidence?"
"No. But I have the next best thing. A witness!"
"No way!"
"The band, before they decided that I was too threatening for them, were telling me about how they used to go and do weed circles in this old abandoned house not too far from here, the aptly named The Shrieking Shack."
"Why is that aptly named?"
"Because sometimes they would do LSD in there as well. It's another story they told. But anyway, so the weird thing is that recently they haven't been able to find their way back there. Every time they have tried they have gotten lost and wound up in the strangest of places, as if...by magic! So that's pretty annoying for them because they were keeping all their drugs there and everything. So Melissa said to Tiffany-"
"Clarabeth, Melissa, Tiffany, were you trying to join a girl band?"
"No those are just their edgy rock star names, like, you know, Alice Cooper?"
"You mean that's not his real name?"
"It was decided that Tiffany had to go and try and get the stash back. So he was walking there at night, right, when he saw glowing red eyes in the trees! Freaked him the right out. He thought, this is what is making people lose their way. And sure enough, next thing he knew he was far away from there. He came out of the woods and discovered that he was now at Hogwarts. So at least he didn't end up on the motorway or something. He looks back, and what does he see, if not the same pair of glowing eyes? That thing again!"
End story. James was confused.
"So you said you have a witness. What's all that got to do with the witness?"
"The lurky thing! Maybe it was also there when the murder happened!"
Snort.
"That's your witness? A lurky thing that maybe was there but probably wasn't!" Head shake.
"My granddad was found by that tree, stupid! The lurky thing was seen near that tree. I'm not saying anything other than that it is worth checking up on. Anyway I was just wondering if you would be interested in that, too."
"Honestly there just doesn't seem to be any point to go through all the trouble of risking being misdirected."
"But there could be a secret stash!"
That was true! James's eyes widened at the thought of smoking weed. He could feel his mum breathing down his neck.
HWEE!
"Ok practice is over! Fletcher will pack the balls and take them to the shed."
"Hey why me?" Fletcher asked.
"Because we all have to take turns, Fletch!"
"But it was me last time!"
"What's your point?"
James hopped on Ziggy, and so did Sirius before he could be left behind.
An old farmer was carrying a moth-eaten chair from his house to the woodshed when out of nowhere two school chaps fell right into it, one on top of the other and then a broomstick on top of both.
The old man cracked his back and lost grip of the chair. He went "Ow!" and shook his fist at the boys.
"Get out of my chair you bloody no-good rapscallions!"
Sirius threw the broomstick off him.
"Hey be gentle with that!" James pushed Sirius off him and very soon they were both out of the smelly and stained chair.
"What are you doing on my property!" said the angry old man.
"We're so sorry, Mr Perv!" said Sirius.
"That's Mr Neeson!" replied Mr Perv.
"You're Spoony Neeson?"
Spoony Neeson was a perv of legend.
"We didn't mean to cause you any trouble Mr Neeson!" said James. "We were just trying to get to the Shrieking Shack when we crashed with a bunch of dragons."
Spoony Neeson squinted at them in a way that made them uneasy.
"Yes," he said with a thick pirate accent, "The dragons will be out looking for food at this hour."
James wondered what sort of sweets he was going to offer them. Perhaps Quality Street?
"The Shrieking Shack is that way." He pointed in the direction of a path that led past his farm and through the Mead Woods.
"Thank you sir!" said the chaps and began to hurry away.
"I wouldn't go down that rawd."
The chaps turned. Spoony Neeson stood there by his chair, squinting at them, and chewing on a drinking straw.
"I wouldn't go down that rawd," he said again, his hands in his dungarees.
"Why not?" Sirius asked.
The strange old man smacked a couple of times.
"The Shrieking Shack lies down there."
"Ok. Like, how many miles? Do we have to make any turns?"
"I wouldn't go down that rawd."
It was said, that Spoony Neeson was weird. They had been warned about him early on. Spoony Neeson was a punchline to jokes.
"Why not?" James asked, just because, Spoony Neeson seemed like a lonely man who probably just wanted someone to talk to.
Spoony Neeson squinted at them.
"The Bugul Noz lurks around these parts."
"The what?"
Of course the chaps had heard of the booger nose, but they suspected the name meant something different to Spoony.
"It means the night shepherd," said Spoony Neeson. "The last fae of his kind. And very ugly. Kind, but ugly. Were you to behold him you would die. That is why he leads wanderers out of harm's way. He is that ugly."
Or perhaps the name didn't mean something different to Spoony after all.
"A beautiful voice he has. Truly like that of an angel. He likes to sing. But should he accidentally gaze upon his reflection, he screams because he is truly ugly. And a horrible scream it is, too."
"Does he have a booger nose?" Sirius asked.
"Aye... nobody has seen him... and lived to tell the tale-"
"So how does-"
"That is an exaggeration of course. Some people do survive but rarely without being severely traumatised, or cursed."
"Ah."
"Also there are very grainy photographs and shaky videotapes."
"'Cool."
"Has the booger nose lived here forever?" James asked.
"No," replied Spoony Neeson. "No, quite the opposite. Not a very long time at all. In fact, he comes from Windy Moors. Just like me."
Windy Moors! Just the name of the town was shiver inducing for the weakly spined. It was completely run by vampires and a haven for illegal beings!
"Of course, back when I was a wee lad, Windy Moors was a lovely place. But then the vampire takeover happened and I had to flee. Now they have driven away the bugul noz as well. And not only that, it appears to be cohabiting with the Slim Shadow. Or at least that is what the tobacconist told me."
Spoony Neeson had a swig of cheap blended whisky.
"We all thought it was a werewolf first. But as long as it keeps those horrid kids off my damn property I don't care what it is."
He had another swig and stared at the chaps for a good long while.
"The hell are you still standing there for? Get off my damn property or I'll send Buster!"
The chaps apologised and hurried off his property and down the road that led past his farm and further into the Mead woods.
If some kind of sad ugly fae was lurking around nearby, perhaps there was a way to keep it away.
"Fire keeps a lot of stuff away," said James.
"So does light," said Sirius.
It was beginning to darken. And so it was decided, James was going to keep a flame on his wand and Sirius was going to keep a light on his.
After walking for some time without winding up on the motorway Sirius stopped and thought, annoyed, what if they had walked past it?
"I just," he said, annoyed, while leaning against a corner slightly off-road, "don't want some ugly loser fae to play tricks on me!"
"Don't say that!" said James, leaning against the same corner,"You don't want to offend the ugly loser fae! Perhaps we should just," He shuddered to even say it, "turn back-"
"NO!"
"Let's check his wikius page again and try again tomorrow!"
Then they realised they were no longer leaning against two trees.
They were leaning against a very small wooden house with parts of it missing! Parts that were exposed when Sirius illuminated them.
Their bodies began to tingle with excitement.
Because they had found it.
"Do you think it's a trap?" James asked.
"Fear of traps is the cancer to discovery," Sirius replied.
"Good t-shirt.
"'Course it's a trap. It'd be just like Ike wunnit?"
James felt obliged to humour him.
"Ike?"
"Ike, the Hogsmead Werewolf. Ike Ant-possinly-eat-another-one. Where have you been?"
James shook his head.
"After what we witnessed, how can you make these callous jokes about Stuart?"
Sirius thought long. And hard.
"Stuart?"
"This-guy-would-go-nice-in-a-Stuart!"
"That's not how you do it!"
"Yes it is! It is how I do it!"
"Hey. Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"Ethan."
"Ethan who?"
"Ethan so-I'm-having-a-nap."
"I thought you were going to say: Ethan your-grandmother."
"Damn that's a lot better."
The house had no windows and no door. A pretty miserable house for anyone to live in, except for the booger nose.
"This is how I imagined the hidey hole would look, from the outside," said James, recalling that it, too, lacked windows and a door.
They circled the house and the proportions seemed to fit their memory to a tee.
"Maybe that thing you encountered, that beat you silly with your own broomstick, was the booger nose!"
"It's never been at home when we have been there."
"Maybe we just got lucky. Or maybe it just doesn't want us to die from looking at it. So we know the shifter uses the hidey hole and Spoony Neeson just told us a shifter lives here. Therefore we can indisputably connect the hidey hole to this house."
"Excellent. On to the next point then."
"At least one of us must be successfully keeping the booger nose away right now."
"Most likely me." James waved his fire around. "But you don't think the shifter actually lives here, do you?"
"'Course he doesn't. Look at this place. Have we not already established that the shifter is a rich and influential person that just uses this shack to take his prey?"
"It sounds familiar. You have definitely expressed something to that effect. But wouldn't such a rich person have a dungeon in his big mansion or something?"
"He's not going to mess up his dungeon, what if the butler and maid sees it?"
"You really have it all figured out don't you?"
"Like, you don't even have a clue what these types really get up to at their posh gentleman club meetings."
Perhaps not, but he certainly had his suspicions.
They circled the house again. Still no entrance.
"Screw this!" said James. "Let's just burn it down now!"
"But what about the secret stash!"
"Some things are more important than secret stashes. There will be another secret stash."
Sirius swallowed.
"You're right. The shifter has most likely used the secret stash to enhance his activities. If McGonagall hears of this she will hold us back two years."
James was too inclined to agree. He was so disappointed that McGonagall was such a preacher of wait-and-leave-it-to-the-pros. Not even McGonagall could set aside some time to burn down the shack for everyone's safety, the safety she cared so much about.
All talk...
But he and Sirius weren't like that. And they just knew that, at first, McGonagall was going to hold them back two years for burning down the shrieking shack because it wasn't their job.
Then the news was going to get out that they had destroyed the Hogsmead werewolf's hidey hole. The hunters were going to catch him and his latest prey was going to walk unharmed and free. McGonagall was going to realise what an incredibly heroic thing they had done and give Gryffindor 1000 points and then they'd win the house cup!
Gryffindor hadn't lost the house cup for 49 years and this year was going to mark the 50 year anniversary! And what an epic way to do it!
"Let's destroy it now! INFERNUS BLASTUS!" said James and they began to blast fire at the shack.
Roaring fire gushed from their wands, making their hands hot and their faces sweaty.
The way the house refused to catch fire did somehow not feel textbook. They had to stop altogether when their magic muscles began to cramp. To their increasing frustration they hadn't made the slightest mark in the wood.
Sirius stuck his wand in his mouth and raised an axe.
"Good thing I nicked this from Spoony Neeson's chopping stump!"
He gave the house a good whack.
CLANG!
CLANG! CLANG!
"The shifter has thought about these things," said James. "Or the booger nose."
"Clearly."
Sirius dropped the axe. They had no clue what to do next. James took a few steps back and let his eyes travel up towards the roof.
"Heureka! A chimney!"
James's sweet ride took them to the roof. Confident they were skinny enough, they got in the chimney...
...and fell into somebody's kinky dungeon.
After rubbing their aching butts, they looked at the dark stone wall behind them, and the bars in front of them.
"This must be his kinky dungeon!" Sirius whisper-gasped.
James began to tug at the bars, looking for a loose one.
"I found a loose one! Help me tug at the loose one!"
They tugged and tugged at the loose bar. But it refused to come loose. They kept at it, because it felt so close!
Then they heard someone coming.
Echoing steps. Lights bouncing off a pair of glasses. The swishing sound of long, dark green robes.
A pointy hat.
Professor McGonagall.
"Oh my God!" Sirius whispered. "Professor McGonagall is the Hogsmead Werewolf!"
"And I was suspecting Pomfrey!" James whispered back.
McGonagall's office.
"1000 points from Gryffindor," said McGonagall.
"WHAT!"
"I did warn you!" she snapped.
To not nose around the hole but they knew better than to point out that technicality because McGonagall was just one of those impossible types.
They watched her desk model of the Great Point Hourglasses. It was truly painful to watch the remaining grains of red sand in the top half fall to the bottom half. All the other houses were on plus and were constantly going up.
With Slytherin having the most points for reasons that could only involve evil witchcraft.
"I know what you're doing," said McGonagall. "You're looking for werewolves!"
"How do you know that?"
"You're always talking about it in my class!"
Perhaps it would be a good idea to stop doing that.
McGonagall put two letters in envelopes and licked them shut.
"This is to inform your parents that you will be held back a year."
"What! No!"
She rolled the envelopes together and tied them to her owl, which then flew off, making it a terrible fact. Sirius was pale as dead.
"It was that or suspend you," said McGonagall. "If you keep doing this I won't have to choose."
James understood now that Sirius had been right all along. About everything. Maybe even about Dumbledore. McGonagall was bought and paid for. They all were. She had no moral centre and such people were capable of anything.