The Caretaker's Secret
October arrived along with a damp chill that settled over the entire castle grounds. Madam Pomfrey, the school nurse, was busier than ever, tending to professors and students alike as a flu epidemic swept through the school.
Fortunately, the flu wasn't something wizards had any trouble curing, unlike Muggles. All they had to do was drink a potion that worked almost instantly. The only drawback was that anyone who took it would spend the next several hours with smoke coming out of their ears.
Percy had said that maybe it worked as both cold medicine and an ear cleaner, so it was probably a two-for-one remedy. Though when Harry offered him some, Percy immediately turned it down, having no desire to look like a boiling kettle.
That left Ginny with the smoking ears instead. She had apparently caught the flu as well, and with smoke curling out beneath her red hair, it looked like her whole head was on fire. When she heard Percy's comment, she couldn't help blushing before running off.
Earning Percy disapproving looks from Harry, Hermione, and even Neville.
Along with an exaggerated display of outrage from the Weasley twins.
Though they only seemed to be doing it because they found it funny.
"That wasn't very knightly of you, Percy," Harry said in a sarcastic, teasing tone that only the two of them could really share.
"Shut up. I'll apologize to her later," Percy replied, feeling a little guilty since he'd only meant it as a joke.
Aside from that, Percy had taken it upon himself to help Sirius, yet he hadn't actually made any progress whatsoever. Even though he spent days wandering around with Neville and Tyson trying to find something that might inspire him, it somehow ended up turning into a sort of treasure hunt or something.
Very Percy, really.
On top of that, the group kept running into Cedric in the corridors and would have short conversations before going their separate ways again. Even so, those encounters continued feeding Percy's suspicions a little, though they were still incredibly vague.
Meanwhile, on Harry's side, just as Sirius had promised, he'd sponsored the entire Gryffindor Quidditch team with the same brooms Slytherin had.
The Gryffindors—or rather, Wood—were so thrilled that he had them training from early morning, even when the weather was freezing. And somehow, despite Quidditch being played in the air, they always ended up completely covered in mud.
Which made Harry feel exactly as Percy liked to say: like a pig rolling around in the mud every time he came back, only to realize there was still mud behind his ears.
The gift also intensified the rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin. The Slytherins insisted Harry had only won because they hadn't had their wands with them, conveniently leaving out the fact that he hadn't even used his own wand to beat them.
Obviously, they weren't about to admit that Harry hadn't used his own wand at all, but Flint's instead, and had defeated all of them so cleanly that it was almost absurd.
But, of course, snakes weren't about to tell the truth.
So the story became that Harry had only managed to beat the Quidditch team because he'd cheated.
Harry didn't really care.
Just giving Malfoy what he deserved had made him feel surprisingly good.
Maybe he should have done it a long time ago, even if it meant getting detention.
Now Harry was walking through the corridors with his Quidditch robes covered in mud after finishing practice, trying to avoid Filch.
He could have used the Cleaning Charm, but he still wasn't very good at it. After all, it wasn't as though his magical tome had ever given him a spell like that to learn. Most of them were designed for combat, perhaps preparing him for something... or something like that.
Still, he wouldn't mind if one day a spell appeared that actually made everyday life easier. Like, for example, a spell that let him create a clone to help out in situations like this.
Obviously illusions didn't count...
Or maybe they did...
As he found himself thinking thoughts that usually sounded more like Percy's than his own, he spotted someone floating through the corridor in ghostly form, looking both worried and thoroughly annoyed.
Nearly Headless Nick.
The ghost of Gryffindor Tower was muttering to himself, stopping every few moments—if you could call it stopping when he floated everywhere.
"I don't meet the requirements. One inch. Just one inch. Tsk," he muttered before drifting onward, only to stop again.
"Hello, Nick," Harry greeted him, pulling the ghost out of his thoughts.
To Harry, seeing ghosts at Hogwarts still felt strange after having been to the Underworld.
Whenever he saw one, all kinds of questions came to mind.
For example... shouldn't every dead person be taken to Charon?
Though, thinking back to all the ghosts he'd seen waiting for Charon to finally take pity on them, maybe some simply lost their patience and left. It wasn't as though they seemed trapped there.
Though they probably lost their place in line or something.
It was only then that Harry realized his mind had wandered off—just like Percy's usually did—while he'd been automatically responding to whatever Nick was saying.
"...Anyone would think forty-five blows from a poorly sharpened axe would be enough to qualify me for the Headless Hunt," Nick said, making Harry, who had been completely lost in thought, give him a confused look.
Still, he answered immediately.
"I'd certainly think so."
Apparently, that was what Nick wanted to hear.
"Obviously, I'd have preferred it if the whole thing had been quicker and cleaner. Better yet, if my head had actually come off properly. I wouldn't have complained much," the ghost continued with remarkable calmness, considering he was talking about his own painful and rather unpleasant death. "And yet, even after dying..." Nick grumbled as he looked at the transparent letter in his hands. "Just because I can't take part in Head Juggling or Head Polo, they rejected me," the ghost said indignantly before tucking the letter away with obvious bitterness.
"It doesn't matter," Nearly Headless Nick said with a sigh before looking Harry up and down. "You'd better be on your way, young Potter. Filch hasn't been in a good mood lately. Not only does he seem to have caught the flu, but some fourth-years slipped a few Stink Pellets into his office after he caught them out the night before and confiscated all their little trinkets. And if he catches you tracking mud all over the floor..." Nick said.
But perhaps his words were prophetic, because the moment Harry turned to look at the muddy footprints he was leaving behind, he saw the Hogwarts caretaker staring straight at him with a sinister smile on his face, gently stroking Mrs. Norris as he held her in his arms.
It was the smile of a man who had caught a student red-handed, exactly the kind of thing that delighted him in his endless war against every student in the castle.
"Filth," Filch said, glaring at Harry. His nose was much redder than usual now, and a tartan scarf hung around his neck. He even coughed a couple of times, as though instead of staying in bed to recover, he'd rather destroy his health if it meant catching students. "Filth and mud everywhere. What has this place come to? Follow me, Potter," Filch said with far more energy than a sick man should have had.
Harry couldn't help letting out an even more exhausted sigh. He gave Nick a quick nod before following Argus Filch down the stairs and straight to his office.
Harry had never been inside Filch's office before.
Most students usually avoided it. Not only was it gloomy—and currently reeked, probably because of the Stink Pellets Nick had mentioned—but it was also packed with neatly labeled wooden filing cabinets. Off to one side was a pile of objects Filch had confiscated over the years.
There were also dozens of chains stacked together, polished until they gleamed.
The same chains Filch always claimed he'd someday be allowed to use on students again.
Harry's attention lingered for a moment on the largest box in the room, overflowing with confiscated items. Across the front, in large letters, were the names George and Fred Weasley.
Now Harry understood where the smell was coming from... and which students had played that little prank on Filch.
The twins were probably trying to recover their Weasley inventions.
"I'm sick of the lot of you, always causing trouble. But now you'll answer to me, Potter," Filch said as he rummaged through his office, which consisted of nothing more than an old school desk, an ink bottle, and a few simple decorations that looked more like toys Mrs. Norris probably enjoyed.
One letter in particular caught his attention, and he leaned over just enough to read it.
Kwikspell: A Correspondence Course in Beginner's Magic
Dear Argus Filch:
We regret to inform you that, due to your status as a Squib, we cannot accept your application...
Filch noticed Harry reading the letter and immediately snatched it away with a growl, looking worried... and frightened for just a moment.
"Did you read it?" he asked, staring at Harry with the frantic look of a man terrified that someone had discovered something he was clearly ashamed of.
"Um... no, sir," Harry replied, noticing the way Filch watched him suspiciously as he carefully tucked the letter into his pocket.
Even then, he still seemed unconvinced Harry hadn't read it, nervously rubbing his hands together.
"Well... if you did read it... it's from a friend. It isn't mine. Well then..." Filch grew more agitated with every passing second, opening and closing his mouth without knowing what to say next.
"Wh-where's the parchment?" Filch asked, desperately changing the subject so his nerves wouldn't show.
They already were.
Even Harry was surprised.
He'd never seen Filch like this before.
Wanting to get this over with and leave as quickly as possible, Harry ignored Filch's strange behavior and looked around until he spotted a worn piece of parchment sticking out of the Weasley twins' confiscation box.
It would probably do.
"N-name?" Filch asked, dipping his quill into the ink with hands that were still trembling.
"Harry Potter."
"Offense?"
"Uh... dirtying the castle," Harry answered tiredly.
Filch hurriedly scribbled everything down, clearly wanting to finish with Harry as quickly as possible.
"Punishment to be assigned..."
When he reached that part, Harry, who had only recently finished helping the Defense professor answer his fan mail, was practically praying to the goddess of magic—his grandmother—to save him from this.
Fortunately for him, before Filch could write anything...
A tremendous crash echoed through the office, making the ceiling shake.
"Peeves!" Filch shouted immediately, as though he already knew who else could possibly be behind something like that—the castle's insane poltergeist. "Y-you can go," Filch told Harry. "And don't say a word to anyone, understand?" he added in a stern voice, quite obviously using this as an excuse to let Harry leave.
"Sure," Harry replied as he watched Filch rush away, still wearing a puzzled expression over why Filch had reacted that way just because he was a Squib.
Then again...
He understood that better than most.
After all, the wizarding world wasn't exactly kind to people who weren't... "normal."
Just in case, Harry picked up the parchment from the desk in case Filch decided to come back later and give him detention anyway.
He slipped it into his robes and turned to leave.
Without him noticing, though, the ink on the parchment was absorbed before words slowly began appearing across its surface.
"HARRY POTTER?!"