Of the most unlikely heroes, it can well be said that Peeves would be one of them. He was never one to take anything seriously, even in life, and even after death and becoming a poltergeist he was even more dedicated to that principle. A poltergeist was a quite rare phenomenon, different from a ghost in that it could actually pick up and hold objects yet still travel through walls and become invisible whenever he so chose. Not all poltergeists were the same of course, but all of them held a deep love and appreciation for one thing: pranks. No poltergeist could resist a prank. Peeves had been in the castle since its founding, and had been dedicated to mischief and pranks ever since, having a whole school full of children and faculty to mess with, he couldn't imagine a better place to haunt.
He had been on the 2nd floor making off with a pair of Filch's underwear that he had managed to pilfer and now put on top of one of the chandeliers in the great hall for everyone to view when he heard a very loud commotion not too far away. Being naturally drawn to loud noises in the first place, he was hoping that some sort of prank was being pulled or a chance to do some mischief might become available.
As he got closer he realized it had been coming through that long passageway that had only one real way to get through it for mortals, the trap door just above it. Normally he had come to avoid going through it as it hadn't been used in over a century, and there was nothing that really peaked his interest at all there. However, with this new loud development he couldn't resist finding out if perhaps this had changed.
He traveled directly through the wall by assuming his ghost form before attempting to travel through the other side, and as he did so realized that the tunnel must have collapsed. Disappointed he was about to just go back when he heard voices emanating from the rock just in front of him.
"Don't worry Dumbledore will get us out," Peeves heard a boy say.
"I don't see how he's going to get us out without all of this rubble collapsing, and even if he does it'll give Quirrell plenty of time to get whatever he's trying to get and escape," a girl answered.
Peeves chose to make his presence known then, never able to keep silent for long.
"HELLO!" Peeves yelled with all his might, startling the 4 children.
"Peeves!" one of the girls said, "I can't believe I'm happy to see you."
"I"m happy to see me too," Peeves replied, before going invisible, "wait now I can't."
"Peeves we need you to go get Professor Dumbledore or another one of the teachers and tell them we're trapped down here," the boy he recognized as Harry Potter said.
"Why should I?" Peeves asked, he never did anything anyone asked him to do, especially a student.
"If you don't we'll die," one of the girl's claimed, "please Peeves, you're our only hope."
Peeves was suddenly faced with a quandary, he saw no reason to obey their orders, they were just ickle firsties, yet allowing someone to die didn't sound like fun. As much as he enjoyed pranks, he always drew the line at murder. Having died himself, he could say that that experience was most certainly not fun, and as mean spirited he might be, he'd never do that to another person. However was simply letting them die murder?
"What if we offered you something?" one of the girl's suggested, "I'm Pansy, and this is Harry, Su, and Susan, you'll be richly rewarded."
Peeves got a twinge of excitement, he rather liked deals, as long as they allowed for more mischief.
"What kind of deal?" Peeves asked, "it had better be good or I ain't doing nothing."
"We want to play a prank on one of the teachers, Professor Quirrell," the girl continued, "but he blasted the tunnel and tried to kill us instead, don't you just hate when pranks get foiled by the person you are trying to prank?"
Peeves did know, some teacher or even student was always ruining his fun.
"We want to offer you a chance to play the biggest prank on him and get back at him," Pansy claimed, "we were going to do it, but we're giving you the chance to do it instead."
Biggest prank? That got his attention.
He was pretty tempted but then realized it might be because they were just trying get him to help them.
"How do I know you're telling me the truth?" Peeves asked.
Pansy sighed, "well I suppose you'll just miss out on it then, can't believe a poltergeist would pass up the opportunity to play the biggest prank ever, I suppose its for the best, you wouldn't have been good enough of a prank puller to pull it off anyway."
"Now wait just a minute," Peeves said, suddenly now being very serious, he took prank pulling very seriously, "I can do any prank, I'm the greatest ever!."
"Then prove it," suggested Pansy, "help get us out of here and we'll tell you the prank."
Peeves mulled it over for a few seconds then realized that the temptation was simply too great, besides he had a reputation to maintain, for him to pass up such a great prank opportunity would make him a laughingstock, and not in the good way.
"Agreed," Peeves answered, "but I want to hear the prank first."
"Right now Quirrell is trying to get through a bunch of obstacles, we want to make it as hard on him as possible," Pansy told him, "this is what you need to do."
As Peeves heard the plan, he grinned, this could be fun, the girl certainly had a malicious mind when she wanted to, and the others also contributed somewhat as well with their own ideas.
"Can you go get Dumbledore now?" the girl named Susan asked as soon as the plan was finished.
"He'll ruin everything that old spoil sport," Peeves claimed, "I'll get you out of here myself."
"How?" Susan asked.
"Like this," Peeves said grabbing her without warning and instantly going invisible. As a poltergeist he had the rare ability to transform whatever he was holding into ghost form as well, allowing the item to travel through walls with him. This also happened to apply to people and animals, which had served useful for example in locking Mrs. Norris in various cupboards all over the castle on many occasions.
He went right through the wall he had come through and deposited her on the other side, and then returned for the others.
As soon as he had done so, he told them, "Now Peevesy wants some fun!"
He glided back through the rubble and through the corridor as fast as he could and sure enough there was Quirrell, right in a room full of flying keys just as had been mentioned. He was even now trying to insert one of the keys into the lock.
Grinning wildly, Peeves went invisible and grabbed the key seemingly out of thin air as if the key had fallen out of his grip and gotten away.
Since the key was already a flying one, it brought disbelief on the part of Quirrell who had no doubt spent ages trying to get it in the first place, but now his prize had escaped and was suddenly flying around again on its own.
Peeves laughed quietly to himself as he flew around with the key still made visible, keeping it just in front of Quirrell, taunting him with it.
Quirrell made several mad dashes at the key trying to grab it, leading twice to him landing face first on the ground. It was made even more comical by the fact that the floor was wet and it was a dirt floor, causing mud to cover his face and front.
"You stupid key," Quirrell yelled angrily at it.
He tried to shoot some spells at it, either missing horribly or failing to work, evidently the key was charmed to prevent it being summoned.
Peeves soon began to grow bored with the display after Quirrell had finally seemed to just give up in frustration, and decided to allow stage two of the plan.
Dropping the key into a mud puddle, as the key really didn't seem to have the ability to fly anymore now with both wings broken he waited for a still shocked Quirrell to reach down and grab it.
Peeves took the opportunity to grab the key and pull it up again, before dropping it onto Quirrell's head.
"Dumb key," Quirrell said, still nursing the wound on his head.
Peeves proceeded through the door, taking Quirrell's broom that he had brought with him as well, unencumbered by the need for a key and set up the next stage in a room with a huge chessboard.
Each of the huge chess pieces had lots of great weapons he was itching to use for nefarious purposes but for right now he focused on setting up the board so that it would be nearly impossible for Quirrell to win.
While Quirrell was no doubt looking for his broom he started killing off as many pieces of his that he could, delighted to find that the chess pieces responded to him.
By the time Quirell finally came in, having given up on finding his broom, he had gotten rid of half of his pawns, his queen, both of his rooks and both of his bishops, and 1 knight.
"Am I really expected to win with this?" Quirrell asked angrily.
To Peeves' surprise he found that Quirrell was actually a quite brilliant chess player even with so few pieces which seemed most unlike him since Peeves had always regarded him as a nincompoop, almost as if he had someone in the back of his head to guide him.
At any rate, he still lost, the loss of so many pieces he was unable to make up for, which Peeves was glad, as he had gotten rather bored watching Quirrell play and had taken to whispering vulgar remarks into the opposing pieces' ears in an effort to make them more angry once the game finally ended.
Not to his surprise when Quirrell finally was checkmated, the pieces all attacked him, with swords and various other weapons being used. Quirrell somehow managed to survive the ordeal although suffering several near misses and cuts, and leaving his robes in tatters by running to the opposite doorway and slamming the door shut behind him.
Still somehow having been able to maintain his secrecy for this long, a new record for him as he had never made his presence unknown for this long, continued on after Quirrell through the door.
The next room had an absolutely huge troll inside which Peeves assumed that Dumbledore must have temporarily shrank in order to get it inside.
Perhaps under normal circumstances Quirrell could have taken it out had he not already been exhausted from fighting off the chess pieces as well as getting the flying key. However Peeves made sure that the troll would have a better fighting chance by poking it repeatedly using one of the swords he had stolen from one of the chess pieces.
That didn't make the troll very happy at all and in a cry of rage it turned on the one being it could see: Quirrell.
Quirrell stepped back, staring down the troll in fear as it swung its club at him, forcing him to dodge.
Peeves had been hoping that the troll would do more damage and perhaps knock him out, so he could then start dropping things on his head in an attempt to wake him up, but Quirrell was too smart for that, he somehow knew how to tackle a troll and hit it with a spell that managed to pierce its thick skull and knock it out.
The only good thing was that the troll landed on Quirrell as it fell, nearly crushing the teacher under its immense weight.
It took awhile before Quirrell was able to get the troll off of him, and during that time Peeves moved on to the next room, where various potions were located.
Of course he couldn't resist switching out the potions, so that even he had no idea which potion was which, even though some evidently poisoned you, one got you through the flames safely, and the rest did nothing. He ended up dumping all of the potions and putting stinksap and belch powder that he produced from his pocket down them instead that he had managed to pilfer from Filch who had in turn pilfered it from the Weasley twins.
He watched with baited breath as Quirrell finally came in and went over the riddle before finally selecting the one that should have worked had it not been for his sabotage. Quirrell was foolish enough to immediately try and drink it down with a clearly nasty look on his face, as stinksap smelled terrible and tasted even worse.
Yet thinking that the potion just tasted horrible, Quirrell let out a very loud belch before trying to go through the flames.
Lucky for Quirrell, he only got his foot through before he yelped in pain, the fire being at such an intense heat that it immediately burned his foot, burning through the shoe and also lighting his robe on fire.
He was forced to remove his robe, leaving him in only his underwear, evidently he wasn't wearing anything else underneath, and try and put out the flames, only to discover that the fire wouldn't get put out very easily, perhaps because of the intensity of the flames, or perhaps because of the flammable liquid that Peeves poured on it while Quirrell was still nursing his hot foot.
Now clad only in his underwear, Quirrell was forced to use some sort of spell to get past the flames, before moving onward with Peeves traveling a few seconds behind.
Su had told him that she didn't know what was beyond the flames so Peeves was disappointed to find that instead of more things to sabotage, there was only an old mirror, and a dead end.
As he pondered whether or not he should smash the mirror, Quirrell stared into the mirror, getting angrier and angrier as he did so, now starting to have a conversation with himself, causing Peeves to wonder if perhaps he should get a straight jacket since Quirrell had apparently lost it.
Yet just as he was thinking that, he began to hear another voice emanating from the back of Quirrell's head.
Now curious he went over and quickly pulled off the turban.
Peeves gasped as he noticed a face in the back of Quirrell's head. He had always thought that some of the teachers had eyes in the back of their head in order to always catch him doing mischief even when their back was turned, but this was his first proof that it was actually true.
"Quirrell, you fool," the voice roared.
"I'm sorry master," Quirrell muttered, trying to replace the turban.
Peeves by this time had finally gotten tired of hiding his presence and instead while Quirrell was bending down to pick up the turban, kicked his rear end, causing him to fall over onto his face.
Finally he went over and made himself visible, sitting on Quirrell's second face, causing it to scream unintelligibly.
"What's that? I can't hear you, my butt is in the way," Peeves cackled with glee.
Quirrell began to get up, forcing Peeves to get up off the face as well, but not before letting out one very nasty fart right on his face.
"Peeves," the face said now recognizing him, "how dare you trifle with Lord Voldemort."
"Moldywart, moldywart, his warts are all moldy with Quirky, quicky, quacky Quirrell," Peeves began chanting.
"You'll pay for this," the face claiming to be Lord Voldemort screamed at him.
"Funny, what are you going to do to me, scream at me to death," Peeves cheekily responded.
"Get him!" Voldemort told Quirrell.
As soon as Quirrell had turned around, however, Peeves disappeared and turned invisible.
Nevertheless Quirrell fired a spell at where he guessed he was, missing horribly.
By that time, Peeves had gone to his side, kicking him in the same foot that had been burned, and now without proper foot protection and a burn on it, Quirrell yelped in pain.
"Nice try," Peeves claimed blowing a loud raspberry, "catch me if you can."
"Come on you bumbling idiot, its just Peeves," Voldemort said.
Quirrell tried firing another spell, but Peeves had already left again and was preparing to try the same thing to the other side when he heard another voice come from where the flames were.
"Quirinius," Dumbledore said gravely.
Peeves was disappointed to find Dumbledore around, it usually meant that his fun and games were over, yet he never tried to disobedy Dumbledore as long as he was around, out of all the teachers, students, and ghosts he had known in his existence as a poltergeist, Dumbledore was one of the few who he was forced to respect, recognizing that he had the power to actually cast him out if he so chose.
"Hello Professor head," Peeves said, adopting a salute.
"I see Peeves has already had his way with you Quirrell," Dumbledore chuckled.
"Quacky has been ever so much fun Professor," Peeves claimed.
"I'm sure he has," Dumbledore agreed, "and I thank you for that."
"Thank me?" Peeves asked in bewilderment, he'd never been thanked before for a prank, at least not from a teacher. It hadn't been his intention to do something nice, he just couldn't pass up the opportunity to pull some pranks.
"You've done the school a great honor for slowing down Quirrell like this," Dumbledore claimed.
"Does this mean I get to have some more stink bombs?" Peeves asked.
"I'm sure I'll think of some reward for you," Dumbledore told him, "but first I must deal with Quirrell."
"Turn around," Voldy-face asked.
Quirrell did as he was directed showing the face to Dumbledore.
"Hello Dumbledore," the voice rasped, "are you still so desperate that you have to have a poltergeist to do your dirty work?"
"Hello Tom," Dumbledore replied, "it appears that times must be hard for you to have to inhabit another man's body.
"You bring any other fool servants?" Voldemort asked.
"Oh no, its just you and me as you would want," Dumbledore told him.
"Do you really think this fool that I share a body with can ever hope to defeat you? Even I have to admit that." Voldemort asked, "we shall meet again Dumbledore when I have my own body to defeat you."
Quirrell seemed to be wondering what he meant when he began to gasp for breath as he fell onto his knees, and Peeves realized that Moldywort was dispossessing Quirrell which in Quirrell's case was a death sentence. The face began on the other hand began to dissolve into smoke that departed through one of the walls.
Dumbledore watched him go, but of course Peeves could never sit still and asked him, "so about this reward?"
DUELDUELDUEL
The next morning, Harry, Susan, Pansy, and Su were just then leaving the great hall, discussing just what had happened last night.
"We could have been killed," Susan said.
"I know, lucky Peeves was there to save us, never thought I'd ever have my life saved by Peeves," Harry admitted.
"Lucky that Pansy managed to convince Peeves like that," Su said.
"I just appealed to his better nature," Pansy claimed, "I knew he couldn't pass up pulling off the "best prank ever," he simply couldn't resist."
"I wonder if Peeves really did do all the things we suggested he pull on Quirrell," Su asked.
"I sure did," Peeves said, suddenly appearing just behind them and blowing a loud raspberry in Su's ear, and startling all of them, "he got the stuffing knocked out of him."
"That's awesome!" Pansy answered enthusiastically.
"Gave me plenty of ideas too," he grinned mischievously causing each of them to blanch.
Then Peeves could not resist simply telling them just what had happened, he rarely got to share his exploits with anyone, so it was a welcome treat.
He soon had them laughing at the plight of Quirrell, but were shocked to learn of Voldemort being on the back of Quirrell's head, although Peeves seemed to think it more funny than anything else.
When Peeves finished, Su did something that he would never have expected, and said to him, "thank you Peeves," before kissing him on the cheek, causing him to suddenly turn various colors, from red to purple to polka dot to green.
He tried wiping it away, clearly unsure how to react before promptly disappearing.
"I think you finally silenced him," Susan laughed.
"Who would have thought?" Su answered, laughing somewhat herself.
"Did we just see what we..."
...thought we saw," asked Fred and George, "did someone finally..."
"get one over on Peeves?"
"It looks like it," Susan declared, as the twins had evidently been evesdropping, as least for the last part of the conversation.
"Couldn't help but overhear when we noticed Peeves actually talking to students," Fred stated.
"Oh I would say it was a pretty rare occurrence," Su told them, "especially after I kissed his cheek."
"He's going to want to get back at you for that," George answered.
"I'll be waiting for it," Su replied, "just wanted to see his reaction if I did that."
"Speaking of pranks, I was wondering if I could talk to you about some of the ones you've been pulling on the Slytherins," Susan asked.
"What about them?" Fred asked.
"Well obviously you seem to be focusing your pranks a lot on them, even ones who don't really deserve them like Pansy here," she reminded them.
The twins both looked at Pansy, then back at Susan who at that moment looked just as firm as her aunt could look.
"I'm not going to deny that we've been pulling pranks on the Slytherins," George admitted, "but usually just on the ones who are really stupid like Flint, otherwise we tend to pull pranks equally on the houses."
"Don't want anyone to be left out," Fred added grinning.
"Then who's been doing it so much to all of them?" Susan asked.
"Plenty of students have been doing it," Fred said, "its been crazy lately, even our pranks seem to be getting less attention. I know our younger brother Ron tried to pull some on some of them the other day by putting some laxative into some food to put out for them but of course the idiot left it out and poor Neville ate it instead, he was in the bathroom all day."
"I wish there was a way to get back at him and the others and teach them a lesson," Susan wondered, "did you hear about him challenging Pansy to a duel then not bothering to show up and sick Filch on us instead?"
"No," George asked, "ickle Ronnikins challenged someone to a duel?"
"He did," Pansy confirmed, "even though I think it was never his intention to actually duel me, just get me into trouble instead."
"Ron apparently doesn't know anything about duels," Fred claimed, "only things he knows is what we taught him. If he failed to show up for a duel that he set the time and place for, he's required to accept your counter offer as to where the duel should take place or risk losing his magic."
"As much as we'd love to watch our younger brother have to live as a squib and do all of his chores by hand, I think it would be better for you to beat him in a duel instead, we've tried pranking some sense into him but he apparently doesn't seem to share our views," George added.
"When and where do you want to do it?" Su asked Pansy, still itching for the fight that they were supposed to have had last night.
"A good slytherin waits until the opportune moment to strike," Pansy said mysteriously, "we'll make sure he knows that he has to duel me, but we won't say exactly when to keep him on edge. Often the threat of something is far worse than the actual thing itself."
"Aren't you worried that he might take that time to get more prepared then?" Susan asked.
"Have you seen his study habits?" Pansy asked, "that boy won't do anything to get prepared until perhaps the last minute. As for me however, it'll give me plenty of time to prepare and I'll decide when I really think is the best time whether it be today, tomorrow, or next year."
"We'll at least prank him in the meantime, along with some of the other likely culprits of pranks, wouldn't want them to feel left out either," Fred suggested to George.
"Definitely," agreed George, "pillow turning into spider?"
"Spider blanket," Fred grinned as they hurried off to execute their next prank.
DUELDUELDUEL
The school year drew to a close and still Pansy chose not to duel Ron, although she did start going to more dueling practices along with Susan who agreed to take it up as well not wanting to be the only one not participating and because she had learned some of its value after the incident with Quirrell.
For the end of year feast to announce that Hufflepuff had won the house cup for the first time in over 200 years, Dumbledore decided to allow Peeves to come as part of his reward for helping to defeat Quirrelmort. True a lot of food was being thrown around on his part, but in comparison of his usual behavior he was actually pretty well behaved.
Then the school year finally drew to a close and Harry, Susan, Pansy, and Su all boarded the train, finding their own compartment to sit in.
Pansy was brave enough to rest her head on Harry's shoulder and try and get some rest, while Su went out to go have a look around, leaving both he and Susan alone.
"Are you excited to be going home?" he asked her quietly so as not to awaken a still sleeping Pansy.
"Yes," Susan answered honestly, "but I'll also miss Hogwarts as well."
"Well I'm sure we still have plenty of adventures left there when we go back," he answered.
She nodded and said, "I'm glad you're coming to live with me Harry."
"I am too," he agreed.
"I hope one day you can learn to call it home as well," she admitted.
"I never knew what a home really is until I went to Hogwarts," Harry claimed, "I learned that a home isn't just a place where a family happens to live, its a place where people actually care about you. I think wherever any of you 3 go, I'll always have a home with you."
Susan blushed and said, "then I hope we'll always have a home."
"I certainly hope so," Harry answered as he gazed out the window of the train, "I certainly hope so."