i am lord voldemort • Tom Riddle

XXIII:

Ophelia awoke September 1st to the feeling of a freezing winters rain. The problem: it wasn't winter and nor was she outside.

"Peeves!" she snapped, jerking, damp and displeased, back into consciousness. After months and months with the persistent poltergeist, she had no doubt that it was he who was behind this most recent attack, even before she opened her eyes. It was a deep-rooted knowledge, an irritation buried down to the bone. "You know what the Headmaster said about infesting the library!"

"Peevsie should tell the Headmaster li'l 'Phelia is in the restricted section." He bobbed his head with saintly sincerity, his whole floating form bouncing up in down in time with the movement. "Against the rules, it is. Wouldn't want li'l 'Phelia to be breaking rules."

"Then I can't wait to tell him about you bringing a bucket of water into the library where it could damage the books," she threatened, pulling out her wand and running it along her form to dry off. "You can bet the librarian will exorcise you herself if she catches wind."

In an act of mind blowing maturity, Peeves stuck out his tongue and blew a long series of raspberries as he floated backwards towards the door. Ophelia breathed a sigh of relief when he finally disappeared, until the book on various aspects of Dark Magic— including details on Horcruxes— that she'd swiped from Restricted Section shelves began dancing away, seemingly of its own accord.

"Accio," she sighed, resigned to his antics by then.

The book didn't come. Indeed, it kept floating dandily towards the open doorway, seemingly giggling at her wasted effort. Ophelia knew many of the books on Dark Magic contained bizarre curses and spells meant to protect them; did someone place one that repelled the summoning charm?

She couldn't let that book get away, and not just because she was loathe to let Peeves win.

Just because the Poltergeist was invisible didn't mean he was impenetrable. Holding onto the book meant he needed to maintain a physical form, so Ophelia could very well have just tried to stun him. Unfortunately, the last time she'd tried that was still fresh in her mind and sent her into a cold sweat. She practically had to evacuate the castle to avoid his renewed, vigorous taunting after he'd recovered from her spell. She still wasn't quite sure, exactly, how Peeves had made his way into Slughorn's locked cupboards to swipe all manner of foul potions to terrorise her with, dropping them overhead like a  Zepplin bomber. Worst yet was when he'd acquired a vicious pair of rust-covered pruning shears and chased her from classroom to classroom for nearly a week before she'd managed to disarm him. "Let's take a little off the top!" He'd cackle, and she was never sure whether he meant to cut off all her hair or go straight for the head. The ambiguity was just enough to keep her from wanting an encore.

Instead, she aimed her wand at the long uninterrupted stone floor outside the library doors and made the rough surface about as gripping as ice. With a running leap, she slid across the corridor in nearly a third of the time it would have taken to sprint it. Ophelia made a mental note to come back and undue the spell before she accidentally murdered the librarian.

"When I catch you," she huffed, pushing off the opposite wall and propelling herself after him, "I'm going use your intestines as a scarf."

"So scaaaaarrrry," he cackled. Ophelia reached the moving staircase at an open sprint, him mere seconds before her. Standing in midair just beyond the railing that prevented Ophelia from tumbling down multiple floors, Peeves spun around like a top to face her and waved a taunting hand. "Bye-bye!"