No Turning Back Now.

October arrived, spread a damp chill over the grounds and into the castle. Madam Pomfrey, the matron, was kept busy by the sudden spate of colds among the staff and students. Her Pepperup potion worked instantly, though it left the drinker smoking at the ears for several hours afterwards. Ginny, who had been looking peaky, was bullied into taking some by Percy. The steam pouring from under her vivid hair gave the impression that her whole head was on fire.

Raindrops the size of bullets thundered on the castle windows for days on end; the lake rose, the flowerbeds turned into muddy streams and Hagrid’s pumpkins swelled to the size of garden sheds. I still watched the Gryffindor Quidditch trainings.

One stormy Saturday afternoon, a few days before Halloween, Harry and I were drenched to the skin and splattering mud everywhere on our way back to the common-room. Even aside from the rain and wind it hadn’t been a happy practise session for the team.

Fred and George, who had been spying on the Slytherin team, had seen for themselves the speed of those new Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones. They reported that the Slytherin team were no more than seven greenish blurs, shooting through the air like jump-jets.

As Harry and I squelched along the deserted corridor we came across somebody who looked just as preoccupied as we were. Nearly Headless Nick, the ghost of Gryffindor Tower, was staring morosely out of a window, muttering under his breath, “... don’t fulfil their requirements... half an inch, if that...”

“Hello, Nick,” I said, after I’d given Harry a sideways glance.

“Hello, hello,” said Nearly Headless Nick, starting and looking around. He wore a dashing, plumed hat on his long curly hair, and a tunic with a ruff , which concealed the fact that his neck was almost completely severed. He was pale as smoke, and I could see right through him to the dark sky and torrential rain outside.

“You look troubled, you Potter,” said Nick, folding a transparent letter as he spoke and tucking it inside his doublet, “and you, Samuels.”

“So do you,” said Harry.

“Ah,” Nearly Headless Nick waved and elegant hand, “a matter of no importance... it’s not as though I really wanted to join... thought I’d apply, but apparently I ‘don’t fulfil requirements’.”
In spite of his airy tone, there was a look of great bitterness on his face.

“But you would think, wouldn’t you,” he erupted suddenly, pulling the letter back out of his pocket, “that getting hit fifty-five times in the neck with a blunt axe would qualify you to join the Headless Hunt?”

“Oh – yes,” Harry and I said, obviously suppose to agree.

“I mean, nobody wishes more than I do that it had all been quick and clean, and my head had come off properly, I mean, it would have saved me a great deal of pain and ridicule. However...” Nearly Headless Nick shook his letter open and read furiously, “We can only accept huntsmen whose heads have parted company with their bodies. You will appreciate that it would be impossible otherwise for members to participate in hunt activities such as Horseback Head-Juggling and Head Polo. It is with the greatest regret, therefore, that I must inform you that you do not fulfil our requirements. With very best wishes, Sir Patrick Delaney-Podmore.”

Fuming, Nearly Headless Nick stuffed the letter away once again.

“Half an inch of skin and sinew holding my neck on, Harry! Most people would think that’s good and beheaded, but oh no, it’s not enough for Sir Properly Decapitated-Podmore, is it, Corey?”

Nearly Headless Nick took several deep breaths and then said, in a far calmer tone, “So – what’s bothering you two? Anything I can do?”

“No,” I said. “Not unless you know where we can get seven free Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones for our match against Sly –“

The rest of my sentence was drowned by a high pitched mewing from somewhere near my ankles. I looked down and found myself gazing into a pair of lamp-like yellow eyes. It was Mrs Norris, the skeletal grey cat who was used by the caretaker, Argus Filch, as a sort of deputy in his endless battle against students.

“You’d better get out of here, you two,” said Nick quickly. “Filch isn’t in a good mood. He’s got flu and some third years accidentally plastered frog brains all over the ceiling in dungeon five; he’s been cleaning all morning, and if he sees you dripping mud all over the place...”

“Right,” said Harry, both of us backing away from the accusing stare of Mrs Norris, but not quickly enough. Drawn to the spot by the mysterious power that seemed to connect him with his foul cat, Argus Filch burst suddenly through a tapestry to our right, wheezing and looking wildly about for the rule-breaker. There was a think tartan scarf bound around his head, and his nose was unusually purple.

“Filth!” he shouted, his jowls aquiver, his eyes popping alarmingly as he pointed at the muddy puddles that had dripped from our robes. “Mess and muck everywhere! I’ve had enough of it, I tell you! Follow me, Samuels; Potter!”

So we waved a gloomy goodbye to Nearly Headless Nick, and followed Filch back downstairs, doubling the number of muddy footprints on the floor.

I had never been inside Filch’s office before; it was a place most students avoided. The room was dingy and windowless, lit by a single oil-lamp dangling from the low ceiling. A faint smell of fried fish lingered about the place. Wooden filing cabinets stood around the walls; from their labels, I could see that they contained details of every pupil that Filch had ever punished. Fred and George had an entire drawer to themselves, which didn’t surprise me. A highly polished collection of chains and manacles hung on the wall behind Filch’s desk. It was common knowledge that he was always begging Dumbledore to let him suspend students by their ankles from the ceiling.

Filch grabbed a quill from a pot on his desk and began shuffling around looking for parchment.

“Dung,” he muttered furiously, “great sizzling dragon bogies... frog brains... rat intestines... I’ve had enough of it... make an example... where’s the form... yes...”

He retrieved a large roll of parchment from his desk drawer and stretched it out in front of him, dipping his long black quill into the ink pot.

“Name... Harry Potter. Corey Samuels. Crime...”

“It was only a bit of mud!” I said.

“It’s only a bit of mud to you, girl, but to me it’s an extra hour scrubbing!” shouted Filch, a drip shivering unpleasantly at the end of his bulbous nose. “Crime... befouling the caste... suggested sentence...”

Dabbing at his streaming nose, Filch squinted unpleasantly at us as we waited with bated breath for our sentence to fall. But as Filch lowered his quill, there was a great BANG! On the veiling of the office which made the oil lamp rattle.

“PEEVES!” Filch roared, flinging down his quill in a transport of rage. “I’ll have you this time, I’ll have you!”

And without a backwards glance at us, Filch ran flat-footed from the office, Mrs Norris streaking alongside him. Peeves was the school poltergeist, a grinning, airborne menace who lived to cause havoc and distress. I didn’t much like Peeves, but couldn’t help feeling grateful for his timing. Hopefully, whatever Peeves had done (and it sounded as though he’d wrecked something very big this time) would distract Filch from Harry and I.

Think that we should probably wait for Filch to come back, Harry sank into a moth-eaten chair next to the desk. There was only one thing on it apart from our half-completed forms: a large, glossy, purple envelope with silver lettering on the front. With a quick glance at the door to chec that Filch wasn’t on his way back, I picked up the envelope and read:

‘KWIKSPELL
A Correspondence Course in
Beginners’ Magic’

Intrigued, I flicked the envelope open and pulled out the sheaf of parchment inside.

“Corey, what are you doing?” Harry said.

“Just looking,” I replied.

More curly silver writing on the front page said:

‘Feel out of step in the world of modern magic? Find
yourself making excuses not to perform simple spells?
Ever been taunted for your woeful wandwork?
There is an answer!
Kwikspell is an all-new, fail-safe, quick-result, easy-learn
course. Hundreds of witches and wizards benefited
from the Kwikspell method!
Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes:
“I had no memory for incantations and my potions were
a family joke! Now, after a Kwikspell course, I am
the centre of attention at parties and friends beg
for the recipe of my Scintillation Solution!”

Warlock D.J Prod of Didsbury says:
“My wife used to sneer at my feeble charms but one
month into your fabulous Kwikspell course I
succeeded in turning her into a yak! Thank you,
Kwikspell!”’

Fascinated, I thumbed through the rest of the envelope’s contents. Why on earth did Filch want a Kwikspell course? Was he not a proper wizard? I was just reading ‘Lesson One: Holding Your Wand (Some Useful Tips)’ with Harry sitting anxiously next to me, when shuffling footsteps outside told me that Filch was coming back. Stuffing the parchment back into the envelope, I threw it back onto the desk just as the door opened.

Filch was looking triumphant.

“That vanishing cabinet was extremely valuable!” he was saying gleefully to Mrs Norris. “We’ll have Peeves out this time, my sweet.”

His eyes fell on Harry sitting on the dusty chair next to the desk, and me standing next to him, and then darted to the Kwikspell envelope which, I realised too late, was lying two feet away from where it had started.

Filch’s pasty face went brick red. I braced myself for a tidal wave of fury. Filch hobbled across to his desk, snatched up the envelope and threw it into a drawer.

“Have you – did you read -?” he spluttered.

“No,” I lied quickly.

Filch’s knobbly hands were twisting together.

“If I thought you’d read my private... not that it’s mine... for a friend... be that as it may... however...”

I could see Harry staring at him, alarmed; Filch had never looked madder. His eyes were popping, a tic was going in one of his pouchy cheeks and the tartan scarf didn’t help.
“Very well... go... and don’t breathe a word, either of you... not that... however, if you didn’t read... go now, I have to write up Peeve’s report... go...”

Amazed at our luck, we sped out of the office, up the corridor and back upstairs. To escape from Filch’s office without punishment was probably some kind of school record, one I’m sure Fred and George would be somewhat jealous of.

“Harry! Corey! Did it work?”

Nearly Headless Nick came gliding out of a classroom. Behind him, I could see the wreckage of a large black and gold cabinet which appeared to have been dropped from a great height.

“I persuaded Peeves to crash it right over Filch’s office,” said Nick eagerly. “Thought it might distract him-“

“Was that you?” I said gratefully. “Yeah it worked, we didn’t even get detentions. Thanks, Nick!”

We set off up the corridor together. Nearly Headless Nick was still holding Sir Patrick’s rejection letter.

“I wish there was something we could do for you about that Headless Hunt,” Harry said, obviously having noticed the letter, too.

Nearly Headless Nick stopped dead in his tracks and I walked right through him. I wished I hadn’t; it was like stepping through an icy shower.

“But there is something you could do for me,” said Nick excitedly. “Harry, Corey – would I be asking too much – but no, you wouldn’t want –“

“What is it?” I asked curiously.

“Well, this Halloween will be my five hundredth deathday,” said Nearly Headless Nick, drawing himself up and looking dignified.

“Oh,” Harry and I both said, not sure whether we should look sorry or happy about this. “Right.”

“I’m holding a party down in one of the roomier dungeons. Friends will be coming from all over the country. It would be such an honour if you would attend. Mr Weasley and Miss Granger would be most welcome too, of course – but I daresay you’d rather go to the school feast?” He watched us on tenterhooks.

“No,” said Harry quickly, “we’ll come –“

“My dear children! Harry Potter, at my Deathday Party! And, of course, Corey; one of the two Samuels left! And,” he hesitated, looking excited, “do you think you could possibly mention to Sir Patrick how very frightening and impressive you find me?”

“Oh, of course,” I said.

Nearly Headless Nick beamed at us.