Payback a Poltergeist

[Alistair Lancaster]

The entirety of the year had crawled by at a snails pace, but the final couple of months at Hogwarts had suddenly picked up speed as everything abruptly happened at once. There were the exams, which for the most part weren't too difficult, but the Slytherin found himself too distracted by recent on-goings to achieve any marks worth writing to home about. Not that riting home was worth the effort of doing, since his letters likely went unread or unopened. Meeting Marisol in the Howling Caverns made for a dramatic change to his life, knowing now who the other werewolf was only piled on to the tower of secrets he had to keep, and did little to alleviate his stress. It was nice to finally have someone else to talk to about his condition who wasn't a healer or a headmistress, someone who understood him, who experienced what he experienced, who lived the life he was forced to live. But knowing there were so many others out there, and that the school itself had so many in the past, it left a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that was unrelated to the upcoming full moon, which already left him looking pale. Then there was the fact that Marisol was much older than he was, and there'd come a time where she'd leave him to be on his own again. What then? He'd be back to having no one to talk to about it. No one who understood, at least.

Thankfully, Alistair's training sessions with Minerva after Potions classes made for a welcome distraction from his thoughts and worries, and their plan to help him get even with the chaos spirit was currently at the front of his mind. The two had practiced their spells, and split the galleons for an ever-bashing boomerang, all that was left to do was put the plan into motion and hope it worked. Standing just outside the entrance hall, Alistair twiddled his thumbs in anticipation, waiting for Minerva to arrive so they could lie in wait for the poltergeist, who was bound to fly through the hall sometime soon. He almost reconsidered doing it, with the full moon just a few nights away, his health wasn't exactly the best, but it was now or never if they were going to commit. The end of the year was just too soon to try again another day. It was odd. The Hufflepuff girl was the last person he'd expected to befriend over the course of the year, especially with how annoyed he'd been by her initial appearance at the lake, but he was pleasantly surprised to find he enjoyed their time spent together since then. If he'd been told at the start of the year that the two of them would be trying to prank the poltergeist, he wouldn't have believed it. Even now that they were as ready as they would ever be, he felt unsure they could pull it off, but they had to at least try. Payback was a long time coming for Vex, and Alistair wanted to make him think twice next time.
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[Minerva Khulik]

Minerva Khulik was a quiet student, at the start of the year she was most definitely a socially awkward person but now she had two best friends, a few friends and one that she could only refer to as her partner in crime or that was how it felt at any rate. She had written home to her parents on a regular basis telling them every detail about her exploits or lack thereof at the school, she had informed them of Norton and all the amazing things he had shown her from his muggle heritage and she had told them all about Elly and the delicious muggle chocolate she had introduced her to. There was her music encounters with Alexander that she had told them about and the roses she had gotten and given; there was the boy Tristan who she had given her Dad's omnioculars too and reassured her father that she had gotten them back too but in all her letters home, she had never once mentioned Alistair.

She didn't know why this was and had never even thought about it until that moment as she walked from the fourth floor of Hufflepuff house to meet with him in the entrance hall. She could have written about the mermaids she had met and mentioned him then but she knew she hadn't put anything about either in her letters. She could have told about the bouquet of roses that had slimed him and how they were planning on paying back the prankster involved but she hadn't written a solitary word. Yet, when Des and Finn had pranked herself and Norton with the cupcakes, she had written an entire letter about the indignation of it all and how they would pay the boys back eventually. Her brothers had loved it and she knew that if she were to tell them all about this particular incident, they would elevate her in their minds to godlike status ... but she hadn't said a word to them, to any of them back home.

Minerva paused as she looked down the last flight of stairs, looking at the entrance hall and seeing Alistair standing there .... she could have written to tell her family all about the extra practice lessons with him but she hadn't done that either but why? Her diary was filled with him, Alistair said this, Alistair said that. Alistair was great at the hex, Alistair cast it better than her. If anyone were to read her diary, they would think that Alistair Lancaster could walk on water and yet, if they were to read all of her letters home, they wouldn't even know he existed.

She shook her head of all these thoughts and bounded the last two steps and walked briskly to where he was. Her hair was pulled back into a braid and she wore a grey sweater and dark jeans with her gold sparkly trainers beneath. They had practiced and trained so hard for this, surely it would work, it absolutely had to!
"Hey Alistair" she greeted in a lower voice than normal, "ready for action?"

It sounded so secretive, dangerous and somewhat idiotic to do what they were attempting to do but perhaps that was why she said nothing about Alistair to her family. She was a different person with him than the socially awkward little girl that her family knew, she was adventurous, brave almost, smart and she had ... fun. Sharing that even in a letter might shatter it all and she liked feeling this way, even for a short while.

 

[Alistair Lancaster]

Too lost in his own thoughts and worries about the endless possibilities of the plan going wrong, Alistair didn't see Minerva approach until the glint of her sparkly golden shoes caught the attention of his downward cast eyes, the colour a stark contrast against the otherwise grey stone floor. He still felt uncomfortable making eye contact with many of the other students, an irrational fear that they'd know he was this monster with just the briefest of glances made it difficult to look anywhere but at the ground at times, and loitering in one spot wasn't helping. Too many students passed by on their way to the courtyard and surrounding grounds, or returning inside to go to a class, and each time he had to avoid looking too suspicious to avoid any unwanted attention.

Lifting his eyes from the floor, they met with Minerva's, and for the moment he felt the weight of troubled thought surrounding their plan lift. She seemed prepared for the task, and it gave him a surge of renewed confidence that they'd pull it off. It wasn't too difficult or unnecessarily convoluted and they had discussed it countless times to be sure of what they were doing. It would be hard to mess it up. "Minerva!" He started almost too loudly, but was quick to hush his voice halfway through her name. "Yeah, I think so. I mean...Yes. Yes, I'm ready. Let's do this." The youth tried to sound as affirmative as he could, producing the length of curved wood from his belt, previously hidden by the short hooded cloak draped across his shoulders, its fabric ending just above his knees. His attire was generally more traditional than a lot of other students, for the most part his family were set in their all-magical, purity-dominant ways, and they wanted his dress sense to reflect the community he came from. He didn't want to know what his father would say if he came home in jeans and sneakers as creative as Minerva's. Though, since he wasn't allowed to go back home, he guessed it wouldn't matter now if he did.

Keeping quiet, and idly turning the boomerang in his hand, Alistair continued. "Okay, he should be around here soon. I keep seeing him fly through here around this time. I think he's been stealing from a supplies closet? Anyway, I guess now all we need to do is hang out and pretend we've just had a really good time throwing this around..." The Slytherin looked at the brightly painted boomerang in his hands, suddenly very aware of the fact that if he dropped it, it might come flying back at him, and he wasn't sure when it would stop. Had it come with instructions? While the name stated it to be ever-bashing, he didnt know how accurate that statement was. "If uh, you want to hold it, you can."
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[Minerva Khulik]

Minerva had weighed up the pros and cons of this particular exploit, the pros being getting revenge on Vex, a poltergeist she had never met personally but had heard about; there was also the fact that he had pranked Alistair, maybe that hadn't been a personal thing, maybe the flowers had been left for any unsuspecting person and Alistair had been the unfortunate one to find them first but he had found them and Minerva took that personally now. She had even written in her diary that it was personal, because the to play a prank on Alistair was like playing a prank on her - where that had come from she couldn't understand and yet she felt strongly about it. She knew that if Norton were pranked, she would feel strongly about it too and they were still intent on getting Des and Finn back for that cupcake incident but were biding their time for the right opportunity. Was it that Alistair never seemed to have anyone else other than the strange beings he associated with? Was it that Norton was so sociable and outgoing and made friends easily? She didn't know and knew she would spend time over the summer considering all of these things and her own feelings.

The cons she had decided were simple - would they get into trouble for this and would they get house points deducted? Those were serious cons in her opinion and it had made her far more anxious to go ahead with this but she would never let anyone down and they had planned and practiced so hard for this moment. She would not back out now, she couldn't do that to Alistair. When she stood near him, she did her best to remain serious but she felt a strange kind of lightness of being that made her want to just smile ... a lot. He was ready, assured her that he was and she believed him and even if there was a moments slight hesitation there she didn't mind at all because she felt that way too.

She glanced up and down the corridor expecting the poltergeist to suddenly appear out of nowhere but thankfully he didn't but she remained on her guard. The tricky part was what they had to do next. Minerva looked at him and felt her throat constrict ... how was she to act this one out, that they had a really good time throwing the boomerang!?! She tried to put it into context and recalled one of the days they were practicing the spell and it had rebounded off one of the metal dummies and hit her own legs. The professor that had been chaperoning had removed the hex immediately but Minerva had actually found it hilarious, to have her legs lock like that and make her fall over and she hadn't even minded falling over and looking daft in front of Alistair either. She had been enjoying herself and with that she smiled.

"Alright, show time it is" she glanced at the boomerang and shook her head but laughed as well, "Same time tomorrow for sure, maybe we should get a few more students to come out and throw it about too!"

Her words were louder than she normally talked, a little strained because she was making this up on the fly, maybe they should have practiced their acting skills too a bit, she mused taking a step back and giving a quick glance about to see if there was any sign of Vex about.
"Just remember that I am better at throwing it than you!"

 

[Vex]

Vex frequently hovered around the entrance hall, moving from closet to closet as he looked for the groundskeeper. In his opinion, the worker was incredibly boring, but at least made an acceptable target for the vast majority of his work, as the headmistress frowned upon his jokes, especially if they were used against some of her students. The groundskeeper was fair game (in his opinion). The poltergeist had already switched the poor worker's cleaning products with slime, and whilst it was very likely that they would noticed that their vials had been tampered with, Vex at least hoped that they didn't notice this until they had used at least one to scrub the floors. The slime would get everywhere and it would be fantastic.

There was always one surefire way to distract the entity from his mission, however, and that was to appear to be having more fun than he was. Stuffing slime into bottles was always fun, but the pair of young students loitering around the entrance hall at least sounded like they were having more fun. That was completely unacceptable! They hadn't even thought to invite him?! The audacity hurt him on a fundamental level.

Taking the young Hufflepuff's reminder to her friend as a challenge (to himself, of course, as there would be no other reason to speak than to address him), Vex swooped suddenly from the ceiling, unnaturally silent, and swirled around the Slytherin at high speed. He took the boomerang during the confusion, and left the Slytherin with some ruffled clothes and a mess of hair at the top of his head - but the poltergiest didn't care. He had what he wanted - the boomerang - and his orange eyes narrowed at the pair.

"Now, now. It would be rude not to share, yes? Vexxie can play too."
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[Alistair Lancaster]

All of his time spent practicing and rehearsing how to sound believable for their staged conversation in the mirror was about to pay off - or so Alistair hoped. He was worried that he'd stumble over his words, or struggle to keep it seeming plausible. When it came to the poltergeist, the spirit was mischievous and experienced in pranking students, but he wasn't sure if Vex was intelligent enough to catch on even if they were over-exaggerating their made-up stories and how much fun they'd been having. Minerva dove straight into the act, and Alistair quickly did his best to keep up and join in. "Hey, you may have bested me this time, but just you wait. I'm a boomerang throwing champion, I won't hold back next time!" He responded with a grin, wanting to really give it an air of challenge to entice the chaos spirit - though part of it was his own pride, even though it was fake. As a Slytherin, it wasn't acceptable to be second best, and though he honestly had no idea how to even begin using a boomerang, unlike Minerva, no one else in ear shot needed to know that.

"Do you think other students could handle it? It takes a lot of skill, I don't know if anyone else would be nearly as good as we are! Maybe we can-" Whatever the boy had been about to say next was immediately cut off as out of nowhere there was a whirlwind of colour, which jostled Alistair around on the spot and left him a dizzy, disheveled mess. What was that? It took a moment to realise that the boomerang in his hand had been snatched away, and another moment to figure out who the culprit was. He reoriented himself as Vex spoke, surprised to find that the poltergeist had appeared so soon. They'd barely even gotten started and already he'd been lured in! It had been so easy - now he hoped that the rest of the plan would require just as little effort.

Putting his hands on his hips, Alistair tried his best to look unimpressed. "I don't know, Vexxie. You can try playing with us, but I doubt you can throw that as good as we can. You're going to have to prove it first." He said with a small shrug of his shoulders, hoping the spirit would take the challenge - then it'd be ever-bashing poltergeist time and he couldn't wait to see it.​

 

[Minerva Khulik]

Minerva hoped she didn't sound wooden, it wasn't like she was a drama student or anything and she didn't normally have fun with other students ... like play fun so pretending she had been outside actually playing with someone else was a stretch for her but thankfully Alistair seemed to be better at it than she and she found his part a lot more believable. If she didn't know any better, she would have thought it was real.
He was really into the swing of it but before either of them could say anything else, the prankster appeared. At first Minerva had no idea what was going on but soon clued in, who else or what else would even attempt to interfere in a conversation that had nothing to do with them and steal the boomerang! She couldn't believe that he had taken the bait so quickly, a little too quickly. Was he already on to them or was he hopefully completely stupid and really did think he could do what he liked!

"Prove it?" she gasped after Alistair had spoken to the poltergeist, looking extremely nonplussed with his hands on his hips. Minerva glanced at Alistair and couldn't help but smile at the pose he struck before shaking herself mentally and looking back at Vex.

"Don't bother trying, you're a poltergeist ... you can't match us throwing a boomerang, it's a toy not a silly game or prank that you're used to. Just give it back" she used her best, 'I'm fed up with this nonsense' voice before looking back at Alistair with a grin, "honestly, I bet he'd throw as bad as you Mr. Champion."

 

[Vex]

Vex's eyes narrowed further as the pair spoke to him. They weren't exceptionally convincing, but the poltergeist was as cocky as he was chaotic, and only understood their comments to mean that they were challenging him. Worse still, they were tell him that he wasn't the best. This was completely unacceptable! He had already stolen the boomerang from the male student, and he was prepared to use it. The poltergeist was known for inciting mayhem, not being an intellectual, so the chance to prove beyond all doubt that he was better than the pair of students before him made complete sense to the entity, and so he retracted his arm, and threw the boomerang across the room.

By its shape, boomerangs were designed to return to the thrower, however Vex had no way of knowing this. He also had no way of knowing that this particular boomerang was 'ever-bashing'. As soon as the boomerang left the poltergeist's hand, he knew something was up, and it took only moments before he realised that he had made quite a mistake. Being a poltergeist, he was corporeal enough currently to be impacted by physical blows, and it just so happened that his throw had been at eye-line - the boomerang swung back and hit him right on the forehead. The poltergiest was stunned, and so failed to respond to the second hit after the boomerang ricocheted again.
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[Alistair Lancaster]

Alistair glanced side along at Minerva as she gasped, and continued with her remarks on how the poltergeist couldn't possibly even try to throw a boomerang, that it imply wasn't worth wasting their time. Savage. He was impressed. Even though it was all an act, even he felt the need to prove himself to her. "As bad as me? Just you wait until our rematch. Besides, I don't think he could even throw it at all." He hoped he wasn't coming off as trying too hard, but he'd barely finished his own comment before the poltergeist had given in and attempted to throw the boomerang. It all seemed to happen in slow motion, like some sort of time charm had been casted on the entirety of the entrance hall. He could see the moment the poltergeist realised he'd made a huge mistake, watching his expression change in an instant, and then the following contact between boomerang and forehead. Alistairs mouth dropped open at the sound of it hitting the spirit, wondering if it had hurt. He didn't think the poltergeist could feel pain, it was more to be a nuisance than anything. If Vex made himself incorporeal, would the boomerang continue to try fly back and forth through him, or just stop entirely? He wasn't sure, and while he wanted to stand there and continue watching to find out, he didn't want the poltergeist getting his revenge too soon.

Fumbling for a second with his wand, the Slytherin quickly pulled it out as the boomerang swung back for round two, pointing it at Vex and trying his best to keep a steady aim. "Locomotor Mortis!" He shouted, firing off a jet of purple light. They still had no idea just how effective the leg-locker curse would be for a flying spirit, but anything helped. Turning on his heel, Alsitair quickly reached for Minerva's hand, making a move to get away while they still could, now desperately hoping they didn't get caught by poltergeist or professor alike, though he'd seen no explicit rules on casting spells against the spirit. "Come on, let's get out of here!"
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[Minerva Khulik]

Minerva couldn't believe how much she was enjoying this, she hadn't thought that something like this could actually be fun but now that herself and Alistair were in the throes of taunting a real poltergeist and the creature had taken the bait enough to grab the boomerang, the ever=bashing boomerang; she genuinely felt more exhilarated than anxious which was strange for the girl who was anxious about everything. She couldn't help but grin at Alistair's teasing for a rematch and she too wondered if Vex could or would throw the boomerang at all.

When he finally did and it came back to hit him, not once but repeatedly, Minerva seemed to mirror Alistair's movements. Her wand had been up her sleeve, held in place only by her fingers tight about the cuff and when she loosened those, the wand slid down into her palm. She caught it and aimed it at the poltergeist and in unison, cast the jinx with the boy beside her. Minerva would have stood still to watch what happened next but Alistair was quick on his heels and taking her hand in his made a break for it. She spun around and ran with him, grinning from ear to ear and not daring as yet to turn around to see what had happened.

We did it, she kept repeating in her mind as they ran down the corridor together but this was probably the one thing that they hadn't figured on ... where to run from here. Continuing down this corridor led to the conglomerated arts room or if they spun off at the next turn they would be able to make their way down through to the dungeon. For the first time she could recall, she was undecided - thinking and running at the same time in fear that a poltergeist would invariably chase you down to get his own revenge was not an easy task.

"Which way?" she asked Alistair her grip on his hand tightening a little as she raced to keep up.

 

[Vex]

There was the temptation to follow the pair of students immediately after his mistake was realised, but in what seemed to be seconds, the young witch and wizard had managed to successfully curse the poltergeist. Such spells had a certain degree of effectiveness against him, though there were ways to circumvent the leg-locker, considering he was a flying spirit. However, with an ever-bashing boomerang creating quite the distraction, Vex made a rare decision - he let the students go. The poltergeist took care of the boomerang by going incorporeal, thus interrupting the magic of the item, and caught it once it slowed on its return hit into the wall. This would make a fine toy for later.

The poltergeist watched the pair kick up the proverbial dust with narrowed orange eyes, and with a shrill cackle that promised revenge for this, he disappeared down the corridor and out of sight.
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