"MEOOOWWW—!"
Tom's terrified yowl was the only sound he managed to produce before Hagrid's apocalyptic sneeze caught him full force.
The blast of expelled air hit him like a hurricane wind, lifting him bodily off the ground with the kind of force that defied normal biological possibility.
His paws scrambled desperately at empty air, seeking any kind solid object that might anchor him against this sudden and violent displacement.
His claws caught something—someone.
Alas it was Ariana standing beside him at precisely the wrong moment to avoid becoming collateral damage in this disaster.
Unfortunately for both of them, ghosts possess no physical mass that could serve as ballast or anchor point. Ariana couldn't function like a lamp post or tree trunk. She was weightless, offering no more resistance to the hurricane-force sneeze than a soap bubble would provide against a strong breeze.
The result was inevitable.
One cat and one ghost, still tangled together by Tom's desperate grip on Ariana's ghostly hand, transformed into a blue-and-silver streak that shot away from Hagrid's hut like a comet blazing across the night sky.
They disappeared into the darkness with remarkable speed, their trajectory seem to be taking them back toward the distant silhouette of Hogwarts castle.
From the perspective of those left behind on Hagrid's doorstep, the two had simply vanished—there one moment, gone the next.
"Oh dear, I'm terribly sorry about that." Hagrid rubbed his large nose with one massive hand. "I've got a bit of an allergy to cats, you see. Can't help it really—something about their fur or dander just sets me off."
He blinked his beetle-black eyes, which were beginning to water slightly from the allergic reaction, and looked around at the group.
His expression shifted from apologetic to confused as his brain finished processing what his eyes were seeing.
"You must be the cat wizard who enrolled this year, right? I've been wanting to meet you properly, heard so many interesting things about—hold on. Where'd they go?"
His large head spun left and right, searching for the two missing people who'd been present just moments ago. His enormous eyes managed to convey profound bewilderment, as though the universe had pulled a trick he couldn't quite understand.
Small question marks seemed to appear above his head, visible in his expression if not in actual reality.
Harry stood frozen, his gaze still locked on the point in the darkness where Tom and Ariana had vanished. His voice emerged slowly, processing the impossibility of what he'd just witnessed even as he spoke it aloud.
"I think... your sneeze blew them away? Like, actually physically launched them into the air?"
"That can't be right!" Ron's mouth hung open in an expression of comical shock. "Hagrid's sneezes are strong, sure, but they can't have that much force! It's impossible!"
Even accounting for Hagrid's half-giant heritage, which granted him considerable size and strength beyond normal human capabilities, the idea that a sneeze could generate enough wind to actually launch objects, let alone people through the air….
Beside the boys, Hermione pressed one hand against her forehead in a gesture mixing worry with resigned exasperation. This was exactly the kind of situation that seemed to cluster around their group like iron filings around a magnet.
Meanwhile, Hannah had both hands pressed against her mouth, clearly trying very hard not to laugh at the absurdity of the entire situation. Her shoulders shook with suppressed giggles that tried to escape despite her best efforts.
In front of the hut, the remaining members of their party simply stared at each other, nobody quite sure how to proceed.
The only sound breaking the awkward silence was Fang's excited barking from inside, the boarhound was apparently delighted by all the unusual nighttime activity happening on his doorstep.
Meanwhile, in Hogwarts' corridors, an entirely different drama was unfolding.
"Hehehehe, now what kind of mischief shall I get up to tonight?" Peeves cackled to himself as he drifted through the castle's passages passing through walls and doors.
He was in fine form this evening, full of energy and creative ambition. He had so many options for entertainment, each more deliciously annoying than the last.
Should he visit Quirrell's office and set up some tripwires and pranks? The man was so jumpy already that even minor disturbances sent him into nervous fits.
Or perhaps catch some students breaking curfew and make enough noise to attract Filch, ensuring everyone involved ended up in maximum trouble?
That was always satisfying. Or maybe just vandalize a few portraits, adding mustaches and rude graffiti to the sleeping figures?
The possibilities were endless, limited only by his imagination and his need to avoid actual consequences from the few people in the castle he genuinely feared.
Just as he was weighing these various options, trying to decide which would yield the most chaos per unit effort, he heard something unusual.
A sound cutting through the castle's nighttime silence, it was faint at first but seem to be growing steadily louder.
"Hmm? What's that noise?" Peeves paused mid-drift, his head cocking to one side as he tried to identify the source. "Sounds like... is that a cat? Meowing? Don't tell me some naughty student has finally caught Mrs. Norris! Oh, this is going to be rich!"
The thought of Filch's beloved cat being captured by rule-breaking students filled Peeves with absolutely vicious delight. He could make this situation so much worse for everyone involved.
Perhaps alert Filch to his cat's location while simultaneously helping the students escape, ensuring maximum frustration for borh. Or hide Mrs. Norris in an even more problematic location, escalating the entire situation into a proper scandal.
The possibilities were magnificent.
"Let's see what we have here, shall we? Peeves shall graciously offer his assistance!" He followed the sound with eager anticipation, his route was taking him through several walls and floors until he arrived at what his hearing identified as the loudest point.
He looked around, confused. The sound was definitely coming from this location; he could hear it quite clearly now. But there was nothing here.
"That's odd. I can hear it perfectly—it's definitely coming from right... here?" Peeves drifted closer to the wall, pressing his ear against the stone as though that might help him see through it.
Just as he was beginning to suspect someone was playing a prank on him, possibly using some kind of magical recording device hidden inside the wall itself, the sound suddenly intensified. The volume jumped from loud to absolutely deafening in the span of a single second.
And then the wall exploded.
Stone and mortar burst out with tremendous force as a blue streak erupted from the solid barrier like a cannonball, moving with such speed that Peeves barely registered its existence before it slammed directly into him with devastating impact.
"HOLY—! That's a CHEAP SHOT! You can't just AMBUSH people like that!" Peeves shrieked, his voice was climbing several octaves as the impact was registered.
His indignation lasted approximately one second before physics or whatever force governed cartoon logic colliding with ghost system took over.
Peeves, who normally existed in a state of selective tangibility that allowed him to interact with the physical world only when he chose to, suddenly found himself experiencing the novel sensation of being extremely, painfully solid.
The blue projectile that had burst through the wall didn't pass through him as most physical objects would. Instead, it made full, devastating contact, transferring all its momentum directly into Peeves' surprised body.
The poltergeist's vision flashed white, then went dark. His last conscious thought was a confused question about how exactly this had happened and whether he could file a complaint about ambush tactics.
Then everything went black as he lost consciousness entirely, his limp form was tumbling down through multiple floors.
(Safe landing achieved! Though... did I hit something just now?)
Tom shook himself vigorously in a full-body motion that started at his head and traveled down through his spine to the tip of his tail, fluffing his blue fur in all directions.
The movement served to both shake off the disorientation of high-speed flight and confirm that all his limbs remained attached and functional.
Remarkably, he appeared completely unharmed. Not a single hair out of place beyond the general fluffing he'd just ran himself.
This struck him as somewhat unusual even by his standards. He'd experienced plenty of cartoon violence from being compressed into accordion shapes, having anvils dropped on his head, getting flattened by steamrollers only to pop back into three dimensions moments later.
But this kind of thing typically happened in contexts where cartoon physics were the explicitly governing rules. Having it work in the magical world felt like crossing streams that probably shouldn't cross.
Then again, he'd apparently just survived being blown across a considerable distance and through a castle wall without injury, so clearly something had cushioned his impact. Some unfortunate soul had served as his inadvertent crash pad.
He looked down at the floor beneath him, searching for evidence of whatever or whoever, he'd landed on.
The corridor was empty. Nothing was there but stone floor, perfectly intact and unblemished.
(Well, if I can't find them, I can't apologize. No harm done, presumably!) Tom dismissed the mystery as he'd learned not to question favorable outcomes too closely. Whatever had happened, he was fine, and that was the important part.
He turned his attention to his companion, who'd been dragged along for this entire unexpected journey.
Ariana floated beside him, though "floated" might be generous—her translucent form swayed slightly, and her eyes had developed that peculiar unfocused quality that suggested her brain was still catching up to recent events.
Little spirals seemed to rotate in her pupils in the visual representation of severe disorientation.
Tom felt a twinge of guilt. This whole disaster was technically his fault on multiple levels.
How had he forgotten about that particular quirk of his? It was lucky the floor hadn't been assimilated along the way, otherwise there'd have been a lot more than two of them arriving like this. And of all the people to grab, why her? Anyone else and they might not have flown quite this far… probably.
"Mmm... Tom? Good morning. I think I had a dream that we were flying..." Ariana's voice emerged muzzy and confused.
Then her vision cleared. Her eyes focused properly on her surroundings, specifically on the castle corridor they were currently occupying, and even more specifically on the wall beside them. The wall that featured two perfectly cat-and-girl-shaped holes, their outlines matching Tom and Ariana's silhouettes with remarkable precision.
It looked like something from a cartoon, the kind of thing that happened when characters crashed through barriers at high speed which was essentially what had just occurred, except this was supposed to be reality rather than animated fiction.
"Wait. What. How is this possible?" Ariana's confusion shifted rapidly into something approaching alarm. Her voice sharpened with sudden clarity as her brain engaged fully with the evidence before her. "I'm a ghost! Ghosts are incorporeal! We pass through solid matter, we don't leave impact craters in it! This shouldn't be possible!"
If she could damage solid walls by being thrown at them hard enough, what did that mean about the nature of her existence? Was she actually incorporeal, or had something about Tom's gloves changed her state more fundamentally than anyone realized?
[Don't worry about it too much. Consider it an accident—just one of those weird things that happens sometimes.]
Tom's expression was not entirely convincing. He wasn't entirely sure how to explain what had just happened, since he didn't fully understand it himself.
[As for the wall? I can fix that easily.]
He withdrew his wand from wherever he stored it and tapped the damaged section lightly.
In an instant, like time running backwards, the wall knitted itself together perfectly, as though nothing had ever happened.
Tom examined his repair work with satisfied approval, nodding to himself.
Magic really was remarkably convenient for situations like this. In his previous life, fixing a hole in a wall would have required actual construction work. Time-consuming and physically demanding, even if cartoon physics meant he could complete such tasks faster than normal people.
But magic? Magic just let you point at the problem and will it to un-happen. So much more efficient. This was definitely one of the better aspects of living in a magical world.
[Alright, we should get back to the others before they worry too much.]
He reached into his storage and extracted that black cloth—the makeshift bedsheet camouflage that his friends had so thoroughly rejected earlier.
But for teleportation purposes, it served as a perfectly adequate magical focus. He grabbed Ariana's hand and activated whatever mechanism powered his instantaneous travel, and both of them vanished from the corridor in a swirl of darkness.
Time passed. Possibly quite a lot of time, though measuring duration while unconscious was difficult.
Eventually, Peeves stirred. His consciousness returned gradually, awareness filtering back through layers of confusion. He phased up through the floor where he'd fallen, rising through stone like a swimmer surfacing from deep water, until his head emerged into the corridor where the incident had occurred.
"Curse whoever ambushed me like that! When I figure out who's responsible, they'll regret crossing Peeves the Poltergeist, I'll make their lives absolute misery, I'll—wait. What?"
His rant died mid-sentence as his eyes registered the completely intact wall before him. He blinked, convinced he must be seeing incorrectly. But no, the wall remained stubbornly whole no matter how many times he looked at it.
But that made no sense. He distinctly remembered that wall exploding, remembered the debris flying everywhere, remembered the gaping holes that had definitely, absolutely been present when that blue projectile had crashed through.
Unless...
Hogwarts was indeed a magical castle, capable of various self-repair functions built into its enchantments by the Founders. But those repair mechanisms worked slowly, fixing minor wear and tear over time rather than instantly restoring catastrophic damage.
For this kind of major structural breach to be completely repaired in such a short time span, you'd need powerful magic applied directly and deliberately.
In Peeves' knowledge of the castle's inhabitants, only a handful of people person possessed both the magical skill and the authority to repair damage this quickly and thoroughly.
"Dumbledore did this?" Peeves' voice dropped to an uncharacteristic whisper. "Right, not getting involved in whatever that was about. Best to leave well enough alone when Dumbledore's involved in something."
He hunched his shoulders and quickly floated away toward different sections of the castle where he might find mischief that didn't risk running of the Headmaster's attention.
Near Hagrid's hut, the remaining members of their group had organized themselves into something similar to a search party, though their efforts were somewhat hampered by the darkness and their incomplete understanding of what exactly they were searching for.
"Tom! Ariana! Where are you?"
Harry's voice carried through the night air, pitched loud enough to travel but not so loud as to risk attracting unwanted attention from the castle.
He moved carefully through the underbrush near the hut, peering into shadows and behind trees as though expecting to find his friends simply sitting there waiting to be discovered.
The entire situation felt surreal. Harry had witnessed many impossible things since learning about magic, moving staircases, talking portraits, objects that defied physics but watching two people get literally blown away by a sneeze felt like it crossed some line between "magical" and "absolutely ridiculous."
And yet he'd seen it happen. He'd watched the wind catch Tom and Ariana, watched them shoot away into the darkness like leaves in a hurricane. The evidence was undeniable even if the process seemed absurd.
Even Hagrid, who generally possessed robust confidence in his understanding of how things worked, found himself questioning his assumptions.
"If there really is some kind of magic that can do that—just blast people away with a sneeze—I wouldn't mind learning it," he muttered quietly, mostly to himself. "Would be right useful next time I need to visit the castle. Wouldn't have to worry about that annoying Mrs. Norris following me around everywhere, always watching..."
[We're here! Over here!]
Tom's whiteboard suddenly appeared in the darkness.
Harry and the others turned simultaneously toward the source, and by fortunate coincidence, the tree branches that had been blocking their view shifted slightly in the breeze, creating a gap through which they could clearly read the board's message.
"Where did you go? Are you both alright?" Hannah called out as she hurried back toward Tom's position.
When she reached them, she immediately focused on Ariana, who was standing beside Tom looking somewhat dazed and confused, as though still processing recent events. "Ariana, are you injured? Do you need help?"
[We're fine! Just got blown back to the castle temporarily, that's all.] Tom's whiteboard appeared with casualness. [But as you can see, we've returned safe and sound! Everything's under control.]
He spread his paws in a gesture meant to convey "see, no harm done,".
"Back to the castle?!" Ron's voice climbed several octaves as he spun to stare at Hogwarts' distant silhouette, his eyes were widening with disbelief. "You're telling me you got blown all the way back there? That's got to be what, half a mile? Maybe more?"
Even setting aside the question of whether a sneeze could have flung them that far—how in the world had they gotten back so fast?