Amelia Potter and the Chamber of Secrets PART 1

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stopped in their tracks, horrified. The smell was quite disgusting. Large, rotten fish were laid on handsome silver platters; cakes, burned charcoal black, were heaped on salvers; there was a great maggoty haggis, a slab of cheese covered in furry green mould and, in pride of place, an enormous grey cake in the shape of a tombstone, with tar-like icing forming the words,

Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington died 31st October, 1492

Harry watched, amazed, as a portly ghost approached the table, crouched low and walked through it, his mouth held wide so that it passed through one of the stinking salmon.

'Can you taste it if you walk through it?' Harry asked him. 'Almost,' said the ghost sadly, and he drifted away.
'I expect they've let it rot to give it a stronger flavour,' said Hermione knowledgeably, pinching her nose and leaning closer to look at the putrid haggis.

'Can we move? I feel sick,' said Ron.

'I came prepared. I have cookies in my pockets,' whispered Amelia in Ron's ear.

They had barely turned around, however, when a little man swooped suddenly from under the table and came to a halt in mid-air before them.

'Hello, Peeves,' said Harry cautiously.

Amelia waved. At the start of the year, she and Peeves made a truce to stop fighting. Amelia would not outlive Peeves long enough to get her revenge, and Peeves simply couldn't annoy Amelia so a truce was made. They now mostly ignore etch other.

Unlike the ghosts around them, Peeves the poltergeist was the very reverse of pale and transparent. He was wearing a bright orange party hat, a revolving bow-tie and a broad grin on his wide, wicked face.

'Nibbles?' he said sweetly, offering them a bowl of peanuts covered in fungus.

'No thanks,' said Hermione.

'Sure!' Amelia had reconsidered the mushrooms growing on the peanuts as VersicolorEumycota. They were bright pink with many colored pockdots. These mushrooms were the main ingredient in Rainbow Shocker ice cream. Amelia remembered Nevile showing her theses well walking near the forest. Amelia grabbed a few of the peanuts and tossed them in her mouth her hair turning a bright blue to the shock of her friends.

'Heard you talking about poor Myrtle,' said Peeves, his eyes dancing. 'Rude you was about poor Myrtle.' He took a deep breath and bellowed, 'OY! MYRTLE!'

'Oh, no, Peeves, don't tell her what I said, she'll be really upset,' Hermione whispered frantically. 'I didn't mean it, I don't mind her – er, hello, Myrtle.'

The squat ghost of a girl had glided over. She had the glummest face Harry had ever seen, half-hidden behind lank hair and thick, pearly spectacles. Amelia waved.

'What?' she said sulkily.