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It was midnight, and the castle was dark and quiet except for the staff room. Tonight it hosted a gathering of peculiar composition: The four hundred and seventy-eighth meeting of the Hogwarts Ghost Council. The long, battered staffroom table sat in the middle of the stone floor, surrounded by eight chairs that seemed to flicker slightly whenever a ghost forgot to “sit” properly. A pale candle hovered in the center, casting no light and serving no purpose.
Professor Binns hovered a few inches above his own chair, muttering through his notes with a dry ghostly cough.
“I hereby call this—this the fourth hundred and seventy-eighth Council of the Hogwarts Ghost Council to order,” he intoned. “Let the minutes reflect that all resident spirits are present… or, well, spiritually accounted for.”
“Except Peeves, of course,” Nearly Headless Nick chimed in cheerfully, his form flickering with enthusiasm.
“He was never invited,” said the Grey Lady frostily.
“He’s not technically a spirit,” intoned Professor Binns.
“Let’s begin, shall we?” the Bloody Baron growled. “Some of us have prior engagements. There’s a fifth-year in the North Tower experimenting with Latin incantations and candlelight.”
“Quite right,” Binns muttered. “First item: Approval of the minutes from last week’s meeting. Do I have a motion?”
“I motion we skip the minutes,” the Fat Friar said promptly.
“Seconded,” the Grey Lady added without hesitation.
“I must remind you,” Binns began with academic sternness, “we are bound to Robert’s Rules of Order—”
“You’re bound, Binns,” said Nick with a grin. “The rest of us merely suffer.”
“Objection noted,” Binns sighed, the sound weighted with over a century of bureaucratic disappointment. “Motion to skip minutes carried… reluctantly.”
He cleared his throat and pressed on. “Old business?”
“Yes! Yes, thank you,” Nick said quickly, perking up. “I wish to revisit my petition to join the Headless Hunt—”
A chorus of groans erupted around the table.
“Oh not again—”
“We tabled this—”
“He’s not properly headless—”
“Table it,” the Bloody Baron barked, slamming his translucent fist on the table. It passed through cleanly, but the sentiment landed with force.
“It always gets tabled…” Nick muttered under his breath.
“Tabled until next time,” Binns declared with a weary nod. “Moving on. New business. The floor recognizes—”
“I propose an organized haunting,” the Fat Friar declared. “A demonstration, if you will. Against the Death Eater movement.”
The Grey Lady arched an elegant brow. “What, precisely, do you propose we do?”
“Taunt Voldemort,” the Friar replied, beaming. “Drift ominously through his tea cupboard. Whisper ‘shame on you’ through the keyholes.”
“He doesn’t drink tea,” the Baron said dryly.
“I think it’s high time the spirit world takes a stand!” Nick insisted. “We must make our presence—if not our essence—known!”
“And how, exactly, do you plan to find him?” the Grey Lady asked. “At gliding speed, it would take a week just to reach Little Hangleton.”
“Not to mention,” Binns added, “the questionable legality of cross-parish haunting without Ministry clearance—”
“We could rotate shifts!” Nick offered.
“Oh, and when he disapparates mid-moan,” said the Grey Lady, “do we simply announce a tea break while we reverse-glide back across the countryside?”
“Forget haunting him,” the Bloody Baron growled. “I’d rather haunt the Ministry. They’re the ones who keep botching it.”
“Order, please. Order!” Binns cried.
A ghostly gavel appeared in his hand and immediately fell through the table.
“Next item,” Binns said, trying to regain momentum. “Formation gliding practice. For the Halloween feast performance.”
“I’m still against The Monster Mash as our opener,” Nick huffed.
“Then suggest something better,” the Grey Lady said coolly.
“Danse Macabre is dignified.”
“Yes, but not nearly as catchy,” the Fat Friar pointed out.
“Focus,” Binns said, rubbing his temples. “We need to schedule practice.”
“Not Wednesday,” said the Bloody Baron. “First-years are holding a séance. I promised to hover.”
“I have a portrait conference on Friday,” the Grey Lady said.
“Sunday then?” Nick offered.
“Oh, I’m helping Peeves rig the suits of armor with stink pellets,” the Friar said brightly.
“What can you do? You can’t touch anything!”
“I promised I’d be there in an advisory capacity.”
Binns threw up his transparent hands. “How can a council of the dead have such busy schedules?!”
They all began speaking at once. Someone proposed haunting Umbridge. Someone else seconded.
And the chaos of the afterlife rolled on.
The Ghosts Council Committee for the Haunting of Umbridge convened the following night in the disused Divination classroom, which had the dual advantages of soft cushions and a permanent smell of cinnamon incense—both of which seemed to encourage theatrical debate.
“Right then,” Binns droned, adjusting his spectacles. “We are here to finalize the messaging strategy for our protest haunting. I believe we agreed on direct action—drifting through walls and moaning ominously, but without a coherent slogan, we risk losing impact.”
“What about Umbrage for Umbridge?” Nick tried again.
“Oh yes, brilliant,” the Baron said sarcastically. “Nothing says resistance like a campaign slogan that sounds like a vote of support from the woman herself.”
“I liked Inquisition Against the Inquisitor,” offered the Friar helpfully.
Nick flinched. “Must we?” he said, voice tight. “I lost a dear friend to the Spanish Inquisition. Francis. Lovely man. Great baritone.”
There was an awkward pause.
“Noted,” Binns murmured. “We shall strike it from the list.”
“Well, if we can’t agree on words,” the Friar said brightly, “we could just do a scary group moan.”
“And what would we be protesting?” Binns asked. “Unspecified spectral anxiety?”
“It worked for the Banshees of Ballycastle.”
“Yes, but they weren’t trying to influence policy.”
“I like rhymes,” said the Friar wistfully. “They’re cheerful. How about: Ditch the Witch!”
“That’s sexist,” the Grey Lady said. “You’re using the term ‘witch’ in a pejorative sense…”
The debate spiraled. Ghosts floated higher as tempers rose. Someone suggested Wraiths Against Wrongs, which sparked a twenty-minute debate on whether “wraith” was an inclusive term. Another offered We’re Dead, She’s Dread, which the Friar loved and the Baron loathed. The Grey Lady proposed something in Latin that no one else could pronounce.
Finally, after nearly an hour of disembodied bickering, Professor Binns cleared his throat and floated forward with weary finality.
“May I propose a compromise slogan?” he said. “It reads: The Ghosts of Hogwarts Condemn the Authoritarian Practices of the Current Educational Regime and Demand the Immediate Restoration of Ethical Oversight in Academic Policy.”
There was silence.
“…That’s not a chant,” Nick said finally. “That’s a doctoral thesis.”
“Seconded,” said the Baron, folding his arms.
“Motion carried,” Binns said, already writing it on the chalkboard.
And so it was that the Hogwarts ghosts prepared to float in solemn protest behind a banner too long to carry, chanting nothing in unison.
It began at precisely 4:03 PM, in the middle of Dolores Umbridge’s tea break.
She was seated at her pink-lace-draped desk, her latest Educational Decree drying on the blotter, when a low moan began to issue from the corridor—like a Gregorian chant being sung by a choir of drunkards underwater.
The door flew open on an icy gust, and in floated the full body of the Hogwarts Ghosts’ Council, trailing banners (poorly lettered and trailing ectoplasm) and chanting—not in unison—but in a chaotic, overlapping cacophony.
“The.. THE.. the ghosts OSTS ghosts of Hogwarts OF HOGWARTS condemn Ghosts of Hogwarts CONDEMN…”
The lack of unified chanting rendered the message incomprehensible.
“Condemn.. Ghosts of… educational… oversight… regime… DEMAND…”
Umbridge set down her teacup with a trembling hand. “What in Merlin’s name—?”
The Fat Friar floated through the wall and passed straight over her doily collection. “We protest your cruelty in ink and deed!” he announced, with far too much cheer.
Nearly Headless Nick was trying his best to smile politely while chanting something entirely different: “We’re dead, but we know dread, and you, madam, have lost your head!”
Professor Binns hovered behind the lot of them, squinting at the scroll in his hand and reading the entire protest statement word for word, at a pace that would have been slow at glacial timescales.
Umbridge snatched up her wand and attempted a Banishing Charm. The ghosts didn’t even flicker.
“Fiiilch!” she screeched.
Moments later, Argus Filch arrived, winded and clutching a dustpan. He took one look at the ghostly procession swirling around the office and turned pale.
“I—er—could try to lock the Friar in the lavatory, ma’am. But he’d just… drift out through the cistern.”
“Then get RID of them!” she shrieked.
“Can’t exactly… cast spells, now, can I?” he muttered.
Filch grabbed a broom and began swatting at the apparitions. His broom passed through Nearly Headless Nick, who sniffed indignantly and continued chanting. When that failed, Filch dropped the broom and returned a moment later with a large, floral hand fan, which he opened with a dramatic snap.
“Begone, foul vapors!” he cried, wafting frantically at the Grey Lady.
She didn’t move an inch. In fact, she leaned into the breeze with quiet satisfaction, as though enjoying a spring breeze.
“Filch,” Umbridge hissed, “this is intolerable!”
At that moment, the door exploded open again, this time with a loud cackle and the unmistakable clang of falling armor.
Peeves had arrived.
“Oooooh! A riot!” he bellowed. “No one told me there was a spectral insurrection!”
He began hurling dungbombs and stink pellets indiscriminately, spinning in glee. “Death to bureaucracy! And to your curtains!”
A dungbomb hit one of Umbridge’s cat plates. The plate whimpered.
The ghosts, in various states of disruption, attempted to resume their slogans. The Baron was threatening Peeves with eternal torment. The Friar was accidentally humming the Hogwarts school song. Binns continued to read.
“…Therefore we the undersigned spirits do hereby solemnly object to the aforementioned abuses of magical pedagogy and request an immediate committee review of—”
“GET OUT!” Umbridge shrieked, hurling her teacup at Peeves, who caught it, drank the contents, and dropped the cup out the window.
The protest dissolved into general disarray.
Peeves was now marching around in one of Umbridge’s hats. Filch was fanning himself. Professor Binns was still reading. And Dolores Umbridge had retreated beneath her desk, muttering about petitions and plague.
The ghosts eventually dispersed—not because they had been defeated, but because it was nearly time for the Halloween feast rehearsal. Priorities, after all.
The next morning, a new decree appeared on the notice board in the Entrance Hall, affixed with a saccharine pink ribbon and the ominous Ministry seal:
Educational Decree No. 329
Regulation and Control of Spirit-Based Entities on School Grounds
By Order of the High Inquisitor, the decree outlined a new “Code of Conduct for the Non-Corporeally Inclined.”
It was six feet long.
Students paused to gape at the absurd scroll, which unrolled all the way to the floor and coiled slightly. At the top, in curled, fussily italicized font, it read:
- All hauntings must be pre-approved by the High Inquisitor's Office.
- Ghosts shall refrain from chanting, moaning, gliding menacingly, or otherwise disrupting the Ministry-sanctioned moral order.
- Ghosts shall appear only in corridors, disused classrooms, or previously approved haunting zones.
- No ghost shall pass through a professor or interfere with said professor’s personal items.
- Violators will be subject to disciplinary action, including but not limited to:
- Revocation of haunting privileges
- A strongly worded letter
Nearly Headless Nick floated up behind a group of third-years squinting at the list and read aloud, “Revocation of haunting privileges? I’ve been dead since 1492. What exactly are they planning to revoke?”
The Fat Friar arrived next, puffing as if he’d had to climb stairs. “What’s this then? Another decree? Oh—delightful! A code of conduct!”
The Grey Lady skimmed it once, gave a barely perceptible sigh, and muttered, “She forgets, of course, that the dead are notoriously ungovernable.”
Professor Binns arrived last, squinting. “Is this in Modern Legal Script or the Pre-Standardized Ministry format? Because I shan’t recognize it if it’s the latter.”
“I say,” Nick mused, “should we hold a meeting to determine our official response?”
“We could,” the Fat Friar said, “or we could simply continue haunting as usual and see how long it takes her to realize she has no means of enforcement.”
“Seconded,” said the Baron immediately.
“Motion carried,” said the Grey Lady, already gliding away.
And that was that.
The decree fluttered sadly in the breeze for several days before being consumed in a freak poltergeist-related fire. Umbridge posted a replacement, but it too was eventually shredded by Peeves and used as festive bunting.
Meanwhile, the ghosts continued to moan, haunt, and hover with exactly as little decorum as they pleased.
Umbridge stormed into the Headmaster’s office two days later, her expression somewhere between fury and nervous collapse.
“This is insupportable!” she screeched, slamming her frilly clipboard down on Dumbledore’s desk. “I have been shrieked at, sung to at four in the morning—in Latin—and most recently subjected to a poltergeist-led chorus of ‘Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Decency Gone.’”
Dumbledore steepled his fingers, blue eyes twinkling just a bit too much. “Ah yes, the spirit world can be… spirited.”
She pointed an ink-stained finger at him. “You are the Headmaster. I demand you do something about these specters. Expel them!”
He blinked. “Madam Umbridge, you cannot expel the dead.”
“They’re ruining my authority!”
Dumbledore’s voice turned mildly philosophical. “Authority, like the tide, is not always moved by force. When it comes to Hogwarts’ ghosts, the only successful method is negotiation.”
Umbridge gaped at him. “Negotiate? With them?”
He nodded. “Ghosts respond best to courtesy and compromise. Perhaps if they were given a dedicated space… somewhere they could air their grievances in peace…”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re suggesting a ghost staff room.”
“I believe that would go a long way.”
“Absolutely not—”
The next week, a dusty classroom on the second floor was converted—begrudgingly—into the Spirit Faculty Lounge.
It was an odd place.
A long table made of mahogany stood gently in the center of the room, generously supplied with a teapot of two-week-old tea that had gone cloudy, a tin of ancient, mummified biscuits, a velvet chaise lounge stolen at the Baron’s insistence from the Gryffindor Common Room, and a broken mirror on which Peeves had scrawled “Lookin’ Good — The Grim Reaper” in disappearing ink.
The ghosts were delighted.
“I do say, this is very nearly dignified,” said Nearly Headless Nick, reclining at an angle.
From across the corridor, Umbridge watched through a crack in the door with deep suspicion.
“Mark my words,” she muttered. “This isn’t over.”