Mather's Treaty

Darkness fell and once again a disturbing silence hushed the forest. Standing outside The Three Broomsticks, the professors waited for the coming assault. All remained quiet. When one hour, then two passed, residents began congregating with them, murmuring quietly.

"Has it gone?"

"Maybe something happened to McGonagall?"

"Do you think it only can come out for a couple of days?"

"Maybe someone dug him up?"

Speculation ran rampant but they needed have fretted. Mather's spirit made its presence known shortly after midnight.

Minerva's lithe cat form flitted from tree to tree much in the same manner as she had done the evening before. More wary and definitely more protected by spells and charms, she prepared herself for anything.

There was no wind, there was no howling. There was also, as the night before, no animals stirring in the trees and brush of the forest. As she moved, Minerva kept her senses alert for anything that could lead her in the direction she needed to go.

The waning moon hung high overhead, giving a little light and casting long shadows on the ground. After a couple of hours Minerva sat down beneath a shrub and puzzled over the spook's lack of activity. Was it possible that it wouldn't be coming out this night? She almost turned around and went back when the wind began to bluster. She backed up further under the shrub and waited to be tossed in the air like a feather, but it never happened.

The wind blew, the branches of trees above her creaked and a hideous howling assaulted her ears but nothing happened to her physically. The wind seemed to blow out, or away, and she hesitantly crept out of her hiding place. Even more puzzled than before, she began chasing after the wind, stopping a short way away and finding another tree trunk to hide within until the wind returned.

"Have I mentioned I hate bugs?" choked Lupin as he spat locusts from his mouth as they crawled all over the people and animals of Hogsmeade. "I really, really hate bugs."

No one said anything to this comment but Snape actually placed a companionable hand on the werewolf's shoulder, brushing off several grasshoppers as he did so. Remus gave Snape a small smile and muttered, "*Incendio*!" Piles of grasshoppers burst into flames around him as he pointed his wand at them and muttered the word over and over.

Locusts hadn't been first but so far they were definitely the worst. Most of the humans would have preferred the frogs back; if anything they would have eaten the grasshoppers. Only a few minutes earlier they were attempting to keep their footing as a huge gust of wind blew through the small village, pulling up shingles and tossing the lighter weight residents off their feet.

After an hour, the last of the grasshoppers were either blasted into nothingness or had hopped out of town to plague the countryside beyond. Everyone waited for the next attack. It was a long time in coming.

Peeves sensed something wrong first, still manning his post in the front foyer and Great Hall. When it was truly important, the poltergeist could usually be counted on. He'd turned his patrol into a game, darting between the wall hangings and tables as if stalking an enemy. He never seriously believed that Mather would dare attack Hogwarts itself.

That would have been a wrong assumption.

FOUL BEAST! screamed a voice, scaring Peeves off his temporary chandelier perch.

"Who be there?" he snarled, his normally mischievous, twinkling eyes suddenly glowing a demonic red. "If you're trying to get in here, Rufus Mather, we'll stop you, yes we will."

The foyer of the castle's entrance filled immediately with white and wispy figures. Several ghosts that normally had nothing to do with the living residents of Hogwarts barricaded the front doors and nothing Mather tried broke through them. The spook then attempted to go through the walls, only to find them imperviable by spells so strong that not even the resident ghosts could pass through them.

Insane with anger, Mather's spirit howled and raged, battering at the towers and shattering windows around the castle, but found his way blocked each time by the dead inhabitants of the castle. The owls in the owlery, disturbed and terrified, hooted and screeched, putting up an awful racket that drove Mather from their small tower.

None of the ghosts paid attention to the time and were startled to discover that the night was almost passed when the haunt finally retreated from his failed attempt to bring Hogwarts to its foundation. They silently stood sentinel as the wind that was Mather blew back down the hill, over the calm lake and back to Hogsmeade.

As if throwing a tantrum and intent on having the last word despite it's failure, Mather's windy spirit gassed the town one last time. It howled in anger when the wizards and witches merely filtered out his foul stench without any lingering affects or fright, unlike the night before. The wind disappeared into the forest's dark recesses.

All that was left of the evening’s end was to know whether or not McGonagall would find where Mather’s mortal body lay.

The wind returned just as dawn was breaking. It blew past Minerva, who was half-asleep in her tree trunk. It’s howling startled into full wakefulness and she immediately pelted after it. Her soft paws moved soundlessly over the ground, keeping her pursuit surprisingly unnoticed.

The wind stopped screaming right in front of her. She burst into a small circle of trees surrounding a bare patch of ground. It was bare of grass and debris and Minerva's cat senses went haywire, screaming danger and evil. She waited until the sun had risen completely before shifting into her normal self. She pulled her wand from her robes and shot repeated balls of colored light into the sky above until she was joined by Dumbledore, Snape, Hagrid, and Lupin.