Title: Words Taken to Heart
Summary: Words that were spoken years ago still hold power and meaning.
Rating: T
Warnings: Canon-compliant Character Death.
Prompt: "Give her hell from us, Peeves".
Word Count: 341
Author's Note: Written for Fred and George's month at the helmet_fest2008 community on LJ.

Words Taken to Heart

Peeves watched in dismay as the mayhem of battle erupted in the halls of Hogwarts. This was nothing like the chaos that always gave him such delight. "This is not mischief," he shouted aloud. "This is not fun!"

But no one was listening and the battle raged on.

This violence shook the poltergeist down to his core. Everywhere he turned he saw students fighting for their lives. Many people were bleeding. Piles of dead lined the halls and Peeves cried out, "This is sinister, rotten, and WRONG!"

He could take it no more and so Peeves joined in the fray. He defended his home the best way he knew how. He set traps to trip up the intruders with masks. He'd distract them and shout warnings to give the young ones a chance. He zoomed through the halls playing trick after trick, and he laughed when the masked men stumbled and fell.

He rounded the corner but stopped short in mid-swoop. The sight that befell him was a horrible sight. Peeves was frozen in place as he stared in the nitch. The suit of armor it housed was nowhere to be found, but in its place were the remains of someone whose love of mischief had nearly equaled his own.

Fred Weasley was dead; his eyes stared unseeing and Peeves swept his hat from his head, as he had done years ago. Peeves hovered in silence as he honored the boy, until the moment was shattered by a noise up ahead. He turned toward the sound, and near the hole in the wall stood the lady in pink for whom Peeves still felt such gall.

With a jingle of bells, his hat was tossed back on his head. "Give her hell from us Peeves," Fred had said to him once. Peeves had taken those words to his heart on that day, and he narrowed his eyes as Umbridge walked on her way.

A menacing smile spread across the poltergeist's face. "Give her hell," Fred had said.

Peeves vowed softly, "I will."