The toy train let out a long, gleeful whistle, looping wildly around the hanging banners and chandeliers in stomach-dropping turns.
At some point Peeves had produced a water gun from nowhere.
Except it wasn't shooting water.
Thick, sticky, neon pink-purple goo sprayed out in arcs. Anyone hit instantly had their hair glued into ridiculous, gravity-defying shapes.
"Peeves!" a furious Gryffindor bellowed—only for his voice to be swallowed by the even louder chaos.
Tom was clearly having the time of his life. He steered the train straight toward the vaulted ceiling, then suddenly dove vertically toward the students below, triggering a wall of delighted screams.
He even put on a perfect posh London accent to announce stations like a proper conductor.
"Next stop—Hogwarts Black Lake! All passengers who love a good prank, please brace yourselves!"
Right then Viktor burst through the Great Hall doors.
The scene in front of him sent his blood pressure straight through the enchanted ceiling.
"Tom! George! Fred! Peeves!"
His roar was amplified with a Sonorus charm. It cut through every noise in the hall like a Blasting Curse, echoing off the stone walls.
The toy train slammed to a cartoonish emergency stop, hovering dead in mid-air.
The sudden halt flung the three passengers and their driver forward by sheer inertia. They tumbled into one giant, flailing ball.
A wet splat echoed as the tangled mess—cat, ghost, and two translucent twins—hit the floor and pancaked into a perfect disc.
Then—boing—the pancake sprang back up, instantly reforming into one very guilty cat, one cackling poltergeist, and two sheepish-looking ghost twins.
Tom's grin froze the second he saw Viktor striding toward them like a man on a mission. He tried (and failed) to hide the tiny conductor's hat behind his back.
The gesture was pointless under hundreds of staring eyes.
Peeves let out a petulant hiss but didn't dare push his luck when Viktor was radiating this level of murder.
Fred and George—now pearly-white and floating—exchanged one long look, then silently moved in front of Tom and Peeves, trying (and failing) to make themselves smaller.
"P-Professor…" Percy panted, finally catching up after running to fetch help.
Viktor ignored him. His glare stayed locked on the four troublemakers.
He marched forward. Every heavy boot-step rang on the flagstones.
The excited students parted like the Red Sea, falling instantly silent as though hit with a collective Silencio.
At that exact moment, several fireplaces along the far walls roared green.
Dumbledore stepped out of one, half-moon spectacles slightly askew, still clutching Fawkes' tail feathers.
Professor McGonagall emerged from cat form in another burst of flame.
Sprout, Flitwick, and Snape hurried in from different entrances, all looking equally alarmed.
Trailing behind them were the prefects who'd gone running to fetch the staff.
When they finally registered the sight—ghost-Tom and ghost-Peeves grinning ingratiatingly at Viktor while two ghostly Weasley twins tried desperately to disappear behind them—Dumbledore and McGonagall both exhaled long, relieved breaths.
They'd personally witnessed Tom stuff himself back into his own corpse over the summer. They knew exactly how ridiculous his revival tricks could get.
The moment they saw two living students floating around as ghosts, the pieces clicked.
Sprout and Flitwick looked horrified. Even Snape's normally impassive face had gone several shades darker.
They'd all heard McGonagall's stories about Tom over tea.
Hearing about it was one thing.
Seeing two students cheerfully translucent and weightless was quite another.
Dumbledore and McGonagall exchanged a glance, then studied the three Heads of House already waving wands over the ghost twins in frantic diagnostic sweeps.
They also glanced at the sea of curious student faces still watching.
Viktor finally caught on.
He shot Tom one last venomous look that clearly said move it, then gestured for the cat (and everyone else) to lead the way to wherever the bodies were stashed.
With a sharp wave he shooed back the students who tried to follow, ordering the prefects to restore order.
......
In a forgotten, dusty classroom on the third floor.
The three Heads of House stood frozen, jaws practically on the floor, as soul-Tom made an athletic leap and dove straight into his own slack-jawed, very dead-looking cat body.
A second later the corpse twitched, colour flooded back, and Tom was suddenly very much alive again—fur fluffed, eyes huge with guilt.
He didn't dare meet Viktor's glare or the three stunned professors staring at him.
Instead he scurried over to the two ghostly Weasley souls still hovering nervously behind him, scooped them up like dough, yanked open the mouths of their very stiff earthly bodies, and unceremoniously crammed them back inside.
Both twins sat bolt upright with identical startled gasps.
The Heads of House finally exhaled.
Then the twins opened their mouths.
"Hey George, doesn't your body feel kind of… exactly like mine?"
"Yeah Fred… what if we just don't swap back? Would people call me George or Fred?"
Tom's face went from guilty to panicked in record time.
He reached behind his back, pulled out an enormous cartoon mallet, and—without hesitation—bonked both twins squarely on the head.
Two cartoonishly large lumps instantly sprouted, complete with little sparkles.
Their souls popped right back out again.
Tom scooped them up, kneaded them once more, and shoved them firmly back into the correct bodies.
This time the twins sat up looking properly chastised.
Viktor fixed them with a look that could have curdled milk.
"You two are absolutely certain you're back in your own bodies? Soul-body mismatch causes serious problems—even for identical twins."
Under the combined stares of four Heads of House, the Headmaster, and one extremely unimpressed magizoologist, the twins finally stopped messing around.
They nodded meekly. Yes. Definitely the right bodies this time.
After that the rest was routine.
Shouting. Point deductions. Detention. Howlers to parents.
McGonagall—face already the colour of storm clouds—marched the twins away.
Viktor watched them go and silently offered a one-second moment of silence for their souls.
Twice in three days they'd cost Gryffindor massive points.
This term Gryffindor was well on its way to becoming Gryff-"fucked".
As for the remaining culprits…
Viktor pointed. Tom immediately produced rope from nowhere, gagged Peeves, trussed him into a perfect ball, and hung him above the Great Hall doors like a particularly obnoxious Christmas ornament.
Tom himself got the classic punishment: copy the entire Hogwarts rulebook one hundred times—under Viktor's personal supervision—so that both body and soul would remember what was and wasn't allowed.
And, as a permanent addition to the school rules (proposed by Viktor, unanimously approved by the staff):
It is henceforth forbidden to turn students into ghosts.
It is also forbidden for students to attempt to turn themselves into ghosts.