"Is he alright?" Daphne asked when she noticed how Dusk kept glancing sadly at the bare patch where his tail feather had been. Julian rubbed the bird's chest in comfort as he answered. "He isn't in any danger or anything, but he has lost a very important part of himself, so until he gets it back through rebirth, it is going to bother him badly," Julian said honestly. "How long will that take?" Tracy asked, sounding concerned as well. "Technically, he could do it whenever he wanted, but doing so before his body finishes reaching maturity would be harmful for him," Julian explained.
"So how long until he reaches maturity then?" Harry asked. "About a month or so. It only takes an immortal bird a few months to return to its prime after rebirth," Julian said while distracting Dusk with some rabbit meat Hagrid had given him. The half-giant had heard what happened and wanted to cheer Dusk up a little, since the big man could not stand the thought of a magical creature suffering for no good reason. The first meeting between Hagrid and Dusk had been rather funny, since the bird had clearly had no idea what to make of him.
Letting out a deep sigh, Julian muttered, "This year is not off to a great start at all," and his friends could only nod, since it had indeed been a miserable first day back at the castle. The rest of the day passed without much more trouble, but the earlier incident had already spoiled it. Later that night, however, Celebrimbor appeared in Julian's dream wearing a distinctly scolding expression. "I am ashamed that you would even consider such a dreadful thing. Awful though Peeves's actions may have been, I doubt he deserves to be erased from existence," he said sternly.
Julian sighed. "Maybe not, but I can't just leave that bastard alone after this. I have to do something to get back at him!" Julian argued angrily. No matter what punishment the staff chose for the poltergeist, it would not really change anything, because Peeves was chaos by nature. Julian wanted him gone one way or another, and erasing him had seemed like the easiest option. "Hmm. Perhaps you could create a construct to imprison the creature permanently?" Celebrimbor suggested, and Julian considered it. "I'd need to know more about what a poltergeist actually is before I could attempt that, but it should be possible," he admitted.
Julian woke after that, got dressed, and prepared for his first class after breakfast, Herbology. That basically meant gloves, protective rings, and a subtle transfiguration on his robes that turned the fabric over his back and arms from cotton into hard carbon, protecting him without interfering with their movement. It made the robes slightly shiny, but no one commented on it when they went down to breakfast. Dusk was in a terrible mood after taking his medicine for the day, since it was apparently extremely bitter.
The bird did cheer up a little during breakfast, however, when he more or less claimed an entire tray of sausages for himself. It did not stop anyone else from getting food, since apparently the house-elves had already been told to prepare a little extra to account for him. Julian and his friends ate while the morning post arrived, and Julian was surprised to see that he had received a package. The moment he noticed the sender's name, however, his expression brightened, and he slipped it into Greed without opening it. "What was that?" Ron asked curiously.
"Just something I ordered over the summer," Julian said casually, and the redhead simply shrugged and accepted that answer, since it fit Julian's habits well enough. If Julian already knew what it was, there was no reason for him to unwrap it in front of everyone. Julian, meanwhile, fed the grey owl that had delivered it a few bits of bacon, gave it a good scratch, and sent it on its way. What he did not tell Ron was that the package had come from Sirius, and the tag attached to it simply read {The goblet}, which was all Julian needed to know, if his magical senses had not already informed him.
Julian was not the only one to receive mail, however, because Ron got a bright red envelope that immediately filled him with dread, while many of the people around him who recognized it visibly edged away. Julian had never actually seen a howler before, so he examined it with his magical senses and was left stupefied by how absurdly complex the enchantment on the thing was for what amounted to a tool meant to yell at someone. There were no fewer than five different effects woven into it, written word to speech, sound amplification, autonomous flotation, and self-destruction.