Alternate title: The chapter wherein Sally-Anne decides she's actually a major character in this story and hasn't gotten enough screen-time.
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Saturday dawned just like every other day, but when the other students streamed into the common room they were filled with a sense of excitement that Hazel had yet to observe within Hufflepuff house. The middle years all had wild imaginings running through their heads while many of the older students' thoughts were filled with thoughts of romance. In fact, the only upper year girl who seemed uninterested in the idea of romantic dates and stolen kisses was Sidonia Smith, but then again that might be because her own imagination was
far more lurid and explicit when she was preoccupied writing in the common room.
A thump next to her on the couch, and Hazel glanced over to watch Sally-Anne wipe sleep out of her eyes. "
How is she always so awake? And she always gets up before anyone else, too. Is it just me, or did everyone get up really"—her question was interrupted by a long yawn—"early?"
'I keep hearing people talking about some Hogsmeade place,' she wrote out. The name was vaguely familiar, and she was sure it had been mentioned in one of the chapters of the history of magic textbook. That was the downside of skimming through the whole thing so quickly, she knew; sometimes the little details did not quite stick.
"
I remember when I was confused about that same subject," she heard coming from behind them, and she craned her neck to find a dark-haired boy walking over with a small smile. It took her a moment to place him as one of the boys who had explained all the weird stuff that happened in Hogwarts on a yearly basis. "Hogsmeade is a little village just a short distance away from the school. Once you reach third year, you can go out on certain weekends through the year to visit. It's nice to get out of the castle and stretch your legs a little."
Sally-Anne looked glum at hearing that news, but Hazel was more surprised that other students also seemed to feel trapped within the stone walls all around them. "
That doesn't seem fair. Why can't we go too?"
The boy – Cedric, that was his name! – shrugged his shoulders at Sally-Anne's question. "I don't really know. Maybe the teachers don't think most parents would go for signing the permission forms when you're eleven but are more open to it when you hit thirteen? Or it's a reward you get once you start taking extra classes beyond just the core seven? Can't really help you there."
When the house as a whole left for breakfast, a sight that was quite unusual on most days and happened today solely because so many people had gotten up early, it became obvious that the Hogsmeade fervor was not limited to Hufflepuff. Most of the students were planning their day spent in the village, either with small groups of friends or their significant others or just in their own heads. Few of their fellow first-years seemed to understand the reason for why the rest of the school was so upbeat, but as the meal went on it was explained to most everyone, sometimes with more detail and other times with minimal effort.
As the clocktower that Hazel still did not know the location of bonged out the hour, all the students who were going to the village stood and started streaming out of the Great Hall. Not all the eligible students were going, though, which Hazel thought was interesting; several of the Ravenclaw students who were in the years when they had to take their big exams hung behind, as well as a handful of students whose mental grumblings revealed that their permissions had actually been revoked by teachers for rule-breaking that required punishment beyond points and detentions.
A silent whine caught her attention, and she glanced over to find Sally-Anne staring after the departing students with a disappointed pout. "
This is so not fair. I want to see this Hogsmeade place too."
Well then. Hazel held back a grin, though it still snuck out as a smirk. She did not have any true plans for today, and she had to admit that she was likewise curious.
Perhaps it was time for a spot of rule-breaking of their own?
She tapped Sally-Anne on the shoulder and waved for the girl to follow her. After they exited the Great Hall she took a sharp corner and glanced around to make sure none of the professors were in sight or earshot. Somehow she did not think Sally-Anne would enjoy getting detention just for scheming, and unlike her the blonde girl could actually learn things in their classes. Wiggling her left index finger, she made sparkling words appear that were small enough only Sally-Anne could readily read them.
'Do you want to sneak into Hogsmeade?'
Her question took Sally-Anne by surprise, and the girl looked back and forth between Hazel's face and her words. "
Is she asking what I think she's asking? We aren't allowed. It's only for older students,
even though I really really really want to go to."
'That's why we would need to sneak out. But I want to know if you want to go in the first place.'
"
That's not even a fair question." Sally-Anne looked away and fiddled with her hands. "D-Do
you want to?"
'Honestly? I don't particularly care one way or the other.' Any time she wanted to escape, she could. All she needed to do was head to the break in the wall out in the so-called Forbidden Forest, and she would be beyond the boundary of the protections against rogue spirits and teleportation.
'But I don't have anything else I need to do today, and you were disappointed that we can't go to the village. So let's go to the village.'
"
Yes yes yes! …Okay," Sally-Anne replied, trying her best to hide her excitement and failing nonetheless. Even someone without the ability to read minds would have noticed. Hazel just shook her head and waved for the other girl to follow her.
Slipping out the front doors, it did not take them long to spot the stream of students pooling to the north of the castle and start to trail them. As they got closer, they quickly spotted McGonagall and Mr. Filch standing next to a set of golden gates, the former checking names against a long list in her hand and the latter looking just unhappy to be there. With the expression on his face, Hazel could start to see why so many other students believed him to be an unpleasant person; perhaps if her interactions with him had been different, she might have felt the same way.
"
Oh no. It's Professor McGonagall and Mr. Filch. I guess it was a good idea," Sally-Anne said sadly, her expression falling, "but there's no way we're sneaking past them.
And I was looking forward to this, too."
Hazel rolled her eyes and poked the other girl between her ribs, getting a quiet yelp out of her. While Sally-Anne looked at her in betrayal and rubbed her side, she simply wrote out,
'What makes you think we've even started sneaking around yet? I've gotten past much scarier things than them, and for much stupider reasons. Come on.'
"No!" Sally-Anne grabbed her hand as she was about to stand up. "We c-c-can't get in trouble.
Mum and Dad would be so mad at me."
'We won't get in trouble.' Sally-Anne still did not look convinced, so Hazel planted her staff into the soft ground with a hearty stab and braced her right hand against her hip.
'Do you trust me?'
"I…
don't not trust her. Even if Megan and Hannah think she's lying about not having a wand and skipping classes to get special attention. She did something to Peeves, and not even the prefects can do anything about him. Yes. I trust you
because you haven't given me any reason not to trust you."
Not the most enthusiastic of agreements, but in her own way Hazel knew Sally-Anne wasn't wrong. Several of the students in their year, Hufflepuff or otherwise, refused to believe her explanations that she neither had nor needed no wand. It seemed like it was easier for them to believe things like the ring she used to make it easier for her to write out what she wanted to say were a few enchanted items she had purchased or been given rather than just tools to aid her own innate abilities. Not everyone felt that way, but even those who did not just had no explanation for how she did what she did or else just were not interested enough to look for one.
Ironically, she had realized she preferred the third opinion the most out of all of them.
She waved for Sally-Anne to come close enough to hold hands, then she grabbed her staff – noting with idle interest that it had left not a single mark upon the earth – and positioned it between them and closed her eyes. Not that she thought the closed eyes were necessary for this. It was just theatrics, something to reassure Sally-Anne that she was doing
something magical even if the other girl could not see it. Taking a deep breath in, she slowly blew it out and opened her eyes to watch the grey smoke wrap around the pair of them and settle into place like a barely-there cloud.
Squeezing Sally-Anne's hand, she held up her right hand and made a shushing motion, being careful not to whack herself in the face with her own staff; as she could not speak, she had no idea whether talking would draw people's attention even through the spell, and she was in no mood to test the idea out. Sally-Anne nodded and mimed zipping her lips shut.
They started walking towards and beside the crowd of students, although as they got closer it turned more into Hazel pulling Sally-Anne along behind her. The blonde was increasingly nervous, especially when they finally got close enough that McGonagall and Mr. Filch would have been able to see them. The woman's eyes did rise to meet theirs, eliciting a quiet 'eep' from Sally-Anne, but despite that scare she did nothing at all to stop them from walking right out the gates.
"
How did we do that? How did we do that?!" Sally-Anne tugged on Hazel's hand and pulled them off the hard-packed dirt path over to a nearby tree. "How did you do th-that?" she demanded in a whisper. "We walked past them, and it was like they didn't even see us!"
'That's because they didn't.' A small grin found its way onto Hazel's face.
'I don't know exactly how it works, whether they really can't see us at all or they just can't pay attention to us when they do, but it gets the job done.'
"
That's one way to put it," thought Sally-Anne with a shake of her head. "Well, I guess we just follow everybody else to get to Hogsmeade?"
That was as good a plan as any, and Hazel regained a grip on Sally-Anne's hand before they continued down the path. Was holding her hand necessary? She did not know, but the last thing she wanted was for Sally-Anne to get far enough away that she was no longer hidden within the cloud of smoke.
The trail eventually bent around a corner, and beyond that the trees opened up to reveal the village they sought. Hazel's eyes trailed over the roofs made from thatched straw and the odd wooden ornamentation jutting out here and there and nodded in approval to herself.
Forget Diagon Alley; that had reminded her of nothing more than a modern mall that happened to have a coat of themed paint over it all. Hogsmeade, on the other hand, felt like a true fantasy village.
Now that their destination was in sight, she no longer had to worry about being the guide. Sally-Anne raced forwards and all but pulled Hazel after her in her excitement to get a closer look. Hazel let her gaze drift along the buildings as they went down the main street, seeing different names and the occasional logo carved into wooden signs that hung above the doors. Here, an apothecary; over there, a shop that sold parchment and ink; down the street, a clothing store. Behind the stores that lined the main street were more buildings, but those had neither signs nor wide windows displaying wares.
Homes, perhaps? Anyone who worked in the stores needed
somewhere to live unless they all lived above the store proper. And even if these homes were not occupied by shopkeepers, between Floo powder and teleportation it was entirely possible for wizards to live here and work elsewhere.
Still, she could not help but feel a little disappointed. After all the talk and thoughts throughout the rest of the school, she had been hoping for something more interesting than what was looking more and more as though its primary function was an outdoor shopping center. Even if the aesthetic was much nicer than Diagon Alley. She chanced a glance at Sally-Anne, and she sighed to herself at the sight of the other girl's bright smile.
Or maybe it was just the excitement of getting out of the castle. Not everyone was as mobile as she was, nor had they gone exploring the grounds specifically looking for an exit point.
"Oh, look!" Sally-Anne whispered with great enthusiasm. "Honeyduke's Sweets! Let's check it out!"
Hazel's eyes grew wide as they crossed the threshold and entered the store proper. The inside of the store was filled from floor to ceiling with sweets and candies of all kinds, most of them things she had never heard of or even imagined. Nougats in the shapes of various animals; tiny devils made from black pepper and cinnamon; quills spun from sugar sitting in faux inkwells that floated above colorful skulls sculpted from the same material; cream bubbling away inside cakes carved to look like cauldrons. Probably the only thing she did recognize were the fudges on display beneath the main counter, and even they included flavors not seen in any non-magical sweet shop.
Staring at the sheer immensity of candy spread out before her, her mind and memory drifted almost of their own accord to Dudley. While he undoubtedly held a similar opinion of magic as Petunia and Vernon, he would probably be able to put it aside if it meant he could gorge himself on this bounty.
While she was caught in her rumination, Sally-Anne had let go of her hand and was bouncing around the place like… well, like a kid in a candy store. Not that she could bounce very far considering how quickly the store was filling up with other students equally insistent on getting their sugar fix. When she returned to Hazel's side, however, her excitement was significantly dampened. At Hazel's curious look, she blushed and looked down at her feet. "I forgot that I don't have any money on me," she admitted in a tiny voice. "Mum and Dad made sure I had a little bit of spending money just in case there was a school canteen or something, but it's in the dorms."
The corners of her mouth quirked upwards, and even though her laughter made no sound she still tried to hold it in. Silent or not, she did not think Sally-Anne would be able to handle her shaking in mirth. She almost suggested just taking what Sally-Anned had already grabbed, but she doubted the blonde would go for it. Most girls her age had not spent years stealing the bare essentials for survival. Which, honestly, did not include candies in any way, shape, or form.
She was a thief by necessity, but while her conscience had ceased piping up every time she took something, she did not want it to become her first impulse whenever she saw something interesting.
'I have a little bit of gold on me,' she wrote instead, reaching into her satchel and withdrawing G.L.'s obnoxiously lurid money pouch. A pouch that was sadly much lighter than it had been when she first stole it.
'It won't buy the whole store, but it should cover a couple of things. You can pay me back when we get back to the castle.'
A couple of minutes later, they were once again strolling down the street. Hazel sucked on the hindquarters of a freezing cold mouse treat – one which, thankfully, did not actually taste like mouse – while watching Sally-Anne turn her cauldron of cream this way and that in confusion. Rolling her eyes, she reached into her satchel once again and pulled out a very banged-up spoon before rapping it against Sally-Anne's shoulder.
'Just use this. You look like you're considering drinking the cream straight out of it.'
"
That would be more convenient. Thank you," the blonde said with a smile as she finally scooped some of the cream out of the cauldron. The smile fell slightly, and she looked at Hazel as though she were a puzzle whose pieces were struggling to fit together. "Er, why do you have a spoon in your bag in the first place?
That isn't a normal thing for people to keep on them all the time."
'I keep lots of different things on me. Just in case. You never know when you're going to need a roll of tape or an extra notebook. Or a spoon because you snuck out of an enchanted castle,' she wrote with a small grin and a pointed look.
'When you have a bag with unlimited space inside it, there's no reason not to carry everything and the kitchen sink.'
"
Okay, I suppose that's fair. I might need to look into getting myself something like that too." A few meters farther down the road, another thought struck the blonde. "
But, while we're talking about things she does differently… Hazel? C-can I, er, ask you a question? Why aren't you coming to some of our classes anymore? Because Professor McGonagall has been really angry the last c-couple of weeks."
She snorted softly.
'I'm not going to her class because she can't teach me. I won't say she has nothing to teach,' she allowed begrudgingly,
'but the only way she knows how to teach is to make sure you move a wand and speak the incantation in the right way. I can't use a wand and can't speak, and the one time I asked her for help she refused to believe the simple facts in front of her face.
'If I'm forced to choose between wasting my time in a class where I can't learn or spending time learning stuff I can learn, my choice is obvious.'
"Oh. That makes sense, I guess." Sally-Anne was silently for a moment as another question formed. "Although,
how do I ask this? Why can't you use a wand?"
That was more than a fair question, but it was also one she needed to think about how to answer. As much as she liked and honestly trusted Sally-Anne, she did not want the other girl to accidentally let it slip to McGonagall that there was a way to force a wand upon her.
'Because I don't use the same kind of magic as wizards and witches. I use it more like I think the ancient druids did, by shaping my magic into tools that do what I need them to do. There are a couple of other things going on, but that is the most important one.'
"And that's why you can hurt Peeves and keep the professors from seeing us," Sally-Anne said in understanding. Then she frowned, confusion burbling around within her brain. "Wait. But you can do some of the same things everyone else here can, like make potions and take care of magical plants. So is it that your magic is different, or is it that you use it differently?"
Hazel raised one finger to answer, then she lowered it as she thought it over again. Since meeting the werewolves she had assumed that her magic just
worked differently, that it was separate from wizard magic, but as she reviewed everything she knew she was forced to admit that assumption was probably wrong. Professor Flitwick had mentioned meeting wizards who had learned to use magic without their wands, and then there was the example of her own mother. Her mum had started off using magic without a wand the same way Hazel did, but she had also attended Hogwarts back in the day, and if she had not used a wand surely the professors would not be quite as discombobulated by Hazel's own abilities. So logically her mother also used a wand without it interfering with her wandless abilities.
Then again, she had no evidence from the staff at this school or from Petunia's memories that her mother had ever carried a staff, and that was the real reason Mr. Ollivander had been unable to find a wand that worked for her. But that was not something inherently different within her; rather it was a difference in how she had chosen when learning to wield her magical abilities. Admittedly it was a choice made without complete information, but even so she would not say it was the
wrong choice.
'I use it differently,' she finally answered.
'It works for me, and it isn't like I have any other good alternatives anyway. Whether someone else could learn to use magic like I do?' She shrugged with a half-hearted grin, although the grin quickly became something honest as she gave Sally-Anne a speculative look.
'Unless you're willing to give it a try?'
"Oh, no no no," Sally-Anne hastily refused, her pigtails flapping with how quickly she shook her head. "Casting spells the wizard way is hard enough,
and I can only imagine how much worse however she does it is. I'm already worried that I'm not good enough to keep up with the rest of the class as it is. If I tried learning from Hazel and it turned out that I'm a failure both as a witch and as a potential druid, then I wouldn't have anybody…"
Frowning at the other girl's self-doubt, Hazel bumped her shoulder to shoulder.
'Fine. You can focus on being a boring witch,' she teased.
'But the offer will still be open if you change your mind.'
"Thanks," whispered Sally-Anne, giving Hazel a small smile. "But maybe you can help me out with Potions in the meantime. Snape's always just horrible, I don't understand how you do so well in his class…"
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Hazel let the dinner conversation flow unimpeded around them as she picked at a fried leg of chicken and tapped her notebook with the butt of a pen. She still wanted to see some progress on the whole counter-curse spell, but the experiments she had performed so far in those empty hours where certain classes once belonged had proven less than fruitful. A few ideas still stood out as possibilities, but there had been enough failures that she had taken to writing them all out in detail so she wouldn't accidentally waste her time experimenting with things she had forgotten about attempting before.
Next to her, she heard Sally-Anne's quickly change tone. Her friend had been happily chatting along with Oliver Rivers about some boy band or other, but now there was an element of fear. "
Oh no. Why are they walking this way? She looks so mad. Er, Hazel?"
She glanced up from her notebook and immediately spotted what had spooked Sally-Anne. McGonagall and Mr. Filch were striding their way, the latter's gaze sweeping over the Hufflepuff table with a glare while the former had Hazel firmly in her sights. She sighed to herself; she had hoped that between simply skipping the witch's class and hiding in her ignore-me smoke, she could avoid having to deal with this. Apparently McGonagall had decided a public confrontation was worth actually pinning her down in the middle of dinner.
"Miss Potter," McGonagall said sternly. "
You're not getting away this time. Have you forgotten where my classroom is?"
'No. I just can't learn what you're teaching, so I saw no reason to waste both our time.' There, she was doing some of what Professor Sprout had advised her to do. She was not going to go back to class and she was not going to apologize, but if her head of house wanted her not to escalate things and specifically not tell McGonagall that Transfiguration was useless, this was the best compromise she could think of. Take the blame for why she wasn't capable of learning McGonagall's subject instead of putting it on the teacher, and maybe – just maybe – they could put this behind them and each go about on their merry way.
It was a trick she had used with the Dursleys from time to time. It did not work all the time, not even most of the time, but it had lessened her punishments once in a while.
While Mr. Filch's eyes moved to her in shock and surprise, McGonagall's nostrils flared, and even without being able to read minds Hazel could tell she had not succeeded in defusing the situation. "And you never will learn anything if you refuse to apply yourself.
All the bravado with none of the charm. I hate to agree with Severus's accusations, but she does have some of James's worst character traits. Perhaps actually
serving your detentions will teach you how to do that. You have detention with Mr. Filch tonight, cleaning up every inch of the trophy room, and it starts right now. Hop to it."
That pronouncement startled the rest of the table, and when Sally-Anne cringed away from the professor Oliver raised a tentative hand. "But, er, Professor McGonagall?
Ahh, why is she glaring at me now?! It's only halfway through dinner. Couldn't Hazel finish—"
"Miss Potter's punishment is none of your concern, Mister Rivers. There are worse things then missing a meal." McGonagall turned her eyes back to Hazel. "Be glad I am not taking away additional points along with the detention."
Additional points? Hazel cocked her head, and her confusion was echoed by the thoughts around her until one older boy down the table a bit blurted out, "Wait, is that why our points have been lower than they should be? That's been going on for weeks!"
"Of course," McGonagall told the table at large. By now students from the neighboring Gryffindor table were enraptured at the show before them. "Normally I would have informed Miss Potter of just why she was losing points every time she skipped class, but
since she made herself impossible to find except during dinner she wasn't around for me to tell her."
That announcement made the Gryffindors start laughing uproariously while the Hufflepuff table was caught somewhere between shock, anger at McGonagall, and anger at Hazel. The witch ignored that and stared at Hazel; her thoughts made it clear while she actually did not
want Hazel to push back here in the middle of the other students, she was enraged enough that she was phrasing things inside her head just in case Hazel did so.
The idea of doing it nevertheless crossed her mind, but after a moment's pause Hazel shook her head slightly. Would it tweak McGonagall's nose? Yes. Would it help the situation? Probably not. Taking one last swig of water from her goblet, she stood up straightened her satchel against her hip. Satisfied with her compliance, at least for now, McGonagall spun on her heel and marched imperiously towards the door. Hazel raised her eyebrows at Mr. Filch, who merely looked back at her before jerking his head towards the door.
So she was to be flanked by the two adults. Honestly, it was exactly the kind of situation she did not want. If she had trailed behind both of them, it would have been no trouble at all to wrap herself in her ignore-me smoke and slip away without them noticing her absence until they had reached their destination. She did not know whether her spell would work with Mr. Filch right behind her watching her, though. Which was probably the exact reason they were doing what they were doing, she realized. While school-age wizards might or might not learn how to do something similar to her smoke, the chances she was the first student who had the idea of giving faculty the slip were slim to none.
Sighing, she started walking to catch up to McGonagall, pulling her staff out from her satchel in the process. On the one hand, she had better things to do than detention, even if those things so far had ended in dead ends. Once she was no longer being escorted around, vanishing as soon as no one's eyes were upon her. On the other, she found herself curious about what Mr. Filch had planned for a detention. Not to mention, the sound of his thoughts were starting to… concern her.
"
There is no chance. That can't be. She called Hazel 'Miss Potter'. That would mean she's Hazel Potter. But she can't be! The Girl-Who-Lived is supposed to be some hoity-toity witch running around like she owns the place. Normally I'd take what Snape says with a grain of salt, but Minerva's been grumbling about her too." A hint of bitterness slipped into his thoughts. "
The Girl-Who-Lived isn't supposed to be someone like me, like us. She's supposed to have somewhere she fits in, where she belongs. Someone we're able to be jealous of for having what was denied to us, not somebody who is just like us."
When they finally reached their destination, McGonagall stepped aside so Hazel and Mr. Filch could enter. The room was filled with trophies of various sizes and shapes, appropriate considering the name of the room. In the middle of the floor was a large bucket filled with soapy water and a pile of rags, both being guarded by a bored-looking Mrs. Norris. McGonagall had said her detention was to clean the entire room, and now that she saw the supplies being given…
'I presume the actual punishment is to clean the room and the trophies by hand, not with magic?' she wrote.
"Correct. I would normally tell you to hand your wand to Mr. Filch, but as you refuse to get one, you can get straight to the task at hand.
Hopefully being forced to work the Muggle way will both make you appreciate the opportunity to learn magic and teach you the consequences of breaking the rules. Not to mention being so flippant about doing so." Satisfied that the world once again worked the way it was meant to, McGonagall stormed out of the room and closed the door behind her.
Hazel huffed.
'And she wonders why I don't like her,' she wrote, making her opinion explicit for Mr. Filch. She shook her head and turned to look at the man.
'Do you have a preferred order, or should I start at one end of the room and work my way around?'
Something furry brushed against her ankle, and Hazel looked down to find Mrs. Norris brushing twining herself around her legs. She could not help the small smile as she bent down to scratch the dusty cat behind ears and rake fingers through her hair. With a contented purr, Mrs. Norris flopped bonelessly onto the stone floor and rolled to present her belly for more rubs.
"
Normally I'd make students go from tallest to shortest just to make sure they have to walk back and forth over the whole room a lot, but just start over there," Mr. Filch replied, waving his hand vaguely at the wall next to the door. After a moment, he sighed loudly. "
Little numpty. Oi, Mrs. Norris. Hazel's supposed to be serving detention, not giving you scritches."
Mrs. Norris responded to her human's demand with a glare and a petulant
mrrraah, but ultimately she rolled back onto her feet and stalked over to Mr. Filch's side.
Her smile remaining, Hazel pushed the butt of her staff against the floor and tentatively let go. As she hoped, it remained standing upright despite not having any support. She had thought about the implications of how when she visited Hogsmeade a few days ago with Sally-Anne, it had not left a mark in the ground, and she was pleased to discover that her guess was right. It was one of the more convenient, albeit still strange, abilities her staff possessed, even if it made her all the more curious what benefit if any it had in regards to casting spells.
There
had to be a reason the one magical depiction of druids she had found, the standing stones within Shervage Wood, had them carrying staves as opposed to the wands of the wizards. At this point she would almost prefer that her staff had some kind of mind controlling it like the Sorting Hat did; at least then she could try convincing it to explain itself and what it wanted. Even a strange plant-mind like the one possessed by the maple tree she had received it from would be acceptable. Sadly, it had nothing like that.
She had already tried talking to it in a fit of desperation. No luck.
Still, she had a 'detention' to serve. She grabbed a rag from the pile and soaked it in the soapy water before wringing the excess out. The nearest trophy was less filthy and more dusty, although the inside of the cup of the trophy had black streaks of patina marring the otherwise pretty silver.
Second place, European Islay Hangman Championship, 1931, the plaque read once she had wiped it clean. Looking back to Mr. Filch, she asked,
'What's Islay Hangman?'
"It's a card game. Uses the same deck as Exploding Snap but with different rules. Never played it myself, so I don't know much more than that," he explained with a shrug. "The school team mostly goes to other schools to compete. I hear it's because the protections over the castle make it difficult to give them visitor access since they belong to another school. The headmaster would have to personally let them each time, but the other schools don't have that same issue."
She nodded, scrubbing futilely at the stains upon the silver before sighing to herself. Wasn't patina
made by water damage to silver? Shaking her head, she wiped off the rest of the trophy at the same time that she sent magical blue ripples over the trophy to peel apart the streaks and all the dust she had not yet wiped away. Soon satisfied by the results, she returned to the bucket to wash the dirt and dust out of the rag in order to move onto the next one.
"What is that?" She glanced over to find Mr. Filch looking at the trophy in confusion. "
All she did was wipe it with a wet cloth. That would have gotten some of the dust off, but it shouldn't be this shiny already." He walked over to inspect it more closely, and his confusion only deepened. "
Even the inside looks polished, except she didn't scrub nearly hard enough or with any cleaning stuff to…"
Understanding swept through him like a wave over the beach, and he looked at her with a squinting, reassessing expression. "You can clean things magically, can't you?"
'Not as far as McGonagall knows.' Which was not a no, and they both knew it. If it had been McGonagall, maybe even Professor Sprout, she probably would have just lied, but Mr. Filch had been nothing but kind to her, not to mention he had a sweet cat who adored him. A dog would stay beside a terrible person, but a cat? Cats were too independent for that nonsense; that was what Mrs. Figg had told her a few times growing up.
'Then again, if she considered that people without a wand might not be limited to 'parlor tricks' – her words, not mine – she would have checked on that before assuming I'm incapable.' The rag in her hands was surely wet enough now, so she wrung it out and walked over to the next trophy in line. Just to prove the point, though, she did not even bother pretending to use it. Laying her right hand upon the cool metal, she met Mr. Filch's eyes as her magic did all the heavy lifting.
'And we wouldn't be standing here in the middle of dinner.'
"You don't need to show off to convince me, lass," Mr. Filch said with a sigh and shake of his head. "I remember you whipping up the projections of the boys who attacked you. Honestly that was more impressive than this is; I just didn't expect it, that's all.
It also means there is no point in this detention. She can just clean everything with magic, and there's nothing anyone can do about it." With a voice filled with resignation, he asked, "I don't suppose you'd agree to clean the trophies by hand anyway, would you?"
'Why should I? I didn't do anything wrong in the first place.'
Mr. Filch's eyebrows rose in surprise at that declaration. "
She didn't do anything wrong? That's not what Minerva said. Or maybe she just doesn't think what she did was wrong. Professor McGonagall says you haven't been going to class for the last few weeks."
'I haven't gone to her class for the last few weeks,' she corrected with a raised finger. Or to Defense Against the Dark Arts or History, but technically one could say Professor Quirrell had excused her from class, and from Professor Sprout's surprise neither he nor Binns had brought her absences up so clearly neither had a problem with her behavior. It was only McGonagall who was making a big deal about it.
'That's all she's mad about, not about what I'm doing in my other classes.'
"
Oof. Now Minerva's anger makes more sense, especially since Hazel isn't even part of her house. Got hit square in her pride, and then that blasted temper of hers took charge." Mr. Filch rubbed his stubbly chin. "
She seems to like me, which is weird coming from a student at all, and definitely more than she does Minerva. Maybe I can talk her into going to class? It can't work any worse than taking points or giving her detention has. You still should be going to all your classes. That's the whole reason you're a student here."
Hazel whipped her head back and forth in furious negation, the motion dislodging Morgan in the process. He glided to the trophy she had just cleaned and chirped his displeasure.
'No, it's not. I'm not here to be a student. I'm here to learn, and that's a different thing. I haven't been going to McGonagall's class because I can't learn what she's teaching. If I can't learn, it's a waste of my time.'
"
That's… huh. Professor McGonagall would help you if you went to her asking for help,
although right now you might need to act a little shamefaced first. That's about the only way the Gryffindors can prove they've learned their lesson. All the professors have office hours just for that reason, you know."
'I asked her about it in class, and she wasn't helpful then. All she teaches is how to cast spells with a wand; I think that's all she honestly knows how to do. Do this, say that. If you don't succeed, it's your fault because you failed to follow the instructions properly.
'Back in the hospital wing, I said I don't have a wand, remember?' He nodded along.
'That's because I can't use one. Mr. Ollivander said so himself. How am I supposed to follow her directions when they weren't made with someone like me in mind?'
First Sally-Anne, now Mr. Filch. This was the second time in a week that she had to explain her wandless-ness. At this rate she might need to write all this out on a sheet of paper in one of her notebooks so she could show it to people and skip having the same conversation every time someone asked.
Her words hit Mr. Filch like a physical blow, and his eyes widened even as a mixture of camaraderie and sympathy swelled around her. "
Merlin, I was right. I didn't even want to be right, not when she's so kind. But I guess that makes more sense than the alternative. She's two steps from being a Squib like me; however she's doing the weird stuff she does is the only thing separating her from us." He fidgeted, cleared his throat. "Did you tell Professor McGonagall any of this?"
'Literally the first class I had with her.'
"Huh. Well
, not like I can ask more of her than that. You can't make wizards listen to things they don't want to hear." Sighing, he shook his head. "You did what you could, I guess. It's not right to punish someone for something they just can't do.
We get enough of that from society at large; we don't need to do it to our own.
"
Which also means we should just cut this short." Mr. Filch pulled a battered watch out of one pocket and glanced at its face. "There's still a little bit of time left before dinner ends. Professor McGonagall may have gone there to eat her own dinner, though, so going there might have her wondering why you're back so early."
'I can just go back to the dorms. I was mostly done anyway.'
"Nonsense." He closed the watch with a definitive click. "You're almost a teenager, which means you're a bottomless hole at the best of times. Not to mention you're so tiny.
She's nearly a head shorter than most of the first-years, two if you put her next to Bulstrode. We need to get some food in you,
and the kitchens are just the place. Besides, the kids always like finding somewhere hidden. Seeing it in person would be just the thing. Come with me."
How to tell Mr. Filch that she already knew where the kitchens were? Seeing his expression as he moved towards the door, Hazel met Morgan's gaze and shrugged. She really was not that hungry, but clearly Mr. Filch was of a different mind. If it made him feel better and it got her out of McGonagall's sight for the rest of the night, she was willing to make the small sacrifice of having the house-elves ply her with food.
They walked down the stairs to the dungeon levels where both the Hufflepuff dorms and the kitchens were located before stopping next to a portrait showing a bowl of fruit, the same portrait Tinky had shown her when the house-elf found her sleeping in the storeroom. Mr. Filch turned around and searched her face, his expression falling and turning grumpy. "Someone's shown you this before, haven't they?
There goes the surprise. The Hufflepuffs do a good job when they show the new first-years around, but did they have to show her this place?"
Hazel shrugged and gave him a weak smile.
'Yes? One of the house elves found me locked out of the Hufflepuff common room and brought me here to see if anyone had a solution to the problem. Which they did, but it means I kind of know what to expect.'
"I guess I can't get too mad if it was one of the house-elves themselves who showed you," admitted Mr. Filch as his negative thoughts cleared away. "The kitchens are one of the few places that are truly their domain. They work all through the castle, but most of the time they're invisible. Here, though, it's easier to interact with them."
Turning the pear that had become a doorknob, Mr. Filch opened the door and stepped inside, holding the door open so she could follow him. When she had entered this enormous room, she had been escorted by Tinky the house-elf, and the other elves had looked her way but thereafter ignored her. This was not the case when she came in after Mr. Filch. Dozens of bulbous eyes turned in their direction, and with a surge of excitement they rushed forwards. The tide of emotion was enough that it felt like it was going to overwhelm her much as the Sorting ceremony had; the number of sources was smaller than during the Sorting, but the
intensity of each source was far greater.
She would have thought that after cooking a meal for the entire school, the last thing they would want to see was a student wandering in wanting more. Clearly she was wrong.
"Master Argus! Miss!" several of them called out before one pushed her way forwards. "How cans we helps? Master Argus bes hungry?"
"Hazel missed part of dinner," Mr. Filch told them. "If you could provide her with something to eat?"
'Something light, please,' she quickly added.
Almost before she knew what was happening, a small table was set up in the corner of the room and she was seated with a steaming bowl of soup before her. Mr. Filch had declined anything to eat but instead was slumped against the back of his chair with a mug of tea in his hands. Mrs. Norris, not content to be ignored, lapped up cream from a saucer on the floor. As she was eating, she saw his half-closed eyes open fully. "Evening, Botchins."
Botchins? She turned around to see the elderly elf who had gifted her the ability to enter the Hufflepuff common room on her own, and when he met her eyes she gave him a smile and a wave.
'Good to see you again, Botchins.'
"And Miss as well.
Miss bes a good Hufflypuffly. Master Argus," he said, turning to Mr. Filch with a pleasant smile. "Should elves still bes avoiding the trophying room?"
"No, no, go ahead and clean it," Mr. Filch said, pulling a little black book out of his coat pocket and flipping though it. "
Preferably before Minerva notices that Hazel didn't clean it herself. But where should they ignore next? Maybe skip cleaning the salon, and preferably direct a little extra dirt and dust there. It's been a while since I've had students mop the floor, and the Weasley twins have been strangely quiet for the last couple of weeks. I'm sure I'll need to give them detention sooner than later.
"Anything we're running short on?" he continued after making a note and closing the book. "We don't need another instance of Whispy mixing up salt and sugar again."
"Botchins bes double-checking Whispy's work. Whispy not makes that mistake again. Those bags not bes labeled clearly, either," added the elf with a scolding finger.
"Fair enough," he replied, taking another sip of his tea. Once Botchins had departed, he glanced her way and smiled. "Sorry. I forgot we had an audience."
'That's not a problem,' she quickly wrote.
'But I am confused. I was told you were the caretaker. That didn't seem… caretaker-y.'
Mr. Filch waved his hand. "I am and I'm not. It's complicated, and Dumbledore seems content letting the school think that one man goes around keeping an entire castle by hand, which is ridiculous.
I'm sure at least some of the little blighters intentionally track mud in after a storm because they think it makes more work for me personally. I'm in charge of supervising all the castle's elves, coordinating food purchases for the kitchens, and generally taking care of the few issues they cannot handle themselves.
"The position didn't always used to be called 'caretaker'," he continued thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair. "That's only been the case for the last couple of hundred years. The headmaster at the time thought 'seneschal' was too fancy-sounding."
Hazel stared at him, spoon frozen partway to her mouth. With all the research she had done during her months wandering around England and popping in and out of libraries, she had become familiar with some of the terminology of the medieval period.
'Those are two very different things.'
"I know.
Officially, the reason for the name change was that Hogwarts did not employ any housekeeping staff, so there was no reason for a seneschal to manage staff that didn't exist. That's ignoring the hundred or so house-elves Hogwarts housed at the time and continues to do so to this day." He scoffed, his expression turning into an ugly sneer. "Wizards don't consider house-elves to be people. Of course, a lot of them don't want to consider us people, either. But that's the official reason. The actual reason, I think, is that the headmaster and seneschal of that time had butted heads a lot while the headmaster was still just the deputy, and this was an opportunity to get even."
'So how come you supervise detentions if you have your hands full with keeping the castle standing?' Having the caretaker dole out punishments was strange enough, but now that she realized how involved his job actually was, she had to wonder even more.
"The house-elves manage a lot of the day-to-day stuff on their own," he admitted with a shrug, "so that leaves me with time to spare. I offered to take over some of the detentions from the teachers because I don't have to worry about marking up homework and writing exams the way they do.
And there's the other reason, which I don't know if I should admit to. It's strange having a student respect me, and I don't really want to lose that. But if she hears it from someone else… And the teachers know I like to make their detentions worse than they need to be, which has its upsides. Sometimes the threat of having detention with me is enough to scare a student straight. 'Course, a lot of the little bastards deserve more than just a night of hard labor, but that's as far as Dumbledore lets me go."
His thoughts had taken a decidedly dark turn, and Hazel hesitated before writing out,
'What would you do instead?'
"Bring back some of the old corporal punishments. Hanging them by their wrists overnight in the dungeons, maybe caning. Nothing that would leave any
injuries," he quickly added when he saw Hazel's shocked expression. "But pain's a quick teacher."
'That's horrible,' she told him, mind awhirl. This was more like the horror stories she had overheard from the older Hufflepuffs about Mr. Filch, and even with him admitting to them she had trouble reconciling the awful and bitter words and this man who helped her, who listened to her, who seemed to understand her in ways the wand-wavers refused to do.
'It's so… so… pointlessly cruel.'
"
Oh, this sweet sheltered child. She doesn't fully understand how we're treated. But I can't say I'm upset that she doesn't. If being the Girl-Who-Lived means she avoided the worst of how the wizards can be, I'm glad she is. Strange," he said instead of voicing his inner thoughts, "my father didn't think it so horrible when he was trying to force me to use some kind of magic. Any kind. The neighbors didn't say anything against his methods, neither. A few even gave him pointers!" Mr. Filch shook his head. "
Thank Merlin for Gran. If she hadn't taken me in when I turned eleven, I don't know if they wouldn't have beaten me to death. I wouldn't go that far, but getting just a little taste of it might teach the kids here not to be such little shites. Probably wouldn't need to do it but once or twice, and their behavior would get a lot better when they had that threat hanging over their heads."
'It shouldn't be necessary to hurt anyone though.'
"Do you think being nice to Sanrich would have kept him from cursing you in the back?" he asked pointedly. "You didn't do anything to him, probably never even met him, and he cursed you just because he could. Hogwarts does a lot of good, don't misunderstand me, but it also turns out more than its fair share of bullies, and that's because they never get punished enough when they start acting out and targeting people. They grow up thinking they're untouchable because of who their daddy is. Unfortunately, the world doesn't prove them wrong
after they leave school either.
"But it's not like it's ever going to happen anyway," he finished with a shrug. "Dumbledore was very clear on that. He thinks like you on that score. And maybe that's for the best," Mr. Filch added. "I know I'm a bitter old man. Maybe I'd take it too far
so they get a taste for how they treat us. Maybe I wouldn't have the stomach for it if I could do it. Nobody knows, and he refuses to take the chance. Instead I give them chores to do and keep records of all the detentions they wind up doing, either with me or the professors. It's safer that way."
Records of detentions? Curiosity piqued and eager to change the subject, she asked,
'How long do you keep records for? I heard something about my mum setting fire to the Restricted Section, and I was wondering if you had more details about that.'
"
Setting fire— Oh, right," he said as memories started clicking. "I think I do remember that. Not the details off-hand, but the event itself. Your mum was nowhere close to getting the most detentions during her time here – it was your da who was after
that title – but whenever she did get one, it was always for the strangest reasons.
Not unlike you, come to think of it." He nodded to himself. "They graduated… '77 or '78? Yeah, I should still have them in the filing cabinet." He gave her half-full bowl of soup a significant look. "We can have a look when you're done."
Hazel picked up the bowl and slurped up the rest of the soup in a few big gulps – it helped that the soup was more of a broth with shreds of meat and cabbage floating around – then stood up and picked up her staff from where she had leaned it against one wall. Mr. Filch laughed at her haste but nonetheless quaffed the rest of his tea. "All right, lass. Let's go take a look."
They climbed the stairs up to the second floor, then went down a few deserted hallways until they reached a nondescript door. Opening it revealed a tiny room mostly filled with filing cabinets and a desk pressed into one corner of the room. A single lantern hung from the ceiling, shedding a weak pool of light that did not seem to fully penetrate every corner of the room.
'This is your office?' she asked weakly.
Mr. Filch shrugged, clearly discomforted a little by her reaction. "I don't need a lot of space. This is mostly for records, anyway, and sometimes writing letters and making orders. I walk around the castle a lot, so I have the whole castle to myself. And as you saw, the elves never mind me popping over unannounced to check on things
or when I get lonely and want some company. Anyway, the detentions are in these cabinets. They're organized by the year students started,
so if her parents graduated in late seventies, they would have started in '70 or '71. Good to start there anyway."
He pulled open a drawer that came out a lot farther than it should have from the depth of the cabinet, and he started flipping through the file tabs while Hazel's eyes found and refused to pull away from a long set of chains hanging from the wall. The light from the lantern glinted off the polished steel, and she swallowed uncomfortably.
I guess he wasn't kidding about the 'hanging students from their wrists' thing, she told Morgan.
The little bird scooted closer and chirped reassuringly.
"Ah, here we go!" said Mr. Filch triumphantly as he pulled out a single folder. "
'Evans, Lily'. I told you your mum wasn't that much of a trouble-maker," he added, shaking it and making it flop around. "Not much in here at all. Now, let's see if we can find out what happened with that fire thing—
"
What in the world?"
Whatever he saw seemed to shut his brain down, and after a few moments of silence Hazel snapped her fingers.
'Mr. Filch?' she asked when he looked up at her.
'What is it?'
"…I had forgotten how much of a bloody little—" He took a deep breath. "
Careful, Argus. She likes me, but I doubt she'll take well if I start bad-mouthing her mother. …cheeky girl she was."
'I don't understand.'
In lieu of answering, he pulled out a single sheet of parchment and handed it to her. Just at a glance she could tell this was not an official form. It was formatted more like a letter. Actually reading it, she was unable to keep the smile off her face.
Dear Mr. Filch,
Since I am now a Hogwarts graduate rather than a mere student, I believe these are technically my property. Other people have little need to know the embarrassing details of these little incidents, wouldn't you say?
Have a good summer!
Love,
Lily Evans
Hazel drank in the sharp lines of her mother's signature, including a tiny heart over the 'i', and looked up to find Mr. Filch still stewing but at least no longer angry.
Grumpy, yes, but if his job included keeping accurate records, that could be excused.
'When do you think she made the switch?'
"I have no idea," growled Mr. Filch. "I don't know if she came back to the castle after graduation, so either on a return visit or worse it was before she took the train for the last time. If you hadn't asked me about it, I wouldn't have had a reason to check."
Oh. She looked down at the letter again and then back to Mr. Filch.
'Would you mind terribly if I kept this?'
"
With the way you're looking at it as if it's the first thing you've ever seen of your mother's? Nae, it's fine." He gave her a half-smile. "Certainly doesn't do me any good to keep it.
"Now, you had better get back to your common room." He turned to glare at the filing cabinet. "While I look to see if anyone
else did a switcheroo on me without me knowing it."
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
As Hazel and Sally-Anne walked through the hallways before the blonde had to split off for Transfiguration class, they were not the only ones in chipper moods. Halloween was upon them, and unlike the Dursleys who always hated all things weird and 'magical', the house-elves were going all out in their celebrations. Breakfast had started with platters of pumpkin pancakes – Hazel still thought the wizards' obsession with the orange gourd was a little much, but this one day she was willing to give them a pass and even had one herself – and by the time lunch rolled around, most of the suits of armor scattered throughout the castle had been covered up with costumes and their helmets replaced by eerily realistic masks. Within the Great Hall itself, the slew of candles that normally floated in the air had been replaced by jack-o'-lanterns made from both pumpkins and strangely enough gigantic turnips while bowls of burning hazelnuts sat spread out over the tables.
And with the way things were going, excitement was building throughout the school for what dinner would bring. Even Mr. Filch was in the spirit of the season, wearing black and orange striped trousers!
The classes, sadly, were not fitting themselves into the theme. Charms had been fine, and now that Professor Flitwick wanted them to learn how to levitate feathers Hazel could actually participate. Even if him giving Hufflepuff points for something she had been doing on her own for years was still strange to her. From what Sally-Anne told her about Defense Against the Dark Arts, they were officially learning the Leg-Locking Curse that the Slytherin boys had used on her. So now there were going to be more people who could cast spells on her she had no way to undo.
That had been an unwelcome reminder that forging her own path and making up her own spells had its limitations. After asking Professor Flitwick for an object she could experiment with un-ensorcelling – and being handed a block of wood charmed to be an ugly bile green color because the little professor thought he was
funny – she had started thinking of different ways she might try breaking down the magic.
A bar of soap to wash the magic off. Sandpaper to scour it off. A file to grind it off. Even a chisel to crack the magic up so it would fall off on its own. None of the tools she imagined
felt right, and none of them worked. In a strange way, despite Professor Flitwick casting the spell on the block of wood right in front of her, when she tried to remove the spell it did not act as if was on top of the wood. It instead behaved as though it had already seeped into the wood and become part of it. Removing the spell would therefore require her extracting it, and how to do that she still was not certain.
Maybe if she—
A whisper slipped across her mind, and she stopped short. Sally-Anne, who had been regaling her with the events of a class she had no interest in, walked for a couple more steps before realizing Hazel was no longer beside her. "Hazel?
Why does she look like she's lost and confused?" asked Sally-Anne.
Hazel raised a single finger in a request for silence as she let her eyes half-close. She wanted quiet for this, both physical and if possible mental, so she had a better chance of catching it again—
"…
suth guacyel seawrosse forpeve ilebtn ac…"
It was unintelligible, or at least not in English. Except no matter whose thoughts she listened to or what language they spoke with their mouths – from France all the way down to Greece – she never had a problem understanding people's thoughts. They were always in English, or at least a language she could understand. But not this.
What was going on?
Being very aware of Sally-Anne's curiosity, she wrote a question she knew would be denied.
'Did you hear that?'
"No…"
It was difficult to tell direction with nothing to go on but this strange mental whisper, but it felt ever so slightly as if it had come from their left. Except there was nothing on their left, no hidden passage or trap door. She closed her left eye, looking out only through her right eye and the fairy lens that sat over it, but still she saw nothing. All that was visible were two suits of armor, neither of them close by, and a faded tapestry depicting some magical farmers raising their crops. There was nowhere for the thoughts to be coming from.
And yet, the thoughts had to be coming from
somewhere.
She reached out and patted the wall, proving with now two senses that there was nothing there. As her fingers skimmed the surface of the stone, though, a thought came to her. Fingers lifted up and settled on the surface of the tapestry, pushing gently. Here. There. And…
She grabbed the edge of the tapestry and lifted it up. Beneath the fabric sat more wall, but here the stonework was smeared and runny. Like paint that had not fully dried.
This was not like most passages in Hogwarts, a wall that could sometimes be a door. This was instead a doorway just pretending to be a wall. Just like the pathway to Merlin's statue beneath Tintagel or the entrance to Platform 9¾.
Something had been
hidden here.
"What are you looking at?"
Hazel turned around to catch Sally-Anne's gaze, then without breaking eye contact she deliberately pushed one hand through the illusion and meeting no resistance in the process. Withdrawing her hand, she wrote,
'This is where whatever I heard came from.'
"
Did we discover a new secret passage?" Sally-Anne wondered excitedly. "
Where does it go? Do you think we have enough time to look at it before class starts?
Professor McGonagall still isn't happy even after you had your detention, and I don't want her to get mad at me too."
'We'll get you to class in time. We aren't going to explore it top to bottom, just take a look around. Then we know if it's worth coming back for or not.'
Morgan let out a single loud chirp, and Sally-Anne and Hazel's eyes met just before their ears picked up the sound of approaching voices. They had deliberately left lunch early so they could have more time to wander around before Sally-Anne went to class and Hazel left to work on her own ideas, but now it sounded like some of the other Hufflepuffs were on their trail. Or worse, some of the Gryffindor students with whom the Hufflepuffs shared the Transfiguration class. They might not be as mean towards everyone else the way the Slytherin students were, but many of them seemed to have some kind of chip on their shoulder where Hazel was concerned. Their display when McGonagall had forced her into 'detention' with Mr. Filch was just one example.
"
Oh no. If they see us, we won't get to explore it ourselves! Go, go, go," Sally-Anne hissed, almost diving past Hazel and through the illusion. Hazel was quick to follow herself.
The flapping of the tapestry back against the wall cut off all light that could have come into the otherwise pitch-black space. Reaching into her satchel, Hazel's fingers wrapped around a rough-hewn wooden sphere before pulling it out. A squeeze, and the sphere erupted into sullen flames that licked harmlessly around her fingers and filled the room with a blood-red light.
Not a room, she realized as their surroundings were finally illuminated. They were in a
tunnel.
The tunnel in question had certainly seen better days. The stones were not set smooth and flush against their neighbors; instead they jutted out unevenly, giving the walls the look of belonging to an undiscovered ancient ruin rather than being a hidden passage within an inhabited castle.
"Wow," breathed Sally-Anne next to her. "Where are we? Is this even still part of Hogwarts?"
Hazel gave her an uncertain shrug before carefully following the tunnel down a shallow descent. Was this what all the secret passages in this school were like? If so, she might need to spend more time looking for them and exploring.
And if not, then what was this place?
The tunnel took a sharp left and then ended abruptly. Perhaps fifteen feet past the corner was a large pile of rock, as if the castle above this had collapsed onto itself. That was not to say the remaining passage was empty. The light of her campfire sphere glinted off the glass of a shattered mirror propped against one wall and lit up a dusty rucksack laying at the base of the opposite side. It was clear neither mirror nor bag had been touched in what must have been ages.
She squatted next to the bag and gently pulled it open. She was not sure what she was expecting, but a stack of papers and bottles with long-dried ink certainly would not have been her first guess. Those and a small coinpurse; she hesitated only for a second before grabbing the purse and slipping it into her own satchel. Now at least a few coins richer, she picked up one of the papers and started to skim it only for her reading to slow.
'These belonged to a student,' she wrote when she heard Sally-Anne turn around the corner.
'This is a potions essay, and these look like notes for Defense. They all have the same name on them, too: Titania Ogden.' Hazel glanced up.
'Have we met any Ogdens? Or any student called Titania? It sounds like a wizard name.'
Sally-Anne shook her head. "I don't know any. They aren't in our year, and we haven't met them in the common room.
Why would she have left them here of all places? Is there anything else?"
'Just her bag and the mirror.' Pushing herself to her feet, Hazel turned around to examine the mirror in question. With all the cracks running through the glass, her gaze was met with dozens of copies of herself, some of them a little slower to react than the rest had been. The frame was strange, made of bronze and oval in shape but decorated with bizarre geometric patterns on the top and bottom edges. It possessed no legs, either, which made her very curious why it was here of all places.
"…
nia hmas eht otogtn ac ewno sa er eht wonkuoy…" the mirror whispered to her again.
"Who would hide a mirror here?" wondered Sally-Anne, creeping closer. "It isn't even a pretty one."
Sally-Anne brushed the edge of the frame with her fingers, and as if by magic the view inside the mirror changed. No longer did the reflection show them; each shard of glass struggled to display a different locale. Some of them were other places within Hogwarts, but not all or even most.
Then the mirror
exploded.
Razor sharp shards of glass flew everywhere, too fast for Hazel even to cover her face, only to curve impossibly after moving only a few feet, swooshing and colliding and breaking apart and reforming. Behind them, where the back of the frame should be, she was given brief, frightening glimpses of an ever-shifting void. Mirrors reflecting themselves endlessly with nothing to give them perspective. A gale sprang up out of nowhere and pressed against Hazel's back. She drove her staff against the ground as hard as she could, hoping against hope that it would be enough to keep her steady on her feet.
A scream distracted her, and she opened her squinting eyes a tiny bit wider in time to see the wind pull at Sally-Anne's clothes with enough force to overpower her grip in the mirror's frame. The blonde was swept off her feet and sucked hungrily through the sea of shards and into the void beyond. With no time to think, only to react, Hazel did the only thing she could.
Dive in headfirst after her.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hazel Potter was never heard from again. The wizards mourned her loss and promptly forgot about her. Without the Girl-Who-Lived, Voldemort was able to conquer Britain and ultimately the world. Evil won, Good lost, and everything was awful forevermore.
The end.
…Okay, I'm just kidding. I'm not going to end the story here! But things are about to get a little… weird, and just be aware that the above probably would have happened were Hazel less experienced in the ways of Magic's oddities.
And many thanks to everyone who unintentionally gave me suggestions for Hazel's failed experiments in counterspelling wizard magic. 
