A girl's best friend

[okashihime]

The sound was like a gunshot.

Taylor startled into a painful jerk that was half reflexive fright jump, half aborted dodge roll out of her bed. She looked left and right around the messy, pastel colored room, certain that there was a sharply dressed woman just around the corner holding a gun pointed at her.

Blossoming panic died when the book she'd been reading smacked her painfully atop of the head. Somehow, in the fright, it had gone airborne.

She grumbled and scratched the painful spot on top of her crown.

There wasn't much time to think about flying vengeful books, because a few houses down the lane, where the gunshot-like sound came from, there was someone where once there was none.

A strange woman showed up at missus Anderson's house two houses down from Taylor's own.

Taylor picked up the book and placed it on the bed stool. She'd just started a new book called The Eye of the World and was loath to stop a good story, but this took precedence. On the balls of her feet, she slunk towards the small window — eyes already on the woman — and opened the curtains a smidge to look with her own eyes, just to make sure she wasn't going crazy.

The woman, old and serious, wore clothes that looked older than mum's grandma's in the pictures. Her hair was tied in a severe bun, and her face was set on a disapproving frown. The whole ensemble was topped off with glasses that had small oval lenses perched on the bridge of her nose while she read something from a paper. The newcomer looked from the paper to Miss Anderson's address, then left and right. With a small shake of the head, she turned toward Taylor's house and marched with determined steps.

Rand's adventures forgotten, Taylor kept her many eyes firmly on the new arrival, until she stopped in front of her house. One last look at the paper, a bony finger extended in what looked like condemnation and the doorbell rang in the room downstairs.

Taylor moved toward her bedroom door, turned about, walked two steps back to her bed, picked up her book, and stopped. Another about face took her toward the door once more and it was everything Taylor could do to not sneak a few fliers inside the house to listen to the conversation downstairs. She'd promised her mum she wouldn't spy on the house and keep it bug free.

Who was the woman? How had she just appeared out of nowhere? Did she have superpowers too?

"Taylor, sweetie, there's someone here to see you."

Mum's voice called from below. She didn't sound scared, or distressed, she sounded resigned.

Not to let an opportunity pass, Taylor stowed the book in the nearest available place then dashed downstairs to meet the newcomer. She spared a small glance toward the visitor, confirming that yes, it was still the same woman from outside, before she hugged her mother, shying away from the stranger in the room.

"Mum."

Annette, Taylor's mother, rolled her eyes in a very fond gesture, then tousled Taylor's mane of blonde curls. "Still on your pj's?"

Taylor blinked owlishly, the stranger forgot, then looked down at her own clothes. Pastel pink Care Bears pj's. She hid her face against her mum's shirt, mumbling and believing the world outside didn't exist.

"Sweetie, it's rude to ignore our guest, more so when they're here to see you."

Pretending her face and ears weren't burning, and the irresistible desire to run back to her room and hide under the covers wasn't there, Taylor turned and greeted the newcomer. "Hullo."

"Good morning, Miss Hebert. I'm Minerva McGonagall, a professor at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. A boarding school your father attended as a young man."

Taylor's eyes grew wider the more the woman spoke. Wizardry? She knew magic was real, she had magic herself, but dad had it too? Mum never talked about him, he'd died before Taylor was even born.

"You've inherited his gift," McGonagall said without giving Taylor the chance to sort her thoughts. The visitor reached into the interior of her travelling robes and produced a letter, the same paper Taylor had seen her reading outside the house. "This is your formal letter of acceptance to Hogwarts. School terms begin in September, with students of your own age."

The envelope was cream-coloured, sealed in red wax, bearing a familiar crest, one she had seen among dad's old stuff.

"Inside, you'll also find a list of necessary books and materials for your first year." McGonagall dug into another pocket of her robes, then took out a strange metal key. She presented the key to mum. "Here's your husband Gringotts key."

The air had grown heavy and uncomfortable by that point. Mum took the key. She didn't look happy, she looked angry, like that time Taylor set up a colony of ants to bite the shins of that bully at school.

"Thank you."

"I understand, Mrs. Hebert, that our world has not been without its costs to your family. That is not a small thing and I'll not pretend otherwise." McGonagall's voice was firm, but not without feelings. "But Hogwarts was also where your husband learned who he was, it was where he made friends who still remember him."

There was a tense moment of silence, before McGonagall looked at Taylor, then Annette.

"The choice, ultimately, belongs to you and your daughter."

McGonagall didn't stay long after delivering her message, she bade both farewell and left.

Taylor kept track of the woman until she disappeared with another gunshot-like sound. Teleportation superpower was wicked.

---

For the rest of the day, mum was in one of her somber moods. Predictably, she kissed the top of Taylor's head, then shoo'ed her off back to her room. Taylor knew by now there was no talking when mum was like that. Mum would be better in the evening. She always was.

That didn't dispel the many questions Taylor had. She'd known magic existed since forever. She had her own superpower like those American comic books, but she thought she was the only one. Maybe she shouldn't have been surprised. Mum never seemed weirded out by the insects, aside from that one day they didn't talk about, and mum was a great help in helping Taylor keep her secret.

Superpowers weren't something normal people liked or believed. She'd learned that the hard way.

But all that was in the past, Taylor had a new mystery in hand. The envelope was addressed specifically to her.

Miss T.A. Hebert. The Small Bedroom, Second Floor, 23 Dunmore Street, Woolwich, London.

How did these people know which room in the house was her bedroom? Intrigued, Taylor broke the seal and read the contents. The first page was just a formal introduction and invitation.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)​

Dear Miss Hebert.

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.



Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress.



The second page was where things got strange.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY​

UNIFORM

First-years students will require:

1. Three sets of plain work robes (black).
2. One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear.
3. One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar).
4. One winter cloak (black, with silver fastenings).

Please note that all pupil's clothes should carry name tags.



SET BOOKS

All students should have a copy of each of the following:

The Standard Books of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk.

A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot.

Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling.

A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch.

One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore.

Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger.

The Secrets of the Stars by Magnolia Maguffin.

Magical Me (autobiography) by Gilderoy Lockhart.

Break with a Banshee by Gilderoy Lockhart.

Gadding with Ghouls by Gilderoy Lockhart.

Holidays with Hags by Gilderoy Lockhart.

Travels with Trolls by Gilderoy Lockhart.

Voyages with Vampires by Gilderoy Lockhart.

Wanderings with Werewolves by Gilderoy Lockhart.

Year with the Yeti by Gilderoy Lockhart.



OTHER EQUIPMENT

1 wand

1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)

1 set of glass or crystal phials

1 telescope

1 set of brass scales

Students may also bring, if they desire, an owl OR a cat OR a toad.

PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICK.



Yours sincerely,

Lucinda Thomsonicle-Pocus

Chief Attendant of Witchcraft Provisions



Who the heck was this Gilderoy Lockhart and why did he have eight books for the first year? More importantly, why did all the book names read more like fantasy books? The others in the list Taylor could see being part of a magical education, but Lockhart's didn't seem to. There was even an autobiography there. Was this guy some super important magical hero they had to learn about?

The other parts of the letter were also interesting. Robes and equipment. Cauldron and pointy hat. At this point, Taylor was almost sure this wasn't a prank. It was too elaborated to be one. And what about an Owl? By context clues, it looked like mail of some sort, but where would Taylor find an owl of her own that knew how to deliver mail? More importantly, where would they find money to buy all this stuff?

 

[okashihime]

Mum wasn't keen on telling the whole story. Later that day, both sat in the living room with mum nursing a mug of hot-something while Taylor sipped her mug of hot-cocoa.

"Your father," mum started in a small voice. "died fighting in a war against an evil wizard."

War? What war was mum talking about? Taylor didn't remember any recent war happening, but now also didn't seem to be the correct time to ask more questions. She'd wait until mum's mood shifted to ask about the war.

Taylor had known her father's death hadn't been some accident even if mum never talked about it. The freedom fighter or rebel part was the interesting bit, but in the end, it didn't make much of a difference. She'd never known the man, even resented him a little for making her mother sad. There were no pictures of her dad in the house. Mum didn't talk about him or his family. Taylor had no real attachment to him, unlike her mother; he was just someone that died years ago.

"He was a wizard. Disowned by his family for marrying a muggle."

There was a hint of distaste when mum said the word. A long stretch of silence followed. Taylor thought mum was going to say more, but she picked up the strange key, then placed it on Taylor's hand.

"Don't lose it," she said. "Non-magicals like me can't wander in magical Britain because of the notice-me-not magic, and magicals are an insular people. It's one of the reasons we had no contact with that side of your father's life."

The situation was a lot more complicated than that, Taylor later realised. Without magic, mum wasn't able to reach the correct places or people to even get news about dad or what happened to him. Nor his will or inheritance or anything. They survived by mum selling a few of dad's old stuff and coins they had at hand for initial cash to open her own business.

"But enough of that," mum said after a big sip of her beverage. "Have you considered if you want to join the school? Don't let me muddy your decision. Your father was always fond of the place and friends he made there, even after the war broke out…"

Taylor was intrigued by the opportunity, but also knew that leaving for a boarding school was difficult. "Won't you be alone?"

Mum smiled and pulled Taylor into a bear hug. "Don't you mind that, sweetie. If you feel homesick, you can always write to me. Everyday if need be."

Dart. Mum never missed anything.

"I want to go," Taylor admitted after stealthily wiping a few tears away.

"We'll have to visit Diagon Alley and retrieve money from your Gringotts vault. We should be able to buy everything in your list there."

"Diagon Alley?"

Mum pinched Taylor's cheeks, smiling a pleased smile. "We'll go there this weekend. You'll love the magic."

---

Magic was wicked cool.

It started with a grubby little pub that would be easy to miss if not for the many bugs inside. Bugs Taylor had never felt or seen before.

Even before Taylor had fully processed what she was feeling, her superpower brushed against something wrong inside the pub, wrong in the best possible way. Spiders unlike any she had ever felt, their webs humming with a faint resonance that made her teeth ache pleasantly. They were bigger than they should have been, tucked into rafters and corners. The mosquitoes were worse in the best way: some bloodsuckers almost an inch long. Then there were things she had no name for: small, quick, winged, vaguely humanoid in a way that made her power do a double take. Bugs were not supposed to have faces. Some flitted with chaotic energy, crashing into walls and rebounding without apparent concern. Others, smaller and meaner, hovered with something like intent.

"You'll have to lead me there," mum said after a while observing the street. "Your dad told me once there's magic that keeps non-magicals away."

Wrenching her attention from the new bugs, she paid attention to the pub. It was dark and shabby, wedged between a bookshop and a record store on a busy London street. Her mum couldn't see it. Taylor hadn't believed it at first. The Leaky Cauldron even had one of those wooden plaques outside with the name exposed to elements, but a few minutes of observation was enough to clear things.

None of the non-magicals looked in the pub's direction. The only ones who did, and entered or left the place, were those weirdly dressed in strange clothing in strange colors and styles, like the deputy headmistress. Taylor was starting to believe that dressing unfashionably was a requirement to be a magical person; there was no reason otherwise to wear pointy witch hats like the fantasy stories.

Holding her mum's hand, Taylor dragged both into the pub.

Inside, it was dingy and low-ceilinged, full of old wooden furniture and the smell of something cooking, crowded with magic people in various states of eccentricity, nursing drinks, eating meals, or just talking. The barman was ancient and toothless and greeted both as soon as they entered.

"Annie, it's been years! It's a shame what happened to Danny. Those were dark times."

"Tom," mum said, inclining her head, but her voice was dry and formal.

Tom's eyes moved from mum to Taylor. Her skin crawled at the attention.

"It's time for the squirt to go to Hogwarts?"

That drew attention from the pub's patrons, but one good look and interest vanished.

"Yes." Mum said in a tight voice. "I'll need you to open the passage for us, if that isn't a problem."

"None whatsoever," Tom said and walked from behind the bar. "Follow."

Mum did so, pulling Taylor by the hand. It was good that she did, because Taylor was mostly lost to the world at this point. There were so many new bugs to feel and see.

"Now, pay attention," Tom said, pulling up a stick from his coat. "You need to hit the proper bricks to open the wall." He tapped a few stone bricks in sequence. The bricks quivered and wiggled. In the middle of the wall a small hole appeared, it grew and grew, into an archway on to a cobbled street which twisted and turned out of sight.

On the other side was controlled chaos.

A shop nearby had stacks of cauldrons outside with information signs hanging above them. Down the street, an apothecary displayed the strangest of ingredients. Another shop had hooting owls, cats, rats and even toads. Taylor's senses expanded, seeing with a thousand new eyes from a thousand different new bugs skittering and scurrying in corners and out of sight and under tables and over roofs and between walls and under the cobblestone.

Inside a bookstore further down the street, a huge gathering of people surrounded a posh looking man smiling with pearly white teeth and signing books. At another, a clothing store, groups of people, one full of red hair and another with almost white blond hair came to blows over spilled school supplies. Deeper inside the alley, a whole section had the most vicious bugs Taylor had ever felt. People in dark robes and darkened hoods scurried about, talking in whispers and behaving like they were up to no good.

Mum's gentle words brought Taylor back to her senses. "Taylor, sweetie?"

Taylor blinked big blue wide-open eyes. "Mum! There's so many!"

Annette nodded slowly. She had crouched in front of Taylor at some point. Taylor didn't remember when.

"I know sweetheart, but you've got to focus. Can you do that?"

Taylor nodded absentmindedly, throwing a glance the way back. The wall had closed and it was just a normal brick wall. With a supreme effort of will, she pushed the new senses and bugs to the back of her mind. A few steps into the alley, and Taylor had forgotten about the new bugs.

It was one thing to see and feel things with her bugs, another entirely to see it with her own eyes.

The stack of cauldrons (and the sign above it) caught Taylor's eye first. Then the pet store, then the book store, and the apothecary, and the book store, and the clothing shop, and the book store. Taylor was vaguely aware of her mum gently guiding her through the mass of people.

Down the street, they stopped by a silver marble building that towered over the others. A small man, wearing red and gold armor guarded the door, gesturing to people coming in and out of the building. Like the TARDIS, it was bigger inside than should be possible. That wasn't even taking into account the deep tunnels leading God knows where.

"We're here," mum said, looking at the building.

"Are those…?"

Mum looked at Taylor, then nodded. "Goblins. They can be abrasive, but be polite."

Into the wizard bank the duo went. Dozens and dozens of goblins sat on high stools scribbling into ledgers, counting and weighing coins, inspecting gems through eyeglasses. There were too many doors leading from this room, many which goblins led people to and from.

Annette and Taylor made for the counter where a goblin had just finished his business with a portly witch.

"Good morning," mum said with a small nod. "I'd like to withdraw from Taylor's vault."

"Do you have the key?"

Mum nodded, and Taylor took the key from her pocket and handed it over to the little man.

The goblin examined it closely. "That seems to be in order. Would you like to visit the vault?"

Taylor looked at her mum expectantly.

"There's no need," mum said after a moment. "A hundred galleons withdraw and an accounting of the vault's contents will be enough."

"Very well," the goblin said, hopping off the stool. "Follow me."

He led the way towards one of the many doors. Inside was a room decorated with a table, a few chairs and nothing else.

"Wait here," said the goblin before leaving them alone.

The next minutes flashed by with Taylor examining everything in her range. Some strange centipedes-like crawlers that ate rocks. A type of worm that melted through stones, gnats and others. She also kept an eye on the goblin, having placed a fly on the back of his clothes to follow him around. He went to what looked like an archive, pulling parchment and reading things, while yelling at other goblins and giving orders.

About ten minutes later, he was back, carrying a parchment sheet and a bag of coins.

"Here you have it."

Mum took both and nodded to the goblin. "Thank you. Can you tell me what the current value of the coins are?"

"Eighteen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-eight Knuts to a Sickle."

Mum nodded her head. "Thank you."

There was silence for a moment with mum staring down the goblin. Taylor imagined sparks flying out of their eyes and meeting into a fearsome battle between both. Sadly, that didn't happen. The goblin let out a derisive snort, turned around and left the room without another word.

"Goblins." She heard her mother mutter.

Taylor had, for a brief moment, imagined that she was a daughter of some long forgotten magical noble, now back to claim her fortune and fame. The truth was less grandiose than that. The vault's contents weren't anything to sneeze at, but it also wasn't the fortune that stories were made of.

Mum let Taylor see the scribbled parchment. It had taken some effort to understand goblin scrawls, but she managed it in the end.

Nine thousand, two hundred and seventy nine galleons, two thousand, five hundred and three sickles, three hundred and thirty three knuts, already including the bank operational fee. A collection of memorabilia that, according to the goblin's report (if not exactly in those words), was worth less than dirt and a waste of space.

Taylor peered at the parchment, confused. "Why is it described like that?"

Annette shook her head, rolling her eyes. "Goblins only recognize value if it can be weighed or sold. The items inside the vault were things that had emotional value to us. With the war escalating, your dad didn't want to lose his precious football card collection."

Taylor noted her mum's tactful phrasing regarding goblins. It was a nice tidbit to know for the future.

With the matters at the bank settled, it was time to shop and purchase her school year supplies. Taylor wanted to go buy books first, but her mother had other ideas.

"A wand first, then a trunk."

 

[okashihime]

"Curious, very curious indeed." Said the strange man, ripping the piece of wood from Taylor's hand before she could even shake the thing like he'd asked her to.

Taylor was starting to feel disgruntled as well as uncomfortable.

Mister Ollivander looked at Taylor like she was some interesting science experiment that had wandered into his shop. He'd been offering pieces of wood — or wands like he called them — and asking her to 'try it', whatever that meant. It started as something fun and new but had become an annoying chore. Taylor had lost count of how many sticks she'd shaken.

She wasn't the only one getting impatient.

There was a crowd waiting for their turn with the wandmaker. Parents and children filling the cramped store and staring daggers at Taylor and Annette, each getting more and more impatient with each stick Taylor failed to shake to the man's approval. She was tired of hearing the descriptions of the sticks: Ash, Birch, Aspen, Holly, Willow. Nine inches, twelve, eleven and a half. Flexible, brittle, bendy or stiff, with a core made of unicorn hairs, dragon heartstrings, phoenix feathers. It didn't matter the combination he presented, none seemed to satisfy him.

"You're a most difficult one," Ollivander said, after staring unblinkingly at Taylor for what felt like five minutes. "Maybe…" the man muttered, walking inside the shop, but instead of rummaging through the rows and rows of boxes, he went to what looked like a workshop of some sort. From there, he pulled a different box. It was older, the top almost completely full of dust.

He returned shortly, staring intently at Taylor. He opened the box, presenting the stick inside. This time he didn't describe what it was made of.

Taylor looked inside the box.

The wand inside looked like nothing more than a branch from some unknown tree. Unlike the other wands that were decorated and had a clear handle, this one didn't have one, which cemented the normal branch vibe. With a shrug, she picked up the stick.

The first indication that something had changed was the blinding pain in her head. Taylor bit back a gasp and then noticed that every bug in her range had stopped. It was just a blip before Taylor forced them to act normally, but it happened. The second was that her range grew. She wasn't sure how much, but there were so many new bugs in her perception that it explained the headache.

"Blackthorn, rigid, thirteen inches long. Acromantula hair core."

Taylor was vaguely aware of whispering from the crowd behind her, but her attention was divided among the many new bugs and senses and eyes.

"I never thought this wand would find its match," Ollivander said, unaware Taylor's mind was lost in the sudden flood of new information. "It was an experiment by my father, more than half a century ago."

Ollivander blabbed on about the wood quality, Blackthorn, and how it defined the wand, how his father had made only one successful wand with acromantula hair, how he'd expected new and surprising things from wand and wielder. He talked like the wand was a living thing.

Taylor barely heard it, amidst the pounding in her head.

Annette, however, was up to task. She paid for the wand, twelve galleons, almost double the usual price, thanked the man, apologized for the waiting crowd, then led Taylor away.

It didn't take long until she got used to the new range of senses. It took less time to realise she was sitting down on a bench, leaning against her mum, a melting chocolate treat in hand and a gentle hand caressing her hair.

"Are you better? Do you want to go home?" Mum asked, looking into Taylor's eyes.

A small shake of the head, and a bit of effort of will to ignore sensory overload, a few seconds to lick the melty chocolate from her fingers and Taylor was ready to get back to shopping. There was no way she was leaving this place without getting some books. All of them if possible.

"I'm fine," Taylor lied, ignoring another spike of pain. "Talk about it at home?"

Annette inspected Taylor's eyes for a long moment before nodding. "Alright."

From there, things moved fast. Their next purchase was a school trunk. Mum paid a premium for that one, a magical trunk that could fit more than it should. It was second hand, but it looked well kept and usable.

Trunk secured, Taylor tried to drag her mum into the bookstore, but Annette had other priorities. First were the school supplies. Cauldron (not the self-cleaning one), glass phials, telescope, brass scales. Ready for the bookstore, Taylor whined when they spent the next two hours fitting and adjusting for school robes, gloves and winter cloak. She was sure they were ready for the books when mum dragged her to the pet store.

"Why?" Taylor whined harder.

Mum rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. "You need an owl, little owl. Otherwise, how are you going to send me letters?"

Giving up on convincing her mom as a bad job, Taylor looked forward to getting a new pet. There were several types of owls to pick from. Some exotic, others that looked pretty with their fluffy white feathers. There was one that looked startled, with feathers that looked like horns. Others that looked like they didn't want anything with Taylor at all. Most of the birds turned away from Taylor or tried to peck her fingers when she got close.

The only one that didn't was an owl that looked like it was a sleepy one. Face flat and eyes half closed, feathers white and brown. Taylor knew all about owls, having been called little owl by her mum for as long as she could remember. The sleepy bird was a barn owl, one of the most common species out there. She extended her hand toward the bird, fully expecting it to peck her fingers. Instead, the owl hooted, flapped its wings and landed on Taylor's head, where it nested and went back to sleep.

"I guess you finally found one," mum said from a few paces away, not even trying to suppress the mirth in her voice.

Taylor rolled her eyes. If the lazy bird wanted and could sleep on her head, that was fine. She had more important things to do, like visit the bookstore, like right now! She'd kept a few thousand bugs eyes in the place just to make sure the good books didn't disappear before she got there. The crowd of people surrounding the posh guy had diminished as the day progressed.

And then, finally, after getting a cage and food for her new pet, Taylor marched toward paradise.

The bookstore was everything she ever wanted and more. Books on magic, books about magic, story books about magic, research, gossip rags, teenager witch gossip magazines. She wanted them all.

"A firstie?" An amused voice called out from inside the store.

Taylor blinked owlishly in sync with the owl on her head.

"Right, of course you are." The man said with a smile. He turned about, bent down and then pulled up a stack of books. A quick glance was enough to see it was all the books in her school list.

Mum was already on it. She walked closer, smiling, asking for prices and more.

Taylor didn't pay attention to that, nor to the posh man dressed in aquamarine clothes who preened like a bird when the stack of books landed on the counter. No, Taylor had found the section with history of magic and other interesting books. She pulled on a trolley and started piling the goods. Mum could deal with payment. Taylor had waited and suffered this day long enough.

---

The spending spree had cost most of Taylor's money. It wasn't for a lack of want that she hadn't bought more books, but a lack of space. Even with an expanded trunk (mum was really the best for insisting on that one), there was no more space for more books. She considered getting a normal bag or something, or better yet, a second trunk for even more books, but mum put her foot down. They'd spent all but one galleon and a few sickles in their buying frenzy.

It was now late at night and Taylor was back in her pastel colored room, reading from the standard book of spells and waving her stick — wand, in the movements shown in the pictures and saying the words. It wasn't going well. The feather, an involuntary donation from Taylor's new pet, Nap, didn't budge an inch. Nap wasn't happy at all with all the noise and hand waving. She kept following the stick and hooting menacingly whenever the wand got closer.

"Wingardum Leveossa!" Taylor said, doing her best with the funny foreign words, sure that this time, the Feather would move.

It didn't.

It also didn't matter too much. Taylor had a whole month to practice magic and read her books about magic.

 

[okashihime]

Big blue eyes peered back from the mirror strapped to the wall.

Taylor didn't like mirrors. Every time she looked into one, there was a sense she wasn't who she was supposed to be. She kept expecting to see a wide, thin mouth, luxurious curly raven hair and expressive brown eyes. Instead, what always greeted her was the same old baby-blues and blonde curls.

Maybe the issues were the nightmares. Taylor had, since she could remember, these strange dreams where the brunette with the same bug powers as her did unspeakable things in the name of doing good.

But mirrors! A last check to make sure she hadn't smudged anything and she was ready, dressed in the silly black robes without the silly pointy hat.

"Taylor, sweetie, we're going to be late if we don't leave now."

Right, it was finally time for magic school! A month flew by in a blink of many eyes.

Much like her dreams of being some long lost secret daughter of magical emperor king, her dreams of mastering all the magic before school even started were thwarted by complications.

Complication one: Taylor's pronunciation was horrible. After suffering with the Wingardium Leviosa spell for a whole day, pronouncing the incantation wrong, mum took pity on her and helped with the words. It was one of those spells that were so commonplace that even she knew the words from hearing it from dad swishing the wand at home to move things without leaving the couch, the lazy bones.

Even with the correct words, Taylor got waylaid by another spell: Lumos. This one was simple and easy. Took about a day to master so she could keep trying her other spells under covers and pretend she was sleeping when mum told her to go to bed.

After Lumos, she finally managed a twitch of the feather with the levitation charm and having spent so long with those two (a whole two full days!), Taylor decided to take a break from spell-casting and check the other material.

She devoured the other course books, reading and re-reading things. When that wasn't enough, Taylor cheated. Her visit to the magic market presented her with an opportunity that she couldn't pass up. There were strange bugs and bug-like creatures that had sight and hearing almost as good as humans. So, of course Taylor nixed a few of them, hiding them under her clothes, among her hair and even inside the school trunk.

The rule about not bringing bugs into the house didn't apply in this case. She wasn't even sure these were bugs.

So, now, with the help of her helpers, a few books scattered open and tiny hands flipping pages, Taylor read, and read, and read. By reading, she finally found what her new pets were. Doxies and Pixies.

Doxies were the meanest of the bunch. Even under her absolute control, Taylor could feel their desire to bite and to eat and to tear. Their bites were nasty and the venom nastier still. Eight limbs into a tiny murder package was enough to spook Taylor into keeping just a single of the things. It was best not to risk it, after all. She named it Bity.

The other ones, her new favorite were the pixies or Cornish Pixies to be exact. They were a pretty shade of electric blue with pointed faces and shrill voices. They were bigger than the doxies. About eight inches which had made smuggling them from the alley hard. She managed only two. Dee and Dum. Contrary to the doxie, the pixies seemed to bask in her control. After a few days, Taylor released Dee from her control and instead of going rabid like she was expecting, Dee just flew and sat on Taylor's shoulder, looking at everything like it was seeing it for the first time.

With her new helpers, Taylor could read books all day long. Even when watching the telly with mom, or cooking, or talking or using the loo.

Bity, Dee and Dum were more than happy to eat bugs which made them easy to keep around fed and content, or less murderous, in Bity's case.

Complication two: Taylor read each book at least thrice, expending more time than was actually helpful on Lockhart's books. Those were amazing fantasies, but they weren't instruction books, just pure fantasy. That left her confused on why a magic school required fantasy literature, but maybe she was missing something cultural here.

Regarding spells, she mastered four of the charms in her book. Lumos and Nox. Wingardium and Reparo. Reparo hadn't been something Taylor was planning to learn so soon, but going around the house fixing small things and making mum smile was more than worth the whole week of practice it took to fully master it.

Clad in school robes sans pointy hat (that one was a bit too much), Taylor skipped down the stairs, illegal friends hiding under the folds of her robes.

Mum was waiting by the door, Nap napping in her cage, trunk packed and ready.

"Do you remember the rules?" Mum asked before they could leave the house.

Taylor rolled her eyes. "Yes, mum." If her voice came out whiny, it wasn't her fault.

Mum shook her head, kneeling in front of Taylor.

"I won't be there if anything happens, little owl."

"But mum!"

"No buts." Mum said in a mock stern voice. "Now, recite them to me."

Taylor huffed, but did as asked.

"Never let anyone know about my superpower, not even best friends."

Mum was already nodding, but Taylor didn't agree with this one, not anymore. It made sense when she was the only one with magic out there, but now there was a whole new community of magicals, there was no need for secrets anymore.

"But mum, we don't need to hide anymore. There's magic out there!"

Mum's look was complicated. She shook her head.

"You are special, little owl, and the things you can do. No one likes to have their secrets spied on. Letting people know what you can do will only cause trouble."

"But mum!"

"No buts." Mum said. "What is the next rule?"

Taylor stomped her feet but complied. "No spying on friends and family."

Mum smiled and kissed the top of Taylor's head. Taylor, of course, pretended she didn't like it, squirming (not too hard) under her grasp.

"What's the next one?"

"No setting my bugs on bullies, even if they deserve it."

"And why is that?" mum asked, eyes piercing.

Taylor squirmed for real now. She looked at anything but her mum. "We don't want another ant incident," she mumbled.

Gentle arms wrapped around Taylor. "I'll miss you, sweetie."

Taylor buried her face on her mother's clothes and mumbled. "I can stay if you want."

Even with her eyes hidden, Taylor could hear the smile on mum's voice. "None of that. You go and make friends and have fun. If you miss me, you can always have Nap deliver letters."

Taylor nodded. They stayed like that for a few more moments, before mum broke the hug.

"Off we go, or we'll miss the train."

---

Platform 9 ¾ had been a mystery mum refused to spill. Taylor had never heard of a platform number in fraction, so magic shenanigans were certain.

Mum, that traitor, watched bemused while Taylor gawked. It hadn't been hard to figure out the secret. A fly in each person around, and when groups of people started disappearing for no reason, she led mum toward the spot in question.

What Taylor hadn't expected was to see madmen running toward a wall and just… vanishing. Like magic.

"That's it?" Taylor asked, still not believing it.

All around, normal people busied by with their normal lives, no one even glancing at the people-swallowing-wall.

"How?" She blurted out.

Mum's voice was deep and full of mirth. "Magic!"

"Mum!"

Annette laughed. A few passersby looked in their direction, but soon lost interest.

"Well, what are we waiting for? It is just a wall."

Mum was having far too much fun with this, but Taylor wasn't going to back down because of a wall. She girded her loins, prepared for battle, made sure her stowaways were secure, and pushed the trolley forward. She kept her eyes wide open, certain something bad would happen.

It didn't.

Taylor passed through the wall and on the other side was a whole new station. A marvelous red train sat on the tracks. Gentle white smoke poured out. The platform was abuzz with kids and parents and official looking people walking about. There were children inside the train, waving to their parents from the windows, there were children crying in their parents' robes: some because they were leaving for school, others because they weren't.

"It's magical, isn't it?"

Mum looked as awed as Taylor felt.

"Let's go find you a seat. I doubt you'll be able to manage your trunk alone."

Taylor nodded absentmindedly, following her mum into the train and to the first free compartment they found. She noticed that not everyone had come dressed in school robes. The ones that did, Taylor guessed, were children of magicals. They had the look and attitude. Those dressed in casual clothes were most likely those like her, who lived away from Magical Britain.

Inside the train compartment, trunk safely stowed away, and Nap napping on her favorite spot, Taylor felt hands holding her into another gentle hug.

"You have fun and make friends, alright?"

Taylor nodded. She couldn't speak even if she wanted to. Her throat felt full and her eyes stung. It was only when the door opened that Taylor managed to regain her balance. "Love you, mum." She whispered, wiping her eyes. There was some dust here and it kept entering her eyes. So unfair.

Mum kissed her forehead again, gave her one last hug and then left, after nodding toward the newcomer.

The interloper was a blonde girl with protuberant silvery eyes that followed Taylor's mum until she was out of sight.

"I like your mum," the girl said in a dreamy voice, eyes like she was looking into faraway distance. "She's nice."

Taylor smiled. She didn't even notice she was doing it. "She's the nicest."

Blondie turned back to Taylor, smiling dreamily. "Hullo. I'm Luna."

 

[okashihime]

"Daddy wants to go looking for the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, but he'd been very busy trying to uncover a new ministry conspiracy."

Taylor nodded, absorbed in the tidbits. Luna was awesome. It was like they were friends that saw each other everyday. She talked about her life, her home, the conspiracies. She had a different outlook on things, so unlike the stuffy view Taylor was starting to take for granted from the many books and magicals she met along the way.

A few moments before the train departed, a young redhead pushed the door open and stomped inside. Carelessly, she pushed the trunk in, stared at the sleeping owl for a few moments before she gave a curt nod toward Taylor, a stiff 'hullo Luna' to which Luna answered with 'Hi Ginny'

Ginny then sat, just not for long. She looked like she didn't fit in her skin and kept looking over the compartment door and windows, moving about with frantic energy.

Conversation about conspiracies and magical creatures continued, but Ginny didn't seem enthused by the topic, even though she wasn't participating. Something that Luna also noticed.

"What's wrong, Ginny?"

Ginny scowled, arms crossed. "Harry Potter didn't board the train!"

It took Taylor just a few moments to place the name. It featured prominently in the modern magic history books: The hero magic-baby who defeated the Dark Lord.

Luna nodded. "Did he run away?"

"No!" Ginny shouted, then pouted. "He was just behind us on the platform, but he didn't follow us through the wall and mom couldn't go back to see what happened."

"It's alright," Luna said in her dreamy voice. "He can always send an owl to the school."

Ginny looked startled, like the option hadn't even crossed her mind. She took a deep breath, then nodded, turned to Taylor and smiled. It looked just a tad forced.

"Hullo, I'm Ginny Weasley."

Taylor smiled back and offered her hand. "I'm Taylor."

Ginny took the offered hand, shook it, but she looked distracted.

"Right," she said, getting up and power walking toward the door. "I'll be right back."

Luna smiled, and Taylor nodded again, numbly. Her eyes followed Ginny's path inside the crowded corridors with a small fly she'd smuggled on the faded sweater Ginny wore.

"You can see through walls." Luna remarked, having followed Taylor's eyes while Taylor followed Ginny.

Taylor's head whipped around sharply, staring wide eyed at Luna.

Luna leaned forward, patting Taylor gently on the hand. "Don't worry. Your secret is safe with me."

Unsure how to respond, Taylor said the first thing that came to mind. "Thank… you?"

"You're welcome!"

The silence, uncomfortable on Taylor's side, stretched for what felt like forever, but wasn't more than a few moments. A part of her mind kept track of her quarry: Ginny pushed past older teenagers until she met with an older boy also sporting a mane full of red. Ginny gesticulated wildly, and the boy nodded dismissively. Scowling and muttering under her breath, Ginny ran back and toward another compartment. This one had several teens talking, but more importantly, twins sporting a familiar brand of red hair.

They seemed more interested in what Ginny had to say, but not enough to appease the hellion.

Meanwhile, Luna had picked up a magazine from somewhere. It was named 'The Quibbler'. This wasn't one Taylor had seen when going on her shopping spree, but she also hadn't had time to scour the whole bookstore. At first she thought it was a gossip magazine or something, but a better look at the cover put that to rest.

Ministry of Magic: Are They Putting Wrackspurts In The Floo Network?

That headline was very sus in Taylor's opinion, but she wasn't going to dismiss anything just because it sounded silly. The world was magic, and things she didn't know were one and many. But still, she ventured a question to her possible new friend and confidant.

"Floo network?"

That naive question led into more and more theories about the ministry, invisible creatures that crowded the brain and magic-fireplace-fueled travels. Taylor lapped it all up, avidly.

When Ginny returned — still looking anxious and frantic — Taylor had moved to sit beside Luna and both were reading from The Quibbler, with Luna pointing out the facts on the front page news.

"—and so, daddy could only conclude that the ministry is intentionally letting wrackspurts infest the network to keep wizardkind pliable to be taken advantage of by the brewing conspiracy."

The rest of the train trip went on like that. Ginny would sometimes give out her opinion on things, mostly opposed Luna's own brand of wisdom, but didn't really join the conversation. She was too worried about this Harry Potter boy to pay attention to 'loony theories'. Taylor would have felt offended with that if Luna hadn't just smiled her dreamy smile and nodded along.

The discussion was interrupted at some point by a portly witch pushing a trolley cart about. With the remainder of her money (one galleon and a few sickles), Taylor bought everything she could. Chocolate Frogs, Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, Cauldron Cakes, Pumpkin Pasties, Licorice Wands, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Peppermint Toads and more.

"Every flavour?" Taylor asked between fighting with the leaping chocolate frog and eyeing the bean in Luna's hand.

In lieu of answering, Luna popped the bean into her mouth, chewed, and nodded. "Ear wax. Not my favorite."

Nap decided, with the peppermint toads, it was time to wake up and eat. She made a mess of the treat ("Nap! No! Get back here!"), then promptly went straight back to sleep, this time on Luna's head.

Taylor, after much deliberation, decided to risk one of the beans. She picked a nice reddish coloured one. That should be safe, right? A moment later, she popped the bean. It tasted like beef. Very rare.

There was a moment of silence with both Ginny and Luna waiting and watching.

Taylor bolted toward the bathroom. Very rare beef didn't agree with chocolate frogs leftovers.

Luna watched her go with serene curiosity while Ginny looked equal parts sympathetic and vindicated about not eating any beans herself.

The rest of the eight hour train journey passed with just a few more disruptions. The Weasley twins came to check on their baby sister, much to Ginny's displeasure. There were a few other children popping about from time to time and asking questions, but it was just the excitement of magic school clouding children's behaviour.

Distracted by her new friend, Taylor barely kept an eye on the others inside the train.

Outside the window, darkness had fallen. The landscape had grown wilder and less familiar, and Taylor's bugs were picking up creatures she'd never encountered before as they moved north. Conversation died down naturally, until an older student popped by the compartment ("Yes, I'm Percy. I'm a Prefect, didn't you see my badge? You should listen to me. Don't roll your eyes at me, Ginny."), to inform them about the arrival, to put pets in the cages and get dressed into the school robes. There was no need to take the luggage or pets when leaving the train. Someone else will take care of it.

Nap went into her cage, while Ginny and Luna donned the school robes.

"Which house do you reckon you're going to? I'm a Gryffindor. My whole family was."

Luna nodded.

"I'd be a great snake. Or maybe a majestic lion."

Ginny stopped and stared. "You? In Slytherin?"

Taylor held back on commenting. She knew the basics of the house system as explained in the book: Hogwarts: A History. In the book, it was described as a way to foster relationships between students and promote certain character traits.

Luna nodded again, smiling. "I'd be an amazing snake."

Ginny's question, as well as many other instances of house rivalry in the train that Taylor had kept a low-key awareness of said differently. The redhead didn't seem satisfied with Luna's answers. She turned to Taylor next.

"And you?"

Taylor shrugged. She knew she was special in some ways, even more than her magic, but she wasn't particularly brave, or cunning. Taylor liked books, but she wasn't driven by learning things, even if the past month may have said otherwise. She knew what she wanted: to make friends and have fun. That was Hufflepuff, right? "No idea. Any house should be fine."

"As long as it isn't Slytherin." Ginny said, nodding. "They are the house of evil wizards. Even Hufflepuff is better."

The train stopped and people crowded the station. It was a sight seeing all students dressed in matching robes with different colors. It became clear that each house had a different uniform. It also made it easier to spot the first years. They weren't just the smallest around. They were all dressed in black.

"Firs'-years! Firs'-years over here!" A giant of a man, and his big hairy face beamed over the sea of heads, waving toward the students. He carried a lit lamp in one hand. "C'mon, follow me – any more firs'-years? Mind yer step, now! Firs'-years follow me!"

Stumbling and holding for dear life on Luna's shoulder, Taylor followed the giant down a steep, narrow path. It was so dark that if it wasn't for her bugs, she wouldn't have even known there were towering trees around the path.

Nobody spoke much, following the giant in anticipation.

"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," The giant called over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend here."

There was a chorus of "Awwws" and "Ooohs".

The narrow path had opened suddenly on to the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Their guide called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Taylor got in, followed by Luna and Ginny.

"Everyone in?" Their guide had commandeered a boat for himself, "Right then – FORWARD!"

The fleet of boats glided across the dark lake waters. Everyone was silent, most still stunned from the sights of the castle. Taylor was picking many new interesting critters in her range. She wasn't aware her power could also work on sea life. There were a few types of crabs and other sea creatures her power was happily taking over. She froze for a moment, then, decidedly, made sure none of her new critters bothered the big scary tentacled giant squid lazily watching the boats go by.

"Mind yer heads!" yelled the giant when the first boats reached the cliff; they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy which hid a wide opening in the cliff face. The dark tunnel took them right underneath the castle, until they reached some kind of underground harbour, where students disembarked out onto rocks and pebbles. From there, they moved up a passageway in the rock, following the giant and his lamp to arrive onto smooth grass just beside the castle. Their guide moved toward a flight of stone steps, and had all the students crowd around a huge oak door.

With one last look around the many tiny kids, he nodded, then knocked three times on the castle doors.

 

[okashihime]

With the distraction provided by the castle and their guide, Taylor let her stowaways fly out from under her robes and into the dark of night. She'd find a place for them shortly, once she had settled down herself. Her trio of stowaways happily flitted outside toward one of the towers catching bugs and having a meal.

The door swung open and Professor McGonagall stood on the other side, watching with the same stern face from when she visited Taylor's house to deliver the letter.

"The firs'-years, Professor McGonagall," said the giant.

"Thank you, Hagrid. You did a good job, as always."

Hagrid smiled, and pulled the doors open. The Entrance Hall was big and proper fantasy-like. Flaming torches provided illumination from the walls, and the ceiling was too high to make out with her own eyes, a magnificent marble staircase led to the upper floors.

Professor McGonagall led the procession across the flagged stone floor. Taylor could hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right, but the Professor showed the kids into a small empty chamber off the hall. They crowded in, standing rather closer together and peering about. Some nervously, others excitedly.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall. "The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses."

From there, McGonagall explained the significance of the house system, what each house stood for and a brief explanation of the house cup, with successes being awarded and troublemakers punished and how that affected the whole house. It was the same information she'd read from Hogwarts: A History. Strangely, neither the book nor the professor explained how they'd be sorted into their house.

"I shall return when we are ready for you," said Professor McGonagall. "Please wait quietly."

She left the chamber. A murmur rose from the crowd of kids.

Ginny looked even more frantic than inside the train. Maybe she was still worried about the Harry boy, or maybe she was worried which house she'd be selected for, or maybe she desperately needed to visit the loo. Any of those looked possible.

Taylor paid only a smidge of attention to most of that; there was so much to see. The castle was majestic and gigantic. So many towers and nooks to explore. She wanted to be done with this sorting so she could go exploring. And because of that, Taylor added a new self-imposed rule: No using bugs to explore until she'd explored things herself. Bug vision wasn't the same as seeing things for the first time with her own eyes.

Ahead of the pack of children, a duo looked ready to tear into each other.

"Say that again?" A tall, dark skinned girl shouted, fists balled. She had a faint accent, like she'd grown up around people who hadn't mastered the language yet.

The boy in front of her had a mop of black hair, gelled into the perfect coif. His voice carried the same sneer as his expression.

"You should at least learn from your betters, instead of blundering around like a dying fish."

"And what is this?" said a sharp voice. "The Sorting Ceremony's about to start."

Professor McGonagall had returned. The brewing fight died under her stern glare.

'Form a line," she commanded, "and follow me."

With the bugs out of her mind, excitement bubbled into a crescendo. Taylor wanted to grab at Luna who was just in front of her in the line and talk about everything they saw and did up until now. There were so many things to talk about and to see and do.

The line walked out of the chamber, back across the main hall and through double doors leading into a great hall.

It was lit by thousands and thousands of candles floating in mid-air over four long tables, where the rest of the students sat. These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the Hall was another long table where the teachers sat. Professor McGonagall led the first-years up here, so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind them. Dotted here and there among the students, ghosts shone misty silver.

Taylor held back a squeal. Real life ghosts!

It was one thing reading about the great hall and its enchanted ceiling and ghosts in the book, it was another to experience it by herself. This only cemented her new rule. No spoiling the surprises with bugs.

Professor McGonagall placed a four-legged stool in front of the children. On top of the stool she put a pointed wizard's hat. This hat was patched, frayed, and looked dirty. Strangely, there wasn't a single bug there.

Stranger still, the hat moved and began to sing.



Come gather round, new students all, And hear me sing within this hall, For though I'm old and worn and frayed, I'll sort you well, don't be afraid.

In Gryffindor, the brave make home, Where lions roar and heroes roam, With nerve and daring, bold and true, Red and gold will welcome you.

In Hufflepuff, the loyal stay, Where patience guides you every day, With honest heart and steady hand, The badger builds on solid land.

In Ravenclaw, the curious find, A home for every seeking mind, Where wit and wisdom light the way, Through every night and every day.

In Slytherin, ambition grows, Where cunning water twists and flows, With purpose sharp and vision clear, The serpent knows what it holds dear.

Four houses built by founders four, Who stood together, nothing more, So heed this well in your days: A castle stands united always.



It bowed to each of the four tables and then went still again.

The students in the tables yelled and hooted and applauded.

Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said. "Adeyemi, Nneka!'

Coincidentally, the first name called was of the dark skinned girl. She didn't look angry anymore, but nervous and anxious. Adeyemi nodded, then power walked and sat heavily on the stool.

McGonagall placed the hat on her head, and a few seconds later, the hat yelled: "GRYFFINDOR!" And as soon as it did, Adeyemi's robes changed. Where they were all black, now it was decorated with red and gold, like all other Gryffindor students.

Magic was so cool!

The loudest table cheered and clapped. Taylor noticed that among them, the redheaded twins were the loudest, shouting and hooting about 'first pick' or something.

"Ashworth, Tobias" McGonagall called another name. The boy who answered was clearly someone from a magical family. He didn't seem as anxious as the others and his robes looked extra, even if they didn't look any different from Taylor's own.

The hat deliberated longer this time, almost one minute before it shouted: "SLYTHERIN!"

On and on the names went. Taylor couldn't see any reason why kids were sorted in the houses they were sorted into. For a moment, she thought that kids from old magical families would tend for Slytherin, but that didn't hold true when another posh, arrogant looking boy got sorted in Hufflepuff instead.

In what felt like no time at all and forever at once, it was her turn. "Hebert, Taylor."

Taylor took a deep breath. Ginny smiled, and Luna nodded encouragingly. Keeping her head high, she marched forward and sat on the stool. Not a moment later, the brim of the old hat covered most of her head and eyes. Despite how old it looked, it smelled fresh.

'What do we have here?' A voice spoke inside her head. 'Very loyal, I see and—' then the voice cut off abruptly and her power shifted in a way that it had never before.

Taylor waited, and waited, and waited some more. Murmurs rose from the tables, and not knowing what to do, Taylor fidgeted. Time crawled and the hat kept mum, not calling any house name at all.

Had she broken the hat, somehow? McGonagall seemed to think something was wrong as well, because she leaned forward and whispered a question.

"Is everything alright, Miss Hebert?"

Taylor used her hand to push the brim of the hat up and free her eyes. She looked at the professor and whispered back: "I don't know. The hat started speaking, then stopped."

McGonagall nodded, but didn't seem worried. "Very well."

Taylor hadn't told the woman about other the thing that might be a problem and the reason why she thought she had broken the hat: Her control over bugs and other magical creatures felt different somehow after putting the hat on. Before it was like her power was barely awake and sometimes taking interest in new things, and now it felt… different, alert.

Taylor released the hat, blocking her from seeing the murmuring kids. She'd consider the implications about that later. For now, she focused on Dee and Dum and Bity to make sure her power was still working like it always did.

They were now flitting near the biggest tower in the castle. There were slits in the walls that could serve as temporary housing until she found someplace better. She did her best to keep their eyes focused on the tower and the stone and avoid looking around.

No spoiling was her new rule.

She'd just finished arranging nests when the hat spoke again.

'You'd be a perfect Hufflepuff. You'd make friends, and earn their loyalty and be loyal in return. You, however, aren't alone in here. So it better be…' "RAVENCLAW!" The last bit was yelled for everyone in the great hall.

Taylor plucked the hat out of her head and thrust it toward McGonagall. The professor took it with a nod and a smile, and Taylor walked toward the second table from the left. Her robes had changd as well, now, instead of black they were midnight blue and bronze. Conversation died and applause started slowly, before picking up. Older students welcomed Taylor to their table, nodding, offering waves or smiles.

From the Gryffindor table, she heard the twins crying that they didn't get the hatstall, whatever that meant.

The rest of the sorting passed quickly. There was no other delay like her own sorting. Luna ended up in Ravenclaw as well, for which Taylor was more than grateful for. Ginny, as predicted, went to Gryffindor. The applause and cheering among the Gryffindors was astounding. Even Hufflepuff and a few Ravenclaws cheered. The Weasleys seemed to be very well liked.

After every kid was sorted, the tall old wizard at the head of the professor's table stood. That one had to be Albus Dumbledore, he even matched the pictures in the books. He beamed at the students, his arms opened wide, as if this was the happiest day of his life.

"Welcome!" he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts!" He looked directly at Taylor, eyes twinkling. "And we're delayed enough, let our banquet begin!"

He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered.

Between one breath and the next, the dishes on the table were now piled with food: steak and kidney pie, shepherd's pie, toad in the hole, kedgeree, gammon, braised lamb shanks, poached salmon, bubble and squeak, mushy peas, buttered leeks, creamed spinach, pickled red cabbage, cauliflower cheese, parsnips, swede mash, runner beans, crusty bloomer loaves, baps, suet dumplings, piccalilli, brown sauce, mint sauce, horseradish, and a pot of something that smelled strongly of cloves but Taylor couldn't name it.

Taylor looked around, amazed, before piling her plate with food and digging in. By her side, Luna was doing the same, but for some reason, she started with the mint sauce.

 

[okashihime]

The feast was stupendous and the food divine. Taylor ate until a single more bite would make her explode like a surprise pinãta. She pushed her plates away, regretting her life choices. Sneakily, she pocketed a few bits to feed her friends.

That was when the food disappeared and the desserts took their places.

There was a loud cheer around the room.

Taylor slumped and let out a muffled groan-slash-sob.

By her side, Luna had an understanding look in her eyes. She patted Taylor's hand gently, then dove in to eat the desserts Taylor couldn't physically eat. She did the next best thing: she paid attention to every micro expression and noise coming out of her friend. Luna bit on an exquisite small tart and let out a happy thrill. Eating desserts vicariously through others was a valid strategy, right?

When the feast ended, the Headmaster stood once more, with the new school year announcements. He probably spoke of many important things, but leaden by food and sleep, Taylor barely heard any. The only thing she took from the whole speech was there was a new defense against the dark arts professor, Gilderoy Lockhart. It took longer than Taylor would ever admit to place the name. She'd read his books thrice, they were amazing fantasy.

Then the welcoming feast was over and older students began moving and guiding the first years towards their common rooms. Their guide this time was a blonde witch with straight hair. Her name was Penelope Clearwater, or Penny if the name sounded too long.

Taylor shambled after Penny doing her best to pay attention to the directions. Her attention was stretched thin. Between the food induced sleepiness, the many moving pictures and stairs, the corridors with full suits of armors and more things to see and explore than Taylor could shake her stick at, it felt like a blink of an eye and they were in front of a door without a doorknob or keyhole.

"To enter, you have to answer a riddle," Penny was saying.

The bronze eagle on the door moved, and from its beak a voice came. "I have cities, but no houses live there. I have mountains, but no trees grow there. I have water, but no fish swim there. I have roads, but no cars travel there. What am I?"

"A map," Penny said without wasting a moment.

The door opened and on the other side was a wide, circular room with graceful arched windows that punctuated the walls which were hung with blue and bronze silks and a midnight blue carpet covered in stars, which was reflected onto the domed ceiling. The room was furnished with blue tables, chairs, and a divan. Next to the door leading up stood a tall statue of a woman made of white marble.

The gaggle of kids trailed inside after the prefect. She pointed at the marble statue first. "That's Rowena Ravenclaw, our house founder." Without waiting, Penny led them towards the door and the stairs leading up. "Boys on the left, girls on the right." She said pointing at the bifurcated passage at the top of the stairs. "Boys aren't allowed on girl's dorms. Do not try it."

Too tired to argue, Taylor followed Luna into a room with four other beds.

The four-poster beds were covered in sky blue silk on platforms and the sound of the wind whistling around the windows was very relaxing. A wall was decorated with the Ravenclaw crest and the windows had blue curtains. There was also a desk and a shelf for books. On the floor in the center of the room was a carpet, also decorated with Ravenclaw's eagle.

Taylor found her bed easily enough. Her trunk was by the bed, but more importantly, Nap was already clawing at the bars of her cage. She hadn't realised it before but the cage seemed awfully small for her pet.

"Here girl," Taylor said, throwing the door open and letting the owl squeeze out. Nap hadn't had time to make her displeasure known when Taylor presented the bird with offerings. That appeased the feathery royalty. She let out a contented hoot, flapped her wings and settled on Taylor's head.

On the other side of the room girls watched all of that in bemused silence. Luna was nodding sagely, and deftly offering her own tributes. Of the other dorm mates, one had long luxurious black hair and brown eyes. She pulled something out of her pockets and offered it too. Her name was Mira something. Taylor couldn't quite remember from the sorting.

The other one, a brunette with a pixie cut, was staring wide-eyed at Nap. "That's…"

Taylor nodded, proud of her owl. "That's Nap, she's a sweetheart."

The fourth girl gulped audibly. Her eyes were still fixed on the owl. "What species is she?"

Taylor tilted her head, looking with narrowed eyes at the fourth girl. She remembered the name now. Harriet Vane. She wondered if that name was because of the magic-baby hero or something. "She's just a barn owl."

"That isn't—" Harriet started, then Luna slapped a hand over her mouth.

"It's just a barn owl," she said dreamily.

There was a hushed discussion among her three dorm mates. Taylor sneaked her way toward the windows and discreetly distributed the rest of the food for her other pets.

She got out of her school robes and into her pj's. Unrepentantly, they were still pink, still care bears. A quick visit to the bathroom to brush her teeth and empty her bladder, she was ready for bed. Only, she couldn't go to sleep yet.

The others had already settled down to sleep. With the help of a faint lumos charm, Taylor picked up a sheet of white paper and a pencil from her trunk. She sat at the desk, then related all the day's events in a letter to her mum: the castle, the boat, the train, the new friends and all the gossip she heard. It ended up being a full seven pages long. All the excitement of the day and night had put away thoughts of home, but here and now, she never felt more alone. That might have coloured her letter just a little, not to mention the smudge over a few of the lines. There was some infiltration in the room; someone should really look into that.

The others were already asleep when Taylor finished. She took Nap from the spot on her head and offered the sealed envelope.

"That's for mum. Can you deliver it for me?" she whispered to the owl, "I know it's late and you're probably tired, but it would mean a lot to me."

Nap hooted, grabbed the envelope in her beak. Taylor walked to the windows and cracked one open. Nap flapped her wings and flew away. She watched the owl disappear in the distance, then crawled into bed.

Sleep, however, wouldn't come.

The more time passed, the more she missed home and mum. She didn't remember a time she slept this far from her mum. There weren't any sleepovers with friends at school, or pajama parties she'd ever been invited to.

Taylor stuffed her face onto the pillow, trying to muffle sobs that wouldn't stop. She didn't notice the intruder until the bed creaked and gentle arms wrapped around her from behind.

"It's okay. I know." Luna's voice was like an eerie whisper in her ears.

Taylor grabbed at the arms around her, sniffled again and tried to shut up. It didn't work that well, but at some point, she fell asleep.

---

That night, Taylor dreamed of the Brunette again. She was dressed in her strangely fitting dark grey clothes — black widow spider-silk a part of her mind whispered — holding a strange futuristic spear that buzzed at the pointy end. Around her, the city was in ruins. Nearby some sort of bunker was partially flooded, with people scrambling and yelling and dying in agonizing ways. The brunette stood drenched, her curly black hair plastered over her masked face, yellow lenses creepy in the gloom. A creature of legends and hell stood in front of her. It was taller than a building, four asymmetric eyes in a noseless and mouthless face. It was picking its way around the few survivors of the bunker, killing indiscriminately. Taylor poked the monster at the base of the tail with her futuristic spear.

She woke up gasping in pain and trapped under unfamiliar arms.

There was a moment of building terror, then she remembered. Hogwarts, the dormitory, Luna.

Taylor must've turned during the night, because she was facing her friend. The blonde blinked one sleepy silvery eye open.

"It's alright. It's only dreams."

Taylor's throat bobbed, but she couldn't find the words. What did Luna know? Had she said anything while sleeping?

Luna didn't elaborate, and Taylor was too scared to ask.

Morning routine pushed any awkwardness out of the way. In what felt like no time at all, Taylor was dressed in her school robes (the other two sets had changed colors as well), and followed the crowd back towards the main hall for breakfast.

The great hall ceiling was cloudy today and the tables were laden with tureens of porridge, plates of keepers, mountains of toast and dishes of eggs and bacon.

Taylor sat again near Luna. Having learned from the night prior, she ate moderately. Mid breakfast, she had her first dose of Wizarding mail. A trove of owls, Nap included, barged onto the great hall from the windows; each flew toward a student.

Nap flew straight to Taylor, flapping her big wings to arrest momentum. She landed on Taylor's head, and dropped a letter on her lap. It was from her mum. She'd just put the letter inside the pockets of her vest, planning to read it later in the privacy of her room, when, from the Gryffindor's table, a strident voice, loud enough to shake the plates and dislodge dust from the invisible ceiling, blared out.

"… STEALING THE CAR, I WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN SURPRISED IF THEY'D EXPELLED YOU…"

The voice, Taylor could even imagine the owner, a matronly witch, went on and on.

"… DIDN'T BRING YOU UP LIKE THIS, YOU AND HARRY COULD BOTH HAVE DIED…"

Taylor blinked owlish in sync with Nap, craning her neck to look at the Gryffindor table. There was another redheaded Weasley, sitting near a dark haired boy and a bushy haired brunette. Even from a distance, Taylor could see Ginny staring intently at the boy with green eyes and strange scar in the forehead. That was, without a doubt, the magic-baby-hero Harry. It was nice to put faces to names.

From the sounds of the yelling (a howler, Luna happily supplied), Harry hadn't sent an owl to school but decided to steal a magic car and fly it when they missed the train. On the one hand, that was stupid. On the other, Taylor felt cheated for not being able to do the same. Invisible flying cars, she wanted one. It made sense why he didn't go with the boring choice of telling the adults. Flying cars were a lot more wicked.

To make sure she didn't miss anything, Taylor decided to tag the group with a few flies each. She offered a few treats to Nap, who happily gobbled them up, then nestled comfortably still on top of her head.

Among all the excitement, a small man with a luxurious mustache and carefully coiffed hair distributed class schedules. The man reminded her of a goblin, but she kept that one to herself, she wasn't sure if it was normal to point that out.

The small man, Professor Flitwick, as it turned out, was the head of Ravenclaw house. He greeted all of the new students personally. He already knew all the names. He taught charms and seemed static to start teaching them.

After breakfast, she looked at her schedule. Her first class was potions somewhere in the dungeons. It was still half an hour away, but Taylor had no idea where the classroom was.

"We should go," she said to Luna. "It's better to be early than late."

Luna smiled and nodded. "Potions! Do you think the professor will teach us how to cheat death?"

Taylor shrugged. A quick glance at the professor's table let her see the dour looking man with greasy hair and black robes. He didn't seem like someone to be messed with.

"Maybe," Taylor said, dragging Luna with her to grab school supplies and then search for the classroom.

 

[okashihime]

Stairs. It was still the morning of the first day and Taylor was starting to despise them.

According to Hogwarts: A History, there were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: Wide, sweeping, narrow, moving, disappearing, rickety. Some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up.

And Taylor was starting to hate every single one of them.

She arrived in Ravenclaw's tower breathless and sweating. Luna was kind enough to supply the password, because Taylor was too busy breathing sweet oxygen. But there wasn't time to dawdle. The return to the dorms took longer than expected on account of getting lost half a dozen times.

They had ten minutes to find the dungeons, and somehow she didn't think it would be enough.

As it turned out, they weren't the only ones lost. Near the great hall, and five minutes away from the start of class, Penny came to rescue, literally. She was leading a group of wide-eyed first years. Most were of Ravenclaw, but there were also a few dressed in yellow and black; Hufflepuff colors.

Taylor joined the crowd. Security in numbers as they say. If they arrived late, it'd be most of the class and the professor would probably take pity on them, right?

As it also turned out, they didn't need to test the professor's pity. Penny knew shortcuts and pathways that avoided most of the pitfalls Taylor and Luna suffered in their journey away from the Great Hall. It took only three minutes at a brisk jog to arrive at the classroom. The gaggle of students filed inside, with Penny greeting everyone and even high-fiving a few others.

It was colder there than up in the main castle and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls.

Mira and Harriet were already inside, sitting together in one of the many double tables. Taylor claimed a table for her own and Luna sat with her.

Penny, and most of the other students, sent strange glances toward Taylor, but whatever it was they found interesting, no one seemed willing to bring it up.

A low murmur of excited whispers filled the room. Taylor managed to get her breathing under control and wipe the sweat away from her forehead. She still felt icky under the robes and tired from running all the way across half the castle to reach the classroom, but she'd done it. She was proud of it.

The potions professor swept into the room with a dramatic swish of his black robes. It felt like he just appeared out of nowhere, but he had walked from a small door near the teacher's desk. The classroom door banged close, conversation died, and without even glancing at the students, the professor took the register.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making," he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but every word was clearly audible in the graveyard silence that had fallen over the class. He had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many—" he'd been sweeping his eyes over the children and stopped when on Taylor.

His face turned into a sneer, and he glided closer, looming over her.

"What is this?" The professor hissed.

Taylor opened her mouth, but was unsure what he was talking about. Across the room a few students sniggered. Luna was looking valiantly ahead.

"You think this class is a joke?" His disdain was almost palpable. "Ten points from Ravenclaw," he hissed on her face.

There were gasps from the children around. Some from hufflepuff looked amused, while others looked spooked. Ravenclaw kids were a mixed bag. A few looked sympathetic, but others looked angry: At her for losing points or at Snape for being a jerk, she wasn't sure.

It was so unfair. Taylor's mood turned, she hadn't even done anything. Her nostrils flared and she had to hold back some nasty words and more than a few nasty bugs.

From the top of her head, Nap hooted menacingly, spreading her wings, and all blood drained from Taylor's face.

"Get rid of it," the potions professor demanded.

"She's not an it," Taylor said before her brain could process the words.

"It is what I say it is."

"Then you're wrong." Taylor's voice was flat and unyielding.

"Detention," it was another hiss that silenced the murmuring kids.

Taylor scowled, prepared to defend herself, to argue, or do something. A gentle squeeze from Luna calmed her down.

Perhaps satisfied over his victory, or deemed it below his attention, the professor finished the introductory speech for the class. Taylor was too annoyed to really pay attention. It really wasn't fair.

"Hebert!" Professor Snape barked. "What is the precise effect of adding bundimun secretion to a base of boomslang skin, and why would any competent brewer never do so?"

Taken by surprise, Taylor took too long to think of an answer. It wasn't anything that had been explained in the potions manual (she'd really read it thrice), but she could connect the dots. One would dissolve the other and most likely cause an explosion.

She opened her mouth.

"You don't know, eh?" Snape mocked. "Name the ingredient that distinguishes a Calming Draught from a Draught of Peace, and explain why substituting one for the other would be catastrophic."

That one was another question that hadn't been explicit on the manual. It was just a guess, but the peace draught had a warning about it affecting the brain and the syrup of hellebore would make the effect stronger, and that could be fatal.

"Syr—" She started to say, but Snape interrupted once more, the sneer never leaving his face.

"Since someone thought they didn't need to read the books before classes started, I'll give you an easy one. What is the function of a bezoar and from which animal is it typically harvested?"

Poisons and the stomach of a goat. The answer popped up in her head fast and easy, but she could see in his eyes that he wouldn't let her answer. Taylor scowled and crossed her arms.

"Five points from Ravenclaw," he said. "Bundimun secretion is a powerful magical corrosive that eats through organic matter. Boomslang skin is a potent magical conductor used in transformation potions. Combining them creates an accelerating volatile reaction activating its magical properties unpredictably, risking an explosion or uncontrolled transfiguration effect on whoever is nearest."

He paced around the room.

"The distinguishing ingredient which appears in the Draught of Peace but not the Calming Draught is the syrup of hellebore. Substituting it incorrectly would matter because the Draught of Peace affects the nervous system at a deeper level. Getting the concentration wrong, or using it in the wrong base, risks sending the drinker into a permanent stupor rather than simply calming them."

Snape had returned to the front of the class, staring at the silent students along his beaked nose.

"A bezoar is a stone found in the stomach of a goat. It acts as an antidote to most poisons."

There was a moment of silence.

"Why aren't any of you writing that down?"

Things didn't improve after that. Snape grouped the students that weren't already sitting in pairs and ordered them to mix a simple potion to cure boils. He offered no explanation, no commentary on ingredients, no dos and don'ts, nothing at all.

Taylor pushed the broiling anger away from her chest. A quick check with the book, and a small discussion with Luna, they set to gather the ingredients from the cabinet, and prepare the potion. They divided the work thusly: Taylor would work the ingredients, making sure everything was in order according to the book and keeping the timings, while Luna did the actual mixing.

Meanwhile, the professor swept around in his long black cloak, looming over students, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticising everyone. The words were harsh, unkind and more than one student burst into tears. Thankfully, Taylor didn't gather any additional attention from the professor, although the way he belittled every student only made her angrier.

Luna and Taylor's plan worked surprisingly well. There was one hairy moment when Taylor almost forgot to pull the cauldron out of the fire: her spy bugs on Hero-Harry and his gang had all died suddenly in one of the greenhouses, and the spike of pain in her head before the bugs died made her wince. Across the castle on the same side as the greenhouses, every bug she could feel picked up the echo of something screeching. Distracted by that ongoing development, Taylor missed the timing to remove the cauldron from the fire, but Luna picked up the slack, plucking the cauldron and its boiling soup away and tossing inside the last ingredient. Their potion ended up being almost exactly as described in the book.

Still, that didn't seem to please the potions master.

When the class ended, the man vanished every potion with disparaging comments of "rubbish, waste" and those were the kind ones. No one, Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff, managed to craft a potion to his standards. There were more than a few sniffles from the kids, most coming from the other Ravenclaw girls and a few of the hufflepuff students.

Taylor packed her parchment, quills, gloves, cauldron and marched out of the room. Or tried to. Snape was there to block her on the way out.

"You'll serve your detention at eight o'clock tonight, in my office." His voice was the same carrying whisper from the start of the day. "And if you ever think of bringing it again to my class, don't even bother showing up."

She left without answering.

Outside, her dorm-mates waited.

"He's worse than a strigoi," Mira said as soon as they were clear of the dungeons and far enough away that Snape wouldn't hear. Her voice had an odd accent. Clearly she wasn't from around here, but Taylor couldn't place the accent.

"He doesn't know how to teach," Harriet agreed. "I think he's the worst professor I ever had, and I went to muggle school."

"He's a bully," Taylor grumbled.

"Maybe he's lonely and sad?" Luna offered in her same dreamy voice.

Four pairs of eyes looked at her. Taylor walked closer and gave Luna a one armed hug, to which Luna leaned into. Mira looked unbothered and Harriet looked uncomfortable. Nap flapped her wings and nested on Luna's head.

After potions, they had history of magic. It was another class Taylor was excited about. She'd heard during breakfast it was taught by a ghost. There were so many things she wanted to ask them. The dourness from potions class chipped away with the growing excitement.

---

History of Magic class had been a disaster. In some ways, worse even than Snape's class. At least in potions class there was a practical segment. Professor Binns droned on in the most boring voice ever. Worse yet, he recited directly from the book. It was a waste of time. Taylor could read by herself just fine. Thankfully the ghost didn't seem to mind Nap attending class too, or maybe he hadn't even seen her.

Ten minutes into the class and Taylor had conked out. She had more interesting things to do than listen to a ghost drone on about something she already knew.

For the remainder of the History of Magic class free period, Taylor worked with Dum, and co. The first thing she did was migrate their temporary nest from the previous tower to Ravenclaw's tower where her dorm was. Easy access to her friends was paramount. She set them to create a nest under the conical cap of the tower. From what she could see, there wasn't any easier way to get there, the only hatch was locked and hidden in the ceiling of the room below, tucked under the decoration. The place was perfect. Large, out of the way, and a breeding ground for spiders, and now pixies.

The nest reconstruction finished at the same time Binns finished his boring regurgitation. For a moment, Taylor wanted to unleash her power, all at once. There were a lot of more classes happening at the same time, and here she was, stuck in a classroom wasting time. She pushed those urges away, filing it away for consideration later in the day. She liked the idea of listening ahead in classes, but she'd have to be smart about it.

Students filed out of the room and towards the great hall. This Wednesday morning had gone long enough and it was finally lunch time.

Taylor sat in the great hall adding food to her plate, still looking unhappy with the classes. It was a magic school. Why were the professors doing their best to kill all the magic?

"We have Charms with Gryffindor in the afternoon," Luna consoled.

Taylor bit into her food with more gusto than was necessary. One could only hope Luna was right.

 

[okashihime]

Taylor offered tribute to the feathery Royalty on her head, soon followed by more treats from Luna, Mira and a reluctant Harriet. It soon became apparent that magic school had a higher tolerance for the strange. Other kids from Ravenclaw also offered their tribute, all which Nap gobbled happily. Nap thrilled and even flapped her wings in what Taylor thought might be appreciation, although she'd have to be careful with that much food or Nap might get fat.

The image of a fat bird trying to fly and flailing miserably sent her into fits of giggles.

Pocket full of smuggled food, Taylor returned to the dorms to leave her potion and history supplies and get things for the charms class. She also took the opportunity to feed the workforce. Bity had started to buckle against her control wanting to take a bite out of Dum. Best nip that in the bud.

With her new nest and hive set up, Taylor started to migrate what she thought were useful bugs to the tower. There were many types of spiders and other critters she wanted some time alone with to examine and see what they were and could do.

Taylor tried to set up her expectations for the class with a very low bar, but didn't manage to control her excitement. There were so many cool charms in the book and the chance to learn them properly pushed away all the morning sourness. The brief contact she had with their professor in the morning was enough to at least hope the class would be magical, no pun intended.

Unlike potions class, charms wasn't difficult to find at all. It was close to the Ravenclaw tower, a corridor away from the tower entrance. That made things a lot easier.

The charms classroom was bigger when compared to Potions. There were rows of double tables spaced around, memorabilia piled against the walls, shelves filled with books and even more books piled where the teacher's desk should have been. It was vibrant and whimsical. It also had a warm, slightly cluttered academic feel, with bookshelves, candles, and various objects around.

Taylor approved of the place. What would she find among that many books? Secrets? Interesting stories? Mind bending forbidden truths?

They weren't the first to arrive: a group of Gryffindors were in the classroom already. Of the half dozen, two garnered Taylor's attention.

The first one was Ginny. She was smiling and gesticulating in broad movements; she fit very well in the gold and red colors. The second was a blond boy with shining blue eyes and an a wide, expressive mouth. He was carrying an old camera with a big flash unit attached to the side. The boy was taking pictures of everything.

Ginny made a beeline for them as soon as she saw them.

"Good afternoon, Ginny." Luna greeted.

"Would you believe it?" Ginny said in lieu of greeting. "My stupid brother convinced Harry to steal dad's car so they could come to Hogwarts. Doesn't Ron know that Harry could've gotten hurt? Or worse, expelled? What was he thinking?" She went on and on about her complaints. Clearly, she was still obsessed with the Potter boy, and maybe a tad fed up with her brother.

More students trickled in and in no time at all, the room was packed with bright eyed children.

Like the potions classroom, the charms professor office was near the 'teacher's desk'. Unlike Snape, Flitwick didn't swish dark robes or spoke like a brooding vampire, he hopped onto the pile of books, smiling.

"Welcome, welcome to charms class! Charms is the oldest branch of magic we know of. Long before potions, long before transfiguration, witches and wizards were charming things. A charm is an act of will made real. When you cast your first successful charm, you won't just be moving a feather or lighting a candle, you'll be doing what every witch and wizard before you has done, back further than memory goes.

"Some of you will find charms come naturally. Some of you will struggle at first. Both are perfectly fine. What matters in this classroom is not talent, talent is an accident of birth. What matters is practice, attention, and a willingness to make mistakes in front of others. I have been teaching for many years and I still learn something new every term. Magic rewards the curious.

"Now! I know some of you have already had a difficult morning." He beamed at them. "Charms class will be different. In this room, we celebrate mistakes because mistakes mean you are trying. The only thing I ask is that you pay attention, ask questions, and never — never — be afraid to say you don't understand. Are we agreed? Wonderful. Let's begin with a practical demonstration!"

The professor swished his wand ("Here it comes!"), and out of nowhere, there was a perch in the middle of the classroom. Another swish ("Up, up!") and the perch levitated away from the ground, gently moving toward Taylor. There was a third swish ("And down!") and the perch was by her table.

Taylor had stopped paying attention to the professor to watch the magic, and found it surprising that the man was now standing on her desk.

"You're magnificent, aren't you?" He said, offering Nap a treat. "But dear, you can't sleep on her head all the time, she's going to get neck pains when you're done growing up."

Nap somehow seemed to understand Flitwick; she hooted back.

"Yes, I know it is the most comfortable perch, but just a little while, let her rest while in class?"

Nap hooted again, flapped her wings and landed on the perch.

Taylor was left wondering what the heck had happened.

Class was magical in the best sense of the word. Flitwick was attentive, didn't mind questions and even encouraged active discussion and working together among students. Instead of starting with theory, Flitwick immediately had them learn their first charms spell.

"The levitation charm," he said, swishing his wand slowly and pronouncing the words very clearly.

"Wing-gar-dium Levi-O-sa"

Taylor realised then that she hadn't mastered the spell at all. Her levitation was barely passable when compared to the professor. Her wand work was sloppy, her pronunciation atrocious. It was a miracle the spell worked at all. A wide smile crept into her face without her even noticing it. Yes, this was a proper magic class.

"Now you try it!" Flitwick encouraged.

All around, wands waved, some forcefully, others sloppily. A few shouted, others whispered. Taylor pushed all that out of her head. There was no need to see how others were doing. She knew the spell, she could already cast it, now she just needed to perfect it. She visualized the wand movement, comparing what the professor had done and her own shoddy wand-waving. She repeated that until they looked like they matched. Then she whispered the words, putting the right emphasis on each correct syllable.

"Wingardium Leviosa," she whispered together with the improved wand movement.

The feather rose and rose, stopping where she wanted it to stop. It didn't bob and wobble like her levitation usually did.

"Marvelous!" Flitwick called out. "An almost perfect first try! Ten points to Ravenclaw!"

All around, students gawked. By her side Luna had a blinding smile. Ginny looked happy too, while Gryffindor 'first pick' Nneka Adeyemi kept switching between her own unmoving feather and Taylor's floating one. The blond boy with the camera, for some reason, snapped a shot, leaving Taylor almost blind with the flash of light.

A warm something bubbled inside her chest. It was almost enough to make up for the disaster that was the morning classes. Almost.

Among the renewed flurry of wand swishing and shouts, Luna's soft whispers landed on Taylor's ears. "Show me how you did it."

Taylor looked at her earnest friend's eyes and nodded, thinking the best way to explain her process. Which she did to the best of her knowledge.

Luna nodded along the entire explanation, the smile never leaving her face. "Very categorising of you," she said when Taylor finished explaining her visualization, how she saw each movement, and how she pushed into the words what she wanted the spell to do. It was, in the end, a cribbed explanation she'd read in the magical theory course book.

Her friend tried a few times, with each attempt, the feather remained unmoving and the frown on Luna's face grew.

"That won't do," said Luna at last. Then she swished her wand in a way that just vaguely resembled the wand movement, and chanted the spell like she was singing a song. The feather wobbled, rose an inch, then fell down again.

"How?" Taylor asked in disbelief.

Luna smiled serenely, "I asked the shimmerlings to help!"

---

By the end of class, Taylor had improved her wand-waving and pronunciation to the point Flitwick awarded her five more points for going the extra effort. Luna had also improved, even if somehow, it didn't look like her spell should work. Most of the students managed to levitate the feather in some capacity, with the ones that didn't being the ones which Flitwick encouraged and cheered the most.

Homework was to read the introductory chapters of magical theory, which would be the subject of the next class on Friday. For those who couldn't perform the levitation charm, extra practice was also added as homework since they would need to demonstrate the spell again on the next class.

Once class was over, they had a free period in the afternoon, but Taylor had a few other things to take care of: Namely, talk with the professor.

"Miss Hebert! Good gracious, that was some inspired spell casting! Where did you learn that?"

Taylor blushed a pretty shade of red. It was too much to think the professor wouldn't know she practiced ahead. "Practiced at home," she mumbled. "mum helped."

"Ah, but isn't your mother a muggle?"

Taylor nodded. "She remembered hearing the words from dad."

Flitwick's exuberance diminished a little. He nodded sadly. "Daniel, poor boy. It was a shame what happened."

But Taylor didn't want to talk about her dead dad she never met. She wanted to talk about classes and horrid professors.

"Professor, since you are the head of Ravenclaw house, I want to make a formal complaint."

Flitwick blinked, then nodded seriously. "Go on," he urged gently.

"Professor Snape is a bully, he shouldn't be teaching us. He's a horrid man and hasn't said a single kind word to any of us and he keeps insulting the other students all the time. You said mistakes are fine, but Snape took points for one and even called Pippa Rosewood names."

Flitwick blinked. Taylor wasn't sure if that was because it was news to him or because it surprised him to hear her say it.

"History of Magic is a waste of time. It was only the first lesson, but Professor Binns did nothing but read directly from the book. Not even asking questions about it helped, he just read again from the book to answer."

"I was expecting you to complain about the detention, or the lost points." Flitwick said, sounding distracted.

Taylor shrugged. After suffering through the first potions class, she could understand why Snape didn't want Nap inside his classroom, she even agreed in principle. She hadn't known owls weren't allowed and he could have just told her so instead of… that, but arguing with bullies after didn't help. Mum had told her many times, and she'd seen it first hand. No, what she wanted was a real potions professor who was willing to teach his students, instead of bullying them.

"I'll inform the headmaster," The charms professor said and Taylor took that as the dismissal it was.

Outside charms, Luna and Nap were still waiting.

"Did it go well?" Luna asked.

Taylor smiled. "I think so."

Luna fell into step beside Taylor, humming a song Taylor had never heard before. "What now?"

They had a free period and then dinner. Later that day Taylor had her detention and at midnight, her first Astronomy class, not to mention reading her mum's letter and writing back. The night didn't have enough hours, but she had a few hours to finally explore the magic castle.

"Now," Taylor said, not hiding the glee in her voice, "now we explore!"

She laughed out loud, maybe a tad maniacally, given how other students looked in her direction. It was all good though. It was a magic school, being a little strange was the norm.

 

[okashihime]

The corridors of Hogwarts had a way of rearranging themselves when you weren't looking, but having learned her lesson, Taylor moved through them with the confidence of someone who wasn't getting lost. And she wouldn't because she was cheating, with a bug trail.

Her explorations efforts had a method to the madness: she'd read enough about the castle in Hogwarts: A History to have a vague feeling on how things worked. She also had a gamut of knowledge on how magic was supposed to work from the many fantasy books she read before magic school became real. So, when she rounded a corner and found a suit of armor standing sentinel beside a tapestry, she stopped, planted her feet, and informed it in a clear, level voice that she would accept its challenge to single combat if it had one to offer, but in return, she wanted whatever secret it was guarding. The armor did not respond. Taylor took this as a sign of respect or that it didn't have any secret to lose and moved on. Luna trailed a half-step behind her, humming, occasionally reaching up to pat the wall as though encouraging it.

"This one's sulking," Luna observed, gazing at the armor ahead. "They do that in the autumn."

Taylor nodded as if that made sense, which to her it more or less did. There was no reason to discount Luna's opinion on things.

The portraits came next, a long gallery of them, and Taylor stopped at every third one to introduce herself and ask whether they had any quests, warnings, or cryptic advice to dispense. Most of the painted figures looked affronted, before pretending to be asleep. One stout wizard in plum robes told her to push off. By the time they reached the third floor she had verbally extended a tea-party invitation to two passing ghosts (one accepted; the other drifted through a wall mid-sentence, which Taylor decided was a polite decline), arranged an alliance to trade castle secrets with a portrait of a sleeping knight, and declared a particular staircase 'trustworthy' after watching it for nearly a full minute.

Luna found all of that perfectly reasonable, and said so after Taylor maybe forth sneaky glance to see her reaction to her antics. It was exactly the kind of solidarity Taylor had been hoping for in a friend. She was pretty sure Luna wouldn't judge if she found Taylor playing with bugs. Luna wasn't like the others.

Taylor afternoon of exploration ended up, maybe, with more adventure than she had been expecting. It started with ghosts, or a ghost (she'd later realise it was a poltergeist).

She had led Luna in a meandering path around the castle poking her nose into every interesting thing she could find. She offered more duels to suits of armors (none accepted), had chats with chatty portraits, and sneaked around nosy students. Up fascinating stairs and down curved corridors the duo went. Their destination was a classroom, with the posh looking wizard from the books, second year students, including Harry and his gang, and Cornish Pixies.

A lot of havoc wreaking pixes.

Taylor had noticed the cluster earlier in the day, but unwilling to spoil the surprise, made sure she wasn't paying attention to them. Knowing she'd have time later in the day to explore, it seemed a good opportunity inspect possible friends and see more of the castle.

The pixies, for their part, were having the time of their lives. A clot of electric-blue bodies zipped through the air, upending inkwells, knotting the curtains, and, with what Taylor could only interpret as real glee, suspending a very dignified-looking boy from a chandelier by the hood of his robes.

To anyone else it was a disaster.

And disaster invited more disaster.

Someone cackled, high, wheedling, delighted and unheard in the chaos of the classroom, and a squat ghost in a violently orange bowtie came corkscrewing down through the ceiling. The ghost took one look at the two first-years lurking in the corridor and peeking inside the classroom, clasped his hands together, and beamed the grin of a creature who had just been handed a present it did not have to wait for.

Taylor smelled the bully from a mile away, even if it was a dead bully. Still, she decided to try diplomacy first: She gave him a small, courteous nod, grabbed Luna's hand and without turning her back on the ghost, retreated.

That appeared to disappoint him, by the frown on his face. He followed them, going through walls and ceilings and paintings.

"Ickle firsties! What are you doing sneaking around?"

Luna waved at the ghost. "We're exploring! And you?"

The ghost's face split into a grin of the wicked and damned.

"No." Taylor said with all the conviction she could muster, even though she knew what came next.

The ghost only smiled wider. Then even more chaos ensued.

In the blink of an eye, he had messed up the whole corridor: the portraits were dangling, the hall was full of dust and dirt, the decoration scattered and broken, glass windows shattered and doors cast ajar.

"STUDENTS VANDALISING THE SCHOOL!" He bellowed. "STUDENTS DESTROYING THE CASTLE DOWN THE DEFENSE CORRIDOR!"

Taylor didn't wait to see what would happen, she ran, dragging Luna with her. Behind them, the ghost kept bellowing. She broke her own rule, watching from every single bug nearby for any place to hide or incoming pursuers, and not a moment too soon. Barreling from a nearby passage, came an old man preceded by his cat. She had heard of him during the lunch break, Argus Filch, the caretaker(who hated students more than Snape and doled out punishments like they were candies), and his cat, Mrs. Norris.

Getting caught was out of the question. She didn't want a second detention on the second day of school.

Filch stopped at the devastated corridor, his face split into a snarl. Mrs. Norris dashed the same way they had ran to, and Filch came hot in her wake.

They fled blindly across corridors, through doors with Taylor doing her best to avoid any other student, but Mrs. Norris wasn't making it easy to escape: the damned cat had a preternatural ability to follow them around.

Filch was gaining on them fast; and on the other side of the corridor just past the bend, waiting behind a wall and barely out of sight was the same ghost that started all this mess. They were out of options. Taylor was getting desperate.

She stopped at a stretch of blank wall. There was a passage behind it; she could feel the bugs nestled in the dark on the other side, but no matter how she pressed and prodded she couldn't find the seam, the catch, the trick of it.

"Open," she told it, shoving at the stone. "Open Sesame. Open, please!"

The wall did nothing.

"Help me look," she said to Luna, who began patting the stone with the serene diligence of someone soothing a nervous animal.

Mrs. Norris rounded the corner behind them.

Taylor grabbed Luna's hand and whisper-yelled "Run!", then sent a knot of flies straight up Mrs. Norris's nose and into her eyes. The cat yowled, crashed against the wall and stop chasing them. With one of her bigger bugs, a fat spider tucked into the room where the ghost lay waiting, and a few other fliers, she nudged a shard of pottery off the windowsill. It tumbled and shattered. The ghost spun toward the crash, and in the half-second his back was turned, Taylor and Luna bolted past.

They kept running until panting breaths turned into giggles then into laughter. They ran until they couldn't anymore. Taylor lay splayed on the blessedly cool floor, gasping and laughing. Luna had a special smile of her own.

"That was…" Luna started.

"Amazing!" Taylor laughed harder. "We should do that again!"

A quick look around to see where they'd ended up revealed some sort of trophy room. Curiosity prickling at the back of her mind, Taylor got up, checking the awards and old plaques.

Dumbledore had a slew of awards accredited to his name: Barnabus Finkley Prize for Exceptional Spell-Casting, Gold Medal for Ground-Breaking Contribution to the International Alchemical Conference, Order of Merlin, First Class, among many others. McGonagall had awards too: Transfiguration Today Most Promising Newcomer, Head Girl. A Tom Riddle also contributed to the line up: Special Award for Services to the School, Medal for Magical Merit, Head Boy; what an overachiever.

Along the lines of Quidditch awards, a Jonathan Bubbly won The "Dangerous" Dai Commemorative Medal. A Charlie Weasley had a Star Seeker award, while a James Potter, a star Chaser.

Another Weasley, Bill, was a Head Boy.

Of the newest awards, some were credited to Gilderoy Lockhart: Order of Merlin, Third Class, and Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile five times. What did a charming smile have to do with spell-casting and teaching she didn't know, but an Order of Merlin seemed important enough.

What she didn't find was any award or trophy to any Daniel Hebert. It was to be expected. He went and died.

Taylor didn't notice Luna until she was by her side. Thankfully, she didn't ask questions.

"It's almost time for dinner." Taylor said, still looking at the awards.

"I hope there are peppermint humbugs today."

Taylor snorted.

---

While everyone was distracted eating dinner, Taylor had Dee and Dum sneak into the classroom with the trapped pixies and unlock the cage. It took a bit of finagling to unlock the cage, and if it wasn't for the absolute control of her power, the pixies would have wreaked even more havoc. They were nothing like Dee and Dum: they were wild and chaotic, and ready to cause mayhem. Instead, she guided them out and around corners, away from prying eyes and toward the nest.

The growing number of bugs in her hideout was shaping up nicely. There were twenty-seven different species of spiders, twenty-one different fliers, as well as a huge variety of crawlers and creepies.

After dinner, she bade farewell to her dorm-mates and marched toward punishment, but she was intercepted in the common room, by Penny again.

"Hebert," she said in greeting.

"Penny," Taylor nodded back.

"Professor Flitwick is going to administer your detention instead of Professor Snape. He's waiting for you in the charms classroom."

"Thank you," she said, unsure why things changed.

Penny gave her a playful shove, then returned to mingle with the older students.

Flitwick was waiting for her when she got there.

"Miss Hebert! Good on you for joining me!" He waved her inside, and purposefully toppled a stack of books. "Oh my, the room is a mess!"

Taylor stared at the professor, who winked at her.

"Well, go on and organize it. You may return to your quarters once you're done." And with that, he left, leaving Taylor on her own.

It took her about one minute to pile the books back again. Then she spent the next three and a half hours reading from every book she could grab. She even enlisted Dee and Dum's help. It was the best!

---

The night ended with a tired troupe of children marching down the Astronomy tower carrying telescopes and yawning. The lesson was fun. Watching and cataloguing the stars wasn't something Taylor had ever done, or thought she'd enjoy. It also helped that Luna had little stories and theories about each and every star in the sky. Taylor thought those were made up, but she didn't much care; they all sounded so interesting she wanted to hear more.

Very late in the night, while her dorm-mates were lost to Hypnos, Taylor finally grabbed her mum's letter and sat down to read it.

 

[okashihime]

I have up to chapter 43 (plus two interludes) written. I'll post more later.
If you don't mind leaving QQ, they are here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86524866/chapters/228938606

 

[okashihime]

My Little Owl.

I'm so glad you're having fun and making new friends.

Writing this letter, I won't deny I'm a little envious (in the best way) of all the magic. The train trip alone is something I wish I could have accompanied you on. You'll have to indulge your old mother and tell me everything!

Luna seems to be a lovely girl. I bet that she sees things differently from us, having grown with magic. Ginny sounds like she's a handful, but isn't she your age? She's too young to be worried about boys.

I don't want to scare you from making friends, but I hope you're careful with the ones you make. I know it can be lonely and it broke my heart seeing you all alone in school, but remember what happened last time. I do encourage you to try and be friends with Luna and Ginny, and if things don't work out, stay strong my Little Owl. You'll make many other friends. I know you will.

The castle, from what little you've described, seems the perfect place for adventures. Now, listen well: I'm in no way saying you should go exploring. You should not go trying to find magic and secrets and trouble. Wink wink.

The sorting ceremony reminds me of something I heard from your father once. He was sorted into Huff Poof, I think it was called. We do have a few of his old things from school days stashed in the basement. I can look for anything interesting if you want me to, or we can leave it until you are back from holidays.

And about holidays, it is early, but do invite any new friends you make to celebrate with us. I want to meet all of them (no matter how many).

I'll be waiting for your next letter.

Stay safe, my precious daughter, don't cause too much trouble, and have fun.

With love, always.

Mum.

---

Taylor held the letter to her chest, holding back the sobs. It was silly, mum hadn't even said anything that warranted this reaction, but Taylor couldn't help it. She missed mum. Ugh, what was she? Five years old?

She wiped the tears and snot, took deep shuddering breaths, then started composing her own letter.

Taylor wrote about breakfast, the howler, how she wanted an invisible flying magic car. She complained about Snape and Binns classes, and detention. She wrote about reporting the professor's behaviour to her head of house, and how magical his class was and the fifteen points she earned for being a hard worker. She also wrote about the afternoon adventures, the mad flight from Peeves and Filch, the trophy room, detention with Flitwick instead of Snape and how it wasn't detention at all. She wrote about watching the stars and wishing mum was there.

There might have been a few more tears.

The letter ended up nine full pages long. If things kept going like that, Taylor was going to need to write home for more paper, start using parchment, or find a spell to duplicate things. Those existed, right? She sealed the letter, and offered it along with a few treats to a very awake Nap.

"That's for mum again. Can you deliver it?"

The bird accepted the treat then the letter with a hoot.

Once Nap had flown away, Taylor crawled in bed. She was tired and hadn't the foggiest idea what time it was, but she didn't feel like sleeping. She felt like crying.

This time, she didn't miss the intruder and she hugged back as fiercely.

"It's okay. I know." Luna said again in a mirror of the previous night.

In the moments before she fell asleep, Taylor had a plan she was sure would work out. Her biggest issue with using her bugs around the castle was that she wanted to see and experience things by herself first, but she now also wanted to listen to the other classes and learn things ahead of time. The solution was so easy it almost smacked her in the face.

During breakfast, she was going to sneak a few bugs into every student and teacher's robes. Small, discreet ones that no one would notice. Hidden there, she wouldn't see anything, and with students going to the classroom, the concentration of bugs would be more than enough to listen, and later see, if she chose to. It was the perfect plan!

---

Taylor blinked and it was already time to wake up. She groaned, eyes crusty and mouth dry. Luna had already left and Mira and Harriet were trying, without much success, to whisper their conversation.

How much sleep had she got? Having a late night class one day, followed by classes in the morning after was madness.

She shambled out of bed and zombied through her morning ablutions and getting dressed. She followed the throng of students out of the dormitories to the Great Hall and sat at Ravenclaw's table, leaning against Luna with her eyes closed and trying not to fall asleep again.

"What's wrong with her?" A voice she didn't recognise whispered to someone nearby.

"Cried the whole night," another voice answered. By the accent, it was Mira.

Taylor wanted to complain, maybe defend herself, but Luna shushed the nearby people and patted her gently on the head. Taylor focused on her bugs and bugging everyone in the hall to avoid falling asleep.

Next time she opened her eyes, the great hall was almost empty and the food had vanished, aside from a small plate with eggs, sausages and toast. Nap was napping on Luna's head, and her friend held onto a white sealed envelope, which she handed over as soon as she noticed Taylor was awake. Taylor stowed her mum's letter with an embarrassed 'thank you, Luna' then turned to the breakfast and started digging in, still feeling way too tired.

"I wish there was coffee," she mumbled between bites. Taylor wasn't a coffee girl, having always preferred tea, but she heard about how it helped wake up on days like these.

"Why don't you ask?" Luna chirped.

Taylor craned her neck to look at her friend, then at the almost empty room. "Ask who?"

"The castle!"

Taylor huffed, but why not. She turned to the table at large, and fought on a blush. "Can I have a cup of coffee, please?"

She wasn't expecting anything. Her power did a small flip, not unlike someone blinking, and Taylor almost fell out of the bench when a steaming cup of coffee appeared near her food.

"What? How?"

Luna looked smug, but also surprised, while throwing a peppermint humbug into her mouth.

With narrowed eyes, Taylor took the cup and sipped from the black drink. And promptly spat out most of it. It was so bitter. How could people drink this stuff? She tried another sip, and the taste didn't improve, it got worse instead.

"Could I have some sugar and milk, please?" She asked again and this time wasn't surprised when her power reacted, and when a pitcher of milk and sugar cubes showed up.

Taylor added milk, then sugar, then a bit more sugar and only then decided the drink was drinkable. She didn't think she would be obsessing much over coffee, but maybe it would help with the sleepiness.

The coffee helped, the morning classes helped more.

The first one was Herbology with Slytherin. Professor Sprout was a dear and Taylor liked her instantly. She was the perfect mixture of approachable and eccentric grandmother that for a brief moment, Taylor regretted not being sorted into Hufflepuff. For this first lesson, they were working on preparing a mixture of soil that would be used on potted mandrakes by the older students.

Playing with dirt wasn't something she imagined doing in magic school, but Taylor enjoyed the work, even if it was messy.

What she didn't enjoy was the amount of whispering and conversation about her and Luna, and the bits of dung she had to pluck from her hair and Nap's feathers because of Slytherin students.

With the bugs she had sneaked and spread about everyone, she could feel and hear every student inside the greenhouse. The Slytherins were watching, gossiping, and tossing off-hand insults. They knew she'd complained about Snape to Flitwick, and now the whole house had decided she was enemy number one for some reason. There were whispers, hushed talks, even prank plans she'd been picking up from students in green.

That same boy who had almost picked a fight with Nneka before the sorting was now spreading rumors about her. None of them good, none of them true. Taylor hadn't badmouthed Snape, nor was she spreading rumors about the man. And no, she hadn't taken Nap to the class trying to sabotage the professor's potions, that was absurd.

Another duo, a Callum Finch and Isolde Blackthorn were the main culprits behind all the dung throwing.

Unfortunately, Taylor knew how this worked. She couldn't do anything about them because anything she said would be her words against the whole Slytherin house. Still, she'd have to think of a way to discourage them or it would only get worse.

Instead of putting out with gossipers and rumormongers, she delved into the bugs she had spread among the castle student population. There were many other classes to listen to and absolutely no need to pay attention to what was happening in herbology class. Only, it felt like a third of the castle was talking about her. Everyone seemed to know she called out Snape on his bullshit and got out of detention without any real punishment. Older students seemed too busy to pay attention to the happenings of the first year, but younger ones buzzed with gossip. Hufflepuffs students were ambivalent about the whole thing, most of them seemed glad that at least someone decided to say something about Snape even if the other first years still looked scared of the man.

Gryffindors, on the other hand, had decided Taylor was an honorary member for the sheer gall of facing the brooding vampire. Many, very loudly, also declared they'd visit her funeral and shed tears in her honor.

Ravenclaws seemed on the fence about the whole thing with Snape, like they were waiting for the other shoe to drop, while Slytherins, well, the less said the better.

The spat with Snape wasn't the only rumor floating about: their adventure in the castle hadn't gone unnoticed. Some students believed they had trashed the corridor and hurt Mrs. Norris. Some commented on how peculiar (read: mental) Taylor and Luna's behaviour had been that afternoon.

That whole adventure had earned them a new nickname: Luna was now Loony Lovegood, and Taylor was Loony Two, or Loony Too, depending on who you asked.

It was annoying.

After herbology, their next class was transfiguration, this time with Gryffindor.

It was another magical class: Being able to transform into an animal, changing a desk into a pig and back again, and all the infinite possibilities. It was amazing, even if McGonagall was scary. Thankfully, the woman didn't seem to mind Nap's presence at all aside from a piercing glance.

Sadly, there was no grand spell being taught at the start of class: The professor explained the theory about the five aspects of a transfiguration spell (weight, viciousness, wand power, concentration, and an unknown variable), then she set them to try and change a matchstick into a needle.

As was becoming usual, Taylor sat with Luna. Mira and Harriet sat together a couple of tables away, and Ginny sat with Nneka.

Instead of trying it immediately, Taylor reviewed everything she knew about the subject and theory. According to the Magical Theory book, transfiguration benefited greatly from a good visualisation of the whole process. It wasn't enough to think the matchstick should be a needle, she needed to visualise the change happening at every step of the way.

She spent the better part of a quarter hour just looking at the matchstick and trying to see it change in her mind. Students around her were sending strange glances in her direction, but Taylor tried not to feel self conscious about it.

Nneka was the first to manage a small change to the matchstick, which earned her five points to Gryffindor. What Taylor didn't understand was why Nneka looked at her after getting the points and why she looked smug.

When Taylor decided she could see the whole transformation clearly in her mind, she finally tried the spell. And nothing happened.

That lit a fire in her tummy and Taylor went back to refining her visualisation. She'd get it right, it was only a matter of time.

By the time class ended, Taylor had made progress, her matchstick looked thinner and silvery, but nowhere near what a needle should be. That earned her, along with the whole class, extra homework in the form of more practice.

At lunch, Taylor learned the folly of bugging every student in the school. She wanted to scour her memory and douse her burning face in cold water. She made a mental note on her plan: Do not bug older students, just the classroom. It was safer that way. For the rest of the lunch she was too embarrassed to look anyone in the eyes, more so the 'late' older year lunch arrivals.

Afternoon class Defense Against the Dark Arts was something Taylor had been looking forward to. Lockhart was a famous wizard and had done a lot of things in his books. If he could teach them a fraction of all that, it would be perfect.

And it was another useless class.

The first part of the class was a quiz about the books. Fifty-four questions all centered on Lockhart that read more like gossip rags than magic instruction. The man even looked disappointed that most of the students didn't know his favorite colour.

Then, instead of teaching them magic, he decided to re-enact a scene from one of his books, enlisting students to play roles and do no magic at all. What a sham. Worse yet was the homework: A twenty inch long dissertation on Lockhart's adventures in Voyages with Vampires including explanations on how and why he did what he did.

Not an ounce of magic practice planned.

For the rest of the afternoon, Taylor was too busy with practicing her transfiguration and writing a History of Magic and Potions essay due in the next day to go exploring. That didn't prevent her from listening to everything around the school with bugs. She never had realised it before, but she could do so many things at the same time without any issue at all. So, a small part of her mind took care of writing the History of Magic essay, while another part listened to the other ongoing classes.

Sixth and Seventh year classes were a lot smaller than their early counterparts, with students from every house attending class together. Sixth year students were learning how to cast nonverbally. The theory about nonverbal casting sounded easy, but the hour and half that Taylor paid attention to that lesson, none of the students managed to do it.

Seventh years were talking about such advanced concepts that Taylor couldn't make heads or tails about anything at all.

Another part of her mind was paying attention to other subjects. From what she heard, those were electives starting at the third year:

Arithmancy, going by the explanation, was a mathematics based magic class about numerology and even predicting the future. It sounded interesting and the Professor sounded strict but not mean. It just looked like a difficult class. She'd need to go back to studying normal mathematics, if the numbers the woman was quoting was any indication, or maybe get a calculator. That'd help a lot.

Divination on the other hand looked silly. Looking into crystal balls, reading tea-leaves, interpreting dreams. Would that help her interpret the dreams about the other bug controller? It was something to keep in mind.

Muggle Studies was another that looked out of place and time. The professor was talking about things that were ancient by normal standards like they were commonplace. When was the last time the professor even left the magical world? And how can they misname firearms by calling them firelegs?

Study of Ancient Runes was another class that Taylor really wanted to participate in, but unless she got her own course books, it didn't look like she'd learn that much by spying with bugs. Most of the class work was trying to decipher, well, ancient runes, with the professor expounding on them from time to time. Absolutely fascinating.

The last class was one outside the range of her bugs. Care for Magical Creatures wasn't inside the castle and the bugs she sneaked on the students caught the conversation while they were going there, but not the class. The students in question would be helping with the thestrals, some sort of invisible skeletal horse.

After dinner, she huddled in one of the corners of the common room still working on homework. She had her new troupe of blue-flying-friends sneak into the charms classroom by one of the windows, light up a candle and picked up reading from where she had to stop the previous day.

 

[okashihime]

Taylor peeked around the common room, feeling a bit out of place. From what she could see, no one was saddled with homework. Even her dorm-mates were working mostly on transfiguration practice, instead of the History Essay due tomorrow morning. She wanted to ask how they managed to finish it that fast, but also didn't want to. It was a massive assignment and Taylor's hands were cramping from all the writing.

It was a shame she couldn't use proper paper and pen. It would have made this so much more easier.

With a final hand swish for the cramps, a yawn big enough that she could fit her own hand in her mouth, she focused on the last part of the damn essay.

On a nearby chair, Luna did one of her singy-songy chants and wavy wand-movement — nothing like what the book described or what McGonagall showed — and impossibly, the matchstick thinned and lost the wood texture, becoming silvery and very pointy.

Luna smiled blindly. Taylor wanted to shade her eyes to avoid losing her vision.

"History, huh?" Harriet asked, slumping onto a nearby chair.

A disgruntled grunt was Taylor's only response.

It took five more minutes until Taylor finished. She stretched, feeling her spine popping pleasantly. She'd need to do a last review, then she'd be ready to return to her transfiguration practice.

"Why not do it on the weekend?" Harriet said once Taylor started her review.

Taylor grunted again. She wanted to roll her eyes, but it was best to answer. "It's due tomorrow."

"No, it isn't."

Taylor stopped, and slowly, with narrowed eyes, glared at Harriet. "We have History of Magic tomorrow, and Professor Binns said it was due next class."

But Harriet was already shaking her head. "No we don't. Next History class is on Tuesday."

Taylor glared some more.

Harriet turned around and ruffled through a book. It didn't look like any of the class course books.

"Here," she said, handing over a table color coded with the weekly schedule.

Taylor read the thing, looked at Harriet who had an eyebrow raised, and looked at the huge essay that was supposed to be a weekend's worth of homework. Abruptly, she got up, which earned her a startle hoot from Nap and a snicker from Harriet. She grabbed her stuff, then marched toward her room.

It was a better place to hide so no one would see her burning face.

---

For the rest of the night, Taylor spent her time reading books in the charms classroom with the pixies while practicing the transfiguration spell hidden from the others. She still didn't remember where the idea that they had history on Fridays came from. It was also mostly her fault, because she hadn't checked the class schedule after receiving it from Flitwick.

Once she managed to put that blunder out of her mind, transfiguration practice was easy. It was like from one day to the other, things just clicked. She could visualise perfectly the matchstick changing into a needle, and even knew how to push that image into the spell.

She managed a perfect needle on the second try!

Practice after that turned into experimentation. Could she change the needle colour? Make it longer or shorter or transform into something else? The answer was yes, but also no. Trying to change the colour messed with the spell, but it might have been because she had trouble imagining coloured metals. In her mind, when trying to imagine a red needle, it was always a painted red metal and that didn't help with the transformation. Making it longer or shorter was easier, and she got the gist of it after a few tries. She tried out adding decoration to the needle, thinking about enchanted runes from those stories. It didn't work that well, it looked more like the needle had been half forged or something.

After being satisfied she wouldn't mess up the spell the next day, Taylor made sure there wasn't anyone in the room and grabbed her mum's letter.

It was another short one. Mum agreed with her decision to complain to the head of house, she even wanted to send a complaint herself if things didn't get better. Mum's reaction to her afternoon adventure was to take care not to hurt the cat, not a single word of condemnation. Taylor managed to go through the letter shedding just a few tears.

Taylor sat down on her desk and wrote another letter in response. She wrote about trying coffee in the morning and hating it, the new classes, the rumors, the gossip, the dung throwing. Taylor also whined about another useless professor with Lockhart, but she wasn't sure if she should also complain about him: She didn't want another Snape incident.

The full letter was only three pages long, which she considered an improvement. She sealed the envelope, handed it over to Nap along with a few treats. Once the bird had flown away, Taylor brushed her teeth, got into her pink pajamas, and crawled into bed. She still needed to think of a way to encourage the other students to, if not be friendly, at least ignore her instead of picking on her and Luna.

She hadn't finished planning how to address the situation when sleep claimed her.

---

Taylor dreamed about the other Taylor again. She was dressed in normal baggy clothes in muted colours. This dream, unlike the others, was of a normal day in school. By the looks of it, an American school. The class subject was with a professor that somehow made Taylor think of Lockhart. He was trying too hard to look good and smiled too much.

What she didn't miss was the rumors, or the pushing and shoving and elbow to the ribs when class ended.

She could feel the other Taylor in the dream holding back the insects from swarming the bullies and putting an end to it.

She woke up gasping, bugs and pixies and all manner of crawlies buzzing at the edges of her mind. It was almost like they wanted to swarm the school and do terrible, terrible things.

Was that some sort of prophetic dream? Right now, the talk about interpreting dreams in Divination class didn't seem that silly anymore. Was she supposed to endure the bullying and do nothing?

Taylor turned and realised she wasn't alone in bed. Luna had got in at some point. She was still asleep, but Taylor didn't miss Luna's pained expression and the tears in her eyes.

It dawned on her that she'd been a terrible friend. Too preoccupied with her own loneliness that she failed to notice Luna was also having her own problems. She hugged her friend close, feeling glad when, instead of pushing away, Luna nestled closer, her face losing the pained frown.

---

When morning arrived, Taylor gave a surprised Luna a big good morning hug, then scampered off to get ready for the day. Before leaving the dormitories, Taylor made sure to confirm the class schedule.

Flying lessons with Slytherin first thing in the morning, followed by Transfiguration with Gryffindor. After lunch, double potions with Hufflepuff.

The flying sounded amazing, the Slytherin presence not so much.

She ate a light meal (no coffee this time), then marched toward the flying lessons. She wasn't afraid of getting lost this time, because she'd seen the class the previous day while spying on the students.

Taylor learned that she and the broom were not friends. Much to her embarrassment and to Slytherins' delight, she was the last one to command her broom up. It was worse because dear, lovely Luna kept encouraging her and the broom to be friends. Taylor couldn't decide if she wanted to hug or clasp her hands over Luna's mouth.

If being the last wasn't bad enough, the broom didn't want to listen to her at all. Taylor had trouble getting off the ground, had trouble turning around, and had trouble returning to the ground. It was a mess, not helped by the constant booing and jeering from the audience in green.

The whole thing left Taylor confused, because she had dreams about flying a giant beetle sometimes. It was nothing like the dreams. In her dream, she could feel and control every minute gesture of the giant beetle, and things just didn't translate to broom flying.

The only good part of flying lessons was seeing the mouthy Slytherins having to fly with their mouths shut because they kept swallowing flies for some reason.

Some reason.

Things got better in transfiguration. The first thing McGonagall asked them was to demonstrate the spell. Taylor aced that one, along with most of the class. Feeling confident, Taylor displayed to the professor her extra training, changing the shape and size of the needle.

"Marvelous work, Miss Hebert," the strict professor said with a hint of a smile. "Five points to Ravenclaw."

She didn't miss the intense stare Nneka sent her way and the furious wand waving and whispered chanting. Taylor couldn't figure out what was wrong with the girl. Ginny on the other hand seemed distracted, not unlike Taylor had been in the morning of the previous day. Was she having trouble sleeping too?

McGonagall finished the class by assigning another mountain of homework. They were to study the theory behind the magic, write an essay, practice their transfiguration and prepare for the reverse spell: Transforming a needle into a matchstick.

Having learned her lesson the previous day, Taylor unbugged the older students once class was over, stashing the bugs inside the classroom and leaving teenagers to do whatever teenagers did unobserved. She wanted no part in any of that.

Her morning spying also had good results. By watching second and third year charms class, Taylor learned about two spells she decided were a must have as soon as possible. Second years, after reviewing the Levitation charm, were learning a disarming charm. The wand movement and chant didn't seem that complicated.

The class after that, the third year, was reviewing a cleaning charm. Taylor really wanted that one, and realised that bug vision wasn't going to help much. She decided to hide a few pixies in Charms and Transfiguration classroom at all times. They had better eyes and ears than bugs. She'd learn the spells better that way.

Not to waste time, Taylor gobbled her food, fled to her quarters and spent the rest of lunch waving her wand (a smooth, sinuous motion, like a letter S, the professor had said) and whispering the words.

Scourgify.

It took most of her free time until she saw some magic sparks. Taylor performed a victory dance, then grabbed her potions homework and supplies, made sure Nap was comfortable on her perch with enough food to last the day.

Nap didn't seem happy that Taylor was leaving her behind. She hooted in what Taylor imagined was a angry hoot.

"I know," Taylor said pretending she knew what the hoot meant. "But but I don't trust Professor Snape. He might do something dramatic, then I might need to do something dramatic."

Nap hooted. Taylor imagined it was menacingly. She offered another treat to her pet, then marched toward a class she had an inkling that wouldn't be pleasant.

And it was anything but pleasant.

Professor Snape looked even more dour than the first class. At first, he didn't say anything toward her and Taylor hoped she was wrong. It wasn't until the man decided he had to review her homework in front of the whole class, and deducted five points for "shoddy penmanship" and ten points for "attempt to sabotage others by intentionally using the wrong word" that she knew she was in for a really bad time.

By the end of the day, everyone knew Snape was out to get Taylor. She'd lost more points to her house than it seemed possible. Slytherins congratulated her when she passed by, thanking her for her 'hard work', while Ravenclaws glared at her back when they thought she wasn't looking.

 

[okashihime]

That night, Taylor was in no mood for company. It wasn't just the stares from what felt like the whole school, or the renewed whispers, or even the gawking students looking at the house points and seeing that in the span of a morning, Ravenclaw had gone from first to last.

She skipped dinner, grabbed Nap, and ditched the common room altogether. Taylor had one destination in mind, somewhere she'd been wanting to visit again. She relied on her bugs to avoid any student, passing ghost, or nosy caretaker, taking a winding path leading up and up, until she was at the top of the astronomy tower.

Taylor made sure to bar the door once she was there, she didn't want people happening to find her while she was distracted.

From the top of the tower, she gazed at the surrounding area trying to see all that she could in the fading light.

To the west of the castle was an open area and further afield an oval structure that resembled distantly a football field. There were hoops, towers and places for an audience. She was pretty sure it was the quidditch field. To the east was the lake, and across from it, the Hogsmead train station. There was no train parked there at the moment.

North east there was a small village that could only be Hogsmead. Directly north was the forest. Dark, brooding and forbidden looking. She really wanted to explore there, but also didn't want to push her luck.

From up there in the tower, Taylor finally realised how large her range really was.

Before getting her stick from Ollivander, her power extended around her for two city blocks, sometimes three. From where she was, Taylor could feel bugs up to the border of the forest. Eyeballing the distance, she guessed her range had expanded to maybe ten city blocks in each direction. She grabbed her wand, looking at it in a brand new light.

Far, far away from the tower, where she knew there wasn't anyone to see, Taylor gathered her bugs in a roughly humanoid shape. She'd seen the brunette do this in her dreams many times. She thought it would have been harder to do, but it was like getting on a bike after a long while without. A little awkward at first, then it was like muscle memory refreshed and she was good as ever.

Taylor knew, without a doubt, that she could use her bugs to speak too. She didn't even need to think that hard on how. It was like her power already knew how to do that and she just needed to do it. No thinking needed.

She let out a hysterical laugh. God, there were so many bugs.

Taylor stayed there watching until the sun dipped behind the hills. She grabbed her wand, and with a whispered Lumos, created light enough to see around the tower. With her sightseeing done, it was time to get to work.

From the Ravenclaw's tower, Taylor commanded her workforce to grab one of each kind of bug she'd been hoarding. With no one to see, it was time to play with insects and learn what they could do.

For science.

---

Taylor arrived back in the common room past curfew. She'd lost track of time checking the insects, and had to scamper away when Professor Sinistra and a lot of older students started moving towards the Astronomy tower. She used her bugs liberally to avoid patrolling prefects, shambling third years, tattletale portraits and stalking cats. If it wasn't for her bugs, she would have been caught a dozen times over.

Sneaking inside the common room, she was greeted with curious glances, indifference, frowns, fake smiles, and a single honest one. She saddled up next to Luna, glomping her friend onto a hug. Nap seemed to have missed Luna too. She flapped her wings, landing on her second favorite perch.

Luna giggled at their antics, hugging Taylor back and pulling treats out of her robe's pocket to offer Nap.

"Had fun?"

Taylor nodded. "Went to the Astronomy Tower to see all of Hogwarts and the surroundings. It's so pretty."

"I should go too." Luna said, nodding.

The hour before bedtime she spent talking with Luna and doing homework. She had less than the other first years to finish, having done History of Magic the previous day. Now she only had DADA, Transfiguration, Charms, Potions and Herbology work to do.

She started with Herbology; it seemed the easiest one. They were to investigate the soil composition that was best for young mandrakes. To do that, she had to review the plant details in her herbology course book, but after confirming that, writing the essay was easy; she finished in less than one hour.

The mood in the dormitory after that was strange. Luna was still normal Luna, a bit flighty, very perceptive and not an ounce of judgment in her bones, but Harriet and Mira were more distant than usual. They gave Taylor strained smiles, then got into bed to sleep with nary a good-night.

Once everyone else was asleep, Taylor sat at the desk to read her mum's letter. Her mum encouraged her to wait for the next Defense Class just to make sure the professor's behaviour wasn't a first class exception.

Taylor thought it was a moot point, because what mum didn't know was that Taylor was spying in every single class the man taught, and there wasn't a single instance of actual magic teaching. But still, she decided to wait at least a week before reporting to Flitwick as well.

Her mum's advice about the rumors and bullying was to ignore it. They'd lose interest if Taylor didn't react.

That brought a scowl to Taylor's face. She doubted those pricks would stop just because she didn't react. She would need a better way to deal with them.

Still, after reading the letter, feeling just a little homesick and shedding maybe a couple of tears, Taylor wrote her own. She told her mum about Snape again and his grudge, about losing house points and how everyone was behaving around her, and all around poured her annoyance and disappointment into the letter.

What she didn't do was to mention her budding plan to solve all of this. Taylor wasn't going to put secrets on paper. She had no way of knowing who would read the letter. Another thing she had to thank mum for insisting upon years ago. Taylor would never have considered that someone snoop into their private messages.

The letter was only two pages long this time. She sealed it, offered it to Nap alongside with treats then got ready to sleep. This time, however, instead of crawling into her own bed, she climbed the stairs to the bed bunk above. She might have made too much noise, because Luna was awake when she finished climbing.

They locked eyes for a moment, then Luna pulled the blanket open inviting Taylor to join in. Which she did. Then she hugged her friend and went to sleep, thinking of dastardly plans.

---

Taylor had another dream about the brunette that night.

This other Taylor, was dressed in a modified version of the black costume with the armor panels more convex, and sharper defined. She wore a makeshift skirt and cape, also made of silk.

She wasn't alone this time. She was in a grocery store, facing a mind controller disguised as a teenager girl. The store was full of innocent people, who the man had ordered to kill themselves if Taylor moved.

The brunette had two allies with her. A girl in a demon mask, which somehow she knew the name was Imp, and a boy in a renaissance costume holding a scepter. He was Regent.

For a moment, things seemed hopeless, until Regent took control of Imp's body regardless of the mind controller and had her kick him in the gonads. What happened after that was out of a nightmare. The other Taylor had bugs eat through the man's eyes, leaving them filled with squirming maggots.

Taylor woke up feeling sick. Just remembering the dream made her feel like puking. Was the dream trying to tell her something? That she had to act and be mean?

Gentle hands pushed damp hair away from her forehead. "It's only a dream," Luna whispered.

Taylor swallowed her bile and pushed the sick away. It was only a dream. There was no need to do the same as the other Taylor did. No need at all to be that extreme. But the dream had her thinking. What if that was just an illustration of her current situation? Taylor didn't know who the mind controller was, and why he had taken a whole store as hostage, but maybe it had some parallels? The way things were going, it seemed that Snape was holding her house points hostage, and if other students' behaviour were any indication, they didn't look happy with her.

It was like they were blaming her for losing points instead of blaming Snape for being a prat.

Taylor got up, and along with Luna, got ready for the day. She wasn't going to use her bugs to eat Snape's eyes out, that was a bit too much, but she needed to know what the man was thinking, and she also needed to keep an eye on his house. There wasn't a chance Taylor would let them prank her for no reason.

At the breakfast table, Taylor implemented part of her plan. Her mum, if she ever learned of it, would be mad with Taylor, but it was for a good cause. And none of Slytherin were friends or family, so, technically, she was in the clear.

She bugged everyone in green: From first to seventh years. She bugged their common room, she bugged their dormitories. If anyone sneezed, Taylor wanted to know about it. Up in her tower nest, she had some of her new spiders start weaving silk ropes — another favorite from Dream-Taylor — to use as deterrent.

The rest of the morning Taylor spent doing her homework (transfiguration and charms), while spying on Slytherin. A good thing that she did: she caught a student named Flint teaching Callum, the dung thrower, a hex meant for her and Luna.

"Nasty hex to use on girls you hate," Flint had said. "It'll teach them for sure."

With Luna, Harriet and Mira swamped by homework, Taylor was left to her own devices. She still had DADA and potions homework to finish, but decided to tackle them on Sunday instead. That gave her the opportunity to explore more, but she had a destination in mind: the castle grounds to meet the groundskeeper.

Among the many rumors she listened to, one had caught her attention: Hagrid had a knack for dealing magical creatures, being the one who often delved into the forbidden forest to deal with its many denizens. He seemed friendly enough, and might entertain her and talk about the many bugs she still had no idea what they could do.

That's why after lunch, Taylor grabbed Nap, and headed outside the castle towards Hagrid's hut.

 

[okashihime]

There was no way to miss Hagrid's hut even if Taylor wasn't cheating and using her bugs to guide her steps. Everything was way too big around his house: the fences, the road, the dog, even the pumpkins!

Taylor felt like a character in a fantasy novel ready to knock on the giant's door to bargain for a clue about the location of the dragon's lair that had inevitably kidnapped the kingdom's lovely, innocent princess.

Before she banged at his door, something deep inside the forest brushed against her power, then retreated. Taylor's head snapped in that direction, but there was no way she could see what it was with her own eyes. Her power somehow felt as confused as Taylor. She redirected bugs around trying to find what that had been. Her range expanded even more — she caught a distant feeling of an alien mind and saw the skittering of many giant hairy limbs on top of one of the trees — before whatever that was fled from her range and power.

She stayed there, hand raised and ready to knock, but too startled to even think.

What the heck was that? She had an impulsive desire to abandon her quest and enter the forest, but she held back. Entering the forest alone was a stupid idea.

Taylor tried to put that out of her mind and return to her original quest. She girded her loins, made sure her stick was safely ensconced in her back pocket, then hit the wooden door with the finality of someone marching onto an adventure that would change her life forever.

"Comin'," was the response to her act of defiance to knock on the giant's door.

With a loud creak and whoosh of displaced air, the gates to the giant's castle opened and the big un' himself poked his head out. He first looked ahead, then left and right, then down and then down a bit more. His face lit up in a welcoming smile that almost broke Taylor out of her fantasy.

It was like being David and facing a smiling, rugged, bearded and very hairy Goliath.

"Hello there," he said.

It was surreal. If the man placed his hand down, Taylor could probably climb on top of it and have room to move around.

She smiled; Nap hooted.

"Hello Hagrid," she greeted with an enthusiastic wave. "I'm Taylor Hebert. I saw you at the station; you took us across the lake. It was awesome, I wish I could do it again. Are there any other secret passages like that one? Are you free now? I'd like to ask you a few questions. About the grounds, about the forest, the magical creatures and a few bugs I have never seen before!"

"O'course, o'course," he said, opening the door wider. "Want ter come in? I have rock cake an' tea."

Taylor was already nodding and stepping inside.

The huge boarhound dog followed them into the hut, tail waving lazily.

"Don't yer mind Fang," Hagrid said, petting his dog as it passed by.

The hut interior was cluttered in the best cozy way. Pots, dried herbs, curing meats and more, hung from the walls. Across from the door a lit hearth and a bubbling cauldron smelling of delicious stew completed the scene.

Hagrid seemed used to having visitors, because apart from his one chair, other pieces of furniture to sit on were sized for normal people, kinda-ish. She climbed on the couch — her feet didn't reach the floor. Nap flapped her wings and landed on a large perch by the open window.

Fang plopped down near the couch, tail thumping the rough leather.

Her host busied himself grabbing a mug that was bigger than her head and filling it with some bubbling beverage, and a slice of cake that was even bigger than the mug. He placed it on the table with a smile. From his pocket, he took a handful of dried meat strips, then offered them to Nap one by one.

The greedy owl gobbled everything, while Taylor tried without much success to bite the cake. She guessed the rock in the name was more literal than she had thought.

"She's goin' ta be a big one," Hagrid said once he finished feeding Nap. "Beautiful too, yer hardly see 'em with that many white feathers."

Taylor used her teeth to break a piece of the cake, then dipped it into the hot creamy tea. Once it was soaked, she plopped it into her mouth. It was delicious.

"What do yer want ter ask about?"

---

"Rainbow-silk spiders," Hagrid said, nodding and pointing to a drawing in one of the books he got from somewhere inside the hut.

Taylor nodded along, reading the book entry:

Rainbow-silk Spider (Araneus iridosericus)

A rare small, jewel-bright spider about the size of a thumbnail, found nesting in warm, sheltered corners of magical gardens and old stone walls. Its silk shifts color depending on its mood and diet: calm spiders spin pale gold or silver webs, while agitated or well-fed ones produce threads in vivid pinks, blues, and greens. The color isn't just decorative: the silk retains a faint shimmer even after the spider abandons the web, and collectors prize it for use in ornamental thread-work and minor charm-craft (they can be used as an ingredient in cheerfulness charms, given its naturally uplifting hue). The Rainbow-silk Spiders are entirely harmless to humans and they're considered a good sign by witches and wizards who find them nesting nearby, as their presence indicates a magically healthy garden.

"Very rare nowadays," Hagrid added, "they bring good luck, they do."

Taylor nodded along. She didn't tell Hagrid about the hive she found nesting in the dark tunnels beneath Hogwarts. They numbered in the thousands. It made her mind, and power, buzz with possibilities. Could she make the spiders spin different coloured webbing without having to be mean to them? Just imagining it left Taylor wanting to scamper back to a quiet corner to experiment with the pretty spiders.

Perhaps influenced by Dream-Taylor, now she wanted to weave something out of their silk. The things she could do!

"And that fly I asked earlier? Striped yellow and grey. About this big," Taylor said, spacing her index and thumb a smidge to show the mosquito size.

Hagrid took the book, flipped pages until he found what he was looking for. He handed it back, and Taylor read the passage and looked at the drawings.

Itchgnat (Culicidae vexans)

A small grey-and-yellow striped mosquito-like insect found near magical bogs, enchanted ponds, and overgrown hedgerows. Itchgnats are mostly harmless but notoriously irritating: their bite injects a mild magical irritant that causes a raised, itchy welt lasting several days — noticeably longer and itchier than an ordinary mosquito bite, though entirely non-toxic. The itching tends to flare up at dusk, mimicking the gnat's natural feeding hours, which many find the most maddening part. Pepperup potions have no effect on the welts, but a simple dab of Stinging Solution or even crushed dittany usually settles them within a day. Itchgnats are considered a nuisance rather than a danger.

That was a good find. Irritating, but not dangerous was something she could use to terrorize, err, re-educate the annoying students if they kept trying to bully her and Luna.

"Very annoyin' they are," Hagrid said, scratching his chin. "They—"

But Taylor wasn't paying attention anymore. She'd shot up from the couch, looking toward the castle.

"Taylor? Somethin' wrong?"

"I have to go," Taylor said, thrusting the book toward the gentle giant, hopping off the couch and toward the door. She collected a napping Nap, then stopped at the door. "I enjoyed talking with you, and sorry about leaving like this."

Hagrid nodded, walking closer and looking worried.

"Can I come back another day? I'd love to talk some more."

"Yer can visit whenever yer want, just send yer owl tellin' when."

Taylor nodded, waved goodbye then ran toward the castle. She'd been keeping an eye on all of Slytherin; Callun had just spotted Luna and Harriet. She caught him discussing the 'prank' with the older students and the snickering, growing crowd following her friends and planning an ambush.

All the while, Taylor worked furiously with her bugs. Small flies hauled the thin, almost invisible silk she had her spiders weave overnight, pixies ferried the larger, scarier-looking spiders, while she drew from around the lake the few itchgnats near the castle.

Taylor ran past startled students, complaining prefects ("No running in the corridors!"), indifferent ghosts and once, she had to duck to another passage to avoid Filch and his cat. She managed to reach Luna just before Callun and the Slytherin gang surrounded her friends in one of the castle's many corridors. Callun had his wand in hand, though not pointed at anyone.

"Luna!" Taylor gasped between pained and ragged breaths.

"Hi, Taylor," Luna greeted her with the same serenity she always did. Being surrounded by older, mean-looking Slytherins didn't seem to bother her any. Harriet, on the other hand, looked ready to bolt, like a spring coiled too tight.

"Isn't that just our luck?" Callun gloated, sneering at Taylor. "Loony, Harri-et and the tell-tale tit." He said Harriet's name like it was an insult.

Taylor stood straight in front of Luna, glaring at the crowd. "What do you want, Callun?"

"To teach you your place," he said, raising his wand without fanfare.

Taylor stared Callun in the eye, a strange calm washing over her. From atop her head, Nap spread her wings and hooted in a distinctly mean way. "Leave my friends alone. It won't end well." She didn't see a need to voice a threat. Her eyes promised hell if he tried anything.

Callun's wand wavered and for a moment it looked like he was going to give up, until an older boy mocked him.

"What, you're afraid of the Loony Two?"

Callun gritted his teeth and raised his wand again. He opened his mouth. "Calvo—"

A fat, hairy spider dropped on his face. The pixies pulled the silk tied around Callun's wand, and the stick flew from his hand before he could complete whatever curse he was about to cast. He was too startled by the spider on his face, letting out a girlish squeal, to notice losing his wand or Taylor until she was in front of him.

Taylor's body moved in a way it never had before. She kicked him between the legs with all the force she could muster, putting her whole body behind the movement.

Callun let out an agonized wail, crumpling onto a fetal ball. There was a moment of silence, then the surrounding students started yelling, and crowding closer.

"What is this?" A bellow from behind the crowd stopped everyone in their tracks. Filch muscled past the students to find Taylor standing over Callun.

"She's gone mental! She attacked him without provocation!" the same boy from before said, pointing at Taylor. More and more of Slytherin joined, declaring Taylor the aggressor.

"No, she didn't," Luna said at the same time Harriet yelled: "He was going to curse her."

But Filch either didn't hear or ignored both.

"I'll see you punished for striking another student!" he bellowed even louder, grabbing Taylor by the arm and dragging her away from the crowd, and leaving a hurt Callun rolling on the ground.

Taylor kept glaring at Callun until Filch pulled her around a bend in the corridor. She had her bugs drag his wand out of view and hide it in some hard-to-find corner. It was petty, but deserved. She had her itchgnats bite, a couple of times, the boy who spurred Callun into casting his curse and lied about this whole fiasco, then sent the rest toward that Flint boy, the mastermind behind it all.

She didn't skimp on him. She had the gnats bite several times, in very visible places. She lost almost all of them, but it was for a good cause.

 

[okashihime]

Filch's office-slash-man cave was impressive in its own maddening way. The room was dingy and windowless, lit by a single oil lamp dangling from the low ceiling. A faint smell of fried fish lingered about the place. Wooden filing cabinets stood around the walls teeming with labels that had names abound: the Weasley twins had an entire drawer to themselves. A highly polished collection of chains and manacles hung on the wall behind Filch's desk.

The castle caretaker grabbed a quill from a pot on his desk and began shuffling around looking for parchment.

"Violence … ," he muttered furiously, "troll bogies … rat brains … frog's intestines … I've had enough of it … make an example … where's the form … yes …"

He retrieved a large roll of parchment from his desk drawer and stretched it out in front of him, dipping his long black quill into the ink pot.

"Name…" he stopped, then turned to Taylor and glared. "Name," he demanded.

That was when, of course, Snape arrived. He swept into the room with the same dramatic cloak swish, and spoke in his low, carrying tone.

"Taylor Hebert."

"Right, right, Professor," Filch said, nodding enthusiastically. He scribbled something on the parchment, then looked back at Snape. "The Headmaster will surely let me use the chains on her, right? It's a violent offender."

Snape loomed over Taylor, crooning. "I do have other ideas for punishment, none which she will enjoy."

"And what ideas are those?" Flitwick barged in, followed by Luna. "Are you going to punish half of your house as well?"

Outside Filch's office, a crowd of onlookers, mostly Slytherin, had gathered.

"And why would I do that? My students were attacked without provocation."

"That's not what happened," Luna offered in her serene voice.

"Yes, Miss Lovegood, tell us what happened." Flitwick said to Luna, still facing off against Snape.

Taylor paid just enough attention to know what was happening around, but mostly, she was lost in her own mind.

It hadn't even been a week. She had hoped that a magic school would be different. Everyone had magic here, everyone dressed like clowns and acted like they were some dramatic characterization of themselves. She had hoped that being herself wouldn't attract attention, that she'd be just one more among the crowd.

And yet, from the start, Snape and then his whole house had singled her out for no reason at all. Mum would tell Taylor to ignore it, that sooner or later, the bullies would lose interest, move on and she'd have a good time at school. That's what mum thought had happened last time.

Taylor simply hadn't told her mum the rumors, that the whispers, the pranks hadn't really stopped.

"… it's like with dogs," she heard Filch saying, "if you don't punish them early, they get rabid."

Yes, Filch was right. The whole of Slytherin were like rabid dogs. There was no one to discipline them for far too long and they had gone rabid. She'd been spying on them all day, and the things she heard and saw made her sick to her stomach.

The name-calling, the 'pranks', the cursing of other students because it was fun, the ingrained racism and prejudice.

Taylor was sure it was all of Snape's fault.

He made a point of being unpleasant and punishing students from every house, except his own. With the tacit approval from their head of house, the whole of Slytherin had gone feral. How long had he been teaching potions and promoting that behaviour? Why hadn't the headmaster done anything to curb the blatant cruelty and incompetence? Dumbledore was old, had he gone senile? What about the Deputy Headmistress? Why wasn't she doing anything about it? The way things were, if Taylor didn't do something about it, who would?

Taylor slapped her own face, then laughed, maybe a tad hysterically. What the heck was that line of thought? Why was she comparing students to dogs?

The ongoing bickering around her ceased. Heads turned her way. Some concerned, others sneering, one in gleeful confirmation. Everyone, except for Luna, looked at her like she had a few loose screws.

"Taylor, are you alright?" Flitwick asked.

There was another loud facepalm, and another high pitched laugh.

Heads turned the other way.

Luna smiled and waved. "I wanted to know how it felt. It looked fun."

God, Luna was really the friend Taylor had always wished for.

---

When the whole kerfuffle had ended, Taylor and Luna were in Flitwick's office, with the small professor still looking frazzled. She had lost more house points ("Ten points from Ravenclaw for attacking a student"), and was punished with two days of detention. Unfortunately, this time she was to serve one day of detention with Snape.

The maybe good news was that she hadn't been the only one punished.

Callun had lost ten points for trying to curse another student along with detention for two days. The lying jerk — Bowen Crowley, the prat who had spurred Callun to continue the prank — lost five points for lying to school faculty.

Snape and Filch had insisted on a higher punishment for Taylor even though she was just defending herself and her friends. They'd dismissed both Luna's and a distraught Harriet's version of events.

"That man is a menace," Taylor said.

Luna giggled. "Which one?"

Taylor opened her mouth, shrugged. "Both?"

Flitwick tried to hold back a snort. He didn't do a very good job.

"Right, right. I'm sorry you had to endure all that Miss Hebert, but I must express that physical violence against another student is not acceptable."

Taylor scrunched her nose. "What was I supposed to do? Let him curse me?"

Flitwick apparently didn't have an answer to that, so he changed tactics.

"It's a bit early, but I'll teach you a charm that will help you protect yourself."

Taylor was already nodding. More magic was always more magic.

"We can start the lessons while you serve your detention with me."

Taylor pouted.

Luna raised her hand. "Professor, can I have a detention too, please."

---

Taylor spent the rest of the day buried in parchments, books and smudging her fingers with the quill. All the while, she helped Luna finish her own homework, talked about everything under the sun and spied on Slytherins and Professor Snape.

Spying on Snape was proving more difficult than she had anticipated. When not being a prat and bullying children, the man spent most of his time locked into his private workshop-cum-office. The place was enchanted to keep bugs away, and while Taylor could overwrite the bugs' natural instincts and have them enter the lab, she didn't want to risk doing that.

The potions master had gone to the trouble of putting a bug ward around his inner sanctum, and if bugs started showing up there, he was liable to investigate. That might attract more attention than Taylor was comfortable with right now.

The Slytherins were divided between mocking Callun for losing his manhood to 'Loony Two' and congratulating Bowen on getting Taylor punished. Bowen, when not madly scratching itches, preened like a peacock, shaking hands, laughing and promising more to come.

Flint on the other hand wasn't having a good time. His face was full of welts and he'd even drawn blood with all his scratching. Served him right!

When the night ended, a very awkward Harriet approached and said her thanks, but Taylor was left with the impression that Harriet had become even more distant. She fled soon after delivering her thanks, climbing onto bed and closing the curtains.

Taylor read her mum's letter, wrote about the day's troubles, complained (just a little) about incompetent professors, then climbed on Luna's bed to sleep. Luna was still awake and waiting. They whispered about their plans for the next days deep into the night, until they couldn't keep their eyes open anymore.

Sunday they woke up late and almost missed breakfast. Having done their homework the previous night, Taylor and Luna were free to explore. Taylor wanted to visit Hagrid again to talk bugs, but Luna wanted to visit the Astronomy Tower to see the view of the surroundings, so that's what they did.

Taylor cheated, using what she had learned from her previous visit and what she could see with her bugs to point out interesting landmarks. Down south of the castle, following the railway, they could see the remains of a stone structure: a keep or tower. It looked a prime spot for exploration and adventure, as soon as they could take their brooms and leave the castle grounds.

In the afternoon, egged on by Taylor, Luna agreed to explore more of the school. They visited places they hadn't before, with Taylor keeping a mental note of every secret looking passage she could find. And she did find a lot of them: bugs crawling behind the walls in tunnels that she had no way of opening at the moment.

Taylor guided their exploration, their meandering path taking them far from any Slytherin Taylor could find. At times, she'd just turn around and lead them back the same way they had just walked to avoid some incoming green. Luna took that like it was the most normal thing in the world. She didn't comment, or even asked why their path was so zigzagging.

At some point, Taylor stopped, looking somewhere above and to the right. From one moment to the next a room full of things she had never seen or felt before appeared. The room was teeming with all manner of objects: old furniture covered in dusty linens, piled books, partially melted cauldrons, broken statues, rusted armor, tapestries sagging under their own weight, towers of parchment yellowed with age, and shelves bent beneath the burden of forgotten trinkets.

Narrow aisles wound between the mounds like alleys in some derelict city, some barely wide enough to slip through sideways, others opening into small clearings where entire hills of junk rose toward a ceiling lost in shadow. The smell was a mixture of old parchment, rust, and something faintly like burnt sugar that seemed to come from nowhere in particular.

The mystery room stayed there barely a minute before disappearing again.

Luna leaned closer, looking at the same direction in the stone ceiling. "What are you seeing?"

"There was a room. It's just... gone now," Taylor answered distractedly.

"Want to try and find it again?"

Instead of speaking, Taylor's eyes went wide. She grabbed Luna's hand and led her into a merry chase that resulted in no disappearing room.

With the addition of the mystery room, the day had been perfect, everything she had ever hoped for a magical school: it had been fun, she saw many things she hadn't before, nosed at many soon to be discovered secrets and luckily — snort — didn't have a single meeting with any annoying green thug.

That was why she wasn't keeping as close a watch as she should have.

When Monday arrived, Taylor got to Herbology bright and happy, and she immediately took a splash of dung to the head and hair.

She closed her eyes. Counted to ten. Another splash hit Nap and Luna this time, followed by giggles and barely restrained laughter.

Enough was enough.

In the end, Filch was right. Rabid dogs, all of them. And like dogs, Taylor was going to have to potty train the whole lot.

 

[okashihime]

The day passed in a haze. Even with her prodigious multitasking, Taylor missed on conversations around her, barely paying attention to Luna, too distracted working on her re-educational project: if she was going to do this, she was going to do it the right way. She wasn't going to set all her bugs on the bullies in a fit of rage, that would probably get her expelled or arrested or something; she hadn't read about wizards' laws yet.

So, while Taylor followed Professor Sprout's explanation and mixed soil with thestral dung, Whomping Willow dry leaves and flobberworm mucus, she also experimented with webbing and weaving inside The Hive. She found out that the rainbow-silk spiders weren't limited to the colours described in Hagrid's book, nor that she needed to be mean or give a food overdose to the critters to have them weave coloured silk. A bit of prodding and pulling and dragging sideways with her power had her figuring out the mechanism behind how that worked, which in turn, let Taylor weave silk like nylon: transparent and almost invisible to the naked eye.

Her power felt more cooperative than ever for some reason. It was like an excited puppy watching and barking and wagging its tail. Why she made that comparison, Taylor had no idea. She was neither a dog or cat person, if anything, she was an owl person.

Another part of her workforce was busy with other preparations: the pixies dashed to and fro out of sight, gathering mud, dung and other annoyances, then stashing it webbed to the undersides of the decoration, ceiling corners above eye level, behind tapestries where her bugs had scouted the out of the way corridors and places where bullies congregated.

After suffering a double dose of Slytherin through Herbology, Taylor marched to the Great Hall for lunch, still working on her new project. That was pretty much her state of being for the next few days, at least during the day. At night, she tried to catch up on the days' events with Luna.

Detention with Flitwick on Monday had him teaching her (and Luna, who had decided she had a detention to attend), the Expelliarmus charm. It was a bit of a let down, because it was a charm Taylor already knew (even if she couldn't use it yet) from spying on the third year charm classes.

Private lessons with Flitwick, Taylor learned, were a lot more intense and productive than general classes. She left her two hours of detention able to use the charm, and with instructions on how to practice, what to practice and how to improve further.

Detention with Snape on Tuesday wasn't that bad, all told. Snape had her clean spilled potions, scrape stuff from cauldrons, organize the ingredient cabinet and all those things that would have been annoying and gross if she didn't find it interesting instead. The other side of that was that Callun was there as well, even if his detention was Snape instructing him on potion creation.

Taylor guessed that Snape was trying to say something here. It didn't matter.

Days passed in a blur of work, homework, practice, dodging Slytherins and stealing quiet moments to talk with Luna whenever possible. Preparations progressed apace too. It took Taylor the better part of the week to work everything to her standards: She had Dee procure parchment and a quill, and through him, she kept a log of everything she heard and saw happening over the week.

By then, Taylor's anger had cooled down somewhat. She still felt like swarming the whole of Slytherin with her bugs, but only rarely.

It was the next weekend when Taylor decided it was time to start the plan. She was in the library (another place she had to come back again soon, soo many books!) with Luna working on another History homework. A desk across from her sat Harriet and Mira. Scattered around the many tables were other students: Nneka and Ginny (who looked even more tired than before), an older Slytherin who thankfully was doing his best to ignore everyone else, and a few excited Hufflepuffs, gossiping about quiddish of all things.

The first subjects to her re-education program had just volunteered themselves. On a corridor on the third floor in the opposite direction from the library, a pair of older Slytherins accosted a second year Hufflepuff, calling him names and barring his path. The hufflepuff tried to push past them, but one of the bullies stuck his foot out tripping the smaller boy.

Back in the library, Taylor noted yet another detail about the goblin rebellion, then turned and whispered to Luna. "Why do you think the goblins rebelled this many times?"

In the corridor, both Slytherins laughed, and congratulated themselves, walking away and leaving the kid sniffling on the ground.

"Daddy tells me it's all a huge conspiracy," Luna reported, whispering closer.

"Really?" Taylor asked eagerly.

In the corridor, her bugs dragged the invisible silk on the duo's path: They were too distracted to notice the silk closer to the ground. The first one tripped and windmilled trying to regain balance, then the second one tripped as well and both sprawled onto the ground face first. In a rare instance of fate, they both fell not unlike the Hufflepuff boy they just bullied.

The sniffling kid, who had just sat up, was gawking at the two.

The bullies got up looking angry, and cursing, but there was no one nearby that could have tripped them, and the hufflepuff had no wand in hand. They seemed ready to attack the younger boy, but he was smart enough to skedaddle.

"The Ministry of Magic is trying to cover their secret experiments throughout the years," Luna confided. "Daddy found evidence, more than once, that some of those wars never happened…"

Taylor lapped all of Luna's theories, while she had her bugs pull the silk away and leave no evidence of her meddling. She'd have to work on the response-protocol and threat-assessment for the next subjects. It wouldn't be good if her intervention made things worse for the victim, after all.

Those two were the only subjects that day. She wanted to start slow and avoid too much attention.

Taylor kept a few fliers on the Hufflepuff kid and allowed herself a small smile when he barged into the common room of his house. There were a few students playing that snapping card game, others reading, a few just gossiping.

"You guys won't believe it!" he said to the room at large.

"What is it, Stephen?" A girl close to his age turned around and asked.

"I got ambushed by two Slytherins," he started. "One of them tripped me when I tried to walk past."

"Are you well? What did they do to you?" Another boy asked.

"No, forget that," Stephen waved the question away. "They hadn't walked more than a couple of steps when they had their comeuppance."

By now, the whole common room was listening.

"One tripped on empty air and fell face first," Stephen was grinning now, a few others laughed. "But that wasn't it, the other tripped on air as well and fell on top of the first!"

The room exploded in laughter.

Taylor smiled as well. It was a job well done.

In the following days, she ramped up her efforts: someone badmouthing and name calling would suddenly swallow a fly and had to cough the bug out. Throw something, a pixie hidden near the ceiling would drop dung on the thrower's head. Her favorite, Slytherins calling people mudblood found their things all doused in mud. She also tried, when possible, to prevent students from cursing others by pulling on wands with threads of silk. Oftentimes, she managed to yank the wand away, on even better times, she managed to make the bullies curse themselves. She couldn't do that often because it took time and preparation and luck.

She also had to consider discovery. It was one thing to trip someone, another to yank a wand away.

For those that Taylor had no feasible way of targeting in an ironic fitting manner, the itchgnats were her preferred method. As such, she took the few remaining around the castle and started breeding more of them.

Just in case.

---

Time marched ever onward. October arrived and brought with it a damp chill over the grounds and castle. Taylor woke up with her nose stuffed up and feeling worse than she had in years.

"Let's go to the hospital wing," Luna said, helping Taylor out of the bed and into morning clothing.

It had become routine at this point. If Taylor didn't sneak into Luna's bunk, Luna sneaked into hers.

Taylor let Luna guide her toward the hospital wing which was crowded with an influx of sick students. The matron had people drink a potion that left them with their ears smoking. It sounded fun until Taylor drank it. Then she had to spend the whole day recovering from the cold with her ears burning because of the potion and embarrassment.

It wasn't worse than Ginny, however. With her ears smoking and her red hair, it looked like her head was on fire.

That snag on her day gave Taylor room to think of the past month and the things she'd done and seen.

In the first weeks of her re-education plan, there wasn't much response to Taylor's efforts. People often blamed bad luck, or the victim. One of the unintended consequences of her plot was that not every victim was smart as Stephen had been. Some stayed to watch, others took the opportunity to retaliate then and there.

In one particular nasty case, both boys ended up in the hospital wing. One had boils all over his face while the other almost drowned in mucus.

It was another point of failure that Taylor chalked up to things out of her control. Unless she started trying to teach the victim as well, there wasn't much she could do when they decided to stay and find more trouble instead of running away. It still left her feeling disgruntled and annoyed.

But people were learning and whispers spread. More than not, things that hadn't been Taylor's action at all got attributed to the "curse". Other times, people fighting back would blame the curse as a way of getting away with it.

She had started focusing solely on Slytherin, but three weeks in, Taylor learned it had been a mistake: Fred and George had noticed the pattern of bad luck from the students in green and decided that the castle had given them permission to teach the snakes a lesson.

Consequently, Taylor had to get creative and stop the twins from bullying Slytherin students, even if part of her didn't want to do that.

Now, she had the whole castle under close watch, and what an eye opener it was. She learned that, more often than not, Gryffindors were just as bad as Slytherin: they just thought their racism, bigotry and bullying was fun instead of cruel. Even Ravenclaw wasn't immune to those sentiments. More than just a few students considered themselves better and more intelligent than the rest of the school and their attitude reflected that.

That left a sour taste in her mouth.

The house with the fewer cases of bigotry was, to no one's surprise, Hufflepuff. People there just wanted to be friends and have fun.

As for her own bully troubles, Taylor had lost patience with Callun just after one of the Herbology classes had ended. He was calling her names and throwing things at her hair, all while holding Luna at wandpoint. Being called names and picking bogies out of her hair she could deal with. Having him threaten Luna was something Taylor couldn't abide by. She had him swallow a fly (which sent him on a fit of coughs); trip on invisible silk (when inevitably he tried to back away). Expelliarmus did the rest of the job, his wand flying away from grubby fingers.

That ended up being a mistake.

Taylor had gone to lengths to always be visible and not tied to any of the other instances of the curse acting around the school. Now, in a single moment of anger, she'd become a focal point to it and the students still filing out of the class saw the "curse" hit a bully before Taylor disarmed him.

Up until that point, the curse had often targeted isolated students in out of the way corridors. Now, it had marked her as someone who spread the "Comeuppance" curse, which had people avoiding her even more so they wouldn't be targeted. And thus, the overt bullying toward them had reduced, in part due to Taylor's efforts, but they were even more isolated than before.

Snape was still the same prat as always. He wasn't overtly singling her out like he did at the start of the term, but the man still took points away from her more than anyone else in the castle, maybe except for the Weasley twins and Magic-hero Harry.

For some reason, the potions master really hated Harry Potter.

Unfortunately, Taylor didn't act against Snape. It was just too risky trying to punish the man when she didn't know what he could do and what magic he had at his disposal, even if her distaste for the man grew with every act of bullying that went unanswered and ignored by the school faculty.

Aside from her re-education project, Taylor had also been busy with normal school spying and activities.

There wasn't ever enough hours in the day. The professors all doled homework like there was no tomorrow. Every night, Taylor had to spend hours nose deep into parchment and books writing up essays, researching potions, working soil composition, copying historical data from books, or creating poems about Lockhart's adventures.

With the rest of the hours, she had to practice spells for the normal classes, practice useful spells from older years, and keep chipping at the nonverbal casting lessons the sixth years were still having.

Professor McGonagall had them memorising a transfiguration alphabet, but no matter how Taylor looked at it, each symbol corresponded to an English letter. Unfortunately, the words in that language weren't the same, so it took forever to translate from one to the other. She couldn't find a reason for that and when questioned, McGonagall just said it was part of the formal transfiguration education.

Maybe it was something they'd need as adult wizards.

Apart from that, they were now working on a switching spell. Taylor could already use the charm, but the homework with the manual calculation between the difference in mass to switch two objects was hell.

Aside from basic magical theory, Flitwick had them practice a fire making spell. It wasn't a fireball and Taylor wouldn't be blasting off enemies with it anytime soon, which was a shame, but she could see many uses for that charm.

Lockhart, on the other hand, was completely useless. All that Taylor's spying told her was that older girls went gaga near the man for some reason. A few even got blushes when he smiled at them. Taylor didn't see it. The man was too posh to be pretty and the smile was too fake. It made her cringe instead.

Complaining to Flitwick about Lockhart resulted in the the DADA professor asking her to stay after class one day, where the man regaled her with tales of his adventures, and how important he was and how his smile won him the witch weekly most charming smile five times in a row. Still, Taylor didn't know how that helped her if she ever had to defend herself from someone, like Callun or Snape.

After the first two weeks, most of those complaints were only vented in letters to her mum. Taylor didn't want to be labeled a downer by her still only friend in the castle, even if she was certain Luna wouldn't do that.

There were three last things of note regarding that first month:

The disappearing room had appeared once more. Taylor had been busy with Charms class at the time and had no way to investigate this new occurrence. Luna looked as disappointed as Taylor felt. A disappearing room, that was a good mystery they really wanted to solve.

After almost a full month of practicing, deep into the night while Luna slept on the other side of the bed, Taylor managed her first ever nonverbal spell. She had woken up from a dream about the other Taylor and still half asleep, grabbed her wand and willed it to produce light. Surprisingly it did. After that, Taylor could do it maybe two out of ten tries, but it was confirmation she could do it, and that left her too excited to sleep again that night, much to Luna's amusement the next day.

The last point of interest was Nap.

The lazy owl was getting really fat. Taylor guessed it was all the food in the castle. There was no other explanation. Nap had doubled in size and it was becoming too heavy, not to mention big, to nest on top of Taylor's head. Not that it stopped Nap from doing it.

 

[okashihime]

On the list of Hogwarts bullies, there was another one — well, two more actually — outside Taylor's rehabilitation program purview.

The first one was a known quantity: Filch and his cat.

The problem with Filch was that, after a month of observation, Taylor wasn't sure she could brand the man a true bully. He scared most of the students — he scared the crap out of Taylor — but while he was abrasive, foul-tempered, creepy, and too happy to dole out punishments, he didn't punish students without any reason or justification. His reasons were very petty, but also valid. The old codger had the unfortunate job of being the single caretaker of a gigantic castle with hundreds of magic weaving students doing mischief and looking for trouble, and Taylor had never seen him use a single spell to help with his job. Not even simple ones to do away with dirt and mud on rainy days.

He was unpleasant, maybe biased, and could probably do with a very long vacation in a place far away from kids, but Taylor didn't feel comfortable applying the same rehabilitation to him, so he got a pass, barely.

The second one was Peeves. He was already dead, which left her with little she could do to him.

Peeves took to his curse immunity with renewed glee, much to the students' detriment. Even the Bloody Baron had trouble keeping the poltergeist in check.

Taylor made notes of all of Peeves activities; she couldn't do anything about him yet, but he wasn't going to get a free pass. This was a magic school with a huge library with books about magic. Somewhere in there, something about ghosts probably existed. Taylor just needed the time to find it, and then he'd get his comeuppance.

October brought with, aside from a spate of colds, heavy, unending rain. Raindrops that sounded more like small pebbles thundered against the castle's windows, and up in Ravenclaw's tower, the sound made for comforting nights near the hearth and cuddling with Luna under blankets.

With that much rain, Taylor's activities outside the castle ground to an instant halt. Her bugs couldn't survive that long under such assault and their own instincts rebelled if she tried to push them out in the open. Not that she did that, Taylor liked her creepy crawlies alive and well fed, so for the sudden rainy season, she left the ones not working on her project resting and waiting and gorging.

Taylor wrote the last line of her homework barely paying attention to it. In a corner of her mind, she was rearranging her map of the third floor. A few of her spiders had found a gap behind a suit of armor that connected to a broom cupboard one floor down. She wasn't sure if that was the signs of another secret passage.

Luna looked up from her own parchment. "You should wear your best robes on Thursday."

Taylor glanced at her friend, waiting. Experience had taught her that Luna's statements arrived in whatever order Luna's head had arranged them, and asking for context up front only delayed it.

"For the tea party."

"What tea party?"

"The one you're hosting." Luna turned her parchment around.

It showed a table with four chairs, a teapot, and a woman who had been drawn in grey ink while everything else had a semblance of colour. How Luna could draw with quills was a mystery worth solving later. Taylor more often than not left more ink on her fingers than the parchment.

"We invited the Grey Lady."

Taylor's quill stopped. Somewhere in the castle, about four hundred bugs stopped as well.

"I didn't invite a ghost to tea."

"We did. It was on the second day of school. You were trying to befriend every portrait and ghost looking for secrets." Luna said without judgment, the way she said most things. "We passed her in the corridor by the Charms classroom. You said she seemed lonely and that she probably would like if someone invited her to tea."

A inkling of a memory started to emerge.

Luna's serene voice continued. "She looked at you, and you said, 'Consider yourself invited,' and she inclined her head in agreement."

The memory returned and Taylor couldn't believe she had forgot that. On second day of school she'd been running for hours exploring the castle, cataloguing portraits, challenging moving suits of armor to duels, and apparently, issuing social invitations to the dead out of some autopilot courtesy her mother had instilled years ago.

"That was more than a month ago!"

"Ghosts have a different relationship with time," Luna said. "A month is quite prompt for them. She mentioned it to the Fat Friar, who mentioned it to a portrait on the fifth floor, who told me on Tuesday. She's looking forward to it."

"Why Thursday?"

"Ghosts prefer Thursdays. I asked the portrait why too, but he didn't know either. Isn't that wonderful? A whole new mystery just in the day of the week."

Taylor put down her quill and began panicking about the situation: she had never hosted anything in her life! Mum had always been the one who invited people over, Taylor just showed up for the biscuits and tea.

"What does a ghost even do at a tea party. She can't drink tea, can she?"

Luna's dreamy eyes twinkled. "Can't she?"

That night, Taylor's letter to her mum might have had a slightly panicky question about how to host a tea party.

And because of her new hosting duties, Taylor spent Monday evening and the evening after in the library following a thread through a book titled 'Ghosts of the British Isles, A Compendium of Spectral Etiquette' (1811, badly foxed), and a slim, gossipy volume written in scrawling penmanship called 'Dining with the Departed'.

What she found on both books was sad. Ghosts could not eat, ghosts could not taste. What they could do, or what some of them did, according to the compendium's author, who had attended a Deathday party and never recovered from it, was position themselves near food so far gone that the smell was something vivid. If the smell was strong enough, a ghost could almost remember flavor.

Taylor read that passage three times over.

She could work with that.

Thursday afternoon found her and Luna in an unused classroom off the fifth-floor corridor. She had scouted the room with pixies and confirmed after three days of observation that no one even went there. Not even Filch and his cat.

Free to work unobserved, Taylor swept out the dust with spiders. Following her mum's advice about ambiance, she had the pixies hung deep blue and bronze strips of spider-silk across the rain-soaked windows. If you were hosting a Ravenclaw, and every source agreed the Grey Lady had at some point been a Ravenclaw, you did your research.

Luna complimented the silk strips, running her fingers on the fabric, but thankfully didn't ask where Taylor got it from, or how she had hung it over the windows.

A simple table stood in the center of the room with a cloth Luna had produced from somewhere. There were three chairs on one side, and a fourth for their ghostly guest on the other.

And the tea.

Taylor had approached the tea like it was a competition to win. If ghosts needed smelly things, she would do her best to make the smelliest tea ever.

The base was a black tea she'd over-steeped. Then she had added, after consultation with her Herbology books and a certain amount of experimentation that had cleared her end of the dormitory, a measure of flobberworm mucus, a crumbled bulb of something the greenhouse labeled stinking hellebore, and three drops of a fermented fish sauce that a Ravenclaw sixth-year kept hidden behind a portrait for reasons Taylor had elected not to investigate.

The resulting tea steamed in its pot like something with a grudge against the world. One of her flies had landed on the rim, sampling the air. It smelled like paradise to it; Taylor wanted to be nowhere near the pot.

The Grey Lady came through the wall at four o'clock. She wore her long cloak, and surveyed the room the way Taylor imagined queens of old had once surveyed rooms: Nose high in the air.

"Miss Hebert." Her voice reminded Taylor of chilly winter days. "You issue an invitation and then require a month and an intermediary to honor it. In my day, a hostess kept her engagements in her head."

"In her day, a hostess probably had servants to keep them there for her," Luna answered, smiling at the ghost.

The Grey Lady looked at Luna and something moved across the grey face that was not quite a smile and was not quite not one.

"Miss Lovegood. Your mother once asked me the composition of ectoplasm in that same tone."

"Did you tell her?"

"I did not know it. That vexed me for a decade."

The ghost drifted to the table and arranged herself above it in a seated shape with the ease of someone who had a lot of practice. Then she saw the pot and turned her nose up. Taylor noted in the corner of her mind that a fantasy book would have called it a proud nose, a nose with lineage.

The temperature of the room did not change, but something in her bearing dropped ten degrees anyway.

"What," she said, "is that."

"It's tea," Taylor said. "I read that ghosts can experience very strong smells, almost like tasting. So I made it as strong as I could."

The silence was thick enough to grab with both hands. Rain hammered the windows, the walls. Even Taylor's spiders held still.

"You read." The Grey Lady's chin rose even more. "You read, no doubt, of the Deathday custom. Rotted proteins on tarnished platters, maggoted cheese, the Headless Hunt braying over a decayed salmon as though proximity to putrefaction were a pleasure and not a humiliation." With each word, Taylor sank lower on her chair. "Understand me, child. I am not uncultured, like certain ghosts I could name and will not. I do not press my face into spoiled food and pretend. I do not yearn after the living and their functions. I died with my dignity, which is more than the living manage, and I have kept it for nine centuries. Remove that pot."

Taylor dutifully removed the pot, feeling guilty about her mistake. She set it on the windowsill, where the rain could disapprove of it too, and sat back down. Then she made a decision she was aware of making: she was not going to apologize for that.

"Then I got it wrong," she said, sitting straight on her chair. "The books made it seem like it was the correct choice. What would you actually want at a tea party?"

The Grey Lady regarded her, the nose with lineage lowered by a degree.

"Conversation, properly conducted." she said. "It is the only refreshment I can still take, and the castle serves it weak."

So they talked.

Luna poured ordinary tea for the living, and the Grey Lady spoke.

The Lady told them of the castle's first century, when the moving staircases had not yet learned where to move to and would strand students in the rafters. Of a plague-cursed winter when the ghosts, even the one she would not name, had drifted through the infirmary in shifts, because the dying slept easier when someone kept them company and the dead did not need sleep. Of a Headmistress in the 1300s who had dueled a visiting delegation over a point of arithmancy and won. She had been censured by the school council, but hung the censure on her office wall in a gilt frame.

"The tapestry on the seventh floor, with the trolls in tutus," Luna said after sipping her tea. "Is Barnabas the Barmy real?"

"Real, and exactly as advertised." The Grey Lady paused, as if deliberating. "The trolls were more talented than history credits them, their misfortune was the choreographer."

Taylor asked about the school founders, eager to learn more about the castle's secrets, and saw the Lady's face close like a door. She changed the subject to the castle's architecture instead, and the door in the grey face opened again.

The rain kept on. The window-silk glowed faint blue when the lightning struck in the distance.

At some point Nap arrived, spraying heavy rain around the room. Instead of perching on the third chair like planned, the feathered cannonball royalty perched on top of Taylor's head dousing her in heavy fat droplets.

The Grey Lady looked at the owl with what was unmistakably approval.

"Your owl does not fawn," she said inclining her head to the lazy bird. "I respect that in a creature."

Nap spread her very big wings and hooted. Taylor could almost swear she heard smugness on that hoot.

It was past six when the Lady rose, the seated shape unfolding into the standing one.

"The tea was an insult," she said, "but the intention behind it was not. You are the first hostess in some decades to research her guest, Miss Hebert, even if your sources were slanderous. I am prepared to consider a future engagement." There was a long pause where Taylor held her breath. "Without the pot."

"Without the pot," Taylor and Luna agreed.

The Grey Lady inclined her head the exact motion that had sealed the original invitation, and passed through the wall, taking the cold with her.

Luna gathered the cups, humming. "That went well."

"She called my tea an insult."

"Yes, but she stayed two hours." Luna held one cup up to the light, checking it for something only Luna checked for. "Ghosts don't stay for insults, they stay for company."

Taylor looked at the pot on the windowsill, still spewing malice onto the world, and at the fourth chair, which held the faint chill of a dead guest.

Two hours of nine-hundred-year-old knowledge, one standing invitation and a confirmed report that the moving staircases had learned their routes (no one would believe her if she told someone else), which implied they could learn new ones.

As parties went, Taylor decided it was the best one she'd ever hosted.

She'd never hosted anything else, so it was even true.

 

[okashihime]

On her re-education efforts, Taylor didn't target people for being bigots by itself, that was counter productive. Even if she found it distasteful, someone not liking wizards born out of non-magical parents wasn't something she could realistically change. Her method targeted those who decided to impose that opinion on others. And by now, most of the students had learned to keep their malice to themselves, aside from a few standouts in green, or a few standouts in red.

Gryffindors found it hard to accept that their discrimination and bullying should warrant the curse's attention.

There was this bleach blond pointy faced boy, a Malfoy, that didn't seem capable of learning. His favorite words were probably 'mudblood' and threatening people with 'my father something something'. Whenever he opened his mouth, it was to call someone names based on some perceived bloodline status or to brag about how rich daddy was. Bragging about being rich wasn't something Taylor acted on, but the name calling was. The situation was such that Taylor had pixies trailing him all day long, ready to dunk mud on his head whenever he inevitably spewed his racist bullcrap.

The professors, of course, noticed all of that.

On principle, Taylor avoided spying on professors aside from Snape, but he had attended one staff meeting to discuss the 'curse', and the general consensus among the faculty was that this was a student prank, a seventh year perhaps. And because there wasn't any real injury aside from bruised prides and no school faculty was ever targeted, there was also no urgency to deal with it.

Snape, of course, had been livid during the whole meeting, demanding action and an investigation given that his house was the most affected among the student population. The looks the other professors gave him was something Taylor would cherish for a long time.

The whole thing made the potions master even more annoying to endure in his classes, but school life had become better, not only for her but for others as well, so Taylor thought it was all worth the hassle of enduring Snape's snapeness.

---

In the weeks leading up to the Halloween feast, the school descended into a sort of Christmas-gift-about-to-arrive mood, with most of the students barely able to contain their growing excitement and enthusiasm. Chief culprit for that was the now confirmed rumor about the dancing skeletons crew.

It was hard to believe almost two months had already passed. Taylor had been so busy it felt like a blink of an eye. Another blink and it would be Christmas. Taylor hadn't talked with Luna about inviting her and her father to Christmas dinner yet, nor did she have any gift for her friend and mum.

She had been wracking her brains trying to think of what she could gift Luna and her mum on Christmas (it was still weeks away but better be prepared), when the idea of weaving clothing from silk metaphorically smacked her on the face.

In the form of dreams.

She'd been dreaming for a week straight about brunette Taylor weaving silk costumes. It would have been very embarrassing if it wasn't annoying.

Having worked on the silk strips for the tea-party gave Taylor the confidence to work on bigger projects. So, discreetly, Taylor used her bugs to take Luna's measure, then added a few more inches to everything so she wouldn't grow out of it too fast. As a basis for the gift, she used what she had in hand: the pink pajamas. Luna would probably enjoy that, wouldn't she?

That also made Taylor realise she needed silk pajamas as well. So a set turned into two: One pink for Taylor and another silvery for her friend, to match Luna's eyes.

As for her mum, there wasn't anyone in the castle that had her exact figure, the closest she could find was professor Vector. Mum's shirt and scarf wouldn't be a perfect fit, but it was the intention that counted, right?

There was another interesting thing that was going to happen at the same time as the Halloween feast: Sir Nearly Headless Nicholas Deathday party.

The tea party with the Grey lady had left Taylor with a cautious foot regarding that particular brand of festivities, but it did seem like something she'd enjoy attending at least once. She asked that to her mum in a letter, because Taylor wanted to attend both, but unfortunately she couldn't be in two places at once — the bugs didn't count. Mum, aside from the normal questions about how school was, the bullies and incompetent professors and if Taylor was having fun, suggested she bring that up with her friend; maybe Luna would have an opinion.

And so she posed the question to Luna.

"What do you think we should do on Halloween: the feast or the Deathday party?"

They hadn't been invited to the party, but Taylor reckoned nothing stopped them from just dropping by unannounced. It might seem rude, or maybe the ghosts would like the surprise.

"Partying with the dead seems fun," Luna said, and Taylor nodded. "but we might not have another chance to dance with skellies and there will be another Deathday party next year."

That solved that conundrum. Dance with skeletons it was.

With that matter settled, Taylor went back to her normal routine. She had started sneaking pixies into the library at night to read books while the other students were busy elsewhere. It wasn't easy reading in the dark, it took a fair bit of practice, but she made do. At first, she wanted to learn how to exorcise ghosts to deal with Peeves, but soon she got distracted with the many interesting manuals and parchments and reports and research she found. Then she learned about the restricted section and had tried to take a book from there, but there was some sort of spell protecting the tomes and the pixies had to scarper in panic to avoid discovery.

On top of it all, Taylor kept up with her magical practice. After expelliarmus, she decided that a fourth year charm was something she needed: protego, a shield charm. She hadn't worked out how to cast that one yet because her alone time to practice was far and few between. It wasn't that she didn't trust Luna to keep secrets, by this point, Taylor was pretty sure Luna at least suspected something, and that she was trustworthy. It was that she'd made a promise to mum and Taylor wanted to keep it.

So she stole a few minutes here and there to practice higher year charms, nonverbal casting (she could lumos seven out of ten times already) all the while practicing the normal repertoire of basic first year charms. Taking inspiration from her bully register, Taylor used Dum to start a spell compendium. Students, specially those from established magical families, knew a lot of different charms and hexes and curses.

Taylor didn't have time to learn all of them, she was too busy as it was, but she kept a ledger on any new spell she heard being used in the castle. Along with that, whenever she managed to, she also noted the effect, the words chanted, the wand movement. She felt almost like a proper wizard with her budding grimoire.

And then Halloween arrived.

Students were buzzing and talking and barely able to contain themselves. The great hall had been barred off while preparations were made and Taylor had kept her bugs out of there so as not to spoil the surprise.

Taylor got in her school robes and for once, put on the silly pointy hat, and hand in hand with her bestie, and an even fatter Nap on her head, she dragged Luna toward the Great Hall and to the feast.

The Great Hall had transformed.

The first thing Taylor noticed were the pumpkins: they were everywhere! There was even a Jack-o'-Lantern the size of a small hut stashed in one of the corners. It looked big enough that she could duck inside it. Was that why it was so big? Were there secrets hidden inside? Bats, live ones, flew above the crowd, gobbling any flier Taylor dared to bring inside. The ceiling showed a full clear sky and a bright almost full moon and many many stars that Taylor was sure didn't exist; she hadn't ever seen those in the Astronomy class.

Black candles with black flames cast flickering ghostly lights all around. In one of the corners a row of tables had been set against the wall, teeming with all manner of pumpkin foods and beverages: Tea, juice, pie, sweets and so much more.

The four long tables had been removed, and up where the professor's desk usually stood, was now a raised platform, with a smiling, sharply dressed Flitwick and a chorus of croaking frogs providing the music for the feast. Impossibly, the croaked song was really good, and Taylor found herself bobbing to the tune. Luna had to gently guide her out of the entrance; so enthralled she was with everything.

Sometime into the night, the singing frogs left and a skeleton band took their place, much to the students' delight and cheering. Their music was more upbeat, and when the troupe of colourful dressed skeletons marched through the door and started dancing, Taylor followed on without realising what she was doing: she didn't know how to dance.

That didn't seem important at that moment.

Taylor danced and danced. She tried to follow Luna's moves, a sort of twirling, arm waving motion that shouldn't look good but did so anyways. When she noticed she couldn't keep up, Taylor just moved like her body wanted to. She shook and twirled and waved and bobbed and laughed. She danced with ghosts who hadn't attended the Deathday party, she danced with skeletons who seemed more than willing to take her spinning chaotic movements and add to them. Mostly, she danced with Luna. They twirled, and laughed, and danced and danced.

It was cathartic.

Taylor hadn't realised how tired she'd become in the past two months. All the surveillance, the constant bully dodging, the non-stop magical practice, the endless homework. She let it all go, at least for that night, and just enjoyed and danced and had fun and drank pumpkin juice and ate pumpkin inspired sweets and ducked inside hut-sized lanterns looking for treasures.

It was closer to eleven when the feast ended and students thundered out of the hall and towards the dormitory. The whole castle population felt lighter. Students laughed, clapped backs, shook hands, hugged and seemed more like normal kids, not the wizards in training ready to cause mischief they usually were.

Then the throng of people turned into a water clogged corridor on the first floor, and lo and behold there was Magical-Hero Harry and his posse.

On the walls, drawn in blood, was a glowing message about a chamber of secrets.

Hung by the tail above the bloody words, looking very dead, was Mrs Norris.

Malfoy, of course, had to do his bigot bit. "Enemies of the heir, beware! You'll be next, Mudbloods!" he called out, walking from among the crowd.

Taylor didn't have any easy silk to trip the prat, nor did she dare to use pixies to drop mud on his head with this many people around. She had a fly zip into his mouth while he was laughing and taunting students. That worked better than she expected. The laughter stopped abruptly and Malfoy grabbed his throat, looking panicked. People around looked and pointed and Taylor heard more than a few muttered 'curses and comeuppance'.

The blond idiot tried to run away, but his shoes slipped on the wet floor and he fell face first. Students looked in abject horror and fascination while Draco was having a fit.

That looked worse than what Taylor had intended to do. She just wanted to shut up the prat, not have him choking to death. She dislodged the fly, making a mental note about what was and wasn't acceptable retaliation.

Argus Filch came out barging through the crowd next. He saw the cat and balled his eyes out at the loss of his pet. Then came the professors, then the headmaster.

Nap spread her wings and hooted. It was utter chaos.

 

[okashihime]

In the aftermath of the Chamber kerfuffle, Penny escorted all students back to Ravenclaw's Tower. Taylor followed in body, but her mind was on the many bugs she snuck into the DADA professor's office before the crowd got there. She listened to everything avidly.

Inside, Lockhart prattled about this one curse or another doing his best to be as annoying as possible while offering no help whatsoever, in Taylor's modest opinion.

"… so unlucky I wasn't there, I know the very counter-curse that would have saved her …"

On and on he went with no one, aside from his own portraits and Filch, paying him any heed.

Filch hung on Lockhart's every word, with every inconsiderate thing spewing out of Lockhart's mouth sending the caretaker into greater bouts of sobbing. Taylor never thought she'd see an old man ugly-cry, but Filch did his best, balling his eyes out, slumped in a chair by the desk with his face in both hands.

Taylor moved her attention toward the others in the room.

Snape looked very Snape. Tall, brooding and moody. His eyes kept flickering to Harry Potter when no one else was looking. McGonagall fretted near the headmaster, looking spooked. Flitwick paced up and down, tugging at his mustache. Professor Sprout looked very quiet in one of the corners, eyes fixed on Mrs Norris.

Then there was the headmaster. It was the first time Taylor had the opportunity to observe him so closely. Having read so many stories about the man in so many books, she'd done her best to steer clear of him in the off chance he had a magical way of detecting her presence through her bugs. Thankfully, that didn't seem to be the case.

Even bent over and murmuring near a dead cat, he cut an imposing figure. His long, white beard flowed and crystal clear blue eyes stared from behind small glasses. He was everything a fantasy wizard should be: Tall, old, bearded and radiating wisdom with each word and gesture.

Taylor felt extremely uncomfortable just looking at the headmaster. The way he looked at people and that twinkling in his eyes. It was like he could peer into people's souls and discern all their secrets.

"She's not dead, Argus," the headmaster said softly, cutting off Lockhart's prattle.

"Not dead?" Filch choked from between his fingers. "But why's she all – all stiff and frozen?"

"She has been Petrified," said Dumbledore ("Ah! I thought so!"). "But how, I cannot say…"

The meeting after that delved into finger pointing and blame casting. Filch wanted Harry punished because he was convinced Harry had done it. Dumbledore opposed that. The magic that had petrified Mrs Norris was dark magic. Too dark for a second year, Harry couldn't have done it. Then Snape inserted his long beaked nose into the conversation, asking questions about what the trio was doing in that corridor.

Harry's excuse convinced no one, even Taylor who wasn't there.

Snape then proposed they bar Harry from playing Quidditch until he was forthcoming with the truth.

And surprisingly, Deputy Headmistress McGonagall took a stance against this.

"Really, Severus," said Professor McGonagall, "I see no reason to stop the boy playing Quidditch. This cat wasn't hit over the head with a broomstick. There is no evidence at all that Potter has done anything wrong."

Even the headmaster gave out his opinion on the matter. He'd been staring at Harry, with eyes twinkling.

"Innocent until proven guilty, Severus."

Snape looked furious. So did Filch.

What the heck. Normal bullying these people ignored, but when the bullying affected the Gryffindor Quidditch team they opposed it? What the hell was wrong with these wizards?

Harry and his friends were soon dismissed. She kept a few bugs in the office, following the staff conversation now that the students had left, and with another part of her mind, she followed Harry and his friends.

What she learned when they thought no one was listening was enlightening.

Professor Sprout who'd been quiet this whole time whispered. "Could this be a student prank?"

The headmaster turned to her, his face still serious.

"I'm afraid it might not be, Pomona."

"What do we do, Dumbledore?" Flitwick asked next.

"We observe, and with luck, no disaster will happen this time."

This time? Had the chamber been opened before? Taylor couldn't think of any other meaning for the way the headmaster phrased it. After that, there wasn't much to learn on the staff side, so she dedicated more attention to Harry and Co.

They walked just until they were far enough away from the professors until they ducked inside an empty classroom.

"D'you think I should have told them about that voice I heard?" Whispered Harry.

"No," the Weasley boy said without hesitation. "Hearing voices no one else can hear isn't a good sign, even in the wizarding world."

What voices? Taylor hadn't heard anything, but again, she hadn't been paying attention during the feast.

The conversation continued after that, but Taylor didn't much care for the Weasley discrimination towards non-magicals born from magical families, even if it was towards Filch. She refused to call him a squib. The man was a menace and a terror, but she had her own standards. The more Taylor learned about the magical world, the more she realised that what she was doing was more than needed. If even the good, nice wizards were all racists as much as the bad evil ones, how was she to solve this problem?

Taylor kept her many eyes on the whole castle for a few more minutes, trying to find what was different and where this Chamber of Secrets could be. Maybe it was the disappearing room? She hadn't been paying attention at all while dancing with the skellies, but the room might have showed up again. With the amount of stuff piled there, maybe someone found a magical artifact or heirloom that petrified people? Something to discuss later with Luna.

There was a situation Taylor hadn't had the time to address yet, which she found… odd.

Magical bugs weren't the same as normal bugs. Normal insects didn't have… Taylor hesitated to call it an ego, but it was the best way to describe things. Her control over them was absolute. Her control over magical insects was absolute too, but magical ones had ego, or instinct and more often than not, those pressed against her power. It was like an ant trying to move a planet. It was never going to work, no matter how many ants. But they tried. She'd seen this before, like the fliers not wanting anything to do with the sudden monsoon season out there.

So, Taylor found it odd that all the spiders on the same side of the castle where they found the petrified cat wanted to flee. From what and to where, she couldn't say exactly, but even the ones hidden in her tower, or the peaceful rainbow-silk spiders deep down in the tunnels beneath Hogwarts wanted to get away. She really wanted to ask Luna about this, but she'd also need to explain about her power and she made a promise to mum. No telling secrets, even to best friends.

---

Taylor blinked back inside her own head, finally aware of things around her again.

"Welcome back," Luna whispered close to her ear.

Taylor had to reflexively hold back a yelp. She shivered, heart almost popping out of her mouth, and looked around frantically. She found herself with a bundle of pink pajamas in hand, Luna gently pushing her toward the bathroom; she didn't remember getting there at all.

"You should change out of the robes," Luna said, pushing her into the bathroom, then closing the door after Taylor went through.

Taylor stared at the door confused. Almost mechanically, she got into her pajamas, folded the robes, cleaned her teeth and stopped before she went back.

She looked at the empty bathroom again, at the bundle of clothes in her hands, and sighed.

There was a chance that Luna had found something about her power, give her comment. She might ask questions, questions Taylor couldn't give without breaking mum's promise. Would she get mad like the others? Call her weirdo and stop being her friend?

With another deep sigh, she returned to her room.

Mira and Harriet, as usual, had already retired without even a goodnight. It made Taylor sad that they didn't want to be friends for some reason. Was it the trouble with Snape or was it because she was weird?

She looked for Luna, who had already gone up to her bunk. Taylor was very tired, but she also had a letter to write, so, instead of joining Luna under blankets, she sat on the desk, pulled normal paper and a pen, then started writing.

In today's letter, Taylor recounted the Halloween feast, the dance, the foods, and all the fun she had. She also mentioned briefly how some of her door mates didn't seem to want to be friends for some reason, but didn't linger on that subject. Then, by the end of the letter, she hesitated.

Should she tell mum about the Chamber of Secrets and the petrified cat?

Instead of putting to paper all she heard from the professors and headmaster, Taylor mentioned a new mystery: a strange message on the wall and a cat found at the scene. She avoided trying to make it sound too bad (she didn't want mum panicking), and didn't put the secrets she listened to into the letter. If someone was reading her correspondence, she didn't want anyone learning she had ways to listen to private conversations.

Thankfully, Taylor went through the letter pretty quickly, and without shedding tears. She was getting better at this.

Then she turned to Nap, squinting her eyes at the owl.

There was something very wrong with Nap. Or maybe wrong wasn't the correct word. She was growing too fast, and even had a tuft of feathers that almost looked like horns in her head. Was she some sort of magic barn owl? Was that why she was getting so big? Did those even exist?

"Tell me the truth, Nap," she whispered to the lazy bird. "Are you a magic barn owl?"

Nap's big eyes blinked in what Taylor thought was annoyance. Her hoot definitely sounded annoyed. She nipped at Taylor's fingers (ouch) when picking up mum's letter, then flew away without even waiting for treats.

Still unsure what had happened, Taylor climbed on Luna's bunk and tucked in, her back turned to her friend. Luna was still awake and waiting, and now she was going to start asking questions, Taylor just knew it.

"Daddy will be happy to hear about this conspiracy," Luna said instead.

Taylor turned around, facing her friend and her big pretty silvery eyes. "Wha-uh?" she said eloquently.

"A heir, a secret chamber and an attack on school grounds." Luna chirped, looking more animated than Taylor had seen her since the start of school. "What is it if not a conspiracy?"

Despite herself, Taylor grinned at her friend. What would Luna say when she learned this wasn't even the first time the chamber had been opened? Call it a double conspiracy?

 

[okashihime]

That day, Taylor and Luna whispered to each other late into the night about conspiracies, the heir, the attack and The Quibbler. It was a good thing the Halloween feast had been on a Saturday, because they were not ready to wake up early. They missed breakfast by a few hours, settling up to wait for lunch instead.

"Can I borrow Nap to send a letter home?" Luna asked the next morning.

Taylor nodded, looking around for the lazy bird, and not finding her. Was Nap still mad?

"She… hasn't returned yet?" Taylor said, confused.

Nap didn't return for a few days, and when she did, she dropped a letter on Taylor's lap then perched on her head. At least Taylor knew the fat owl wasn't mad at her. The letter from mum also had an explanation about why Nap took so long to return. Mum had used Nap to contact a few wizarding services, like magazines and newspapers, and that she'd probably need Nap again in the near future.

With the owl back, Luna sent her letter home detailing to her father the conspiracy at hand.

With a bit of finagling, Taylor managed to get a few spiders near Luna fleeing the castle and pretended she just noticed that happening. Luna took that as a new mystery to solve, even if Taylor felt like her own acting had been subpar and Luna had just decided not to ask questions.

"We should visit Hagrid to ask him about the spiders. He had a book and all."

That settled part of their plans for the next weekend, after the near infinite amount of homework had been finished.

For days, students could talk of little but the attack. Filch did his best to remind everyone at every occasion. He paced the spot where they found Mrs Norris like a man possessed. More than once, he tried to clean up the bloody message, with a variety of different cleaning products, to no avail. When he wasn't camping the spot, he was skulking red-eyed through the corridors, lunging at students and trying to put them in detention for things like 'breathing loudly' and 'looking happy'.

There were rumors about. Too many to even list them all, but a few were worth paying more attention to.

Half of the castle population was secretly celebrating the attack. Students hated Filch so much they were actually happy someone attacked his cat.

There was a growing sentiment, centered towards a few second year students, that Harry Potter was the heir and he was out to get the 'muggle born'. It took a while to find out why they were thinking that, and it was because Harry had been vocal about hating his 'muggle' adoptive family. That, somehow, got interpreted as Harry hating wizards born out of non-magical parents.

The attack had other repercussions, however. A lot of older Slytherins behaved like this was some revenge done in their behalf because of the Comeuppance curse, as if the Heir had given them permission to be bullies. Taylor had to crack down hard on those, often leaving them full of itchy welts and belongings swamped in mud. Thankfully, that didn't last long, and most learned fast and abandoned that idea.

There were a few standouts among students, of course.

The first one was Ginny: she looked even more tired, and cried a lot when there was no-one near or when confronted by her older siblings. She took to writing in a diary almost feverishly when alone. The diary seemed magical, it actually wrote back to Ginny, which was very cool. It was like the perfect diary.

Taylor did her best to not pry on the girl's privacy. She'd be pretty mad if someone stood over her shoulder while she wrote letters to her mum, and Ginny was almost a friend, really. They hadn't talked much in the past weeks, she'd been quirky and Harry-obsessed, but she didn't treat Taylor any differently like the others. That alone warranted an almost friend label.

The second one was Malfoy. The blond prat kept complaining, loudly, that it was a shame he wasn't the heir, and that if he was, he'd clear the whole school of mudbloods in one fell swoop. Did he even realise he was talking about assault, and possibly murder? Taylor questioned his intelligence.

He did receive letters from home, to which he complained to his two shadows about:

"Father won't tell me anything about the last time the Chamber was opened." he whined to his thuggish audience. "It was fifty years ago, before his time, but he knows all about it, and all he says is that it was all kept quiet and it'll look suspicious if I know too much. But he let slip one thing: last time the Chamber of Secrets was opened, a Mudblood died. I hope it's Granger who dies this time."

By spying on Harry's friends, Taylor also learned that her copy of Hogwarts: A History would be useful aside from interesting trivia. Hermione had been going to the library trying to get a copy, but all had been taken already.

With that tidbit in mind, she took out her book and started reading. And Hermione had been right. There was a small section on castle myths and legends.

According to the book, it was a fact that the four founders (Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin) built the castle together, far from prying non-magical eyes, for it was an age when magic was feared by common people, and witches and wizards suffered much persecution.

For a few years, the founders worked in harmony, but then disagreements sprang up between them. Slytherin wanted to be more selective about the students admitted to Hogwarts. He believed that magical learning should be kept within all-magic families. He disliked taking students of non-magical parentage, believing them to be untrustworthy. After a while, there was a serious argument on the subject between Slytherin and Gryffindor, and Slytherin left the school.

The myth part of the tale was that Slytherin had built a hidden chamber in the castle, of which the other founders knew nothing. According to the legend, he sealed the Chamber of Secrets so that none would be able to open it until his own true heir arrived at the school. The heir alone would be able to unseal the chamber, unleash the horror within, and use it to purge the school of all who were unworthy to study magic.

Another, small side note added that in the 1940s, a student was accused of opening the chamber, and that a girl died when he did so. He was caught by a Tom M. Riddle and expelled, but no one ever found the Chamber of Secrets or caught the horror that resided inside. The book didn't mention what happened to the expelled student, or the name of the one who died.

Taylor remembered Tom Riddle's medal of Extraordinary services to the school in the trophy room. At least she could confirm that part. She related all of that to Luna, who in turn sent the tidbits to her father.

There were a few other interesting bits Taylor picked up, mostly regarding Most-Suspicious-Hero Harry.

Like a psychopath in some thriller novel, he returned to the scene of crime. Together with his friends, they decided to investigate and ended up sneaking inside the out-of-commission girl's bathroom, and got caught by Percy when leaving, losing house points.

Having found no useful information in the bathroom, they were now planning to break school rules, or better yet, Hermione was planning to break the school rules. Influenced by Ron, who was convinced the heir was Draco or that Draco knew who the heir was, they were planning to brew a polyjuice potion to impersonate Slytherin students and ask Malfoy questions.

To do that, they'd enlist Lockhart's unknowing help. With his permission slip, they were able to check out a book from the reserved section of the library, which left Taylor feeling very envious. Maybe she should try to be nice to Lockhart too? If he was that easy going, saying good things about his books (and they were excellent fantasy books) might pay off?

Another part of Taylor really wanted a peek at that potions book. Moste Potente Potions was a fascinating name. Thus, unashamedly, Taylor added a new task to her ever growing task-list of things.

During school hours, when students were busy, she had a pixie sneak into Hermione's room, and read from the potions book. With another pixie in her hive, she started making a copy of the book's contents, skipping the too gruesome potions. She didn't want or need slow acting poisons, fast acting poisons, or even flesh rotting potions. No, what caught her interest were the outliers. Polyjuice, Felix Felicis, Ageing Potion and so much more.

---

The week passed in a whirlwind of surveillance (with no apparent heir) and lots of homework. It seemed the professors were trying to keep students out of trouble by swamping them in busywork.

Saturday afternoon, after spending the whole morning finishing up the school assignments, Taylor led a smiling Luna outside the castle and towards the grounds. She'd sent an owl confirming if Hagrid was free (he was) and promised to visit that afternoon.

When she got closer to his hut, she didn't feel any presence at the ends of her range inside the forest, which was a shame. That was still something Taylor wanted to check out, but she just didn't have the time.

After petting a sprawled Fang near the doorway, she knocked on the groundskeeper door.

"Ello," Hagrid said, poking his huge head outside smiling at both. "Taylor, come in, come in."

Nap flew off Taylor's head (a relief, since Nap was getting really heavy) to land near the windows, spread her wings and hoot at the giant. Hagrid laughed, picking up strips of dried meat from his pocket and feeding the lazy bird.

"Yer growin' up nicely, girl," he said, offering the strips.

Luna followed Taylor inside until both were huddled onto the couch. Hagrid served tea and cake. Having prior experience, Taylor broke the cake then dunked it into the tea. Luna looked at all that fascinated, before following the example.

"Hullo, Hagrid, this is my friend, Luna Lovegood."

"Hullo," Luna said, waving gently. "And thank you for the food. It's the first time I get to eat a giant's cake."

"Nice ta meet yer," Hagrid grabbed their hands in his giant mitts.

Taylor didn't bring the subject in question immediately, she wanted to soften up the giant first.

"Can I see the book again? I want to show Luna what the rainbow-silk spiders look like."

Hagrid smiled and nodded. "O'course, o'course."

Soon after, he had the book delivered.

"I didn' get ter tell yer last time, but don' take ter heart everythin' the book says, alright? Some o' the things in that book are plain wrong."

Taylor nodded, opening the book eagerly. Luna scooted closer and page by page, they read, pointed and talked about the many, many critters described there.

"They're very pretty," Luna said looking at the drawing of the Rainbow-silk spiders.

Taylor wanted to bring out one of the spiders she had hidden under her hair to show Luna, but resisted the urge. No breaking promises.

"Yer mentioned in yer owl yer saw somethin' interestin' 'bout spiders. What was it?"

She finished gobbling more of the cake, then sipping the tea before addressing the spider issue.

"I'm not sure why, but recently I've seen a lot of spiders fleeing the castle. It's like they are afraid of something, do you know why?"

Hagrid's poker face was horrible. "I have no idea," he lied.

Immediately she knew she was onto something. Taylor exchanged glances with Luna.

"But they are scared of something, right? Is it the horror inside the chamber? Do you know anything about it?"

"No!" Hagrid said, too loudly.

Luna tilted her head. "That's a shame. I was hoping it was a nice horror. It must be terribly lonely, being in there alone. Lonely ones usually are nice, daddy says."

"Nice —" Hagrid scowled. "'Course he's nice, he wouldn' hurt a fly unless—" He stopped dead, horror dawning on his face. "There's no he. I never said he."

"You just did," Luna said pleasantly. "Four times."

Hagrid got up. "Forget what I said, I shouldn' have said that."

"Alright," Luna said, taking another bite of cake.

 

[greatredd]

ok i like this watched and i have to say chibi luna petting a spider is adorable

 

[okashihime]

Despite Luna's assurances, Taylor wasn't ready to forget anything. Like a hammer to glass, she spoke her mind.

"You can tell us, we won't tell anyone."

"There ain't nothin' ter tell," Hagrid said, going toward the window and peaking outside.

"Are you sure? It would help if we can find the horror and prevent another attack."

"Look at the time," Hagrid said, abruptly. "Yer gotta return ter the castle afore it gets late."

Taylor didn't have a chance to complain about that.

"Take ta book with yer, yer can give it back once yer 'ave finished readin' it."

Then they were shown out with the door closing behind them with a soft bang.

Taylor looked around. Without the giant pumpkins, the hut looked more like a normal giant's house instead of a fantasy fairyland retreat.

"To the castle?" Taylor asked.

Luna shook her head. "I'd like to visit the lake."

That was as good as any other destination. Holding the book in one hand, and grabbing Luna with the other, Taylor led the way. She found a nice patch of grass closer to the lake's waters. The weather was still cloudy and cold, but Luna didn't seem to mind it at all. She settled near the water, sometimes dipping her fingers into it.

"I don't think Hagrid has anything to do with the chamber," Luna said after a while.

Taylor, who had been reading from the book, looked up.

"He didn't look guilty, he looked sad."

Taylor placed the book on her lap, thinking about the whole situation. "But he knows something."

"He does, and that makes him sad."

---

Taylor's questions bothered Hagrid more than she expected. In the following days, he kept finding excuses — not even good excuses — to every owl she sent asking to visit again. He'd be warding off his chicken against predators, or bathing Fang, or pruning weeds. One time, he even said he had a stomachache.

She'd be very annoyed if her bugs hadn't clued in that she had stepped onto some real mines. Something had spooked Hagrid something fierce. He behaved like there was someone out to get him, he constantly checked his windows and surroundings. He had even arranged a crossbow from somewhere and stashed it near the door. More often than not, he'd disappear into the forbidden forests for hours on end, doing what she had no idea.

But Taylor couldn't dedicate too much time to solve that new mystery. There was ever more school work to do, and magic to practice. She managed, that same week, to cast her first successful shield charm. She still had a lot of trouble forming the spell correctly, but it was good progress.

Her normal classes also had her learning new spells.

Flitwick had started teaching them two opposing charms: Lock and Unlock. The goal for this was to have students help each other in turns. One would learn the locking charm, while the other unlock, then they'd practice together.

Unfortunately, the pairs were assigned by Flitwick and Taylor ended up paired with Nneka instead of Luna. Taylor had nothing against Nneka, she just found the girl strange.

"I won't lose this time," Nneka said, then focused solely on her wandwork.

Taylor didn't know what the other girl expected to not lose, so she just shrugged and got on with her own practice. But having worked with spells harder than unlocking, she found it almost too simple to grasp. As it was her custom, she visualised the whole thing in her head, from the chanting to the wand waving and only after she had a good visualisation she tried it for real.

"Colloportus," she whispered.

The lock clicked with a satisfying clank.

Nneka's head snapped up, eyes wide. "How?"

"Marvelous wandwork, Miss Hebert! Ten points to Ravenclaw!" Flitwick praised from his book stack.

Taylor didn't hide the wide smile Flitwick's praise got her. The house points were a nice bonus too. She didn't understand Nneka's confusion; the spell wasn't that hard to grasp.

---

Almost two weeks had passed since the attack, and Taylor still had no clue about the heir, the chamber, or what was up with Hagrid. He'd become even more guarded after something had killed one of his roosters. He found it strangled and with a broken neck near its pen. That happened while Taylor was asleep, so she had no clue what killed it either.

"There's a Quidditch match this weekend," Luna said Thursday afternoon.

Taylor didn't need Luna's reminder about the match, most students were talking about it. The enthusiasm was such that most forgot the attack and the chamber: Gryffindor versus Slytherin rivalry was the new story in everyone's mouth. Taylor hadn't seen anything regarding the sport yet, aside from a few students who were obsessed with it. Harry seemed to be a good player, and this year, Malfoy had joined the green team.

The rivalry was almost to the point of bullying. She caught Flint discussing sabotage a few times, but it never went anywhere. Slytherin was confident they would win: they had faster brooms, courtesy of Malfoy senior.

For a brief spell, Taylor wanted to stay in the castle and practice magic. It was an excellent opportunity to work on advanced charms. The whole student population would be outside, but Luna's expectant eyes killed that idea.

"Gryffindor?" Taylor asked, already knowing the answer.

"Yes," Luna nodded.

When Saturday morning arrived, Taylor was left speechless.

Luna had acquired from somewhere a lion's mane hat. A roaring lion's mane hat. A hat that roared every time someone shouted Gryffindor near it.

"To support Gryffindor," she had said like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Taylor was conflicted about the whole thing. On one hand, it looked silly. On the other hand, it looked very fun. But even if she wanted, she didn't have a lion's mane hat, so it was a moot point. She followed the students toward the Quidditch pitch. Outside the castle, it was a muggy sort of day with a hint of thunder in the air. At least, it wasn't raining.

Students climbed the stands towards their seats, following their housemates, while down in the pitch, Madam Hooch prepared for the match.

Then the teams walked in and it was… amazing!

The crowd roared in greeting of the players; mainly cheers, because Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff wanted to see Slytherin beaten, but the Slytherins in the crowd made their boos and hisses heard too. Madam Hooch, the Quidditch teacher, asked both team captains to shake hands, which they did, giving each other threatening stares. Even from a distance, Taylor could feel the animosity.

"On my whistle," said Madam Hooch, her voice echoing from the field, "three … two … one …"

With yet another roar from the crowd and Luna's hat, which Taylor joined too, the players sped upward, toward the leaden sky. Harry flew higher than any of the others, head of a swivel, like a hawk in search of prey.

There was a lot of taunting and name calling down in the pitch, and as much mean-spirited the taunting was, it was part of the sport, and not something she wanted to deal with.

The game was fast and frantic, with players flying in daring loops and mid-air acrobatics. She watched fascinated as the big ball (a Quaffle, Luna whispered closer to her ear), got tossed from student to student, while others flew about with bats, deflecting smaller balls that looked like flying menaces.

One of those smaller balls (a Bludger, Luna informed her again), flew so close to Harry that Taylor even felt the wind of its passage for the bespectacled hero.

It all left Taylor feeling electrified. She hadn't taken to flying at all, she still found it difficult even after two months of practice, but this was something she could enjoy.

Even knowing nothing about Quidditch, Taylor knew Gryffindor was in trouble. Slytherin was flying rounds around them; their brooms were a lot faster than the ones used by the students in red.

"Close one, Harry!" yelled one of the twins, flying past Harry and whacking the black ball toward a Slytherin flier, but the Bludger changed direction in mid-air and shot straight for Harry again.

Harry dropped quickly to avoid it, and the Weasley managed to hit it hard towards Malfoy.

Once again, the Bludger swerved like a boomerang and shot at Harry's head, who put on a burst of speed and zoomed towards the other end of the pitch.

The other Weasley twin was waiting for the Bludger at the other end. Harry ducked, and the red-head blasted the Bludger away.

"That's done it!" Taylor heard him yelling over the crowd's cheering. But he was wrong; the Bludger curved mid-air again, and pelted after Harry again, who was forced to flee at full speed.

"Is that normal?" Taylor asked Luna, without taking her eyes from the chase.

"No," Luna whispered back.

To make things worse, it started to rain.

The rest of the game hadn't stopped because Gryffindor's seeker had a stalker-Bludger problem. While the twins flew closer to Harry, trying to bat the Bludger away, Slytherin abused their superior speed and lack of opposition to score six times in a row.

The narrating student called out each score, and his enthusiasm had diminished with each scored point by Slytherin.

"Slytherin lead, sixty points to zero."

A signal passed between the twins and the team captain, who then waved Madam Hooch. She whistled a timeout.

Gryffindor students huddled together, while Slytherins in the skies and crowd jeered.

There weren't many bugs out and about with this heavy rain, but she managed to sneak a few to pick up the conversation happening down there. It was, of course, another mystery. Someone had cursed the Bludger to target Harry Potter and him only. Was this the heir? Another avenue of attack? Were they trying a different tactic?

Taylor scanned the surroundings, looking for anything out of place, but the rain and the crowd made it difficult. She sent what few bugs she could muster in this heavy rain, trying to find anything out of place, but there was nothing.

The only abnormal thing was one of the castle house elves watching the game too, mostly hidden away from prying eyes.

"What are they saying?" Luna leaned closer, the hat's mane tickling Taylor's ear.

Taylor leaned toward Luna, eyes never leaving the group down in the pitch.

"Wood, the team captain, is asking what the twins are doing and why they aren't defending the rest of the players. Fred or George, I dunno which, is saying they are trying to keep Harry alive and that the Bludger won't leave him alone."

Luna nodded, huddling closer. The proximity in the cold weather was nice.

"Harry wants the twins to leave him to deal with the cursed Bludger, but another player wants them to stop the game and ask for an inquiry."

The crowd was starting to get restless. The game hadn't stopped for more than a few minutes yet, but people were impatient.

Madam Hooch approached, and that seemed to push a decision forward.

"They're going to keep playing," Taylor said with bathed breath. She didn't know if Harry was being courageous or courageously foolish.

"Isn't it dangerous?"

"Very dangerous," Taylor said, not repeating the protests from the Gryffindor's players, "but Harry doesn't want to lose to Slytherin."

Then she had no more time to talk. The rain was falling more heavily now. On Madam Hooch's whistle, Harry kicked hard into the air. It didn't take long for the stalker-Bludger be on his trail again. Higher and higher he climbed. He looped and swooped, spiralled, zig-zagged and rolled.

Taylor forgot all about looking for the heir. Watching Harry loop and dive was too much fun to think about anything else.

The crowd laughed at his flying; but the rogue Bludger didn't seem to care about it one bit, it kept fixated on Harry, and it wasn't as fast as the seeker when doing abrupt turns and twists. Harry began a kind of roller-coaster ride around the edges of the stadium.

After Harry was forced to do a stupid kind of twirl in mid-air to dodge the Bludger, Malfoy yelled something that Taylor couldn't hear. She had too few bugs in place. Off Harry fled, the Bludger trailing a few feet behind him. Then Harry stopped, looking surprised.

It was the opportunity the Bludger needed. It hit his arm, and even with the heavy rain and gasp from the crowd, Taylor heard the snapping of bones.

For an agonising moment, Harry hung in mid-air. Then, like a man possessed, he dived toward a sneering Malfoy.

Taylor, like most of the crowd, thought Harry had just snapped and wanted some revenge.

Malfoy careened out of Harry's way. Harry took his remaining hand off his broom and made a wild snatch; Taylor could see a golden glint between his fingers, but now he wasn't holding the broom with anything but his legs. He headed straight for the ground in what looked like an uncontrolled fall, and the crowd yelled.

With a thud, he hit the mud and rolled off his broom. His arm was hanging at a very strange angle. He raised his one good arm, showing the still caught golden ball.

He said something, then fainted.

The crowd went nuts. The cheering and yelling reverberated in Taylor's bones. She wasn't far behind the others, screaming her head out at the end of the game. She had no idea if it had been a good one or not, but it had been a lot exciting, if dangerous. Best of all, Slytherin lost even with their 'daddy's super expensive brooms'.

Playing Quidditch wasn't she something wanted to do anytime soon, but it was very fun to watch!

"That was brilliant!" she said, hugging Luna.

Down in the pitch, people were starting to crowd Harry, Colin Creevey was snapping picture after picture like he'd just found the holy grail, and from amidst the crowd, Lockhart sauntered toward the injured seeker.

Somehow, Taylor knew that wasn't going to end well.

 

[okashihime]

Taylor got dragged into the post game celebration with the rest of the school. She jeered and boo'ed the green trickle as they passed, making faces and sticking her tongue at them. There were no more sneers or hisses, just mumbled cursing.

It was especially nice, because back at the Quidditch changing room, Marcus Flint, Slytherin team captain and all around bully, looked about to eat Malfoy alive.

"…you had the Snitch right above your head, but you couldn't take your eyes off the boy-who-lived." Flint towered over the small blond boy, his face very ugly.

Draco scowled angrily too.

He opened and closed his mouth a few times, then stormed off without saying anything, looking ready to do something stupid. Not a few minutes off the Quidditch pitch he was yelling at people and calling them names and threatening with daddy this and daddy that. For a moment, Taylor almost let it pass, but that sentiment vanished when Malfoy crossed paths with Hufflepuff Pippa Rosewood.

Pippa was carrying a heavy potted plant, its branches extending most of the corridor.

"Get out of my way, you filthy mudblood."

Pippa stopped, trying to poke her head from behind the leaves.

Malfoy pulled his wand and angled it between the foliage, snarling a curse.

Poor Pippa Rosewood let out a yelp and fell, the potted plant crashing down with her. The pot broke when it landed, dirt spraying everywhere. One of her hands covered a stinging hex mark on her face.

Immediately, Taylor spread the silk on Draco's path.

He tripped and fell on the dirt spread by the broken pot. The hidden pixies near the ceiling dropped mud on his head, and the spiders scurried away with his wand toward a corner nearby, out of sight.

"Get your comeuppance, you jerk!" Pippa shouted, before getting up and running away crying.

Malfoy got up, mud covered head redder than a tomato. He looked frantically about until he found his wand, then he stormed off as well, towards the dungeons.

On Harry's side of events, predictably, things didn't go well. Lockhart fumbled his spell and instead of fixing Harry's bones, he did away with them entirely, leaving his arm looking like a very gross meat… something. Colin Creevy kept snapping pictures all the while and Lockhart posed for them, even while messing up Harry's arm.

Hero-Harry was taken to the Hospital Wing, and Madam Ponfrey went off in a fit of rage.

"You should have come straight to me!" she growled, holding up the sad, limp remainder of what, half an hour before, had been a working arm. "I can mend bones in a second – but growing them back –"

More surprisingly was that even after that fumble, Hermione still defended the DADA professor. Which made no sense at all. Hermione was one of the smartest people in the castle; Lockhart hadn't taught them anything in two months. The math wasn't hard.

Taylor was starting to think Hermione had a celebrity crush on the pompous wizard.

The celebratory mood carried into lunch, where the headmaster announced news regarding the house cup.

"For a spectacular feat of flying, Fifty points to Gryffindor," the headmaster had said, which put Gryffindor in first place for the house cup, followed by Slytherin, Hufflepuff and lastly Ravenclaw. That had subdued the mood in the Ravenclaw's table, especially with older students throwing dirty glances Taylor's way, but the yelling and cheering from Gryffindor and Hufflepuff soon infected Ravenclaw as well and the moment passed.

Slytherins, on the other hand, hissed at everyone.

It was all very silly.

In the afternoon and evening, there was barely any peaceful place in the common room to work on homework or spell practice. Late that the evening, after dinner, Taylor snuck into a nearby classroom for a few minutes of quiet practice. She just felt guilty if she didn't practice at least a few minutes here and there.

In her letter home that night, she gushed about Quidditch and how fun it was to watch, and how dangerous it was and that she wanted to play, but she was horrible at flying and didn't want to risk a fall.

She wrote all of that and more, still buzzing like she'd swallowed a whole bag of popping candy.

---

Taylor woke up that night with a heavy headache and certain there was something very wrong. Her head hurt like it was a piece of crumpled metal that a burly blacksmith wanted to beat into knife shape.

Along with the pain, all the spiders in the castle were buckling against her control. A quick mental tally told her more than enough.

There was another petrified victim in the hospital wing with the school faculty crowding around him. Apparently, Collin Creevy had sneaked out to visit Harry in the hospital wing and got caught by the heir. His camera had been fried by whatever attacked him.

Malfoy was still awake, huddled in an empty corner of the common room of his house. His nose was puffy and his eyes were red. What the hell. Was he crying?

Another crier was Ginny. Her diary lay thrown in one of the corners of the bed, open to blank pages. She had her face stuffed on the pillows, but wracking sobs shook her whole body.

A pair of prefects were awake, far from where the attack had happened. Percy and Penny. They didn't seem aware of the attack yet, too busy snogging inside an empty classroom.

Ew.

Penny had horrible tastes. Percy, of all people? They didn't mesh well at all. Penny was so pretty and charismatic and Percy was so… stuffy.

But aside from crying students, snogging prefects, and worried faculty members, there was another puzzling mystery: she couldn't find Hagrid anywhere. His hut was empty; Fang and the crossbow were missing. She could guess where he was: the Forbidden Forest, most likely. It was very suspicious. Was Hagrid related to the attack somehow? Or was he just unlucky to be away when another student was attacked? Had he unleashed the horror? Was the horror in the Forbidden Forest? She was more than willing to believe in Luna's impression of the man, but the timing was just too coincidental.

Maybe he'd been trying to stop the horror and failed? That would explain his skittish behaviour.

There was another point that Taylor almost missed.

A swath of her bugs had died. One thousand, four hundred and seventy three bugs, among spiders, mosquitoes, gnats and many others had simply ceased. All starting from the same corridor where Mrs Norris had been attacked, up until the fourth floor corridor where Collin had been found.

Taylor completed the path in her mind. That corridor led to the Gryffindor's Tower and dormitory entrance.

Had the heir been trying to kill someone there? Was the target Hermione Granger, like Draco hoped? She wasn't the only non-magical in the dormitories, but her association with Harry made her stand out more than others. Or maybe, they were just trying to attack as many students as possible? No, that didn't make any sense. If that had been the heir aim, stopping after petrifying Collin made no sense.

And why did her bugs die, while Collin and Mrs Norris were petrified? Was the difference their size?

There were so many questions and not enough answers.

Luna turned and snuggled closer, mumbling something. Taylor leaned in, trying to listen.

"… no wrackspurts, they get eaten near her head …"

Taylor grinned. God, she loved Luna, wrackspurts and all. She hadn't had a friend like this before.

Sleep wouldn't come for the rest of the night. The painful headache and trying to find out what happened made sure of that. At some point, closer to dawn, Hagrid returned. Like Taylor had thought, he'd been in the Forbidden Forest.

The whole situation didn't make much sense. The attack had been in the castle, but Taylor didn't know when, or if Hagrid had even been present. A possibility was that he'd been trying to stop the horror, then managed to drag it into the forest. That sounded wild even to Taylor. How was he alive if he wasn't controlling the horror? And who left that message if Hagrid had been trying to prevent the attack, instead of causing it? There had been no other student out of place inside the castle, no empty beds aside from the night patrols.

And her spiders were still trying to flee. On a hunch, she let go of a bunch of them, and watched where they went.

The spiders scurried away in a frantic line, out of the castle, through the grounds, until they left her range at the edges of the Forbidden Forest.

Taylor had a sinking feeling that if she wanted to solve this mystery, she'd have to do something very stupid, like sneak out of the castle and into the forest on her own.

That Sunday morning added more details to the heir's mystery. Harry tracked his friends to the female bathroom cubicle where a moaning ghost lived, then spilled a lot of secrets, because he thought no one was listening.

The house elf she saw during the match was called Dobby. He wasn't one of the castle's own, but came to 'save' Harry from some dastardly plot. He'd been the one to lock Harry and Ron out on the train platform, he'd been the one to fix the Bludger to chase Harry.

Taylor wasn't sure if that new information complicated things.

If Dobby was talking about the chamber and the horror, then he knew about the attacks even before the school year started. It meant then, that someone had been planning this for a long time, and the person behind it was probably Dobby's master.

If that was the case, it wasn't Hagrid. The gentle giant had no house elf servants.

---

Over the next few days, without any new lead on the heir or the horror, Taylor was forced to admit she'd have to do the stupid thing. Hagrid still refused to talk to her, she wasn't close to finding out who Dobby's master was (not that she could just start asking everyone about it).

She could just dump all of this onto the school's faculty lap: Harry's mysterious voice that only he could hear, Dobby's partial confession about a plan, Hagrid's strange behaviour. A scribbled note delivered by bugs to Flitwick or the headmaster's office would push that out of her hands. Only, would it really? Complaining about Snape to Flitwick made things worse for everyone. She didn't want to attract the headmaster's attention if she could avoid it, and an unknown letter showing up in his office telling him things that no student was supposed to know about would put him on high alert.

Taylor did not want the most powerful wizard of Britain on high alert and on the lookout for her and her secrets.

So, the stupid.

It was Friday night. Luna, Mira and Harriet were already asleep.

Taylor had been keeping an eye on Hagrid, and he'd just got ready to leave his hut, crossbow in hand. She squeezed out of bed, doing her best to not disturb Luna, got into her winter wools, and took a meandering path around the castle, away from patrolling prefects, tattletale portraits and obsessed caretakers.

Outside, the cold mid November air made her skin prickle. The sky was cloudy, but she could still see a few stars here and there.

Taylor gathered all her pixies and as many bugs that could survive in the cold weather, then marched toward the forest.

 

[okashihime]

The forest was absolute blackness. Even the starlight died in the foliage overhead. Taylor's bugs spread through it, climbing rough trunks, threading through grasping vines, skittering beneath thorny bushes, and crawling into cavernous canopies. Her hand found her wand, and for a heartbeat she almost whispered Lumos, but light would only make things worse.

Perhaps it was because she couldn't see in the pitch blackness and had more attention to focus on her other senses, but she picked up so many new things. The forest was alive with noise and movement and magic.

She smelled the same scent through multiple senses at once: to her it was the decaying aroma of leaves; the sweetly rotting smell of fruits mixed with the strong musk of fungus. To her bugs it was a bitter note that many identified as food; an inviting trail that a few bugs wanted to scurry away from instead; a glaring acrid smell that pushed most of the insects to flee. There were so many new scents and sensations that Taylor had trouble cataloging them all.

Then there were the creatures themselves.

Insects the size of her hand scuttled beneath branches and drifts of leaves. Worms thick as her arm moved through the soil like serpents, tunneling deep. Something crab-like and half her height cracked open a hard-shelled fruit deeper into the forest, the shell splitting with a sound like a knuckle popping.

She tried to leave most untouched, aside from a brief confirmation that her power still worked on them.

Unlike protagonists from the fantasy stories she so liked, Taylor felt very vulnerable walking in complete darkness. It didn't matter that her bugs covered every angle and nothing could approach her unnoticed.

She hadn't been walking for more than a few minutes when the first hurdle presented itself: a pack of invisible creatures. They were big, carried the faint smell of rotting meat, and had started to move in her direction.

Taylor had no idea what kind of creature was big and invisible, but she wanted nothing to do with them. Her bugs gathered and she had them buzz angrily. That was enough to dissuade the invisible creatures. She heard clapping of what sounded like hooves, and the invisible beings stopped moving toward her.

Then a chill ran down Taylor's spine. She'd been paying attention to the invisible ones, and almost missed a hidden creature approaching. It had been underground, unmoving, and Taylor had mistaken it for something else. It was close too, almost too close. The thing was a mix of a large cat and something else she couldn't decide on, its skin was leathery and it had no fur.

More bugs gathered on its path, buzzing again.

But the creature didn't pay the bugs any heed, still approaching.

Taylor glared in the creature's direction, before setting the bugs on it. Only, that also didn't work. The leathery skin was too tough, and its eyes were protected by some transparent skin. Since bugs weren't working, she sent Bity to take a bite out of the thing.

Bity did its thing, taking a chunk out of the leathery flank. The creature howled, and Taylor set even more bugs on it.

That seemed to finally make it understand that it wasn't welcome. The creature finally left, after two more bites from her doxy.

After that, despite the many invertebrate tenants, her path through the forest was mostly unimpeded. A few times, she had to sprint to keep up with Hagrid's large pace, but she managed it.

It didn't take long until the first anomaly pinged against her power. Almost a kilometer away, small, curious, hairy and many legged.

Taylor stopped dead in her tracks.

The spider, because she was sure it was a spider, welcomed her power like a child who had just found her mother after a full day of searching.

Weirder still was that her power… Taylor had no idea how to even put it into words. It was like a delighted grandma looking at very small puppies and cooing at them, all the while knowing she could stomp the lot and end them with one good foot mashing.

In what felt like a blink of an eye, she had hundreds of the little buggers scurrying at the edges of her awareness, with a few foolishly brave ones — how she knew they were brave or foolish, she had no idea — going in and out of her range.

It was almost like kids who had just discovered a new colorful bug and were poking it to see what it did. Along with the little ones, she felt others. These felt bigger, more mature, for lack of a better word. They skittered in huge hairy legs just at the edges, but not daring to approach.

This was certainly some giant spider nest. Which was strange, because Hagrid was going straight through there, spiders skittering out of his way, a few even waving to him as he passed.

Was this his secret? He was friends with a bunch of giant spiders?

She didn't get time to ponder that. Taylor heard the sound of hooves and at first, she thought the invisible creatures had returned, then her bugs smelled the acrid scent of fur and sweat and noticed the light.

That got all of Taylor's attention.

The newcomer was half man, half horse. The upper part was a man's muscular torso, pale blond hair, and blue eyes. His lower half was covered in a golden coat of fur that matched his hair very well.

Judging by the direction he was travelling, he would pass too close to where Taylor was. She changed direction, giving his path a wide berth. That didn't work. The centaur stopped, looking at the sky as if he could see it on the other side of the dense canopy. Then he adjusted his path, trotting towards Taylor again.

That was a coincidence, right? She sped up in the opposite direction.

Once again, the centaur stopped, gazed up, then changed directions toward where Taylor had fled.

Panic started to creep in. She thought about running back to the castle and gave up on that idea. There was no way she could outrun a horse. She thought about setting the bugs on him, but unlike the cat creature, he wasn't sneaking or even had weapons in hand. Attacking without a clear sign the other party was hostile wasn't something she wanted to do, and deep down, she was curious. Why was a centaur trying to find her?

A strange sort of calm washed over Taylor. In a moment, panic fled and the bugs buzzed. With a clear mind, she knew what to do. She drew all the bugs, blanketing the area. Not enough to block vision, but enough to be threatening. At the center of her swarm, she drew the bugs in a humanoid form, bigger and taller than she was.

That didn't deter the horseman from approaching. The bugs didn't seem to worry him. His canter slowed to a trot, then a walk. He stopped as soon as the light washed over her bug construct.

A bug clone and a horse man stared at each other.

He was the first to speak, in a deep, soft voice. "The stars foretold of your coming, oh Dreadful Horror Queen of Hogwarts."

Those weren't the words Taylor expected to hear when she met her first actual magical being. Her bugs writhed and buzzed. Taylor wasn't dreadful, much less a horror.

The centaur raised both hands in a gesture of surrender. "Peace, oh Queen. I meant no offense."

The swarm stilled, that momentary bout of anger dissipating as inexplicably as it had arrived.

A centaur! Mum wouldn't believe it when she sent the next letter. Taylor knew nothing about them: Not about their culture, or what they did, and what they found offensive.

Was he a stereotypical member of his species? Did the girl centaurs walk about with boobs on display too? What about families? Or tribes? There were so many questions she wanted to ask. But Hagrid was getting further away the more she delayed. Taylor could come to try to find his secret another day, but she didn't know when Hagrid would return, or when the next attack would be.

"WHO ARE YOU? HOW DID YOU KNOW WHERE TO FIND ME?"

The swarm voice buzzed all around and it was like a voice from the abyss. It reverberated, sounding louder than she had intended. She hadn't expected the bug voice to sound so… evil.

"My name is Firenze, oh Queen," he said. Then he opened his arms. When he spoke again, his voice boomed in the clearing, echoing. "The stars sang of your coming. Of a great evil put to rest. Of a great warrior laid in rest. Of an innocent soul allowed to rest."

Taylor took a step back at the force of his voice. She almost stumbled, then her mind caught on to what had just happened.

Did Firenze just… prophesied to her about something?

That was… soo cool! A real prophecy!

Then Firenze turned around and trotted away, leaving Taylor more than a little confused.

What, did he just show up to deliver a prophecy then leave? Was he now the mysterious sage for her fantasy journey?

There was this momentary impulse to go after him and ask questions, or maybe create a bug clone to follow him, but that seemed in very bad taste. If he wanted to talk, he'd have stayed.

Firenze and his prophecy would have to wait. Right now, Taylor had a lot to deal with. The lot with many legs that kept skittering near the range of her power, poking it like it was a balloon about to explode.

She took a deep breath, girded her loins, gathered her bugs into an even bigger form, then set out to meet the neighbors.

The reaction was immediate.

With each step she took toward the nest, the spiders scuttled away, in what felt like panic. That didn't deter Taylor, who marched ever on. A colony of giant spiders living near a magic castle that were friends with a giant was something she had to check for herself.

No, wait.

Taylor was doing this because she needed to find the heir and the horror, then make sure the cute giant spiders weren't the horror.

It didn't take long until more and more spiders fell under her power. She could feel their minds buzzing with questions. She could hear them asking questions out-loud. These weren't simple bugs, their minds were too complex and normal bugs couldn't talk.

To her power, it wouldn't make any difference. No matter the mind or size, it was still an ant trying to lift a planet. It didn't matter if the ant was a little bigger.

Taylor made a point of not overwriting any of the spiders that fell inside her power, and more and more, now more curious than spooked, entered her range. The smaller one, the kids of the nest, as she had taken to thinking of them, scuttled closer trying to find what this new thing was, chittering all the while.

She prevented those from getting too close. They were giant spiders after all, and Taylor didn't want to get bitten for no reason.

Not long after she restarted her trek, she found her target. The mind felt old and heavy. She couldn't see from its eyes, but she could feel the huge, heavy limbs moving with deceptive slowness. The spider was big as a house, towering above even the car sized ones that had got into her range.

"It's time you leave, Hagrid," she heard the old, wizened voice say.

"What? Why Aragog?"

"A queen approaches," Aragog said. "I cannot guarantee you'll survive her coming."

Why was there a second magical being calling her a queen in the same night? But the big spider was right. Taylor didn't want to reveal herself to Hagrid, at least not if she could help it. So she stopped, waiting to see what he would do.

"No!" Hagrid said, gripping his crossbow. "I'm not leavin' yer alone ter deal with this queen."

Aragog said nothing, but Taylor could feel through her power that he was appreciative of the gesture.

She considered what to do. At the end of the night, she'd accomplished what she wanted. She didn't think that Aragog was the Slytherin horror. The big un was blind, and too big to move around the school unseen. Poking around with her power, she couldn't find anything that resembled a petrification ability. Aragog and the brood were just spiders. Big, intelligent spiders, but just spiders.

Taylor turned around and retraced her steps back towards the castle. She knew where to find Aragog now. She could visit another day when Hagrid wasn't around to complicate things.

"The queen retreats," she heard him say before he was out of her range.

The return trip was a lot less interesting. Aside from a few new bugs and small animals, she didn't find anything magical or exceptional. The forest was too quiet, now that Taylor paid enough attention.

Inside the castle, Taylor took a meandering path to avoid a pair of prefects, a couple of gossipy portraits and a suit of armor blocking the end of a corridor. Quiet as a mouse, she uttered the riddle's answer, climbed the stairs and snuck back into her room. She dropped the many layers of clothing by the bed, too tired to fold them and properly store it now. She'd do that in the morning.

Then, still quiet as could be, she crawled into bed without waking up Luna.

Or she tried to.

As soon as she opened the curtains and pulled up the blanket to sneak in, Luna turned, her pretty eyes gleaming in the semi darkness.

"Did you find the horror?"

Taylor froze. All around the school, her bugs buzzed and writhed. "What?" she managed to squeak.

"You went out to find the horror."

Taylor's mouth opened and closed like a dying fish.

"You used your secret to track him down."

"You knew?!" Taylor squeaked again.

Luna tilted her head. Taylor imagined a confused puppy and had to hold in the urge to extend her hand and offer scritches; which made no sense at all. She wasn't a cat, or dog person.

"I know what your secret is."

Taylor sucked in a deep breath. "How?" Her voice came out a little too high.

"You always know where the walls end before you look. After the first day, you never got lost. You always know which corridor has the fewer Slytherins in. You can see through walls, and you know what people are saying even if they are far away."

That hurt a little. Taylor always thought she'd done a good job keeping her secret a secret. She hadn't thought anyone was watching that closely. "And you're not weirded out?" It would be a big bummer if Luna decided she didn't like bugs.

"Why would I be? It's wonderful. You're a HereSeer. I've never met one before!"

Taylor couldn't stop her mouth from opening. "A what?"

"A HereSeer. A seer who sees the here, instead of the there-and-later like the ones in books."

 

[okashihime]

Taylor neither confirmed nor denied her friend's theory.

Luna didn't pressure her into admitting or explaining anything either; she never did. For the rest of the night they talked about what Taylor had been up to, sleep all but forgotten.

"Thestrals," Luna said once Taylor had told about the invisible creatures. "They are lovely and very friendly."

"Really?"

Luna nodded. "They're like horses, but winged and like to eat meat. We should go visit them later. Hogwarts has a lot of them."

"And what about the other one? The cat thingy?"

"Maybe it wanted to see who was passing through its territory?"

Taylor doubted it was that simple. That creature had been trying to ambush her and warning it off hadn't worked, but she didn't argue. From thestrals and cats, she described meeting Firenze, his prophecy, finding out what Hagrid was up to, and then returning to the castle.

"I'd like to meet Aragog," Luna said after the tale was done. "He sounds wise."

"What kind of spiders are they?"

"Maybe Hagrid's book has something?"

Taylor didn't remember seeing anything about giant spiders there, but it was worth checking it out again, just not now. She was comfortable under the blankets, and getting up for a book felt silly.

"You see everything," Luna said after the silence had lingered long enough.

Taylor shrugged uncomfortably. "Yes, but also no," she whispered back.

Explaining the details about how her power worked made her feel double scummy. She felt bad for intentionally letting Luna believe in a lie, and for all but telling her secret when she promised mum she wouldn't.

Luna tilted her head.

"I could see everything, yeah, but do you pay attention all the time to everyone in a crowd?"

Taylor swallowed another pang of guilt. She could pay attention all the time with no problem at all. She'd realized not long ago that these small parts of her mind paying attention through her bugs rarely got distracted, or bored. It was just something she chose not to do, because there were things she was better off not knowing.

Like Percy and Penny in that empty classroom on the sixth floor.

Ew.

"I don't even know what Firenze meant," Taylor blurted out, trying to take her mind out of things she didn't want to know. Her ears and neck burned in embarrassment. "Do you think that the horror is the great evil? And what about the warrior and the innocent? Are they going to die too?"

"Daddy says you should always do your best to ignore prophecies," Luna said. "If you try to understand them, you never do until it is too late. If you try to prevent them, you'll make it happen. If you try to change them, you'll make it worse."

That sounded exactly like prophecies in fantasy stories. It was Taylor's turn to tilt her head, squinting her eyes. "And how do the stars sing about anything?"

"They are quite chatty," Luna said, her face serious. "You just need to pay attention."

Taylor squinted harder, while Luna looked as innocently earnest as ever. She had no idea if Luna was playing a prank or not.

They stared at each other for a few more moments, with Taylor still not being able to tell if it was all a joke. Instead of worrying about that, she tackled Luna and tickled her friend until she was laughing so hard they woke up the whole room.

Oops. She forgot what time it was.

---

Taylor didn't get any time to sleep after that. Once they managed to calm down Mira and Harriet, it was already breakfast time. Nap had landed on top of Luna and Taylor like a disaster cannonball, flapping wings and hooting. The fat owl had gotten bigger and heavier.

Taylor knew this all too well: Nap wanted her breakfast.

And then that morning, Taylor shambled towards breakfast with Luna and Nap half perched onto her head and shoulders. Nap was so big that Taylor's head alone wasn't a sufficient perching spot. She ate, fed her owl, and discreetly asked the castle for coffee and milk, startling nearby students when the steaming pot and cold pitcher showed up. The coffee was still bitter and horrible, but she endured.

The rest of the morning was spent trying to work on homework to little success. At lunch time, Taylor gave one excuse or another, then fled back to her dorm room and snuck under the covers for a well deserved nap.

She woke some time later, unsure how long she'd slept, to find out that she wasn't alone. Luna had joined her at Hypnos embrace at some point. Instead of getting up and working on the many mysteries (and homework) waiting for her, Taylor cuddled closer and went back to sleep.

---

As much as Taylor wanted to ditch everything and go back to the forest to meet with the spiders, barter with them for secrets, and find the one clue that would help her unravel this web of mysteries, she couldn't. There were just too many professors and prefects on the lookout for the heir or any abnormalities among the student population.

Getting to class on Monday without having finished homework would be a red flag Taylor didn't want to raise, specially because she never missed any before. Monday she had three assignments to deliver: Another Herbology essay about mandrakes, a Transfiguration translation and calculation for a switching spell, and a third poem about Lockhart's adventures.

She didn't really care about Lockhart's, but missing Herbology homework would have Professor Sprout looking at her with that disappointed grandma look she often gave the Slytherins. McGonagall would purse her lips and shake her head in disappointment.

None of which Taylor wanted to endure, which also meant no more adventures that weekend.

Come Monday after lunch, Taylor arrived early to Transfiguration with Luna. They weren't the first ones to arrive. There were a few Ravenclaws in the classroom already, but more importantly, Ginny was here.

She sat on her usual seat, alone and looking like someone who hadn't slept in weeks. Her eyes and nose were puffy, like she'd been crying a few moments ago.

Taylor glanced at Luna, who probably had some mind-reading powers of her own, because she nodded and gently pushed Taylor toward Ginny.

Taylor plopped on the seat besides the Weasley girl, startling the redhead so bad she almost leapt out of the chair. She looked at Taylor with wide, fear filled eyes.

A few minutes before the start of class Nneka, Ginny's usual partner, arrived. She glared at Taylor, but didn't make a fuss about the seating arrangement. She found a empty chair at the back of the classroom and sat there, arms crossed and face in a scowl.

Professor McGonagall arrived soon after and collected the homework. The day's class was another practice at the switching spell, this time using the calculation they had just handed in with homework. In the murmur of chanting and wand-waving, Taylor thought about what she knew regarding Ginny.

When she wasn't crying, or writing fervently in her diary, or being ambushed and tormented by the twins, Ginny was mostly obsessed with Harry Potter. She'd become even more fixated on him as the days passed. Several times, Taylor had observed her through bugs trying to muster the courage to approach the boy, only to flee before doing anything.

There was something she could say to help Ginny, the correct magic words that would make her maybe-friend let go of the current state of suffering and enjoy magic school. Whatever those words were, she hadn't got a clue.

When she opened her mouth, instead of coaxing Ginny into opening up, or maybe just talking about anything, she blurted. "Luna and I are preparing a tea-party later today. You should come too."

Which was stupid. They weren't preparing anything, and she hadn't even asked Luna about it before saying that.

Ginny looked startled for a moment. She opened her mouth, and Taylor saw the denial before the words were spoken. She couldn't have any of that.

"Nap will be there too, and she gets really prickly if we don't feed her, so don't forget to bring treats."

Ginny opened her mouth again, but professor McGonagall had been just walking by their table, severe as always. "Less talking, more magic."

Taylor turned back to her practice, ears burning and wondering why the hell she had said that. The Weasley redhead ducked lower, muttering something that Taylor couldn't hear.

Transfiguration passed in tense silence. At the end of the class, before scarpering away, Taylor gave Ginny directions to the same room they used for the tea-party with the Grey Lady. Their decorations were still there and no one had even ventured into the place. She got her bugs started with cleaning the place of dust, while she prepared to tell Luna about their new evening plans.

"I invited Ginny to a tea-party later today."

Luna tilted her head.

"I said you'd be there too," Taylor added hastily.

"Alright," Luna said.

Taylor was left feeling stupid again. Of course Luna wouldn't get mad over a tea-party.

The last class of the day passed with Lockhart flashing his pearly whites at children, then reading out-loud the submitted poems. Not an ounce of magic practice to be had.

Once that torture was over, they had about one hour before the tea-party. Taylor scrambled this way and that, trying to get a good tea-blend, the pot and cups and everything set up. Luna was responsible for the food.

No one asked who cleaned the room, which was a plus on Taylor's opinion.

So it was that, just after sundown, Taylor, Luna and a sleepy Nap waited for a visitor that was taking her sweet time arriving.

"She's going to be late," Taylor said, checking Ginny's progress with her bugs. "And she isn't alone."

"The more the merrier," Luna said happily.

Taylor grunted. She wasn't sure if Nneka would make things worse or not. She wasn't even sure why she had invited Ginny to a tea-party.

"I've been eavesdropping on later year classes," Taylor said out of nowhere. She had just realised that there was no need to keep her spell practice a secret from Luna anymore. "Would you like to practice new spells with me?"

Luna stopped, then turned fully toward Taylor. Her expression was difficult to read. A moment later, the dreamy girl stepped closer and gently hugged her friend.

"I'd love to," she said in her whispery voice.

Nap killed the moment by flapping her wings and trying to perch on both their heads at the same time.

"Nap, no!" Taylor said, annoyed and trying to catch the lazy owl.

Luna giggled at their antics, and traitorously, didn't join the chase.

Ginny and Nneka arrived to find Taylor running after her owl and making a mess of the room.

"Nice deco," Nneka said, looking at the silk straps still tied to the windows.

"Welcome," Luna waved them in. "Please have a seat."

"Nap! Come here!"

---

A/N:

This got more complicated than anticipated

Spoiler: Image.

 

[okashihime]

Taylor sipped her tea while eyeing the spread Luna had prepared. Pretty porcelain dishes surrounded a cauldron cake, complete with knife and forks. Beside it sat a small pot filled with colourful beans. Beans that she remembered very well: Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans.

Nneka attacked the cake like someone who had skipped dinner. Considering the tea party was happening at the same time as dinner, she probably had. Luna plucked a bean from the pot, a vivid almost glowing green and threw it into her mouth. Her lips curled into a small smile and she let out a happy little sigh.

Taylor shuddered. She didn't want to know what flavour that bean was.

On the other side of the table, the redhead was distracted with Nap. Ginny had listened to Taylor's blurted advice and brought lots of treats. So much so that Nap had perched on her shoulders and was behaving like a queen being fed by her subjects. The happy hoots and flapping wing were obvious, but more than that, Ginny's familiarity with how to handle an owl was a big tell.

"She likes you," Taylor said, trying to break the awkward silence.

Ginny snorted, rolling her eyes. For a brief moment, she didn't look so tired anymore. "She likes the food, you mean."

Nneka guffawed between bites, bits of cake flying everywhere, and Luna covered her smile with a hand. Nap hooted, wings spread like she was ordering: Feed me more, mortals!

Taylor still had trouble wrapping her mind around things like this. For her, a magic owl, because Nap clearly wasn't a normal barn owl — normal owls didn't know how to find anyone in Britain or deliver letters halfway across the country — was something she'd find in a storybook. For Ginny, it was just another normal day in her life.

That got her thinking about how their life was before school. Of the four present, Taylor was the only one that grew among non-magicals (never muggles!) and it showed.

Nneka, it seemed, didn't like the silence either. "Who do you think is the heir?"

Taylor was about to speculate, when she noticed something strange. Ginny's face paled, and any semblance of a smile fled from her face faster than the spiders fleeing from the horror.

"I'm tired of hearing that," she said instead, still observing Ginny from her many eyes hidden in the room. "Heir this, chamber that. Hey buy this anti-heir-protect-from-curse charm, only ten galleons!" she said in a high pitched, annoying voice.

Ginny rolled her eyes, and Nneka's face changed to a scowl.

"A secret chamber with some monster hidden inside a magic castle is something I can understand. What I really don't get is how Lockhart's is our Defense Against the Dark Arts professor when all he does is tell us about his books and make us write poems. He's more like a literature professor than a defense professor."

"Litera-what?" "But he's so handsome!"

It was Taylor's turn to roll her eyes.

"It's... studying stories and books, really. Why do people write them, what they mean, that sort of thing."

Nneka shoved more cake into her mouth before asking her question.

"Muggles do that?"

Taylor nodded. "Non-magicals do."

"Non-magicals? Why not call them muggles like everyone else?"

Ginny nodded with Nneka's question.

Luna smiled like she knew a secret others didn't.

"I don't want to be targeted by the curse," Taylor deflected.

"Why would the curse target you for saying muggle?" Ginny asked, running her fingers through Nap's feathers.

"Because muggle is an insult," Taylor said, remembering the books she'd read with her pixies in the library. The old dusty tomes had been fascinating, and after reading them she'd understood why her mum always insisted on saying non-magicals. "But no one remembers that."

"No!" "It's just what everyone says."

Ginny, Taylor noticed, was looking a lot better now that the subject had changed.

"What did you guys think about the Quidditch match?" she asked, still struggling to find a topic she was comfortable with and wouldn't be related to the heir.

As it turned out, Ginny was a massive Quidditch nerd. Nneka, not so much.

---

The tea-party ended up split into two pairs. Luna and Nneka kept near the table chatting and nibbling at the cake and beans, while Ginny got to her feet and decided to give Taylor an impromptu flying lesson.

"You hold the broom like this," she said mimicking the position with her hands. "Brooms are fickle. You gotta get to know yours before she'll behave."

Taylor scrunched her nose, remembering wrestling with the school broom.

"It doesn't help," Taylor whined. "The broom's so stiff! It won't listen to me. I want to do loops and swishes and twirls."

Ginny snorted. "We can practice together if you want. Even the best witches had to start somewhere."

Taylor bounced over and grabbed Ginny by both shoulders. "Yes! Please!"

The rest of the hour slipped by with plans for flying practice and stories about Ginny playing Quidditch with her brothers. It sounded all so chaotic and interesting that Taylor now wanted to see "The Burrow", as the red-hair had called it.

Near the door Ginny said, "Thanks for inviting us, I had fun."

It might have been Taylor's impression, but the bags under her eyes seemed less pronounced.

Nneka nodded. "The cake was good."

"Thank you for coming," Luna said, waving. "And Nneka, we can practice together. I'm sure Taylor won't mind."

Nneka pretend-glared at Luna, theatrically placing her hands on her hips. "You're supposed to tell me her secret training method, not give me more homework!"

Taylor watched both girls leave, unsure if they'd done anything to help at all. Ginny looked more relaxed than at the start of the tea-party, but they hadn't even tried to talk about what was making her feel like that.

"Do you think it will help?"

Luna walked closer. "She's happier. I think she needed a friend."

Taylor almost scoffed. A Weasley needing a friend? That sounded ridiculous. All Weasleys were so outgoing and popular that thinking one needed a friend was like thinking that Malfoy was a nice person, just impossible. The only thing preventing Ginny from joining the red-hair hall of fame was her obsession with Harry Potter. Once she got over that, Taylor expected Ginny would be too busy with the Gryffindor crowd to pay them much attention.

"Maybe," she said after a while.

Then Taylor closed the door and turned to face her dreamy friend. She pulled out her wand, smiling.

"If you want to meet the big spider, you need to be able to protect yourself." With a careful swish of her wand, Taylor created a shield charm. "I'll only take you there when you've managed to use a shield charm."

Instead of answering, Luna pulled out her wand.

Taylor smiled wider.

---

Things got even more hectic with the addition of even more practice time with Luna and Ginny. Not to mention there was another Quidditch match next weekend: Ravenclaw versus Hufflepuff.

Ginny had explained how the game worked when they were geeking about it during the tea-party.

The Quidditch cup consisted of six games over the school year. The cup winner wasn't the team with the most victories, but the team with the most points. Getting the Quaffle through a loop awarded the team ten points, while catching the Snitch gave a hundred and fifty. The game only ended when a seeker caught the golden ball.

Ginny told her about games that lasted for days. How that even worked Taylor had no idea. It boggled the mind.

On top of all the new things happening in that week, Taylor had to increase the surveillance in the days prior to the game. There was a lot of rivalry between the houses, and some taunting she ignored, but there were a few stand outs that had to take things too far.

Like a Ravenclaw boy who trashed a Hufflepuff Quidditch card collection because the Hufflepuff boy mocked Ravenclaw for losing the cup in the previous year. As much as Taylor liked the game, the rivalry was daunting.

Her flying lessons with Ginny went about the same as with Madam Hooch: The broom refused to cooperate, but Ginny didn't make fun of her, or even got impatient, which was a plus.

On Friday, Taylor had to endure double potions and double bullying from Snape.

"Instead of curing boils, you'll kill someone," the man hissed, disappearing their potion without even looking inside their cauldron. His gaze flicked toward Luna. "Though perhaps expecting Miss Lovegood to follow a simple set of instructions was my first mistake."

When class ended, Taylor had to storm off to an out-of-the-way, empty classroom and do her best to hold back the bugs. Enduring Snape hadn't been an issue until now, but the man had the gall to bully Luna of all people? Their potion had been perfect, exactly as described in the book. Luna had done an excellent job with the brewing. She had done everything right. What the hell was wrong with him?

Taylor yanked out her wand and pointed it at the nearest table, but nothing came out.

In the walls and in out of the way corners, bugs attacked each other in a frenzy.

Luna found her hours later, still holding her wand and glaring at the table.

"It would be so easy, you know," Taylor said without turning. "Wait until he isn't looking and add a few more bits to his precious potions."

"But you won't."

Taylor wouldn't. But she really wanted to.

"Dinner is almost over," Luna said from the doorway.

Taylor put her wand away and left the room, suddenly feeling very tired.

 

[CronaAlbarn]

I almost feel bad for diary Riddle, almost. If QA gets her hands on him, like if he tries to possess taylor, she'll rip him apart and study the pieces.

 

[okashihime]

Saturday afternoon, Taylor returned to her dorm room to find Luna ready for the Quidditch match. This time, she had a Ravenclaw eagle hat. The thing was enormous, bigger than Nap with its wings spread.

And it screeched like a real eagle.

Taylor was just a tiny-itsy-bit envious. Who cared if people were pointing and laughing. Luna seemed to be having a lot of fun and she wanted to join in. She cast a longing glance at Nap hoping the owl would understand, but the lazy bird had decided that today, of all days, she didn't want to perch on Taylor's head.

Meanwhile, Luna had approached and placed a hand on the eagle hat. "You can have it."

Taylor shook her head. "It isn't fun if you're not wearing one either."

Luna nodded, then took Taylor's hand, guiding her out of the dormitories. "Who do you think will win?"

"I hope it is Ravenclaw," Taylor answered truthfully. "They've been training a lot lately."

"Because of Slytherin?"

"Yeah. Their brooms are really fast."

It was something that made no sense to Taylor. Shouldn't all players use the same brooms? It seemed unfair that some players had an advantage because some rich donor decided to pile them with the fastest broom in the market.

There were less students at the Quidditch stands. Gryffindor had shown up, but not in force like for their own game. Noticeably, there were fewer green faces mocking and jeering. It made some sort of demented sense. Slytherins were too stuck up to enjoy the game if it wasn't their house team playing.

Ravenclaw had two new players this season: a chaser called Roger Davies (which somehow made Taylor think about pirates) and a new seeker, a pretty girl named Cho Chang.

As silly as it was to compare school teams, Taylor wanted to see how her own house team compared to Gryffindor and Slytherin. From what she understood, Harry was an exceptional player and had started playing in his first year, which supposedly was against school rules.

It seemed that being Magical Hero Harry had its own benefits.

The match started with a roar from the crowd and a screech from Luna's hat. Taylor got pulled into watching and cheering with everyone else, screaming her head off when Ravenclaw scored, or booing when it was Hufflepuff.

The commenter, a Gryffindor boy did a passable job at commenting, but he seemed more interested in pointing out that the new Ravenclaw seeker was pretty than actually narrating how the game went.

Much to Taylor's delight, the game had no stalker Bludger, no disappearing bones.

The Hufflepuff team, as it turned out, was more coherent and worked better than Ravenclaw. Maybe it was because they didn't have any new members, or maybe because they were just better, but they scored first and kept the lead (not a huge one), no matter what Ravenclaw did.

But Cho turned things around.

Proving why she'd taken the seeker position, Cho danced and twirled and in an impressive feat of flying, dove up and out of a Bludger sent by a Beater and straight past the startled Hufflepuff Chaser to grab the golden ball that was hiding just behind him.

Ravenclaw had been twenty points behind Hufflepuff. Then Cho caught the Snitch, and suddenly they had won by a hundred and thirty points.

Taylor cheered even louder.

---

That same day in the evening, Luna pulled Taylor out of the celebratory feast and into their empty dorm room.

Taylor cast an inquisitive glance at her friend, but instead of saying anything, Luna pulled her wand, and in much Luna's fashion, all but sung the spell incantation, twirling her wand. For all that Taylor knew about magic, that shouldn't have worked.

A silvery panel materialized around Luna, who beamed a smile so brilliant that Taylor thought she was going to get blind.

"That's brilli—" Taylor started, but then had to catch a cannonball Luna, who tackled her into a hug.

"Thank you," Luna whispered into her shoulder.

Taylor hugged back, not sure what was happening. Luna had her eyes closed and a happy little smile on her face. At least she wasn't crying. Taylor had no idea what she'd do if Luna started crying.

Perhaps a quarter hour later, though it had passed in what felt like a blink, Luna pulled away. "I'm ready to meet Aragog."

"Tomorrow afternoon," Taylor said.

That night, before going to bed, Taylor composed another letter to her mum. She wrote about how she got so angry with Snape for bullying Luna, then she reassured her mum that she'd keep her promise and there were no incidents. Then she gushed about Quidditch, about how good the game had been, the plays, thinking they were going to lose, the victory, everything. She whined that the commentator had been more interested in talking about how pretty their Seeker was (and, okay, Cho was very pretty) than about how brilliantly she'd played, which was super annoying. Taylor ended the letter asking whether she could invite maybe two other friends (Ginny and Nneka) for holidays.

Sunday morning was a whirlwind of activities. Between finishing all their homework, and preparing for their afternoon excursion, Taylor had no free time.

"Should we bring food as a gift?" Taylor asked once she was alone with Luna. "What do giant spiders eat, anyway?" Based on movies and fantasy stories, Taylor could guess meat was their primary food source, but the nest had been huge, and she hadn't ever heard about anyone just disappearing in the forest…

…Aside from all the rumors about people disappearing in the forest.

"Do you think they are responsible for all those rumors about people going missing inside the forest?"

Luna looked at her with those big, guileless eyes.

"I'll keep us safe," Taylor said, to which Luna nodded.

Taylor decided to not bring food as a gift. She was dealing with hundreds of giant spiders. No amount of food she carried would help. She also opted out of her other choice of gift. It seemed in bad taste to gift spiders with colourful spider silk.

Guiding Luna by the hand, Taylor made sure they snuck out of the castle unseen. It wasn't that difficult given how cold was outside. Most people were huddled in their common rooms near the hearth.

Before they entered the forest, Taylor stopped and turned to Luna.

"You have to promise me that you won't ever come here alone," she said, trying to be as serious as possible.

"I promise," Luna said with the same seriousness.

With one last glance at her friend, Taylor turned and marched into the forest. "And please, don't ask questions," she prayed low enough that she was sure Luna wouldn't have heard.

Even during the day, the Forbidden forest was dark. The canopy above blocked most of the sunlight, the few rays that managed to sneak inside making the place look like some dark dryad grotto from a fantasy story. With wands in hand, she led Luna through the same path she'd taken the previous time she'd been here, except where she'd met the cat thing; there was no way Taylor wanted to risk her friend like that.

Maybe half an hour into their journey, Taylor stopped dead in her tracks. This time, instead of invisible winged horse-like creatures, she'd found something else. Horses with resplendent white fur and a horn in their forehead, three of them.

"What is it?" Luna asked beside her.

"Unicorns," Taylor said, her voice awed. "They're so pretty."

Luna looked in the same direction, like she could see it too.

"Do you want to see them?"

The smile on Luna's face was answer enough.

For the next while, Taylor guided them closer and closer to the small herd of unicorns. Now that she was paying better attention, this seemed to be a family. One of the unicorns was smaller, and their fur wasn't wholly white, it had a few specks of gold here and there.

From around a bunch of trees, Taylor finally set eyes on the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.

The unicorns were magnificent. Even from a distance, she felt at peace in their presence. She couldn't imagine anything more pure or beautiful. The family looked so at ease and magical that for a moment, Taylor forgot even her bugs.

The unicorns seemed to have been waiting for them. The biggest one stepped into their path, hooves pawing at the ground as soon as they arrived. Taylor had the impression the father didn't want them closer to the foal.

"Hi there," Luna said, waving at the stallion. "Your family is very pretty!"

The unicorn lowered his head, in what felt like an invitation. Luna certainly took it as one. She skipped forward and gently patted his mane, talking to the stallion like he was a person.

"Do you mind if I greet your mate and foal?" Luna asked.

The stallion lowered his head again, and Luna walked past him.

Taylor started to walk closer as well, but the stallion's head snapped up. He neighed, pawing furiously at the ground.

She stopped.

Luna looked between the unicorn and Taylor.

"Why?" Luna asked in a small voice.

The unicorn tossed his head, nostrils flaring in Taylor's direction. Even without words the message was very clear. He didn't want Taylor approaching his family.

Why? Had she done something wrong? In fantasy literature, Unicorns were symbols of purity and really liked virgin girls. Taylor hadn't even kissed anyone, it couldn't be because of that. So why? Was it because she'd been punishing the bullies? She wasn't going to lie and say she didn't enjoy making them taste from the same water, but was it that bad?

Firenze's words echoed in her mind again.

Was it because of the prophecy? Was she really a horror?

Luna looked longingly at the foal and the mother, before turning back and walking toward Taylor.

"It's alright," she said, taking Taylor's hand.

It was Luna's time to lead them away. Taylor was too busy trying to process the rejection and in no shape to say anything. For some reason, she felt guilty, like being rejected by those magnificent creatures was a stain on her soul and she should—

Taylor's power reacted violently.

The bugs churned and buzzed. All around, but still far away that Luna wouldn't notice, the forest came alive with insects. A strange calm washed over her. Immediately, she was hyper aware of everything: every bug, every gnat, every flyer. That sense of guilt washed away, like oil on water, leaving an uncomfortable feeling behind.

"I think," she said in a voice that sounded monotone even to her, "that they might have been messing with my head."

Luna turned around, inspecting Taylor's eyes, then her hair and ears hidden beneath the layers of winter wool.

"You are better now," Luna said after her inspection.

Taylor took a deep breath, feeling more like herself again. "Yes, but I don't think I want to see them again. Not anytime soon."

It scared Taylor that unicorns could mess with her head like that. Was that feeling of awe also magical in nature? Would she think they were so pure and pretty if there wasn't magic involved?

Luna looked very sad, but nodded.

They walked in silence, hand in hand, for a while longer, until the first spider entered her range.

Yes! It was one of the kids, one of the cute, skittering ones. A very cute, cat-sized spider.

"Are you ready to meet the spiders?" Taylor asked, looking in the spider's direction.

---

A/N:

In which...
...Taylor discovers that unicorns are low-key human masters and QA has a panic attack.

 

[okashihime]

The cat-sized spider, after basking on Taylor's power returned to his normal routine, which in this case was hunting for food. Worse yet was when the spider decided Taylor and Luna were perfectly acceptable meals. He scurried on the canopy above, out of sight and making no noise whatsoever. If it wasn't for her power, Taylor would have no idea he was there.

Last time she'd been here, her presence had been masked by the bugs and the spiders just wanted to know what that new interesting thing was. Now, her power seemed a far away concern on the spider's mind, with potential prey taking most of his attention.

Then the spider tried to tug on his silk-line, probably to send a message to other spiders in the nest.

"Oh," Taylor whispered.

She clamped down hard on that, taking hold of the spider and preventing him from doing anything. The critter tried to flee, his mind scampering and frantic, but no matter how much he rebelled, an ant was still an ant.

That put a huge crimp on her plans. For some reason, Taylor had assumed the spiders were friendly. They certainly seemed friendly with Hagrid, but now, they were treating both Luna and her as food.

"What is it?" Luna asked.

Taylor glanced at Luna, unsure of what to do. She could pretend nothing had happened, then control all the spiders to behave as friendly as she thought they were. She could cancel their plans and go back to the castle without lying to Luna or endangering her friend or her secret. Or she could just tell the truth, and just gloss over the secret part. Luna knew most of it already, and hopefully wouldn't ask questions.

"I don't think the spiders like people," she said. "The one above us thinks we are food and is trying to call other spiders."

Luna looked up, squinting at the dark canopy. "Should we go back?"

Taylor shrugged, uncomfortable. "I can promise we won't be in any danger from the spiders, but I don't know if Aragog will talk to us either."

Luna peered at Taylor's eyes, then nodded. "Let's go meet him."

Taylor released the spider, nudging him to leave them alone. She didn't want to control any of them, but she also wasn't going to let them put Luna in danger.

The spider fled as soon as he was free, his mind in full-blown panic.

Before they continued, Taylor turned to Luna and made sure she was mostly covered by her clothing. Rebel strands of hair were hidden, and the hood of her robes lowered to keep her face out of sight.

"Don't give them your name," she said.

Luna nodded.

Deeper into the forest, Taylor noticed how desolate the area around the nest was. She couldn't find any living animals, there was spider silk strung everywhere, even bugs that weren't spiders had deserted the place. Any flyer she used to scout ahead had to be brought in against their instincts, and she had to manually fly them around the webs or lose them altogether.

Spiders abounded in the area. It wasn't just the giant spiders. There were so many new types of spiders that Taylor would need a book to list them all. They scurried on the ground around them like a living, leggy, hairy carpet.

"Why are you sad?" Luna asked, touching Taylor's face.

Taylor touched her own face, noticing the cold wetness near her eyes. She'd been hoping the spiders, being sentient creatures, would become new friends. Learning they were consummate predators was a painful truth.

She sighed, kicking at nearby leaves. "I thought they'd be friendly."

"Maybe it was just that one?"

It wasn't just that one.

Deeper into the nest they went, and more and more spiders caught their trail, and more and more surrounded them. The spiders chittered and skittered, clicking and talking and plotting their capture. With each attempt, Taylor gently nudged them away, creating a wave of panic clicking and scampering.

It was like Taylor could hear their thoughts regarding them as food. She certainly could hear their words.

"Men?" "Food?" "What?" "It's in my head!" "Aragog!" "Aragog!"

They couldn't move very quickly now; there were tree roots and stumps blocking most of the way. After a while, the ground sloped downwards, though the trees were as thick as ever. More and more spiders circled them, with Taylor gently pushing them away whenever one decided they were acceptable food.

After what felt like hours walking, they had reached a vast hollow, a hollow which had been cleared of trees, so that daylight from the overcast sky shone brightly onto something that made Taylor's attempt at a nest feel worse than amateurish.

The forest floor curved into a steep slope, towards a misty domed web in the very centre of the hollow. Spiders milled all around: Spiders the size of carthorses, eight-eyed, eight-legged, black, hairy, gigantic, and beautiful.

"Aragog!" they called, clicking their pincers with each word spoken. "Men! Men in the hollow! Aragog!"

And from the middle of the misty domed web, a spider the size of a small elephant emerged, very slowly. There was grey in the black of his body and legs, and each of the eyes on his pincered head was milky white.

"The queen finally arrives," Aragog said.

"Hello, Aragog," Taylor said. "I am Queen, and this is Princess," she blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"Hello, Aragog. It's nice to meet you!" Luna said.

"You are a queen," Aragog said. "But you sound like men."

It took Taylor a moment to parse the words. "I am human, yes."

"How is that possible?" Aragog asked.

Taylor had no explanation, she didn't even know why Aragog called her a queen. Was it because of her ability to control bugs? She glanced at Luna who was looking awed at all the giant spiders.

"Why have you come? For my brood?" he asked when no explanation was forthcoming from Taylor's side.

And wasn't that a good question? Why had she come here? Taylor might not have thought things through at all.. She saw the spiders and all she could think was about meeting them, maybe asking about the horror, too. There had been no other deeper motivation besides that.

"There have been attacks in the school. The heir opened the Chamber of Secrets," Luna said instead. "Hagrid knows about it, and that makes him sad."

"A boy has been petrified," Taylor added.

Aragog clicked his pincers angrily. "So that's why he's been visiting so much, that fool."

"What happened?" Taylor asked, seeing an opportunity to learn something.

"Years and years ago, they believed that I was the monster that dwells in what they call the Chamber of Secrets. They thought that Hagrid had opened the Chamber and set me free. That's why they made him leave the school."

A few pieces clicked into place. The book had never named the student that had been expelled, and Taylor had never considered that Hagrid had been that student. It made a terrible sort of sense. If he'd been blamed for opening the chamber the first time around, he was probably waiting until people started to blame him again.

"But you aren't the horror," Taylor said, nodding along. "Whenever it shows up, all the spiders try to flee here. You keep them safe."

"The thing that lives beneath the castle," said Aragog, "is an ancient creature we spiders fear above all others. Well do I remember how I pleaded with Hagrid to let me go, when I sensed the beast moving about the school."

"And what is it?" Luna asked.

More loud clicking, more rustling. Again, Taylor gently pushed the encroaching spiders away, their panicked reaction causing ripples in the sea of bugs.

"We do not speak of it!" said Aragog, his pincers clicking loudly. "We do not name it! I never even told Hagrid the name of that dread creature, though he asked me, many times."

"But why do you fear it?" Taylor asked, tilting her head. "With this many spiders, couldn't you just… swarm it and kill it?"

Aragog stopped, and the whole nest stilled with him.

"Leave, queen." His pincers clicked so rapidly Taylor barely understood him. "My brood is not yours to spend."

"Spend?" Taylor repeated. "I wasn't-"

"You think we should attack the beast."

"Yes. You might be able to kill it, then you wouldn't have to fear it."

"And how many of my brood would die?"

Taylor hesitated, glancing at Luna. The whole scenario expanded inside her head. Whatever this horror was, she could swarm it with normal insects, drown it in bugs. It didn't have to be any of the sentient spiders doing the bulk of the work. They could help finish the monster if normal bugs weren't enough, and Taylor would keep them safe.

But she couldn't say that out-loud. Explaining that would reveal the last of her secrets.

"I don't know," she said instead.

"You don't know," Aragog repeated, "and yet you would send them."

Luna grabbed her hand and squeezed.

"You speak like a queen who never had to care whether her brood dies. Leave," he said, ponderously turning and disappearing back into his hollow.

Taylor watched Aragog disappear, a scowl twisting her face. She was angry, sad, and very frustrated. She'd come here hoping to make friends, learn about the horror. She'd learned many new useful things, but ended up offending the biggest, most dangerous spider in the forest.

The spiders all around wanted to come closer, to throw silk, capture them, bite them. Most of them felt as agitated as Taylor. Their conversation hadn't been subtle and the spiders could feel what her power could do.

Unfortunately, it seemed that making friends wasn't something Taylor was good at.

A spider scurried away from the trove, skittering closer. She was just shy of double the size of a normal tarantula. Maybe because it was a very young spider, but this one felt more curious (and hungry) than angry. Taylor let her approach and offered her hand.

The spider climbed on it, and immediately tried to bite.

"No biting," Taylor chided gently.

The spider clicked her pincers, like she was trying to speak and didn't know how to.

"Do you have a name?"

More clicking answered her. Taylor was pretty sure it meant no.

"What about Arabelle?"

The spider clicked her pincers again.

"Arabelle," Taylor said again. "Because you're pretty."

The newly named Arabelle climbed Taylor's arms, then up onto her head. From there, she jumped onto Luna's offered hand. Luna giggled as the deadly spider inspected her from head to toe, attempting to bite her several times. After the third attempt that Taylor prevented, Arabelle finally stopped trying.

---

On the way back, Taylor was confronted with another problem she hadn't considered. Arabelle hadn't stayed behind in the forest. She still clung to Luna's robes, and Luna seemed delighted by playing with the critter.

"Princess? I like that. Mum used to call me that when I was little," Luna said, running a finger over the spider's body. "Queens have better crowns than princesses. Do you have a crown, Taylor?"

Taylor sniffed, haughtily. "Does Nap count?"

Luna giggled.

"I think you'd be happier being a princess instead of a queen," Luna said when the silence stretched.