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.