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.