Exploration of Space

Hermione woke up the next morning, checked her watch to see what time it was, then remembered that her watch didn't work in Hogwarts.

Alex had explained to Hermione that the magical nature of Hogwarts interfered with all electronics, preventing them from functioning within the castle. Hermione had attempted to look this up in the library, but found that there was virtually no indexing system whatsoever. After an hour of picking through books looking for an answer, Hermione had given up trying.

Hermione climbed out of her four-poster bed, and saw that Lavender was still asleep. Quickly grabbing her clothes and toiletries, Hermione ran to the bathroom before her roommate could monopolize it for the next hour.

After taking almost as long herself, due entirely to her hair, Hermione put her things back in her trunk.

"Good morning, Hermione," came a small, timid voice.

"Morning, Sally-Anne," Hermione replied.

Hermione liked Sally-Anne. She was the only other Muggle-born among her four roommates, despite Rose's claims to not have magic parents, so Hermione and Sally-Anne understood one another better. Unfortunately, Sally-Anne was too shy to get a good conversation out of, so they didn't talk as much as Hermione would've liked.

Parvati was nice enough, but she would often go on about something from the Magical world, and forget to explain it to Hermione. Hermione had read enough that she kept up with most of it, but it was as if there were a wall between them, shutting Hermione out from these experiences that the Magical students shared. What made it worse was Lavender, who would start on about hair, boys, or clothes, sucking Parvati into a conversation in which Hermione had no interest.

This left Rose, who was clever, as was displayed by her irritating talents in all of their classes. Hermione had always been the clever one in class, so seeing someone else so easily match her was a little off-putting. It would've been easier to handle, except that Rose never made any sense.

Having no one with whom she could relate, Hermione had made it a habit to keep to herself. Thus, that morning she ate breakfast alone, making polite conversation when someone else started one, and keeping to herself. Rose didn't show up for breakfast, nor had Hermione seen her in their room.

"Like it matters," Hermione muttered to herself.

After breakfast, Hermione grabbed a notebook and pencil and headed into the castle. Before she got too far, Hermione ran into Alex and another girl.

Alex's friend had bleach blond hair, was presumably a fifth-year like Alex, and had a Slytherin crest pinned to her shirt near her waist. Beneath the Slytherin crest was a gold "P".

Must be a Slytherin prefect, Hermione thought.

"Good morning, Hermione," Alex said. "Whatcha up to?"

"We don't have time to talk Nertlyn," the other girl said. "Prefect's meeting, remember?"

"It can wait, Gladys," Alex said.

"I want to make a map of the castle," Hermione replied. "I keep getting lost, but none of the professors seem to want to help."

"You can't map Hogwarts," the other girl scoffed.

Alex shot her friend a glare, then looked back to Hermione.

"That won't work," Alex said kindly. "The castle changes randomly. A map wouldn't do you any good for very long."

"Figures," Hermione muttered.

"I'm really sorry," Alex said apologetically.

"It's alright," Hermione said. "Thanks anyway."

"You're welcome," Alex replied.

"Just another reason why Muggle-borns shouldn't be allowed here," muttered Alex's friend.

"Oi!" Alex shouted, turning on the girl. "That was uncalled for, especially to a kid!"

Hermione hugged her notebook to her chest and ran off, keeping her head down. She already knew she didn't belong at Hogwarts, but it hurt to have someone else point it out like that.

"Hermione!" Alex called after her, but didn't run after her charge. She did notice that an orange orb was floating above them, but before Alex could get a closer look at it, it flew away.

Having a similarly bad morning was Sally-Anne, whose misfortune also originated from Slytherin.

After breakfast, Sally-Anne went to the library to see if there were any good fiction books to read. As her roommate had discovered, there was no easy way to navigate the library, and after receiving a glare from Madame Pince, Sally-Anne quickly left.

Not looking where she was going, Sally-Anne ran straight into a familiar boy with greasy blond hair.

"Watch where you're going, Mudblood!" Draco Malfoy spat.

Sally-Anne wasn't certain what "Mudblood" meant, but it couldn't have been a nice word. She had heard Malfoy use it before, and based on the context, it was an insult for a Muggle-born.

Sally-Anne didn't know how, but all of Hogwarts knew that she was Muggle-born. She wasn't sure if it was something about the way she acted, or how she dressed, but everyone knew, and it was starting to bother her.

"I'm–I'm sorry," Sally-Anne stammered in a soft voice. "I didn't mean to."

Malfoy looked at her as if she were something foul in which he had just stepped.

Sally-Anne averted her eyes, looking down at her shoes instead of the glare of the Slytherin and his two henchmen. It was bad enough that staff members like Professor Snape and Madame Pince gave her death glares, but she was quickly finding that she couldn't escape the ridicule she was receiving. If she was in class, then she was mocked by some of the professors, and out of class she was harassed by the students.

Sally-Anne had tried talking to Alex about it, but could never find the Prefect when she needed her. No one was there to keep Sally-Anne safe, and no one was going to come for her.

"You're not worth my time," the boy said, shoving her to the ground as he walked past.

Sally-Anne banged her head on the stone wall, so she wasn't sure if what she saw next was the result of a concussion, or had actually happened.

What she thought she saw was an orange ball with a black slit on it soar through the air above her head. The orb stopped for a moment, turning so that the slit was facing her, then flew off down the corridor.

Sally-Anne staggered as she slowly picked herself up off the ground, then gave up and collapsed. She held her legs to her chest.

"I want to go home," she whispered as another orb flew past her. "I just want to go home."

On the opposite end of the Hogwarts Enjoyment Scale were Harry and Ron, who were constantly enjoying their time at Hogwarts. During breakfast, the boys noticed that someone had broken into Gringotts, the Wizarding Bank in Diagon Alley. Harry recognized the targeted vault as one that he had visited while picking up school supplies. His escort, Hagrid, had picked up something for Professor Dumbledore from the vault.

"It's connected to the dog, I'm telling you," Harry said.

"No one can steal from Gringotts," Ron scoffed. "My brother Bill works for them, and he says that no one's ever done it."

"Maybe Hagrid picked up whatever it was, and gave it to Dumbledore. Then Dumbledore put the dog there to protect it."

"Maybe," Ron said.

"Well, what if–"

Harry was startled by an orange orb whizzing by him, turning towards him for a moment as it passed.

"What are those things?" he asked Ron.

"I dunno," Ron replied, watching the orb fly away. "Maybe it's just something some older students made. Stuff like that happens all the time in Hogwarts."

"Really?"

"Sure. I'm sure you'll get used to it after a while."

Harry nodded. His new world was amazing, and he couldn't wait to see more of it. Adventure was almost literally around every corner, and with Ron by his side, he felt invincible.

Harry noticed on their way back to the Common Room that one of the girls seemed upset. She quickly ran away before Harry could ask, but he was almost certain it was the Perks girl he had met during Sorting.

"Was that Sally-Anne?" he asked Ron.

"Huh?"

"Never mind," Harry said.

The caretaker of Hogwarts was less impressed by the orange orbs flying around the school. Instead, Argus Filch was irritated by them.

Argus cursed under his breath when another orange sphere flew past him. His instincts told him that the Weasley Twins were behind this. This kind of random disruption had their fingerprints all over it. Who else but those two delinquents would send those accursed orange orbs flying around his school?

"When I get my hands on those two…"

Argus almost couldn't believe how much worse those two delinquents were becoming that year. First, they start trying to drive him mad with an illusory girl, then they send baubles flying around his school. They were probably meant as a distraction, which meant that those boys had something worse in store.

Keeping his guard up, Argus continued his patrol of the castle, hoping that he would run into the boys. If he could finally catch them in the act, he could prove once and for all that they were up to something.

Minerva McGonagall was taking what would have been an otherwise pleasant morning stroll through the castle. Saturday mornings were a nice time to relax, as many of the students were often too busy with homework or relaxing themselves to bother her.

That particular morning, her tranquil walk was disrupted by a familiar orange eye flying past her head. Minerva watched as a small group of students chased after it, then took a deep breath.

"I should probably go make sure the girl isn't getting into trouble."

The floating eyes Peta-Lorrum had, whatever they were called, were somewhat of a mystery to Minerva. They didn't quite fit her House-elf theory, as conjuring an object into existence was beyond House-elf magic. Minerva's theory behind them was that there were a finite number of them, and they were simply charmed. The more she thought about it, she realized that that couldn't be the case, as she had seen one disappear in the girl's hand. Maybe it was charmed to vanish shortly after appearing in the girl's hand.

Another eye flew past her with Fred and George Weasley hot on its trail.

Minerva had two choices before her: she could run after the Twins and have to deal with the resulting headache on her day off, or continue to ignore the eyes and hope the source of them wasn't causing problems.

"I should," the Transfiguration Professor muttered, "but I don't need to."

After scanning the rest of the floors, the orbs flew all the way up to the seventh floor, where they found their brothers and sisters circling their crimson-haired mistress.

Rose sat near a large tapestry depicting what Rose believed to be trolls dancing, possibly while they were drunk. Either explanation made perfect sense to her. She had seen many times how entertaining the Dwarves on Rontus became when they had too much to drink. Being the responsible adult he was, Mr. Grund, her Dwarven crafting mentor, had told her never to get drunk; being the Dwarf he was, Mr. Grund had told her this while he was drunk.

Earlier that morning, Rose had sent several dozen prying eyes across the castle, looking for secret passageways, hidden doors, or anything else Rose would need to know about her new home. Her goal was to find somewhere to craft in peace, which meant a secluded room where a dedicated wright would be able to work uninterrupted. Rose also needed somewhere hidden, eliminating the possibility of someone interrupting said dedicated wright.

Before anyone had awoken, Rose fired off several rounds of the spell, then got to work exploring the seventh floor. With Reflectesalon guiding her with his new ability to see secret doors, the pair had found a strange room which turned out to be exactly what Rose needed. After a few hours starting on a dedicated wright, Reflectesalon had reminded Rose that there were still prying eyes floating around the school, and suggested that Rose tend to them before too long.

Rose knew that the eyes couldn't see anything well hidden, such as the room she had recently found, but they were good for brute-force searching, whereas the spell detect secret doors wasn't. Thus, Rose had quickly enchanted Reflectesalon to have a permanent detect secret doors ability, and set off looking around the castle for any hidden rooms she could use.

Most of Rose's power came from the Persist Spell feat, which allowed her to extend the duration of a spell to 24 hours. With several daily-use spell items, Rose persisted spells on herself every morning. Unfortunately, due to a limitation in the Persist Spell feat, Rose couldn't persist detect secret doors, and besides which, she'd need to concentrate on it, which was difficult while searching.

The entire purpose of this was that Rose was burning too much of her now finite resources every morning with the persistent spells. She knew there were more efficient ways to go about it, but what she ended up with was power surging Serendipity twice every morning, plus another power surge on her aptly named Staff of Power Surge. The latter's purpose was to hold several high-level spells that would be persisted every morning. This totaled up to 135 XP every single morning.

Normally, given the sheer amount of role-playing XP Rose earned, this wasn't that much of a problem. However, if they went through something she knew as a time skip, she'd have a problem. A time skip happened when there was little to do, so time seemed to fly by without any major events occurring. No events meant no role-playing XP.

Thus, Rose had sent out the eyes and went with Reflectesalon to scout out a place where she could craft in peace. After a few hours of searching, Rose had found somewhere perfect. After deciphering the clue the surrounding stones had given her regarding how to access the secret room, Rose had verified that it would work, started the wright, then left to collect the eyes.

As Rose received information from each of the eyes, she saw that they had received quite a bit of attention from the other students. It had occurred to Rose that people would eventually notice the eyes, but she was surprised to see just how much attention the eyes had drawn. As she replayed the information from each of the eyes, she would frequently see through the eyes bands of students following them. Most of the students had given up, save two persistent Gryffindors.

"So it's you–"

"–who created those things!"

One of the eyes had been followed by Fred and George through most of the fifth floor, and it had led them straight to her. This wasn't that much of a problem, since the door to her new favorite room was hidden to those who weren't looking for it, and to most that were looking for it. After all, part of the motivation behind finding a hidden room was that other people not know about it.

Rose grinned back at them.

"Salutations, boys!"

"What are they?" one of the boys asked.

"A spell called prying eyes," Rose said, smiling. She liked the Weasley Twins. Their antics reminded her of her friend Bowie back home. "I casted it on each floor to help me explore the castle." Another eye floated into her hand. "Right now, I'm replaying the information, and recording anything interesting they found."

They boys grinned.

"Nice," they said together.

"So you're trying to make a map?" one of them asked. Rose hadn't yet figured out how to distinguish them, but she was working on it.

<'That's not possible',> Reflectesalon relayed to Rose. <'No one can make a map of the castle by hand. Only the Marauder's Map works completely, and it's got to use magic to stay up to date.'>

"Nope!" Rose replied. "Just recording information. We can compare notes sometime if you'd like."

Still grinning, Fred and George shook their heads.

"Our secrets–"

"–are trade secrets."

"Alright," Rose said, the orb in her hand vanishing. Another one quickly took its place. "If you promise not to tell anyone that I made these, then I promise not to tell anyone about your super secret map!"

"We don't know what you're talking about."

"We don't have a map–"

"–and we don't see anything going on here."

"Kethé!" Rose exclaimed. "I'm glad we understand each other, boys."

As the Twins left, Rose idly wondered if they rehearsed speaking in unison like that, then returned to collecting information from the eyes.

What Rose saw through the eyes was Hermione running off after possibly being insulted by an older girl, and Sally-Anne being shoved to the ground by Draco. Without audio, Rose didn't know what they were saying, but she made notes to keep a closer eye on the Slytherin students.

Hermione liked to think that she usually made good decisions. She liked to think that her parents had raised her well, and in spite of her being only 12, with a few notable exceptions, she liked to think that she always made good choices. One such exception was following Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley last Friday night. That was a bad decision.

Today was another one of those decisions. It wasn't just a bad decision; it was an exceedingly horrible decision. It was Saturday, so Hermione should have been catching up on the sleep she had been losing. Instead, she had made the decision to explore the castle on her own. As Alex had told her a week ago, mapping out the castle wasn't possible, so instead, Hermione was attempting to familiarize herself with its layout. That had to be possible, since Rose always seemed to know exactly where she was going, so Hermione was determined to do the same.

So off Hermione went, exploring the castle. She left the Great Hall after breakfast, notebook and pencil in hand (She had already had enough with quills. What was this, the Dark Ages?) and started with the lower floors. Unfortunately, this included the Dungeons. Hermione should have realized that this was a bad idea, but she was too tired to think straight. As a result, Hermione now found herself in Slytherin territory.

Slytherin territory. She made it sound like the houses were gangs. Like Gryffindor controlled the upper floors, and Slytherin the lower floors. Competitive was one thing, but the Slytherins with whom she was now faced looked downright malicious. If Hermione was correct, then there were 70 Slytherin students, three of whom were sneering at her, wands drawn. She was good at maths, so she knew that, assuming that any group of Slytherins was just as likely to find her here, the odds of only Malfoy and his two goons finding her were about one in one sextillion. Just her luck.

"Look what we have here, boys," Malfoy said coolly. "Little Miss Know-it-all is trying to spy on us."

Hermione had found her way to a dead end, but when she turned around, she had found Draco Malfoy and his minions, although Hermione couldn't remember their names.

Hermione clutched her notebook to her chest as she slowly lost the last few feet of space between her and the dead end. She had considered dropping her books and going for her wand, but by the time she drew it, a curse or hex would surely hit her. Malfoy must have learned magic already from his parents, despite it being illegal for an underage wizard to use magic outside of school.

"I wasn't trying to spy on you," Hermione said. She kept wishing that someone would come around the corner, but no one came. She was alone. There were 69 other Gryffindor students, 12 prefects from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, and about 14 staff members. That was 95 people that could come save her, but not one of them showed up. "Honest, I–"

"Why else would you be down here, Mudblood?" Malfoy sneered. Crabbe and Goyle smirked along with their leader as the three boys kept moving towards her.

"I was just trying to explore–"

"See?" Malfoy scoffed. "She is spying on us!"

"Please, just leave me alone," Hermione said. She was fighting back tears.

"Aww, it looks like the little mudblood's about to cry," Malfoy said. His goons snickered again at their boss's joke.

Despite how hard she was trying, Hermione's eyes teared up. She was exhausted and scared. In her eagerness to learn about her new world, she had overdone it, and now she was paying the price. God, or Merlin, or to whomever these people wanted to pray only knew what kinds of hexes Malfoy knew. Probably nothing lethal, but it was only going to serve to make her time here worse than it already was. All Hermione wanted to do was to go home.

"Go crying home to mummy and daddy, Mudblood," Malfoy said, raising his wand as he prepared to cast a spell, but stopped when they all heard the echoes of humming from down the corridor.

His cronies looked around with dumbfounded looks on their faces, until Malfoy nodded to one of them. The large boy stuck his head around the corner.

"It's a girl, Boss. She's on her own."

Distracted by the humming, it didn't occur to Hermione to draw her wand while Malfoy was distracted. Hermione recognized the melody, but she couldn't think why it sounded familiar. Was it a song she had heard at home? Hermione's mind was too foggy for her to focus.

By the time Hermione thought to draw her wand, Malfoy had already turned back to her, picking up right where he had left off. Hermione squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that whatever it was he was going to do, it wouldn't be permanent. The Twins' trick with her hair a few weeks ago had been embarrassing enough, and that was supposedly harmless. How bad would a spell that was intended to harm her be?

"Salutations!"

Hermione's eyes snapped open when she heard the familiar Scottish accent.

All four students turned to see Rose Peta-Lorrum standing in the hallway. She was wearing her cloak, which flapped in a nonexistent breeze, with her hood pulled up over her head. Underneath her cloak was her black and red dress, and Hermione briefly saw a Gryffindor crest pinned to the dress. Rose kept her hands hidden underneath her cloak.

It was then that Hermione remembered that the melody Rose had been humming was the same one that Hermione heard the girl hum to herself at night sometimes.

"Oh, look," Malfoy sneered. "Another mudblood!"

"What's that even mean?" Rose asked him. "You can't have mud in your blood, silly Slytherin! That's not physically possible!"

"It is if your blood is mud," Malfoy replied smugly.

"But it's blood, not mud," Rose replied. "Silly Slytherin. They just sound the same, but they mean different things! They're called homophones!"

Hermione saw Malfoy clench his fist.

"I know the difference between blood and mud," Malfoy growled.

"Yay!" Rose exclaimed, jumping up and down, clapping her hands. "Good job, Draco! I think we've made real progress today!"

Rose sounded so proud of herself, as if she honestly believed that she were helping Malfoy.

Malfoy's lips formed into a snarl.

"I just happened to be in the neighborhood," Rose continued, "and I heard an awful lot of commotion, so I decided to find out what the problem was." She looked at Hermione, and tilted her head to the side. "Are you alright, Hermione?"

"We were just having a little chat," Malfoy sneered.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize your name was Hermione too," Rose said. "I should have been more specific: Pretty Hermione, are you alright?"

Despite everything, Hermione blinked a few times, partly to clear the tears from her eyes, and partly out of confusion. She had certainly been called clever before, but aside from her parents, no one had ever called her pretty. Sure, the threat of imminent demise, or whatever Malfoy was planning, was far more worth her concern, but it was still odd, especially given the horrible names Hermione was accustomed to being called.

Hermione realized that she had strange priorities when she was tired.

"I'm… I'm alright," Hermione whispered.

"Run along, mudblood," Malfoy said to Rose. "Before you get hurt."

Malfoy brandished his wand at Rose, who tilted her head to the other side.

"Are you… threatening me?"

"What do you think?!" snapped Malfoy.

"Ooooh," Rose said. "Don't you know we aren't supposed to use magic in the corridors?"

"What, like this?" Malfoy sneered, raising his wand to cast a spell.

"No, like this," Rose replied.

As she spoke the word "this", Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle all flew up to the ceiling, and Hermione jumped. It was as if the boys just fell upward. Hermione saw that they hadn't been hurled onto the ceiling, but instead their ascent was slow, just as it would be for someone who was falling.

Hermione's eyes grew wide. Looking closer, she noticed that the boys weren't quite on the ceiling, but were suspended just off of the ceiling. Hermione looked at Rose. She didn't have her wand out; Hermione hadn't even seen her move. How had Rose done that?

"Kethé, huh?" Rose asked Hermione. "Spell-like abilities don't need verbal or somatic components. Means I can just fire them off whenever I like."

"How did you do that?" Hermione asked as the Slytherins continued to shout.

"Undermaster!" Rose exclaimed. "Ninth-level spell that allows me to use about a dozen other spells as SLAs once per round!" Rose looked up at the boys on the ceiling. "Quit whining! It'll wear off in a few minutes!"

Hermione couldn't believe her eyes. In an instant, her day had gone from awful to better. She was still exhausted, but at least now she wasn't under threat of pain and humiliation.

"You can come out now," Rose said. "Although you'll want to go around them, since that area is under the reverse gravity effect."

Hermione looked up at the boys. Looking around the corridor, she realized the problem.

"I can't," Hermione said. "There's no room."

Rose looked around the corridor.

"Oh."

Rose spun around and slapped the wall to Hermione's left. As Rose's left hand struck the wall, and the wall crumbled to dust, widening the corridor, and once again startling her roommate.

Hermione stood staring at the altered corridor.

"Come on, then," Rose said, snapping Hermione out of her stupor.

"Right," Hermione said. She shakily walked around where the boys were stuck on the ceiling, joining Rose at the other end.

"Now, if you boys don't mind, we'll be off," Rose said. "You can just hang out for a few more minutes until that wears off. And if you're very nice to us, then I won't tell anyone that not only did you get beaten by a Muggle-born, but a girl."

Rose turned to leave.

"Wait til my father hears about this!" Malfoy shouted.

"Your poor father must be tired of hearing about every little detail of your day, Drakey!" Rose shouted back. "You should give him a break."

"You… you filthy…" Even Malfoy's stock insult didn't seem to be sufficient to express his rage. "You freak!"

Rose spun around, her cloak fanning out around her.

"Oh no!" she gasped, placing her hands on her cheeks. "Don't call me a freak, Drakey! Anything but that!"

"I'll get you for this, Mudblood!" shouted Malfoy.

"Good luck with that," Rose said, spinning on her heels. "Come along, Hermione!"

Hermione took one last look at the three Slytherins stuck to the ceiling, then ran after Rose. She had a lot of questions, but she couldn't gather her thoughts long enough to ask one.

"Where are we going?" Hermione whispered after they were far enough from the Slytherins that she wasn't worried about them hearing.

"There's something I want to show you," Rose said. "It's a bit of a walk, so I hope you don't mind."

"No, I… I guess it's alright," Hermione answered shakily. "How… How'd you know where to find me?"

"I've been keeping track of you and Sally-Anne for the past week," Rose replied. "Both of you have been having some trouble, specifically with the Slytherins. I saw you heading towards the Dungeons after breakfast. I figured you'd run into trouble down here, so I came down as soon as I was finished picking up Intelligencer from Inar."

"Picking up what from what?" asked Hermione.

"Inar's the dedicated wright I made this week," Rose replied. "And Intelligencer is an expeditious messenger I made!"

Rose pulled off her picnic basket charm from her bracelet, and a small creature flew out of her full-sized basket and perched on her shoulder.

The creature looked like a small ferret, but with feathery wings. It had blue and black striped fur, and the feathered wings had a mixture of blue and black feathers.

"Intelligencer!" Rose repeated as the winged ferret crawled up and perched on her shoulder. "He's an expeditious messenger!"

"Uh huh," Hermione said, nodding. She wasn't sure if she was hallucinating, or if it actually had wings. That seemed to happen a lot with Rose. "Has he got wings?"

"Yup!" Rose beamed. "Don't worry, you'll get used to it!"

Hermione wasn't sure that she was ever going to get used to this girl.

"Thanks," Hermione said. "Thanks for saving me back there."

"Don't mention it," Rose replied. "That's what friends are for!"

"Friends," Hermione said. "Yeah, I guess so."

Hermione smiled. Through the fog that had set in her mind, one thought came in clearly: she had made a friend.