by Ozma

a sequel to "Squib Wizard"

Prologue: Unofficial Observer

Everything in this story really belongs to J.K. Rowling

I ran down the left hand corridor on the first floor, just ahead of a glowing red, grapefruit-sized ball of light. Halfway down the corridor, a black-and-yellow tapestry waited. Behind me I could hear the triumphant buzzing of one of Mad Eye Moody’s Secutus spells. It would reach me well before I reached black-and-yellow. To make matters even worse, another red pulsating ball of light had just appeared directly between me and my Door. I was surrounded.

Or was I? Ahead of my pounding feet, the stone floor of the corridor suddenly shifted. Green-and-silver didn’t appreciate being used as a doormat, I was certain. But it was for a good cause. Being caught by Mad-Eye Moody’s spells hurt. My job as Castle caretaker gives me enough backaches already. Without breaking stride, I jumped downwards, right through the corridor floor.

Momentum remains a problem whenever I use my Doors to jump through the floor. I have a tendency to emerge sprawling head over heels. Recently I had started lessons with Madam Hooch. She’d been teaching me how to fall without damaging myself too badly.

Madam Hooch knew that to me a broom would never be more than a cleaning implement. But she hadn’t questioned the Headmaster when he’d asked her to teach me about falling. Her yellow hawk-like eyes had swept me up and down, taking in the fading bruises still visible on my face.

"Good idea," she’d said, briskly. "Especially if Argus is not going to have the sense to keep away from Lucius Malfoy!"

I’d sighed. The list of people who Needed To Know seemed to be growing all the time, but my Doors were still a secret from most of the people at Hogwarts. However, nearly everyone in the Castle appeared to know that Lucius Malfoy had thrown me down the front steps when I refused to obey his order to take him to the Headmaster immediately.

Madam Hooch’s expression had been approving in spite of her words. She’d been glad that I’d stood up to Malfoy. And she did her best to share her knowledge and training with me. There’s an art to falling. Since even the best Quidditch players will fall, Madam Hooch was well qualified to teach me how to do it without breaking my neck. I was able to turn my tumble into a passable shoulder-roll when I emerged from green-and-silver, through a wall in the Charms corridor.

Getting my feet beneath me once more, I crouched behind a suit of armor to rest for a moment and catch my breath.

Straining my ears, I listened for the distinctive clunk of Moody’s wooden leg. To my relief I didn’t hear it. But I had heard...something. Soft breathing, perhaps? And had that been a quiet footfall nearby? I scanned the Charms corridor. There was no one in sight.

Sometimes the ghosts do like to move about invisibly. But they don’t breathe and no one hears them walking. And it couldn’t be Peeves. Peeves hardly ever does anything quietly.

Was it a student out of bed, perhaps? My heart sank at the thought. I didn’t want to be interrupted in the middle of one of my lessons with Moody! It hadn’t happened yet, I’d been lucky so far. I still wasn’t sure what I would do if the situation actually ever arose.

Everything was perfectly quiet now. Or as quiet as the Castle ever gets at night.

I must have imagined those soft noises.

Stealthily I moved down the corridor in the direction of the main staircase. No red pulsating Secutus spells yet. I was still safe.

Near the top of the stairs was a statue, mostly hidden in the shadows. I didn’t recognize it. A new addition to the Castle’s decor? I was just wondering when the Headmaster had acquired this ugly thing, when I noticed the bright blue magical eye. Oh, no!

Wand outstretched, Mad-Eye Moody stepped forward. He looked pleased with me. This evening I’d been able to elude him for longer than ever before. He also looked triumphant, as he cast a Stunning spell at me. Capturing me had gotten to be more of a challenge for him lately, and the old Auror thoroughly enjoyed a challenge.

Good. Because I still had one more trick for him, literally up my sleeve. I’d been able to feel the surge in Moody’s magic even before he’d cast the spell. And I was ready.

The wooden filing cabinets in my office are nearly empty of parchments now. I’d recently burned about thirty years worth of detention forms, each one a carefully hoarded grudge. But I still had a few file drawers with plenty of odds and ends in them.

One of the drawers is labeled "Confiscated and Highly Dangerous." I leave that one alone.

Another is labeled "Confiscated, but Probably Harmless." One of the items in that drawer had been a small hand mirror that I’d once taken from a nasty little chit named Rita Skeeter. (The mirror had seemed ordinary enough. But it had looked to me as if Rita had been trying to use it to reflect a curse at one of her classmates.) The mirror fit snugly into the palm of my hand, just as it had fit into Rita’s. And Moody’s Stunning Spell would reflect much as Rita had tried to do all those years ago with her curse.

Mad-Eye Moody froze as his own Stunning Spell bounced back and hit him. His magical eye swung about crazily. His normal eye rolled back in his head. I was alarmed to see that his nose was trickling blood. Just how hard had he meant to hit me?

I hadn’t realized how close he was standing to the top of the stairs. Horrified, I watched him falling backwards into emptiness!

Had Moody ever played Quidditch? I had no clue. Had anyone ever taught him how to fall? I didn’t know. And even if someone had, he was Stunned and completely helpless. He was going to break his neck!

I didn’t know which of my Doors was there for me, when I stepped back. I didn’t think about it. I just stepped backwards into one of them and emerged halfway down the flight of stairs. Stopping Moody’s fall entirely would not be possible. But I could try to prevent him from injuring himself too badly!

I’d once seen Madam Hooch catch a terrified first year who’d fallen from her broom. She’d flown underneath the girl, allowing herself to be knocked off her own broom a few feet from the ground to cushion the child’s fall. Neither of them had suffered anything worse than bruises.

Moody hit me with the force of a bludger. I was able to keep him from striking his head as we tumbled down the stairs together. I’d already sent whichever Door I’d used away. (Another journey through my Doors was the last thing Mad-Eye needed.)

At the landing, near the foot of the stairs, there was a pedestal with a heavy Grecian amphora on top. Moody and I slammed into the pedestal’s base. The amphora started to shake. It was heavy enough to do terrible harm if it fell on us.

A proper wizard could have caught the amphora with a spell, but I couldn’t. The best I could do was curl protectively over my helpless teacher and hope to cushion him from this impact too.

Body aching from my tumble down the stairs, eyes squeezed tightly shut and heart pounding, I waited for the crushing blow.

It didn’t come.

After a few anxious moments I dared to open my eyes. The amphora was now completely steady on its pedestal. But it was not exactly in the center. The ring of dust made that obvious. (I couldn’t help a flush of shame when I noticed the dust. All the recent havoc in the dungeons has put me so very far behind with my dusting!)

Someone or something had saved us, catching the heavy thing before it could fall and putting it back! Someone or something that I couldn’t see.

"Who’s here?" I wheezed, my heart still beating hard. "I know you’re here!"

Silence was my only answer. I couldn’t even hear anyone breathing. I looked up and down the stairs but nothing was moving.

Moody groaned.

"Filch?" he said weakly.

"I’m here," I said. "Are you all right?"

There! I’d heard it again. A very soft sound, as if someone was moving close by. Perhaps someone who was as concerned about Mad-Eye as I was.

The Auror’s magical eye was rolling about crazily again. I couldn’t tell if it had rested in any one direction longer than the rest. And Moody did not tell me if he saw anything unusual.

"Don’t get yourself into a state, Filch," Moody said gruffly. "It’s just your cat."

Mrs. Norris came slinking silently up the stairs, moving out of the shadows towards us. But I knew it wasn’t her that I’d just heard.

"Keep alert, Missy," I whispered to her as she came softly over to me. "We’re not alone on these stairs."

Her small grey ears began to swivel about like Moody’s magical eye.

I didn’t know how long Mrs. Norris had been nearby, but if she’d been in the vicinity for more than a few moments then she’d probably seen the falling amphora stopped by our invisible savior.

The old Auror watched my cat, speculatively.

"What in Medea’s Name did you do to me?" was the only thing he said. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket to dab at his bloody nose.

"I just reflected your own spell back at you," I told him.

Relieved to see that he was recovering, I was beginning to feel the first stirrings of resentment at the powerful Stunning Spell. He’d meant to use that spell on me!

"With this," I said.

The small mirror, unbroken, lay at the foot of the stairs. Wincing, I got up and fetched it to show him. The old Auror looked pale and dazed. But his magical eye swiveled to study the mirror.

"Nasty little thing," he growled. "Where’d you get it?"

"It was confiscated from a student. It’s been in a drawer in my office for years. It’s just a mirror, isn’t it?"

Moody shook his head. "No. This thing was made for casting spells. And it’s got a defensive spell on it too for good measure. It reflects magic back with nearly twice the original force. Circe’s Pigs, man! Did you really think that I was going to use a spell that strong on you?"

"I figured that you might have gotten carried away," I said. I was ashamed of myself.

He sighed, chagrined. "Listen to me, Filch. You are one of this Castle’s defenders. As much as any other adult wizard here. Those Doors give you access to magic that no one else can use. I’m trying to teach you that you have claws and how to use ‘em. That’s the whole point of these lessons. I’m not trying to kill you!"

"I know. I’m sorry."

"You’ve done very well. I’m proud of you. Tonight you’ve earned ten out of ten."

I couldn’t help grinning proudly.

"Which student did you take it from?" Moody asked me, rubbing his head.

I told him.

"Figures..." he growled, but I wasn’t listening.

I’d just heard someone gasp, quite distinctly!

"Who’s there?" I cried.

Both Moody and Mrs. Norris were no help whatsoever. Moody was staring into space. It almost seemed as if he were deliberately trying not to look anywhere in particular. Mrs. Norris was calmly washing her right front paw, with an attitude as casual as Moody’s. Cats and Aurors love to keep secrets.

"That does it!" I snarled at Mad-Eye. "I’m tired of everyone around me always knowing more than I do! Mrs. Norris can’t tell me who else is here, but you can. You just won’t!"

Moody looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.

"All right. Fine. Don’t tell me!" I grumbled. "It’s probably one of the ghosts anyhow! Probably the Baron. As long as it isn’t Peeves! Whoever it is, it’s someone that Mrs. Norris isn’t objecting to, and I trust her judgment. It’s just maddening... the way that you enjoy secret plots, and wheels turning within wheels... name one other person who is as infuriating as you are!"

"Albus," Moody said, promptly.

"I am going to tell him you said that!" I said, outraged at such disrespect.

Moody grinned. "Please do."

I continued to glower for a few moments, then I sighed.

"Do you want to keep it?" I asked him. "The mirror, I mean."

"It’s yours, Filch. Why would I take it away from you?"

"Because," I pointed out, "I thought that it was just an ordinary mirror. I couldn’t test it with magic or use any spells to see exactly what it was capable of doing. Maybe I’ve got some other things in my "Harmless" drawer that I should reclassify."

"I’ll be glad to take a look at your collection, a little later. Right now, I don’t feel up to it." He rested his head in his hands, massaging his temples.

I watched, feeling sorry for him.

"Sounds like you’ve amassed quite an unofficial little arsenal over the years," Moody murmured.

Stricken, I said, "But I would never use anything that I knew was dangerous!"

He sighed. "That’s not the point I’m trying to make, Filch. I don’t disapprove of your arsenal. Quite the opposite. Unofficial things have a very important place among anyone’s most valuable resources. You’ve got to learn how to use any advantage you’ve got. Unofficial weapons. Unofficial sources of information. Unofficial connections."

"For example," he went on, "the students aren’t supposed to know about your Doors. Thanks to those tapestries you can come closer to Apparating within the Castle’s defenses than any other wizard at Hogwarts. Neville and Ginny have been sworn to secrecy. They can’t tell any of the other children. But isn’t it true that it was really Ginny who figured out that a powerful wizard-repelling spell is what makes the Doors unusable for any witch or wizard who’s not a Squib?"

I nodded warily, wondering what he was getting at. I knew all this.

"None of the students can know about your Doors, officially. But the students are one of Hogwarts’ greatest resources. Full of intelligence, energy and ideas."

"Full of tricks and pranks and mischief!" I retorted. "You’re not suggesting that I start telling students, are you?"

Moody smiled. "Of course not. You’re not ready to take such a suggestion seriously. But I hope that you will consider my point. Don’t overlook any advantage, any source of possible help. Xiomara Hooch and I are not your only teachers. You can learn from anyone. Even the students."

That brought me up short. I knew he was right about learning from the children. Both Neville and Ginny had taught me a great deal already.

"Good," he said, approvingly. "You are thinking about it. That’s all I’m asking. Now give me a hand up and help me find my staff. We’ll go and have a look at that treasure trove of yours."

END OF PROLOGUE

Author’s Note: Next time, Harry gets a more visible role...