Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.

Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. Feel free to back out if need be.

Author's Note: I should write a sequel where Harini falls or deliberately steps into that fairy circle.

Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Term 14); Mc4A (Year 4)
Individual Challenges: In a Flash; Bucket Listing (Y); Two Cakes (Y); Eating Cake (Y); Neurodivergent (Y); Rian-Russo Inversion (Y); Ethnic & Present (Y); Tiny Terror (Y); Hold the Mayo (Y); Gender Bender (Y); Lunar Era; Magical MC;
House: Slytherin
Assignment No.: Term 14 – Assignment 04
Subject (Task No.): Performing Arts (Task#2: Write about something that is found in both the Muggle and the wizarding world.)
Other Hogwarts Challenges: Fantastic Beasts [44](someone who is danger-aware); 365 Prompts [12](Hollow); Scavenger Hunt [28](Cousins); Days of the Year [Jan 28th](A significant or well-known tree); But Can You Spell It? [E](Energy); Fantasy February (28)[Hidden/Missing Place/World]; Bottle Fame/Brew Glory [Amortentia](Rose Thorn)[Fear]
Other MC4A Challenges: SpB [5C](Childhood); TrB [1C](Best Kept Secret); Hunt [Sp Set](Outside)
Representation(s): Desi & Mute Harry Potter; Always Fem Harry Potter
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: Not a Lamp; Wabi Sabi
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: T3 (Terse; Terrarium)
Word Count: 802 words

(^^)
Hidden & Secret
(^^)

There was a little strand of trees at one edge of the play park nearest Privet Drive. It had a hedge barrier made of boxwood bushes that had been cut at a decent height to encourage each bush to focus on growing towards its neighbors rather than continuing upwards. Inside the woods itself, the trees grew close to one another. Vines and smaller plants wove their way in between the trees just as they would in any larger forest. There were even patches of moss growing in the more shaded spots.

Most of the parents who brought their children to that park warned their children away from the wooded portion. It wasn't really suited for children to play in, not like the more open green spaces between the play structures, swings, and sandbox. It wasn't easy to move through like the paved path that circled the main area and had benches facing inward for parents to sit while watching their children play.

In fact, for all the years that Harini had been coming to the park with Aunt Petunia and Dudley, she had never seen anyone even try to enter the little woods. Not the toddlers who were constantly running away from their mothers seemed interested in the area. Not even the boys who were always looking for something to explore or climb went through the hedge and into the woods.

Best of all was that there was no way to see into the trees past the boxwood hedge.

That was actually what made it so appealing to Harini as a hiding place.

And oh, how Harini needed a hiding place. Shortly after they had started school, Dudley had a new game with his gang of friends. It was called Harini Hunting. The five of them would chase her. If they caught her, they would hit her until she fell down. Then they would start to kick her until they were bored. The only time someone had interfered, the teacher had resigned her job the very next week, despite having promised Harini that she would protect her.

That had been when Harini had really understood that she couldn't count on anyone but herself. No one was going to save her from the bullies. No one was going to rescue her from her aunt and uncle. No one cared about the dirty freak who lived in a cupboard under the stairs of Number Four Privet Drive.

Everyone saw only what the Dursleys told them about her. She was the troublemaker. She was the uncontrollable brat. She was the ungrateful freak who wouldn't speak. She was only what everyone wanted to see.

As time went on, Harini had the growing fear that they were right.

But for a few hours scattered throughout each week, she could slip through the evergreen hedge into that little copse of trees. Just like her, the woods were abandoned and forgotten. They had no one to care for them. They had no making sure that they had enough of anything to grow.

They survived without any of the things that the trees and plants in Aunt Petunia's garden had.

They still grew, even if it wasn't as neat and tidy and orderly as the beds Harini tended under Aunt Petunia's judging gaze.

Tucked in the very center of the woods was a clearing small enough that the trees were still close enough together to block the sunlight. Some long lost person had placed blue-gray stones in seven small cairns to form a circle. The energy that the stone circle gave off always had Harini edging around it, even if the paranoid avoidance was superstitious nonsense. She kept close to the blackthorn trees rather than risk tripping over the uneven roots of the ashes on the other side.

On the other side was an ancient oak as big around as Aunt Petunia was tall. Near the roots, there was a split which had been hollowed out as well as dug a little bit into the dirt. The little tree cave made an already good hiding place even better. It was always dry, even when it was rainy for days on end. It was also tended to stay a steady temperature no matter the season.

Harini had sneaked a few odds and ends into the hidden hollow. Nothing that would be important to the Dursleys if they noticed it missing. And the only thing that Harini would feel sad if she couldn't retrieve it was an old baby blanket in that had long since faded to a soft blue. It had yellow jasmine blossoms embroidered around the edges.

It was the only thing that Harini knew was hers and no one else's.

So it was fitting that she kept it in the only place that was hers and no one else's.