It hadn't taken long for the kids to spill their adventure to pretty much the entirety of Gryffindor house. Apparently, they'd bumbled their way into the forbidden, locked corridor trying to hide from Filch, and had almost gotten eaten by the immense cerberus in the room. I suspected the frightened, tiny children were exaggerating about the size of the three-headed dog and how easy it would have been for it to maul them standing just inside the doorway, but it still seemed like there should have been a better lock on the door.

Hermione was oddly fixated on the fact that the dog was standing over a trap door. I'd asked her if she could figure out a better way for Hagrid to clean up the dog's poop, since he couldn't cast vanishing spells, and that had seemed to quiet her down. Still, nothing I had heard about cerberi indicated that they couldn't just be kept in the Forbidden Forest for creatures class, none of the upper-years had mentioned it being in their lessons, and they were, famously, guard animals. So despite making fun of the obsession of the three 11-year-olds, I was also a bit curious.

I'd spent a couple of weeks falling into something of a rhythm when the opportunity to go bother Hagrid about it fell into my lap. McGonagall held me back after transfiguration class on Wednesday afternoon and began, "Mr. Dresden, while your comprehension of the material is clearly sufficient based on your classroom work, I, and a few of your other teachers, have noticed that your essays are of a remarkably lower standard."

"Finding it hard to get the hang of using quills, ma'am," I suggested.

She scoffed, "And if it was only your atrocious penmanship that was in question, that would be another issue. Instead, I'm referring to how you seem adept at producing exactly the bare minimum number of inches specified, while filling your work with sentences full of adjectives, subordinate clauses, and elaborate description, but little to actually prove you're spending time researching the subject."

She stared at me, as if trying to prompt another justification, but since she hadn't actually asked a question, I let her hang with what was hopefully a nonchalant but respectful expression on my face.

"Very well," she relented, "if that's the way it's to be, I suspect bad letter grades won't have much meaning to you and that taking points won't matter to you either. Since Mr. Filch and Mr. Hagrid asked me specifically to assign you to them should you suffer a detention, a detention it will be. Please do strive to think about this punishment the next time you have the urge to work so far below your level to speed up your homework."

"Yes, ma'am," I said, trying to look contrite but probably just doing a very bad job of hiding my grin.

The detention wound up being scheduled that Saturday morning, and I met the caretaker and grounds keeper outside, bundled for an already frigid fall morning. "Ready for your detention, Dresden?" Filch smirked.

"Guys, if you wanted my help with something, you could have just asked," I said, absently petting Mrs. Norris, who didn't seem to be any happier to be out in the cold than I was.

"Figured ye'd get a detention sooner or later," shrugged Hagrid, "an' we could kill two birds." Behind him sat his massive wolfhound, Fang, slapping the ground loudly with his tail while giving Filch's cat a look that admitted she was in charge, but that he still very much wanted to be friends, if Mrs. Norris would deign to oblige.

"Fair enough. So what's the plan?" I asked.

Filch ran a hand over his coat, as if feeling the vest underneath that I'd made for him. After taking the unexpected stunner from Quirrell, I'd made a point of actually finishing my protective vest, and made a slightly lower-powered copy for Filch, as I'd promised. "You mentioned that materials were the bottleneck for making more items?" I nodded at the hunched old man, since I'd used up most of the extras I'd gotten from my shopping trip, and probably couldn't talk Professor Babbling into letting me go nuts with the school supplies to make anything that caught my fancy. "It so happens that I have a pile of confiscated items that you could maybe use?"

I'd seen Filch's massive list of prohibited items, and heard tales of it growing every time he took distracting magical toys and other prank items off of students. While it was always easier to work with pristine materials, I admitted, "That's a definite possibility. I'd need to see the pile and figure out what's recyclable, but that would be great."

The men nodded, and we started following Hagrid toward the forest. Filch explained, "I used to keep all of this in my office, but it proved to be an attractive nuisance. After those awful Weasley twins figured out how to sneak in and start putting it all back into circulation, I had to find a safer location…"

"He gives 'em to me ta dump in the woods," explained Hagrid, as we walked between the first trees of the forest. "It's a surprisin' big pile."

"Over two decades of hooligans adds up," Filch complained, carefully picking his way through the underbrush, hunched in his ratty old coat with Mrs. Norris curled up on the back of his neck in the coat's hood. "I was glad to get it all out of my office, to be honest. I've so much more space now, and fewer pests getting in, both creature and boy."

"If you'd waited until this year, you could have just put it all in with the cerberus," I joked, trying to steer the conversation.

"Aye, Fluffy's a good boy," revealed Hagrid. "How'd you know about tha' anyway?"

"Albus might've well put a sign on the damn door saying, 'Stupid kids, come explore,'" Filch answered for me. "I'm sure everyone in the school knows about it by now. Pretty sure I chased some hooligans up there a couple weeks ago."

"They could at least put a spell-resistant lock on the door," I added. "The unlocking charm is one of the first things they teach first-years."

Hagrid grumbled, "No budget fer a good enchanted lock. An' I'm sure Dumbledore could cast a lockin' spell tha' the kids couldn't break, but then how'm I ta get in ta feed 'im?"

I thought about it for a bit, and suggested, "They probably should have just said that you were trying to rehabilitate a dangerous magical creature, and that the school wasn't liable if it bit the faces off of out-of-bounds students. A vague threat isn't much of a deterrent for these kids. You wouldn't even have to reveal that it's up there guarding something…"

"How'd ya know about–" began the large groundskeeper.

"Hagrid," Filch interrupted, "Dresden was asking me if I knew anything about his mother. Slightly before my time, but you were here when she was a student. What was that name again?"

I shot Filch a look, and he looked back at me, smug. He had clearly realized as well as I did that Hagrid was about to start spilling secrets if he kept on that subject. So he gave me something else to question him about that he rightly suspected I wanted to know more. "Margaret McGregor. Looks like she left school after taking her OWLs in 1968," I allowed.

"Oh, aye, I remember Maggie. Tall girl, I can see why yer not as small as the other students." Hagrid thought for a few more moments as we skirted some trees and entered a darker part of the woods, the trees blocking out even the bright morning sunlight. "She were always nice ta me, unlike most'a the rest o' Slytherin. Real smart. I wonder if she'd ha' done better in Ravenclaw."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

He thought of how to explain himself, then said, "She just wanted ta know everythin' there was ta know. Didn't like when the professors told her some things were secret fer a reason. Wouldn't stay away from learnin' dark spells. I don' think she wanted to use them, mind ye, she just wanted to know. But she 'ad a harder an' harder time seein' eye-ta-eye with the professors, and left as soon as she could without gettin' her wand snapped."

"Where'd she go?"

"I don' rightly know. I know she was best friends with tha' Bellatrix woman, an' that'un were one o' the main Death Eaters. But t'weren't never no news of Maggie fightin' good wizards and witches, an' if yer da' was a muggle, she mustn't've bought inta the whole thing about Blood Purity. So she must've made good choices by the end." I had about a million more questions, but he suddenly said, "Ah, here we are."

There was a natural spot in the rolling ground of the forest here, where a depression had formed in the corner between two large trees. Hagrid had filled that shallow hole with what was probably several wheelbarrows full of miscellaneous wizard-made trinkets. I didn't actually keep up with the cutting edge of magical toys, but based on seeing Filch's list, I could make assumptions about things like fanged frisbees, nose-biting teacups, and ever-bashing boomerangs. Everything else blurred into a sea of handmade detritus.

I knelt down at the edge of the pile and poked at it with my staff. "If the two of you want to help, anything with metal components or that looks like it's held together with fasteners is a good start." I'd pushed aside a frisbee and was reaching to pull out something made of fabric that might be salvageable when I felt the end of the cloth vibrate and a hissing emerge from beneath it. I'd apparently disturbed a nest of something that started to boil out. "Is this going to happen every time I'm in this forest?!" I shouted at Hagrid, scrambling back.

"Doxies! Don't let 'em bite ya!" bellowed Hagrid as the first of the tiny bluish creatures took to the air. Filch was already falling back, Mrs. Norris hissing as she leapt from his back. Fang, surprisingly a huge coward of a dog, was whining and sprinting for cover.

Not wanting to get a swarm of venomous fairy-bugs to the face, I yelled "Stupefy!" and then endeavored to get a shield up as I scrambled backward. Even with the staff, my aim wasn't great for tiny, swift-moving creatures, but it was a target-rich environment. A doxy near the back took my stunner to the face and crashed back down into the pile, but that just alerted the rest of them that I was a threat. Fortunately, my shield could keep physical threats at bay, but it wouldn't take them long to crawl around it.

"I told you we should have brought doxycide!" yelled Filch, as Mrs. Norris swatted a couple of doxies out of the air that had gone after the retreating caretaker.

"They don' normally nest outside!" argued Hagrid. "Though, t'was a warm summer, I suppose." He was swatting at the cloud with his hands, the pests not able to compensate for the sheer size of those hands or his surprising speed, so some fell with each sweep.

Magical pests were not something I'd ever really had to deal with, as they tended to congregate at buildings with really dense and ancient magic. Until Hogwarts, I'd never lived in such a place. I wracked my brain as a couple dozen of the ugly, multi-armed fae beat against the shimmering dome of force I held, anchored to my shield bracelet. I gave up and asked, "Don't suppose either of you remember what spells are best against these?"

"My mother swore by the knockback jinx," yelled Filch, already clearing the treeline.

"Right. Here goes." Fortunately, that was within the spectrum of spells my staff could manage. I took in a breath, visualizing the spell spreading wide, timed it, dropped my shield hand as my staff came forward, and yelled, "Flipendo!"

A ripple of disturbed air washed out from the end of my staff and spread across the swarm. As it passed over each doxy, they shot away from me like bullets. Quite a few made crunching sounds as they were knocked into the trees or the ground. Those that managed to avoid hitting anything, and the few that had escaped the spell, seemed to realize how dangerous things were for them and fled.

"Well, good job, then. That's sorted," smiled Hagrid. "Fortunately, they've never been able ta bite through my skin." He reached over to where the swarm had come from and brushed items aside to reveal the hole they'd dug beneath the objects. "Don' look like there was a queen, t'least. I should prob'ly put down some poison and bury this when we're done, though."

I just shook my head and walked over to start sorting when Hagrid hadn't been swarmed by another wave of nastiness, and Filch slowly made his way back as well. Maybe it was the adrenaline crash, but as I spent the next several minutes grabbing likely-looking items, I started to feel exhausted. Maybe twenty minutes after the fight, my vision began to blur and I admitted to the two men, "I don't feel so great."

Hagrid grabbed my shoulder out of concern, asking, "Did ya get bit, Harry?"

"I don't think so…" I slurred, then noted that my shielding hand did feel a little numb. I held it up and saw a distinctive red bump formed just above my bracelet, where one must have gotten through between dropping the shield and casting the knockback jinx. "Hell's bells," I swore, then lost consciousness.