Catsieee: Hazel is a full-on Legilimens. I wasn't a huge fan of the Fantastic Beasts movies (in fact, I never finished the second one), but Queenie's ability was… interesting, even if it does contradict what Snape said about Legilimency not being the same as "reading minds". Or maybe he doesn't know as much about it as he thinks he does. Regardless, I'm trying to strike a balance between the two, so surface thoughts are there for the taking but memories are harder to parse out and interpret.

Chicwowwow: Oh, Hazel will have friends. Just not the kind you expect. ;-)

"Hazel's mute? That's different": It is, though the novelty is only one of the three reasons I went with it and honestly the least important. The second reason is because I don't want to imagine how short her lifespan would have been had she been able to tell the Dursleys that she could hear their every thought. If she had to wait until she could read and write, it makes her safer because she would know by that point that any hint of freakishness would be severely punished. The third reason… You'll just have to wait and see.

Chapter 2
Freedom

The poorly lit sidewalks of Privet Drive vanished into darkness, and something came out of nowhere to crash into Hazel's chest and drive her to the ground.

It was only as she lay on a surprisingly carpeted floor trying to catch the breath that had been knocked out of her that her eyes adjusted to the lack of light that she realized where her terrified teleportation had taken her. She was back at school, more specifically in the library. That thing that hit her? A table she had run into all on her own.

Why in the world had she come here of all places?

She pushed herself up on her hands and looked around at the bookcases that surrounded her. Maybe it did make a little bit of sense, she decided as she thought over it some more. This was not like the little skip and hop she took to get from her cupboard to the kitchen; it was closer to what happened when she was running away from Dudley and his gang. Once again, she was running away from an angry Dursley, and one again this freakish—

No, she decided as she realized what she was thinking. She was still believing the lies of her aunt and uncle. She was not a freak. She was special. She was a witch, a sorceress, a magician.

Who else could have done something like this?! She had just teleported! It was like having superpowers off the telly.

Hazel climbed to her feet and nodded. She had magic powers, and Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were scared of her and what she could do. Which was really, really stupid of them. She held no illusions about what they wanted out of life. They wanted to be praised and talked about and envied. If Aunt Petunia had taught Hazel what little she knew about her mother and their shared powers, she could have done all sorts of things for their benefit.

It would serve them right if she came back once she had learned what she was doing and taught them a lesson.

Thinking about that confrontation brought back the recent memory of her uncle chasing her down the street with a cricket bat, and she shuddered. Maybe getting even with the Dursleys was something to put a little farther down on her to-do list.

Anyway, the library. She knew why she showed up here when she was trying to go anywhere to get away from Uncle Vernon. The library had been her safe place more often than not whenever Dudley was after her. The librarian did not approve of ruckus or horseplay, and as long as Hazel was quiet – obviously an uphill battle – when Dudley wanted to start something, it was the boys who would get thrown out and she could be left alone.

Miss Brandine was probably her favorite out of all the staff at school, if only because she was the only one who appreciated Hazel's inability to speak.

She rubbed the lingering ache in her chest and carefully wandered over to where she thought the light switch was. A minute or two of searching finally found it, and she smiled when the library was lit up so she could actually see. That smile faded a moment later.

Yes, she was away from Privet Drive. That just meant she had no clue what to do from here. It was not as if she could stay here at school even if she wanted to. Everyone here ignored her at best, and it was not as if there were any classes here about what to do if someone suddenly learned they had inherited magic powers from the mother their aunt never talked about.

…At least, she did not think there were. Hazel took a moment to imagine that but quickly shook her head. That was silly. The people of this town were too plain, too boring, to be training a coven of witches in secret.

Knowing that she could not stay here did nothing to help her figure out where she did want to go. A yawn caught her by surprise and reinforced the importance of deciding on her next step. She had spent the last week pushing herself every night just to get the one thing she could do working. She needed rest.

She would get neither here, not sleep nor information—

Some place in the back of her mind snapped the pieces together, and her eyes opened wide. Perhaps she should look for both in the same place. She would not find any useful information in the school library, but she might in a real library. Little Whinging did not have a public library, but Greater Whinging did. She had seen in, too, albeit from a distance during a school trip when Aunt Petunia could not come up with a reasonable excuse for why Dudley could go but Hazel could not. Her mother must have learned how to control her magic to be able to do all the things Hazel saw in Aunt Petunia's memories, which meant a book or a teacher existed somewhere. She just had to find it.

Why did Uncle Vernon have to wake up before she could learn anything useful?!

Greater Whinging had another advantage, now that she thought about it. No one would recognize her. Being unknown meant no one would call the Dursleys and tip them off about where she was hiding. Somehow, she did not think they would welcome her back with open arms after this. Uncle Vernon would be more likely to try finishing what he started.

Now that she had a plan, Hazel wracked her brain trying to remember what the library looked like. Teleportation seemed to work better if she knew where she was going. That she appeared in the library when she reached out for somewhere safe was proof enough of that. Try as she might, she could not remember what it looked like, but she thought she remembered where she had been when she saw it on the trip. They had lunch at a small sandwich shop, though it did not serve normal sandwiches. It was something foreign. Cuban, that was right; Uncle Vernon had thrown a fit that the school fed his precious Dudders 'dirty Commie food'.

That place she remembered.

She hitched her backpack higher on her shoulders. Step one, get to the sandwich shop. Step two, find the library. Step three… she would figure out when she finished the other steps. Picturing the restaurant as best she could, she closed her eyes and willed herself to be there.

One eye cracked open to find her still in the school library.

Perhaps it was a good thing she could not speak because the words running through her head right now would have even loving relatives washing her mouth out with soap. This worked three times already! Twice on accident, and again on purpose! Why was it not working now?!

Alright Hazel, she asked herself, pushing her frustration away just as she always had to do back home, what's different this time? There had to be an explanation. It obviously was possible since she had done it. It could be done intentionally, too. She had to be missing something, something fundamental.

The first time, she was trying to escape Dudley.

The second time, she was trying to escape the cupboard.

The third time, she was trying to escape Uncle Vernon.

Hazel blinked. Was that the secret after all? Was what she was doing only for getting away? That seemed astonishingly limited for magic of all things, but she only learned about magic a week ago in the first place. There were bound to be rules she knew nothing about. I'm not going to the restaurant. I'm just trying to get away from this place, and the restaurant is the most convenient place to go.

Still nothing.

She gave a nearby chair an angry kick and hopped on her other foot when the chair hit back. No shoes, right. She fell into a different chair, one that thankfully did not attack her, and rubbed her stubbed toes. If escaping was not the trick, what was?

The message of her aching toes slowed to a stop. This was not the first time she got angry tonight. She had been angry at her lack of success, and that was when she actually succeeded. When she was running away, she was scared, terrified in the case of Uncle Vernon. And now that her thoughts were running in this direction, she looked back at all the other times she had used her magic, even if only by accident. Every single time, she was angry or scared. Not when she was happy, the few times she had truly been happy. Not when she sat in her cupboard crying.

Anger. Fear. Those were the only common factors. Was that the fuel her magic needed?

It was not difficult to feel angry, nor after everything that happened this night. Being lied to. Being chased down. Being stuck in her school because her magic would not cooperate. She had every right to be angry! All she want was to go to a stupid sandwich shop! Was that really so hard?!

She jumped up in the air—

—and her feet landed in snow.

Her breath blew out in a thick cloud while she looked down an unfamiliar street, and she turned her head to the right to find the front of a little eatery squeezed between two bigger stores. She jumped again, but this time in joy. She had done it! She was one step closer to mastery over teleportation and her magic in general.

Hazel hoped as she got more experience, she would be able to do stuff like this without needing to be mad. She only imagine what kind of person she would become if she had to be angry all the time. If Aunt Petunia's memories were any indication, though, her mother appeared to be able to control her own powers without it, so more likely it was just a matter of practice.

An ice-cold wind swept through the street and drove knives into her skin. Dudley's castoffs and the few cheap skirts Aunt Petunia had reluctantly purchased for her were too old and worn thin to provide effective protection against the winter's chill. It would be pitiful for her to escape her relatives' wrath only to freeze to death on the way to safety. Instead she wrapped her arms tight around her thin body to try to hold in what warmth she could and started trekking through the snowy sidewalks. She thought the library was this way, but with all the snow in the air that had been kicked up by the wind, she could not say for sure. She would have to hope she got lucky.

Her own thought startled a scoff out of her. Luck. Right. Because she was just the epitome of a lucky girl.

The wind pushed her off the sidewalk more than once as she stumbled her way down the street on feet that had long ago gone numb, but eventually a white building came into view through the storm of white that was nearly blinding her. Several steps later, the words Greater Whinging Public Library could be seen carved into the wall above the pillars. And beyond those pillars lay doors that would be her salvation.

Hazel slipped as she walked up the steps and scrambled the rest of the way on all fours. Inside of the library lay only darkness, but she would take it so long as it was warm. Her hand wrapped clumsily around the handle, but no matter how hard she tugged, the door refused to budge. It was locked tight.

Tears of frustration gathered in her eyes. This wasn't fair! Not when she had come this far. Was it too much to ask for to be allowed to live after running away from the only home she knew? Could she not get even that little bit of mercy?

It was only because she was pressing her head against the door that she heard the soft click. Trying the handle again, the door moved easily.

She squeezed through the door and closed it quickly behind her, breathing out a sigh of relief. Oh warmth, how I love you. Looking up from the ground, she smiled when she saw the stacks stuffed with books of all sorts. This place was so much bigger than she had imagined. It was surely far from the largest library in the country, of that she had no doubt, but it was large enough for her to start her search. Exactly what she would look for was a decision for after sleeping.

Climbing the stairs to the top floor, she found a room with several desks pushed against the walls. One lesson she had learned at Privet Drive would likely remain useful for a long time to come: as long as she stayed out of the way, people would be less likely to actively search for her. She pushed her backpack into a corner under one of the desks and climbed in after it.

Sleep claimed her almost before she closed her eyes.

Opening her eyes was nearly painful, but slowly Hazel managed it and looked around herself. The room she had chosen as her temporary resting place was all but empty, and the one man who was in the room had headphones covering his ears as he stared into a machine sitting on the desk that she had not noticed during her wandering. With sight and hearing both occupied, it was no challenge to leave him to his research into… fashion trends of the 1930s?

Hazel stared at him for a long time before shaking her head. Grown-ups were weird.

This time she really did leave him alone, moving on for her actual goal. The question still lingering in her mind was where she would find any information about magic. It was clearly something rare, otherwise she would have heard of it before now. Any stories that talked about it were make-believe if her teachers were to be trusted. So where would she find hints about how to control her powers and use them at will?

A sliver of worry wormed itself into her heart. Maybe the reason it was considered nothing but a flight of fancy was because it was so rare that there were no books or lessons to be found. Maybe her mother had nothing but her own guesses to guide her, and now what lessons she had learned were lost forever.

She shook her head. This was not the time for despair and doubt. There was something, somewhere, to help her. She was sure of that much.

Outside the room where she had slept, the main room of the library was open in the middle from the ground floor all the way to the third, giving the building a bright and open feeling. Coming off the circular walkways on the higher floors like the one where she stood now were a number of rooms full of more books. It was certainly a better place to start looking for magic lessons than anywhere in Little Whinging. She just hoped it would be enough.

Unfortunately she had no clue where in this building she needed to start looking, but another look downwards gave her a guide. Specifically, the card catalog was in the middle of the circular ground floor. Surely there would be a listing for magic in there. Right?

It was only when she started down the stairs that she realized there might be a small problem.

"Why isn't she wearing any shoes?"

"Look at her clothes. Did she dig them out of a skip or something?"

"Who let someone like that in here? I didn't give them a donation so they could let her kind in here."

She shot the man who made that last thought an ugly look. What did he mean, 'her kind'? Was he talking about her clothing? It was not her fault this was all she had from the Dursleys. She would wear better clothes if she had them!

Forcing his nastiness out her her own head, she meandered over to the card catalog and pulled open the drawer labeled 'M'. It was time to find some answers.

"What are you doing here? Probably plans to pick people's pockets or something." Hazel looked up to find a librarian staring down at her, her eyes holding none of the faint warmth that Miss Brandine's had. They instead flickered to each article of her clothing in an increasing wordless disgust. Then those judging eyes reached her feet and lit up with satisfaction. "There's a reason I can get rid of her. You can't be in here without shoes, girl. Get out."

She looked around quickly, searching for a piece of paper or anything else she could write on. She did not know what kind of lie she would tell, especially not when this woman was already set on kicking her out, but anything would be better than silence.

"I said out!" The librarian grabbed a long ruler, and knowing from the direction of the woman's thoughts that her choices were to leave without being hit or to be driven out after getting hit, Hazel took the less bad option and started walking backwards towards the door. That walk became a run when the angry librarian chased after her. The door slammed shut behind her, and she looked back to find the woman shaking the ruler at her. "And she better stay out. Tramps like her can find somewhere else to stay warm. Libraries are for decent folk."

Decent folk, ha! Hazel glared at her through the glass door before shivering. 'Decent' people did not throw other people out of buildings to stand around in nothing but socks in the snow. Again. Not that the librarian cared, if the warning look she gave Hazel before returning to the front desk was any indication.

Another shiver swept through her body. Of course, any extra clothes she could put on to stay warm were all safe and sound in her backpack inside the library, as was her food and what little money she had. Even if she did not still need to look for books about magic, she would need to sneak back inside for all her stuff.

It looked like she would have to stay on a schedule where she lived by the moon rather than the sun.

The cold was still a problem, and Hazel hopped from one foot to another before striking off down the little alleyway between the library and whatever building was next to it. She needed to find somewhere to keep from freezing while she was waiting for night to fall and the library to close to everyone except her. Somewhere that was warm, close to the building, and would not throw her out for wearing her Dursley clothes. Somehow, she had a feeling the last would be the sticking point.

A glance upwards at the fire escape on the side of the other building caused her to see a puff of white smoke wafting through the sky. It looked like it was coming from the library, but there was no reason it should be smoking like that. She hoped it was not on fire, but nobody was running out the front doors, so that was not it—

She slapped her hand over her face in exasperation with herself. That was not smoke. It was steam! The library was a big building, so like her school it probably had a boiler room or something to heat it. And steam was nice and hot. The roof was not the best place to wait out the day, but it was better than freezing to death here on the street. She just needed to get up there. Fortunately, she had exactly the skill needed to do that.

It took little effort to get mad at the librarian again. She was mad, and she wanted to be up there. Hazel jumped up, but a moment later she hit the damp ground again, no higher than she had been before.

This was certainly not helping her temper, but this time it was directed as much at herself as it was anything else. The inconsistency in all this was really getting on her nerves.

She leaned against the brick wall and tried to walk through what had gone wrong this time. She had it working just fine last night, when she got angry at being in the library. She was clearly still missing something.

Anger, check. Knowing where I want to go, check. Or check-ish? She looked up at the roof again. Maybe it was because she did not know where it looked like? That had not interfered with her teleporting when running away from Dudley, but it seemed to apply the other times. So it could just be a limitation in that she had to know where she was going.

The other possibility was that maybe the anger had to be more directed, and that one struck her as more true. She could not explain why, even to herself, but it just felt right. Her emotions had been aligned the previous times with moving from one place to another, not just anger at anything at all.

I'm not just angry at her for kicking me out. I'm angry because not only did she kick me out, she did it where I'm going to have to cuddle up to a steam vent just to stay warm. Where I'm going to have to wait until night falls just so I can get back to my stuff. Focusing on this directed anger and the desire to be up there instead of where she was, she hopped once and felt the world try to crush her in response. When it failed to do that, she opened her eyes to find that she had appeared on the top level of the fire escape just where she was aiming. That had been almost easy.

Could she do it again? Twice in a row?

Focusing on the rooftop and all the metal ductwork she could see, including the short pipe where the steam was pouring out, she ignored the fact that she was thirty or so feet above the ground and all it would take was one bad hop for her to tumble over the rail and crack her head open like an egg on the tarmac. All she cared about was the rooftop. She fed more anger at her situation into her magic, then she jumped again.

A blast of steam nearly burned her face off, and she staggered backwards to get away from too much heat before she jumped into the air and threw both her hands over her head. She did it! She was starting to get the hang of this whole magic thing!

Even better, at least for her immediate needs, the roof was relatively dry, and there was a section of air vents that was lifted up to provide a small crawlspace. An adult would not be able to fit in it, but for a girl as short and thin as she was, it was actually rather comfortable. Steam coming out from several feet away wafted around her, reaching a nice comfortable middle ground rather than freezing or boiling. It was pleasant enough that she found her eyes drifting closed even with three cars backfiring in quick succession nearby.

She had intended to be up at night and sleep during the day. Might as well start now.

A chill dragged Hazel back from the land of dreams, and she poked her head out from under the ductwork to find that the last rays of the sun were vanishing below the horizon and the street lights were already lit. She wiggled out from under the ducts and stretched with a wide-mouthed yawn. She must have been a lot more tired that she had thought if she was able to sleep the entire day away on a roof.

That was then, though. Now she was awake, and it looked like all the people previously in the library were leaving for their own homes. Probably they have a nice warm dinner waiting for them, she added when her stomach chimed in with how much it would like a big dinner right about now. She gave it a pat. It would be fed soon enough, just as soon as nobody else was in the building and she could let herself inside. There was a peanut butter sandwich and a tin of Spam calling her name.

A glance around reminded her of the major issue with her current situation. Namely that she had to get back to the ground. She tried to make herself mad at the librarian again, but despite her attempts all she could manage was a general sense of irritation. There were no flames of anger scorching the back of her eyes. Part of it, she knew, was that she did not want to be angry. All she wanted was to get to her food.

Worry started crawling around in her belly, and she walked over to the edge of the room and looked down. That was a long drop, but what if she could not get down on her own? Her magic got her up here when she should not be able to do so, but that also meant no one would come up to help her down. That assumed she could even get their attention, since it was not as if she could simply yell for help.

Her feet scuffed the edge of the roof just as a gust of wind pushed against her. She hopped backwards away from the edge before she could fall—

—and a moment later had to gasp for air when she reappeared in the alleyway. Her head whipped up to stare at the roof she had just been trapped on before that burst of teleportation caught her off guard. She shook her head. Helpful, but she would rather this magic she was exploring be difficult than unpredictable.

Getting back into the library when the library was locked tight was a little more difficult, but this time her frustration caused the doors to unlock themselves just as they had the night before. Hazel gave the doors a considering look as she turned the knob to lock the door again. That was a useful trick. There were many a day at Privet Drive she would have appreciated being able to do just that to let herself out of the cupboard.

She had no intention of turning on every light in the building, but a torch would be just as useful. In a building this size, they had to have one somewhere. A quick search of the drawers in the front desk, and then she flicked the light on and shined it at the card catalog.

Another rumble from her stomach reminded her of her priorities. Right. Food, then magic.

For a mute girl, Hazel can sure use a lot of words to talk about nothing in particular. I originally planned not to put her own thoughts into italics, but as I was writing it I felt leaving them out would be too much tell and too little show.

There shouldn't be much more of this "I did it just fine last time" stuff, but considering Apparation is considered difficult even for fully trained witches, it made sense that it takes a nine-year-old girl a few attempts to get it under control. Even Tom Riddle wasn't that ambitious.

Silently Watches out.