That evening after finishing up in the greenhouse. Fila sat together with a group of curious lions in the Gryffindor tower.
Originally she wanted to go to the Ravenclaws but on her way she found herself dragged into the lions den.
"Why am I here again?" she asked as the lions collected themselves around her.
"Because." Fred answered, "They were curios and wanted to know more," George finished. And looked out over the little heads of lions.
But Fila didn't see any lions here, only curious little monkeys.
They pressed in from every side — wide eyes, half-raised hands, questions already forming before the last one had been answered. A first-year nearly climbed onto the arm of the sofa to get closer. Someone in the back kept whispering "That's actually her" as if the rest of the room might have missed it.
Fila leaned back against the cushions and let the chaos settle around her.
"Right," she said. "One at a time. And if the question is about whether I can make the stairs stop moving, the answer is no."
A disappointed murmur ran through the younger ones. Fred looked far too pleased with himself. George had already claimed the best seat for watching the show.
"Did you really fight in a jungle tournament?"
"Yes."
"With a giant made of trees?"
"Yes."
"And you still came here afterward?"
Fila tilted her head.
"The food's better."
That broke the tension. Laughter moved through the circle. Even Hermione, standing a little apart with her arms folded, looked reluctantly amused. Harry sat further back than most, quiet, watching her the same way he had in Charms — careful, curious, not quite sure what to make of her yet.
Ron leaned toward him and muttered something that made Harry snort.
Lee Jordan raised his voice over the noise.
"Most important question: who's better at pranks, you or these two?"
Fred and George both placed dramatic hands on their chests, wounded.
Fila considered it.
"They're more committed," she said. "I'm more efficient. Different skill sets."
"We'll take it," George decided.
After answering what felt like hundreds of questions the room cleared out a bit. Part of it for being late already, and others because Fila didn't want to answer more. But the boy who lived remained, he sat and looked at her.
Fila gave him a smile. "Got a question Harry?" she asked quietly.
Harry hesitated. Ron and Hermione had drifted toward the stairs with the last of the younger students, though Hermione kept glancing back as if she might return at any moment. The fire had burned lower. For the first time since Fila had been pulled into the common room, the space around them felt almost private.
He rubbed the back of his neck.
"In Charms," he said. "How did you know what I was doing wrong?"
Fila tilted her head slightly.
"You were trying to do two things at once. Lift the feather and watch me. Magic doesn't like being split like that. Not when you're still learning how to hold it."
Harry frowned, not offended — thoughtful.
"You could tell that from the back of the room?"
"I could feel it." She kept her voice even. "Your magic is… clear. Easier to read than most. When it scatters, it's obvious."
He was quiet for a moment. The fire popped softly between them.
"Is that why you're here?" he asked. "To look at people's magic?"
Fila considered how much truth the moment needed.
"Partly. I'm here to learn how Hogwarts teaches. And to see what kind of magic grows in a place like this." She paused. "Yours is still becoming something. That's all I noticed."
Harry looked down at his hands, then back at her.
"Most people think I'm this great wizard. But I really don't know anything." Harry said.
Fila studied the boy. He was saying something that he had been thinking about for a while now. She could tell because his magic even reacted to him saying it.
She didn't rush to fill the silence.
"Knowing everything isn't what makes someone a wizard," she said eventually. Her voice stayed quiet, almost careful. "Most of the people who pretend they do are just louder about it. You're eleven. You're supposed to be learning. The fact that you can already feel when something's off — even if you don't have the words for it yet — means the magic is listening to you. That matters more than getting every spell right on the first try."
Harry's brow furrowed, but he was listening.
"I've seen students who can recite whole books and still can't make a feather rise," she continued. "And I've seen ones who barely speak in class but their magic moves the moment they mean it. You're closer to the second kind. Clear. Still forming. That's not the same as knowing nothing."
She tilted her head slightly.
"The name, the scar, the stories — none of that is the magic itself. The magic is what's sitting in you right now, trying to figure out how to be used. You don't have to be great yet. You just have to keep meeting it honestly. One spell at a time. One target at a time. The rest grows from that."
Harry was very still. The blue of his magic had steadied while she spoke, less scattered than it had been in the morning.
From the stairs, Ron called again, louder this time.
"Harry!"
Harry glanced toward the sound, then back at her.
"Thanks," he said. It came out quieter than before. "Really."
Fila gave him a small nod.
"Go on. Your friends are waiting."
He rushed of, and Fila sat still on the couch.
During this conversation she had felt something coming from him, not his magic but someone else's. but she couldn't think why or how. Could it be that he can still carry Lily's magic, which is the magic keeping him protected?
Dumbledore had wanted her to tell him as soon as she found something.
But did this count as something to even tell him?
While still sitting in the couch she heard someone else coming down the stairs.
Fila already knew who it was, "Hi again Hermoine." She said without even turning to look at her.
The girl stopped mid step, "How did you know it was me?"
Fila laughed, "I can still see, just not with my own eyes."
Hermione recovered quickly, though a faint flush remained on her cheeks. She stepped the rest of the way into the common room and stopped a polite distance from the sofa.
"How?" She asked gently, though the curiosity for new things to learn could be heard through the gentle voice.
Fila tapped the couch beside her, and Hermoine quickly sat down.
"You see, I had my eyes stolen from me. A mad dark wizard thought that I didn't need them anymore. So he tore them out, and since then ive used a bit of magic to see." Fila looked at hermoine and slightly folded up her blindfold, imbedded in her eye sockets sat two flowers, one in each eye. Two red roses. "the flowers give me sight. Without them I can see anything."
Hermione's breath caught. For a long second she simply stared, eyes wide, mouth slightly open. The usual rapid stream of questions seemed to stall behind the sheer strangeness of what she was looking at.
"They're… alive?" she whispered at last.
"In a way." Fila let the blindfold fall back into place, covering the roses again. "They grow with me. React to light, to magic, to intent. They aren't ordinary plants. They're part of how my magic decided to keep working after the eyes were gone."
Hermione's hands tightened in her lap. The academic part of her was clearly fighting with the horrified part.
"Someone did that to you on purpose."
"Yes."
"And the roses… they just grew there?"
"Not immediately. It took time. And a lot of magic I didn't fully understand at the time." Fila's voice stayed even. "Now they work better than the eyes ever did for certain things. I can feel the shape of spells. The mood of a room. Whether a plant is lying to me." She tilted her head. "People are harder. But I manage."
Hermione was silent for several heartbeats. When she spoke again, the shock had begun to settle into something sharper — curiosity tempered by genuine concern.
"Does it hurt?"
"Not anymore."
"Can other people see them if the blindfold comes off?"
"They can. Most find it unsettling. That's why I keep them covered." Fila gave a small, dry smile. "You're taking it better than most."
Hermione let out a short, unsteady breath that was almost a laugh.
"Do you like magic Hermoine?" Fila asked. "You seem like the type to like to understand it more than to use it."
Hermione blinked, still half-caught between the shock of the roses and the sudden shift in the conversation. She straightened a little, as if the question had given her something solid to hold onto.
"I… yes. I do. Both, really. But understanding comes first for me. If I don't know why a spell works, I never feel like I truly know it." She glanced at Fila's blindfold, then away again. "Most people are happy just making things happen. I want to know the rules underneath. The structure."
Fila nodded slowly.
"That matches what your magic feels like. Ordered. Careful. Like you've already decided where every piece belongs before you cast."
Hermione's cheeks coloured again, though this time it seemed more from being accurately read than from discomfort.
"Is that a good thing?"
"It's a strong thing," Fila said. "Different from Harry's. His is still open, still deciding what shape it wants. Yours already has walls and foundations. Useful. Sometimes a little rigid. But useful."
Hermione considered that, fingers worrying the edge of her sleeve.
"I've never thought about magic having a… personality before. Or a shape you could feel."
"Most people don't, but it's a tied to you. everyone's magic is different, shape, color, even size and clearity. Your's for example is a light red, its rounded meaning you don't use a lot of offensive spells. And it had nice space to grow even stronger." Fila said.
Hermione stared at her. "You can see the colour?"
"Feel it. Colour is just the easiest way to describe it." Fila tapped two fingers lightly against her own temple. "Yours sits close to you, neat edges, very little waste. Harry's is bluer and still spreading outward. It hasn't decided its limits yet. Ron's is warmer, thicker but a bit stubborn. The twins are almost the same as each other, which is rare. Loud. Fast. Always moving."
Hermione's eyes had gone bright with the particular intensity she usually reserved for new textbooks.
"And you can tell all of that just by… being near us?"
"When I pay attention, yes."
"Does everyone have a colour?"
"Everyone with magic. Some are clearer than others. Some are muddy because the person is fighting themselves. Some are so tightly controlled they almost disappear." Fila tilted her head. "Yours is easy to read because you don't hide from it. You meet it head-on."
Hermione absorbed that in silence for a few seconds, clearly turning the idea over from every angle.
"Could you teach someone to notice even a little of that? Without roses?"
Fila thought about it, she didn't know how to even teach it. but while looking at that cute face this little bunny looking girl gave she couldn't say no.
"For you I will try, I must do some research for though so I will come back with it some day."
Hermione looked as if she had just been offered an entire restricted section of the library.
"I would like that," she said carefully. "Very much. If you ever had time."
"Of course, but now I must ask something about your friend." Fila said and turned slightly serious.
"Harry?" she asked.
Fila just nodded. "I see something is bothering more than just normal school, what is it?"
Hermione's posture stiffened at once. The open curiosity of a moment ago narrowed into something more careful, almost protective.
"What do you mean?"
Fila saw that Hermoine didn't want to talk about this. something must be happening for her to become like this just to protect her friend. Could she blame her? No she would do the exact same thing for her friends.
"Nothing, go to bed. Its getting late." Fila said with a smile that hinted to something else without being said.
Hermoine saw the smile, and understood it. Fila wasn't going to chase this, so Hermoine stood and rushed up the stairs again. "Thank you Fila." She said from the stairs before she kept going up.
But now this gave Fila something else to do, trouble never really ends.
"And I just wanted to go see the Ravenclaw tower." She said slightly sad.
The castle felt really quiet this night. Could be because it was really late, but if this would be Ilvermorny that wouldn't stop anyone.
Exploring this castle would take days or even weeks. She felt lost just by turning right once and actually felt a flicker of unease at the thought of getting properly turned around. The moving staircases did not help. One moment she was certain she was heading toward the higher floors; the next she found herself on a lower landing that smelled faintly of damp stone and polished wood.
She stopped, letting her magic sight stretch farther than usual.
That was when she felt them.
Three very familiar students moving down from the Gryffindor tower.
She raised an eyebrow and gave a slight whistle.
"Where could you be going little ones?" she said and started going in their direction, her disillusionment charm casted.
Once she came closer, she still kept her distance from them. they seemed to actually want to go out of the castle. Why would they even need to go out? She wondered while still following the little lions.
They were doing a really good job sneaking, even dodging that nasty looking caretaker.
Fila followed.
Outside, the grounds were silvered by moonlight. The trio cut across the lawn in a low, purposeful line toward the small stone hut near the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
Fila stopped in the shadow of an oak and watched them knock. The door opened. Hagrid's booming whisper carried just far enough for her to catch the tone if not every word — surprise, then reluctant agreement. The three disappeared inside. The door closed.
She remained where she was, magic sight extended.
Seemed their visit wasn't just some out of the moment thing, as there was urgency in their steps and voices. The fact that they had risked Filch and the night all pointed to something they believed could not wait until morning.
Then something else appeared.
Someone she didn't like seeing, coming from the castle and sneaking up on the little hut. Draco Malfoy moved with far less care than the trio, clearly hoping to catch someone in the act rather than avoid being caught himself.
She stayed in the shadows and watched him creep closer to the hut, peaking toward the lit windows.
Trouble had just found itself an audience.
He peeked through one of the little windows for sometime, then just a couple of minutes later he bolted back into the castle.
"It's a lovely night isn't it." she heard a comforting voice behind her. One that she recognized.
She turned and saw Albus Dumbledore standing there, not even hiding under any charm.
"It sure is, summer really is coming." She said calmly and turned back to watching the hut. "You knew they would do this?" she asked.
Dumbledore stepped forward until he stood beside her in the shadow of the oak, hands folded loosely behind his back. The moonlight caught the half-moon spectacles and the familiar twinkle that never quite left his eyes, even at this hour.
"I suspected they might," he said mildly. "Curiosity is a powerful motivator, especially when paired with loyalty. And young Mr. Potter has an unfortunate talent for finding the places where the castle's secrets are thinnest."
Fila kept her attention on the hut. The warm light still glowed in the windows.
"Malfoy saw them," she said. "He'll report it."
"Yes. I expect detention will be arranged by morning. Possibly involving the Forbidden Forest, if tradition holds." Dumbledore's voice remained light, but there was a quiet weight beneath it. "A harsh lesson, though not without its uses."
Fila glanced sideways at him.
"You're going to let them walk into it."
"I am going to allow the consequences of their choices to unfold," he corrected gently. "As I allow many things to unfold. Including your presence here tonight."
She almost smiled.
"You felt me following them."
"I felt a great many things tonight. Your particular way of looking at the world is difficult to miss once one knows to pay attention." He paused. "You have questions about the boy."
It was not a question.
Fila nodded once.
"There's something else in him. Its not his own magic… but I have trouble seeing whos it is, could be his mothers." She said and waited for some reaction from him. But as she expected nothing. This old man could probably hide a dragon in that beard and not even break a sweat.
Dumbledore's expression did not change, yet the air between them seemed to grow a fraction stiller.
"A good theory, one I cant confirm nor deny as I do not know." He said while not even looking at him, instead he looked at the young kids running out of the hut. "But now I shall have to go back, as professor McGonagull will soon barge into my office about a couple of kids out past curfew. Good night Ophelia." He said.
"Professor…" she said and turned to look at him, but he wasn't there anymore.
Only the quiet grounds remained, moonlight and the distant glow from Hagrid's windows. The trio were already halfway back across the lawn, moving faster now that their errand was done, still checking over their shoulders out of habit.
Fila stayed under the oak until they reached the castle doors and slipped inside. Only then did she let the last of the disillusionment fade and start her own return.