How the Other Half Lives

Jacklynn Fitzpatrick ran her knuckles clumsily along the hard brick wall of the corridor she hoped was leading towards Mr. Filch's office. Her detention was set to start in five minutes and she figured she was still at least ten minutes away from the office. Upon leaving the Ravenclaw common room, she had set out to take as much time as possible to get there. It turned out that that wasn't a problem: she got lost two corridors away from her starting point.

She passed a painting of a unicorn frolicking in an open green meadow and stopped to smile at it. She had always loved unicorns, and finding out that they really existed had been quite a treat for her.

"Aye, lass," a rough, masculine voice called. Jacklynn jumped and glanced around her, but she didn't see anyone, human or ghost, who could have spoken. "Well, don't just stand there and be rude, come talk to me."

Jacklynn glanced around again and this time saw a fairly young wizard waving at her from a painting a few feet down the wall. She stepped uncertainly towards him. "Umm, hi..."

"And hello to you, too, lass," he extended his hand towards her, as if to shake, but pulled it back with a laugh. "Forget sometimes that I can't offer my hand to a human. Life would be simpler if you were all just paintings."

"Tell me about it," she watched the painted wizard. She guessed he was probably meant to be in his twenties. He was wearing flowing velvet robes and a matching hat that came to a perfect point atop his head. Blond curls bounced around his ears as he strode around what Jacklynn thought might have been the Hogwart's Quidditch pitch.

He paused mid-stride and looked directly out at her. "Do I detect a note of unhappiness in the young lady's voice?"

Jacklynn shrugged wearily, "I have detention with Mr. Filch. And to make matters worse, I think I'm lost."

"Mr. Filch!" crowed the wizard in the painting. "An upstanding young man! Keeps my environs spiffy, as you see."

He took a lap around his painting, pointing out each detail as Jacklynn glanced worriedly at her watch. Only three minutes left. "Listen, umm..." she paused, not knowing what to call him. The wizard cocked his head towards her, waiting for her to continue, and then seemed to realize her problem.

"Sir James," he extended his hand again, then pulled it back with another laugh, "just joking, of course, can't shake."

"Sir James," Jacklynn began, thinking to herself that she would never be used to talking to paintings, "do you know where I might find Mr. Filch's office?"

His chest puffed with pride as he pointed in the direction she had been heading, "Just up those stairs, lassie. You'll find it on the right."

"Thank you, Sir James," she smiled. "Well, I'd better..." she nodded towards the stairs and took off running.

Jacklynn paused to take a breath as she reached the top of the staircase and looked down the hallway. It was nearly dark, but a light was shining from underneath a door halfway down the hallway, on the right. She figured it must be Mr. Filch's office and started towards it. Her suspicions were confirmed a moment later.

The door burst open and Mr. Filch appeared in the hallway a few feet away from Jacklynn. Quincy Franklin peered out from the doorway behind him. Mr. Filch scowled down the hall, "Where is the bloody girl? Who do these students think they are, not even showing up for detentions on time?"

"There she is, sir," Quincy put on his best helpful voice and pointed a finger accusingly at Jacklynn. Mr. Filch grinned, baring his battered teeth for her to see.

Jacklynn wished she could sink into the floor as Mr. Filch walked steadily towards her. He indicated for Quincy Franklin to follow, and the Head Boy did so after allowing Mrs. Norris to run from the office. Jacklynn stumbled back in surprise as the cat ran its body almost lovingly over her legs.

Mr. Filch walked past Jacklynn without acknowledging her, but she knew she was supposed to follow. Quincy caught up with them as the cat continued to wind it's way through her legs. The two students and one cat followed the caretaker as he walked down the staircase Jacklynn had just come up.

"Good day, good sir!" Jacklynn hear Sir James call from his painting as the group passed, but Mr. Filch did not respond.

They soon arrived in the trophy room. Mr. Filch pounded the door open with more force than Jacklynn figured was probably necessary and ushered the two students into the room. It was a wreck. The floor was soaking wet and felt sticky under Jacklynn's feet. Smaller awards lay strewn across any available surface, including the floor, and pieces of water balloons hung off of those that remained standing.

"Peeves," Filch muttered and Quincy nodded his understanding. The word told Jacklynn nothing. "The two of you will be cleaning this," Filch continued. Quincy Franklin scowled so harshly that Jacklynn backed away from him. "Without magic."

Filch reached into his tattered coat pocket and pulled out two grimy toothbrushes. From his other pocket he produced a fair sized bottle of Muggle soap. He set these items on the closest available countertop and turned back to the door. He paused in the doorway and grinned at the two students. "Mrs. Norris will make sure you do as you should."

With that he was gone. The door slammed shut behind him and the cat abandoned Jacklynn to assume her post at the doorway, watching them with an evil stare that mirrored Mr. Filch's.

Quincy walked over to the countertop and picked up the bottle of soap, "What are we meant to use this stuff for?" he poked at the toothbrushes but didn't touch them.

"We're meant to clean with them," Jacklynn muttered warily. She was no more eager than he was to do so.

"With these?" Quincy grasped the tip of one toothbrush between his thumb and forefinger, and then quickly dropped it. "Come here," he grabbed her by the arm and wiped the dirt from his fingers onto her robe.

"Hey!" she jumped backwards and stumbled, landing on her bottom on the sticky floor.

"Oh, come on mudblood, what's a little more dirt to you?" he snarled.

Mrs. Norris hissed at him from her spot by the door.

Jacklynn's eyes filled with tears as she picked herself up off the floor. She wiped one sticky hand on her robes, but it didn't seem to do much good. With a sigh, she glanced at the mess around them.

Quincy was still standing by the cleaning supplies, so Jacklynn instead decided to begin picking up the bits of balloon. Quincy glared at her for a moment, then turned to the bottle of soap in his hand. He gave it a not-so-gentle squeeze and ended up with a stream of soap hitting him on the nose.

Jacklynn couldn't help but giggle as she pulled a piece of a blue balloon from an award to Tom Riddle for special service to the school. She didn't have time to wonder what his special service might have been before Quincy was standing over her.

"Think it's funny, do you, mudblood?" he growled. She shook her head no, but this seemed only to make him more upset. "I'll show you funny." He turned the bottle of soap upside down over her head and gave it a fierce squeeze.

Streams of slimy green soap ran over Jacklynn's hair and dripped down her face and the back of her head. She blinked back tears of physical and emotional hurt as she tried to rub a glob of soap out of her left eye. Quincy laughed as he tossed the now empty bottle to the floor.

Quincy stalked over to the other side of the room and picked up a few small plaques from the floor. Finding they were only sticky on their backsides, he put them back in their spots on the wall with no further cleaning. Jacklynn set down the handful of balloon pieces she had collected and picked up the soap bottle.

"What are we supposed to do now?"

"What?" Quincy glared at her from his spot by a nearly clean Slytherin Quidditch trophy.

She held the bottle towards him, "There's no more soap. How're we supposed to clean things?"

"You do whatever you like," he snarled and turned back to the trophy. He pulled out a handkerchief from his robe pocket and began to polish away a speck of dirt under the former Slytherin seeker's name.

Jacklynn set the empty bottle back on the ground and collected a few more bits of balloon to add to her pile. She then grabbed a corner of her robes and wiped some of what appeared to be the same slime from the floor off of Tom Riddle's award.

Reluctantly, she walked over to the filthy toothbrushes and picked one up. The second it was in her hand, she could tell why Quincy had dropped it so quickly, but she was not going to allow herself to follow in his footsteps. The toothbrush felt like it was crawling with disease, but she took it with her and settled herself in front of a section of more recently awarded trophies and plaques.

She took one in her hand without glancing at the writing on it and began to scrub away at the sticky dirt and slime caked on the front. Jacklynn quickly realized the task was futile. The toothbrush was leaving more dirt on the trophy than it was taking off. Suddenly, Quincy was behind her again.

"I don't know why you're bothering with that," he said almost to himself, though she knew it was meant as an insult to her.

"Why shouldn't I?" she asked quietly, glancing at the writing engraved on the award. It was another award for special service, this time granted to a boy named Harry Potter, who she was sure she had heard Padma Patil and some of the other fifth years mention.

He sneered at her, "He did no service to this school. All Potter did was stop a great wizard from getting his due."

Jacklynn grabbed the corner of her robes and tried to wipe some of the dirt from Harry Potter's award. Seeing this, Quincy smiled and shoved the award away from her.

"Brilliant idea, mudblood. Wouldn't have thought your kind had it in you."

Jacklynn barely had time to contemplate the fact that he was almost complimenting her before his hand had seized her sleeve. "Hey!" she tried to jerk away from him. He grabbed tight to the sleeve and pulled in the opposite direction. Seconds later, Jacklynn heard the sound of cloth ripping as she tumbled again to the ground and Quincy held a large portion of her sleeve in his hand.

Her elbow that was no longer covered by a sleeve smacked hard into the ground and tears flowed to her eyes as pain coursed through her arm. Quincy turned with a smile to an award behind him and used her sleeve to rub at it, though Jacklynn couldn't see that it was dirty.

Moments later, footsteps echoed down the corridor. Jacklynn didn't bother to think who it could be. Her arm was hurting too much to care as she clutched the sticky elbow close to her body. Quincy continued to polish his chosen award. Through her tears, Jacklynn thought she could make out the word "Slytherin" engraved on it.

The door was wrenched open and Jacklynn could feel a powerful presence in it, though she didn't turn to look.

"What in the name of Merlin is going on in here?" Professor McGonagall's voice boomed through the room. Mrs. Norris hissed up at her and scampered between the professor's legs and out of sight down the hallway.

"Just cleaning up the trophy room, Professor," Quincy answered smoothly.

"I'll just bet you are," Professor McGonagall countered, striding into the room. She stepped over Jacklynn, still huddled on the floor, who was beginning to notice a lessoning of pain in her arm. "Interesting cleaning utensil you have there, Mr. Franklin," she glanced from the cloth in his hand to Jacklynn's bare arm.

Jacklynn could see Quincy trying to think of a way out of this one, but clearly no answer came to him. He stuffed the sleeve into his pocket and tried to look innocent.

"I am beginning to think a mistake has been made, Mr. Franklin. I am beginning to regret making you Head Boy. Alas, the decision does not rest with me alone, or it would most likely be reversed. Ten points will be taken from Slytherin for tonight. Get out of here."

Quincy's eyes widened quickly, and then narrowed again. He set down the award he had been polishing and dashed quickly from the room.

"Are you all right, Ms. Fitzpatrick?" Professor McGonagall extended a hand to the young girl and helped her from the floor. Jacklynn nodded quietly. "I am very sorry about this. The two of you should never have been left here alone together. Though, just between you and me," McGonagall smiled at Jacklynn, "I'm not so sure things would have been any better if Mr. Filch had been around."

Jacklynn laughed quickly and rubbed her elbow. The pain was now only a dull throb.

"Your elbow is all right?"

"Just my funny bone, Professor."

"Good," Professor McGonagall smiled. "Then I see nothing wrong with you that a nice warm shower won't fix. And if you set those robes out, I'll make sure the house elves fix them up good as new."

Jacklynn nodded, "Thank you." She rubbed her elbow again and sighed, glancing over at Tom Riddle's award. "I'm a failure already."

"What do you mean by that, young lady?" the professor looked sharply at her.

"I just... I don't belong here, it's obvious. I can't even make it through my classes without getting a detention. And then even the detention goes wrong. I'll certainly never get an award like that," she sighed again and glanced at the floor.

Professor McGonagall grasped her shoulder and got the girl to look up at her. "Listen to me, Jacklynn. You are a lovely young lady and an asset to this school. I, for one, am glad to have you here. Just between you and me, it's refreshing to have a student like you after dealing with one like Mr. Franklin. Tom Riddle," she glanced over at the award. "was a mistake. Things are not always as they seem, Ms. Fitzpatrick. You would not be here if you did not belong."

Jacklynn nodded her head and wiped a tear from her eye. "Okay." She whispered.

"All right then," Professor McGonagall led her from the trophy room. "That's about enough detention for one night, I think. I'll take you back to Ravenclaw house."

They left the room together. Jacklynn gasped with surprise as, with a flick of her wand, Professor McGonagall had the room cleaning itself up. The professor put a reassuring hand on her shoulder as she led Jacklynn back through the empty halls.