Disclaimer: Everything you recognise belongs to the amazing JKR (Leenie is mine).

AN: For Helen, in honour of her new tattoo!

At Hogwarts, nothing is ever as it seems. Staircases suddenly change direction, doors vanish into thin air, and ghosts burst out of nowhere. Hogwarts delights in perplexing students and teachers, relishes the surprised squeak as a foot sinks into a trick step, and adores the groans of frustration as its staircases begin to shift. Very few are exempt from the castle's mischievous streak: the occasional headmaster, a bullied student here or there, the kindred spirits and tricksters. And Leenie.

At five years old, Leenie is Hogwarts's youngest resident. She eats at the head table, trousers stuck to her booster seat with a semi-permanent sticking charm. She has her own room in one of the staff quarters, a large window filling the chamber with light during the day and stars at night. She frequently escapes her assigned guardian, disappearing as soon as they become distracted. She knows which rooms are safe to enter, which greenhouses to avoid. And she never has to wait for a staircase. The castle knows what she needs, keeps her from harm, and shepherds her back to her quarters when the working day is over so that she can spend time with her parents. Hogwarts is her playmate, her babysitter, her friend.

The day our story starts is a bright spring day, the kind that beckons you into the sunshine and coaxes you into a walk. Leenie is in greenhouse five, watering seedlings. Tuesday mornings mean spending time with Pomona Sprout, as both her parents are busy teaching. She likes to work in the greenhouses. She wears her green wellies and her muggle play clothes, her black curly hair wrestled into braids by her daddy that morning. Pomona is puttering about with her clippers, humming "Cauldron Full of Hot Strong Love" under her breath as she tends her babies. Leenie is having a conversation with her seedlings.

"Now, plants, I'd like your attention please." She pauses a moment, waiting for them to settle down. "You too, Greeny. None of that funny business," she says to the seedling on the end. "The sun is telling me that spring is here. That means it's time to grow. Nice and big and strong. I promised Daddy that I was old enough to grow you all by myself, so you guys have to hold up your side, okay?" She waits and then nods her head, satisfied. "Good plants."

She prods the soil with a finger, making sure it's damp enough, before she hangs her tiny watering can back on its hook. Small fingers flip a latch below the worktop along one wall and she pushes open one of the glass panels that make up the greenhouse wall. Tuesday mornings are for exploring outside, Pomona never notices she's missing. Leenie slips through the gap and into the bright sunshine. Though she loves the castle, the school grounds are her favourite place to be.

She makes a run for the rose garden a short distance away, it won't do for her to be spotted so soon into her exploring. The rose garden is always particularly fun, it's a maze. Leenie, of course, knows the route through of by heart, but she likes to do it every week all the same, muttering to herself and naming the topiary animals as she does.

"Right, right, left. Hello, Mr. Hippogriff. Left, straight, left. How do you do, Mrs. Unicorn and Baby Unicorn. Right, left. Good morning, Mr. Badger. Straight, straight, left. Nice to see you, Mr. Snake." Though the words sound perfectly ordinary to her ears, if anyone were to overhear this last part, they wouldn't be able to understand it at all and may question why such a polite little girl began hissing and spitting.

Successfully through the maze, Leenie runs to the orchard and clambers over a low part of the wall. She found the gap months ago after a storm, part of the dry-stone wall had collapsed and made the perfect Leenie sized hole. The best thing about the orchard is that there is always something in season. Last week, she managed to scavenge a clementine from the few that still hung from a low branch. This week she's on the hunt for apricots, the fruit was almost ready last time. It should be perfect now.

She finds the right tree, but none of the branches hang low enough for her to reach. The trunk is sloped and soon splits into gnarled branches. She has no trouble climbing it but wishes she wasn't wearing her green wellies. They don't make good climbing shoes at all. When she's high enough, she reaches out with a small hand, fingers stretched as far as they'll go before they clasp the delicate skin of the apricot. She's careful not to grip it too hard as she plucks it from the branch. She wriggles down the branch and settles in the crook where the trunk splits into two. The sweet juice drips down her chin as she bites into the soft fruit, staining her t-shirt. She pays it no mind; the house elves can clean anything. She once knocked her mummy's wine over her favourite white shirt and it had been folded and clean, ready to wear the next day. She sucks the last bit of flesh from the pit and throws it into the middle of the orchard, maybe a new tree will grow from it, and jumps the few feet left to the floor.

She knows that she's not supposed to go into the forest, but the edge isn't exactly in the forest. Right? She uses the cover of the trees to make her way past Hagrid's hut to the large enclosures that are used for Care of Magical Creatures. If Leenie was old enough to go to Hogwarts properly, she thinks Hagrid's class would be her absolute favourite. She'd seen students play with and tend to all different kinds of animals. They were all beautiful. The last paddock holds something special, something that can fly and fit into tiny spaces. She heard Hagrid talking about them at dinner last night. He said they were for the NEWT students, whatever they were, but Leenie knows she'll be able to handle them.

The paddock is filled with a large, sheltered nest, the shape of a bird's egg, but much bigger, with a large hole in the front. Shiny material litters the floor so Leenie picks some up and slips it into the pocket of her trousers. She hears a kind of quiet murmuring coming from the nest and sneaks over to take a peak inside. As she looks over the rim, a small tongue darts out and tickles her nose. It belongs to a small snake-like creature; its scales shimmer with blues and teals and Leenie notices its feathery wings. Leenie has seen these creatures in her story books.

"Hello, little occamy!"

"Hello," the small creature hisses in reply, much to Leenie's astonishment. "What are you doing here, tiny human?"

"I just came to say hello." She is a little unsure of herself but presses on anyway. "I heard that we had new visitors and wanted to come and see! What are you doing here anyway?"

"I'm hatching my babies," the occamy hissed. Standing on her tiptoes, Leenie looks further into the nest.

"Please, may I meet them too, Mrs. Occamy?" she asks, trying to be as polite as possible, just like her mummy taught her. As she says this, the creature in front of her seems to double in size. She can see its sharp teeth and whip-like tongue.

"What do you want with my babies?" The mummy occamy sounds cross and angry, like how Leenie's own mummy sometimes sounds if people are mean to her.

"I- I'm sorry," Leenie stammers. "I don't mean to be rude, I just thought it would be nice to see some babies."

"First, I have to deal with large humans gawking at me and mine. Now, I have to deal with tiny humans as well? Why won't you just leave us in peace?"

"I didn't know I was being unpeaceful!" Leenie protests. "I'm super peaceful."

"Not to me, you're not," the snake-like creature replies.

"Well, at least I'm not rude like you are!" Leenie isn't sure she likes the occamy at all. "You snakey things were much nicer in my story book."

She turns around, fully prepared to storm off, and runs straight into an enormous man. Hagrid scoops her up with one hand and sets her down in the crook of his elbow.

"Now, Leen," he starts with a smile, "Wha' yeh doin' out here? I thought yeh was supposed to be wi' Professor Sprout on Tuesdays?"

"I just wanted to say hello to the new animals," she pouts, "but they were mean to me."

"Why don't yeh come an' have a cuppa tea wi' me and we'll talk all about it, eh? Just like I used to do wi' yeh mum when she was small."

"Okay!"

Leenie loves Hagrid's hut. There are always cool things hanging from the ceiling: hams, unicorn hair, coconut shells. And it always smells of the smoke from the fire he keeps blazing. Fang, an old and slow dog, ambles over to see her like he always does and licks her face.

"Urgh!" she says as she wipes her face on her t-shirt.

"Now," Hagrid says as he puts his smallest mug down in front of her, "what's all this about the occamy being mean to yeh?"

"Well, I said hello to it," she says. "And it said hello back to me."

"It said hello back?" Hagrid asks. "In human speak?"

"I think so," although now she thinks about it, she isn't so sure. "It sounded kind of hissy but it was definitely English … I think."

"And then what happened?" says Hagrid.

"We talked for a bit and then I asked to see its babies. It got all mad, like Mummy does when someone says something mean about house elves or when Daddy leaves his socks on the floor." Hagrid is smiling now, but she isn't sure why. They still haven't got to the bottom of why the occamy was so mean to her.

"I think I know what happened, Leen."

"What?"

"Tha' occamy is a new mum, she was jus' being protective." Hagrid smiles warmly at her, his beetle black eyes shining.

"Oh," Leenie thinks hard for a moment, "did she think I might hurt her babies? I would never do that."

"I know yeh wouldn't, Leen, but the occamy don't know that."

"Do you think I should tell the mummy occamy that I don't want to hurt her babies?" Leenie asks the half-giant.

"I don't think she'll believe yeh. I think it's best to jus' leave 'em to it," Hagrid says. "Sometimes, families jus' wan' to be left alone together. Speaking of, I think it's time we got yeh back to your mum and dad, eh?"

"Okay!" she says brightly, disagreement with the occamy already fading her mind. "I have the best Mummy and Daddy, don't I?

"Of course, you do, Leen!" he booms in agreement. "Jus' make sure yeh tell 'em that!"

"I will!"

It doesn't take them long to get up to the castle and into the corridor Leenie knows as her home. A large tapestry of a dragon cover's the stone and the door on its right opens automatically as the wards recognise her.

"Mummy! Daddy! We're home," she announces as she walks through the door.

"Who's we, Leenie?" Hermione asks her daughter as she makes her way into the living room. "I've just had a patronus from Pomona saying that you'd disappeared."

"Not to worry, Hermione, she's with me," Hagrid says from the corridor, too large to come in.

"Oh, thank goodness," she scoops up Leenie and gives her a cuddle. "I thought you'd gotten lost!"

"Silly Mummy," Leenie sighs. "Hogwarts would never let me get lost." Sometimes, grown-ups just didn't understand things.

"I think yeh've got yerselves a little Parselmouth." "D'yeh think I could just have a quick word wi' yeh and Severus?" Hagrid asked Hermione.

"I'm right here, Hagrid." Severus says as he walks into the room. "Hello, darling!" He drops a kiss on his daughter's fluffy hair as always. "What's the problem, Hagrid?"

"It's not so much a problem, but I found little Leen talkin' to the occamy this morning."

"Oh?" asks Hermione.

"The unusual thing," he continues, "is that it was talking back."

Both Severus and Hermione are too stunned to say anything.