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Since having found out there's going to be an explorer's club as well as some help regarding his charms work in the future, Tyler's gotten to be pretty relaxed and happy. He's got a few friends, who for today, aren't with him in the hallway right now, as he heads up to the library to look up more things on charms to try and at least PASS that class.

That's why, jogging up the passage towards the library, he's woefully unprepared for the group of Slytherin fourth years, just coming OUT of the library. It's why he freezes upon seeing Charles Brigman, the fourth year he ended up getting caught for filching, just as the bigger, meaner boy catches sight of him, and then runs.

"buggerbuggerbugger."

He is no match for Brigman with a wand, and while he's Gryffindor, he is not a bloody minded fool.

"EAT SLUGS YOU LITTLE SQUIB!"

"BUGGER!"

He's not going to dodge the next blast, so there's a first year, running for all he's worth down the passageway.

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Mel pauses in her crawling to peer back past her hip at him.

"Maybe I'll teach you Brigman's weak spots."

She's had plenty of time to discover, for example, that he's more likely to cry if you kick him in the side of his ankle than if you go for his stomach.

"...that sounds like a fair plan." Tyler murmurs, looking forward. "...you know the snack cart lady on the train cursed him since he tried to steal her till?"

"That was him."

It's relatively toneless, flat, but with all the weight of a final irritating piece of a puzzle being slotted into space.

"Idiot. He's got all the store keepers in Hogsmeade leery of students."

Particularly Slytherins.

"Yeah, he's pretty much a grade F buttweasel."

"Don't have to tell me that," Mel says, looking forward now as she crawls. "I've been in his house for three years."

"I'm sorry that you have to take classes with him. He must really cut into your nap time on other courses too," Tyler mutters. "...how're you in Potions class?"

"Can't sleep in Aquam's class," Mel says. "Too many explosions."

"Oh well....just had a thought. There's something I've been meaning to try out..." Tyler grins, the idea really appealing to him now. "You know there's potions that can give somebody funny colored boils, right?"

"...was just thinking, what Brigman needs is socks laced with stuff that'd give him singing pimples."

Mel stops dead in the tunnel, and turns around to face him, her mouth cracking into a wide grin at the thought.

(She has a scar that stretches across her cheek. It gives her grin a dangerous edge.)

"You know how to make those potions?"

"I've got an idea for how to make one, I gotta ask Aquam for some time, ingredients and a cauldron to myself." Tyler's also grinning back at her, cause there is nothing more genuinely pleasing than seeing Brigman face some justice.

"It'll probably end up a powder at the end though."

"Way easier to get into his socks," Mel says happily.

"You let me know if Aquam says no. You'll get the ingredients."

"...well with that covered, I think I know just the place to start brewing it if I don't get permission."

"Great."

Her scheming grin is replaced with the satisfied smirk of someone who considers something decided and settled. "I'll find you at breakfast some time next week.

That decided, she starts down the tunnel again.

Up ahead, the tunnel starts to angle upwards, and then it's straight up again, for a much longer distance, easily 10 meters up before Mel's light starts to not quite fill the darkness.

It's a little hard to see it, but about 3 meters up the tunnel there's another hole breaking away in the side of the space, a spot of bright reddish top and shady underneath.

"Hn," says Mel thoughtfully. She sits at the bottom of the vertical section, using what little of the extra headspace she needed.

Holding her wand in her teeth, she starts unlacing her shoes.

"How are you as a climber, kid?"

Poking his head just inside to glance up at the passage above, he makes a face.

"I don't think I'm enough of a climber to go up ten meters..."

"Then you got a choice," Mel says, pulling her shoes off and jamming her socks into the toes.

"I can conjure up a rope from the top, or I can levitate you from down here. 'Course, this means I won't be giving you any light.

"Or y'can go back," she adds as an afterthought, as it only just occuring to her.

"I can handle there not being any light.." Tyler says, though the thought of going back did actually occur to him first upon meeting this challenge.

"Let's try that out."

"Pulling you up," Mel confirms. "Watch these."

Having tied her shoes together by the shoelaces, she thrusts them towards him and puts her wand back in her mouth. Standing up, she feels out the brick work around the tunnel and sticks her toes against a rough stone, scrambling up the wall like a rat.

When she's been up about ten feet, she stops at the hole, jamming herself in the chute with he back on one side and her feet below her new discovery.

"Okay." For the sake of not losing them, and ignoring the smell, he's dangling the tied-together shoes across the back of his neck and watcher her climb up.

The further up she goes, the more of the rest of the tunnel heading straight up she can see. And the rest of the chute behind her gets illuminated for 7 meters before it looks like it goes upward at an angled grade.

"What do you see up there?"

Mel doesn't answer straight away because she's got a wand in her mouth. Instead she leans forward into the newly discovered hole, grabs the edge with her hands and crawls inside.

A second later having turned around inside, her head appears in the vertical chimney again.

"New tunnel," she says. "Hang on - funiscendo!"

The light of her wand goes out, but a long line of sturdy rope shoots out, down towards Tyler. At the top, Mel jams her feet and back either side of the tunnel, and winds her end of the rope around her hands.

For a moment, Tyler's grabbing around in the darkness before he finds the rope and grabs onto it. It's a little slow but he's pulling himself up the rope, winding it over one arm and hand before reaching and pulling himself up for the next loop.

That being said, he does finally find the edge of the new tunnel and pulls himself in quickly, nearly bonking heads with Mel in the pitch dark.

"D'oh! ...Sorry..."

Instead of acknowledging the near collison, Mel finites the rope away and produces her prefered low red light again.

"Shoes?"

Still around Tyler's neck, the little dear. he pulls then off by the laces and hands them to her.

"Where'd you learn to climb like that?"

"Hm?"

Mel has her wand in her muth again for the be-socking and be-shoeing of her feet. She takes a second and pulls it out "Here. All sorts of places to practise climbing, if you know where to look."