The morning had been somewhat awkward, as her mother had noticed her face right away. The salve that Hagrid had provided had helped some, closing the wounds and stopping the bleeding, but the scratches were still visible, standing out white against her tanned cheeks. Her mother had applied the extremely magical miracle potion that was time-honored and passed from generation to generation; the first thing she had done upon seeing her daughter in the morning was lick her thumb and smooth it over Hazel’s wounds. Of course, it did nothing, but it made Signora Pirroni feel better, so Hazel allowed it. Once back in Diagon, she’d have access to some topical cream that would fade the tiger stripes. Her father had lectured her and was generally a grouch, but fortunately, she was not allowed to linger and chat. The students had to get to breakfast and dowsing.

They practiced for a while on spraying colors all over the grass, which was kind of fun. Hazel started with Ravenclaw blue, which she had some practice with, though not to this extent. She had done some variation of this in previous years, in excursions to the forest, where she had to mark the trees so they could find their way back again. Those were tiny little marks, though, and this was a great geyser of paint going everywhere. Like going from a delicate little brush to taking a tube of paint and just squeezing it all over everything. It went all over everything. Hazel was pretty sure she had paint in her hair, and she could see flecks of various colors on her shoes.

Eventually, having mastered the painting spells, they moved on to the actual dowsing, and Hazel brought out her hard won dowsing rod. Her hands gripped the forked end, and she made her way along the field, paying little attention to anything. “We’ll see,” she replied, when Lizzie spoke to her in passing. She had done this so many times by now, she was becoming a bit bored with it, and she was really not putting a lot of effort into it, just kind of drifting. It was working, and her dowsing rod seemed to be worth her pain and terror. Hazel was pulled this way and that, spraying paint with her wand and following her lines with the rod in her other hand. She trailed a line of purple across the blue line that Colby had just laid down. Then it seemed like her line ended suddenly, but Hazel didn’t dwell on it; she just moved a few paces away and picked up another line to follow back in the other direction.