Waving her wand around slowly, the hot air from her charm pushing the debris hanging in the air away and giving her proper visibility of the remains. The destruction was rather satisfactory to be honest. Although she could have done with blowing the entire piano up and it would be those in charge of the tournament’s fault for not administering the proper defensive and protective charms on whatever object to ensure it did not become a casualty of teenage impatience. Her booted foot kicked at some of the keys that had crumbled to the floor, which naturally elicited no results. Although she did kneel down a pick up one of the shattered keys to pocket along with the other vials of potions ingredients. Just a bit of a keepsake with no proper sentimental attachment whatsoever.

Walking around the piano now that most of the dust had settled, the sixteen year old noticed the small back flap and leaned over the edge of the piano without a second thought to pull the brown mass partly protruding from it. “Ah. Of course,” she mused upon full retrieval. Now the riddle made sense. “The Sorting Hat.” Or at least a likeness to it. Surely Hogwarts would not be so foolish as to donate the actual hat for the task? Although her curiosity (not that she was a kneazle) did get the better of her and upon casting a Finite to remove her Bubblehead Charm temporarily had placed the Sorting Hat upon her head. She did not care much for where it felt she belonged at Hogwarts if at all, but she knew this particular hat had been endowed with complicated forms of magic that granted it great skill in Legilimency. If it could actually speak to her, perhaps it could tell her what and where the second object was located.

Waiting just a moment for the hat to animate (or not), the Wampus moved the riddle parchment in front of her face once more to give it another thorough reread. Pigletted friends were not actual pigs but Hogwarts students, that had been what the wording had alluded to and she was rather frustrated with herself for not figuring that out in conjunction with the following line. She had even muttered about the British wizarding community’s keen interest in the word ‘hog’ while in Hogsmeade. Ugh. The rest of the wording went without saying now that the hat was in her possession, but again she grew frustrated with her literal interpretation of the wording and scowled at the word ‘amend’ as her grey eyes glazed over it.

And she had been correct. None of her heart strings were tugged at the sight of the infamous hat.

“Across the seas...attach and reattach...does not write...small and beautiful…” she repeated to herself (and the hat on her head) as she began walking around the remaining parts of the second floor she had left unexplored until now. She supposed she could try and cast Reparo on the piano, but her thoughts were drawn elsewhere. Namely to the location of the second item which she still had no solid clue about. A badge? A pin? Those could attach and reattach at the user’s will, but what made either of those especially noteworthy to mention as being from across the seas? A MACUSA badge? She would concern herself with finding the correct location and then fuss about the what just as she had done with the Sorting Hat.

The location was just as frustrating, however, and her previous mullings about clockwise and counterclockwise were still fresh in her mind. Looking around and seeing that the second floor provided her with nothing more than tattered furniture and a fireplace (none of which provided anything that could be turned clockwise nor counterclockwise and risk noxious gas), the sixteen year old finished her circle of the room and walked back down the stairs with her bluebell flames and riddle parchment flanking her sides.

Back down on the first floor and knowing her time surely must be running short now, the Wampus went with her instincts and made her way towards the kitchen. Frustrations were bubbling and it took a lot of willpower not to blast one of the chairs away as she swiftly glided by. “You are no help,” she muttered to the hat when she stepped into the kitchen and looked around. Knowing that her soon-to-be reckless experimentation would likely release the noxious gas mentioned in the riddle, her wand was pointed once more at her head and the Bubblehead Charm re-administered around herself and the Sorting Hat. Eyes naturally fell on the stove first and its unlit burners as well as the oven door below.

Using her foot to pull open the oven door by the handle and peeking inside (nothing of any note within, she assumed) she quickly shifted her attention to the knobs. Surely she was overthinking this clockwise and counterclockwise methodology, surely. But it only made sense that this be the location. Turn on a functional burner too quickly and the flames would lick and deface the wall behind it. Shrugging and with no other option at the moment, Valerie reached out and began turning the knobs on the stove slowly in whichever direction they were willing to rotate.

Maybe she would need to blow the stove up too? It had worked wonderfully with the piano.