The techniques and systems described herein determine whether or not to implement reparse behavior in association with a file or a directory access. A file system and/or a file system filter can receive, from a host system component, a request to open a file or a directory. While attempting to access the file or the directory, a reparse tag associated with an intermediate directory is encountered. The file system can then determine whether a next node, along an access path for the file or the directory to be opened, exists in the intermediate directory. That is, the file system can look beyond the reparse tag and into the intermediate directory to determine if the next node exists. Subsequently, the file system and/or the file system filter can decide whether to implement reparse behavior based on the reparse tag and whether the next node exists in the intermediate directory.