4.2 Gryffindors in the Library

The library wasn’t Rose’s favorite place to study. It was far too drafty, and the quality of quiet distracted her from whatever task required completion. Not the good kind of silence that spurred productivity, this silence was heavy with the knowledge that Madame Pince was lurking somewhere in the stacks, waiting for a student to bumble into one of the many nitpicky traps that allowed the old woman to eject them. Rose was in favor of treating books with respect, and she was certainly in favor of quiet, well lit rooms designed entirely to promote studying, but even she felt that Pince’s library was oppressive.

She typically worked best in the common room, especially during free periods or just before or after dinner when students weren’t confined to the room by curfew. For general reading, Rose had created a nook under the gabled window in their dormitory by pushing together trunks and tucking in spare blankets and sweaters from home. The other girls used it, but Rose curled up there with a textbook most often.

There were other quiet spots in the school that she frequented when the common room was unbearable or when she was working toward a deadline that demanded all her attention, but the library fell in the middle of that list. Still, she found herself there an hour before dinner, working on a Potions essay that was due early next week. In point of fact, she'd finished the essay ages ago, gathered a few resources for a long term History of Magic project that was due in a month, and even run her numbers for Arithmancy a few times. Rose had finished her homework, a small feat that never really seemed possible on most days. Just as one assignment was completed, another professor would assign something else equally taxing. In truth, she enjoyed the work as much as she enjoyed the pride of knowing she pulled in the best grades in their class, especially those moments when the runes suddenly made sense or the numbers fit together as they should. Her favorite, though, was digging past the lists of dates and names in History of Magic to find the meat of the real story about people in a time long past. Even goblin wars weren't too bad, although they were only interesting once she started looking at the root cause of each skirmish.

Of course, Rose did well in other subjects too. Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology were mostly about memorization and recall, in spite of the plethora of interesting bits of information available, and Rose could regurgitate information at will. But they weren't fascinating, and she sincerely doubted she'd remember which type of dragon gave the best dung for fertilizer in 20 years time. Potions she liked, but that was because of the professor rather than the subject matter. Professor Sato was intelligent and intense, and he expected a great deal from his students. Compared to Binns, who seemed only to expect them to snore quietly based on the number of times he brought up the same events, Rose preferred Sato's style of teaching. He kept them on their toes, and he was the only professor who had ever chastised her on her performance in class. Rather than being shamed, Rose burned with the desire to be better, to prove she was worthy of the knowledge he was imparting.

Today, she stayed in the library past the completion of her homework, not because she'd latched on to some side project that interested her but because she had a little mission of her own that couldn’t be completed anywhere else. Her library studying companion of choice was Alberta Grimshaw, a quiet sixth year who had never drawn the ire of Pince and had never been thrown from any room in the school. She was inoffensive and lacked natural curiosity, which Rose found useful - she was hoping to avoid both attracting the attention of the librarian and piquing the interest of her studying companion. Alberta had the appearance of a ghost - she was almost entirely the same shade of pale. Long, thin hair the color of a peeled banana, watery blue eyes that seemed to disappear into a wan, lipless face, and, today, even a cream colored jumper with little pastel bluebells embroidered on the sleeves.

And she seemed not to have noticed that Rose was quietly shifting her books around the table without really doing any work.

"Which books do you suppose get looked at the least in here?" Rose was pleased that her tone came out steady and disaffected, as if she was merely wondering and didn't care at all about the answer. "I mean, areas with the history books and the potions books get steady traffic. Do you suppose there are areas that don't?"

Alberta put down her quill and gazed at Rose, her expression vague. Unbothered by the interruption and not a bit curious about the question. She really was the perfect companion today. "I suppose... sections where people don't read the books."

"What books don't people read, though?" A bit of impatience crept into her voice, but Alberta remained as placid as ever.

"Maybe the ones they can't read." It was a nonsense answer, actually, and Rose banished Alberta to the top of Ravenclaw tower in her mind. That was the place for riddles in this castle, not here in the library where Rose required actual assistance. The perfect companion fell down on the job when required to actually contribute to the...

A thought occurred to her, and Rose grunted in response, clear permission for Alberta to return to her work. She'd said that people wouldn't look for books they couldn't read, hadn't she? The answer to this riddle might be this: students couldn't read a book if it was in a language they didn't speak. Did the library even carry books in other languages? Surely it did, and surely students seldom visited those shelves because Hogwarts currently offered no curriculum in foreign languages. Rose weighed the logic of her thinking carefully, giving the nervy little wiggle in her seat that meant she was working out a problem.

"I'm going to put some of these books away. Are you through with them?" Rose gathered the discarded texts on herbology and history, not waiting for a response from Alberta before she darted away into the stacks. As familiar as she was with the library, it took a moment to set those tomes in their correct spots, and then Rose was free to meander along a circuitous path toward the furthest unvisited corners of the room. She passed the Restricted Section and wished desperately, as she always did, that she had a reason to enter, although today it was more about leaving something behind than it was about taking something with her. Those old, forbidden books intrigued her on an intellectual level, and she felt a bit insulted by the idea that she couldn't be trusted with any sort of knowledge. Just because one knew something didn't mean they were always fool enough to use that knowledge. It might just be nice to know what was in the world before she had to hit it at full stride.

At the corner, Rose hit a section of books that were clearly in Gobbledegook. The shelves were thick with dust, so thick in fact that Rose was able to trace out a trailing line with one fingertip along the length of one. Gobblegook was good, but there were still some students with an interest in banking or curse breaking that would require study in this section. Good wasn't quite enough. She capped the end of her line with a triangle, making it into one long, swirling arrow. This way to secrets.

The dust grew thicker as she walked, and Rose was forced to cover her mouth and nose with her sleeve. Disgusting, really, and completely shocking that Pince didn't bother to keep this section of the library as clean as the well used ones. It worked in Rose's favor, but she still felt a little sorry for all the books resigned to this sad book purgatory. Something about having one's value completely overlooked spoke to her, and it left Rose feeling even more resentful of Pince than normal. The woman was supposed to be dedicated to books, but only the books people read, apparently. Only the ones commonly held as valuable. It was a stupid thing to try to turn into some sort of statement about society on the larger scale, but Rose was inclined to be resentful today.

Because people were so petty and thoughtless, she was having to creep through the library like a criminal. She was having to avoid her best friends so they wouldn't offer to come with her and spoil her plans by asking too many questions. And she was having to leave one of her most precious possessions essentially out in the open just to keep it from prying eyes. Sometimes, people ruined everything.

The problem with her plan arose once she found a likely stretch of shelves in the Mermish section. The books were probably well over fifty years old, with faded pages and leather binding so stiff with disuse that it would crack down the spine upon the next opening. These books hadn't been handled in ages, maybe not even in the years since they'd been published, and they tilted together on the shelf, suggesting there was room to budge everything down and easily add a book. Rose tried her small, leather-bound book in the space, but the new binding and lack of dust seemed to add a little glow of obviousness to the new addition. If anyone happened down this aisle for any reason, it would stick out like a boil on a veela. Completely out of place.

Perhaps she could hide it within the pages of a larger book, but she was sure that would damage the spine of any book she chose. Maybe Pince didn't care about these books anymore, but Rose did. Giving up on the idea of hiding the book out in the open, Rose ran her fingers along the top and bottom of the shelves. Perhaps a sticking charm on the bottom of a low shelf. Even if someone entered this aisle, they'd have to be on their hands and knees in the exact right spot to find the book. Something about the plan felt as if it lacked finesse, but Rose simply didn't have the time today to keep looking for a likely spot. She might make it back to the library later in the week to look for a better spot, but at least it was out of the common room and away from nosy Lily and her sticky little fingers.

Rose crouched at the end of the row where the books were of middling height. Too tall and she'd never get her book out again; too short and her addition to the shelves might be visible for someone leaning down to reach for a book. Carefully, she clasped the base of the upright supporting the shelves, and she nearly fell over when it pulled loose in her hand. What was this? Even the shelving in this section of the library was falling apart! Rose certainly wasn't leaving her prized possession stuck to a piece of furniture that was likely to cave in on itself in the next few days. She studied the slab of wood in her hand, turning it cautiously to avoid splinters. No sign of damage; rather, the whole thing looked to have been extracted from the existing piece of furniture using a neatly done slicing spell. Even wand work, straight and steady cuts that were clearly intentional and magically made due to the lack of Muggle tool marks.

With rising excitement, Rose leaned around the end of the shelf and peered into the empty space created behind the missing slab. The little hollow was stuffed with bits of crumbling parchment covered in the loops and swirls of someone else's handwriting. Sweeping back her red curls to keep them from the dust pile forming on the floor, Rose tugged the first strip of parchment free. Then another and another. Love notes, all of them, sent from various girls to some heartless cad of a boy who had obviously stopped leaving them notes in response at some point. The names on the notes were unfamiliar, and they were dated from nearly thirty years ago. She was probably safe in assuming no one was coming back for these love letters and that no one currently at Hogwarts was aware of the existence of this disused mailbox. Safe in assuming she could hide her own secret musings here, and they would be protected - perhaps for another 30 years, although Rose had no intention of leaving anything here that long.

Each piece of parchment was plucked deliberately from the cubby and rolled together into a tidy packet, and Rose settled her own book into the space once the hollow had been cleared. Perfect fit, almost as if the space had been waiting for this use all along. She deliberated over the appropriate charms to keep anyone else from finding this hiding spot, even though the ancient treasure trove of notes gave her full confidence that no one was going to happen upon it accidentally.

"Rosie?" She heard Alberta's voice from the direction of the Restricted Section and realized just how long she'd been gone. It must be nearly time for dinner, and there was no plausible explanation she could offer Alberta that would explain where she'd been all this time. Luckily, Alberta wouldn't ask. She probably wouldn't even wonder, which was just as good. Rose fitted the wooden slab back into place, lining up the trim to leave the base looking just as unmarred as those on either side of it. Truly, this was the perfect hiding spot. No one would ever find it here.

She brushed her knees clean of dusty smudges and pulled cobwebs from her hair as she hurried to where Alberta waited with their belongings gathered into two separate parcels. If she noticed the packet of notes Rose held, Alberta didn't say a word, and Rose slipped them between her books as they sidestepped Malfoy on their way out of the library. Subterfuge was such draining work; Rose sincerely hoped they had pudding with dinner.