Closed A Little Light Reading

[Lysander Summers]

Lysander could not believe it had taken him this long to get access to the restricted section. The library had never been his favourite place, that was for sure, but if one singular aspect of it was going to be interesting, it was the section no one was allowed into. Not without special permission at least. It had been relatively straightforward - perks of being an older student, he supposed. He'd handed in his permission slip to one of the librarians without any issues, and now here he was. He, and Ryan. It might have been boring on his own so he was glad for the company, and two sets of eyes were better than one when it came to scoping out some of the more interesting titles on the shelves. The library tended to be quiet, yet somehow, this portion was eerily quieter, as if someone had placed a silencing charm over the entire area. Lysander walked slowly down the aisles, tracing a finger over every spine along the way, until one jostled aggressively at his touch and snapped its pages as if they were gnashing teeth. He jerked his hand away in surprise, before laughing to himself. "Cool. I like this place already." He commented to the other boy. There were so many books, it was hard to know where to start. Already he found himself getting sidetracked by a section on dangerous magical beasts. It wasn't what they were there for, but it was hard to resist a quick look.​

 

[Ryan Fisk]

The restricted section had always been alluring on the sheer principle of being off-limits but Ryan found he wasn't any less intrigued by its contents now he was finally in here. That he had really expected to be, but he knew it would sting all the more once they had found what they were here for and had to leave the other books behind. Maybe he could convince some other professors to let him back in; Professor Josephs seemed pretty amiable and she was his head of house, so she surely understood.

Ryan had been scanning leaning close to some old titles that seemed to be about love potions, scanning the faded letters curiously when a snapping noise made him jump, glancing over where Lysander had apparently rankled one of the books. "I guess that one doesn't want to be read," he said thoughtfully, straightening back up. "There's so many books, we could be here for hours," he said, the prospect more exciting than daunting as he squinted up to guess how many shelves there might be to check. "There's gotta be a section on curses here though, maybe this way?" He offered, spotting a few books that seem to cover what looked like enchanting muggle objects.

 

[Lysander Summers]

It was almost tempting to go back to the book that had rattled about, now that Ryan had put the idea in Lysander's head that the book didn't want to be read. The whole point of a book was to read it, and he had to wonder what kind of things were lurking within its pages that someone wanted to keep hidden enough to go through the effort of enchanting it in the first place. He supposed the same could have been said for the Monster Book of Monsters, but that was gimmicky, and not a title worth shelving in the Restricted Section. He nodded his agreement as he moved on. They could be there for hours, though he didn't particularly want to be hanging around books for that long. He prised another book from the shelf and thumbed through it briefly - some kind of autobiography on a guy claiming to have trained a nest of basilisks. "What?" He responded at first, distracted and not immediately having heard what Ryan had said. "Right. Let's go. Keep an eye out for those little sign thingies libraries have. Like, "fiction" or "history", you know the ones." He added. He hadn't seen any yet, but then again, he hadn't really been looking. He hadn't known how organised the restricted section would be, or if they just shoved any book that students weren't supposed to read just anywhere on a shelf. He walked to the edge of their current aisle and looked down the length of the rest. "Do you think we should split up? " He suggested. They could cover more ground that way, and hopefully find what they were after in minutes rather than hours.​

 

[Ryan Fisk]

Ryan nodded in agreement only really half listening to Lysander as he scanned the shelves. There really were so many books and he was tempted to just start pulling all of them down. It wasn't like anyone would know they were reading stuff they hadn't been permitted to. Unless they did. Which was also an interesting prospect. Ryan's hand lingered over a volume about poisons and potion brewing, wondering if it would snap at him too like the other book Lysander had grabbed when he heard Lysander's follow up question, lowering his hand. "Probably yeah, I'll try thsi side," he said, leaving the book be for now and heading to the other shelf. He could always come back for other books after they found what they were looking for.

It wasn't as well lit here as it was in the main section of the library, likely because it wasn't as well traveled though Ryan wondered if any of the books were sensitive to light, tentatively raising his lit wand to scan some higher shelves. "Hey, this looks promising," he called to Lysander, standing on his tip-toes to better see some of the books on a shelve just at his eyeline. "A Study in Long-term Exposure to a Cursed Home... Fortuna Mala... I think this is it," Ryan said, pulling the last book as he continued reading a few more titles aloud. The book didn't put up any sort of fight, though the cover was an odd sort of smooth leather that made Ryan feel vaguely uncomfortable touchy, like clammy skin, but he ignored it in favour of checking the rest of the shelves. It seemed the section dealt with all sorts of powerful or unusual jinxes and curses and their effects, some seeming to be more historical accounts and others pamphlets from a study, but Ryan was more than excited to dig around in them.