'Borrowing' Books

[Mervyn Strangewayes]

Mervyn hated libraries. No - he didn't just hate them - there was no place on earth he wouldn't rather have been than inside one. Books, books everywhere; books about history; books about divination; books about dark arts and spells and werewolves. Merlin, could anything be more dull than reading? Without a shadow of a doubt, if Mervyn could have had any superpower, he'd have given himself the ability to absorb all the information inside a book just by touching it. Then he would never have to read again!

Until that day came, however, visiting the library once or twice a week had become a necessary evil. Mervyn didn't enjoy Defence Against the Dark Arts more than any other class, but his fear of Professor Styx inspired him to at least bother to do the homework, which meant he needed to read up about all sorts of dark magic for his assignments. That afternoon he was flipping through a book primarily covering the consequences for using such magic, hoping to find something useful to add to his pitifully short essay, when by mistake he stumbled across a passage about lycanthropy, the fancy term for being a werewolf. The Gryffindor frowned, doing a double take. The passage wasn't unkind, per se, but it certainly didn't cast werewolves in a very favourable light. That wasn't fair at all! Werewolves were human beings, after all. (Well, for most of the month.) Feeling a bit grumpy, Mervyn closed that book and opened the next, looking now more for passages of text he didn't like rather than for something to add to his essay.

 

[Leda Layton]

Leda had heard so much about Hogwarts from Liv, that she had been expecting great things from this school. So far though, nothing had really happened, and all those experiences her sister had said she'd have, she was still waiting for them. Most of time she even found herself wandering the castle alone, not like how Livvy had described at all. Perhaps she wasn't putting herself out there, and if she got involved with her classmates she would have a better time fitting in, but so far, all bar one student, no one was paying her any attention and she hated feeling like she'd been shoved into the background.

Today was a day like the usual. Leda had spent some time exploring the grounds, and after a chill came to the air, had headed on inside to see if she could find her friend in the swamp they now called their home. The large doors to the library were already open, and since she'd not taken a step in the room since her arrival she figured she could take a detour to see if was really as spectacular as Liv had told her. It was nothing like she'd been told, but it was still grand nonetheless. Aimlessly she wandered the isles of books, glancing through random titles such as "Witches Guide to Creating Cakes" by Coppellia Sauky, which she grabbed off the shelf to look through. It was ridiculous! All these witches splattered all over the pages with not a wizard in sight. Not bothering to put the discriminating book away, she just left it on the table and continued to see what other tragedies they had in stock.

She turned the corner to find none other but Mr. Strangeways. "OH it's you." She announced, with enthusiasm, her face turning into a smile to the Gryffindor. "Why on earth are you in here?!" They'd not spent much time together, but given that Mervyn was the only student she'd really spoken to before, that was a good enough reason for Leda to consider them friends. The library was the last place she'd expect to see him, and taking a seat on the table with her legs resting on the bench, she couldn't wait to tell him about the terrifying encounter she'd had in her dormitory that morning.