Open Engaging the Extraordinary

[Sydney Townsend]

Open after Madz

Exam season was frustrating, so many students freaking out about grades when they didn't really matter. Sydney wished they could just enjoy learning stuff without some dumb teacher or exam board telling them if they were smart or not. She knew she was smart, she didn't need some piece of paper with a letter on it confirming it. Intent on spending her time on much better things than studying for stupid quizzes, Sydney brought her textbook and a quill up to the library, hoping there might be something in one of her school books actually worth studying.
Finding a spot to sit with a lot of her other peers around the room already reading or studying was harder than she thought and Sydney manage to reserve her eye rolling for only the most stressed or harried looking kids. Picking a spot near a lamp, Sydney was relieved to find a spare seat at a table with an older girl who had somehow managed to be left almost entirely alone. Casting a glance at her, Sydney had to admit there was something a little unsettling about her, including whatever it was the other girl was reading. Sydney couldn't see the title, but there were definitely some diagrams that made her suspect it wasn't any of the textbooks she was familiar with. Not one to be perturbed by something a little unnerving, Sydney sat across for the girl, leaning a little closer to try and peer at the book. "What are you looking at? It's not for class is it?" She asked. If it was for a class, Sydney wanted to take it next year.

 

[Lidiya Kozlova]

Liddy's cold fingers held the textbook cracked open in front of her, light eyes skimming through the text. She has been keeping a low profile ever since the start of the new school year, which wasn’t that unusual for Lidiya. For a Gryffindor, maybe. While most of her housemates were out on adventures and being obnoxious as they please, Liddy was in the dimly lit library reading up on her mother’s profession as much as she could find. Any text on life and death really, Liddy snatched them from the shelves and carried them over to ‘her corner’. It was no different from today, a book about the mortician and detail of their profession was cover in these antique pages. The book was dated somewhere in the 1800s when the profession was officially more established. Liddy’s favorite era in the mortician work. She was stuck to those pages like glue, nobody bothers her when she so engrossed into a book. No one bothers with her at all. So when someone did on this particular day, Liddy lowered the book to make sure the voice was addressing her. “No, unless they start dissecting the human body, I don’t think so. Which is such a shame, we should have something like that.”

 

[Sydney Townsend]

Sydney had to double-take at the book and the girl reading it, trying to school her expression back to normal after the girl just casually admitted to reading about human dissection. Wondering if she might have to re-evaluate her assessment of the rest of the student body being filled with boring sheep, Sydney considered the girl across from her closely. "They would never have the guts to, which is a shame," She said, pausing and slowly smiling at her unintended pun. Sydney didn't really enjoy the idea of gore too much, beyond in the academic sense, but it seemed unfair that they were always sheltered from so many topics because the school was too scared to share them. "Did you get that from the library? I wouldn't think they would dare put something like that where us 'impressionable young minds' could get to it." She asked, rolling her eyes to make it clear about her opinions on that policy. If this girl maybe had access to the restricted section, Sydney wanted to know.

 

[Lidiya Kozlova]

Liddy spread her pale hands out over the book, momentarily fixed with a blank stare towards the girl that sat down across from her. It was a good pun, unintended or not, but Liddy barely cracks a smile. Excuse her for not being eagerly social, her mother’s teaching to save face has been taught to since she was a small child. Liddy may have felt proud at that moment she was perfecting it so well like her mother. Her lashes fluttered as she slowly gestures to a dark corner of the library. “Over there, under their ghoul section. Or their death section. I’m not sure which one was it. There is nothing too extreme about the text so I’m not worried." The dark corner where the books were collecting dust and illegible. She struck gold when she found the book she had in good condition. Mortician may not be a popular profession, but to her it was everything. Everything she knows she learned from her mother. “If you ask me they’re a bit light in that section. Ghoul Studies is supposed to be taught at this school, or at the very least optional to take. It’s another shame, unfortunately.”

 

[Sydney Townsend]

Sydney craned her neck to look at the spot the girl pointed out, an unassuming corner collecting dust, typical. "Dare I ask what you would consider extreme, then?" She asked, half daring, half curious. She didn't want this girl thinking she was a coward or boring or anything, and Sydney was a huge advocate for being allowed to learn whatever you wanted, but even just a quick glance at some of the girl's reading material had made Sydney wonder if she really wanted to know. She sat up at the mention of an extra subject that wasn't being taught at this school, clicking her tongue. "Of course they don't want to offer it, the school's so scared of us learning stuff they find unpalatable. I bet they keep all the good stuff in the Restricted Section too." Sydney was fishing for more information again, though it was starting to seem like maybe this other girl hadn't actually ever been in the restricted section, but at least Sydney knew the location of some more interesting reading material.

 

[Lidiya Kozlova]

The Gryffindor shrugged her shoulders, she can't answer that question. What her mother taught her seems rather normal to Liddy, while others may think it was too much for someone of her age to be learning. Whatever they may think, these books weren't located in the restricted section of the library. "If any books are accessible to you and me, I would say they aren't extreme. They're just an unpopular variety," Liddy explained. The other girl mentioning the restricted area earned a blank stare from Liddy. She kind of came across avid about the books there, like she had to know what the school wasn't allowing them to read. Liddy may understand if the books she found weren't accessible to her, but seeing that wasn't the case she went quiet for a moment. "Students may not be interested in the subject. We would be studying and discussing one's mortality after all," she paused and then continued. "You want to see what's in the restricted area?"

 

[Sydney Townsend]

Sydney considered the girl's non-committal answer curiously. Did she think Sydney couldn't handle it? She frowned but decided perhaps discretion was best with some of these topics and let it drop this time. "I wouldn't put it past the staff here to just leave anything lying out due to incompetence though," She said with a flat laugh, scowling in the vague direction of the school staff. "But you're right, probably,"

Picking at the arm of the chair, Sydney had to agree with the girl's assessment of their fellow students, most of the other kids were likely unable to palette learning about something like that. "Well they'd have to learn about it sooner than later, there's no point coddling us," She said hotly, still annoyed that the school was once again making even more choices about what they were and weren't allowed to learn. She perked up when the girl mentioned the restricted section though. "I tried once and got in trouble, and I don't want to have to jump through whatever dumb hoops they have set up so I can peek at a single page or whatever," She said flippantly, picking at her finger nails. "Have you seen any of the books in there?" Sydney asked, glancing up at the girl.