Got Your Nose Stuck in a Book

[Kovu Lothorien]

It was the first time Kovu had been in the school library and wouldn't admit it, but he was fascinated. His parents had bought him a lot of the books he had asked for when he was back at home, but the variety at Hogwarts was huge. Shelves and shelves of all different topics about the magical world. If he had any friends at Hogwarts, he probably wouldn't be hanging out in the library, but it was still early days, so he wouldn't worry about people judging him for being in there. He wasn't a nerd, quite far from it, but he did love to read. He had picked up the hobby when he was younger, when his brothers' energy just got too much for him to handle. All his brothers were rough and Kovu had a few scars to prove it. Reading became a quiet escape and since then he had loved to pick up a book every now and then and get absorbed in it.

Kovu pulled a dusty book about dragons off the shelf. His oldest brother Denethor worked as a dragon keeper, so when ever he was home he would share stories that Kovu would listen to intently. The library had quite a few people in it, so a lot of the tables were already taken. Kovu assumed it was busy because one, it was Winter and no-one really wanted to be outside in the cold and two, because it was just the beginning of the semester and everyone had fresh motivation to study. Kovu knew that in a few weeks time, that drive to do work would be gone as people got lazier. Well, Kovu knew that was what he would do anyway. He was naturally a pretty bright kid, but most of the time he didn't want to put a great deal of effort into his work. He would much rather spend his time on more interesting, fun things. However, he knew his parents would be very unhappy if he failed, so he tried hard enough to make them happy.

Tucking the book under his arm, Kovu walked up and down a few more isles, looking for a table to sit at. The library wasn't dead silent like a library was meant to be. There were whispers from groups and it was more than the librarian could stop. Kovu had very little luck finding a table and eventually he saw one with only a single young girl sitting at it, who looked to be about his age. He didn't exactly want to stand while reading his book and he most definitely wasn't going to sit on the floor, so he approached the table. "Hey there," he whispered, tilting his head down a little so she knew he was talking to her. "Do you mind if I sit here?" Kovu asked, pointing to the opposite chair from the girl.

 

[Rosie Chamberlin]

Rosie hurriedly took a sip of her iced coffee and opened one of the many books she had stacked on the table. Rosie wasn't sure if drinks were allowed in the library or not, but since she was pretty much in here from dawn to dusk, she felt like it wasn't a big deal. Coffee wasn't even something her parents liked her drinking. But now that she was at Hogwarts and out of their supervision for the time being, she could afford to be a little bit adventurous. 'If this is my definition of adventurous, it's no wonder I wasn't sorted into Gryffindor.' Rosie nearly smiled at her own thoughts. Ravenclaw wasn't so bad. It made her feel smarter than some of the others by being sorted into that house. Not that she had a right to think she was smarter than anyone else. There were plenty of others that were probably smarter than even she was and they were sorted into different houses. But it made her feel a certain way. Which Rosie would keep to herself. There was no point in getting others riled up. People seemed to get quite defensive about their houses here. Rosie wasn't quite sure why. But it was close to war it seemed. Okay not even war. But in her sense it was like a war for children. Rosie found it pointless to hate others just because they were sorted into a certain house or that they came from a certain bloodline. Was there really something wrong with certain houses or certain bloods? It didn't seem like it at all. Rosie took another sip of her coffee and turned the page. It didn't matter what others thought. She was going to stay out of the petty little war between houses and blood types. Being in the library all the time pretty much guaranteed that she was out of the trouble for now. No one ever seemed to fight in the library.

When a boy Rosie didn't know at all approached her table and asked if he could sit at the chair opposite of hers, Rosie lifted her head quickly. Almost as if she was being yelled at. Rosie's cheeks quickly flushed a light pink color. Wow he was actually asking her? "Uh..." Rosie's brown eyes shifted down to her books and her coffee. Well there was no problem with him sitting there. But she was worried he would laugh at her. Or think she was weird? Everyone usually thinks that. The shyness that lurked within Rosie was kicking in full time. She knew she looked stupid. But for some reason she couldn't help but try to figure out her answer. She wanted to say yes. It was the nice thing to do. But for some reason her mouth didn't want to cooperate with her brain. The fact that someone was actually willing to talk to her. Even for a brief moment stunned her. Rosie did have Bryce. But he never spoke. So she was used to not having others speak to her. Rosie quickly stood her bool up, as if she was putting up a wall to keep him from cheating on a test. Rosie then ducked her head down a little so she might not be able to notice that she was blushing. "Yep. Sure. Go right on ahead." Rosie said softly. Gosh she was lame. Not to mention awkward as hell. Rosie stuck the straw into her mouth and sipped some more coffee. At least that kind of helped her feel better. But not by much. This poor guy probably thought she was a real loser for acting like she was right now. ​

 

[Kovu Lothorien]

The girl at the desk blushed and at first Kovu couldn't understand why. He wasn't really used to people being shy around him. None of his brothers, or his younger sister for that matter, had ever been shy. His whole family was loud and in-your-face. Then there was everyone at his old school that hadn't been afraid to be nasty to him. He himself wasn't at all shy, he had just leant to keep quiet in situations that he wasn't directly involved in. Although even then, sometimes he couldn't stop his mouth from going before his brain could stop and think about it. So seeing the blush on the girls face, was a little startling at first, but then Kovu couldn't help but find it utterly adorable. At the confirmation that Kovu could sit down, he grinned to himself when she couldn't see him behind her book. "Thanks, the library's pretty packed," he suddenly found her fascinating.

Kovu sat opposite the girl and placed his book on the table opening it to a random page. Although his eyes weren't on his own book, they were on the piles of the girl's. She must really like to read, Kovu thought to himself. He looked down at his own book quickly, but suddenly found he had no interest in it. He wanted to know more about the person sitting in front of him, but he felt it would be rude to distract her from her book. So instead he again tried very hard to focus on reading about the locations certain dragons were found around the world. He managed for a minute or so, the whole time his eyes sneaking up to glance at the girl opposite, until he gave up and spoke to her. "Whatcha reading about?" Kovu asked in a whisper, his English accent still coming through a little. He had simply voiced the first thing that had come to his mind. Again, proving what a small brain to mouth filter he had. He desperately hoped she didn't come back with something sarcastic about him being able to read the titles of her books, because then he'd probably have to leave the library. He could easily have done that, he had just wanted to talk to her. He couldn't really explain why he wanted to so badly, he guessed he just thought she was cute. Kovu wasn't nervous when meeting new people, like he knew some people could be. In fact, he'd loved his small time at Hogwarts so far, because he'd got a fresh start at making friends. It was brilliant being able to introduce himself without a single person knowing his history.

 

[Rosie Chamberlin]

Rosie didn’t really want to make it known that strangers made her nervous. People often made fun of her when she did. It was hard to hide anything from people when you were extremely shy, but Rosie was getting pretty good at it these lately. ”You’re welcome.” Her voice was soft but still managed to retain a bit of sincerity behind it. She saw no foul in letting him have a seat at her table, especially with the library being as packed at it was. Seconds ticked by before Rosie poked her head out from behind the book again. She was hoping that the boy would be so into reading his book that he wouldn’t notice her eyeing him. But of course that wasn’t the way it was going to be. Not with Rosie’s luck. In fact he was staring at the stack of books she had next to her. He must be thinking that she’s a complete bookworm or something. Not many people would be willing to read at least two or three books in a day. Rosie’s own brown eyes rested on the pile. Sadly she was becoming distracted so her pile wasn’t getting any smaller than it was hours ago. ”Don’t judge. I have nothing better to do.” Rosie finally spoke. There was a chance that he wasn’t thinking anything while looking at her pile. But just in case, Rosie wanted to address the fact that she didn’t want to be judged because she had a pile of books. The biggest reason she said what she had said was because she didn’t want to get called some silly little name. Like bookworm, or nerd. They weren’t hurtful terms to her. But, they were just so annoying to listen to. It was like the universe had run out of clever things to call educated people. Rosie had half a mind to ask the boy who he was and why he was over here. But that would be rude.

Rosie blinked and looked down at the book. The boy had asked her what she was reading about. That was a good question, actually. Rosie wasn’t even fully sure herself. Slowly, she pulled the book back to try and read the title. But Rosie was going to have an issue doing that, seeing as the book was sitting upside down. Rosie’s cheeks warmed to a bright pink color. She must look like an idiot. The book she was ‘trying’ to read when the boy came over was upside down the entire time. ”Well….nothing at the moment since it’s upside down but uh, I’m reading some geography books. Because I uh….yeah.” Rosie flushed again. He probably didn’t care why she was reading the books. So Rosie would save him the trouble of listening to her. Rosie wondered why he was in the library. She didn’t want to judge him, but he didn’t look like the type of person who would be really into reading. . ”I’m Rosie.” Rosie’s voice grew even quieter as she told him her name. She prayed he wouldn’t yell at her. Rosie just felt like the time was right. In her in mind it was rude not to tell someone what your name was. He didn’t have to tell her his name if he didn’t want to. It wasn’t like she was going to force him or anything. Rosie felt like shirking back behind her book again. Sometimes she hated how socially awkward she was. ​

 

[Kovu Lothorien]

Kovu shrugged his shoulders lightly when the girl said not to judge. Like he could when he loved to read too. Perhaps not as much as this girl, Kovu thought as he eyed the stack one last time before drawing his attention away from it. Although Kovu knew he wouldn't be able to sit and read while he had a stack of other books in front of him. His attention span was so short as it was, he had to try quite hard to focus on one thing at a time. Having a lot of books to chose from would just make that task a lot more difficult.

Kovu watched the blush spread across the girls face as she realised her book was upside down. Kovu chuckled lightly, trying to make it sound as friendly as possible. He didn't want the nervous girl to think he was mocking her, he simply found her adorable. He felt a sense of relief that the girl was paying about as much attention to her book as he was to his, which wasn't a great deal as he hadn't read a full sentence yet. "Sounds cool," he said honestly when she told him she was reading geography. He didn't know a great deal about the subject himself, it wasn't something his parents had gone into great detail about, but he'd learnt enough from his old school. Kovu was curious as to what the girl was going to say about it before she cut off her own sentence, but he thought it better not to push. Judging by her blush Kovu guessed it wasn't something she really wanted to talk about. Either that or it wasn't interesting enough to share. However at this point Kovu was so intrigued by the girl in front of him he would probably find anything she said fascinating.

When his companion introduced herself, Kovu couldn't stop the grin from creeping up onto his face. She was speaking quietly, so quietly that Kovu thanked his hearing for being as good as it was. That and the reasonably quiet library for allowing him to hear her. If they'd been in the great hall, he was sure he would have missed everything she said to him. "Rosie, that's a pretty name," he complimented softly. The Slytherin boy stuck out his hand, a courtesy drilled into him by his pureblood parents. To them it was a lot about keeping up appearances and making a good impression. He wasn't sure how many people his age were used to a hand shake, but he'd offered it now and if he withdrew it, he would only look sillier, like he was just thrusting his hand randomly at her. "I'm Kovu," he whispered, trying to match Rosie's level of softness, but coming from a family of rough and tough brothers, you either spoke loud or you went unheard, so it wasn't quite as easy as Kovu thought. "It's nice to meet you," he said, a quick wave of concern that she wouldn't accept his hand flashing in his head.