The Truest Kind of Love

I have always had a distinct and dangerous love affair with libraries. I say dangerous because I feel absurdly safe protected around books. I'm not sure why. In a library walled with leather-bound volumes, by the light of candles and surrounded by the scents of wax, old paper, leather, and wood- this is my element. Nothing can hurt me here.

Someday when I'm rich and famous I will have a flat with a huge library with a huge fireplace and a comfy armchair and those wall-to-wall bookcases and those thick church candles, you know the kind. Cherry wood furniture. Thick rugs on hardwood floors. A pot of hazelnut coffee brewing somewhere within easy reach. This is my heaven.

But for now, I have Hogwarts library. It has the scents, the candles, the huge bookcases, even the coffee, though I truly hate to trouble the House-elves. It's not my private place, but it has its moments of that too, almost. Late at night, so late that Madam Pince makes throat-clearing noises of increasing volume and impatience. She's rather put out that I've managed to get a near-free reign over the Restricted Section. Only Professor Snape has refused me a note of permission and he's slowly caving. My side projects and research have little more to do with the fact that I refuse to outright ask him. He knows I want it. He knows I need it.

Someday, he knows, I'll get it.

For now it's Transfiguration and Apparition, with a side of Animagi. As usual, the old books have graphic renderings of splinching and half-man, half-animal forms contorted in agony. One very nearly gets used to them after a bit. I mean, honestly, how many different ways can half a person be drawn? It's funny; if you poke them with a quill or a bit of something they shake a fist or a paw or whatever they've got at you. Sometimes it's... rather naughty.

At sixteen, I can think these things, all right?
One of the House-elves sneaks up and fills my coffee (oh, that smells divine) and starts when I thank him. Merlin, someday... but not today. Ron got it out of Harry that Dobby's had to clean all of Gryffindor Tower by himself and he's been picking up all my hats and socks. I wish he'd said something- all that work for nothing! But the extra work on Dobby makes me feel terrible, so SPEW is having a temporary hiatus until I can think of a better way to promote the idea. I'll get back to it.

However, I'm a bit ticked off at Harry for it, so there it is full circle- why I'm in the library instead of the common room.

We discovered Nicolas Flamel here. We hunted for the Chamber of Secrets and I figured out the basilisk here. We tried to save Buckbeak. We looked for ways to breathe underwater. Viktor asked me to the Yule Ball here. The first thing I ever did for Harry came from here- Quidditch Through the Ages.

A library is a wonderful thing, full of memories and knowledge, secrets and questions. It's my dream, my palace, my own little kingdom.

My happiness is here, my passion is here. My love is here.