Cause and Effect, My Love

Chapter 5: The Book Lovers

A new occupant of the library waits for Trinity.

Hermione Granger noticed a new occupant of the Hogwarts Library who was not Argentina Cortez. He was an adult male, tall, with black hair and a matching suit. He kept to himself and spoke to no one. She saw him often in the library, waiting patiently for someone. Hermione did not find out who that person was, for she left well before he met whom he waited for.

It was Harry and Ron who discovered the identity of both the man and the person he waited for. While Harry and Ron were studying before dinner, Harry noticed Trinity enter the library. He captured Ron's attention, and both watched as she walked to the man Hermione had described to them earlier. Trinity and the man embraced and addressed each other by name. His name, if Harry and Ron heard correctly, was Neo. Though he would be absent for many days, a week never passed without Harry, Ron, or Hermione seeing Neo in the library. They spied on him to see any signs that indicated a Dark wizard, as Harry remained suspicious of Trinity and supposed that none connected to her was good. But there was no indication that he was more than an innocuous visitor who just so happened to be connected to Trinity.

His presence began to be a given one. Students caught on quickly that he was Trinity's lover, only fueling the hatred some female students had for her. Hermione again became irritated at the teenaged girls who flooded the library for the sake of ogling, which they had done before when a popular sports star had visited the school. The difference was that Neo, for all Hermione knew, was not famous, and that he waited for another woman, not for her. Hermione and Neo did not interact until they happened to be scanning through the media archives at the same time. Hermione was so engaged in her search that she did not notice Neo looking as if he desired to speak to her. He caught her attention when she distractedly looked away from the drawer in his direction. She asked if he needed help. He did.

He noticed that she was taking less time to find things in the archive than he. This was a simple explanation: Cortez had set up a special system through which the students could find any issue of a newspaper or magazine stocked in the library without searching for it manually. All they had to do was locate the cabinet labeled with the name of the periodical, apply the tip of their wand to the button below the label and state the issue number and date. The issue would then appear in a slot at the bottom of the cabinet. To return the issue, all one had to do was place it back into the slot. The issue would replace itself.

Neo found this very efficient. He stated he did not have a wand, but went about doing the steps Hermione had told him with his index finger in place of a wand. To his surprise, and to Hermoine's, when he said the issue number and date of the Witch Weekly he wanted the magazine soared out of the slot and hit Neo across the forehead. Hermione stood with her mouth agape, while Neo rubbed the spot where he had been hit by the magazine. Neo finally reached down and picked up the magazine from the floor, and Hermione, in a moment of nerve, asked him why he was looking through Witch Weekly when it was a woman's magazine. He explained that he was looking for a specific issue containing an article on Trinity. Hermione pushed the questioning further, wondering why Trinity would be in Witch Weekly. According to Neo, Trinity claimed to have been the focus of the wizarding media's attention for many years, being a member of a prominent wizarding family and a live-in relative of a foremost politician. Hermione was intrigued, and continued the conversation hoping that he would specify which family Trinity belonged to. That information remained unspecified, as just then Trinity appeared and pulled Neo away to her office.

Afterwards Hermione met with Harry and Ron in the Great Hall and relayed to them all the information she had gathered from her meeting with Neo. Harry and Ron were equally as curious to know which family Trinity belonged to. Hermione proposed that she do research based on what little information she had. The other two agreed, and Hermione resolved to go to the library the next day to begin her newest research project.

They exited the Great Hall soon after to return to their dormitories. Harry, however, remembered that he had left a book on the table inside and turned to retrieve it. In doing so, he ran into Trinity, who was talking with Professor Snape. All of the contents of Harry's bag fell on the floor. He apologized and began to pick up his items without noticing that Trinity had bent down to help him. Indeed, he did not notice her at all until they both reached for the same thing: the photograph he had found in 13 Grimmauld Place.

Harry was too startled to hold firm to the photograph; and so she took it from him, surveying it with furrowed brows. She returned the photograph to Harry cautiously, saying, "Nice picture." She then returned to Snape, who had been waiting impatiently for Trinity to return to their conversation. Harry continued to watch her as she walked down the hall. He felt that he had strayed into a dream with a specific purpose he could not understand, and as she was about to turn the corner Trinity gave Harry a mysterious glance.