In a Library

In a Library

By Paul Veith

Hermione Granger, back safely from her fourth year at Hogwarts, was simply beside herself with worry. She knew that that horrible evil that called itself Lord Voldemort was back and that it (she couldn't possibly consider That One even remotely human, let alone a man!) wanted to kill her best friend, Harry Potter.

Actually, that was the least of what That One wanted to do to her Harry, but she tried very hard not to think about it.

She reread her most recent letters from Harry and their other best friend, Ron Weasley, and once again pored over the week's copies of The Daily Prophet, the wizarding world's newspaper, all the while hoping and praying that she'd find something--anything--that could possibly help Harry survive another year.

She couldn't take much more. She had to escape her life, if only for just a little while. But what could she do?

Her mother knocked just then and called out, "Hermione, love? I need to go to the library for a while. Do you want to go with me? " Oh, how did she know!?

Harry and Ron teased her sometimes about how the Hogwarts library was her sanctuary. Well, mostly Ron; Harry, thanks to those horrible relatives of his, was the last person to deny anyone the privilege of escapism. And really, the library in her home town was probably the biggest reason she was a bookworm in the first place. As Hermione and her mother got out of their car, she still had to admit to a certain thrill of homecoming. While the library at Hogwarts was a twisting, meandering labyrinth of biographies, histories, grimoires and other spell books, often hundreds of years old, and Merlin only knew what else all crammed into a single two story room, the library in her home town was a sprawling three story marvel. The first story contained general reference materials and the sections for children and young adults. The second story held adult fiction and all the more specific reference materials, including one of the largest collections of periodicals in the United Kingdom. Hermione could easily spend her entire holidays browsing through the magazines she'd find there. One year, she promised herself, she'd do just that. The third floor was more mysterious; it contained the rare book collections, as well as other treasures of the written word. She never really spent much time on the third floor before, yet after seeing her mother off on the second floor, she felt drawn to one of the smaller collection rooms.

One of the stranger parts of being a student at Hogwarts was their class Defense Against the Dark Arts. None of their teachers lasted longer than a year. To date, two of their teachers were evil and tried to kill Harry, one was an incompetent idiot, and the other (and by far the best) was a werewolf. Most of the classes tended to be either very theoretical and book-bound, or practical and hands-on. The most interesting classes were both. Late in her third year, Professor Lupin spent two class sessions on the magical senses that a witch or wizard might develop during a lifetime of exposure to magic. While not everyone developed these senses (One example of this was Minister Fudge. Even now, Hermione had to smile at that memory; it certainly explained a lot to her and her friends!), those that did needed to know what was happening to them and how to use them. One of the most common magical senses was an additional sharper sensitivity to the vagaries of intuition. Often, a witch or wizard receives hunches of various kinds, or is drawn unknowingly to certain places or almost compelled to act in a certain way. This was completely involuntary and could best be explained as a witch or wizard's magical center's attempts to guide its master to the solution of a pressing problem. Yes, magic often does have a mind of its own, and this sharper intuition is one of the ways in which the fortunate witch or wizard could access it. Sometimes.

A second magical sense that Professor Lupin told them about was called Mage Sight. It also was largely involuntary, although it could be invoked at will. Mage Sight enables a witch or wizard to see, directly, the aura of power surrounding other magical people, beasts, or items and to measure their strength. A side effect of this is a sensitivity to whether or not that power is Light Magic or Dark Magic. Hermione remembered sharing a quick glance with Harry during that discussion as he finally realized what the heck was happening to him whenever he faced That One. No, Harry, you are not going crazy. You're just developing Mage Sight.

There were other senses discussed, of course, besides those two. And of course, Professor Lupin mentioned that the Ministry of Magic was absolutely incapable of regulating the use of these senses, magic though they were. Although they tried. Hard. Still, the very nature of magic itself, no matter what the Ministry wanted to believe, was by definition outside the jurisdiction of the Ministry, which primarily was supposed to be the governing body of the wizarding world of the United Kingdom. Not magic itself.

All of which meant that Hermione Granger had nothing to fear from the Ministry's Improper Use of Magic Office as she followed her intuition to a room filled with books that, to her eyes alone, glowed with ancient, powerful Light Magic.

"May I help you, Miss?"

Hermione jumped, still in shock at what she'd discovered. She turned around and guiltily met the eyes of the middle-aged librarian who clearly looked askance at the sight of a teenaged girl who wandered into her collection room, no doubt looking for something to steal or vandalize. Well, not on her watch!

"Ummm ... I'm not sure yet, ma'am." Hermione slowly replied. She had a hard time hearing her own voice. "Could you tell me where these books came from? I've been a patron of this library my entire life and I've never seen anything like this before."

The older woman was about to kick the girl out just on general principle, but something made her pause. Something about her tone of voice ... surprise, maybe, or awe, possibly even reverence? She didn't understand it, not entirely. Still, as one lover of books to another, she found herself replying, "This is the Gnosticus Primus Collection. It contains unique manuscripts claiming to be from the eighth and ninth centuries AD and was established here in this library three years ago. A Mister Aberforth Dumbledore donated a small portion of his family's library to us and three other community libraries throughout Britain in an effort to disseminate and encourage research into these texts. The books themselves are rather ... odd. For the most part, they appear to be grimoires, texts supposedly having to do with magical spells and such nonsense. However, unlike other known grimoires, such as The Key of Solomon, the rituals are actually simple to understand and perform ..."

Hermione reluctantly interrupted the librarian. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but would it be at all possible for me to look around? I know I need to be careful with books as old as these might be, but I'm extremely interested in things like this." A name finally registered with her. "Did you say Aberforth Dumbledore? The headmaster at my school must be his brother Albus! I remember his mentioning Aberforth once or twice when I talked to him about some things." Suddenly, Hermione started to feel the faintest stirrings of hope. If Aberforth was anything like his brother, surely these texts could help her keep both her boys alive! If only she could browse them ...

The librarian in charge of the Gnosticus Primus Collection looked sharply at the younger girl, who was now clearly almost desperate to get to the books in the collection. "This collection is meant for research purposes only, Miss. Not to satisfy idle curiosity." She knew she should have thrown her out when she got here!

But she was unprepared for the girl's confident response: "That's exactly what I hope to accomplish. And don't worry about my Latin. It's actually quite good."

And unfortunately, Aberforth Dumbledore was quite specific in his directions to the administrators of the four Gnosticus collections: anyone--regardless of age--who mentions the name of his brother, Albus Dumbledore, is to be granted full access to the collection. No exceptions. Jessica McTavish had no choice but to permit this girl to attempt her 'research' with the books under her care. (All the while expecting nothing but wanton destruction to be the result.)

The librarian glared at Hermione, but eventually, she nodded and asked her to sign in and leave her library card with her. She pointed out where piles of scrap paper could be found for notes when this Miss Granger apologetically mentioned that she'd not planned to bring any research materials with her to the library. And she watched distrustingly as the girl rapidly and confidently disappeared into the stacks, almost as if they were her native environment.

Hermione was awestruck. She literally did not know where to begin. These books were older than Hogwarts itself! One reoccurring puzzle did come to mind again, though. She knew that the wizarding world was just as ancient as Muggle civilization - at least five thousand years old, quite possibly even older if one went back before the invention of writing itself. Yet nothing she'd (attempted to) learn in History of Magic even came close to covering the eras of magical civilization before the establishment of Hogwarts and the other magical schools and the rise of the worldwide Ministries of Magic in and after 1070 AD. This was an odd contrast with the Muggle world, where, if one were interested, one might easily learn about, study, and enjoy other, older, civilizations and their languages, culture, literature, and history. Just to name two examples from the top of her head, both the Judeo-Christian Bible, written over a span of fifteen hundred years, and the myths of the Ancient Greeks were products of the Ancient (Muggle) World that led others to research, learn, and apply current knowledge to in order to lead to greater understanding. For that matter, the legend of the Trojan War led to the creation of the science of archaeology! Yet, with the possible exception of the Gringotts curse breakers, like Ron's brother Bill, there was no wizarding counterpart to the archaeologist. Very odd.

These books were the first exposure she had to the magic world before Hogwarts was established.

Following her intuition once again, she pulled three books from the shelves, blew off the dust, found a chair, and began to read and avidly take notes. To her relief, the smallest book she'd found was the equivalent of a first year Theory of Magic textbook. Based on her current level of knowledge, she found it quite understandable, however there were some fascinating twists to what she was reading. It appeared to suggest that wandless magic not only was more common in the past, it was actually the usual form of magic! Wand magic was considered a complementary art, not the primary means through which a witch or wizard utilized his or her magic. Furthermore, the spells she'd spent so much time memorizing were not only wandless, but wordless as well! Magic two hundred years before Hogwarts could be defined as the direct application of the human will to the surrounding universe. Tools such as wands or words were acceptable, but not necessary. All they did was make it easier for the witch or wizard to focus on what was needed.

The second book was a treatise on the nature of magic and its effects on human relationships. There was a long, fascinating introduction on magic and its ethical and theological implications, both positive and negative, a section on the obligations of family in the transmission of magical knowledge, and a long section on magical families and their relationships to other families. Most of this section described a complex custom called Guest-right. None of this seemed relevant to what Hermione needed, although if she had the time, she'd have loved to idle away the hours simply absorbing anything she could find. However, near the end, there was also a short section that struck a chord with her on the three types of magical families: family by Blood, family by Adoption, and family by Choice.

Families by Blood were by far the most common and typical of the three, and twelve hundred years later, Hermione could still see twisted traces of this type reflected in some of the prejudices she'd come to recognize at Hogwarts: You're nothing but a dirty Mudblood, Granger!; Halfbreeds are a disgrace to us all!; My family is superior to yours because our blood is pure! Odd how she'd just heard Malfoy say all of those things just now. And disgusting.

Families by Adoption were also still recognizable after all this time. The best example of this she could find from her own experience was the open armed, unstinting acceptance and welcome the entire Weasley family freely gave Harry and herself. Just thinking about them--especially Mrs. Weasley!-- brought happy tears of gratitude to her eyes.

The third type, family by Choice, was a lot harder to pin down. Families by Choice, in the treatise, often were people who worked together in the same magical circle. They often were blood relatives of each other, although not always. Sometimes, they were simply extremely close friends, although not always. Sometimes, they married each other, establishing a new family by Blood, sometimes they didn't. Adoption wasn't as specific as Choice, but one often included the other. The Latin involved in this section was extremely difficult, almost hesitant, as if the author himself didn't know exactly how to define family by Choice, but he knew what it was even if he couldn't explain it. The concept must have been lost over the centuries, which Hermione thought was a shame. Then it struck her. Family by Choice ... it's referring to me, Harry, and Ron! This time, a few tears did escape unnoticed. We're not related to each other, but we are best friends who really are only complete and happy when we're together. We're an unbeatable team, and it's Ron's family who has Adopted us as their own. And I can't speak for either of them, but I know I care for, no, love them both dearly. That's why You-Know-Who's return scares me so much. That psychopath wants to kill my family.

After a few minutes to digest this new realization, Hermione opened the third book, not knowing that in doing so, she single-handedly threw off all the plans of Albus Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort alike for the coming war. This third book was an actual spell book filled with spells designed for groups, specifically, families by Choice. They ran the gamut from powerful offensive and defensive combat spells activated by a unified will to healing spells to spells of communication and tracking to spells of teleportation and telekinesis to ... Hermione had to stop. This is exactly what she'd been looking for! She still didn't know if these spells would be as effective now as they were twelve hundred years ago, but surely even if they weren't they were a good place to start! She needed a complete copy of this book (and any others like it) for herself, but Xeroxing anything was completely out of the question.

Hermione left the stacks only two and a half hours after she disappeared into them and went to speak with the librarian in charge of the Gnosticus collection. "Um, excuse me, ma'am?"

"What do you want?" Mrs. McTavish was still irked at the fact that this child was using her collection.

"I've found a book that I'd like to have copied, ma'am. I need the entire thing for a research project for school, but I'm not entirely sure how that could be done. Xeroxing is obviously out; the light would damage the book. Even if I could, I'm not even going to attempt to check it out; it's too fragile to be exposed to outside air. But I was wondering what arrangements could be made?" Hermione was as polite as ever when speaking to an authority figure, but unlike before, she was now confident that what she wanted was eminently reasonable and she would get what she wanted.

She could tell the librarian was startled by her manner and waited patiently for her decision with a respectful smile. After a few moments, Mrs. McTavish managed to reconnect her mind and mouth. "Can you type, Miss Granger?"

"Of course, ma'am. I'm a little rusty, however."

"I see. One of my goals for the last three years here has been to transfer these books to electronic files; however, scanning them into a computer is just as out of the question as Xeroxing them. If you were willing to volunteer here at the library, I would be willing to allow you to choose some of the books you would be copying and allow you to print out a copy for your own use, whatever that may be. You would not be paid, understand?"

"Yes, ma'am, that's not really what I'm interested in, anyway. The important thing is these books."

"There, we have no disagreement."