Chapter 18: Silence in the Library
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I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.
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2 September 1991, Hogwarts
As Harry wandered through the shelves, he was amazed by the sheer volume of books that surrounded him. The covers of the books were diverse, some leather-bound with gold lettering, while others had brightly coloured covers with intricate designs.
Harry took a deep breath. The air was thick with the scent of old parchment and leather-bound books. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
It was without a doubt, the worst thing he had ever experienced. Oh, it looked beautiful from the outside, an endless sea of books and knowledge, and Harry was an academic at heart. But damn, the experience to find a book and read it in the library was so tedious it wasn't even funny.
Well, first things first, there is no real organization system for the library. Outside of having sections for schoolbooks so that students could find them easily, there were no dedicated sections for general magic. Well, the books were roughly sorted into the general magical field, but nothing more. For example, there is an entire wall dedicated to transfiguration, but it included everything from conjuration to human transfiguration, and there was no order to differentiate any sections in the field.
There aren't even any labels on the intended audience of each book, be it for pre-OWL students, NEWT students, or even Mastery holders and above. It was just so incompetent; it wasn't even funny.
At least, the books were more informative in terms of content and language. The schoolbooks were really written for children, not for adults. Although Harry wouldn't imagine a first or second year student understanding what appears to be a mastery thesis just for the fun of it. Unless they're walking around with a dictionary, that is.
It was in times like these that Harry missed the internet. He had really taken it for granted when it came to academic matters. Theories were reviewed, tested, disproved, and the findings were published and accessible with a few pushes of buttons.
The worst thing was that each section library was actually divided into two main categories. The part that Harry aptly called Spellbooks, which is geared towards students and simply gives step-by-step instructions on how to cast spells, but practically no theory behind it, nor how it was created. It was just recipes, and for all how these were useful, Harry wanted to explore magic, not spells. He wanted to see what made it tick and understand how the symphony in his head worked. That was the beauty of it.
The other books were mostly theory books, with more theory than spells. A book can contain less than a dozen spells and be over a thousand pages thick. But these spells were explained on a very fundamental level, which drastically eclipsed his knowledge of theory.
Funnily enough, he discovered that while skimming the Charms section of the library. He saw a book titled, 'Light Charms, an exploration of the fundamentals and well, there were so many theories and formulas referenced that he was lost a couple of pages in. And the damn thing was about the variations of the Lumos charm. So, yeah, he's going to get started on arithmancy on his own because if he doesn't, most of the library would be useless for him.
Well, that settled on which electives he was taking in his third year. Still, with how many theories were being referenced, Harry chose to pick up one of the theoretical OWL recaps for every theory visited until their OWL years. Oh, Harry had no inclination to cast any of the spells, but it would provide a better understanding of the fundamentals of magic, as well as an understanding of some of the more complicated tomes in the library. He did that for the tomes in Transfiguration, Charms, Arithmancy, and Potions, as well as an interesting book that should explain wand magic. This should keep him busy for a few weeks to digest everything.
Harry decided to return to the common room and read these books at his leisure. To do so, he walked towards the librarian, Madam Irma Pince. The young Slytherin put the five books on her desk, "I'd like to check these out please."
The woman looked at him blankly, "You're checking out four OWL books and a magical theory one?"
Harry nodded, "Yes, we are allowed to take away up to five books, right?"
The librarian glared at him, "If these books are so much as damaged if there is a slight rip in any of the pages, you will pay for the damages and will be banned from the library. Trust me, I know. These books have been enchanted to resist magic, so no repairing charm will help you."
Yeah, these books weren't exactly rare, to be honest, and thus easily replaceable. They were your average OWL revision books, or more accurately, written for students taking their OWLs that have been homeschooled.
As for the enchantment bit, Harry could feel the books' melodies somewhat. They felt protective, for the lack of better terms. There were probably just the usual copyright charms to make sure the books are not mass copied, with a few extra wards for being a part of the library. The books on the back, the handwritten ones that go deep into the theory were far more violent than them, so they must depend on the book.
Still, Harry simply nodded and accepted her condition. He then signed the paper the librarian gave him and waited for him to be given the books, "You have two weeks to return the books, any tardiness will result in a fine and a ban from the library until you return the books. You will not be able to take out any other books until you pay the fine. Now go away."
Harry thought hummed, "I'm sorry, but I had a few questions about the organization of the library please."
"What is it?" the witch responded with obvious irritation in her voice.
"Well, I don't really understand how it's structured on the way back. I can see in the front where the spellbooks are sorted by years of study and their reference books, but after the NEWT books, it feels very chaotic."
"That's because it is chaotic," the librarian drawled back, "there are hundreds of thousands of books in this room. I cannot keep track of them all. The further back you go, the less used the books are. They tend to only be checked out by old students checking a mastery in one subject or another, not a student of Hogwarts. They already know the exact books they need and so they look for them. I haven't had a single complaint so far in my organization, so do not look so outraged. Now, go away. I have better things to do than to pander to a first year student that still hasn't finished his first week of magical education."
Well, that woman was rather unpleasant, that's for sure. All he asked was for her to explain how she organized the books, nothing more. Is she really trying to demean an eleven-year-old boy for her own gratification?
It didn't matter; Harry didn't care about the prickly woman. He had gotten his books and so he turned, put the books in his bag and left the room, seeing the library rules printed on the golden plaque.
The library rules were reasonable. You are not allowed to eat or drink in the library. You are not allowed to cast any magic inside the library. You are not allowed to take out a book without checking it first – there are alarm charms to enforce that – and you are not allowed to damage any of the books in any way. Of course, there is the whole late fee and paying for damages thing, but overall, they were very understandable. A miscast spell could burn down the library, and the library housed a lot of rare books that were worth thousands of Galleons.
Still, the way to the common room was a lot quicker. He might start to get used to the chaotic ways of Hogwarts any day now. Harry passed by the hall for a quick snack for dinner and went to the common room, starting to read his magical theory book.
It was very informative. It turned out that magical cores weren't really a thing. A wizard's body acted more like a buffer to magic, where it would absorb magic from the environment and channel it through the body to be unleashed as spells. The magic was absorbed by the heart, or at least near the heart on a metaphysical plane, and spread out through the body using metaphysical channels for each spell. The better the channels, the more powerful the wizard. The channels start to stabilize around a child's eleventh birthday, which is why students are invited to Hogwarts at that stage.
The thing is that a wizard never runs out of magic as long as there is magic around them, instead, their bodies are taxed with every spell, which is why spells are designed to be fired at once in bursts, and not in a continuous way, which would quickly tire the castor. It was also the reason why Azkaban was a prison, since the island was almost devoid of magic, meaning that wizards can't cast anything.
In a way, magic was like a muscle. You could train your channels to grow as you grow up. Before the eleventh birthday, it could be dangerous and accidents were prone to happen to overzealous wizards that have tried to train their heirs before Hogwarts, the results were not good ones.
Still, a student can slowly use these channels to widen them, allowing them to hold and pass through more magic, making them more powerful. However, on the seventeenth birthday, the magic stabilizes, and the channels stop growing or shrinking.
Of course, there are probably a lot of dark rituals to circumvent these limitations, which is what Harry imagined Voldemort had done, considering how inhumane he was rumoured to look.
Harry was distracted from the book by Blaise who was looking down on him with a frown on his face, "Where were you?"
"I just went to the library," Harry replied.
Malfoy, who was standing behind Blaise, snickered, "You should have been a Ravenclaw if you like reading so much."
Harry shrugged, "There's nothing wrong with reading a book."
"Well, you have to make up for your Mudblood mother somehow…" the blonde boy replied with a smug grin on his face.
This last sentence had gotten Harry's attention and the common room seemed to quiet suddenly. He slowly put a placeholder in the book, put it in his bag, and then turned to face Malfoy, "What did you just say?"
His voice was barely above a whisper, but the blond boy shivered slightly, "I said…"
Harry interrupted the boy, "I didn't think you were stupid enough to repeat it. Now, let's get something straight, Draco dear. I don't give a damn about you; I don't care if you're a bigot or secretly a troll. You can go around terrorizing Hufflepuffs with threats of your father all you want, but you will not insult my parents. Are we clear?"
Draco stiffened, "How dare you…"
The boy tried to raise his wand at Harry, probably to cast some kind of spell, until the green-eyed boy simply grabbed the wand out of his hands. The baffled look on the boy's face was priceless. Harry though didn't even look at the wand and instead was staring Draco straight in the eyes. "I said, are we clear?"
With each syllable, Harry was projecting his anger at the boy with his magic. It wasn't even a spell. It was barely more than a party trick, where Harry just changed the symphony, he was releasing to be a violent and angry one but without any intent, but the Malfoy scion seemed to be close to pissing himself. His nod was shaky, and Harry stopped releasing the magic, while suddenly smiling gently, "Well, that's very good, Draco dear. It's good that we have an understanding, right."
Harry handed him his wand and patted him on the shoulders, "Try not to hurt yourself, dear."
Draco had stopped trembling and started to glare once more, "My father will hear about this…"
"And you'll tell him what? That you called someone's mother a Mudblood in the middle of the common room and that he asked you not to do it again after taking your wand from you and giving it back without using any magic. Good luck with that."
Harry didn't even wait for an answer and just grabbed a bag and went to the bedroom. After all, that book wasn't going to read itself.
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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.