Snow Day

Chapter 46: The Secret Library

Riley followed closely behind her sister as the five of them made their way towards the Hogwarts library.

Since it was the middle of the day, Sophia knew that she was not going to need any specific tool such as her invisibility cloak for this task.

As she began opening the big metal doors leading into the main entrance, she couldn't help but wonder what exactly was housed in that book, she was quickly aroused out of her thoughts to hear someone say, very loud in her ear. "Hey guys, I'm going to go browse some of the shelves for that hidden book— you guys can wait here if you want".

Sophia, and the two boys, James and Albus thought that that sounded like a great idea. Nodding hastily at one another, they quickly sat down at one of the many, many tables.

Suddenly the girl reappeared, holding a rather small to medium-sized book in her hands, plopping it on the table she said,

"Found this in the restricted section, I think it's what we're looking for"

On the front cover, it had what looked like a strange and bizarre symbol on it. Only Riley and Sophia seemed to recognize it, it was one of those symbols of which looked exactly like one of those handicap sticker looking things, the book cover itself was blue but had what appeared to be gold trim along the edges while the entire symbol looked like it had been spray-painted white— everybody agreed that it looked like a really cool, and unique cover. The letters of the book however were in... it almost felt like a very pretty sunset orange of a deep red, this everyone agreed was most likely use to make the title stand out more, from just the traditional black lettering.

Then, one of the guys noticed something strange— tiny little bumps were placed under the large letters. Sophia explained to them that that was called Braille, she had remembered that upon going on one sleigh ride with North way back when that at one point she had met some deaf and even blind children at an orphanage. While she was waiting for North to finish up some last-minute tasks: she had become bored and began to walk around the place, in one of the rooms she spotted a girl reading- curious, she let herself in.

Tapping the young girl on the shoulder she asked. "Whatcha readin' there?" the girl turned her head in surprise.

"A- a book..."

"I know, I know... but what I mean is—" the girl smiled warmly, then replied.

"Oh, sorry... didn't mean to be rude. It's called: The Diary of Ann Frank"

"Oh, I see... forgive me for asking but, how old are you?"

"Hmmm... I'm 8" the girl replied after a moment of thought.

"Isn't that book a little bit too advanced for you?" Sophia asked innocently.

"Hmmm-mmm" the girl just shrugged and replied. "I- I just like the Holocaust, I guess" Sophia then decided that it was this to move onto a new subject.

"So..." she started, picking up a small chair and moving it close to the girl, "Tell me, what are those little dots all over your book about?"

That's Braille" the girl pointed out.

Sophia looked intrigued, "Umm... what's Braille?"

"It's how I read" the young girl replied, "You see I was born blind so from the minute I was born, mommy and daddy made plans that they would someday enroll me in a special school"

"Oh, how sweet. But wait, then if you had parents— than how did you wined up in this here orphanage?"

Well, you see..." the young girl gulped then hung her head solemnly. "I did have parents- they did enroll me in school, everything was perfect... until, one day tragedy struck. One night when I was about six of seven, I was home alone. Being watched over by my babysitter when all of a sudden we could hear two cops banging on the front door outside— upon answering the door the cops told my babysitter that upon arriving home from a party late that night; they got into a terrible accident... supposedly a drug driver of a huge semi truck failed to see a yellow light in time— he couldn't slow down in time and smashed right into them, the car was completely totaled.