Marlene leans against a large, carved door, swinging it open.
"Just to say, be quiet. Pince can be a bit of a-" she's cut of by the door hitting something. Or someone.
I look behind the door to see a boy about me age, thin and sallow skinned with greasy black hair.
"Snape." Her tone is harsh, but she quickly switches. "Uh, sorry about that." Marlene usually smiling eyes are dim, her face covered in a quick, but clearly fake, apologetic smile.
"Yeah, watch your back McKinnon." he replies, his voice not bothering to hide his mood.
He glares around at each of us, finally stopping on me. He looks straight at me for a good few seconds, then breaks off, not saying anything. I watch him walk away, a large book pressed against his chest, green and black robes pulled in tight.
"What's his issue?" I ask.
"That's Snape. Severus Snape. He's... well..." Dorcas trails off.
"It's complicated." Alice says. "We'll explain later."
"Right, shhhh." Marlene puts a finger up to her lips, and then leads us into the library.
A slight sigh escapes my lips as I walk in to see tens of thousands of books, at least. Bookshelves stretch up to the ceiling, all made of dark wood, with leather bound books of varying sizes and thicknesses.
Alice walks towards the front desk, holding a book. An old, irritable looking lady, sits at the desk and looks up at her, and us behind her.
"What can I help you with?" she asks.
"I need to return this." Alice replies, unfazed, holding out the book.
I notice a gold plaque on the front of the desk, it reads:
"A warning: If you rip, tear, shred, bend, fold, deface, disfigure, smear, smudge, throw, drop, or in any other manner damage, mistreat, or show lack of respect towards these books, the consequences will be as awful as it is within my power to make them."
Well, that's really nice. Thanks for that endearing welcome to this place of learning and knowledge.
I try to blank my face, as the woman snatches the books from Alice, and placing it in a pile on the desk.
Alice turns and we walk off into the library, and I turn to whisper to Dorcas.
"I'm sorry, but that woman looks like a vulture."
Dorcas hastily covers a laugh. We walk off into the library as I look around at the seemingly endless shelves. In the middle were a few large tables and tucked away in the ends of corridors were smaller tables, clearly meant for individual studying. Most of these were empty as it was only the first day back, and I walk along with the others, Alice saying something about a books she will need to find at some point or another.
I look down one of the shelves, reaching out to skim my fingers along the spines, but then I stop short. The small studying table was surrounded by four silhouetted figures, hastily flicking through a book by the sounds of it. It didn't take a genius to realise, one, who it was, and two, that they were up to no good.
I grin, and creep up behind them, signalling at the girls to follow quietly. As I get closer, I hear them muttering.
"It has to be in here somewhere."
"I'm willing to bet anything like this would have to be in the restricted section."
"What are we betting?"
"Really, Padfoot? Figure of speech."
"Moony, is right though, it probably won't be here. Something like this-"
YOU ARE READING
The Black Winged Marauder
Fanfic"It isn't my choice though, it's yours." When he says it like that, it suddenly becomes very clear. "I'll miss you." "Just make sure you write, don't forget all about me." "I won't forget you, I promise. But I need to do this." *•.•*•.•*•.•*•.•*•.•*...
