An American At Hogwarts: Book Three

Chapter Forty-Nine

I spent the next week or so following the same routine. I went to classes and did my morning runs, made whatever time I needed to make for the clubs and activities I was a part of, and otherwise spent every waking second in the library. Centaurs and mermaids had hundreds going on thousands of years of history, and a lot of sources had conflicting information on them.

It was giving me a headache. Basically any wizarding source older than a few decades seemed completely and totally unreliable. I had no idea if the more contemporary wizarding sources were any more reliable, and there were no first hand documents from any centaurs or mermaids in the Hogwarts library about culture. Mermish? Yeah, some. Myrah and I had made progress on that. Prophecies from the centaurs reading the stars? Yup, a good amount of those. Anything else about their lives or beliefs or traditions or ettiquette?

Nothing.

I'd been racking my brain trying to think of a place I could find more information, but as far as I knew, there was nothing anywhere near Hogwarts that would have what I was looking for if it wasn't in the Hogwarts library.

I sat in the library at the table that had become my usual table after dinner, tapping my pen against my notebook and trying to think of something. David was in here with me more often than not, but tonight, I had the place to myself. I stared at the digitally copied pages floating before me. Worst case, I'd just have to do my best to pull whatever consistencies I could out of the wizard sources and be ready to apologize and learn when I finally approached either group.

I sighed and started paging back through to the sources that seemed most reliable, but was interrupted by people plopping down in the seats on either side of me.

"What do you want?" I demanded of the twins without looking up from my work. I couldn't tell for sure, but if I had to guess, I'd bet they had matching grins on their faces.

"Alexa, you've been in here every single second for a week," said George, sounding exasperated. "Do you honestly have no idea why we might be in here?"

I frowned, still paging through the documents in front of me. Fred continued before I could respond.

"Really, Alexa. This must be the fifth time. How many interventions do you need?"

I sighed and rolled my eyes, finally taking my attention from the pages to look between each twin. They stared right back, completely undeterred.

"I don't think a week of researching constitutes an intervention. You're both being dramatic."

Their eyebrows raised so high they almost disappeared into their hairline. They made eye contact with each other across me, a serious expression coming over their faces, and I had a sudden feeling I'd just made a serious mistake.

"Boys-"

Before I could get another word out, the twins flipped a few chairs and flung some books off the shelves. I shot out of my seat, glaring at both of them, but they didn't stop.

"What the hell are you two doing?" I hissed, trying to keep my voice low to avoid the wrath of Madam Pince. "Cut that out!"

They just looked at me, devilish smiles on their faces, and kept going. I watched, absolutely baffled and not sure what to do about it, and then all of a sudden the twins turned on their heels and ran. They were out of sigh in a second, my corner of the library still a mess around me.

I stared after them, completely at a loss. What the fuck was that?

I got my answer a split second after the twins had disappeared from sight when Madam Pince came storming around the corner. She took in the mess, then her furious stare landed on me. I looked back at her, my mouth opening and closing like a fish. I was at a complete loss for words.