The Library of Alexandria

Part One

Cover art by Avendell.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ignatius Pigglesworth thought he knew every kind of bookworm there was.

He'd been a librarian for ninety years. He started as an assistant back in school and then ascended the ranks, from branch to branch, all the way up to the most elite position in the world of Wizarding libraries: Head Librarian of the Library of Alexandria. He'd held the position for thirty years and fully expected to continue for another thirty more.

In that time, he had met all manner of curious and clever wizards and witches who were driven by their curiosity, thirst for knowledge, desire for power, or haunted by some need or trauma in their past.

By the time they made it to his doors they had passed through the crucible as it were.

The Library of Alexandria was not for just any witch or wizard.

Contrary to the popular belief of many uninformed wizarding folk, Alexandria was not the largest selection of texts on magical knowledge and theory. That distinction belonged to London's Central Wizarding Library, which Ignatius had once headed as well. The Library of Alexandria was not particularly large, it was ancient and dangerous.

A little known fact of magic was that the written word has a sort of magnetism to the magic it references.

Write wingardium leviosa on a bit of parchment and leave it for a hundred years, and you'd find it had a mysterious habit of floating off the table without any discernible breeze to move it. Perhaps it sounds like merely a curious and trifling matter but imagine writing a book of dark spells in the thirteenth century and see what happens when an unsuspecting wizard picks it up seven hundred years later.

Ancient books on magic became positively drenched with the accumulation; the more powerful the spells, the more powerful the magic drawn in. Dark spells had an especially intense sort of attraction for magic. They only needed a few years before they began getting dangerous.

Most wizarding folk believed that books on dark magic are cursed to keep thieves and meddlers out, but the truth was that most dark wizards and witches barely need bother. Their books took care of themselves.

That was why magical textbooks got so frequently updated, it allowed the older editions to be removed from circulation and neutralized before they became inconveniences.

The International Confederation of Wizards had discovered, over the course of several hundred years, that trying to ban the books and scrolls never worked well enough.

Old wizarding families were quite protective of their magic and disinclined to surrender information on useful spells or treatises on magic theory just because it might eventually turn into an unstoppable evil. Normally, by the time the families were ready to admit the problem, the books were deadly; and it was no easy task to try destroying them then, such books had an irritating habit of killing their attackers or cursing them in a manner both permanent and dreadful.

So, it had been decided long ago that, should wizarding families choose, they could submit their books (while retaining access rights) to the Library of Alexandria, with not an eyebrow raised nor question asked. There the specialized librarians of Alexandria would ward and care for them.

All that was required in return was that the descendants of the family responsible for developing the magic come in every few years to help maintain the wards. Magic had a fondness for its progenitor, as it were, and tended to begin fading when the family lines ended.

For that reason, the Library of Alexandria was both a sort of prison and home for the oldest, most powerful, and darkest magic in the wizarding world.