A/N: I wrote this in two days while i was trying to think up the next chapter to my story. It's a bit reflective but it came to me and i had to right it. Just think of this as the result of unfocused inspiration.
Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it belongs to J K Rowling or Shakespeare.
Reading Between the Lines
You would be surprised at the infinite knowledge that books posses, the unlimited access to every perceived thought. If there was one thing that everyone trusted, it was those carefully constructed binded pages. Books were the one thing in which everyone kept their secrets, desires and ambitions.
Books were keepers of things not said.
Especially, in the library, where they were dusty, moldy and had suffered centuries of abuse from children and adults alike. They sat there, unassuming on their perches, shelf after shelf watching, witnessing and protecting the many persons who come their way seeking refuge from the outside world. And were constantly over looked as an abstract part of the scenery.
The library was considered sacred for more reasons than one. The hushed silence was not kept up solely because of necessity, but security.
These books were privy to the most sensitive of information, and like any unobtrusive object, they watched. They watched as the girl with the curly red hair that reached down her back walked up to her usual seat, close to the very back of the library, taking the table closest to the window.
They saw how she calmly took her books out of her book bag and placed them on the surface before her. Then she took out her quill and a piece of parchment, before getting started on whatever assignment assigned that was not due until the following week. She paid her watchers no mind as she took up her weekly routine.
Predictably, she lost concentration after an hour, barely managing to write a paragraph before her mind wondered off to the events of that day, or week, or month. Sadly there were some details that even they could not lay their weathered pages on. But she daydreamed non-the-less. Loosing her thoughts to the sky and its colours of the setting sun. The Black Lake smoothed over to a calm as the giant squid, for once, seemed to be at peace. Or not so much as a tentacle suddenly darted out to lash a bird returning to its nest out of the sky before retreating just as suddenly. An odd smile graced the girl's lips.
What was general knowledge to her indifferent audience was that she was waiting. Yes. While the curly-haired red-head looked thoughtfully out the window with one leg tucked under her, unconsciously biting her bottom lip, she was waiting, as she did at the end of every week, for someone. A someone, that remained a preferred secret.
If books could feel they would certainly feel curiosity and injustice at the situation they were forced to witness. Though, forced would be the wrong word, since books couldn't feel. They were simply passer-bys that didn't go anywhere, witnessing, but not really witnessing something not meant for their eyes. Not that they had those either.
But after years, no centuries, of observing things not meant to be observed, agreements, plans, meetings, tryst, confessions, ambitions, desires. Secrets. If books were human they would be gossiping females, telling tales and weaving stories and sharing the latest and most up to date did-you-know-that and have-you-heard-about and you-would-not-believe. Or they would be wise and aged as the greatest wizards since Merlin and Dumbledore with their tinkling all-knowing eyes that tell you all about your secrets without either of you sharing a word and advising you in the most confusingly, cryptic, round about way that makes you pull at your hair and want to scream 'what the fuck is it your trying to tell me you sodding senile old man? I asked for your help about something you shouldn't even know about so tell it to me in straight sodding English or stick your annoying as hell all-knowing ass elsewhere!"
Alas, it should be considered fortunate that books aren't people either. But we are straying off the topic of current interest.
The girl is Weasley. This much is known because there have been so many of them that they have become a sort of generational blemish regarded fondly throughout the establishment. There are also the telltale signs, besides the God awfully bright hair (it actually suits her quite well, but that should be no surprise, the women in that family seem to be the only ones that can), such as the infinite amount of freckles scattered across her body seen and unseen, as well as the height.
Hogwarts: A History has dutifully noted her parentage as part of the infamous Golden Trio. That would attribute to her regular and treasured presence among those holders of things read. For no Weasley, in all their generations, has held that kind of focus, especially after those dreadful twins.
We seem to be straying again. It's all of this waiting, as holders of knowledge a book tends to stray when not occupied. As they are responsible for inducing and assisting thinking there thoughts must be constantly focused. Being a book isn't easy.
Ah, here he is. The secret-not-as-well-kept-as-they-thought-but-kept-well-enough-that-no-one-of-importance-knows, because nobody takes their presence as something of importance. He has arrived and he is late and she tells him as much with a slight frown on her small mouth. It does not reach her eyes though, as they light up with that undescribable feeling that swells up in the bottom of her stomach when they had moments like this, alone. Together. And he knows this, that's why he tilts his head to the side in a coy manner while one corner of his mouth his threatening to tilt upwards and the wisp of platinum blonde hair that cuts across his face slightly obstructing his all too piercing gray (or was it silver, sometimes even blue when he was feeling as such she would say to herself sometimes) eyes stared back at her.
He apologizes, something about how Nott was being an arse so he had to sort him out and that menopausal bint Higgins had caught him so now he has a detention tomorrow. She doesn't necessarily pay attention to his explanation though, so glad that he's finally here, and to distracted by that blasted lock of hair covering his face making him look devilishly handsome but at the same time was blocking his beautiful- he hated when she described him as such, but she ignored him, there was something undeniably beautiful about him that drew her to him (he never hesitated that it was in fact the other way around and it was something undeniably beautiful about her that drew him)- face that she couldn't stand not seeing. She never got tired of taking in his features. His pointed nose, strong jaw, piercing eyes (had she mentioned that already?) his suspiciously soft hair that neither of them got enough of her running her fingers through. Then there was his slimmed, muscled build molded from hours of quiditch and that lazy amble he carried himself with. She loved his voice, especially the one he reserved solely for her, when they were alone. She loved his smile, his patented Malfoy smirk.
Oh yes, the reason for the secret-yet-not-so-secret-but-when-you-look-at-it-was-still-really-a-secret secret that was reserved for the unknown audience. A Malfoy and a Weasly were meeting under no hateful pretenses. A Malfoy and a Weasley were friends yet more than friends.
A Malfoy and a Weasley were in love.
And where else does one go to relieve themselves of things not sociably acceptable? That's right, the library, a place where silence is golden and respected and no one breaks that one cardinal rule of keeping their mouth shut. Studying was as great an excuse as it was a distraction.
The meetings had started, as any meeting would under the circumstance, by chance. He was at her seat. Her favourite seat in her one place of solace where she came to think, reflect and consider. Studying and homework usually followed after the indulgence. It had been a particularly bad day and she wanted to do nothing more than curl up by the window and escape to her thoughts. Instead she came across him, sitting in her chair at her table, looking out her window occupying himself with what she had been so looking forward to doing herself. It wasn't fair, but hadn't her mother always told her that nothing was.
More determined than ever, she had marched up to him and stated as such, much to the apt attention of her newly, soon to be acquired, silently observant watchers. She never made much of an effort to talk to the Malfoy before that, neither of them had cared much about the other one way or another, but then, he had never stolen her seat before either. Of course, everything she said may well have gone in one ear and out the other because after her little rant (she had worked herself up a bit, it had been a really bad day and she needed her chair) he simply stared at her. He didn't move.
"May I please have my seat?" She said, exasperation had turned to frustration.
He stared at her until she thought he was seeing through her, until finally his eyes met hers. It was the first time she registered the colour.
"Can't you just take that one," he had gestured to the seat on the opposite side of the table. He was quite fine where he was and wasn't interested in moving to satisfy some bird having a breakdown.
"Or you could," she suggested desperately, "you don't come here enough to have claim on a seat and I really want this one." She was willing to resort to magic to get him out of it but she would rather not just yet. Madame Pince would probably throw her out.
Strangely enough for a Malfoy, the library was quite familiar with them, as they were with most pureblood families, he did not order, insult, condescend or put up much resistance. He simply took one last lingering look out the window and then walked out of the library, sparing her neither a glance nor a word.
The second meeting didn't occur until three weeks later.
The first meeting, however brief, still lingered in her mind and she hadn't stop thinking about the Malfoy or his eyes since that day. She wouldn't admit to anyone that she even felt little guilty for making him leave the library like that, and from that day she had taken to watching him between classes and during them so she could get to know him a little more. Her audience only priviledge to this information because she wrote it in her journal and all books share knowledge.
She had actually been thinking about him as she made her way to her spot – she had secretly hoped he would show up again, although she didn't know why- when she saw him. He was at her table, staring out her window but instead, he was sitting in the chair opposite to hers. He had come back.
His reason for showing up weren't for thought, merely an escape. The boy, as notoriously popular as he was, enjoyed solitude and therefore the constant hero-worship and fan girl stalking was wearing on his nerves. The first time he had thought to escape here he went as deep into the library as he dared until he came across the table by the window. He was so lost in his own thoughts he hadn't even heard the girl come up until she was raving in his ear about something as ridiculous as seat placement. Admittedly, somewhat reluctantly, he was quite shocked. Not many girls yelled at him, they cooed and swooned and made disturbing declarations of love but they rarely ever yelled at him, unless it was because of a broken heart. So when the pretty red-head had finished her speech he simply stared at her in slight awe before responding.
He hadn't thought about her much after he had left. She actually only returned to his mind a few weeks later when he was longing for his own space and was running out of hiding places. Of course, he had checked her out first, made sure she wouldn't turn out to be some rabid obsessed girl who had just forgotten who she was talking to a few weeks ago. Thankfully, she checked out.
The audience watched the pleasant shock that showed up on the girls face as she saw the boy before she took her rightful seat and prepared her things. They hadn't exchanged a word the second meeting, but something passed between them that was dually understood.
This could work.
The meetings continued like this for sometime, one would show up and then the other. Occasionally words would be exchanged between them, she thought, he watched, she worked and he slept. Sometimes they would have conversations on the strangest topics that they both found fascinating, other times, when he couldn't keep still, she would lend him a book. They weren't friends, but they were much more than acqaintances.
They shifted to something more one day when the routine changed. She had been crying when he showed up. No one new why, she wasn't dramatic when she cried, she barely even made a sound. She just trembled slightly and hiccupped every few seconds. He had hesitated when he saw her, wondering whether or not to leave her alone but then he decidedly moved forward. The watchers if the could, they would have said it was due to their prodding encouragement, but regardless of the reason, he took his chair and dragged it next to hers before tentatively putting an arm around her.
She hadn't hesitated to take the consolation, she threw her arms around his neck and buried her face in his chest sobbing quietly still. They had stayed like that for a good half hour, her curled up in him sniffling as he rubbed soothing circles on her back both taking comfort from each others presence. Once she regained herself she embarrassingly disengaged herself from him unable to meet his eye. He, feeling slightly awkward at the situation had asked her what had been the matter. She said it had been nothing and he had let it drop.
Two days later the Mcmillan twins were suffering from a bad case of a puking curse and had to be sent to St. Mungo's. Malfoy had ended up getting a month's detention for the supposedly 'unprovoked' stunt. Such news traveled fast and it was only a matter of time before it was being whispered among the halls of the library between students making more of it than it really was. The truth was known only to the to the two seeking refuge in the back.
When he came that evening she had a box of sugar quills waiting for him. When he looked to her questioningly she had looked up to him shyly from beneath her lashes and said, "thank-you."
He smirked, "It wasn't a problem Weasley, the gits had no right to say what they said."
She smiled at him as he took a quill and popped it in his mouth. She found it strange that such a seemingly cool and aloof boy could be so warm and have such an addiction to sugar. It was a fact picked up during their time together and it was then she realized something.
"Call me Rose." She told him this with a determination in her eye, and he simply stared at her once again before he gave her his first genuine smile.
"Then call me Scorpius, Rose."
They had become friends by the end of their fifth year.
As witnesses to many things throughout time meant not to be witnessed by the youth that have shaped and shall shape the wizarding world, a book as well as library contains a testament to the truth, for example Hogwarts: A History. In the search for truth, the answers are documented and stored in a place among its like. Books witness as they contain. Betrayal, truth, love, hate, good, evil, passion, death, advice and wisdom. Books contain firsts, just as they witness them.
Rose and Scorpius had shared their first kiss one evening in their sixth year. She had been trying in vain to focus as Scorpius tried to get her attention by throwing things at her in an attempt to relieve his boredom.
"Scorpius!" she finally snapped, "I'm trying to study. Go away if you're bored."
He just smirked once he finally got her attention, "but Rose, you should know by now I treasure nothing more than annoying you." That and he really hated to be ignored.
She had rolled her eyes, "we have a test in transfiguration tomorrow. Fancy studying for it?" She knew the answer even though she had asked the question. It still astounded her how he aced all his tests without studying.
"Weasley," he scoffed, "I fancy many things, why would studying be one of them?"
She gave up and turned back to her work. It was well known that Scorpius was a womanizer wanted by all the girls and quite a few boys to his displeasure. Her problem was, in all the attention he had given to his admirers, he had never once acknowledged her.
Of course, as all plays go, the characters were never as well informed as the members of the audience. So only they saw the admiring looks Scorpius gave her when she wasn't looking. How he longed to twirl his fingered in her curls just to smell them and see if they really smelled like strawberries. How he admired how such a graceless and clumsy girl could move her fingers so expertly when handling a quill. Her smooth pale skin covered tauntingly in those freckles that he always found himself counting. Or the way she carried herself so surely, to him she was perfection because of her imperfections.
And as if sensing her train of thought got up from his seat on the floor and seated himself by her side before closing her books abruptly. Annoyed she looked up at him suddenly only to gasp at how close he was.
He watched her closely as that darling blush ran up her face and down her neck. Her sapphire eyes open wide in shock, and her lips parted slightly. That was enough to push him forward. Before she even got a word out he pressed his lips to hers. It was good as first kisses go, slightly awkward and unsure at first, but then he coaxed her into it and she yielded. It was soft and sweet and slow and when they finally parted they were gasping.
They gazed into each other's eyes before he finally gained his wits and said, "do I actually have to go into why I like you?"
She smiled, if it had been anyone else she may have questioned it, but with Scorpius, she already knew, and he knew that she knew that. So she smiled.
"No, but you could kiss me again."
And like any gentleman, he complied with the lady's request.
As with anything with a thirst and penchant for knowledge, references are always likely to be made. In this case, the vast library of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry chose its reference from the partially neglected shelves of the Muggle Literature section. Partially because, for all her strict and unpleasant demeanor, the librarian Madame Pince was quite the romantic and a sucker for a kiss, and as it happened, Shakespeare would be her shag of choice if timelines had allowed.
Therefore the lovely – for the sake of the story- lady must be thanked for making light of the tragedy that is Romeo and Juliet. Star-crossed lovers separated by family prejudices and past antagonistic views thrown together by fate and forced into an unforgiving love. Okay, that may have sounded a bit dramatic, but as it was, a book was nothing if not drama at its best.
The point was, that theirs was a love that would be considered a scandal of the highest order. Something in dire need of an intervention, theirs was a love that many could not simply let be because that would destroy everything the status quo stood far, and if there was one thing students took seriously, it was the status quo. Forget the wars of the fathers and the ones before that, for they could easily deny their fathers and their names, heritage had no weight on love. The problem was the pressure of the castle walls occupants, this was a love even the dead, quite literally, would discuss and its reception was not likely to be pleasant.
But again, this may simply be a dramatization for neither of them really cared about the public opinion.
It was simply that the realization of their love, which really wasn't much unlike that of Romeo or Juliet – though minus the significant flare for the dramatic and the more than questionable courting methods- came close to the end of their sixth year and the gossip would have spread throughout Hogwarts, down by Hogsmead, pass Diagon Alley, and make a pit stop by the Daily Profit, that is, if letters from nosey friends and relatives didn't reach their parents first.
And we all know that Ronald Bilius Weasley and Draco Malfoy meeting at train station after hearing such news would be an Epic that was better if not had. At all, and that for one, is an understatement.
Therefore, to save themselves the trouble they decided to keep this illicit fraternization with the supposed enemy a secret-well-kept-except-from-those-included the unknown audience not counting. For with all things that form from passion, it is hard to keep a lid on it, especially when their friends saw that spring in their step, and the lightness of their shoulders, that ever-present glow as Lily had dubbed it and the sickeningly dreamy expression, so knighted by Zabini.
They shared their friends thoughts to each other and those thought not to be listening, because when it comes down to it, we all want at least one person on our side if the perverbial shit was to hit the fan.
Now through with the history lesson, (Hogwarts: A History has quite the effect on those who hold secrets secret and dare), we can see how a library is really a multi-purpose facility. For only its silent, leather-bound reinforced security can calm and put at ease those with things that are better off not leaving the confinements of thoughts. But, that is why it is a sanctuary for people and simply a haven for knowledge and information, because books know better than to boast what they know and show in action what they can't even feel in the first place.
They are somewhat related to prudes, who rather not show-off or draw attention to and would be happier to simply listen and make silent opinion than open gestulation. It's a pity that books didn't contain a personality, for they would be rather complex and exuberant in their text, much unlike those uncouth books of monsters and hauntings.
But let us get back to the characters of the unregistered and completely non-existant play that surfaced for the sole reason of the library fulfilling its undisclosed purpose.
They were both huddled together on the floor he had his head in her lap as she played fondly with his hair and they discussed many things, as they usually did, ranging from their day and they teachers, assignments, the ghost rumor mill, that party last weekend, and did you know that Brewster finally came out of the closet! This was a clause that was not lost on their watchers, as they had been privy to more than fair share of same sex snogging (more than they cared to admit, not that they ever would).
They continued to talk, basking in the occasional silence until the moon would rise and the curfew would come around and that old bat – probably the only other being that knew their not-so-secret-secret, but she would never mention it, as keeper of what is overlooked and unappreciated she understood the hidden function of these know-it-all walls- darling that she was, would screw up her face and more than gladly kick them out for canoodling in her library. Though secretly, she was thrilled, for the children would never know but the only reason she allowed this blatant misuse of her shrine was because they were one of her wildest Shakespearean fantasies brought to life –though, thankfully edited.
And as they would walk out the library as they always did, fingers locked together, they had to forcibly drag their pinkies apart as they exited the library and walked toward their separate dorms.
Again, they could of held hands, or he could have walked her to the den of lions and kissed her until the Fat Lady stopped singing, but they didn't. They weren't ready for the publicity just yet, and one had to admit it was a bit touching how they enjoyed their quiet time together a bit more than they let on, but that was okay.
For now, theirs would remain a powerful love, envied if told and understood if not, but either way their tale would be safe. For even though their watchers knew more than they were at right to know, they wouldn't share.
Their titles gave not one thing away, their covers were bound, and for those that got that far, their ink was invisible. As with the Restricted section, some bits of knowledge were meant to be with held.
And when posed with any questions, the silent answer was:
What secret?
A/N: So what do you think? Just in case you didn't get it, the audience/watchers and whatnot were the books in the library.