A.N. 'Louis' is pronounced the way it is by birth or the French way, Lou-ey. 'Louis' is pronounced the American way, Lou- iss. It is like this in all my fanfictions because Louis is called Louis by James, Katherin, and Rose because it annoys him.
Disclaimer: I do NOT –for the millionth time!- own this.
Muggle-ness
Lily and Bev were walking side by side down the hallway. Talking about anything and everything, James' Quidditch obsession, Scorpius Malfoy's crazy love struck look that no one seems to notice, even Hugo's glasses that always need to be repaired. Best friends do this kind of thing.
"Bev, what do you think about Burnes?" Lily gave a sigh and Bev looked at her like she was crazy. "You mean you don't notice how charming he is?"
"I'm twelve, so are you, why can't we do things normal twelve-year-olds do?" Bev wasn't like most girls in there grade, she was always on the outside looking in and Lily was on the inside frolicking in the spotlight.
"Yeah, and living in a Magical Castle for learning Magic is what a 'normal' twelve-year-old does." Lily raised her eyebrows, a look that Bev had seen on James' face before.
Bev shrugged. "Normal enough, but you have a point." Bev felt that point thoroughly too, right in the middle of her chest. Sure maybe Lily hadn't meant it like that, but it sure came across like she was poking at her Muggle heritage. Bev wanted to leave Lily be, she was going to a party in the Gryffindor Girl's 4th year dormitory for make over's and manicures anyway, things Bev wasn't too fond of.
"I have to go look over some of my notes, okay?" Bev looked at Lily hoping she would let her go without a big fuss. No such luck.
Lily's eyes got big and her face scrunched up into a wrinkled pin cushion. "You promised you would go, you always skip out of these."
Bev looked toward the corridor she wished she was walking down. "But I'm not into that."
Lily put her hands on her hips. "But these are the things 'normal twelve-year-olds' do."
Bev shrunk back, the only thing that hurt in that sentence was that point in her chest again. Normal things like make up and hairstyles were a Muggle thing, a non-magic thing.
"Fine." Lily waved her hand in a not caring way. She looked like Lucy at that moment, shooing away the pesky fly at the Gryffindor table in the great hall that morning.
Bev didn't argue with the wave though, instead she book of down the corridor that lead to the Library. Bev didn't much like the library, it smelled like mildew and ink and wrinkles. She hadn't even known wrinkles had a smell before she was introduced to the Hogwarts library.
She made her way through the shelves wincing at some of the longer words that had no meaning to her like Bundimun and Erkling and Creaothceann. She felt like crying. She was a muggleborn after all, all the other kids had families that could help them with magic and had grown up with it; she hadn't.
She rounded a corner to her favorite place in the library, if there was such a thing. She sat on the chair that was there and put her head in the counter top. It was the Muggle Studies section, this announced to her brain with another pinprick that she wasn't really going to fit in here.
She stared out the window at The Quidditch pitch, there was a practice going on. The colors weren't really visible but by the way the Keeper was yelling at the Beater she knew it was Gryffindor. She smiled, a little.
She watched at the two brooms circled around a bit as they yelled at each other. James and Katherin had a problem with yelling, not that they didn't like it, no, that they didn't stop doing it. Bev wished she could be like Katherin sometimes, a lot of the time she figured she was.
Katherin was raised by a Squib. Now that squib was in Azkaban but that was beside the point. Bev reached up for a book. At random she pulled down a Muggle Literature book, Meg Cabot's Princess Diaries. It was a wizard's addition meaning it side notes and little side bars telling wizards what the Muggle things meant or the Wizarding World equivalent.
Things like 'Cell phone' had a bullet point next to it saying what it was, a mini flu network that works with invisible sound waves in the sky; 'Light switch' had a note, a 'lumos' device that turns on a glass bulb filled with fire making light; or even 'Computer', a memory and –for lack of better word- wand-like device for doing everyday things faster like shopping or sending letters.
Bev laughed at a few of them. She wanted to take Muggle studies next year –her third year- just so maybe she could get a good laugh.
"Is that you?" She turned to see a familiar face; Lily's cousin and her other best friend Hugo. Hugo had glasses perched on the end of his nose making him look like an old man. She gave a giggle at how his freckles through the glasses were at least twice the size of them normal.
"Maybe." She turned to him a bit more. "Aren't you supposed to be with Al doing… something?" She didn't really pay attention when he had told her.
He looked at her like she was being confusing. "Yeah but I finished and now I'm here."
Bev nodded, obvious was all that he said but he made it sound so important. He looked out the window behind her. She turned to follow his gaze. The Beater was now trying to whack the Keeper with the Beater's Bat.
Bev laughed again, only to be echoed by Hugo. "So what brings you to my section of the library?" After she said it she felt bad again. Her section, along with all her Muggle-ness.
Hugo sat down next to her. "What makes you think it's your section, why is it not my section?"
She turned to him and she saw the smile perched on his lips. He was there to make her feel better. That was a surprise seeing as they were really not that suited for friends.
He pulled down a copy of the same book she had in front of her. "Tell me, what is a battery, really? I don't think that a Wizarding book can tell you what one is."
Bev quickly turned to the page. She almost laughed, not that the definition was off, just that it was a little awkward, 'A cylindrical energy containment vessel', looked like someone was just trying to look smart. "Well, most Muggle electrical handheld devices run on a sort of battery. The battery is a metal casing around a chemical reaction that makes energy that devices in the Muggle world can use."
She smiled to herself, she tried to hide it from Hugo but he noticed anyway. "Okay then, how about… uhzzbh." He pointed to a word on the page.
Bev started to lean over to read it then remembered she had her own book open. "USB?" Hugo shrugged. She read the definition for it, 'an electrical brain that stores information'. "It's not what that says." She looked a bit disgusted at the page thinking about the possibility for a wizard to think someone would carry around a disembodied brain with them. She shuddered. "It's a metal chip that was invented to store electrical information. It works with the use of a Muggle computer and it can hold Songs or Games or Stories."
Hugo smiled at 'Stories'. He and Rose loved to read books, so did Bev to a certain extent, as long as she liked the material she was reading. "Okay how about-"
"NO. My turn now." She pulled him by the arm and back to the Miscellaneous Section. She pointed at a book on the eye level bookcase.
Hugo straightened his glasses. "Oranges and Apples?"
Bev huffed. "No the blue one next to that one."
Hugo looked closer. "Erkling?" Bev nodded. "An Erkling is like an elf that is 3 ft tall and likes to eat children that it lures away from their guardians, hence I know that because my mom didn't want me wandering off to the cackling noise it makes and get feasted on." He gave her a look as to say 'it's okay not to know that'.
She turned back to the shelf and looked for the other words she had seen earlier. "How about Bundimun?"
She turned back to Hugo who seemed to be thinking hard. "A Bundimun looks like green fungus with eyes; it eats dirt and makes houses smell like they're rotting. Their slimy –well, I guess it's slimy never actually read that it was- fluids are used in wizard cleaning supplies." He gave her a look over his glasses that made a thought like 'it's not okay that I know that, it is abnormal for me to know that and normal for you not to' pop into her head making her feel better.
She teetered on her tip toes and scanned the shelf for the last word. "Creaothceann."
He nodded. "You would like this book." He pulled down the book that someone had carelessly left opened and propped against the shelf. Bev knew it irked him when people didn't put books back correctly. "It's about Quidditch, and your not that bad at quidditch." He handed it to her. "Aingingein is a precursor to Quidditch. It was played in Ireland and was pretty brutal. Many people died in the game. 12 people would balance a cauldron on their head and try to catch as many falling rocks as they could, sometimes, as many as, 10 of them would die. Some poem was written about it."
Bev had flipped through the pages of the book; listening to Hugo but only while she was skimming pages. "The players assemble, twelve fine, hearty men,* They strapped on their cauldrons, stood poised to fly, * At the sound of the horn they were swiftly airborne * But ten of their number were fated to die. From an eleventh century Gaelic poem."
She looked up to him. He was smiling. "You should check that out. I could let you borrow a few of my other books too if you would like." He watched with big round eyes that seemed to hold no emotion, but at the same time flock with several.
Bev tried to figure that out. "I would like that; maybe I could shake off some of this Muggle stuff." She had said it nonchalantly but even she could hear the tightness in her voice, so she knew Hugo heard it, he was ultra-observant like that.
He gave her a pointed look. "Don't do that. That would be horrible."
He turned and walked away into the maze of shelves he had probably already memorized inside and out. Bev stood there without a remark like she usually would've had waiting at her dispense.
She checked out the book. Madame Pince flicked her wand and Bev's name and 'Quidditch through the ages' popped up on the scroll in neat handwritten font.
She smiled, Muggle scanners and bar codes were so much cooler.