A/N: This is a one-shot drabble written at about 11:30 last night. Terribly sorry about the rotten title, but it wouldn't let me sleep until I wrote it, and I was exhausted, so here it is. My take on Ginevra and books. Slight hints of Gin x Tonic.
Books
By: Catty Rose
Before first year, Ginevra never cared for books of any kind. No one in her family put much stock in books, except Percy, but he had always been in love with black and white. To him, books were just an extension of that colorless order of his defined world. So naturally, she never paid any mind to books. Oh, sure, she knew it was important to be smart. But she wasn't a student yet, and wouldn't be for some time, so she figured she'd wait. Once school started, she thought that her love affair with books would start then. So, she waited.
As she got older, she heard tales of a completely different kind of magic. Books, too, it seemed, could cast a spell on someone. Some said that books were a gateway to another world. That all one had to do was pick up a book, and escape could be found in their pages. But no matter how old she got, she never quite believed.
When first year rolled around, she did indeed fall in love with a book. The written word became her addiction. She put her heart and soul into it, ensnared by the luring spell of the page. It wasn't quite the affair she was expecting, though. For one thing, her book was not to be found in any library, and the text found inside was never the same twice.
Unlike other children, she did not fall in love with tales of brave knights and slain dragons. She fell for a dark lord and his woven web of silky lies, his empty words and fractured fairy tales. And when she was rescued by her prince, she wept. Not for her guilt, or her life, but for an irreplaceable book lost forever.
After first year, Ginevra never quite looked at books the same. She could often be found in the library, curled up in a chair amidst the shelves, reading. Not for the love of reading, as others assumed, but for the smell of old pages and the untapped potential of the written word. And sometimes, if she read long enough, in the still silence of the library, she could just make out the whispers of his words through her bleary eyes. And that made it all worth it. Because to Ginevra, there was no greater or more fearful type of magic.