A/N: Hello, mateys! Thank you, my ducklings, for all the lovely reviews and words of nicety and such. Woohoo, I've got around 3500 hits for this — something I'm ridiculously proud of. Anyway, as you can see, I have updated. That was snappy, wasn't it? I thought so.


Lesson 5: Angst, Angst, Baby (Part II)


January, 1997

The Hogwarts library is vastly over-rated.

Don't get me wrong: I was well aware of this before. If I've learned anything at this school (and I like to think that I have), it's that only bad things lurk in libraries, like sexually-repressed librarians (and, really, only someone really barking would find Filch attractive, so that suggests a certain amount of mental imbalance as well); pale, pointy-faced eavesdroppers; and depraved Eastern European, hooked-nosed, Quidditch-playing—you get the idea. It's no place for those of sound morals and senses.

But no, I had to go and disregard my instincts and ideals for the sake of my sanity and overall health and condition (not to mention world peace and all that). I'm too damn altruistic for my own good.

As I should have expected, my noble self-sacrifice has been to no end. As of yet I've not received any sort of trophy, plaque, life-size statue, epic ode, or... well, any recognition at all (okay, that's not entirely true; Madam Pince did glare at me something awful when I walked in here, but that wasn't really the acknowledgment I was shooting for). I haven't even managed to achieve what I came into this blasted place to do. It's times like this that make a bloke wonder why he bothered going through the trouble of getting out of bed that morning. Oh wait, that's right, today was Waffle Day. Completely worth it.

I think I'm going to have a therapeutic internal rant now—relieve my frustration and all that. We don't need two moody buggers running around.

How bleeding typical, though. I swear, I must've done something ridiculously crummy in a past life or something. I mean, honestly, the one time I intentionally go to the library for reasons that are entirely unrelated to some mystery Harry's bent on solving or one of Herm—her pre-exam fits of madness, or… No, wait. Those are basically the only reasons I ever venture in here...

What? It's not exactly the most pleasant place in the castle. And it's most certainly not in the running for Better Moats and Castles 'most effective interior design' award… Come to think of it, Madam Pince doesn't do much for it either, aesthetically or environmentally.

Anyway, back to what I was thinking before (Godric's socks, I have a wretched attention span), it shouldn't have been such a surprise that the one damn time I put my trust in this famed center of stuffy librarians, books, and other torture devices, it does me absolutely no good whatsoever. At all. Nada. Zilch. And all other words that mean "completely unhelpful".

Well, I s'pose one upshot of this horrid and entirely pointless excursion is that it at least got me away from Mr. 'tornado mood' Potter, who's in a snit for one reason or another. The worst bit about this one is (relatively speaking, of course; it's not as if any of Harry's moods are exactly rays of sunshine in my days), not only is the library being superbly uninformative on the subject, Ginny told us at breakfast she was planning spending the day with that git Thomas (and, that 'there's nothing I can bloody do about it, so suck it up and go bother someone else for once'—she's about as testy as Harry sometimes, I swear), so I can't enlist her to pull him (Harry, not Dean-jailbaiter-Thomas) out of whatever mood he's sunk into. Absolutely no consideration for others (namely, me), that one.

What upside was there to this, again? Oh yeah, silence. Lovely silence. Everything here is perfectly, fantastically silent (if a bit dusty and booky). Argh, what the hell was that? As I was saying: completely silent, until that shrimpy twit over there just wandered in (what is this place, anyway, a daycare center?), sniveling like some congested flobberworm (and twice as useless). As a Prefect, I really should go over there and tell him to go and get sorted out by Pomfrey; the rest of us in this accursed establishment haven't done anything to deserve his one-man bogey symphony.

No. Enough of your benevolence, Ron; nothing good comes of it.

Right.

Someone needs to make it well known and clear, to prevent any more poor sods such as myself from coming in here for no payoff, that the Hogwarts library—home to more than two-effing-million books (according to She-Who-Snogged-Krum-And-Now-Must-Not-Be-Named)—is utterly devoid of self-help manuals. That explains quite a bit, actually. Snape, for example. But you'd think, with a place as stuffed with Slytherins as this one is, that they'd at least invest in some decent anger management texts. For the good of the rest of us, at the very least.

I'm not even looking for one for myself (unless they've got some guide to ridding oneself of clingy girlfriends stashed in one of these dusty shelves). My generosity bites me in the arse again! At the rate I'm going, I'm just going to have a look around for a support group and be done with this whole sorry mess… "I'm Harry Potter, and the only emotion I don't repress is anger." "Hi, Harry." Oh yes, that would go over brilliantly. Never mind, then.

Why do I bother?

I can't go back to the dormitory yet. With my luck, I'll probably come back to him still in a right state. There's just no reasoning with him when he's like this—especially when he won't tell me what the hell happened to make him so angry. This morning when I returned from a very satisfying, waffle-filled meal (which, because he's completely off his rocker, he excused himself from early), I found him grumbling and brooding about in the dormitory. I asked him what the problem was and he just glowered at me. I told him I'd talk to him when he stopped PMS-ing, and then came here.

Uh oh, Madam Pince is stalking in here (she looks downright scary when she does that). She probably thinks I've been loitering here too long and I must be defiling her precious books or something—or, even more absurd: that I want to check one out.

I apprehensively return to the Dormitory sometime later. I don't know whether to expect a war zone or a peace summit. I stand outside the door for a minute and can't help but think I should have brought a helmet or something; just in case.

"Where've you been, mate?" he asks quietly (his I know I've acted rotten all day and I feel bad about it, but I can't help that I got a double helping of adolescent moodiness and have a bald psychopath after my skin voice) when I finally muster enough pluck to push open the door (employing some really ace Auror-type moves, might I add.) He's giving me a rather odd look, so I stop crouching and stick my wand back in my pocket.

"In the library," I answer evasively. I'm not sure if he's truly calmed down yet. (Honestly, if anyone needs a diary, this bloke does.)

He throws me a look dripping with irony, which I don't much appreciate, thanks. "No, really."

"I'm dead serious." I can't exactly blame him for not believing me. I have been rather… vocal about my aversion to all things homework- and library- related.

"Why? You never go in there, especially now that H—" I shut him up with a glare (not that he responds all that docilely—he's rolling his eyes now). Nobody, not even those protected under the sacred code of best mate-ship, is allowed to speak the name of… Yeah. That one.

"Studying." It's not like I'm going to tell him what I was really up to. I would very much like to keep my limbs attached to my body, thanks. But still, even I want to snort at myself. What kind of rubbish excuse was that? Only someone sensationally dim would believe such a porkie as that.

"You're a dreadful liar." Thanks, because you're a simply spectacular one. "Just… tell me you weren't with her in there" He doesn't need to explain who 'her' is... But really, is the barely-repressed look of repulsion all that necessary? "'Cos having that disturbing image in my brain whenever I'm there would put me right of my revising or whatever, and I don't want your out of control hormones to lower my marks."

Now that's just unfair... I was down there for his sake, after all. He should be on his knees—preferably bearing a plate of waffles or something—beseeching for my forgiveness.

But, as I mentioned before, I can't tell him this (have you seen him duel? I want none of that, thanks very much), so I do the only thing I could possibly do in a situation such as this one. I fling my pillow at him. He, laughing, dodges it. Thank Agrippa he's back to normal (well, for Harry, that is; as I said before, everything's relative).


Clearly, my years at Hogwarts were very taxing on my mental and emotional health. There could be lasting damages, you know.

That would explain quite a bit...

The important things to take away from this are (besides the whole library thing—remember that, kids. Dead useless, that thing is. Not to mention positively teeming with unsavory company):

- no matter what shite your mate puts you through, chances are, he'll calm down eventually (that, or he'll explode—either works)

- when he does this, he usually feels pretty rotten about his behavior, and apologizes

- he'll also probably save your skin to make up for it

- while he's being utterly disagreeable, you get loads of Me Time (something you'll really come to treasure in retrospect when you're shoved into a tent for months with your him and select others)

- his moods almost never interfere with Waffle Day

- it's important to think of decent excuses before you have to give them

- when you don't know what's wrong, just let him stew for a while (like when you bake a cake and have to let it alone for a bit so it'll cool down, and you can eat it... same concept, just, you know, minus the eating part. That's generally frowned upon in today's society.)


A/N: Before you review and ask me why I didn't include a scene of ALLCAPS!Harry, I'll answer you here: I think we've all seen enough of that, haven't we? If you're really feeling deprived, check out book numero five; it's got loads of delicious capital letters. I've determined that this fic will end up around 10-12 chapters in total. Oh yeah, as I mentioned in my profile, which you may or may not have seen, I am thinking about going back and doing some minor edits and such to prior chapters—you know, snip out the repetitive and sucky bits, and stick in some new stuff. What do you all think of that idea?

Reviews are like pie.

... I like pie.

Coming up: The Funnier, The Better (humor and how to use it)