Hello everyone,

I am planning on wrapping this up soon, obviously, I will do my best to not rush things too much, but as life moves on I find myself less and less inclined to write. However, I am determined to finish this, it was the one goal I had when I started writing. Hopefully, the quality won't dip too much in my haste to finish this, I cannot say how many chapters are left but just fair warning that this will be ending soon in a hopefully satisfactory manner.

Levy POV

She bustled into the Ravenclaw dorm after absentmindedly answering the riddle of the door. Lucy, as expected, was waiting for her anxious to talk about what happened with Gajeel. They both changed into their pajamas quickly anxious to start talking.

"Well? How did it go? What did he say?" Lucy inquired as soon as they got to their beds. They both sat on Levy's wanting to have more privacy. All of that reading had mellowed Levy's anger and replaced it with melancholic disappointment.

"Nothing he said nothing, he didn't even show up." She looked away dejectedly.

"What are we going to do then? Tell the Headmaster?"

They both jumped as the door to the dorm opened, but it was just some other girls getting ready for bed. Levy waited anxiously before the other girls settled down. Leaning closer to Lucy to whisper.

"I… I don't know. I know we have to say something, I just… I know how stupid it is, that part of me is hoping that there is a perfect reason for him not showing, that there is a magical explanation for all of this. That he isn't a manipulative liar who used me."

"Well… We can't do anything tonight, its too late now, we will have to wait until tomorrow anyway. Are you okay Lev'? I know how much you liked him, do you want to talk about it?" Lucy said softly.

Levy shook her head sadly, "No... I can't think about this anymore… Thank you, Lucy, but I just want to be left alone right now, okay?

Lucy looked hesitant, saying " As long as you know that I'm here if you do want to talk. Goodnight Levy"

"Night Lucy"

Lucy quietly got into her bed, sparing one last glance towards her tiny friend before closing her eyes and going to sleep.

Levy, on the other hand, was far too anxious to sleep. She crawled under her blankets with her bag of books, using Lumos to read under her covers. She finished the one she had been reading earlier and reached into her bag for another when something caught her eye.

She pulled out one of the books from the middle of the pile and stared at it. There was something… off about it, it was a relatively thin book, but it felt quite heavy. The cover said that it was a book on transfiguration, but upon opening it, she found that it was a very disorganized book. As if the order of the chapters had been switched around or done absentmindedly. In addition to that, the organizational numbering on the tag of the book was not accurate to the transfiguration section of the library.

She stared intensely at it, she wasn't sure if she was right but… She whispered a disenchantment spell, trying to be as quiet as possible to not wake the others.

The cover shifted and then faded. Revealing its true cover and increasing in width.

"Secrets of the Darkest Arts?" Levy whispered to herself. It vaguely reminded her of the sorts of books that she gathered for Gajeel. Although the dark arts were not something she was particularly interested in the fact that someone had specifically decided to conceal this book piqued her interest.

In usual Levy fashion she centred her mind and focused purely on the book, shutting everything else out, Gajeel, Professor Dreyar, what to tell the Headmaster. Settling into her pillows she read.

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Shakily she closed the book, having finished it. She now understood why this book had been concealed. It was deeply disturbing. At first glance, it was a rudimentary book on the dark arts. But upon closer inspection, that was only a front.

The real book was a puzzle, by piecing it together there were detailed notes about curses and certain deadly spells. However, the spells were not complete, there were only fragments of spells and curses. Levy being the intellectual she is she could tell that this was apart of something bigger.

The section she had pulled the books from was had nothing to do with the dark arts, clearly, some effort had been put in to conceal the book and put it in an unpopular section of the library. Upon removing the concealment there had been no dusk on the book as if it had been moved recently and concealed recently.

Then there was the stuff going on with Gajeel. The books he got her to collect all had something to do with the dark arts. She had never seen him with them after he initially got them, he clearly wasn't reading them, so what was he doing with them? He was… giving them to Professor Dreyar in exchange for a better Potions grade. That made sense, but what was the Professor doing with them? What did he get out of this deal?

Levy had started to sweat underneath her heavy blankets, both due to the heat of reading beneath them, but also out of this realization. She couldn't sleep now. It was only a few hours until the sun would start to shine. She had to do something with this book, it wasn't safe to keep in the dorms.

She quietly rose from her bed wrapping a cloak around her shoulders. She knew some spells to conceal herself, it wouldn't be perfect, but hopefully, the darkness would provide the cover she needed. After stepping outside the bedroom area and into the hallway where the exit was she whispered her disillusionment charm camouflaging herself to blend into the background as if she were a chameleon.

She raced through the halls as quickly and quietly as she could. Once outside, the night air was sharp, she shivered underneath her cloak. The forest loomed in the distance, slowly getting closer.

Once further inside she deemed it safe enough to use her wand for some light, there'd be no sense in hiding the book in the woods if she got lost trying to get out. That would arise too much suspicion as to why she was there in the first place.

After making it a considerable distance into the woods she chose a tree and started digging with her hands underneath its raised roots. She tucked the book into the mid-sized hole covering, patting the dirt down to make it look less disturbed.

Giving one final look around she determined that she had covered her tracks sufficiently enough, she rushed back towards the castle as the light started to break over the horizon.

Getting out of the castle had been a quick and relatively painless endeavour but getting back in was another story. Her camouflage spell did not work very well in daylight, and more people were out now milling around the castle starting their day. There were a few close calls, but she managed to make it back to the dorm and into the washroom to clean off the dirt. By the time she was done other girls had started to get up, she almost ran straight into Lucy heading into the washroom.

"Woah! Jeez Lev' you're up early" She said sleepily as she rubbed her eyes.

"Aha yeah, couldn't sleep I guess," She said distractedly.

"Well give me a bit to get dressed and wake up, then we can talk about what we are going to do"

Confusion crossed Levy's face "What we're going to do?"

"About Gajeel?" Lucy said slightly more awake now, noticing that her friend seemed a bit off.

"Oh! Right, yes, we will talk… later. I have this thing I have to do first" Before Lucy had a chance to say anything else Levy had already rushed out of the dorm.

Hope that was alright! As I said I won't be editing/doing as much oversight, I really want to finish this before I get busy again.