New Dreams for Old


Chapter 2
On Books

The books we think we ought to read are poky, dull, and dry;
The books that we would like to read we are ashamed to buy;
The books that people talk about we never can recall;
And the books that people give us, oh, they're the worst of all.

-Carolyn Wells, "On Books"

"Hag… Hellhound… Hinkypunk…

Katie murmured each name under her breath as she made her way down the stack of books, running her fingers over each smooth leather spine as she did so. The name of each creature was neatly printed in gold lettering under each grouping of books, in alphabetical order, for which Katie was extremely grateful. The book she was looking for would have been nearly impossible to find otherwise.

"Hippocampus… Hippogriff… Ah, here it is."

Katie pulled a book from a shelf near the floor. She blew the dust from the cover, which was a rather nauseating shade of pink, and turned to smile at the harried-looking witch peering over her shoulder. "Is this what you're looking for?"

Katie held out the book, and the witch took it in her hands, reading aloud the faded gold lettering on the spine. "Horklumps and Hedges: Practical Plans for Prettier Posies."

The witch looked up with a grateful smile. "That's the one. I was beginning to think that I'd never find it, and my garden is just full of the little buggers."

Katie stood and brushed the dust off of her robes. "I beg your pardon, madam, but… Have you tried gnomes? My mum had a problem with Horklumps a few years ago, and she set a few gnomes loose in the garden. The Horklumps disappeared rather quickly after that."

The witch nodded miserably. "I've been trying to tell my husband the same thing, but he won't hear of it. Grows prize-winning cabbages, you see, and he's lost too many young cabbages to gnomes over the years. I tried to tell him, but he put traps in all of the gnomeholes in our garden this past summer. Now the gnomes stay away, but the Horklumps…." She shook her head sadly. "My poor roses…."

Katie smiled. "Well, maybe you can find something in that book that will help you. Shall I ring it up for you, then?"

The witch nodded and followed Katie to the ancient wooden counter near the back of the store. She placed the vibrantly pink book on the counter and started rummaging through her battered purse, muttering to herself. "One… two… oh, no… two, three, four… no, three…."

Katie watched the woman out of the corner of her eye as she pushed a few buttons on the ancient cash register. The enchanted tag rose with a click and the muffled ring of a bell. Four galleons, seven, please.

Katie bit her lip and watched as the witch pulled three galleons out of her purse, placing them on the worn wooden counter with a sigh. Then she went back into her purse, counting slowly. "Two, three, four…." That must have been all that she had, because she put four silver sickles down next to the galleons and looked up at Katie with a hopeful expression.

Katie quickly pushed another button on the cash register and the enchanted tag clicked back down before the witch had a chance to see. Then she smiled and looked over the counter.

"Two galleons, nineteen."

The witch's eyebrows rose slightly. "Two galleons, nineteen? Are you sure? That doesn't seem like very much."

"Quite sure, madam."

The witch let out an audible sigh of relief, and a brilliant smile appeared on her weathered features. "I…." She stared at the coins on the counter thoughtfully for a moment, then looked back up at Katie. "Could I also have the latest copy of Witch Weekly, please? I think I may just have enough."

Katie smiled and stretched toward a rack of newspapers and magazines on the other side of the counter. "There's a feature article on the World Cup next week. Bulgaria's favored to win, of course, but I think England stands a good chance."

The witch laughed. "I can tell my husband I bought the magazine for him, then. He's mad about Quidditch, absolutely manic. Played at school before we were married."

She smiled fondly. "Quite a sight in his uniform, he was. Tall, dark-eyed and… well, he had all of his hair then, you know. Quite reminds me of that young Puddlemere Keeper. Not that Radcliffe fellow, you know… the other one. What's his name?"

Katie's smile faltered slightly, but she kept her eyes on the register. "Wood, madam."

The witch looked up, grinning. "That's it! Wood!" She nodded her head appreciatively. "Such a nice-looking fellow, don't you think? And quite talented. He had a wonderful match against Ballycastle about a week back…."

Katie nodded without speaking. She did not entirely trust her voice at the moment.

The witch's face colored and she grinned a little self-consciously. "Not that I follow Puddlemere, you understand. My husband is strictly a Tuthill man."

A faint smile returned to Katie's lips as she took the coins off of the counter and put them in the drawer. She punched a few of the buttons, punched a few more, then retrieved some coins out of the drawer and offered them to the woman.

"Fifteen sickles, madam."

The witch took them with a grateful smile and carefully placed them back in the battered purse. "Thank you so much, miss. You've been a wonderful help."

Katie nodded faintly as she shut the drawer to the till. "Not at all, madam. And good luck with your cabbages."

The witch gave a little snort something like a laugh as she took her purchases from the counter. "I'm only waiting until they're large enough to make a decent roll, and then my husband will find a few missing. Let him blame it on the gnomes, if he wants to, they've all gone. He can't hurt what isn't there, bless him." She winked at Katie and turned toward the door.

Katie kept the smile on her lips long enough to watch the woman disappear out the door into Diagon Alley. Then she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She had almost pushed away all thoughts of last night's dream, and now the images came rushing back with a vengeance. Stupid Oliver…. Everywhere she went, everything she saw… It was getting ridiculous. She was over him. He had hurt her, and she was over him. It was as simple as that. She frowned slightly, shook her head to clear her thoughts, and looked around.

Flourish and Blott's Bookstore was all but deserted. Quiet, smelling of dust and parchment and that faintly electrical scent of residual magic. In a shadowy corner, a wiry, dark-haired man sat poring over a thick leather-bound volume of potions lore. Though he was not Professor Snape, and in reality bore little resemblance to Katie's former Potions professor, the scene brought back unexpected memories of a dark dungeon classroom and simmering cauldrons full of malodorous ingredients Katie would rather not think about.

On a frail-looking ladder, an even frailer-looking witch stood on tiptoe, muttering to herself as she looked over various volumes on Arithmancy. Her spectacles were almost gray with dust, and her hair was very much the same color, though whether it took its shade from the dust on the shelves or the passage of time, Katie couldn't say.

Other than those two unlikely patrons, the manager, and herself, the bookstore was completely empty. The summer holidays were nearing their end, but there were a few weeks left before the beginning of the school term. The rush for Hogwarts textbooks had not yet begun, and things had always been slow in the morning. Katie leaned forward on the counter, crossed her arms on the worn surface, and looked out the large storefront windows.

Outside the bookstore, Diagon Alley was quite a bit busier than the small bookstore. Witches and wizards rushed by the window on their way further down the alley. The older witches and wizards generally made their way through the streets in ones and twos, but the younger wizardfolk were traveling in packs, and generally in one direction.

Katie smiled as a particularly raucous group of children ran by the window, pulling each other by the hand and shouting through their laughter. She knew instinctively where they were headed. Quality Quidditch Supplies was no more than two doors down the lane, and Quidditch World Cup fever was in full swing.

The Bulgarian team was the clear favorite to win, as it had been for the past two years, thanks to the continued presence of Seeker Viktor Krum. However, several of the other teams had been having tremendously successful seasons, and no one Katie knew had (as of yet) been brave enough to make any wagers on the outcome. Of course, the unspoken consensus among her friends and their friends and indeed, everyone that Katie had spoken to or overheard, was that it was England's year. It had been almost ten years since an English victory at the Quidditch World Cup, and everyone (in England, anyway) agreed that they were certainly due.

Now if only someone would tell that to the English team.

The English Quidditch team had been plagued for the past few months by a rash of bad press and a seemingly constant shifting of players and positions. First Brian Hardinger, one of the first-line Beaters for the team, had resigned, citing "irreconcilable differences" with management and several of the other players. (There were whispers of an "irreconcilable" drinking problem, but those rumors had never been either confirmed or denied by anyone associated with the British and Irish Quidditch League.)

A few weeks after that, the star Keeper of the team, Roderick Devonshire, had been pulled from the roster, the result of injuries sustained during an exhibition match against Yugoslavia. Apparently, the Yugoslavian Beaters were very… enthusiastic, and Devonshire had been struck simultaneously by both Bludgers in an area of his body where any contact with a Quaffle would now be extremely painful. After all, a Keeper is all but worthless without the use of his… hands.

The most recent change in the English Quidditch team had been the resignation of the reserve Keeper, Michael Rayne. There had been no mention in the press of the reason for Rayne's disappearance from the roster, but again, the rumor mill had been running rampant. There were whispers about everything from illicit affairs with members of the governing organization to massive conspiracies on the part of the British and Irish Quidditch League, the International Association of Quidditch, and the teams from Spain, America, and particularly Albania, which had a very small team but a very loud manager. Regardless of the reason, the English Quidditch team was now without a Keeper, and time was quickly running out.

Katie looked at her watch. A present from Fred and George Weasley, she had no idea what had inspired her to keep the silly thing. On the surface, it was nothing more than an ordinary timepiece, but it had one rather irritating difference. Katie groaned as she looked at the blank face of the watch. When she looked directly at the face of the watch, the numbers disappeared, leaving only a faintly shimmering disk of… nothing. She had to look past the watch, to the side, anywhere else, and only then would the numbers appear in a clear black script. Katie sighed and held the watch in front of her face, looking past it toward the front window. 12:17.

It was precisely at 12:17 that her stomach chose to growl rather loudly, and in his shadowy corner, the dark-haired man looked up with a scowl. Katie flashed him her most ingratiating smile and idly wished that she had eaten more than half a piece of toast and a cold cup of tea on her way out the door that morning. Well, half a piece of toast, a cold cup of tea, and piece of chewing gum she had found in the pocket of her robes. She sighed and straightened her shoulders, then turned and walked toward a door in the back of the store.

The sounds of rustling paper and muffled curses were easy to follow, and it didn't take Katie long to find the manager of Flourish and Blott's all but buried in a pile of thick leather-bound books and mountains of paperwork. He was currently scribbling furiously on a wrinkled piece of parchment and counting under his breath. "Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven…."

Katie knocked softly on the doorframe. "Umm… Mr. Pendlesmythe?"

Reginald Q. Pendlesmythe III let out a sharp yelp and promptly dropped his quill into a particularly nasty-looking pile of papers. He dove after it, but finding nothing but an armful of parchment, he sat up again with a wistful sigh. He looked around for a moment in confusion, then glanced up at Katie. He blinked at her, then again, then furrowed his brow into a mass of wrinkles and twisted his mouth into a sort of frustrated smirk.

"Bugger, now I've lost count…."

He started searching again for the lost quill, twisting this way and that and sending papers flying in a cloud around him. Katie took a quick step into the room, shooting out a practiced hand and snatching a series of passing invoices out of the air.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Pendlesmythe, but I was only going to ask…."

"Ruddy quill… Paid nine sickles for that blasted thing last week, and it's useless, absolutely useless! 'Returning Quill,' my foot! Ruddy thing couldn't return if I fastened a rubber string on the end and…."

Katie cleared her throat, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. "Would… you be referring to the quill behind your ear, sir?"

Mr. Pendlesmythe sat up quickly. He ran one hand over his head and past his ear. When that hand found nothing, he repeated the process on the other side of his head, and let out a shout of triumph as his fingers curled around a dark green quill hidden under a mess of graying hair.

"That's it!" A broad grin broke out on his features as he pulled out his prize. "Always knew I'd find the blasted thing! Old Alexander's never steered me wrong, no sir! Best quills this side of London, I've always said…."

Katie laughed under her breath and held out the captured invoices to the manager. "Of course you have, sir."

Mr. Pendlesmythe barked out a laugh and stood up, parchments fluttering around him like feathers. "Well, perhaps not always." He brushed off his robes and looked inquiringly at Katie, taking the papers from her hand. "Now, Miss Bell, what can I do for you?"

Katie plucked another paper out of the air and added it to the pile in Mr. Pendlesmythe's hands. "Well, I was actually hoping I might pop out for a bit of lunch, if it's not too…."

Mr. Pendlesmythe quickly waved a thin hand around, cutting her off. "Yes, yes… Lunch. Must be hours past noon. Go and get something, and quickly. Lots to do, lots to do. Hogwarts textbooks just came in. Huge lot. Some nasty buggers, too."

Katie looked at the enormous pile of books in the center of the room. The majority of the books looked like the standard, leather-bound textbooks she had used for seven years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but there were a few books, in fact an entire pile off to the side that seemed to be shifting in and out of focus and changing color every few minutes. Mr. Pendlesmythe followed Katie's gaze and made a strange little snorting noise.

"Defense Against the Dark Arts. I'm quite beginning to dislike that class. Not as much as Care of Magical Creatures, of course. That Professor Hagrid has strange tastes in literature, I can tell you that."

Katie laughed in spite of herself. "If you'd like me to stay…."

Mr. Pendlesmythe made the same birdlike motion with his hand and shook his head. "No, no. Go and get something to eat. Books'll still be here when you get back." He glanced toward the Defense Against the Dark Arts textbooks and sighed loudly. "I hope."

Katie was turning to go when the manager spoke again.

"Oh, Miss Bell, there is one thing…."

Katie looked over her shoulder at Mr. Pendlesmythe, raising both eyebrows in silent inquiry. He took a step toward her, tucking the quill once more behind his ear and narrowing his eyes thoughtfully.

"That last sale you made. Nervous little thing. Bought a copy of… Horklumps and Hedges, was it?"

Katie turned to face him. "Yes, sir."

He nodded slowly, pursing his thin lips. "What price did the register give on that particular volume?"

Katie's heart sank. She paused for a moment, then took a deep breath and said, "Four… and seven, I believe, sir.

Mr. Pendlesmythe nodded again, even more slowly. "And you quoted the price as…?"

Katie's heart sank further.

"Miss Bell…?

Katie took another deep breath and looked toward the far corner. "Two… and nineteen, sir."

The manager made a little "hmph"ing noise. He paused for a moment, then took another step toward Katie, folding his hands behind his back. "I see. And you thought that appropriate, did you?"

"Mr. Pendlesmythe, I…."

He held up a hand for silence. "Miss Bell, I have been trying to get rid of that book for nearly three years. Ruddy nuisance, and ugly as Satan's cat. Can't imagine why the poor woman wanted it, anyway. Probably not worth more than a handful of sickles, especially after Scamander's book came out a few years back…."

Katie blinked in surprise, then let out an enormous sigh of relief as Mr. Pendlesmythe began to pace in front of her, waving his hands around and going on about books and newts and sickles and why would anyone dye leather that horrid color, anyway?

"All she needs to do is find herself a few gnomes, and…."

Katie cleared her throat softly. "Umm… She can't use gnomes, sir."

Mr. Pendlesmythe stopped in his tracks and turned look at her, a bewildered look on his face.

"Can't use gnomes? Ridiculous. Why on Earth not?"

"Cabbages, sir."

Mr. Pendlesmythe blinked and shook his head slowly, wrinkling his forehead in confusion. "Cabbages…."

Katie nodded seriously, biting the inside of her mouth to keep from laughing. "Yes, sir. Cabbages."

Mr. Pendlesmythe blinked again, then shook his head and gave a short laugh. "If you say so, Miss Bell. But back to the matter at hand. Though I believe your heart was in the right place, I must insist that in the future you ask me before altering prices on any item found in our fine establishment."

Katie nodded quickly. "Of course, sir…."

Mr. Pendlesmythe gave another little snort, cutting her off again. "I wouldn't have asked for more than an even two galleons. One, maybe. Probably would have even paid her to cart the ruddy thing away. Is she interested in Fungometry, do you think?"

Katie smiled and shook her head. "I… didn't think to ask, sir."

Mr. Pendlesmythe shook his head sadly. "A pity, that. Now there's one or two volumes I should like to see disappear…." He looked at Katie as if seeing her for the first time and raised one bushy eyebrow. "Weren't you going to lunch, Miss Bell?"

Katie nodded, forcing the smile from her lips. "Yes, sir. Thank you."

The manager nodded brusquely and pulled his quill out from behind his ear. "Very good." He looked down at the invoices in his hands, then sighed and shook his head miserably. "Not so good. Not so very good, indeed…."

Katie stopped in the doorway. "I'll not be long, sir."

Mr. Pendlesmythe only waved a thin hand and grunted in reply. He had already gone back to his pile of books and papers, and was scribbling furiously away at the same wrinkled piece of parchment he had been attacking earlier.

"Forty-four, forty-five, forty-six…."

Angelina had been as good as her word, and when Katie walked out of the back room, Angelina and Alicia had come in the front, and Alicia was closing the door to the street behind them. Angelina caught Katie's eye and waved.

Katie waved back. She looked around the bookstore quickly. The dark-haired man had disappeared, and the frail-looking witch was still on the ladder in the section on Arithmancy. Though by her stature, Katie suspected that she had fallen asleep and was only being held up by the handrails. With any luck, Katie would be back before she woke up and the afternoon customers made their appearance.

She slipped out of her dark work robes and handed them to an overeager coat rack, which snatched them possessively from her hands. She scowled at the rack. "I'll need those back, you know." The coat rack only clutched the robes more tightly, and Katie shook her head with a faint scowl. "Fine. Keep them, then. They're not your color, anyway."

There was no further response from the coat rack, and Katie had the strange feeling that if coat racks had tongues, one would be sticking out at her right now. She gave it a final sneering look and turned her back on the offending piece of furniture.

Angelina had come up to the counter and was watching the whole scene with a look of amused confusion. "Didn't your mother ever tell you not tease the furniture?"

Katie made a face. "It's not furniture. It's some sort of… evil… possessed… coat-stealing… thing."

Angelina laughed and shook her head. "If you say so, Bell." She leaned forward on the counter. "So are you ready to go, then?"

Katie nodded and checked the cash register. "Yes, but I should be back before too long. Mr. Pendlesmythe is quite literally up to his ears in Hogwarts textbooks."

Angelina stood, sighing nostalgically and placing a single dark hand over her heart. "Ah, dear old Hogwarts." She cleared her throat dramatically.

"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts," she sang.

Katie laughed and placed her own hand over her heart as she began to sing.

"Teach us something, please.
Whether we be old and bald
Or young with scabby knees…."

Angelina laughed and picked up the song again.

"Our heads could do with filling
With some interesting stuff…
Hmm…"

She looked at Katie. "I can't remember the rest right now, can you?"

Katie shrugged, smiling. "Something about dead flies and fluff. I remember Oliver snickering at Fred and George through the whole silly thing the year Harry came in."

Angelina laughed. "I remember. As I recall, he stopped rather abruptly after you gave the back of his head a good hard smack." Her dark eyes twinkled with mischief. "Though he didn't seem to mind too much at the time."

Katie smirked, but said nothing. She remembered that, too. She pulled her bag out from under the counter and looked around. "I thought Alicia came in with you."

Angelina made a face and sighed. "She's found the display for the latest Diamante Devereaux novel. Argentinian Amour, or some silly thing. We're going to have to pry her away with a tire iron, I'm afraid."

Katie gave a short laugh and raised an eyebrow. "Tire iron?"

The barest hint of flush appeared in Angelina's cheeks, and Katie laughed under her breath. Angelina had been spending a great deal of time with the Weasleys of late (particularly one of the twins… and it wasn't George), and their influence was certainly beginning to show.

Katie grinned and stepped out from behind the counter. She threw her bag over her shoulder, linked her arm through Angelina's, and started forward. "Well, my dear, let's go and rescue Alicia from the Amorous Argentinian, shall we?"

Katie pulled a sniggering Angelina toward the front of the store and the promise of sunshine outside. In the back room, Katie could still hear Mr. Pendlesmythe, cursing and grumbling amid his pile of books and papers.

"Bugger. I've lost count again…."


A/N: Again, I am absolutely floored by the response to this story! ^_^ Thank you all so much for your encouragement! I'm sorry for the lack of... well, anything actually happening in this chapter, but this was a scene that kind of ran away with me, and there are some things alluded to in this chapter that will become very important later on! ^_^ And next chapter, we will find out exactly what Oliver did to hurt Katie so badly. (And believe me folks, it's a doozy!)

It will probably be a little while until the next update. The Christmas season is always busy around our house, and this year is certainly no exception! ^_^ (That, and the fact that... Well, I haven't actually written Chapter 3 yet!)

I hope you all have a wonderful Holiday Season, and thank you again! ^_^


Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Harry Potter or the books by J.K. Rowling. I simple have a severe case of novel envy.