A surprising number of students at Hogwarts managed to get through the year without actually stepping inside the library at all. This was true up until exam time, when suddenly people who previously weren't even sure how to get to the library woke up at odd hours to discover they'd gotten there in their sleep. Some suspected that there were charms in the dorms to transport slumbering children, in a faculty effort to get them to study at least once, even if they were unconcious at the time. Others suspected that exams just made people do weird things.
The latter theory had more general support.[] Hermione Granger was usually cited as the first, and thus only, example. Fortunately for Harry Potter, she was absent from the library today. Unfortunately for the other seventh-year Gryffindor girls, this was because she'd managed to lock up and barricade her entire dormitory when the others had left for breakfast that Saturday. But Harry was fortunate because, having spent two hours already re-reading his fourth-year Potions text, he decided he needed a break. He'd missed breakfast and the noises his stomach was making were eliciting Death Glares.[†]
Harry stood up and stretched, spotting Ginny Weasley a few tables down. He joined her at the table. "Hey—got any food?" he whispered.
She barely looked up. "'s in the top pocket. Bag under the table. Powdered wormwood takes on propertiesⁿ when heated to temp₫ at the third level of…"
Harry pulled the bag out from under the table and grabbed a bag of crisps, walked hurriedly away from the litany of instructions. He paused by the shelves and opened the bag.
There was dead silence.
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The former was, in fact, held only by the twins, Lee, and Neville Longbottom. In Neville's case, there actually was a faculty conspiracy.
[†] Another weird thing about students at exam time was that Death Glares sometimes worked. At least, that's what two of the ghosts in the Great Hall said, and the only person who would have been interested in checking that was busy holding the dormitory door shut.
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And then Madam Pince gave an indrawn breath, and a shriek like she was part banshee: "POTTER! You are not eating in the library! Of all the filthy—you're a seventh year, for Merlin—get out! OUT!" She started towards him.
He stared at her. "I didn't—sorry, I just—"
"RUN, Harry!" yelled Seamus. "Hurry!"
Harry fled into the shelves, hoping he could make it to the back door. He didn't even pause to look where he was going, but five shelves in ran smack into Draco Malfoy.
"Potter! Get off of me, you great oaf!" hissed Malfoy. "Honestly, who do you think you are—"
"It's Pince!" Harry exclaimed. The sound of pursuit was growing nearer. Draco looked a little less certain.
"What'd you do, kill an evil periodical?"
"Worse! I opened a crisp bag!" He grabbed Malfoy and they ran, differenes temporarily…if not forgotten, slightly less important. They didn't stop running for another ten minutes.
"Wait!" gasped Draco.
"What?!" Harry whirled on him, feet still trying to run, dancing around.
"Listen! She's not coming. We've been running for ages."
Harry stopped at cocked his head. "You're right. I don't hear anything." He paused. "We can't have been running for ten minutes."
Draco pulled out his wand and muttered, "Chronos." The time showed up in glowing red letters:10:47. "It was 10:30 when I got to the library. I'd been here for about five minutes." He lowered his wand and glowered at his enemy, suddenly remembering why he didn't usually find himself running around with Potter. "That is, until I was knocked over by a clumsy git." He was affronted that no response was forthcoming. "A clumsy git," he repeated louder, in case he hadn't been heard before.
"Shhh," said Harry.
"What now? She can't still be chasing us. Not exactly your spring chicken, you know."
"Malfoy," said Harry slowly, "how big do you think the library is?"
Draco looked as blank as a schooled Malfoy face could look. "What on earth are you going on about? I've no idea how large it is. Smaller than the Malfoy library, I'm sure."
Harry rolled his eyes. "But… do you think that's big enough to be able to run for ten minutes, even turning corners, and not see anyone else? At exam time?"
Now Draco looked more anxious. "No. Of course not."
"But we did, didn't we?"
"I can't believe I'm part of a 'we' with him," Draco muttered. He exhaled sharply. "Okay, supposing we did. Surely you've realized by now that this farcical school has more twists than it first appears to. It's probably just storage space for old books no one reads like—" he leaned over to make out a title, " 'A Historie of Unseen University, or, Why thee Staffes of Wizzards have Nobs on the Endes.' See, no one's going to read that muck. Listen to this: 'The Orgins of the Species: A Treatise on the theory of The Simple-Animals-Turn-Into-More-Complicated-Ones.' What are you doing?"
Harry was sniffing the air. "Do you smell something?"
"I've bathed," said Draco automatically.
"No, I mean… it's faint, but it smells like…"
"Yes? Go on, we're all excited and interested in what you smell."
Harry looked at him with a funny expression. "Like the zoo," he said. "Don't you smell anything?"
Draco sighed dramatically and stood up straight. "Very well, Potter, if it will make you happy." He gave a sniff. "There's nothing. Maybe it's you—" His eyes grew watery. "What the—good god, it smells like a monkey in here—AAAAAAAUUUUUGHHH!"
"Pince!?" shrieked Harry, whipping around again. There was no one there. "Malfoy, what are you up to?" There was no reply. Very, very slowly, Harry reluctantly turned back around. Draco was hanging upside down.
Even more reluctantly, Harry looked up at Draco's feet, which were in the grip of… a large, orange, disturbingly focussed-looking…
"Good morning," said Harry politely as he could muster.[‡]
"Ook," said the …probably not a monkey.
"Er," said Harry.
"Potter..." hissed Draco with as little of his mouth as possible. The not-monkey shook him gently.
"Excuse me, Mr…Mister," began Harry. "Could you possibly put my fri—accquaintance down?"
"Ook ook," said the not-monkey.
Harry thought for a second and reached for his wand. He unfolded the crisp bag from his other hand and transfigured it into a banana. That was what monkeys ate, right? And small insects they picked off of each other, he thought, but he was disinclined to let the not-monkey check him for lice.
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[‡] Harry had spent seven years in the Wizarding World, and every time he thought he'd figure things out, something happened to completely belittle what he'd learned. He had decided long since that it would be easier to just accept anything that happened to him as completely normal. In fact, he was one of the youngest wizards ever to discover that most people merely hallucinated being normal.
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Surprisingly, the creature reached down and took the peace offering. Then he swung off the shelf top and started loping away down the aisle, with Draco still in tow.
"Hey!" exlaimed Harry. "Wait up!" He ran after the creature. A few rows later, the light of open space hit him and he staggered, temporarily blinded. "What the—" A figure loomed up.
There was a fat figure in the strangest wizarding robes he'd ever seen looming before him. "The beans are flying again. Do you want some dried frog pills?" it asked. Harry blinked.
"Are you Aberforth Dumbledore?" he asked. "Only you're kind of familiar."
"I'm a gypsy lady."
"Oh." Harry looked around. "Can you take me to…someone who's not a gypsy lady?"
"I have to dance now. The Librarian knows…" The man wandered off, twirling with an imaginary tambourine. He also appeared to be levitating slightly.
"The Librarian?"
"Ook." He turned around. The not-monkey was back with Draco, whom he set down with a stern look and a banana peel.
"Thank you," called Harry as the Librarian knuckled away. He looked Draco up and down. "Are you ok? The—"
"Don't say it!"hissed Draco frantically.
"I wasn't going to call him a—"
"Don't!" said Draco and three other people at once.
Harry smiled nervously. "Sorry, I didn't see you before," he said to the nearest one. "Er, not to be rude, but where are we?"
The Wizzard – at least, his hat proclaimed he was one, sort of – looked at him funny. His clothes looked like they were about to fall apart. "Did you take anything from the Bursar?" he asked suspiciously.
"I've only met the Librarian and…a gypsy girl." Harry explained.
"Oh dear," said the Wizzard. "I guess you'd better go see the Arch-Chancellor. Only I think he's out killing things just now. The Dean, maybe?" Harry found this hard to follow, as the Wizzard kept up a jittery sort of dance.
"Look, man, we're wizards from Hogwarts," interrupted Draco, who had regained his aplomb. "Ambassadors, you might say. If you're unable to be useful and tell us where we're being ambassadors to, take us to someone who can."
"Or, Hullo, we're Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, nice to bloody meet you," muttered Harry. "But that works too."
The Wizzard jumped some more. "I'm Rincewind," he said nervously. "Look, um, if you're wizards, why are you dressed like that?"
Harry and Draco looked around. Everyone else in the library appeared to be wearing volumnous robes and large hats. And be slightly rounder. "Oh…we're… in disguise," Harry tried.
"Yeah, we're running from a madwoman," said Draco.
For the first time, Rincewind appeared to relax. "Oh, you're running," he said happily. "I do that a lot." He led them out into the hall and started up some stairs. "You'd better go see the Dean and figure out what to do next. 'Course, I've found that running some more usually helps."
"Dean of where, exactly?" asked Harry as he made his way up. "Only we're in disguise, so we have to pretend not to know." Draco rolled his eyes at him.
"Unseen University, of course," said Rincewind.
"Where's—" began Draco. He was cut off as they reached a large foyer by a metallic crash, varied shrieks, and what sounded oddly like hundreds of tiny feet.
"Luggage!"yelled Rincewind. "Lug-! Oh, drat, that was Mrs. Whitlow—you'd better just keep going—" he disappeared.
"I've never actually seen anyone go that fast without apparating," mentioned Draco.
Harry looked at him sideways. "Malfoy?"
"What, Potter?"
"Don't take this the wrong way, but just for a little while… I don't think we should separate or anything." He waited.
"You don't think. I'm not surprised," shot Draco. After a minute he added grudgingly, "It's not as though it wasn't already obvious, Potter."
Harry nodded. "So…where d'ya think the Dean is?"
"How should I know? How did we get here in the first place?" replied Draco irritably, walking down a few doors. A head stuck out of a room.
"Death?" a young man asked uncertainly. Draco looked back at him.
"Oh, good," the man said. "I knew bits of copper wire would interact with artificial lightning just as well. Ridcully has to give us funding now! Listen, could you come here and sign this notice? It just says 'I, Death, do hereby state that on the eighth of June in the fifth year of the Century of the Fruitbat, I was summoned to the workshop of one Ponder Stibbons, Wizard.' I'm terribly sorry, really, it's just that the man doesn't believe anything I tell him, not since the incident with the Boxes that Have Music In Them…I say, you do look a bit different than I thought…"
"No, no, it's just a disguise," Draco assured him. "I'm Death."
Harry made frantic gestures behind Ponder Stibbons, Wizard. Draco ignored them.
"Yes, I'm Death." He signed the paper Ponder was holding out. With lots of swirly bits.
"Good, good. Oh, if you have time, I think someone was looking for you."
"OH?" said Draco. He looked surprised at the way it came out.
"Yes, I was out today and I mentioned the experiment and they said 'hah, if that ever works, I want a word with him too'…oh yeah, it was that guy from the Watch, Reg Shoe." Ponder beamed, and then a thought appeared to strike him somewhat violently. "I nearly forgot! Now, supposing you take a completely flat plane, so flat it can't exist in this kind of curvy space, and then you have a sphere that can intersect with it, but only in cross sections because the square can't see the whole thing, because of these directions that don't exist—"
"Right!" said Draco quickly. "Reg shoe. I've got to—" he stopped and started over. "I'd better go find him right away. Er, see you soon."
"You mean…!"
"No, no, just a figure of speech!" amended Draco quickly. "But… I bet you'll live a lot longer if you keep playing with those copper wires." Harry made some very plain gestures. "Just kidding, of course. Bye!" He waved and started off.
Harry ran to catch up with him. "What was that?" He stared like Draco was some kind of Potions specimen.
"Just because Gryffindors don't have any fun…"
"No, I mean the voice thing. You went sort of…cosmic, for a second there." He poked Draco very slightly.
"Stop that. And I don't know what you're talking about." They walked in silence out of the giant doors.