For best effect, listen to dramatic instrumental music while you read. (Van Helsing, Pirates, and Lord of the Rings work nicely)

Chapter 6

What Happens in Libraries

There should be a library on Kamino, Joad thought idly as she wandered through the towering shelves. There was a peculiar smell that lingered, the smell of old paper, and the tiny dust motes danced in the golden sunlight and swirled madly in Joad's wake.

Library on Kamino! What insanity was this? On Kamino, she would not waste time reading books; she would be training. She would be perfecting herself and her skills, certainly not reading.

But she could enjoy this one while it lasted. Joad couldn't resist running a finger along the aged bindings and stopped, at random, on a little black one. It looked familiar somehow, which was odd because she was sure she had not pulled it off the shelf before. Hooking her finger in the neck, she slid it off into her hand. There was no title. The cat-killer got the better of Joad and she opened the nameless book.

"I hate to be rude, but you are a fool."

Joad nearly dropped the book in her surprise at the only words written on the page before she realized what it was.

"Oh, it's just you," she muttered. It was the book she first found in the forest in her trunk, the one that talked to her.

"Don't 'it's jut you' me! AND DON'T CLOSE ME!" it "shouted" when Joad made to close it. "I can't help you if you don't work with me."

"You're here to help me?"

"Yes. Do you think that we expected you to come here and just expect to know magic?"

"Wait, you brought me here?"

"WE did. It was a collective effort between us."

"You mean there are more little black books that stalk people and appear on shelves."

"Currently, a book is the most convenient form, but we are able to appear in many forms, but I suspect having a dragon on your shoulder is little too obvious and, while at school, people expect you to have books. Just a little more weight in your bag, but not much, I'm sure."

"You…" Joad was angry; this was not just a twinge of annoyance, oh no, this was the real burning loathing. She had been wrenched from her home, taken without warning or thought by this being hiding inside a book, hiding like a coward where she could not reach him. The book trembled. It took all of her will power to not tear at its pages.

"I know, I know, I'm a vile, evil thing that has no right to take you places you didn't want to go blah blah bah. Save your breath Joad, I've heard it before. Now, to get through this, I will have to help you."

"What kind of game are you playing?"

"A game? Why Joad, I overestimated you. This is no game. Treat it more like one of your hunts, but add a little bit of…human flavor to your style. After all, you do have to work with other people."

"I'm listening."

"Excellent." Joad could imagine some foul-looking man rubbing his greasy ill-kept hands together in glee. This was a game and she was a pawn. There was no way around it.

Joad's magic abilities improved. They were not hers, the book explained to her – she had not an ounce of magic blood in her – they were merely on loan for the time being. Her teachers were delighted: "My, now that you've come out of your shell, you certainly do have talent!" "I knew you could do it!" "You definitely have improved, Miss Teff."

Also, for the first time, Joad's smile did not look like a tortured grimace when she plastered it on. The book had promised her that when she was done here, at the end of the school year, she could go home, just like all the other students. That was why she smiled; she did not care for the jokes, the praise, the food (though it was better than anything she had eaten before). There was nothing in this school for her.

"No, you fool, you're going about it all wrong! Enjoy yourself; learn to be a human for once. Your have the rest of your life to be a machine." The book was frustrated, she could tell.

"Do you expect me to throw years of training out the window?"

"No."

"How should I behave?"

"Look around you."

"Crude jokes, rivalry eating my insides, false friendships? Is that how normal people are? Emotions are stupid, they make you do things."

"How eloquent." And it refused to say more.

Joad, the lurker of quiet and private places, ate faster than anyone during lunch and often took part of it with her to the library, sneaking it past the scrutiny of the librarian. The library remained her refuge from the world, which she would have to face and be "human." She hated that, how the book asked her to be human. She was human. She bled, cried, felt happiness and anger; her only difference was that she could control these habits.

She was reading in her favorite nook, a sheltered, arch shaped alcove that looked as though it had once held a statue, long gone now and replaced with a cushion, when she heard approaching voices.

"That Snape," growled one. "Just who does he think he is? He took off points without even knowing why. What a dunce, what a big, fat-"

"He took off points" interrupted a new voice smartly, "precisely because you were calling him names."

"They're true and he knows it."

The content could have belonged to any non-Slytherin student so Joad had not the faintest idea who they belonged to until they came with into sight. She saw them, they saw her, and for a long time no one moved.

Ron Weasly stepped away from the other Gryffindors, a group consisting of Harry, Hermione, and Nick from America. (Authors note: sadly Victor will not be joining us because he graduated and when you graduate why on earth would you go back to school?).

"So, you can beat me at anything." He seemed angry at her, while he should have simply been angry at Malfoy.

"Draco said that," she said, "not I."

"Oh, I'm surprised it's not Dracie by now." No one joined his laughter. Hermione was glowering at him, Harry was starring intently at Joad, and Nick was looking a little pale.

Joad was having trouble understanding his emotions. "Why should it be? Unless your friends call you Ronnie."

"Ron," pleaded Hermione, stepping to intervene. "Please, that was Malfoy's boast, not hers. Besides, you insulted her first." She turned from a slightly embarrassed looking Ron to Joad. "I'm sorry we haven't been formally introduced. I'm Hermione Granger, this tactless boy is Ron Weasly, this is Harry Potter, and this is Nick Scythe, but I suppose that you two already know each other. I'm sorry about Ron and what he said about you that one day; you're doing very well now, very well. Yes, and we already know who you are."

Joad hesitated before speaking, then she stood up out of her alcove and tried a small smile. "Finally, someone who talks sense in this school. I was beginning to think you were all crazy…or wand happy. Do all Gryffindor boys introduce themselves by asking to fight?" Harry scowled; he had a peculiar look on his face, studying her with dislike. His hand reached up to rub his scar.

"Now look, she's gone and gotten the wrong impression."

"It's alright." Joad managed to bite her tongue in time to prevent herself from saying she was used to it.

Awkward silence.

"I know what you're wondering Potter," she whispered finally, fiercely. When she had first read the book, she had learned all about the famous Harry Potter and his recent exploits. She knew what he thought of Slytherins, but she was not sure why she wanted to prove herself to him. Her principals were too high to join up with anyone like Voldemort, and for some reason she had a burning desire to prove that to them. The silence was no longer awkward, but tense and apprehensive. "I know what you all want to know, about everyone you meet. Don't limit your horizons to Slytherins mind you; there have been…other kinds of people who betray their friends." And she wrenched up her sleeve to show them her milky-white scar-free skin.

A collective breath was expelled.

"Now, I think, we should reintroduce ourselves. I'm Joad Teff, exchange student from New Zealand and a Slytherin."

Hermione caught on first. "I see, a fresh start, what a good idea. I'm Hermione Granger." They shook hands. She elbowed Ron in the side.

"Ow! This is stu- ow! Fine. Ron." The shook, gripping each others hands extra hard.

"Harry." They leaned towards each other to shake, but never touched each other. Nick did something peculiar, no, worse than peculiar.

Nick staggered sideways, falling against a chair gracelessly, gripping its back for support. His eyes rolled wildly in their sockets and made a terrible gagging noise. No one knew what to do. Then he spoke, in a deep raspy voice. The lights in the room seemed to dim around them and the walls leaned in to hear what he had to say. He seemed to grow in size, seeming to tower over them and energy seemed to crackle in his hair. He said:

"Record this, my friends. What I have to say should not be lost."

No one moved until Hermione snatched a parchment and pen. By the time she was ready Nick had already begun to speak again.

"Four companions their friendship long,

Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, Prongs,

Three were strong but one was weak,

The untrue friend the fatal leak,

The rat the coward liar snag

Betrayed them all, killed the stag,

But of a sudden, destroyed, was the power he served,

So he blamed the dog and tricked the world.

Crushed was the twisted, the evil undone,

By the flower who died with love for her son,

The boy who lived, who dared to remain,

Would best him thrice and twice again.

But this is past and now I see,

What is to come, what is to be.

The scorpion will fail,

The anole will pay,

The cat will fly,

The bat will slay.

Cold fingers will twist and prod into dreams,

Defenses will fail under white magic's beams.

The second war will be begun,

But what of the four reduced by two?

Those that remain will be made into one

For Four-paws will die for you.

The SOD will be broken by evil hands,

To seize the shadows,

To turn the minds,

To rule, to squeeze, to call, to bind,

Darkness will rise,

For the one who broke it

And woe"

The world snapped back into reality. The sun existed again, or had it been there all along? A bird chipped outside the window and voices streamed to them from a distance hallway, a distant world. Nick straightened as if nothing had ever happened. He saw them all looking at him, mouths open in shock.

"What?"