You know your life ain't normal when you're trying to go to sleep, and all you can think about is going to the library.

That aborted mission in the Restricted Section from earlier this week was still playing on my mind. It was Friday night, and despite the already large stack of homework tasks that had accumulated throughout our first week, and the regular study regimen that was required to do well in our NEWT exams at the end of the academic year, I'd indulged in a little self-care and decided to go to bed early. Since I was a teenager, and was afflicted by the strange quirk of delayed sleep onset that affected many an adolescent, this actually meant that I would lounge in my comfortable four-poster bed at the very top of Gryffindor Tower, and read several chapters of my current romance novel.

I hadn't really been able to concentrate on it, however. The words kept slipping past my eyes, and my mind kept slipping over their meaning. After an hour of persisting with it, I'd ceded defeat, and thought that maybe it was best if I just gave going to sleep a go. After all, I was in a constant state of sleep deprivation every weekday, so by the time the weekend rolled around, I was ready to spend basically all of Saturday asleep to catch up.

But even sleeping, which was one of my favourite activities, was not enough to lure my mind into a sense of quiet. I'd been tossing and turning for the past three hours, unable to rid myself of the frustration of not having even one lead to follow tomorrow. Bloody Potter and his need to interfere in my life.

I'd heard the other girls in my dormitory all come in earlier and turn in for the night. Since sleep was eluding me at the moment, maybe I could sneak away to the library right now and find a book that held some answers about my gift. Or what the heck Regulus Black's deal could be. He hadn't shown up to harass me, or talk to me in cryptic, unhelpful ways, since that time in the Restricted Section earlier in the week. I'd thought about what he'd said more and more, and despite how he was so purposefully obfuscating, I'd developed the thought that maybe he'd been trying to tell me that he wasn't my usual kind of ghost. Of course, I could be reading far too much into the few things he'd said so far, but it didn't seem too far-fetched an idea. I already knew of two different ghost types: the silvery ones that everyone could see, here, at Hogwarts, and the ones that so far, only I'd been able to see, like the one at the cemetery. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility that there were even more types of ghosts out there.

I held my breath and tried to discern four other breathing patterns in the room. Were they all asleep?

It was proving very difficult to tell. Moving as quietly as I could, I got up, and reached for the hoodie I kept at the foot of my bed, in readiness for the insanely cold mornings. Moving in slow-motion, I gently pushed back the covers, and pulled away the curtains around my bed. I was too scared to use Lumos, lest one of the girls in my dorm was awake. It wasn't as if it was weird for one of us to be awake late, and maybe go down to the Common Room or something, but I didn't want to answer any questions tonight. It was just too weird admitting that I was going to sneak away to the library to find a book. I already had three stacked on my bedside table.

Rummaging around for shoes and socks in the soft darkness, whilst also keeping exceptionally quiet proved to be a challenge, but I succeeded. I was very lucky that all my roommates were such heavy sleepers, otherwise my lack of ninja skills would be a rather large handicap.

I reached the Common Room with no incident. It seemed as if everyone in Gryffindor had decided to take a self-care evening and head up to bed tonight – even in the early hours of the morning, it was not uncommon to find at least one person down here. Granted, they had usually fallen asleep over their Divination homework, but I was lucky that there wasn't another obstacle for me to pass. I sat down on one of the couches with quiet glee at my fortune, to pull on my shoes. Tying the laces quickly, I headed for the portrait hole.

Once I'd hopped out the other end, I checked to see what the Fat Lady was up to. She was usually pretty chill about students coming and going after curfew, so I wasn't too worried if she were awake at this time of night. I liked to think that she was a Gryffindor herself, before she trained as an opera singer and became so famous that someone painted a portrait of her and set it to guard the Tower. It was better than the alternative, which was that she was some unattainable fantasy of a mediocre white man who happened to be passably good at portrait painting. I wanted more for the Fat Lady than that.

She was fast asleep in her frame, a light snore emanating from her. I smiled and turned around, making my way to the library.

I reached its always open doors with no incident. Honestly, getting out of the Common Room unnoticed was the biggest challenge of sneaking around. The castle was so huge that it was difficult to properly police students' night-time adventures. There were a lot of portraits and ghosts around, but most of the portraits were asleep this late, and the ghosts were easy enough to avoid if you wanted to, since you often got some warning of their approach if you were paying attention. It could sometimes be tricky, what with their tendency to walk through walls without much thought. You had to weigh up the risks of this happening and you having no time to react if you chose to stick to the shadows, which were deepest right against the walls, or walking more towards the middle of the path, which was often better lit. I preferred walking in better lighting, even if that meant that you were easier to spot by someone who happened to be passing by. I didn't want to have a ghost float through me – a rather disconcerting feeling – or accidentally bang into a suit of armour that I'd been too blind to see.

Almost at the threshold of the Restricted Section, I rummaged for my wand and the blank signed permission slip in the large pocket at the front of my hoodie. It would suck so bad if I'd forgotten that bloody piece of paper. I pulled out the well-worn, folded parchment, and smiled at its familiar sight. I didn't often sneak around the castle after curfew, what with preferring sleep over mischief, but when I did, I sure liked to be prepared.

Stepping over the rope, lit wand in hand, I headed directly for the back. Tonight, nothing was going to stop me from finding a book – not ghosts, nor arch-nemeses.

Reaching the farthest row, I quickly traversed my well-trodden path to the shelf that I'd been about to investigate before the series of interruptions I'd experienced earlier in the week. Pushing away the lingering irritation, I got to work.

But as my fingers brushed the first spine on the shelf, I paused. What reason did I have to continue with my plan of searching systematically tonight? No, tonight, for some strange reason, I was feeling bold. Tonight, I wanted to break my own rules and pick a shelf at random to search.

This was completely irrational, of course, and would totally throw off my searching strategy. Usually, I was a stickler for such things. Order and a thought-out approach were the most effective and efficient, but maybe the Gryffindor in me thought tonight was her time to shine. So far, I'd fared quite well, reaching the library without even coming close to being caught. Perhaps my luck would hold, and by picking a shelf willy-nilly, I'd finally find what I was looking for.

A thrill ran down my spine as I stepped back and went further down the row. The logical part of me knew I was being a little ridiculous, but I couldn't quite make myself care, for once. Having exhausted the main part of the library on the subject matter, I'd been dedicatedly searching this part of the Restricted Section for answers since Fifth Year, with little success. Maybe a new approach was called for.

I reached the end of the row, where the wood of the shelves met the dark grey of the walls. I could feel the cold seeping out from the stones, almost as if it were deterring me from approaching. Little did these stones know, that was basically all of Hogwarts, and after over six years of living here, I was hardened to the presence of a little draught. Layers were key.

There was a rumour that when Hogwarts was being rebuilt after the Battle, all the outer walls that had to be reconstructed had been imbued with an extra layer of magical protection, that not only extended outwards, but a little inwards, too. If this were true, I admired the effort, but ultimately, stopping bad things from happening from inside the walls of Hogwarts was about far more than a few protective incantations. That kind of change began and ended with the people who called this castle home.

Plus, I wondered how effective that magical protection was if it wasn't in all the stones that made up the outer walls. Maybe the spells were like water, and could erode through the stones over time. I hoped the walls were porous enough for that to work.

Leaning my shoulder against that cold, stone wall, I stared right at the row of books in front of me, feeling suddenly very overwhelmed. Who was I kidding? It didn't matter whether I searched systematically or haphazardly, I wasn't going to find the answers I was looking for. It wasn't as if I thought I was completely unique in the entire history of humanity when it came to this whole seeing ghosts thing, but what were the chances that those other people wrote their experiences down? They might not have been literate, or had access to writing materials, or the resources to get their work published. Their work may have been lost in a fire, or a flood, or a famine.

Hell, it was rather presumptuous of me to assume that they were even writing in English. Maybe someone had all the answers I wanted, but fat lot of good it was going to do me if it was written in Korean. Sometimes, living in such a monolingual culture really fucking sucked.

My head drooped sideways to lean against the cool wall, and I sighed in resignation. I felt so tired, all my excitement at having so successfully broken a school rule leaving me. I closed my eyes, warring between giving into this despondency, or girding my loins to search this one shelf.

My thoughts were distracted from the task at hand by a strange breeze I felt blowing across my face.

My eyes flew open, surprised at this unexpected sensation. I was greeted by the same sight as before: a wall to my left, with a shelf of books perpendicular to it, their spines dark and dull in the cool blue-white light from my wand. There was nothing in front of me to suggest that the surprising waft of wind had come from right in front of me, like it had felt.

I closed my eyes again. Nothing.

Frowning, I quietened by breath to focus.

… There! There it was again. A chilly, soft wind tickled my face again. I definitely wasn't imagining it.

Keeping my eyes closed, I slowly inched towards it, trying to figure out which direction it was coming from. I stopped when my nose bumped into something hard in front of me. I opened my eyes and rubbed my nose, scrunching it in annoyance. Bringing my wand right in line with my face, I tried to figure out what the heck was going on.

Again, it was a rather ordinary sight. I'd bumped into the very edge of the oak shelf, where the side panel met the wall of the room. I blinked, feeling a little let down by this non-discovery. The only thing that was mildly out of place was that there was a little gap between the shelf and the wall. Perhaps a little concerning if you were particular about not having even such small gaps between your bookshelf and wall, but I wouldn't be putting in a complaint about the state of repairs, that's for sure.

I placed my hand over the gap, and my eyes widened in surprise to find that this was the source of the extra wind.

With my hand covering right over the gap, I could feel the air pushing against the sensitive skin of my palm, as it tried to squeeze out.

Taking a step back, I surveyed the wider area. There was no window in this row, so it couldn't be air coming from the outside. It felt like it was coming from the inside. Turning around, I surveyed the other side of the row. Here, the bookshelf was flush against the wall. I put my hand where the wood and rock met, and felt nothing, either. It seemed as if this last shelf was the exception when it came to unexplained wind sources.

I walked to the start of the row and checked where the bookshelf backed up against the wall. Nope, nothing there as well. Not even the tiniest gap between the back panel and wall. It seemed as if the builder of these shelves had gone to a lot of effort to make sure they fit really well with the walls.

Except for this one side…

Returning to stand in front of that gap, I stared at it. I could continue with my original goal for tonight, and try and find a book about ghosts, hopefully bringing me one step closer to understanding my quirky skill better. Or, I could investigate further where this draught was coming from, which would likely benefit no one at all.

I went with the draught.

I couldn't shake the feeling that this gap, which was no more than a few millimetres, was exceptionally important. This was the only thing that was out of place, really. It could be possible that the builder got lazy by the time they got to fitting this particular section of shelving in. Or maybe an apprentice had installed them.

I put my hand on my hips and wondered how I should proceed.

I waited several moments for a lightning bolt of a fantastic idea to hit me. When that didn't happen, I decided to go for the rather silly option of just pulling out all the books in this section of shelving and see what else I could find. Maybe there was a crack in the wood in the back panelling, and the cold was seeping in from the stone wall behind that.

Starting right from the bottom, I began moving all the heavy tomes out of the way. As I kneeled on the hard, stone floor, I really hoped that I'd strike gold here. First, because it was ridiculous that I was emptying this bookshelf of its items in the middle of the night, instead of being cocooned in the thick blankets of my warm bed. And second, I don't think I could bring myself to get on the ladder to search the higher-up shelves. That crippling, debilitating fear of heights wouldn't let me do it. This wouldn't be a problem if I was just after a book or two kept out of my reach – levitating things down to me was easy. But I was interested in the empty shelves themselves, and what secrets they hid.

There must've been Felix Felicis in tonight's dinner, because I got lucky again about two minutes later.

I lay down on my belly, ignoring the heat leeching away from my body and into the floor, as I moved my wand along the back panelling of the bare shelf, trying to look for… something. The wandlight caught on an inconsistency in the wood right in the back corner, at the very bottom of the shelf.

Crawling forward on my belly, I reached out my hand, and ran my fingers over the wood. The panel was smooth… until my fingers brushed over that little inconsistency.

Still on my belly, I swivelled around, ignoring how rough the stone floor was through my hoodie. I stuck my wand into the empty shelf, squinting to see what those ridges and dips were. They hadn't felt like a knot or scratches.

It was a Hogwarts crest. Crude, but still recognisable by that characteristic stylised hexagonal shape, and the four quadrants containing a rather odd collection of animals. There's nowhere else where you'd see a lion chilling with a badger.

What the fuck was the Hogwarts crest doing in the back corner of a bookshelf in the Restricted Section? Was this like a guild mark or something? Did guilds even exist back when Hogwarts was built? Or was it to label this bookshelf very specifically as Hogwarts property? This seemed rather unlikely since the chairs, and tables, and beds – all made of wood – didn't have the Hogwarts seal engraved on them. And those were the items you would want to label, seeing as how much easier they were to steal than a bookshelf.

I didn't really have the time – nor the inclination – to go hunting for those answers right now. This little Hogwarts crest that was right in front of me was far more interesting.

I pushed against the panel, and felt it wobble a little. I raised an eyebrow, intrigued. There was plenty that was creaky and rickety about this old castle, but the bookshelves generally didn't fall into that category. Those eleventh century carpenters knew what they were doing.

Leaning my wand at an angle against the edge of the bottom shelf, I put both my hands against the back and pushed. The wobble was bigger.

I inspected the panel as closely as I could, given the rather poor lighting situation. I really needed to remember to bring a lantern when I came here.

I noticed a little gap, right where the three seams met. To my untrained eye, it seemed larger than it should be.

Wiggling closer, I stuck my finger into it, and managed to snag the nail of my pinky in the gap. Giving my finger a little jiggle, I felt the back panel move again.

Eureka, the back panel was loose!

After spending three futile minutes trying to leverage that panel up with the nail of my little finger, I suddenly remembered that I was a fucking witch who could use magic to do this. Sometimes, my own genius amazed even me.

I grabbed my wand and pointed it at the little gap. Muttering a pulling charm in my head, I was able to pull out that back panel in about half a second. I could barely contain my excitement.

Propping my wand up again for light, I peered at what the panel had been hiding.

Dark grey stone greeted me.

Well, that was hugely disappointing. After all that, the bookshelf was just covering the wall. Mystery fucking solved.

And to think that I was giving those Founders-era carpenters so much credit. This entire thing really was about shoddy workmanship.

In childish frustration, I stabbed my wand at the stupid grey wall.

There was an ominous groan.

Unable to control it, I gasped. I quickly scurried backwards, away from that terrifying noise, uncaring that I was on my hands and knees.

I scrambled to a standing position, and fell into a defensive stance, wand held tightly in my sweaty clasp. I was pointing it directly at the bookshelf, which was slowly swinging away from me, into darkness.

I didn't know whether to whoop with excitement, or yell in fear.

AN: What?! A cliff hanger?! I can scarcely believe it myself!

Any and all feedback is appreciated, as always. All the thanks to my beta, Paula/crowsb4bros.

Adios, amigos! :D