Chapter 27
The library was almost empty this time of day. It was completely quiet and the air was still and dry with the smell of dust and old parchment. There were only a few students still studying by the tables. Granger sat by herself in the back and had already assembled a great stack of books in front of her. At another table were a couple of fifth years looking bored and tired. Madam Pince was behind her desk and she glanced up when he came in. She gave him a quick smile then returned to her work.
Draco walked to the restricted section at the far end of the library. It was roped off so people didn't wander in there by mistake, though it was unlikely anyone would – it felt different than the rest of library in a way that was impossible not to notice, like some of the darkness and some of the power sealed in the books had seeped into the air and made it prickle against the skin.
He unhooked the end of the rope that closed it off, then fastened it behind him. The library at Hogwarts held one of the most extensive collections of magical texts in all of Britain, so of course there were quite a few books there that weren't fit for children, and the restricted section was pretty big.
It wasn't all dark and dangerous magic, some of the books were just incredibly rare or incredibly old and most of them incredibly valuable, so it made sense to keep them off the shelves that were accessible to 11-year-olds. It could take forever to find what you were looking for in there, but Draco had become well-acquainted with the section during his sixth year. It felt like he had lived there some weeks, scouring the shelves for some dark or forgotten magic that might have enabled him to assassinate the headmaster. He hadn't had much success.
He felt pretty certain that there were no books about the prison of Azkaban, but he still ought to search for those first, just to be sure. Then he should look for something specifically on dementors, though he didn't imagine there would be much success with that either. Then it would all be branching out from there – books on defense from dark creatures, dark magic, possibly philosophical texts on the nature of evil, and there might be some books going into detail about the patronus charm too. He already had an idea of a few titles that could be relevant.
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When he returned to the studying tables, the fifth years had gone and Granger was the only student left. He decided to sit by her table despite what Longbottom had said. It shouldn't matter when there was no one there to be puzzled by it. He pulled out a chair across from hers and put down the books. She didn't look up. He doubted Madam Pince would be able to hear them talking all the way back there, but he still pulled out his wand and muttered a quick silencing spell just to be safe.
"No one is here," he said to Granger.
She raised her head.
"Okay?" she said, in a tone of voice that suggested, that she didn't consider that a very good reason for them to speak to each other.
"So what have you found out?" he asked, nodding to the stack of books in front of her.
"Not a lot. I've only just started reading," she said. "I left the restricted section to you, but you took a while to get here, so I've been through the rest of the library – I figured it was better to get a broader sense of what was there before we started reading in detail."
He nodded, that had been his plan as well.
"Which sections?" he asked, tilting his head to read the titles on the spines on the books in her stack.
"All of them."
He looked at her. She wasn't smiling. It didn't seem very probable that she would be joking but –
"All of them?" he asked.
He hadn't come down here that much later than her. The library was huge. She shrugged.
"Well, all the ones that might be relevant."
He had thought the stack of books she had gathered was pretty big, but if that was everything relevant she had been able to find in the whole library, it wasn't a lot. She might have searched too narrowly and he was about to tell her that, when she pushed a piece of parchment across the table towards him.
"I only took the titles that seemed the most promising, but I've noted down everything else that we might have to check out later. It's not prioritized, since I just wrote them down as I went around, but they're ordered by section, so they'll be easy to find again later."
It was a long list.
"That's… really impressive," he said and meant it.
He hesitated a moment before he added:
"You're good at this."
She took the list back.
"I know."
It took a second before she remembered to ask him.
"What have you found?"
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She went through his stack of books and picked out a few of them for herself. They began going through the indexes. Once or twice he would ask her about a section or a chapter. She looked at him strangely when he did – not like it bothered her, but as if she was vaguely surprised by the question, or maybe just by his presence, as if she had forgotten he was there.
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"Do you think boggarts might be relevant?" he asked.
He was looking through yet another book on dark creatures that was deplorably brief and superficial on dementors.
"Why would they be?" she asked.
He shrugged.
"I don't know. Fear is a common denominator, I suppose? And for some reason this bloke has given them about five times as much space…"
"Maybe. Yes, actually, that's not a bad idea. Put it in the pile."
She returned to her book, but not before giving him the strange look again. He sighed.
"What is it, Granger?"
She looked up.
"What?"
"That look. You keep making that face at me. If there's something you want to say you should just say it."
"Oh – no, it's nothing."
He waited for second, but she didn't elaborate.
"Okay, then."
He shrugged and returned to the text.
"It's just, I've sort of become used to doing research on my own," she said. "This is a bit… unfamiliar."
"Don't Potter and Weasley help you?"
She grimaced.
"Well, yes," she said hesitantly. "But they're not always very good at it…"
Draco grinned.
"I can imagine," he said.
He could easily see Potter attempting to read every page of every book on some subject without the least bit of planning, and probably burning himself out before he was even halfway through. The git was brilliant at magic, but he had never been very academic in his approach to learning it.
Granger looked up at the clock mounted on the library wall.
"We should head back soon," she said.
He nodded.
"So should we divide up the books?"
"I was thinking it might be a good idea if we left them back in the secret room," she said. "Then we'll both have access to all of them all the time and if we find something new we can just leave it for each other up there. We'll avoid having to talk to each other where people might notice, and we also won't have large stacks of suspicious books on dark magic lying around our dormitories."
He nodded.
"Alright."
"But I suppose we'll have to split them up for now. You should take the restricted ones; I won't be allowed to check them out anyway."
There was more than a little bitterness in her voice. She gathered up her books and he removed the silencing charm.
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He had lingered behind while Granger went up to Madam Pince, but when he came out of the library, she was waiting for him in the hallway.
"I just thought I should tell you that this doesn't change anything," she said as soon as he stepped out.
"Sorry?" he said, a bit disoriented.
He had thought she had gone back.
"Harry trusts you at the moment, so I'll work with you," she said. "I think you might be on to something about Azkaban. But we're not friends. I don't trust you, and what I said to you before the holidays still stands. If you give me any reason to think that you might be trying to hurt one of us, then it doesn't matter what Harry thinks, I will get you kicked out of here so fast you won't even know what happened."
He nodded.
"I suppose that's reasonable enough," he said.
She frowned at that, like that wasn't the answer she had expected.
"Goodnight, Granger," he said as politely as he could.
Then he went off down the hall, weighed down by his heavy load of books.