Dusty corners. (open as heck)

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It was a quiet weekend evening in the scopic Hogwart’s library, a light blanket of dust gathering over the unused school books, not to be touched until late Sunday evening when first years and seventh years alike all flood the towering shelves and sing the siren’s song of procrastination with great urgency. But, tonight was a Saturday. Saturday’s there was barely a whisper, a tumbleweed blowing through the aerial oaken aisles where sleepy feline’s napped between aged cafe au lait dissertations about vampire saliva and the medicinal use of mermaid bladders. Saturday’s you could hear the click-clacking against marble floor of a vexed librarian from a mile away. But, for a Saturday, this was the natural habitat of a bantam sixteen year old girl with a mess of swarthy auburn hair that never seemed to lay just right, with her ill-fitted yet modest oxfords that covered her lithe womanly attributes (or lack there of), a pair of Goodwill penny loafers that likely belonged to your grandfather at some point prior. 

During times like these, quiet was how she liked it. Without the immature antics of younger (and sometimes older) housemates to provoke the irony of her sharp tongue with a blunt edge. Beside a window overlooking the courtyard she perched, breezy and composed, feet arched from her chair over and on top of the table (unbeknownst to the librarian), she sat. About a foot away from her face as glassy dark eyes scanned the tea stained pages of the book she was reading; 'Wizardry in Film', a topic that had been covered in her muggle studies course earlier that week. On the table before her sat several sizable stacks of books with a similar common theme, several crumpled pieces of parchment, and two flamboyant quills and one sugar quill. Pushing against the desk she tilts her chair back, a precarious balancing act between two legs of the chair. Outside, with the cant of her head, she could see several students horsing around as day turned to evening, but with thanks to a simple noise-canceling enchantment, all was silent.

Letting out a lofty sigh she slams the book closed and drops her chair down on all four, the midday silence leaving Hanna feeling incredibly lonely. While the library was great for getting work done she found her focus hindered. 

"I'm never getting this essay done," came the sixth years gripe of protest. 

[ROCHELLE CASTER]

The Gryffindor common room was explosive with energy. Everyone seemed to be there all at once with their various rowdy antics and restlessness at the peak of the weekend. Older students made claim on the sofas and armchairs while the younger ones scattered cross-legged on the floor. Each voice blended into another making the sound of chatter one continuous hum. The vision of them, dozens of buzzing youth filing every accessible space in the chamber, was chaos. On some days it didn't even seem like the castle held that many people and yet the crowded room was warm with the heat that gave off from multiple bodies. It was easy to forget how cooped up adolescents preferred to be when they constantly begged for freedom. Maybe because it was getting dark and the cold of the night began replacing the mildness of the day. Perhaps it was the exhaustion of a busy afternoon winding down into a "take-it-easy" evening. For Rochelle, though, she could never find tranquility in a sea of gossip and nonsense laughter.

It was obvious Rochelle wasn't going to get any studying done with the noise that echoed through the common room disturbing her. Hours before, she found the nice spot to complete homework at a tiny desk in the corner. She was perfectly peaceful at first, alone for once, and even as a handful of her peers piled in she wasn't fully distracted by any of them. The company she kept at that moment was now unbearable and in an act of desperation, Rochelle read while holding her hands to the sides of her head. She cupped her ears to drown out any sounds. It was uncomfortable but not wanting to lose her place that she had in the book, she continued to read sitting just like that. Her elbows pressed into the wood countertop, irritating the bone and stretching muscle. She looked rather strange and annoyance grew on her face as she sneered subconsciously through her reading.

Frustrated and thrown to the edge, she gave up. She tossed her things into her bag, not caring if it was organized or not though she was careful with her inkpots. In a rush, she left without any goodbyes and headed down the stairs to her one place of sanctuary.

As she entered the library, Rochelle breathed in books, dust and all. The musk was strong but to her the smell was welcoming. She loved the library, not just for the seclusion she craved every once in a while, but because of the opportunities housed in it. As a Muggleborn, the Wizarding World posed so many questions and even to someone who experienced it for six years, there were still so many unanswered. Hogwarts, no matter how large or heavily inhabited, was still just a school and was still just a fraction of the magical community. Really, all Rochelle knew besides Hogsmeade and the school grounds was Diagon Alley. That itself was only London. Muggles couldn't even visit London and say to themselves, "Well, that's it." Because it wasn't. She promised herself that she would travel and learn all there was about magic and its place in the world. For now, all she had were books.

The library was deathly quiet and it was refreshing to Rochelle, but almost a little eerie. The librarian was there but other than that, the place was deserted. She sighed with relief at the emptiness around her. Finally, she could breathe. She took advantage of the unoccupied library and hovered past many of the shelves looking for the most comfortable place to study. She found it at a desk facing a window. Rochelle smiled at the fortune of watching the sunset whilst reading. In the Gryffindor Tower, too many heads and bodies blocked the view. As she walked toward, at a table next to her she heard a familiar voice groan like a spectre and it roused Rochelle's curiosity.

"Of course you won't finish an essay in that position, Hanna Banana," she chirped to her best friend. She grinned, holding back a laugh, as she approached the table. "What's troubling you, m'dear?"

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The familiar voice of Rochelle echoing through the library aisles was a welcome song indeed, sweet and inquisitive as her fellow lion was invariably. Rochelle, her housemate and the nearest and dearest to her heart. Rochelle, with her immeasurable confidence that Hanna so hopelessly wished that she too, possessed. Truth be told Rochelle was at often times Hanna’s anchor as the teenage girl swayed between each rolling influx of her fickle emotions and contrived personal melodrama. Why in the world such a bright young witch ever put up with the likes of Hanna she could not say. Whatever it was that kept Miss Caster from throttling the neck of her housemate, it was an attribute fine enough to consider the graceful young feline a saint. Hanna had half a mind to raise tribute to her name as her approaching footsteps sounded- All hail Miss Caster! Hanna Hunt’s liberator and salvation.

These were, of course, just the meanderings of an overzealous thespian of a teenage girl and her sensationalist fervor. Standing up and straightening her pleated wool skirt, she delicately placed the previously mentioned book atop of the leather-bound citadel, watching it pendulum dangerously before settling into its added burden. Her expression was forlorn, the corners of her lips pulled downwards with gravity and her unkempt eyebrows stitched in such a way it caused a crease between them. The knots at the ends of her hair told the tale of a dawn-to-dark investigation of the cinematography of titles like The Wizard of Oz as she habitually twirled the ends into abstract shapes that could rival the masterpieces of David Lynch.

Spinning towards the sizable bay window she let out another histrionic sigh, fingertips skimming the smooth translucent barrier to the outside world. Finely she pressed her forehead into the glass, its cool surface expanding over her skin.

”Oh Rochelle…” she started, her voice doleful and plain. ”I just cannot take this… this… I mean, Muggle Studies has got to be the dullest class ever. But! But it’s not just that,” she said, prying herself away from the window with the reluctance of a caged animal. ”Do you know what you want? I mean, from this. From life, and what you want to do after all this. Where you’ll go and who you’ll work for. Of course you know. You always know.” She smiled a little at her friend. “You’re so self-assured… and I just don’t know if this is where I belong.”