The Hogwarts Lonely Hearts Club

That Day in the Library

After taking the last few spiral steps of the narrow, tight staircase, Harry Potter puffed out an exhausted breath from his red cheeks. His school satchel was overloaded with books as usual, and his back was curved into a painful arc on account of the weight. As usual. Dropping his bag and rubbing his spine a moment, Harry eventually reached up for the bronze knocker, in the shape of an eagle on the circular door, knocked three times and waited for his question.

Which duly came.

"How long is a piece of string?"

Harry smiled. This was an easy one. "Twice the length from the middle to the end."

"Very good!"

The circular door swung open and Harry dragged his heavy satchel into his Common Room. He was always glad of how airy this room was, it helped to recover his breath after the long walks up the stairs. There were a few students mulling around the tables and chairs, so Harry crossed the midnight-blue carpet careful, as he always was, to not step on any of the stars depicted in gold there. It was a superstition held by all Ravenclaws since time began.

Finding his favourite spot - a patch of floor near the marble statue in the alcove - empty, Harry sat cross-legged facing away from the other students, as was his way, and took out a few of his books, some fresh parchment, ink, quills and spare nibs, which he arranged just so around him. Then he browsed his homework planner and tried to decide which piece to tackle first.

"Got half the library with you again then, Harry?" Anthony Goldstein teased lightly as he and Michael Corner passed by. They were throwing a fanged frizzbee between each other, but Harry barely looked up as they came his way.

"You know, we have bookcases in here, Harry," Michael reminded him. "Most of the core textbooks can be found in them, you know. You needn't break you back lugging that lot up here every evening."

Michael nodded at the tottering piles of books surrounding Harry like heavy paper satellites, and grimaced slightly at the thought of how hard it would be to carry them all at once.

"Using just the core texts isn't what has made Harry the best student in the year," Lisa Turpin interjected as she hopped up onto the sill of the graceful, arched window next to the statue and started kicking her heels against the stonework. "So, what are you working on tonight, Harry?"

Harry huffed to himself ... he just wanted to be left alone to work. It's all he'd wanted for the past three years, but people insisted on wanting to talk to him all the time. And his Godfather had spent the entire Summer telling him about the importance of good manners. Harry had solemnly accepted the lectures, after all he'd nearly killed his Godfather when they first met three months ago and that wasn't the most auspicious way to introduce himself.

So he took a steadying breath and looked up at Lisa on the windowsill. "Charms, probably. It's the biggest essay we have so best to get that out of the way first."

"Spoken like a true Ravenclaw," Anthony nodded approvingly, before tossing the frizzbee back to Michael. "Get the worst one out of the way and the rest wont seem so bad."

"Exactly," Harry muttered, then turned back to his work.

But Lisa wasn't done with him quite yet. "You do have an awful lot of books there, Harry. Why have you checked out so many?"

Harry closed his eyes and took another lungful of air to keep his cool. When his little voice spoke to reply, he didn't look up. He really hated talking with people. "I had to. Didn't have much of a choice. Hermione Granger was in the library again. I mean, she's always there, but she checks out the best books if she can, so I had to get to them first."