Little Green Apples PV Ami Procoppio

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@Ami Procoppio

Many people assumed Cel was in the library all the time because Cel was a nerd. While this was not necessarily wrong, and oftentimes even a correct assumption to make upon seeing her in her usual spot encased by shelves and a pile of books, she could also read all she wanted from the comfort of her own dorm. Covers, after all, were far more comfortable than hard library chairs, and she didn't care enough about posture for that to draw her to sitting upright to read instead of lying down.

Unfortunately, the truth was that she had probably seen enough of her covers for the whole year already, even though they were yet to be halfway through—the effect of the Obliviation charm on her mind had yet to be completely cured, and treatment could only do so much. The scribble of her quill against parchment was anything but superficial in the depths of the library; she needed the entire table for enough workspace just to catch up with schoolwork—not that she never got distracted by a book or two, but when one spends more time flirting with unconsciousness than in the light of day, the workload begins to pile up, even for someone like Cel.

So all this meant that she spent far too much time in the library. Enough time for people to find her. A couple years ago she would have recoiled at the idea—now she had realized how much free sugar it got her, and that while it did deplete her energy, her all-nighters didn't come cheap on her wakefulness or her dopamine levels, something that every student past the age of fourteen would learn very quickly, no matter where they were in the world.

Maybe being found by people with a puzzle and a snack wasn't such a bad idea after all—on this she was undecided. The dark green clouds of color in her hair, for example, made her easy to identify, and she hadn't chopped off the bottom portion of it because, well, unlike the last time she had her hair dyed, voluntarily too, she didn't hate it. It would've been nice to get a little warning, and she'd never admit it to the unnamed person who did the dye job for her, but it looked kind of cool on her, honestly—and of course the incoming flow of sweets was never a deterrent. Getting recognized was... not fun, necessarily, but not something she hated either. So she had made a name for herself at Hogwarts—well, then, why not use it to her advantage?

Normally she'd have an eagle's eye out for footsteps or rustles of clothing headed her way. Even the scratch of the nib against parchment, furious as her handwriting was, wasn't enough to drown out the dull thud of shoes on old floorboards if they weren't trying to tiptoe around the shelves. But sometimes the crinkle of paper got loud enough to mask the small noises of her surroundings, as her asymmetrical gaze pinned each line of the assignment beneath her quill, tunnel vision focus blurring everything else around the edges.

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