A Good Old Book Barrier Closed

"Your book?" he asked, cocking his head to the side. "Oh! I'm sure it's around here somewhere?" he knelt back down next to the desk peering underneath it. "Do you know what it looked like? What book was it? I might have picked it up by accident." He instantly started searching through the pile of books on his desk. He didn't bother to stand up straight, instead, he just knelt up with his chin resting on the side of the table, peering through the stacks of books. "And I think Ravenclaw suites you, you sound like a bit of a bookworm. So you're really smart though, right? I mean, you have to be to answer riddles and stuff. I can barely remember the passwords for my dorm. I bet I'm gonna get stuck outside soon. I heard that happens from time to time. That some students just sleep in the hall 'cause they get stuck outside." He kept looking as his spoke, going back to look under the desk, then under his chair. He looked like some kind of whack-a-mole, popping up and down again and again. "Dunno what I'd do then, I'm kind of used to the comfy beds now. But I did used to sleep at the park every now and then so it shouldn't be too bad."

While Hunter bent down looking for her missing book, Dawn was surprised at how she'd even lost it. The only times Dawn had left her book alone, was when she was occupied or had found something more interesting to do. Frowning a bit, she bent down next to Hunter and began searching for her book as well. "For some reason, I have a habit of loosing things, but never my novel's, which is rather strange if you ask me." Dawn said to Hunter as she looked around. "And you know what else? The thing that is lost always ends up being in a place, I've search a million times!" she exclaimed. "The novel is called,'West Carter: The Werewolf Realm'. And thank you for helping me search." She stopped to give Hunter a grateful smile. She looked around the same place around three times, while listening to Hunter talk about entering the Ravenclaw room. "Well, riddles just happen to be my thing,I guess. Sure I have answered a riddle wrong before. But it was the middle of the day and I wasn't in a rush to get in anyway. I get nervous when I have to enter the room at night, just in case I get stuck outside, but I manage to trust in my knowledge." Dawn went through the pile one more time and realized that the front cover of her novel was tucked in between one of Hunter's books. "Awww...no. I did not just go through this, like four times and just find it now. Maybe I'm sick? There must be something wrong with me, right?" she said with a dreadful expression, to Hunter.

"That happens sometimes," Hunter said, jumping back to his feet. He stood up straight, pulling his hair back out of his eyes. "Human brains are stupid, like my mum used to walk around for hours looking for her glasses and they'd be on her head."
His chipper demeanour seemed to falter for a slip second, but in the blink of an eye, he was back to grinning like an idiot. He picked up her book and held it out to her, his cheeks a little pink from all the moving he'd been doing. "Maybe it was magic? Like the books are all enchanted so they automatically go back on the desks after you drop them. That would be cool. Apparently, there's a spell you can use to make things come to you but I don't know it yet. I'm not too good at magic. Like, I get it in theory but I'm not too good at the wand movements, you know? But I didn't grow up around magic so I guess that's not too unexpected." He tapped his chin with his finger, humming slightly.
Somewhere off in the bookshelves someone shushed him again.
"Sorry!" he called back in a muted yell, his voice hushed.

Dawn reduced her voice as she explained in a hushed tone,"I know it happens a lot, misplacing things, I mean, but for it to happen to my book. It..it's just weird. Oh well, not that it matters that much." Dawn smiled and felt her legs starting to ache from standing too long. Pulling out a chair, she sat down and felt relief settle down her spine. Dawn was passed her book and she gratefully took it."I doubt that the book has magic cast on it, because for one, it is a muggle book and two, I don't think anyone would bother doing that to my book and I can't have possibly done that by accident. But now that you mention it, your right, it would be cool to have a book to appear on the desk, once you've dropped it." She looked out of the window from her seat and spied the view that she continuously thought was beautiful. The Grounds was covered by such a pleasant green and the Great Lake had lapping water that sparkled in the sun light. Turning back to the Gryffindor, she asked,"Have you been exploring? Like there is much to do here, but you have to explore at least once. I went exploring one time, to get an idea of the castle and ended up getting lost! But the thing is, exploring is always better with a friend." Dawn enjoyed discovering new things and recalled the exploring she performed back at home.

Hunter hadn’t, but that wasn’t going to stop him from pretending he had. “Yeah, I’ve looked around a little,”he said, settling down back into his chair. “I got lost as well, ended up wandering around the forest for ages and ages. I didn’t think I’d find my way back to be honest. Kieths don’t have the best sense of direction.” He took down what remained of the book barrier, stacking them up one by one in a neat pile. “My grandad, right, used to get lost all the time ‘cause he’d sleepwalk. Once he actually got on his motorbike and dove halfway across town! Woke up in a paddock with a sheep eating his PJs.”
This story wasn’t actually a complete lie. While his grandfather was a sleepwalker, he’d been woken up by the sound of his bike revving before any real harm could be done.
“I get the feeling it would be easy to get lost here,” he continued, “What with the moving staircase. Whose idea was that anyway? It’s just going to make getting to class so much harder.” He started to bounce his knee under the table as he spoke and he winced. It was a bad habit. It annoyed people.

Dawn laughed and leaned back into the chair,"You seem to have many interesting stories. I might have had some good experiences but you seem to have them all! Back at home there was so many wonderful things to do." Dawn tucked her hair behind her ear and suddenly remembered something or someone."Since you seem to know so much, I'd like to ask for some advice." Dawn looked at Hunter, then focused past him, to the view outside, making everything else rather unclear. Her face held a thoughtful expression, with an obvious tug-of-war occurring, on whether to say or not. Deciding on the former, she began carefully,"You see back at home, I have a friend, who is a muggle and I miss a lot. But the thing is I..." she stopped hesitantly, flicking her eyes to Hunter, then back to the window. Changing her mind, she quickly finished saying," I really want to send a letter to my father to pass to him as I'm afraid of loosing contact with him but I don't know what to write? We made a pledge that no matter what we will stay friends. But here I am delaying a letter." She felt a bit guilty in twisting the truth a bit, but she kept her facade of interest of what ever he was going to say. She felt no changes, no weight lifted off her chest, as she knew she wouldn't get the answer without telling the truth. It was the closest, she has gotten so far to getting a friend, yet somehow, she felt as though she'd screwed up.

"Hm," Hunter hummed, tapping a finger to his chin for a moment. "Well, you could just leave out all the magical stuff. That way no one could be mad at you. There aren't any rules saying Wizards can't be friends with muggles, right? I mean, I'd be in trouble if there was. I'm going to see if I can get my dad to pass on some letters for me. Maybe get him to type them up so they look like an email so they don't get suspicious. Though, I mean, the ministry can't care too much if muggles find out about them. Like, my dad knows about magic. And a bunch of other half-blood wizard's parents must know about them too. I'm sure if you asked one of the professors someone could sort things out. " He knew what it was like to not want to lose friends. "You're a muggle-born, right? Or maybe a half-blood? Like, was one of your parents a Wizard? I haven't heard of many proper wizards having muggle friends from the outside world." He was starting to ramble again. "Now that I think about it the rules are kind of confusing...granting everything about this place is confusing."

Dawn was startled at the fact that wizards and witches who were pure-blood, rarely became friends with muggles. Leaning her elbows on the table, she cradled her head in her open palms and said,"I'm half-blood, my father is a wizard and my mother was a human. Wait, she is a human, sorry." She had gotten so used to saying was for everything when it came to her mother, but saying she was human just sounded out of place. She thought about her again, wondering what it was like to have a mother and deep inside she found sorrow. But being the independent person she is, she pushed it down as she remembered that she promised herself that she would not let grief get in the way of everyday things. Instead, she learnt to love the woman in the photo frame on her bedside table.

"I feel as though sometimes, there are too many unnecessary rules. Like what you said about the muggles finding out, what are they even going to do about it?" Dawn shrugged halfheartedly. "What are you? I mean what's you blood status? Are you half-blood, too?" asked Dawn assuming from when he mentioned something about half-blood previously. "How many is in your family? " added Dawn curiously since he seemed to have many family members.

Hunter drew in a deep breath. "Well, technically I'm a half-blood, but I'm pretty much a muggle-born cause my mum was something called a Squib. I think those are just wizards without the magic. And I'm pretty sure wizards count as being human, just like, a different race? Or Breed? I dunno. But it's just me and my dad now. He's pretty cool." His nails dug into his palm as he spoke about his father. "What about you? Do you have any brothers? Sisters? Cousins? You don't really seem like a half-blood--I mean I thought you were a pureblood cause they seem kind of posher usually? Granted I guess it's possible for purebloods to be poor. I mean. Some of them have to be otherwise there'll be no way of telling who's posh and who's not." He relaxed a little, his words coming out in a long fast stream of garbled words. Again he was shushed by someone in the shelves, but yet again he took absolutely no notice. Though it was perfectly possible for him to not be able to hear them over the sound of his own voice. It was a miracle that he hadn't been kicked out yet.

Dawn smiled thinking of her father. "Well...my father being a pure-blood, I guess I kind of seem like a pure-blood myself. But I don't really get how one can seem something or be labeled a name, like a clothing in the store." She shrugged. "Just like you, it's only me and my father, because my mother passed away when I was younger." She said quickly and as usual avoided the words, dead, dies and died. "I wish I had siblings or even a twin. I don't have any extended family that I know of from my fathers side and if my mother had any extended family, they'd probably be in France." Dawn tilted her head slightly."Do I really sound posh? I've never considered the thought, but my father did tell me I sounded rather polite and after all I do use words like father, instead of dad." She was now oblivious to her surroundings and had begun to get tugged into the conversation. The fact that it was a Library didn't help. But she kept talking for all she cared, toning it down a notch. "Dad and papa sound foreign to me, like another language. But it's probably because I grew up with the word father. If my mother were around, I wonder if I would have used the words papa and mama. It sounds casual to me yet respectful, you know?"