Browsing the Shelves PV Khris Bailey Closed

He's not entirely sure when it became his spot, this dark little space where the books have forgotten to be dusted. It had just sort of... happened one day. A wrong turn looking for a school book, a deliberate few steps for something that caught his eye. Twists and turns that brought him further and further into the labyrinth of parchment and ink. It was only by sheer luck or perhaps an unknown magic that he had found it at all. A few dimly lit shelves with books that hadn't seen a kind face in far too long.

A soft smile spread gently across Khris' lips as a page was carefully turned, the paper fluttering and sending dust motes flying as he leaned more comfortably against the shelf at his back. It was quiet here, like always, the majority of students opting for spending their reading time on school books or mystery books or anything really than this wonderful, albeit neglected collection of stories.

Old Classics. Romance. Dramas.

Not really what was up and current in the young wizarding world he supposed but still... Great Expectations smiled at him from his lap and Khris cast a shy grin back at the book. They were lovely and rich and he adored them no matter how unusual his tastes may be. That's why this place had become so special to him, had become his place. Khris could bring great stacks of his favourite books to this little corner and read to his hearts content, unconcerned with others catching the names of the novels he loved. Unconcerned about getting teased.

A quiet sigh suddenly drift through still air and Khris' heart froze, his head snapping upwards.

Oh. Please no...

Unaware of his silent begging a student, a boy, a Slytherin boy stepped around the corner bookshelf.

The further he advanced the less familiar Edric became with the titles and authors written on the spines of the books. Some of them were just really, really old, but others... he'd never heard of him before, by the amount of volumes with his name on them however, Edric guessed Dickens, Charles to be a pretty famous athor. A pretty famous muggle author.

He knew that muggles wrotes lots of novels. Shakespeare had been a muggle too, after all, even if the rumors that he'd been a squib had never completely died down. Still, the sheer mass of apparently very successful muggle authors was staggering. There were even a few women among them, the one named Brontë appearing again and again... wait, there were two of them?

Confused, Edric took a step back from the shelf. In doing so, something at the other end of the row caught his attention, a shape that was out of place, and he turned his head to take a look.

Another first year was sitting with his back to the shelf, a book in his lap. He had blond hair and bright blue eyes that stared at Edric like a rabbit in front of the proverbial hippogriff. For a moment they just stared at each other, both clearly surprised, but then Edric found his voice.

"Uh... sorry," he stammered, trying to remember where he'd seen the other boy before. "I didn't want to disturb your reading. Is it okay if I browse here or should I, um, go somewhere else?"

Well, this sure was awkward.

Khris blinked several times at the young Slytherin before him, his brow furrowing in confusion as the air stayed silent save the occasional whisper of a distant student or the calming rustle of pages being flipped. It had never really occurred to him that he wouldn't instantly be teased, words of mockery thrown as he hid behind his muggle stories in the event someone should find him here.

The fact that this lad had simply asked if he was allowed to stay without a single comment concerning the pile of books or the choice of genre had Khris' mind spinning.

The old careworn novels at his back knocked gently against each other as he leaned forward slightly, his own book in his lap carefully bookmarked and set aside as he tipped his head curiously at this fellow house mate. He looked the tiniest bit... familiar. Something about the mild lilt to his voice. Hippogriffs? Ah! The table. Khris allowed a small smile, his eyes softening a bit as he ducked his head in a shy nod.

Elias? Eric? Whatever the boy's name was he had been kind. Nice enough to warrant Khris wanting to make an effort at conversation until the slight mishap the other day. He'd sort of lost track of Eddi? after that. Perhaps this would be a good opportunity to try again.

Khris heart beat a timid pattern as he offered a small encouraging grin to the young lad.

"You're welcome to stay if you want." He murmured, eyes drifting to the lonely books surrounding them before coming to rest on the kind face of his fellow Slytherin once more. "It's a nice place to get away from it all. Quiet. Not many people come back here I've found. Old muggle novels aren't really most student's cup of tea." A small chuckle escaped his lips. "I'm Khris by the way."

"I'm Edric," he introduced himself and then self-consciously scratched the back of his head. "I didn't want to startle you, just got lost in all those books."

He pointed at the shelves as if it hadn't been obvious waht he meant by his words. Still, the amount of tomes was staggering to him. He'd grown up on an estate, not mansion. Of course they had s few small shelves of books, but half those was on hippogriffs, maybe a quarter was books for school and ony the last quarter were actual novels that you could read for your own amusement.

"Yeah, it's nice here. I didn't want to go that far in actually, but the rows kept going on and I got curious about how many of them there are. Like... I haven't read many books from muggels, you know?" he admitted. "We only have Shakespeare at home and my nanna likes that detective... Conan, Conan Doyle, I think."

Edric was somewhat embarrassed as the other boy - Khris, he reminded himself - seemed to know his way around this section of the library perfectly well. Him on the other hand, he was intimidated by the amount of muggle authors who he'd never heard of. All those people's writings were certainly famous, but he didn't even know a single one of their names.

"Are you here often?" he asked, trying to cover up his dilemma.

A bright smile crossed Khris' face at Edric's mention of the old plays and books at his home and he nodded understandingly at the mention of curiosity concerning the seemingly endless sea of stories here. His finding this place had been just as unintentional, if not more so than Edric's, but it was the curiosity for tales that kept him coming back each day. The curiosity that kept him choosing a new book every week.

Khris stood carefully, his ankles and knees popping as he raised from the ground.

"Sherlock." His voice echoed against the old shelves. "The detective's name was Sherlock Holmes and the author was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But yeah, that's a good set of stories." He chuckled quietly as he returned one of the books to the shelf, the cover appearing to shine and stand out now devoid of the dust covering everything else.

He had always loved novels, books in general but especially these. Great stories of old filled to the brim with supliferous words that still managed to dance elegantly across the page. His mum was probably the cause for his obsession. Every evening she had read to him, a tradition that lasted far longer than bedtime story rituals were usually kept, and the book was always a story like those surrounding the two students now.

The Great Classics She used to call them.

Muggle books that were magical in their own right and made him feel like he was home.

Khris cast an encouraging grin towards Edric and nodded.

"I am here pretty often. Actually... really quite often if I'm honest." He gave a nervous giggle at the confession. "It's just that it's good spot to come and the books are ones I like. Even if I don't read them all it's nice to be around them, you know? But how about you? You mentioned you were curious about these books. Are you- What kind of stories do you usually like? There's a pretty large selection back here."

Khris turned towards the shelf and started scanning over the titles, some familiar and some not, some well known but never read and others so peculiar he'd need to check them out simply to satisfy his curiosity. He wasn't trying to be rude or too nosy when he asked the question. On the contrary. Khris' eyes lit with a quiet hope and a silent wish for this fellow wizard to perhaps... to just maybe share a similar love for words regardless the genre or heritage of the author.

"Sherlock, that was his name," he agreed happily when Khris mentioned the detective. He'd forgotten that part, as well as the first name of the author. Arthur. It was a common name, even in the wizarding world. "And his friend was the doctor. Watson! Though I still don't really understand what he does... Mam said it's similar to a medi-wizard, but the doctor does everything by hand of course, without magic."

Now that he was talking about the characters of the book he remembered more details. Sherlock lived in Lonon, that he was pretty sure of, too. After that his memory got fuzzy however, as he'd only been told about the famous detective rather than read the books for himself. Maybe he should give it a try even if mystery stories weren't exactly his preferred kind of reading material.

Edric watched as Khris put the old tome carefully back in place, handling it like it was something very precious to him. For some reason watching him as he stared at the books made Edric wishful to just take out a random one and read it. The other boy had an aura of calmness surrounding him that he couldn't help but let himself be carried along with it.

"I totally get why you're here so often, this place is amazing." And he meant it. This hidden corner of the library with it's dusty, old muggle classics was a special place, obviously even more to Khris than it was to him. He grinned happily. "Thank you for sharing. It feels like this means a lot you."

The last thing he wanted to do was to take his safe heaven away from the other boy or spoil it by besieging this peaceful, all but forgotten corner of the library.

"I..." he opened his mouth and closed it again, knowing that he was blushing. Khris didn't look like he would judge however, and so Edric decided to be truthful. "Novels. I like novels. Romance novels, but others as well. Grand old tales, kings and dragons, mythical stories... my favorite book, it's called Momo. My aunt gave it to me for my tenth birthday."

He abruptly closed his mouth, second guessing his words and fearing that he'd been too enthusiastic.

It was absolutely impossible to keep the grin off his face as Khris whirled around at the stuttered confession, his eyes bright and smiling as he met Edric's with a cheerful laugh on his lips.

It was like a switch had gone off.

You see... not very often does a young lad, especially a young Slytherin lad attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, find a fellow appreciator of old muggle novels. Being used to the harshness and cruelty of fellow boy his age made this seem rather like a dream to Khris. Like something so unique it couldn't really be real.

It made him a bit careless really. He bounced on his toes, silly grin on his face and lost for words as his mind thrummed with a million questions and conversations he hoped to have in the future. He clapped his hands together once with a resounding smack that had the rather frightening librarian hissing a "shhhhhh" that reached all the way to their little area.

Their area! A friend! Someone to talk about these books with! Someone who wouldn't scoff but smile when they saw the titles of what he was reading! Who cared if Edric hadn't read many muggle stories yet? The lad liked old novels and romance novels and powerful tales of fantasy! He was bound to fall in love with these if he only gave them a chance.

Khris glanced down the rows contemplatively before turning to fix his fellow Slytherin with a small smirk. It looked like it was going to be up to him to ensure Edric had every opportunity to do just that.

To fall in love with these muggle stories.

"Romance novels are amazing." He praised, curls bouncing as he gave an enthusiastic nod. "And highly underrated I think. I'm guessing not enough people see them for what they truly are. They just hear the name of the genre and go 'ew' which is really quite rude of them. Haven't they heard not to judge a book by it's cover? And fantasy novels!?" Khris absolutely beamed. "Fantasy novels are my favourite genre of all. It's a whole world you get to escape into though I will warn you most of the muggle written ones tend to get everything wrong as far as witches and wizards are concerned. Still... They're SO good. In fact there's this one series you really ought to read it. It's just... I think." He turned, eyes narrowing as he scanned the words printed on the edge of each shelf in looping script. "Hm."

Slender fingers tentatively grasped the very hem of Edric's sleeve and gave a light tug.

"Here. I'll show you. Maybe you can get a few of these books then? I've never heard of Momo before but if it's anything like the books you like I'm sure it's fantastic."

From one moment to the next something changed with Khris. Edric looked on in wonder as his blue eyes lit up, a bright, cheerful smile came to his lips and he bobbed up and down and clapped his hands together in joy a second later - which of course earned him a scolding from the librarian who must have the best ears in the world to hear that at the front desk. It wasn't only his expression however, the other Slytherin's whole demeanor seemed to changed a bit. The blonde was really, sincerely happy and his good mood spilled over onto Edric.

He had to put one his hands in front of his mouth to stifle a laugh and rolled his eyes in the direction the librarian's desk. When he had himself back under control he returned Khris' smirk with a wide grin of his own.

"Yes!" he agreed enthusiastically when his newfound comrade in love of books began ranting about romance novels. "Romantic novels are awesome! But I can't read them at home because my supid brothers would laugh at me and take the books away for fun. They're so silly... and those hero stories are called fantasy? I didn't know that. Wait, there is whole genre of them? Like there are more?"

Edric stared at Khris with wide, hazel eyes, unblinking and frozen on the spot. He hadn't known that there was whole genre about magical stories in the muggle world. Of course he'd know that muggles did write about magic of course, but he hadn't known that they had a created complete genre for them.

"You have to show me!" he all-but begged Khris, eye bright with glee, and grabbed the other boy's wrist when he pulled on his sleeve, ready to tug him over to wherever they needed to go to find all those amazing books he had been promised. "And then I can tell you about Momo and They Grey Gentlemen and theft of time. You'll love it."

The words had barely left Edric's lips before the two of them were off, Khris still holding fast to the black hem of a sleeve and darting between the beloved stories in search of familiar friends to introduce. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, The Chronicles of Prydain, and The Hobbit with all it's predecessors. Familiar stories just waiting in this unremembered section to be collected.

Khris' really couldn't stop smiling if he tried.

All of this - the joyful look Edric had returned, the excited words shared over books, the way he could just be and ramble without fear of being teased- it was so new and so grand and if Edric's words were any clue it seemed this fellow classmate felt the same way. Grateful for the freedom that a kind soul allowed.

Khris cast a grin back over his shoulder as he slowed, fingers releasing Edric's sleeve in favour of running across the silvery titles before them. "Here we are. First stop anyway..." He chuckled quietly before lifting his head to scan the filled shelves. Dust motes twirled their way through the waning rays of sun; lifted from their resting places on the spines of old books at Khris' touch. A short tap was given to a little book he had paused on and he pulled it carefully from the shelf with a fond smile before passing it back towards his fellow Slytherin. "The Inheritance by Louisa May Alcott." He murmured with a nod towards the book. "Well known author, not very well known story. It's really lovely though, especially if you like romance." He grinned once more before turning back to the shelves. "You know, for being muggle books not very many romance or fantasy novels even get read. I mean, I can understand why wizards don't read them -they aren't really easily accessible for us here in the wizarding world- but even back at home with the books available so many of them get... forgotten." Another few books were pulled out and handed over. "Like Momo. It seems like an amazing story and yet I've never even heard of it before! Oh..."

Khris froze, hand raised halfway to the shelf and a suddenly sheepish expression spreading across his face. Blue eyes met hazel for a moment and the blond offered an embarrassed smile. "I'm so sorry for going on and on and on. You were going to tell me about Momo and the men in... Grey? And here I am rambling like I'm the only one in the room. Please," he gestured towards Edric in what he hoped was an encouraging manner. "Please tell me about it. I really do want to hear, I promise. I just... I got carried away."