Books are powerful. Jo could remember the day she learned that lesson. A man came to the house, his arm in a sling, bandages covering about half of his face. His hair looked recently burnt.  He handed father a small, black book. Father then gave him a very large amount of money and sent him on his way. Books have power, he said. Not always ones with spells or potions. No, those were common in this world. But ones with secrets. They held the most power...if you knew how to use them. 

So she found herself in the famous bookstore, browsing through the shelves. Everything there was what you would expect. Text books. Biographies. Novels. Nothing that seemed like it was the kind of power her father paid that much money for.  Not to mention, these textbooks were getting heavy. Jo would never understand why she couldn't just have the house elf do all of this for her. Father insisted it was a right of passage. 

Right as her arms were starting to get tired, she spied a boy she reasoned to be roughly her age. Without thinking she walked up to him with a smile "Excuse me, I need you to hold these for a second, yes?" she said on a force, yet polite way. She thrust the books forward and let go of them without even stopping to see if he actually grabbed them. "I do believe daddy gave me too much money. It is getting very hard to carry this around" she whined while producing a large coin purse that seemed to be struggling to stay closed, "And all of these heavy books at the same time. Would you happen to know if there are any books here I may need not on the normal list? I start at Hogwarts very soon you see"

The bell over the door sounded with a light, twinkling noise as Zachary entered the bookstore. Flourish and Blotts, he thought, mulling the word over in his mind, quietly saying it once or twice. It sounded... good. It sounded magic. 

Zack winced at the thought of the word magic, again, the thought of the Hogwarts castle crossed his mind and loomed over him. Yes, he was a wizard, he knew it, but still... sometimes he felt he would be better off in a school full of Muggles. It certainly wouldn't create all this anxiety, all the "what-if"s. What if they were like his- ...like them? What if he utterly failed in all lessons? And - worst of all - what if they discovered it all? All the hurt. All the hatred buried in his past. 

The boy shook his head violently, not caring if anyone watched. No one would discover anything about him, a spark of joy rose up. He could start a new life... or could he? The spark was extinguished almost immediately as his thin, slender hand shot up. Not to his eye. To an empty eye socket, to the scars which always reminded him of what happened and of Rose. He couldn't even bear looking at himself in the mirror. He always saw her face, her bright eyes and the warmth fading out of them, that smear of blood... 

He shook the thoughts away. This shop wasn't that sort of magic. It wasn't evil, it was the magic of words, the smell of parchment and leather-bound spines and ink. Something like a smile dawned on his usually sallow lips. He loved bookshops. In fact, shopping in this magic bookstore was the thing he had most looked forward to when his letter came. He had dreaded it: the owl fluttering against the window, the letter on parchment with green ink. And then he had seen the list of books he needed. It had made him think, well, yes, I'll give it a try. Excitement rose up in him as he glanced around, fingering the spines and glancing at his list of books every now and then. His hand was drawn to a notebook bound in golden leather, it was soft and warm in his hand, and he marvelled at the creamy blank pages. 

Zack noticed it was surprisingly quiet in the shop even though there were quite a few students walking around on the wooden floor and browsing through the shelves. He had often noticed this effect in places like this. Something about the presence of books certainly caused people to be careful of not making too much noise. 

He jumped as suddenly, a voice clear as glass, sounding a little posh, cut through the silence. A girl abruptly appeared in front of him, he hadn't noticed her approaching. She talked with a huge, wide smile. "Excuse me, I need you to hold this for a second, yes?" "Um... oookay, yeah", Zack stuttered as she dropped a pile of books into his arms. He struggled and staggered around under the weight of the heavy volumes, trying to get a grip on them, but the girl just kept talking. Her voice now acquired some mixture of a high-pitched whine and exasperation. "I do believe Daddy gave me too much money", she drawled. "It is getting very hard to carry this around." With an annoyed look on her face, she shook her perfectly brushed hair and produced a purse with some coins seeming to be in a struggle to escape, judging from the gleaming gold pushing out of the piece of leather. "And all of these heavy books at the same time. Would you happen to know if there are any books here I may need not on the normal list? I start at Hogwarts very soon, you see?" Zack sighed, still struggling under the combined weight of his own books and this girl's volumes. He carefully lifted a hand to brush a loose strand of red hair out of his face, then quickly returned the hand to steady the stack. "Um... I start at Hogwarts too, y'know?", he wheezed. "And... I suppose we - oof - should buy all the books - on the list - because - the teachers must have - uh - put them on there for some reason..." His sentence was full of pauses and strange heavy breathing, it probably seemed quite awkward to the girl - but then, he also didn't like her behaviour that much. Flashing her money around like that! And then this silly whiny noise just because there weren't any servants, house-elves or whatever her family had to lift every weight off her. This girl had no idea what a real struggle was, he thought, she rather seemed like a spoiled brat. Still, he endured her ways, maybe it was good to know someone there when he came to Hogwarts. Then he'd already have a friend... Right, he wasn't sure if he really desired to be friends with this girl, but maybe there was more to her than met the eye - the ear? He decided to act polite. A forced smile appeared on his face as he turned his head in her direction. "So, you'll also be a new first-year at Hogwarts? What's your name?" He dropped the books on a nearby table and sighed with relief, shaking out his numb arms as he took a seat.

Now that Jo got a proper look at the boy, she was a bit unnerved. Was he missing an eye? What could have caused such a thing?! She was so curious about it she could barely contain it.  Would it be rude to ask? There were so many questions. Maybe he was born that way. Maybe he was the victim of some horrible accident. A real tragedy like what happened back in the 90's. Maybe mother wasn't kidding when she said brooms could take an eye out. 

"Um... I start at Hogwarts too, y'know?" Jo's eyes lit up! Meeting new friends was a very exciting concept. At this rate should we know a few people who hopefully weren't horrible before the term even started.  She felt like she had met more people her age the past couple days that she had seen her whole life! "Oh that's brilliant! What house do you think you'll be in? Daddy thinks I'll be in Slytherin just like he was, and his father, and his father...Anyway, I'm not sure I want that. I think it would get rather gloomy being under the lake all the time don't you? Maybe somewhere with a nice view of the grounds."

She barely stopped herself from prattling on when her new friend asked another question. "My name is Josephine Amelia Marigold Bryan..." she paused for a second, a distant look flashed over her eyes, "Call me Jo, please" that slight bit of rebellion made her feel a little guilty, but it felt better to take a little control of her life, "Yes, Jo works very well," her smile quickly returned after that. "Pleasure,"