A story to be happy about

The smell of old books filled Ellie's nose. It was something she loved to be around. It reminded her somehow of dreams and far off places she use to love to read about when she was a child. Her hand drifted across the bindings of each book she passed. Even the leather of the binding gave her a happy sensation. A smile spread across her face as she walked to the end of aisle she was in. Stopping for a slight minute or so to let students walk past her, then it was onwards to the next.

As her hand drifted across the books of two more shelves, her eyes too drifted across the titles. Not that she processed any to her memory, none of them seemed to jump out at her and grab her attention. Her robes swished as she walked on, her attention clearly not on the books themselves, but the size. The books ranged from enormous to decent medium size, but that wasn't what Ellie was searching for. The clicking sound of her shoes stopped, standing in front of a vast row of books her eyes settled on just one.

Pulling it off a shelf, Ellie took a deep breath in and let it out blowing all the dust that had collected on it from years of not being read. The book she grabbed was long in width and short in length. It wasn't like the other books filled with many pages but rather the opposite. Ellie's grin grew, util it seemed like it reached both ears. Never taking her eyes off the thin book, she found a empty table and sat.

Eyes gleaming with an unknown happiness she said under her breath, "Perfect."

The musty smell of the pages wafted around Ellie, but she didn't mind. Her smile never left her face as she opened it. She also didnt care that the book she grabbed was a beginners book of something or other. She had a differnt purpose for it entirely. Instead of words on the page she saw pictures, pictures of fairytale lands. Ellie wanted to be a child once again, happy, without a care for what was to come, she wanted those pretend dreams, where she could be anything. Possibly even skip around and sing at the top of her lungs.

The feeling was different when you dreamed, it wasn't like reality where people always expected the best from you. You could be who ever you wanted and Elie wanted that more than ever in her now seventh year there. Slipping her head into her hand, she started to hum as she drifted into a pleasent daydream that the flipping pages coaxed her into.

The world faded away, though the soft, sweet melodious humming stayed, drifting setting a pleasent mood. The atmosphere felt light, no cares, no troubles, or stress. There wasnt the constant need for expectations or goals, it was free. Everything that surrounded her came into focus, though it wasnt the library she was in, the place she was in was a completely new world. Yet it felt strangely familiar, but she could identify it.

Looking about her, Ellie saw trees and flowers of so many kinds. Off in the distance she saw a small village, her desire was to go near it and mingle with whatever people lived there. But something inside her, something old yet young, was telling her not to go there. That there wasnt anything there for her.

A small smile crossed her lips, again she looked around. She saw the flowers bloom right in front of her. Then she heard off in the distance, a stream dancing, gruggling, and bubbling. Whatever it was, told her to go near it. Her feet lead the way, having no control over them she had to go. The smell of everything around her filled her nose, it was sweet and had that certain outdoors smell that she couldnt describe, and underlaying those was the distinctive smell of musty pages.

Dismissing the last smell as coincidence, she approached the stream. Just steps away, she was tempted to chuck off her shoes and dip her feet in the water. But again something pushed aside her wants with something else. Instead she leaned over the lapping waters and looked. Instead of seeing her older reflection, she looked at the image of a young girl, her younger self. She saw that she had on her sunday best, her hair curled for church. When she use to go with her family.

Ellie couldnt seem to take her eyes away from this stunning image. Off in the distance she heard laughter, childish laughter. Turning her head slowly she spotted two children playing, one obviously was her and the other was her younger brother. They were happy, Ellie observed, she tried to remember when she was that happy. Then she heard another voice, her mothers, her voice sounded like tinkling bells, then there was another, deeper, and masculine. That one belonged to her father.

Ellie smile, her hand brushed up against a tree, but instead of feeling bark the felt vellum and leather. Her world faded from her mind, everything was black. She realized she had her eyes closed and opened them. Looking down her hand sat on the edge of the book she had recently pulled off the shelf.

Sudden realization hit her and all Ellie could do was sit and stare at the book, sitting quietly on the table, pages being lifted some as students passed by. She had been in a dream, yet it was mixed with a memory of her familys last happy moment together. And that feeling was a mix of those with an instictive feel. She had mixed her little world with her desire, her long term want. Happiness. Happiness with her family as well as being together than broken.

Tears streamed down her cheeks. She still couldnt move. She sat and waited, she made no noise but the tears still came without permission. When she was able to move, she wiped her tears away. She eventually closed the book gathered it to her chest and stood. She didnt want to move but with a careful step her started to move to the shelf which the book belonged.

To be in the library for many was considered a chore and an obligation to find the things you needed to cram in before some large test. For Talon however, it was a sort of haven away from his problems. Sure, he had the Ravenclaw Common Room, a true home away from home, yet it was usually always filled with drama and other blokes who often thought it was funny to pull pranks on others. So the library was the best choice to choose out of the two, at least here you had to be quiet or risk detention. Besides the element of peace, he had no other reason to believe why he was drawn to the place. Seeing as how they had no access to Muggle technology or the Internet, it was the only place you could gather factual information and other advantages over the common man, maybe that was the true reason why he came here.

He walked into the library, the immediate smell of books and other ancient documents immediately filling his sense, a slight smile forming upon his face. It was good to be away from it all for even five minutes, and this was the only place you could go to truly escape your problems. He progressed further into the library, passing a couple of Slytherin students giggling about something. It was probably more than likely him, yet he paid no attention to their mindless prattle. He was on a mission right now, and he needed to find what he had came here for. He stealthily maneuvered around the tables and chairs, almost setting up a nice jogging pace, and quickly disappeared into one of the aisles. He began to scan each and every spine that came into view, using his finger as a guide to check the next one through his journey. After about a minute of just glancing at each backbone, he eventually found what he needed...about two feet taller than he was. He furrowed his brow in irritation.

Checking left and right, he tried to look for some kind of footstool, something that he could use to break the distance. When he found nothing of the sort, he quickly jogged into the next aisle and found an old looking chair, its side braced against the bookshelf. Perfect, someone else must've used that to help boost themselves as well! He quickly jogged over and grabbed the chair by it's underside, slowly penguin walking himself in an awkward fashion by to his original spot.

Once he returned, he set the chair down against the shelf and put one foot on the seat to test it out. It seemed sturdy enough to him, so he quickly thrust himself up into the air and placed his next foot on the seat, his arm reaching out and grabbing the top of the textbook. A problem arose though once he realized it was stuck. With a simmering irritation, he quickly yanked the book, once, twice, then thrice, and on his fourth try, the book came flying out of it's spot...as well as Talon. The chair had broken right where it had stood, causing Talon to fall back and hit the ground with a slight thud behind a girl he hadn't even noticed. "Ugh..." he groaned softly, the book pressed against his chest. What else would go wrong?

Ellie's movements felt mechanical, sluggish, as if she were walking in water. Her steps were hesitant, she felt drained of everything, and she wasnt far from the table. Trying to motivate herself, she pushed herself to keep going. The distance to the books and herself felt endless, it seemed to stretch, but not to draw anymore attention to herself she walked instead of ran. She didnt know if there was any attention drawn to her, but she didnt want to know.

The books stayed tightly pressed to her chest, her knuckles turned white from clutching it as it were a way to stay upright. The library had been her favorite place in the world, the smell always was comforting, the feel of paper under her fingers reassuring, the vast amount of knowledge invigorating. The place was a secret retreat to hide away from things when they got bad. She never thouht that it was also a place where some things could find you. She always came here to get lost in the books, the way the text seemed to flow, just as an escape route. Ellie never knew what she was running away from, she knew she was running.

Her thoughts kept her busy, she hardly noticed that she was halfway through an aisle, or other students passing by. She was far away, lost deep in her thoughts. Obsticles were easily monuvered around, even if her pace was slow, she managed not to bump anyone around her. Her head was tilted downwards, hiding the tears that still flowed, and occasionally dabbing at them with her sleeves. Deep within her own thoughts, turning pages went unnoticed as well as the chatter of people.

There was a loud cracking noise followed by thud of something hitting the ground, starttled out of her thoughts became aware of her surroundings. Dabbing at her eyes with her sleeve, she composed herself enough look over her shoulder. She saw that a chair had been broken and a boy laying upon the ground with a booked clutched to his chest. The boy she noticed, was from Ravenclaw, but didnt remember seeing him. That was usual for her not to know anyone, having her head somewhere else or reading.

Her whole body followed suit and turned around. Moving slowly towards him, not mechanically but more out out caution. She was close by, when she knelt down, reaching foreward but not touching the boy she gave a worried face. Not knowing the boy didnt give her reason not to be concerned for his well being. "Are you ok?" Ellie said with some sniffling, a side effect of crying.

With a slight groan, Talon opened his watery eyes to a blurry picture of a girl kneeling above him, his vision getting more clear by the second. He must have had a pretty nasty fall, his head throbbing slightly to the back of his cranium. He could only imagine that he had fallen and hit the back of his head first, him being lucky it wasn't too severe...and that the floor wasn't made of concrete. "I'm alright," he said, leaning himself forward, his hand on the back of his head. He groaned for another second before the pain began to subside, the headache still lurking on the peripheral. He was definitely going to feel that in the morning.

"Just a minor bump," he said with a smile, trying to make it seem less embarassing than it really was. Even from a distance, he could hear a couple of students laughing in response, his face growing a faint red. That was the last time he would ever risk his life, or reputation, for a book. He looked back towards the girl that had knelt over him, the first thing that appeared in his mind was her puffy eyes. It appeared that she had been crying recently for reasons unknown to him. A possible explanation was because he fell, but then again, no stranger ever cried for another stranger. He paused for a moment. What the hell was he thinking?

"I'm fine though," he repeated again, his hand rubbing the back of his head to soothe the bump "Just hopefully I can keep my dignity after this." He wiped off the excess tears that had formed from the fall with the back of his hand and rubbing it on his pants. No one needed to see his tears, otherwise they'd think he was a sissy or something.

Hearing the boy say he was fine, made Ellie relax some. From what she saw, from what he said though, told completely different stories. She had worried that he had seriously injured himself. She still was somewhat worried. Usually boys, no matter how old they were, said entirely different things just so thier egos stayed intact. Ellie had figured that out living with her brother. She heard the laughter of the few students who stayed, thinking this was amusing, glancing up she glared at them. The effect probably wasn't the same with her face red and tear stained, but there came an eventual hush. She hated teasing, no one should be teased because they were ill fated at that moment.

Lowering her gaze back to the boy, she wanted to make sure that he truely was ok. She watched for a while longer as he rubbed his head. 'That must really hurt.' Responded Ellie's thoughts. Trying to relax her face, Ellie stood up and headed for the reckage that had once been a chair. Her thoughts were still foggy and mixed with concern, but she had to repress a laugh from escaping her. How anyone didnt notice that the chair was ancient with issues that occured in wood from old age, escaped her. But in his haste, she guessed, he hadnt noticed.

Setting her small book down with slight difficuty, the pieces of the chair were able to be placed out of the way. Turning back around, she ignored him as he tried to sway her that he was fine. Her tears by this time had subsided, so giving him a small smile she said down to him, "Ill agree that you seem fine. And your dignity will heal as well if its been hurt." Assuring herself that she had said nothing wrong. She offered out her hand. "If your truely fine, let me help you get back up?"

Talon still couldn't believe he hadn't checked that chair anyway, he was usually someone to inspect everything before he tried something. Ehh, perhaps life in Hogwarts was morphing him into a Gryffindor, it seemed like that was a mistake they usually made. He still rubbed the back of his head, the impact bruise still tender to the touch of his skin. Good thing the bump had been on his head, otherwise he'd seriously have a problem with the embarrassment. He rolled his eyes at his own sarcasm, knowing that teasing himself was a horrible thing to start upon.

He looked back up to the girl that had witnessed him fall, a slight smile escaping from him. Ehh, it would heal soon enough, but she was right about one thing though. The dignity would probably take a while to heal anyway, with the couple of other students that had been laughing probably going to tell their friends anyway. He'd dealt with worse, but that wasn't how he made the best of a bad situation. Grabbing her hand with his, he pulled himself up back to his feet, using his hand to wipe off any dust that clung to his back. He was sure nothing got on there, but he liked to be careful with that...it'd be awkward to have a huge dust bunny clinging to the back of his robes now wouldn't it?

"Thank you," he said with a friendly tone, his eyes still a little watery. He hoped she wouldn't notice. "I'm Talon by the way," he said graciously as he nodded his head out of gesture. He rubbed the back of his head one more time, a wince forming on face as he touched the mark. He was a pansy when it came to pain, that's why he often tried to avoid it any way he could.

Ellie tried not to stumble forward, she was caught off guard by his weight pulling on her to help him up. Steadying herself, she managed not to fall flat on her face with both of them on the ground. 'God that would be embarrassing!' Ellie thought, hoping her checks didn't turn the slightest shade of red or pink. The boy back on his feet, Ellie turned around and grabbed her slender book, as he dusted himself off.

She felt better that she had stayed to help, usually in that situation everyone would probably stand around snickering and jeering. But then again it wasn't her business, she didn't want to be to pushy. Even though she wondered, 'Why was there a rush for a book?'. but again it wasn't her business to know.

Back to facing the boy, she watched him flinch as her touched the back of his head. She had known that he was hiding the pain, but didn't say a word to him. That would have injured his dignity even more than what it already had. Ellie was quiet once again, her mind now focused on getting the book back in its rightful place. when the boy had said 'Thank you' to her, she gave a small nod of the head with a silent, "You're welcome." Only she was then again shaken from her little world for a slight moment when when he introduced himself, she had hoped that she could have walked away without further involvement.

Blinking for sometime, Ellie managed to open her mouth after a while, she said, "I'm Ellie."