(no subject)

[hildigunnur]

Happy Birthday, misspince!!

And in celebration of her birthday:


This is from my still mostly unwritten epic Dark Knight. It´s from an OCs PoV. Hopefully interesting :)

(Disclaimer and stuff: Draco, Lavender Brown and Hogwarts don't belong to me but Helen does. Miss Pince belongs to herself. This is unbeta-read, unedited, uneverything and will probably be much altered when and if this will ever see the light of day as a fully fledged fic)

There were more fascinating staircases and corridors on their way to the Library as like there had been to the Northern Tower. Dozens of rusty armours, hundreds of moving paintings and a ghost or two were drifting in and out of walls here and there. Helen was still fighting the instinct to go into complete hysterics. She had to keep her cool but when every part of her common sense was telling her that she should scream bloody murder, it was very hard.
Draco and Professor Brown were walking ahead of her, immersed in conversation. That came across as somewhat amusing to her, since Draco had told her how he and Professor Brown had been less than friends when they attended Hogwarts.
The door to the library indicated that something grand was hidden behind them. They were huge and carved with miscellaneous illustrations of vicious beasts and victorious heroes and when they were opened, Helen saw a wondrous world. A true labyrinth of books, shelves and cupboards filled with more books than she had never imagined existed. She didn't allow herself to contemplate the fact that most of these books contained spells, her sense of reality wouldn't handle that.
A young, blonde woman was sitting at the desk and she was charming some red envelopes or so it seemed. Draco stalked over to her and asked:
"Where's Madam Pince?" The woman looked at him, mildly startled.
"Excuse me, who are you?" she asked.
"I'm Draco Malfoy and I want to know where the librarian is."
"You are talking to her, Mr Malfoy," she replied, "Madam Pince has retired, bless her and I've been appointed the new librarian, my name is Elaine Pince and I'm Madam Pince's niece. I prefer to be refered to as Miss Pince, I'm not old enough to be called Madam. So, is there anything I can assist you with?"
Draco looked a bit taken aback, a look that Helen found a bit strange on him.
"Well, we were looking for books about Muggles and their Divination abilities, I believe there should be few here?" he queried.
"Ah, yes. Those should be in ... 133.3 for Divination or maybe in 570 for Muggle Studies. Ah, well, I have to consult the catalogue," Miss Pince said and started writing something in a very large book. Professor Brown rolled her eyes and whispered to Draco in a very low voice, "she has started using some Muggle cataloguing system, Dewly or something, and she goes on and on about it. There was this long and boring presentation of it at some staff meeting which ended abruptly when Flitwick began to snore very loudly."
Miss Pince interrupted, "There are few books you might be interested in. What Lies in the Future, Inside the Crystal Ball, Muggles Drabble in Divination: When Things Go Wrong ..."
"We'll take that one," said Draco and snatched the last book. Miss Pince looked quite offended at Draco's rudeness but she didn't say anything.

Draco and Professor Brown poured over the book while regularly stopping to debate one point or the other. ...
"She could be psychic."
"No, she needed my help to see Hogwarts."
...
"Could this be mind melting?"
"I wouldn't think so. Not with a memory only Granger and I know of."

Helen barely followed their conversation and just watched the pictures in the book. She was quite fascinated with the fact they moved. The portraits were exceptionally fun to look at because they seem reveal so much about people's personalities. There was a witch who seemed to be overly neat for she was dusting the frame of her photo and there was a wizard who was smoking and blew smoke rings in many different shapes.
Then she saw a picture that caught her eye. It showed a stone just like the one she had touched in Draco's office.
"Isn't this like the stone you keep in your office, Draco?" He was startled but Professor Brown exploded.
"A Guiltridder? Am I to understand, Draco Malfoy, that you made a Guiltridder? Do you have any idea how long sentence to Azkaban this is?" Draco didn't answer her, he just looked glum.
"Helen, did you touch the stone?" Professor Brown gripped her hand.
"I did," she admitted.
"Well, that explains it. Some of Malfoy has been transferred into you."
"But how?" Helen was sure this meant nothing good.
"The Guiltridder is made with a rather sever dark magic where the maker transplants his guilt into the stone but along with it, he transfers many other things like fragments of his memories and his abilities. If someone else than he, touches the stone, they absorb these things and this can be a very dangerous thing for a person with less power than the one who made the stone. So you see why I'm irate. You're a Muggle, Malfoy is a very powerful wizard. The Guiltridder has bestowed upon you things that you might not able to handle." Professor Brown had risen from the desk they were sitting at and had her hands on her hips. Helen looked at Draco who had a strange expression on his face. Was it shame?
"I'm sorry, Helen. Only Merlin knows what you might be carrying of my burdens. I have gone a bit overboard on my using of the stone. I'll destroy it tomorrow and Lavender, if you breathe one word of this to anyone …"
"Of course not!" Professor Brown exclaimed indignant.
"Good, I'm borrowing this book. Can I use your name?" Drace looked at Brown who nodded and he carried the book to Miss Pince's desk. She told him as she was registering the book, that if he'd fail to turn the book in on time, he would face worse things than the Cruciatus Curse from her. As Draco exited the library, he shot a dirty look back at the desk and muttered: "Bitch!"