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This story is an entry to Blademistress' Ficathon.



"And there's a different Defense Against the Dark Arts professor every year?" Jarod asked, eyebrows raised.

The girl nodded, pulling the book back over the checkout desk and slipping it into her knapsack. "They never stay for more than one book."

At that, Jarod cocked his head a bit to the left. "And why's that?" he asked. "Are they unfit to teach?"

The girl scowled and shook her head so that her pigtails flopped around her head. "It's professor Snape who's unfit to teach," she said. "He is awful! I hope I never have a teacher like him."

"Is it likely that a non-fictional teacher would emulate his tendencies?"

The girl looked confused, and she shook her head, giving him her best, Are you serious? look. "I'm not checking out a dictionary," she said. "And I've got to go pick up my little brother from his violin lesson. If you want to know the answer to whatever it was you just asked me, you'll have to read the books yourself. There's about five copies of each one on the shelf. See you next week, Jarod."

Waving after her, Jarod turned to help the next patron, slipping a new date due card into the back of his Stephen King.

Until he got off work at nine, Jarod could do nothing but sit at the desk and check items out for people. It wasn't a boring job, really; the people who checked things out were pleasant enough, and he had plenty of time to mull over who could have bludgeoned the last librarian in the reference section with a copy of Gray's Anatomy. (She was recovering well, but the book was a write-off; it was generally unacceptable for even the medical books to exhibit blood splatter patterns.)

On the slower days, he even got to read, but he had to make his book choices before he sat down, or he'd get distracted in the stacks and neglect his duties at the front desk. He'd found that he was particularly fond of books aimed at younger readers, and decided that the girl's Harry Potter recommendation was convincing enough for it to be his next choice. So at ten past nine, after he'd shooed out the lonely husband reading Eliot in the back corner and the high schooler who'd fallen asleep over her chemistry textbook, he went into the junior fiction section and pulled a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone from the shelf. Next, he plucked a library card from the desk drawer and issued it to himself, then checked out the book with a single swipe of the infrared pen over each of the bar codes on the card and the back of the book. Finally, he left the library and went to his newest home.

***

Jarod didn't even open the novel that evening, preferring instead to investigate the trajectories of his seventeen copies of Gray's Anatomy, all identical to the library's discarded edition, using every method he could think of to propel the tome. He finally decided that it had most likely been launched from a wayward book cart, but he couldn't be certain.

In the morning, after he'd eaten his Fruit Loops and chocolate milk, he picked up Harry Potter from the dining room table and began to read. An hour and a quarter later he'd finished it, and while it certainly wasn't the most original book he'd ever read, his appetite was whetted for a continuation of the story, and he took an early bus back to the library so he could pick up the second in the series before his shift started.

Of the five copies of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets the library had, only two were on the shelf, but Jarod took one anyway and sat himself in the room that was usually reserved for any patrons examining microfiche. He couldn't finish reading the entire thing before his shift started, so he took it with him to the checkout desk, and read while two adolescent boys argued quietly about which one would have to check out the copy of Sex for Dummies. Eventually, he shushed them, and one hurriedly placed the yellow paperback on a table, which a sign declared was for "Items To Be Reshelved," and grabbed a copy of The Wind in the Willows from beside it. When the boys came to the checkout ten minutes later, one smiled at Jarod and asked him politely how he was liking Chamber of Secrets.

"It's interesting," Jarod replied thoughtfully. "Do you think the author is intentionally creating parallels between the antagonist and Adolf Hitler?"

The other boy raised his eyebrows. "I don't know," he said, handing over The Wind in the Willows with his library card placed atop it. "I, um, prefer animal stories."

His friend nodded vigorously. "That's why we're getting this one."

"I see," said Jarod, looking at his computer screen to see if the boy had any outstanding fines.

While Jarod's gaze was elsewhere, the boy reached over the counter top and snatched the book from the desk, then darted through the sensor, which set off an alarm. His friend followed closely behind, and Jarod was too surprised to follow. He doubted whether he'd ever see either boy again, but had great faith that one of them would return the book to another branch before its due date. Besides, the boy hadn't taken his library card, and Jarod was pretty sure that he'd want it back at some point. Jarod switched off the tinny bell, sat back in his chair, and picked up his book. He could use Centre money to buy the library a new copy if the other one wasn't returned.

He finished the second book one quite quickly after the commotion. Like the first, he decided, it was a fun read, certainly not Shakespeare, but perfectly enjoyable. And the over-arching storyline was just getting interesting, too.

So he called over the summer student, who had been restocking the graphic novels section, and got her to fetch him a copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. As he finished it, during the same afternoon, his perspective on the characters changed completely. Where before he had identified quite strongly with Harry, he now felt a stronger bond with the Prisoner of Azkaban himself, who, he felt, was only trying to help out.

The next person to check anything out after he'd finished this volume was a thirty-something mother, her six year old in tow, with a paperback of The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and a video of Casablanca. She explained to Jarod that she'd read Prisoner of Azkaban to her son, and Jarod was quite enthused.

"Rowling certainly incorporates many aspects of traditional folklore and legend into these novels," he said, and the mother smiled.

"Yes," she said. "She certainly does. The books are wonderful that way because they introduce Matthew here to all those lively myths we're always forgetting."

"Like how Cerebrus guards the entrance to Hades?" Jarod asked.

"More like how werewolves run around on full moons," she said. "And the characters are good too," she continued, as she retrieved her card. "Really developed. Sometimes I just marvel at their actions and wonder at their motives, and how they do things that seem totally irrational and bizarre."

"Like how Professor Snape demeans his students, instead of encouraging them?" Jarod asked.

"Certainly," she smiled. "We're still trying to figure out his reasoning on that point, although you learn a little more about his history in book five."

"Do we learn much about him in book four?" he asked.

"Well, yes, a bit," she said, cheerfully. "But he's still an enigma at the end of book five. I think we're going to learn a lot more about him in books six and seven."

Jarod handed the woman's book, movie, and card back to her. "When will those be published?" he asked, eagerly.

The woman scowled a bit. "Who knows?" she said. "Matthew'll probably be in college by then. Anyway, I've got to go. Thanks for the help," she added.

"I hope you enjoy your selections," said Jarod, as she pulled Matthew out of the building behind her.

For a moment, he thought about spacing out his reading of the next two books; perhaps a chapter a day would be adequate for his Harry Potter fix. But then, he decided, screw it. He could just re-read the five published volumes until the sixth and seventh came out.

But he hoped that Rowling would keep changing the Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers. And he hoped that someday, however horrible it was, Snape would get the job.









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