A Restricted Adventure PV Annabelle Wolfe Closed

Annabelle's head shot up as she heard a small yelp from the corner of the library. How long have I been here? she wondered. the busy student had been staring at her textbooks for hours. She had been scrambling the past few weeks, exploring, studying, organizing events for the drama club... the poor girl was at her wit's end. At least she must have been, for it seemed she had fallen asleep in a small corner of the library. Oh no! What time was it? Anna looked around for a clock, but every wall was covered from bottom to top with books. She could not hear anything though, save for the sound that had woken her.

"Crap, crap , crap..." The Gryffindor muttered under her breath. She had sworn to herself that she wouldn't stay out past curfew again. After her little adventure in detention, she most certainly didn't want to go back there. But if the dorms were already closed than sneaking back in would not be an option either. She scrambled for a moment to collect her thing, she mind reeling. This was bad... very bad... Then she paused for a moment. If she went back now, she would almost certainly be caught. Would it not be better to stay out and quickly join the other Gryffidors when they left their room to go to breakfast?

A mischievous smile broke out across the girl's face. If she was going to be out all night anyway, why shouldn't she do a bit of exploring. Stashing her bag and schoolbooks away in a corner, she made her way down the isles. After a few steps, she realized that this would not go well. The clacking of her shoes echoes through the empty room. She returned to the desk and took them off, stashing them with her things as well. That was much better. Now, back to exploring! First things first, she wanted to check out that mysterious noise. As she grew closer, a black-haired girl came into view.

Annabelle was a bit surprised to see another person out and about so late, but also a bit relieved. The little socialite hated being alone. At least this way she would not have to wander around by herself, and if she ran into any trouble she would not have to face it without backup. Annabelle walked up behind the girl, her footsteps silent now as her bare feet met the wooden floors. She did not stop to think of whether or not the girl would be surprised, though it seemed she had yet to notice her.

"Try to open the lock?" Anna suddenly inquired. "At least you did that and didn't try to get past the rope. I've heard some of those books start screaming if you touch them."

Lilith whipped around, her wind raising to eye level, but she rolled around and let her wand fall back to her side, but didn’t put it away. Lilith guesses she was wrong about her original assumption of being alone.

She refused to admit that she jumped at a few little noises. That only proves she had good instincts. It was all he stupid girl’s fault. For all she knew, Lilith could have hexed her into oblivion. Turned her hair bright colors or made her hands into webbed feet, but then again Lilith was a first year and didn’t know how to do any of that.

“What are you doing?“ Lilith hissed quietly. “You could have just got us both caught!”

Lilit glances at the clock, signaling it was past curfew and then he librarian, who snorted in her sleep.

Lilith’s eyes scanned the new girl in front of her. A Gryffindor that she’d never seen before. She looked to be in her same year with brown hair. And she was smiling. Lilith didn’t like smiley people.

“What do you want?” Lilith growled. The back of her mind rang. What if she gave her away? Lilith pushes those thoughts away. No way. This strange new girl was out past curfew as well. That would just get hem both into trouble.

Lilith’s eyes narrowed suspiciously as she looked down. “And why are you not wearing any shoes?”

"I'm Annabelle," she whispered. The little optimist was entirely oblivious to the girl's harsh tone. She followed her gaze to the clock and nodded. "I don't want to get caught either. That's why I'm not wearing shoes, actually. You ever notice how noisy shoes are? I guess that's one of those things that people just don't notice until it's really important. Silence is important when sneaking around though..." she trailed off, finally noticing the other girl's worried expression. Annabelle tended to speak in long trails of thought without even pausing to breathe. She had been whispering of course, and the librarian was still fast asleep, but she would have to be careful in the future.

From the look of this girl's robes, she was also a first year. She seemed annoyed that Annabelle had approached her, but she doubted that her fellow student would turn her in. After all, she was out this late as well. If either of them tattled, it would only mean that both of them got in trouble.

"Trust me, you do not want to get detention." The brown-eyed girl muttered. "Professor Leer is... well..." Flashbacks to her time in the detention room sent a shiver through her whole body. "Just trust me you don't wanna go there."

She paused for a moment as the girl inquired as to what she wanted. It took a bit of thought. "Well... safety in numbers, right?" Anna flashed an innocent smile. "So what are you looking for in the restricted section?"

Lilith was half shocked and half impressed. Usually when she spoke coldly to others, they took the hint and walked away. They certainly didn’t follow sarcastic instructions and introduce themselves. It was not brave or stupid, but something non between that makes The girl a Gryffindor.

Lilith would be lying if she said the girl was dumb. She knew that they were safer together as did Lilith, but that didn’t mean Lilith had to be happy about it.

“Who says I can’t get to the common room on my own?” Lilith questioned, trying to get the upper hand. “If there is anyone who needs help, it’s you.”

Lilith glared back at the doorknob to the restricted section. The electric pulse could still be felt tingling in her arm. Lilith did hope that went away soon.

“That is none of your business.” Lilith picked at her sleeves as if they held some type of video game or interesting book. Her adult eyes looked up to meet Annabelle’s brown. She said softly, “Westlocke. Lilith Westlocke. Pleasure is mine.”

The door taunted her, remaining locked. If there was one thing Lilith hated, was locked things. Hey held secrets and what use are books that no one is allowed to read? Besides that and the boredom that once took hold on Lilith’s mind, she really had no reason to break it.

Her knuckles rolled roughly across the surface of the door. “You wouldn’t happen to know how to open his, would you?”

"If anyone needs help, it's you."

"Never said I didn't." Annabelle shrugged, unphased by the girl's attitude. Anyone would be annoyed if someone snuck up on them, right? She did feel a bit bad about that, though she figured the time for apologizing had come and gone. Besides, she doubted her fellow Gryffindor was actually set on going back to the common room. Anna certainly wasn't, and the girl seemed to share in Anna's adventurous spirit at least.

"Well..." Annabelle thought for a moment. She hadn't been to this part of the library since her first day on campus, and that hadn't exactly been the most pleasant of experiences. She'd been searching for the librarian's desk when an enchanted snowball had struck her in the chest, nearly sending her tumbling into the restricted section.

Wait... that was it!

"Actually, I might. Follow me." Anna creeped slowly down the isle, glancing back occasionally to make sure that Lilith was following. Eventually she paused, pointing to a corner roped off by a large red band. "You can get in through here." she said. "We gotta be careful though. I'm pretty sure there's an alarm around somewhere. Only students with a permission note from a teacher can go back there, or I think maybe 6th and 7th years..." she trailed off again, hoping that the librarian could not hear her explanations.

Following her fellow Gryffindor, Lilith examined the rope carefully. Lilith sent the girl a sarcastic smile. "I'm obviously not on a run from the teachers and I'm a little too young to pass off as a sixth or seventh year, don't you think?"

Taking out her aspen wand, Lilith turned it in her hands expertly. Her mind spun as she tried to think of a spell in her mind that could help her. Being a first year, nothing appeared and Lilith highly doubted that lighting up her wand or floating some pen was going to get her through.

"What about magic words? That's how we open the Gryffindor Common Room. You think it takes a password of some kind?" Lilith offered, and began to spew out different words, "Hogwarts, Dumbledore, Harry Potter, books, Librum, Livres, snakes, lions, badgers, eagles . . ."

No response from the door.

Lilith rolled her eyes at the door and her own stupidity. A magic word? Ridiculous, even by magical wizarding world Hogwarts standards.

You can think smarter than that, a little voice mocked her in the back of her head. Lilith looked around and her eyes fell on the librarian, who has moved to a new position with her head laying against her desk.

"Do you think the librarian has a key? Her desk drawers are looking very tempting, don't they?" Lilith turned to her fellow Gryffindor with a mischievous twinkle in her blue eyes.

"I dunno..." Annabelle glanced over toward the sleeping librarian. Why would there be a door and a roped off section anyway? Were the books behind the locked door even more secret than the ones behind the open rope? Were they so dangerous that even 6th and 7th years couldn't access them? Sudden flashbacks to her pre-Hogwarts shopping trip caused her to hesitate. She'd seen some very questionable books in that store. Some had flown around the shop and some had turned invisible... some books even had teeth! Anna shuddered. What sort of crazy books would be so bad that even the Restricted Section wasn't restricted enough for them.

Then again... the little devil on her shoulder seemed increaingly aggitated. What sort of forbidden knowledge lay beyond that door? This place was fantastic, but there were so many restrictions... Potions and spells she was not allowed to learn yet, forbidden arts that even her textbooks refused to properly speak of... Heck, students here weren't even allowed to practice outside of their classrooms. Annabelle didn't consider herself to be a rulebreaker by nature, but she did have a certain hunger for knowledge that made that locked door seem awfully tempting.

"Well, okay." She glanced nervously at the librarian's desk. "How are we gona open the desk without waking her up though... teacher's desks are sealed with magic, aren't they?"

Lilith rolled her eyes as if it was obvious. "The desk's locks are the only things protected from magic. We just don't try to get past the lock."

Not particularly caring about if Annabelle understood or not, Lilith's eyes scanned her surroundings expertly. At the moment, Annabelle was a helpful pawn in Lilith's grand game of chest. Lilith just might find some good out of meeting a new person.

As always, the Gryffindor felt a swell of pride in her chest at the knowledge that she had the answers and another didn't. Lilith was good at plans (especially underhanded ones that broke the rules) and telling others what to do. The back of her head screamed, god-complex, but Lilith chose to ignore it.

Crouching behind one of the bookshelves, Lilith tugged Annabelle along with her. "You have to cause a distraction. Go knock over a pile of books or something to draw the librarians attention. Leave it to me to get into the drawer and get the keys. It'll be easy," Lilith reassured. "Like taking a mouse from a cat."

Lilith paused before continuing, "And make sure the librarian doesn't catch you. Just cause some noise to wake her up and then hide. The librarian is sure to check the whole library once she hears the noise. Hopefully she'll just think it's Mrs. Norris or something."

Annabelle nodded slowly. She wasn't certain how comfortable she was with being that bait in Lilith's plan, but it seemed preferable to whatever her fellow Gryffindor was planning to do. Whatever it was, Anna doubted it would be any less dangerous. "Alright," she agreed. Even as she spoke, her palms began to sweat. Optimistic as she was, her eleven year old mind had not determined how this optimism applied to breaking the rules. She believed that in the end everything would turn out for the best, but did that mean the best for her? If she was breaking the rules, did the "best" mean getting caught and punished. Anna shivered again at the thought of returning to detention. No way...

Leaving Lilith behind, she crept slowly through the isles. The closer she came to the librarian's desk, the more her nerves began to eat away at her. She glanced at the nameplate as she passed by, terror growing with each step. If she was going to be on the run, she at least wanted to know the name of her opponent. Adelbert A. Quarren. That didn't seem right. Annabelle wasn't used to the strange names that came out of the wizarding world, but "Adelbert" sounded like it must be a man's name. Upon closer examination, this woman didn't look old enough to be a head librarian either. That sort of profession took years upon years of study, and this girl couldn't be older than twenty. She must be the librarian's assistant...

For some reason this eased her nerves a bit. Logically she would get in just as much trouble no matter who she was caught by, but the thought of confronting an older student was far less terrifying than that of confronting the Head Librarian. She picked up her pace once she was past the desk, making her way as quickly as possible to the proper section. As soon as Lilith had told her to cause a distraction, and idea had come into her mind. Now if only she could remember the title of that book.

K...L...M... she silently mouthed the letters engraved on the sides of the bookcases. It was certainly the fanciest library she had ever been in. Even the guidance signs were written in precise calligraphy. She waled down the M isle, searching up and down. It was a rather huge section in comparison to many of the others. Heck, there were thousands of books here that started with the word "magic" or "magical." It was a wizard library after all. Finally she spotted the books she was looking for squirming in its place.

The Monster Book of Monsters

This was the book she had seen on her trip to Diagon Alley, the one that she had been warned not to touch. Surely of all books, this one would make for a nice distraction. It seemed to be sleeping at the moment. Anabelle slowly lifted the book from the shelf. It began to stir an whimper. Then eyes on the front of it flew open, glaring at her intensely. Here goes nothing... Annabelle unlocked the book and thew it as far away from her as possible. The monster book howled, and she took of down the isle. There was no way the librarian could sleep through that.

As the book ran about wildly, Annabelle ran a few more sections. T... Was T far enough away? She wasn't quite sure, but she did not have the time to contemplate. She jumped onto one of the bookcases and began to climb. The Gryffindor scrambled upward, gripping each tiny ledge with her fingers and bare toes. It was lucky that she was no wearing shoes, and that her eleven-year-old frame was so tiny. She could barely fit into the space between the top of the shelf and the ceiling. There was no way anyone could see her from the ground. The library was known for its towering shelves. Annabelle stared at the ceiling two inches above her nose, struggling to catch her breath without making any sound.

It's up to you now, Lilith...