ATLAS DROWNED

Amelia leaned forward on her knees, before shifting her weight and raising herself back up to full height. She sat the very worn book on medieval maces she had clutched in her hands on the edge of the nearest desk. Looking down to give herself a once over, she brushed the small dust bunnies from the length of her grey, pleated skirt, mouth ticking downward as she took note of the new run in her stockings.

“Are you sure you’re fine?” she asked as her attention was turned back to Amycus. Amelia raised her eyes to look at him like her mother did when Amelia and her brothers tried to fib about anything. The book in question had looked rather cumbersome. Amelia distinctly remembered ANTHOLOGY flashing before her eyes in gold lettering before the book made its hasty escape under the nearest shelf. That had to have hurt pretty badly.

Crossing her arms over her chest, Amelia tilted her head, observing him for any signs of injury. She watched as Amycus pushed his long hair behind his ears, clearly uncomfortable after being caught in such a vulnerable position.. “Ah, Binns isn’t so bad.” Amelia answered quickly, deftly dodging the question of exactly why she was in the library. “Those who complain about him are just being overdramatic…If they can’t make their way through his readings, I don’t see how any of them expect to do well in any other course…It’s fairly easy reading if not a little arduous…”

“Now,let me see.” Amelia said confidently, her voice gentle but somehow forceful at the same time. Dropping her arms by her sides, it only took a few steps before Amelia was standing in front of Amycus. Her fingers reaching up to gently probe the spot where the offending book had tried to end his life but stopping short to look him in the eyes as if she were seeking his approval to continue. “I saw your face…And I saw how huge that book was.”

Amycus had learned quite some time ago that to look other people in the eyes was to make them uncomfortable; as if there was something written behind his eyes that told them that there was something wrong with him and that they should stay well away. That he was strange and unnatural and wrong. For some people this had proved a blessing — Amelia was not one of those people.

Instead, he stared hard at his hands, trying his best to consider whether or not he should be trying to escape with what little dignity he had left in tact before Amelia did that thing she had a habit of doing where she treated him like he was normal. “I like History,” he replied, forehead furrowing faintly after the admission that had come from nowhere. He’d never been good at this small talk. “It’s much more interesting than — than potions,” his nose wrinkled pointedly, as if Professor Slughorn might sense his displeasure from here down to the dungeons and Alecto along with him. Potions had always been her subject, one she derived great pleasure from excelling over him in. “I’d rather listen to Professor Binns than hear Professor Slughorn talk about his friends.”

And if there was just a hint of envy buried in his voice, he could hardly be blamed. Professor Slughorn was not a man who had overlooked Amycus’s more offputting qualities.

And Amycus was more than willing to expound upon that subject, if the way his shoulders hunched upwards and he wound up indignantly, hair already sliding out from behind his ears to drape back into his face, but then Amelia was back in his space, reaching out as if to prod at the tender spot throbbing in his skull before pulling up short. His jaw clamped shut, eyes darting upward to meet the questioning look upon her face.

Why would she want to help him? That was the real question. He’d never quite figured out Amelia, despite Alecto’s frequent claims that she was just like the rest of their peers, that she only wanted to humiliate them. Finally, he nodded his head faintly as if to grant her permission, chewing down on his lower lip as the skin on the back of his neck grew hot and shivery, his hands clenching at his side.

“I don’t need to go to the Hospital Wing. Madam — Madam Pomfrey said we don’t have to go, that we aren’t—” and that was a whole other kettle of fish he didn’t want to examine, “She said we are perfectly healthy.” We, we, we. “It was just a book.”

@carrowcd

The library was one of Amelia’s favorite places in the castle. A studious girl, she took pride in being one of the best in her year. While Amelia would claim to her brothers and friends this was her sole motivation for heading straight to the library directly after classes each day, that was only partly true. Amelia also wanted to see if he was hiding in the stacks.

Amycus Carrow was something to her. As a child she would have confidently claimed that they were the best of friends. Their interactions at social events had seen a little Amelia following Amycus around like a shadow. Initially, a nuisance, he seemed to begin to tolerate her after she asked him about his own interests - specifically what he had been reading that week. Eventually convincing him to play with her on occasion.

Now that they were at school, things seemed a little more complicated. Amelia would seek Amycus out for conversation but if his sister were anywhere in the vicinity, it seemed as if he would purposefully avoid her. Their eyes would meet from across the great hall or he might let her sit with him in the stacks of the library but Amelia doubted that he would call her a friend at this point. It always caused a sharp pang in the pit of Amelia’s stomach when she thought about it too much. 

A greeting was on the tip of her tongue but before Amelia could say anything she watched Amycus tumble to the floor. A book landing on his chest before another heavy tome clocked him on top of his head.  They locked eyes and Amelia had to bite down on her bottom lip to hide her mirth. Fearing that laughing at Amycus might hurt his pride.

Madam Pince’s rule about no magic in the library was rather unreasonable. Some of the dusty old tomes written by the wizend philosophers of yore weighed more than she did.  Amelia dropped her bag from her shoulder to the floor. “I won’t.” she said resolutely as she crouched down, resting on her knees beside him. She reached over removing the book splayed on Amycus’s chest, placing it next to her on the floor. “Are you alright?” she asked, smiling, a glimmer of fondness in her eyes, “Don’t need to see Madam Pomfrey, do you?”

.

Faintly dazed in a way that Amycus had long come to associate almost exclusively with Amelia’s presence and her seeming invulnerability to all his most off-putting qualities that kept the student population at a distance, Amycus reached up to gingerly inspect the tender spot where 'Hammer Your Anvil: The Metal Charmer’s Anthology’ had bounced off his head and skidded away beneath the stacks, wincing at the sharp ache of response to the gentle pressure and hastily sat up. 

In the way that she had always had of somehow worming her way into his presence, Amelia was suddenly just there, a book on maces in her hands and doing her very best to look like she didn’t want to laugh at him. A part of him, a very small part of him that he resolutely denied existed, appreciated the attempt. Few people ever bothered with such courtesies.

“I do—” he sat up a little straighter and made an attempt to sort out whatever mystery was playing across his face, tugging at the hem of his school sweater where it had rode up in the kerfuffle and tucked his hair uneasily back away from his face, behind his ears. Mother always told him not to hide behind it. “I do not need to go to Madam Pomfrey.”

The persistent throb of his head seemed determined to give a counter-argument, but Amycus knew better than to trust hospital beds. One never knew when they were going to get back out of them. “It’s just a—” his tongue stuck determinedly behind his teeth, like it was mocking him just the same as the rest of the world and he soldiered through it, biting out a determined, “—a bump. B-barely even felt it. What are you doing here?”

There was a certain, claustrophobic relief that came with the inner-most stacks of the Hogwarts Library. Like if the world came down around him he would remain there forever, buried deep in old paper and bindings, and free from the nuisances that the rest of the world seemed determined to rain down upon him.

Nuisances like his sister, whose current warpath was directed entirely upon Professor Slughorn for marking her down for the clarity of her last potion and the Greengrass girl who had dared to giggle about it. Nuisances like the second-year Gryffindors currently plotting something three stacks away who he could still hear despite his very best attempts to erase them from existence with only the sheer force of his brain.

Nuisances like the book he’d been trying to obtain from the top-most shelf without attracting attention because the last thing he wanted was to be banned from the library for violating Madame Pince’s No Magic in the Library rule. He’d found a secure enough foothold on the shelf containing the last fifteen volumes of Pittiman’s History of the Goblin Wars and a handhold amidst the History of Magical Medieval Warfare texts, but he just couldn’t quite reach—

A soft, sound from behind him upset the balance entirely and he tumbled backwards, landing in a heap on the floor with a copy of ‘Magical Maces — a Practical Guide to Bludgeoning’ on his chest and staring, horrified, up at the all-too familiar face that was less a nuisance than a — than a — well, than a something that Amycus hadn’t quite been able to determine yet.