#20 What Lies Ahead

Saoirse looked up at the imposing shelves before her, and thought back to her previous two encounters. There had been a silver crest on the floor of the trophy room and at the base of the fountain. If the third one followed suit, it would be at the bottom as well. She set about to her task, walking between the shelves with her eyes fixated on their base and the floor around them.

It wasn't easy- she nearly trampled students as she went, staring at the floor as she was. She had to assume that the crest would make itself known to her, a bit like the other magical artefacts had done. Some of them seemed to have a mind of their own. And if that recording was to be believed, Godric Gryffindor really wanted her to find this object.

Saoirse was distracted from the incredibly captivating dusty library floor by the sound of crying. She looked up to see a Ravenclaw weeping over her textbooks. Saoirse stared at her with wide eyes. She wanted to ask her if she was alright, but didn't want to interfere at the same time. Instead she quietly sidestepped the seventh-year, leaving her to her grief.

Saoirse walked to a quieter part of the library and focussed. She had felt magical pulls before, even as a child before she had a name for them. She had to see if she could feel one now. Saoirse closed her eyes and envisioned a silver thread pulling her to her destination.

She opened her eyes and began to walk. She wasn't sure if it was optimistic imagining or not. It was so hard to tell with these things. But the silver thread seemed to be pulling her upstairs, where she had almost never ventured before. Saoirse walked up the steps and gazed around once she was at the landing. She continued to walk towards the shelves, following that invisible thread.

Saoirse saw a flash of silver in an otherwise dark corner. She hurried over, trying to move as quickly as she could whilst making as little noise as possible. Once she arrived at the shelf, she looked around it in some confusion. The rest of the library was obviously well-lit to facilitate reading, but this area was oddly dark. Nor did there seem any reason for it to be, with lights all around it.

She looked at the silver crest at the base of the bookcase, and then at the massive volumes that were at eye level. Oddly, they seemed to be about a wide range of topics. Saoirse didn't see any two books that had anything to do with each other. What did The Gender Roles of Witches in Mesopotamia and Biogeography of Magical Island Creatures have in common?

Saoirse thought back to all the movies she'd seen with bookcases that hid secret passageways. Glancing behind her to make sure Pince wasn't watching, she started pushing and pulling on various books at random. Hopefully the easiest method was the one that worked.

After a lot of pushing and pulling, nothing happened. But as Saoirse struggled, she felt a scratch at the base of one of the books. She looked up, touching it again. Three other books by it had identical scratches. They still had nothing in common with each other, and the scratches didn't appear to form a pattern. Saoirse pushed on all four of the books together.

Saoirse squinted at the books when her efforts were met with nothing once again. She tried to think. There were four books and four Houses. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Theoretically, each book could correspond to a House. Saoirse set about rearranging them.

First she put 'A Collection of Heroic Tales: Volume One' for Gryffindor, and then 'A Birdwatcher's Guide to Tiw Starlyres' for Hufflepuff next to each other. The third book she placed was 'An Advanced Study of Ancient Languages and How to Use Them' for Ravenclaw and finally, 'Mightier than a Sword: Why Words Matter' for Slytherin.

Saoirse was excited at the glow, but then nothing happened. She frowned. It seemed she had the right idea but had mixed up the order. She reached up and swapped the Ravenclaw and Slytherin books, so that now the third one was 'Why Words Matter' and the fourth was 'Ancient Languages'.