Open RP: The Ever-Helpful Librarian

[cosmicteddy.livejournal.com]

((Since Michael does need to meet some people... Here he is!))

Since Hogwarts was the type of school that saw teaching as more or less optional, while some of its students were of the studying kind, the library was a frequently frequented place. Michael wished he had the time to assist each and every student personally, but his... other line of work sadly prevented him from doing so. But now, at least, it seemed like the cosmos could manage without his involvement, so he could do something restful and human. He could stack some books, and maybe help some people find what they were looking for.  

His gaze went to the empty chair in the corner, where Matilda had used to sit. The little girl had become popcorn not long ago, and Michael noticed her absence more than expected. It was strange that such a small child, who hadn't really done much other than reading for hour on end, could leave such a hole. He knew, though, that whatever she had gone back to, she was going to be happy, and that was comfort enough. Michael was not the type of person to dwell on the negative; eternity was too long for that.  

So he was padding around the library in his perpetually wrinked suit, searching for people to help or perhaps treat to a cup of tea. And a pastry. Michael did love his pastries.

Comments

[livingaustria.livejournal.com]

Well, if he's going to be stuck here, he might as well get something out of it.

Plus, it might help him find something utterly HORRID to do if it does turn out England invaded his vital regions. Or Prussia. Weakened power and unification with Ludwig meant NOTHING to him.

Austria flipped through a book of basic spells.

[cosmicteddy.livejournal.com]

Michael approached Austria with a pleasant smile. He was not certain whether or not he ought to disturb the man, but if he was, he would be quick to withdraw. Archangels did not pry. Well, not much, anyway.

"Is there anything in particular you're searching for?" he asked gently.

[livingaustria.livejournal.com]

"Something that'll singe the pants off a country if he tries to invade," he said absentmindedly.

[cosmicteddy.livejournal.com]

...Ah. That was slightly unexpected. Michael had plenty of experience with travel (in his more cosmic line of work, he rarely did anything else) but he had never imagined countries as... people before. It was a strange phenomenon, really.

"Protection spells are on page 129," he offered helpfully. "And..." Michael turned and fetched another volume from a shelf, which he placed in front of Austria. "This is devoted entirely to duelling. I would be surprised if you didn't find anything suitable here."

There were worse spells, of course. But those books were found in the Restricted Section, and, well, Michael felt that Hogwarts was unpredictable enough without students fetching books from there.

[livingaustria.livejournal.com]

Austria picked up the book and looked at a few pages. "I see. This IS very helpful, thank you."

[fiercefluffy.livejournal.com]

How ought one to thank a person who is neither one's ally nor one's vassal nor yet one's real rival? How to thank a person who has given one a favor with no expectation of personal gain? Octavian had not been sure.

He had stalled, therefore. But he would not fail to express gratitude, however belated the expression. From the counterexamples of Atia and Mark Antony he had seen how fatal an attitude of entitlement could be. Besides this, there was a practical consideration: Octavian used the Hogwarts library frequently; he could not go on hoping to dodge the librarian forever.

Today he would seek the librarian out.

When he found Michael (it wasn't that hard; indeed, he found himself wondering whether the archangel had tactfully been allowing him space), he cleared his throat and said simply: "I owe you thanks."

[cosmicteddy.livejournal.com]

Michael turned with a smile. Octavian. Maia's... friend. And oh, Maia never stopped needing friends, being so despairingly, devastatingly lonely, and stubborn, and young. Michael approved of Octavian. He was good for Maia, which, paradoxically enough, could be very bad for Maia as well if her superiors found out. Still, Michael was usually the kind of person to view the glass as half-full. For now, Maia was safe and sound. For now.

"Ah," he said, and gently pushed in a book that someone had pulled out of its proper place. "You're quite welcome, Octavian. Did she appreciate the amulet?"

[fiercefluffy.livejournal.com]

Gratitude piled upon gratitude; the archangel had spared Octavian the awkwardness of summarizing the occasion for which thanks had been owed. It was refreshing to speak to someone who immediately understood what was being talked about, and, still better, would not feign false ignorance.

"I cannot say she appreciated it. She knows something of what it is, and she wears it to humor me, I think. But that is enough for me." The young patrician found it more comfortable to look away from Michael's unbelievably kindly visage. Gazing off into the receding distance of library stacks, he continued, "I don't have so many friends here that I'd readily lose one, especially for such a stupid reason. How can Hell be so angry with her? They're being irrational."

Perhaps a tinge of sullenness darkened that last remark.

[cosmicteddy.livejournal.com]

Michael had a lot of practice when it came to avoiding awkward conversations. It was a gift he had cultivated over the millennia which his students (mainly teenagers, though not always the kind of teenager that feels perpetually embarrassed about anything their guardian does, as Heaven seemed to mellow them out quite a lot) seemed to appreciate. Michael was all for making the younger generation comfortable. It was for that reason that he tried to not look into Octavian's eyes when talking to him, or even fasten his gaze on him too often. Michael kept busy, by straightening rows of books, arranging them, sorting through them... But trying to do so without causing Octavian to feel ignored. It was not the easiest thing to balance, but yes. Practice.

"Irrational?" the archangel repeated. "Hell rarely is. They tend to have good reasons for reacting the way they do. I suppose in Maia's case, they have the right to be... a little upset. She has been here a long time, and they are an impatient crowd."

Yes. Very impatient, as well as unable to see the big picture. That was where Heaven usually triumphed, in the big picture.

[j-whitlock.livejournal.com]

Jasper had naturally insisted on carrying all of Alice's books she was returning as well as his own, which made for quite a formidable stack of at least a dozen, many fairly thick tomes. The weight was negligible, it was more of a chore to keep them all together without dropping any. He'd offered Alice his arm as they made their way to the library at an unhurried paced, murmuring together in quiet undertones too soft for others to detect.

When they reached the library, the tense line of his shoulders subtly began to relax and his usual expression of subdued pain faded. Being in Michael's presence was a welcome reprieve from all the small and large miseries Jasper felt from others whenever he wandered Hogwarts. The sense of loneliness, the petty meanness, the calculated viciousness of others were all sometimes a little overwhelming when combined with his ongoing struggle with his thirst and self-control. Like Edward, he couldn't simply turn off his ability to perceive emotions—and as he'd learnt at his Sorting, most seemed to prefer their miseries over having their moods tampered with. Perfectly understandable, but uncomfortable for Jasper.

He let Alice lead him to the table she preferred, then carefully set their stack of books down. "What have you been studying, anyway?" he asked with a faint smile as he leant down to better see the spines of the books.

[vampfashionista.livejournal.com]

Alice was not sensitive to moods like Jasper was, but she noticed him relaxing, and that was enough for her. One of her incentives for studying in the library was to find a way to make it easier for her husband to live this close to humans without experiencing such painful thirst, and it was not proving to be an easy task either. The vampires here appeared quite different from their kind. But Alice had not given up yet! Perhaps some sort of variation of the Wolfsbane Potion... There were plenty of books on magical beings in Alice's chosen volumes, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was of course included.

She sat down gracefully and smiled, while daintily crossing her legs. "Oh, a little of this, a little of that... I did find a rather interesting spell for magical pencil and paint, which would cause the object to move. I will have to remember to only draw still life, though. If I draw an animal, it will run off the second the drawing is completed." A bit of a let-down really, after she had finished her charcoal sketch of a flying swan, and it had taken one look at Alice, made a dreadful screeching noise and flown out of the drawing, never to bee seen again. It was a pity. She would not have minded an image of something alive on her wall.

"And I want to know about this stupid time anomaly," added Alice, picking a large, dusty volume from the pile. "It just seems so strange, that Bella and Edward are not the ones we saw leave Forks together not very long ago. This Edward doesn't even remember owing me a Porsche," she grumbled.

[j-whitlock.livejournal.com]

Jasper moved to drift down nearby aisles, occasionally selecting books. He was a relatively fast reader even for a vampire, but the Hogwarts library was so well stocked he wasn't concerned about running out of new reading material anytime soon. He hoped to also gain access to the Restricted Section at some point.

He took note of what Alice mentioned about the escaping animals, and tried his best not to decide to locate some living art for her, though of course he fully intended to. It was pointless trying to surprise Alice outside of her visions, but Jasper still tried. It was a bit like a game to him.

"You wouldn't have much use for a Porsche here," he gently reminded her, speaking just loud enough she'd hear, but without bothering the others in the library. Being a vampire was rather convenient, sometimes. With a new stack of books collected, he went to join Alice at the table, sitting next to her. "I haven't made much headway with the time anomaly problem, either," he admitted, pulling a smaller book from the old stack and sliding it to her. "But I did come across a lot of transfiguration charms you might like. Specifically on how to alter clothing, from chapter ten onward. There's several other volumes by the same author, I bet the librarian could help find them."

[vampfashionista.livejournal.com]

((I hope this little vision godmod was alright. >.> I kind of couldn't help it?))

"It's the principle of the thing. I worked hard for that car." Alice sighed, and then put it from her mind. Yes, there were more important things to focus on, here, though her minor annoyance over the lack of Porsche (or rather, the lack of Edward even remembering why he owed her one in the first place) was filed in the back of her mind as a detail she could focus on later.

She brightened considerably at the vision that followed shortly after Jasper's not-decision, which was apparently decisive enough for her to pick up on anyway, and her hand brushed lightly against his, giving him a a little squeeze. "Oh, thank you, Jazz, that will look absolutely perfect by the dresser!" Seers. Can never shop for 'em.

The book was examined with interest. Look at that, a spell for adding frills... A useful thing to know indeed. Alice smiled as she turned the pages, taking in each illustration and written charm with superhuman swiftness.

"This seems like a lot of fun," she remarked. "Hm... I can't really understand why the author thought the world needed a spell to turn silk into corduroy, though" And the topic for discussion changed back again. "I wonder if there are any books on time in the Restricted Section," mused Alice. "Perhaps we ought to look there instead."

[rarebookangel.livejournal.com]

Aziraphale had been fascinated by the Hogwarts library, as any good collector of rare books would be. But there was something else, an aura of something almost... heavenly? that kept drawing him there.

Today, his curiosity on that point was satisfied when he saw the archangel moving through the stacks.

"Hullo," he called out cheerfully, approaching the archangel. "Haven't seen you in an age, old man."

((I'm assuming that the Archangel Michael, being one of those entities everyone has heard of, is known to Aziraphale, at least a bit. At any rate, I thought it might be interesting to start from a point of something other than, "You're an angel? Me, too! Cool!"))

[cosmicteddy.livejournal.com]

((Oh, absolutely. XD This is way more fun! Oh, and in case you're not aware of this version of Michael (and most people aren't, after all, since it's a pretty obscure fandom) he is the Headmaster of a school in Heaven called the Academy, where they train recently-arrived kids to be cosmic agents and make the world a better place.))

Michael grinned very widely. Nice to have the company of another celestial being! Alright, yes, his students visited him at the library occasionally, but that wasn't quite the same. Aziraphale was a good deal older, and though he wasn't an archangel, they got along okay.

"Oh, it must be at least two ages, Aziraphale," he replied good-naturedly. "But who am I to nitpick. It's good to see you. Do you still own that bookshop?"

[rarebookangel.livejournal.com]

"I do!" Aziraphale replied cheerfully. "Though I need to check on it since I've been here. How are your students these days?"

[cosmicteddy.livejournal.com]

"Oh, they're doing alright... I have three of them here, you know." Well... Almost four. Michael still counted Maia as his student, in a way, though she probably would have been furious to know that. "One of them even saved the world not very long ago," he added with a proud smile, rather similar to a father boasting about how his daughter aced an exam at school.

[hungry-noteyes.livejournal.com]

There's a newcomer in the library today. He raises an eyebrow at the angel, then smiles widely. And perhaps it's Michael's imagination, but there seems to be something smiling behind his sunglasses, as well . . .

"It's a pleasure to see another minor power in this place, angel, thought I don't believe I've met you in this or my last life."

[cosmicteddy.livejournal.com]

Suddenly Michael was glad that Matilda wasn't there. This person was sure to have frightened her, and, likely, given her bad dreams.

"I'm sure I would have remembered meeting you, nightmare," he replied politely.

[hungry-noteyes.livejournal.com]

He laughs. "I'm rather hard to forget, it must be said."

[cosmicteddy.livejournal.com]

Michael did not disagree. He nodded shortly. "Is there anything I can help you with?"

[igorofmalaria.livejournal.com]

Igor enters the library carrying a jar of strawberry jam. Since this is a magical library, he ought to be able to figure out what magic is. Unfortunately, staring up at the shelves-upon-shelves he has no idea where to start and ends up walking back and forth, craning his neck to see the higher shelves.

[cosmicteddy.livejournal.com]

Michael noticed Igor fairly quickly, and here was a person who certainly needed some librarian assisting.

"Hello," he greeted Igor, keeping his voice very gentle and soft to not disturb the other students. "Is there anything in particular you're looking for?"

[igorofmalaria.livejournal.com]

"Um, yes, do you have anything on magic?" Considering this was a magical library that might be a bit vague.

"Do you have anything on magic for someone who's never heard of it before?"

[cosmicteddy.livejournal.com]

Michael nodded. "Certainly. Hang on one moment..."

He disappeared for a moment and returned with A History of Magic. "This might clear up a few things," the archangel smiled. "Is there a particular field of magic you're interested in studying?"