Notice Us || BOG

Saturday, 17 March 1923
Hogwarts Library
An hour past curfew

Morgan had a plan.

It wasn’t, if she were honest, a very good plan. But it was a plan, which was more than they’d had an hour ago when she’d shown up at the Ravenclaw common room entrance and told the knocker she wasn’t in the mood for riddles. Luckily another student had been going in, so she was able to tell them to retrieve Brooks Gerren for her, please.
Somehow it worked. Maybe it was because the Head of House was Morgan’s step-mum now, or because everyone knew she was lethal with a bag of rocks.

The library was dark past the main desk, the floating baubles casting a dim, watchful glow over the empty tables and orderly rows. Morgan had been here after curfew before – not often as she preferred being outside, though with the aurors around that had become increasingly more difficult, but enough to know the baubles were the main problem. They drifted. They watched. And they could bite.

Morgan may have mentioned that to Rook once, in the bookshop back before he had met the woman she described as unhinged.

She chose not to bring it up now.

“Right,” she whispered, stopping at the edge of the main aisle where the restricted section rope hung in the shadows. David was in her bag, very still, sensing the mission and doing his part by not drawing attention to himself.

“The baubles are the issue. If we move slowly enough they might not –” she stopped speaking immediately as one drifted directly toward her face. She didn’t move. She didn’t even breathe. Until it was past.

“– notice us,” she finished, slowly exhaling the breath she’d been holding.

The walk from Ravenclaw Tower to the library had been unusually quiet. The halls were empty, both Professors and Prefects spending their evening in other parts of the castle. This worked in their favor.

Brooks was focused, he kept glancing over his shoulder expecting Professor Blackwood to pop out of the shadows simply because he was about to break half the school rules in one night. Thankfully, they got to the Library with no issue, but it was there that the real trouble was faced.

When Morgan froze beneath the bauble, he instinctively stopped beside her. His own breath caught until the little glowing orb lazily floated away. "...Notice us," she said in a whipser.

Brooks watched it disappear, waiting to talk until it was out of sight. "I hate those things."
He scowled after it. "They've got too many eyes."

Whether they actually had eyes was debatable, but it certainly felt like they did. Once the coast looked clear, finally, he reached into the pocket of his robes and withdrew a small leather journal. He held it lightly in his hands, reverently. It meant something. It was important.

Years of use had softened the leather, the corners were worn down and discolored, the spine re-strung from being opened thousands of times. A faint liquid stain along the edge held a musky scent of ale. On the back, a patchy ring showed where a bottle of whisky had once rested. Brooks' thumb ran around the ring twice before speaking. Lost in thought, a motion he had done hundreds of times since inheriting the journal.

"This...was my dad's." Unwinding the leather cord that kept the journal closed, he opened it carefully. The pages were filled with scratchy handwriting, measurements, drawings of copper stills, barrel sketches. Ingredients crossed out and replaced while recipes were rewritten in the margins.

A few pages had unfamiliar symbols, runes, jotted between notes written in a different hand, his mother. "My da ran a pub back in Boston. He knew everything there was to know about makin' whiskey the No-Maj way." His fingers ran over one of the strange symbols.

"But my mum… she understood the magical side." There two sets of handwriting were melded together on the pages. His cramped and scribbled, hers elegant script scattered between the recipes and notes.

Liz says this charm keeps the mash from scorching.
Need Elizabeth to test this runes again.
Magic changes the flavour. Can't explain how.

"My da couldn't do any of it himself. Drove him completely crazy," Brooks laughed quietly through his nose. A memory playing through his head making a smile ghost over his face.

He glanced at Morgan. "He spent years trying to understand it. Before he…" A pained pause stopped him. ”He was working on something. I want to finish it.”

Another page, near the back, the handwriting was messier. Thoughts weren’t complete, recipes and ingredients scratched out. There was a list in the margin, titles, books Brooks had never been able to find.

Closing the journal, Brooks nodded toward the rope at the entrance of the Restricted Section.
"I think some of the books might be in there. So Mysty… you reckon we can outsmart a few bitey baubles?’ A crooked grin finally returned, ready to have a bit of fun.

Morgan looked at the journal, her eyes taking in everything about it. It was well-worn, had been opened and closed and carried a lot for who knows how long. She didn’t understand the full weight of the book until he explained that it had been his father’s.

As he flipped through the pages, various runes caught her eye. Morgan knew nothing about them, but she knew her step-mother did. Kate probably by proxy. But asking them for help wouldn’t be nearly as fun.

"I think some of the books might be in there. So Mysty… you reckon we can outsmart a few bitey baubles?”

Morgan’s green eyes moved from the journal and his crooked grin caused her brain to malfunction a bit. Unexpectedly. She bit her lip – something she didn’t often do – and looked back at the journal because it was safer than the grin on his face.

“Right,” she said quietly, a bit more purposeful now. “We’re getting in there.” It was a promise. They had no choice.

Morgan turned back to the baubles, her eyes narrowed slightly as she gave them more attention than she originally had. They moved in loose patterns, she’d noticed that much. Predictable if you were patient enough.

“They do have a pattern,” she murmured, watching them intently. “The one on the left drifts toward that window every few minutes… the one on the right goes the other way. The one in the middle… that’s the one that we need to figure out…”

Morgan wasn’t going to mention where her step mother’s office was in relation to the Restricted Section, or exactly how many other baubles there were. That seemed unnecessary.

“We need a distraction, something that will make the one in the middle go somewhere else.” She glanced at him, her head tilted slightly sideways. “That’s your department.”

Brooks watched her study the baubles with the same concentration he'd seen when the great hall had erupted into a massive foodfight. Like a general surveying a battlefield, waiting for exactly the right moment to strike.

A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. He was having more fun than he should while breaking and entering. "You know..." he whispered, leaning close to whisper in her ear. "It's mildly concerning how comfortable you are breakin' into school property."

Her confidence was infectious.We're getting in there. She said, he nodded to agree, ”Damn right we are.

They watched as the baubles did another circuit, she had been right, they each had a route and a timeframe it took to complete. This would make things a lot easier to time things out. "We need a distraction... That's your department."

Brooks chuckled, extending his arms he cracked his knuckles and took out his wand. "I hope you know what you're doing. This could get dicey." he chuckled. Looking around the library, he tried to find something that would cause the baubles to go elsewhere.

"I’m not sure it’s a good idea to give me permission to cause a disturbance, but there's no taking it back now." His eyes drifted around the darkened library. The baubles. The towering shelves. The reception desk. More books than he could hope to count.

He rubbed at his chin, weighing the smallest amount of damage against the biggest distraction. His gaze landed on a stack of books sitting near the edge of a table down the aisle. It was far enough away that the baubles would move, but close enough for him to get the spell off.

"...Question." He looked back at Morgan, pointing to the stank of books. "If one happened to accidentally fall...and then another… His smile widened into something unmistakably mischievous.

"Hypothetically... how fast can you run?" He asked, a smile still plastered to his face. Before she could answer and before the baubles could start another round of watching, Brooks took out his wand, pointed it at the bottom book in the stack and said ”Depulso!”

Brooks watched as the books teetered on the edge, then the stack of books, roughly 7 or 8 tall, clattered to the floor in a heap of leather and dust. All three baubles stopped, turned and floated towards the commotion.

Turning towards the Restricted Section, Brooks caught Morgan's hand without thinking and pulled her after him. They slipped behind the closest shelf to the entrance of the restricted section just as the last bauble drifted toward the fallen books. Once they had stopped, he looked down and noticed that he was still holding her hand.

He looked down. Her fingers were warm against his. A strange flutter stirred somewhere beneath his ribs.

Huh.

He'd never really noticed how small her hand was. Clearing his throat, Brooks gave it one absentminded squeeze before finally looking back up at her, completely oblivious to what the gesture might actually mean.

"Alright, Mysty," he whispered, a grin creeping back onto his face. "What's the plan?"

"You know… It's mildly concerning how comfortable you are breakin' into school property."

Much like when she caught that lopsided grin of Rook’s, his breath on her ear – the close proximity – made her brain stutter without permission. He’d always smelt of mint, but now she could pick up other scents as well: rain-soaked wool, old paper, cedar maybe.

Approximately three seconds is how long it took her to recover this time.

Mostly.

Maybe.

Forcing her attention back to the task at hand, Morgan followed his line of sight to the stack of books. She wasn’t sure this was going to work. She looked again at the wrought-iron gates that blocked the restricted section from the rest of the library. They stood ominous, taunting her. Almost laughing.

"...Question."

Morgan looked back at the boy.

"If one happened to accidentally fall...and then another… Hypothetically... how fast can you run?”

“...Run…?” Morgan repeated, almost as if she’d been in a daze. Which she had been. She didn’t have long to really answer. Rook took out his wand and casted at the books. As they teetered on the edge, her eyes glanced at the baubles. They were going to get bit. She just knew it.

The books landed loudly on the floor. The baubles turned towards the source of the sound, and floated away from the iron gates.

He grabbed her hand and pulled, and she let him. That was the part that she noticed most – she didn’t pull back. Not even slightly. She didn’t want to. She let him pull her behind another shelf, next to the restricted section’s ominous gates. They hid, their backs pressed against the wood and old leather.

Her mind felt like it was on overdrive with everything about Rook, the mission basically forgotten when he squeezed her hand. She looked down, knowing she could break the connection at any time.

But she wasn’t going to.

"Alright, Mysty.” That damn grin returned. "What's the plan?"

“Right,” she breathed because he’d asked her something and she needed to remember what it was. The plan. Right. “The gate.”

While her heart tried to catch up because of his stupid grin, she turned her attention back to the other situation. The baubles had been dealt with but would only be occupied for a moment longer. But the gate was the part she hadn’t fully figured out yet.

Morgan took her wand out, held it in her left hand. She looked at it. Then the gate. Then back at her wand.

Julia was the librarian. Julia was her step-mum. Julia’s baubles, Julia’s library, Julia’s restricted section. It stood to reason (and Morgan knew this was extremely loose and unfounded) that some of that might extend to her by proximity. Family connection. Something.

In some universe that made perfect sense.

“Alohomora,” she whispered with more confidence than she felt.

Nothing.

She tried a second time.

Still nothing.

“...Um…”

Morgan was at a loss. Her brain was too focused on the hand holding hearse to come up with anything else that sounded even reasonable. She knew that when someone had permission to enter the restricted section, all they had to do was wave their wand in front of the gates. She didn’t have permission. Her relationship with Julia made no difference.

Somewhere, a door opened. Footsteps sounded. She squeezed her eyes shut as if that may make her invisible.

And at that moment, David decided the game was over. A loud croak emitted from her bag.

"He's finally asleep," Julia groaned as she sank onto the bed Maddox was already reclining on.

Evander was by far the easier of the two to settle and the boy often fell asleep with little effort. Jude, on the other hand, still hadn't seemed to realize that daytime was for partying and nighttime was for sleeping, having gotten the two mixed up since his second day on the planet.

One day, one day, they'd manage to get their nearly one-year-old on a normal sleeping schedule.

Now that he was weaned, the two boys stayed together every night, alternating between her apartment and Maddox's. She and her husband had found a good rhythm overall, helping the other with the bedtime routine if available, but also allowing each other a night off now and then. Tonight, Maddox had helped, and she was looking forward to spending an hour of quiet with him before he headed back to the Gryffindor tower.

She sighed as she laid back on the pillows, turning her head to smile at him through her exhaustion. It had been a long day. A certain Ravenclaw boy had spontaneously decided the entire Astronomy section needed reorganizing and had reacted to Julia’s suggestion that it was already organized as though she’d admitted to believing the moon was decorative. It was only the threat of permanent banishment that had seen the boy pick up his pace in putting the section back together and -

Julia had to begrudgingly admit it was better.

She leaned over, resting her head on her husband's shoulder while her hand found his. "Just three more months until summer and - "

The alarm went off. The bauble that floated just outside the door to her living space sounded, loud and angry, a blare of jingles and a repeat of two names, one that...should have surprised her but didn't. From the other room, Jude let out a startled wail while Evander yelled out a chorus of 'Daddy' and 'Mummy' over and over.

"Unbelievable," Julia nearly growled as she stood up out of the bed to grab her professor robes. Throwing them on over her nightgown she turned back to her husband who looked equally as perturbed, "Just settle them okay? I'll get Jude back to sleep. I'll be back in a few minutes."

Their daughter had some explaining to do.

---

Julia's wand threw the double doors of the library wide open as she waltzed in to the shrill sound of alarms and the repeated screaming of:

"MORGAN BARLOWE! BROOKS GARREN! MORGAN BARLOWE! BROOKS GARREN!"

Over and over.

At the end of last term, she'd grown tired of trying to track culprits down every time the baubles notified her of rule-breaking and had implemented a new charm to scream the name of them instead. Effective and it usually sought to embarrass them enough to not want to commit another crime against her library.

She hadn't had any run-ins with Brooks Garren to know if this was his regular method of operation, but she knew her step-daughter. She was a spitfire, a rebellious sort. Maddox always said she shared a single braincell with her brothers, but Julia didn't see the difference between that and being a Gryffindor. As she walked with measured steps towards the Restricted Section, she waved her hand, silencing all the baubles at once.

You could hear a pin drop.

Or a toad croak.

"Morgan." She stopped a few feet away from the two, noticing their hands entwined, but paid little mind to the detail when upstairs her night had been spoiled. She flicked her wand, forcing the two to drop hands and separate with a forceful but gentle invisible push. "I don't know what you two think you're playing at, especially at this hour, and I don't particularly care to hear it."

She had no interest in excuses, technicalities or whatever sequence of bad decisions the two had made that led them to believe they'd somehow break into her Restricted Section unaccounted for.

"Mister Garren, you can explain yourself tomorrow evening in detention. You'll be scrubbing the prefects' toilets." Her eyes drifted to her daughter. "Tomorrow morning, my office, before breakfast. Your dad will probably want to speak to you too. He heard the bauble." David croaked from somewhere in Morgan's bag.

"Back to your common rooms. Now."

It wasn't up for negotiation.

The minute the baubles went off he knew they had screwed up. Not only was the alarm sounding, but their names were ringing out for all to hear. Even if they ran, Professor Barlowe would know who to find.

And being that she was his head of house, there was no hiding.

Turning towards his Mysty, he sighed giving her a guilty look. This was his fault. If he hadn’t mentioned the recipes and finding nothing in the library proper, she never would have suggested the restricted section.

”I’m sorry. This is my fault, I’ll take the fall.” Nothing more came out, as he heard the angry footsteps coming closer. Mrs Professor Barlowe came into view. Taking one look at her face told him there was no sweet talking their way out of this.

"Morgan. I don't know what you two think you're playing at, especially at this hour, and I don't particularly care to hear it." Standing, Brooks took a step forward to try and explain, but there was no explaining. In the blink of an eye, the two were separated, his hand reaching out towards hers as they were broken apart.

His hand felt immediately cold without her. A feeling he didn’t like and would take a lot of pondering once he was back in the dorms. ”Professor, it’s my fault…”

His words fell on deaf ears, no amount of groveling would help this situation. "Mister Garren, you can explain yourself tomorrow evening in detention. You'll be scrubbing the prefects' toilets.” Well that was a disgusting prospect.

Her eyes finding Mysty, she looked just as angry, no warmth spared for her daughter. ”Tomorrow morning, my office, before breakfast. Your dad will probably want to speak to you too. He heard the bauble."

Sighing, Brooks walked towards Mysty, wanting nothing more than to take her hand in his again. It was a new development in their friendship, but one he decided needed a lot more ‘hands-on’ research.

”I’m really sorry about all this. If you want, I can come with you to meet with your da, maybe it would help if I explained.”

Maddox Barlowe was an intimidating man, but that wouldn’t stop Brooks. He liked Morgan. They were good friends. They enjoyed each other's company. Up to this point, they had never gotten into trouble. There was no reason to make this into a bigger deal than it was. Just two young kids out for a late night B & E (breaking and entering).

"Back to your common rooms. Now."

They were out of the library and on their way towards the staircases that would leave to their respective towers, Brooks really didn’t want to leave her. This was not how he saw their night ending. Stopping in front of his one true friend in the castle he smiled, his crooked snarky smile. ”Maybe next time we can look in the room of requirement for books about distilling. The room always seems willing to provide. Night Mysty.” He snickered, taking her hand one final time in his, he gave it a good squeeze before following his Head of House up the stairs to Ravenclaw Tower.

Morgan forgot how loud the baubles were. And when her name was screamed along with it… her face fell. Any chance of getting away with anything was gone. She looked over at Brooks, still holding onto his hand.

”I’m sorry. This is my fault, I’ll take the fall.”

She looked back at the iron gates as her step-mum approached them. She turned back to her when her name was said. Morgan didn’t know if she’d ever seen her so angry before. Her stomach felt uneasy.

It only took a moment for Julia to separate their hands. It shocked Morgan how alone she felt at the moment there was no more physical contact. She looked at her best friend, a slight panic almost in her eyes.

She processed his punishment, and then turned to her step-mother when she was spoken to. Morning. Before breakfast. It was late now, that would be unbearable.

“...Your dad will probably want to speak to you too. He heard the bauble."

David croaked again. He was grounded.

She frowned, looking at Julia, then Brooks. And then she finally stood up. The full weight of the night settled onto her shoulders all at once.

Her dad heard the bauble. She knew that – there’d be no way he hadn’t. That was probably the worst part. Not the detention. Not the talk in the morning. Not even the anger on Julia’s face. It was her dad, who she’d spent years trying not to disappoint anymore, who she’d finally started to feel like she wasn’t constantly letting down, had heard her name screamed after curfew by the alarms Julia set up.

Morgan felt sick.

Rook was saying something – something about tomorrow and her dad – and she knew that whatever it was, she was grateful in a way that she couldn’t explain at the moment mostly because her brain was doing a lot of things at once and none of them were helpful.

Morgan wanted to grab his hand again, that was the other bad part. She wanted to hold onto it the way she’d held onto Benji in the gardens in first year when everything had felt like too much and she hadn’t known yet that holding onto people had consequences. She knew better now. She’d learned that lesson the hard way and she’d been careful ever since, kept the armor on, replaced feelings with David and deflection and jokes.

And then Rook had grabbed her hand without thinking and she hadn’t let go and now she was standing in a corridor at midnight dreading morning and wishing very much that she could just not walk back to Gryffindor tower alone.

But Julia was watching. Probably. And if not her, then the portraits definitely were.

“You don’t have to come tomorrow,” she said quietly. “It’s not your fault.”

It was a little bit his fault, but she wasn’t one to point fingers.

”Maybe next time we can look in the room of requirement for books about distilling. The room always seems willing to provide. Night Mysty.”

Morgan nodded slightly, her brain stuttering with the crooked grin again. Then he took her hand in his and gave it a comforting squeeze and she let him. And then he was gone up the stairs toward Ravenclaw tower and she was standing alone with David croaking softly in her bag and her hand still warm and the morning coming whether she wanted it to or not.

She stood there a moment too long. A portrait cleared its throat. She shot it a glare before finally heading up the stairs to Gryffindor tower.