Elijah Fitzroy Grimlish, Ravenclaw 6th year, hated the Hogwarts library with a fiery passion that settled deep within his bones. In Eli’s opinion, libraries should be full of books, not monstrosities. Elijah considered any book that screamed at you, or was cursed to make you read the entire thing without stopping, or tried to bite your hand off, was not a book at all. Books should be wonderful things filled with fantasy and adventure, where the words jump off the pages from the imagery portrayed by the author, not by some enchantment. Where fictitious events were possible, and one could escape from the cruelties of the world by diving heart and soul into the pages. 

Personal feelings aside, being a Hogwarts student often required copious amounts of time spent in the confounded library researching one topic or another. That’s why Eli was thumbing through the dusty tomes on one of the last comfortable days of the season. He owned many books on runes, but his classes were becoming increasingly difficult, and every once in a while, Eli needed an extra reference to make sure he was translating correctly. He had various supplies sprawled out messily on one of the sturdy wooden tables in the library and as he glanced through the titles, he hummed quietly to himself.

Eli was wearing robes of deep emerald, his hair unkempt as usual. Actually, it appeared as if Eli had simply rolled out of bed, changed his robes and headed straight for the library, which wasn’t altogether untrue. Eli had been staying up extraordinarily late the past few nights; trying to prepare for the upcoming ‘dude night’ he was planning for his roommates. Preparing for such a huge event wasn’t near as easy as he thought it was going to be. Eli realized that in his rant, he had gotten sidetracked and overlooked the title he was after. With a deep sigh, Eli retraced his steps and pulled the well-worn volume from the shelves. He slowly made his way back to his table, trying hard to stay focused on the task at hand.

No homework, no comic books, no inspiration. Mason hopped down the many sets of stairs to the fourth floor, specifically, the Hogwarts library. He wanted to find a novel or a book of poetry he had yet to read. Maybe Rilke or Whitman, Mason thought as he browsed the shelves, searching for the perfect book to read.

He had been browsing these shelves for 6 year, he knew which shelves to leave alone and which selves you could get a book that wouldn't gnaw off a finger when you went for the binding. He had read most of the poetry selections, but they're could always be one that he had missed before. Another option was a cook book. he liked tcopy down recipes to make at home with his quick quotes quill.

He pulled a few poetry books he had previously read, but he loved to re-read. He would sit in moaning Myrtle's bathroom, reading, or reading to Myrtle, or any other ghost that wanted to show up and listen.

As he rounded the shelf for an advanced Charms book he had been searching for and didn't have the guts to ask Landis if it was out or not, he saw his roommate- Eli, hunched over an ancient Runes Book, that reminded him, he needed a few reference books for that too.

He grab a few NEWT level Runes books and walked up to the table where Eli was sitting down. Mason quietly cleared his throat, "Hey," Mason said in a hushed tone. "Can I sit here" He said, pointing at the chair across from Elijah.

The thing about quills and ink, you couldn't really erase your mistakes. Eli realized, about halfway through his assignment, that he had been incorrectly translating one of the commonly repeated runes, and instead of trying to blot out his mistakes, he crunched up the paper and lobbed it over his shoulder, completely forgetting he was in the library. His housemates were pretty much used to Eli's paper OCD. Some of the younger years even made a game, to see if they could catch the paper with a levitating spell before it had a chance to hit the ground.

Eli, however, was not in his common room, and people weren't too happy about a student littering the library floor with quaffle-sized balls of parchment. When the muttering and the dirty looks got to be too much, Eli sighed and stood to retrieve the trash. he sat it on the table in front of him and got back to work, this time carefully reading and rereading the runes to be sure of accuracy. He was deep in concentration when Mason walked up to his table, so he didn't catch on that his roommate was even talking at first. When it finally sunk in that Eli was expected to respond, he stuck out his hand in welcome, "Oh, hey Mason, sure! Have a seat." Everyone already thought he was crazy, a little hesitation in conversation was just another notch to add.

To be polite, Eli put aside his homework and looked up at his fellow Ravenclaw, "So what brings you to our esteemed library?" He asked jokingly.

Mason plopped down his bag on the floor as he sat down, his enormous stack of books raising dust when they hit the dark wood table. His books beside him, crumpled pieces of paper besides Eli, others still scattered behind him.

"So what brings you to our esteemed library?"

"There wasn't much in the common-room, so I made my way down here so I can get a few things to read, and a few reference books for a few classes- I see your having a wee bit of trouble with Ancient Runes?" Mason said, gesturing to the many pieces of snarled parchment engulfing his roommate.

He had never really had trouble with it, Ancient Runes, they were really simple, like a code in a spy film, you just needed a key, that was normally the hard part, the rest was just basic translation. Mason fingered through the dozen books he had stacked and plucked out a nonfiction story about the building of Gringotts Bank, beginning with the beginning of wizarding currency and the way the goblins cast the coins that they used today.

Eli looked up incredulously at his roommate. No, he certainly was not having issues with his Ancient Runes work; he was actually very skilled at runeology, he was just having trouble concentrating, that’s all. “It’s just that this year has been crazy, and I’m letting third year mistakes ruin my work. I’m a NEWT student, damn it, and I can’t even translate a simple essay.” Eli sighed heavily. Maybe things weren’t going to be so simple this year, after all.

“I mean, I knew our NEWT classes were going to be tougher, but I didn’t know we’d be so swamped with classwork that we wouldn’t even have time to go to the loo or sleep!” He said, obviously the pressures of being an upperclassman were getting to him. “Plus, my sister and I aren’t speaking, and everyone still thinks I’m a nutter, and I don’t even like waffles, but I had them for breakfast anyway because I forgot to not like them!”

Elijah wasn’t exactly sure why he was rambling to his roommate, but he was. He sat his work aside and decided to push it out of his mind while he had company. “So, how have things been with you lately? Sorry we haven’t really had time to catch up this year.” He said, folding his hands in front of him to keep himself from fidgeting.

“It’s just that this year has been crazy, and I’m letting third year mistakes ruin my work. I’m a NEWT student, damn it, and I can’t even translate a simple essay.” ...
“I mean, I knew our NEWT classes were going to be tougher, but I didn’t know we’d be so swamped with classwork that we wouldn’t even have time to go to the loo or sleep!”... “Plus, my sister and I aren’t speaking, and everyone still thinks I’m a nutter, and I don’t even like waffles, but I had them for breakfast anyway because I forgot to not like them!”

Mason was at a loss for words. He wanted to say that he had no problem with homework and normally went to bed early, because he had nothing else to do. "What happened between you and your sister? And, waffles?" He said a quizzical look on his face.

“So, how have things been with you lately? Sorry we haven’t really had time to catch up this year.”

Mason flipped through the book, looking at all of the pictures. "I haven't been doing much lately, homework, reading, writing, going to class, eating, and sleeping, not much else, but I'll tell you one thing, I'm kind of really tired of all this Tetrawizard Tournament stuff, I don't want to team up with a Durmstrang student for Astronomy, or Defense, why can't we just teach classes like normal, except the other schools take empty class rooms? They already know half the stuff we learn next year."

Mason closed his book and went on to the next.

"Well, yeah, waffles. They're sticky and messy and robes don't exactly make eating an easy experience, y'know?" He said, a sheepish grin splaying on his face. "And Evie won't talk to me because she doesn't believe our family anymore and doesn't really want to have anything to do with me because I'm odd, just like everyone else in our family. She doesn't think that our family is our real family, and who am I to judge? Maybe they aren't our real family, but it's the only family I know." He said, running his fingers through his hair in his frustration.

The Ravenclaw boy reached into his bag and pulled out a blood flavored lollipop. He pulled the plastic off, enjoying the crinkling sound it made. He didn't really care that you weren't supposed to eat in the library, no one ever paid attention to him anyway. He stuck the candy in his mouth and immediately made a face of disgust. He hated the things, but he figured that if his daddy was good enough to drink blood, then Eli would do his best to follow suit. Of course, his lollipops weren't made from real blood, they were just flavored like it. Elijah couldn't stomach drinking or eating blood, he was a vegetarian and just the thought of hurting poor defenseless creatures made Eli want to cry or scream or both.

"It's funny how we fall into routines, isn't it?" He said, referring to the way students fell into their everyday ruts easily and quickly. School - Eat - Work - Sleep - Repeat. The only relief they got was on the weekends, and even then you usually had copious amounts of homework to catch up on. Elijah hadn't even gone into Hogsmeade this year because he was too busy most of the time; that and his friends were always too busy to be seen in public with Eli.

"I see" Mason said, replying to Elijah's unhappy description of waffles.

Mason really didn't care that Eli's dad was a vampire, as long as no one cared about his parents being muggles. He really hated it when snacked on the blood flavored suckers. Mason shuddered. "Why do you keep eating those? All that iron can't be good for you."

Mason had once snagged one from Eli's hoard and licked it, once, twice, then promptly threw up in his wastepaper basket. Throwing the lollipop in with his sick. He didn't tell Eli about the incident, but stuck with his fizzing whizbees and peppermint toads.

"Why doesn't she think it's your real family, your mother eventually found you, right? She came back for you." He didn't want to say anything that would offend Eli, he really hated conflict, he hated conflict more than he hated blood lollipops.

Eli quite agreed with Mason that the suckers weren’t exactly tasty, but it wasn’t really about how they tasted, it was more because he felt closer to his father when he ate them, he was proving that he could live in both worlds and still survive. Elijah disagreed with Mason; however, on his assumption that the iron couldn’t be good for him. “Actually, you could be right about that, if I was purely human. But since I’m not, I think the iron is a really good boost to keep me healthy.” In all honesty, he hadn’t been sick in years, not since he started sucking on the disgusting candies.

Eli sucked on the candy thoughtfully before answering Mason’s question. “Well, if you think about it objectively, Evie could be totally right. All we truly know is that a woman found us on the streets claiming to be our mother. We have no proof that she really is our mum, and facts show that technically vampires can’t sire offspring. It could be pure coincidence that we turned out to be gifted with magic. I choose to believe that our mum is truly our mum. Evie wants proof.” He said, trying very hard to not let emotion creep into his voice, and managing only slightly.

Mason waved off Eli's explanation for his sucking of the putrid pops. He had heard Eli's story on more than one occasion, and it never differed. "So, she said she was your mother, but didn't prove it to you? You've never seen your own birth certificate?"

Mason had seen his once, when he was about 8 he had a panic attack about if his parents were really his parents after watching Annie on TV. His parents had dug through his baby boxes and held it out to him. He was relieved. When he went to Hogwarts, he still wasn't sure about his place in their trio.

"I couldn't know, because I am not a mother, but I don't know, don't you think it was like fate or destiny, or that she just recognized you on that street? Has Evelyn talked to your mom and dad about it?" Mason questioned, digging a chocolate wand out of his bag and snapped off the tip, and tossed it into his mouth.

Elijah shrugged in response to his roommate’s questioning. “Evie isn’t like you and I, she doesn’t think logically, she thinks like any regular teenager. Even with ironclad proof, she’d still not believe mum because she thinks that she’s always right. You see, our family is very peculiar.” He grinned at his own inside joke. Peculiar was the understatement of the century when it came to describing the Grimlish family. “Evie, well, she doesn’t really fit into the quirkiness. It’s actually kinda awful.”

Eli was starting to feel like he was under a microscope, so he decided it was time to change the subject. “So, how are things between you and Mr. Graham?” The Ravenclaw boy asked with a smirk. It was obvious to him that Rohan was completely in love with Mason; the only thing that Eli wasn’t sure about was if Mason knew it. As far as dudes go, Eli supposed that they were both attractive enough, but then if there was a messy break up things would get rather awkward in the room.

He took one last suck on the pop and carefully wrapped it in one of the numerous wads of paper that littered the table. He couldn’t eat any more; the nasty thing was making him nauseous. Without asking, he reached over the table and plucked a chunk of chocolate off of Mason’s wand. He popped the delicious morsel into his waiting maw and let out a sigh of gratitude. The chocolate tasted like pure bliss after the bloody-goodness of the lollipop.

“So, how are things between you and Mr. Graham?”

Change of subject, okay... Mason shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. "We had a really weird conversation last month and he punched me in the jaw, but I guess we're okay." Eli snapped a bit off of his chocolate wand. Mason waved him away. "My chocolate, Mine, none for Elis" Mason said like a 5 year-old girl jokingly. He bit another chunk off.

Speaking of parents. "My parents haven't written to me in two weeks, I hope they're okay. How often do your parents write?" Mason said, getting an idea. "Why don't you write your parents and ask to see your birth certificates, then you can prove to Evie, that they are your biological parents. She may think like a normal teenager, but even they can't hide from the truth long."

Mason bit down on the wand, the chocolate melting effortlessly on his tongue.

“Uh… Mason, since we’ve been friends, how often have we celebrated my birthday?” Obviously there wouldn’t be a change of topic, so he might as well tell it all. “No one, including my mum, knows the exact date of our birth. Wizards don’t have scraps of paper detailing their birth, there’s a ledger in the Ministry detailing when a witch or wizard is born. When I’m of age, they’ll let me view my name, and my name only, but not until then. Until that day, I wait, as does Evie, unsure of quite a lot.” Eli said with a sigh. “Because there’s question about my mum they won’t even let her view it. Since she can’t tell the exact date of birth, they say no.”

Elijah smiled when he next spoke, “I get letters all the time. Most of the time you don’t see it though, because my mum has bats, and they deliver late at night, not during the day like owl post. Mum writes once a week, Auntie Opie writes me all the time too, but that’s mainly because I’m always asking her questions about the divine. She used to work here, y’know? My Auntie Opie? She’s awesome. Probably my favorite member of the family.” He loved his family, he truly did. Most people thought their family was dysfunctional, but Eli thought that their family was perfect and that everyone else’s was screwed up.

“So… why’d he punch you? I mean, it’s cool to act like a muggle and all, but I wouldn’t wanna hurt my hand. If you made me mad, I’d just hex you…” he said thoughtfully, reaching over to pluck another bite of chocolate, ignoring Mason’s previous forbiddance.

Mason chomped on his wand thoughtfully. "Okay 1. There are bats in our room when we're sleeping, that's a little unnerving I must say...2. Your Aunt taught ... divination? 3. Rohan got mad at me after he came out of the closet after somethings I said trying to figure out what he had said. Then, he slugged me in the chin."

Mason twiddled his finger. "So other than family crisis, what else is new?" He said changing the subject.

Elijah let out a hearty laugh, earning him the stink eye from his fellow students. “You mean you’ve never seen Vlad flying in and out? You didn’t know that I keep a bat for a pet? We’ve been roommates for six years and you’ve never noticed?” Eli was trying very hard not to look totally incredulously at Mason, but it wasn’t working very well. In all honesty, it wasn’t hard to believe that Mason had never seen his nocturnal friend. Vlad really didn’t like being inside and was extremely shy around humans that weren’t Grimlishes.

“Yeah, Auntie Ophelia taught divination. She quit though, she didn’t like how Headmistress Snark chucked out all the werewolves. She has a tea and divination shop now, I work there most holidays.” Eli shrugged, not really happy with the way events turned out, but he was well aware that you didn’t get to choose your lot in life.

Eli’s eyes bugged out at his fellow Ravenclaw. For one so intelligent, Mason sure seemed dense sometimes. Elijah thought it was pretty obvious that Rohan was gay. He had noticed forever ago, not that it was polite to say anything about it. “Seems to me like he would have done better with a kiss than a punch. Nothing new’s really happened lately. Everything just seems so repetitive.”