It was Thursday evening and the library was full of fellow students working on tasks set by the Professors, looking up books, studying in small groups with hushed voices. Ambrose was a few paragraphs into an essay on vampires that he had to submit the following day and it wasn't going all that well.

The text books were all well and good, but he felt like he was just regurgitating them. Normally this wouldn't bother him, only the last time he'd done that, he'd accidentally copied a whole chunk without really concentrating and had been given a detention for his idiocy. He wasn't keen to make the same mistake again. There was only so much armour a boy wanted to polish a term.

The other reason it bothered him was that in his eye-line sat one of the first years - Dev... Devlin? He remembered the hubbub of discussion about the girl having pointy teeth at the sorting at the start of the year, and he'd heard the odd bit about hysterical first years wondering if the girl was a vampire. Ambrose was pretty sure that wasn't true - the proper vampires weren't allowed wands and to study here, he'd learned that in his essay quest.

What had he been taught in history? First hand accounts were more worthy sources? Glancing left and right, Ambrose rolled up his scroll and shouldered his bag, nipping softly round from one table to the next.

"Hi," He greeted, trying not to startle the younger girl, "Lilly is it?" Ambrose asked, getting it a little wrong, "Ambrose Pepper, I wondered if I could ask you a favour?" He paused, watching her expression sympathetically, and wondering about her teeth. "I erm... look, don't take offence I'll totally leave you alone if its the wrong thing to ask - its just I have to write a foot on vampires by tomorrow morning, and I'm not the best at that sort of thing... you don't mind if I ask you a few questions about ... y'know... having fangs and all?" He blushed, mumbling the end a little more quietly, wondering if he should flee and never speak to her again!

This Thursday was feeling no different than any other Thursday, and Ellie was sat by the library section on Magical Creatures. She had a small table all to herself, as per usual, and two journals in front of her. One journal was the one she wrote in like a diary and had gotten for Christmas, and it lay closed on the table. The other one was more worn, currently open, and she used to record her research. That research being anything to do with her vampiric nature.

Ellie pursued such research quite often whenever she had spare time not devoted to her class studies. Since she had never had such access to these materials before coming to Hogwarts, she had assigned herself the task of searching through all books that looked like  they could contain anything relating to vampires or half breeds, and recording any information that might come in handy. She had been through a total of nineteen books of various sizes since the beginning of the school year, and had learned plenty about many magical beasts and beings, including her own kind. She was starting to look forward to her third year, when she'd be able to take a class on magical creatures.

The Slytherin first year was currently skimming through a large encyclopaedia-like book, and was finding its content rather redundant. If she were being honest, it was a bit difficult for her to understand, since she despised dictionaries with a passion. Thus, her mind wasn't totally focused on the notes she was meant to be taking, and instead Ellie's peripheral vision had caught onto an upperclassmen dodging around tables and heading towards hers. She had a passing thought that he would just dodge by her table like he'd done with the others.

Instead, she got a surprise when he spoke to her. She couldn't exactly call it a pleasant surprise because she had no clue what this Gryffindor might want from her. She couldn't immediately  place if he was looking for trouble, since she was no good at analysing first impressions at a glance.

"Lillia Devlin, but call me Ellie if you'd like," she told him as he paused. "Go on," she added shyly, unsure of what to think. No one had asked her for a favour before, and she was feeling a bit uneasy. His plea for her not to take offence only intensified the unease.

Listening to his actual request made her release a breath, and she couldn't help but smile a bit at him, giving him a first-hand look at her fangs.

"I think I could help in this department. If you'd like, you can take a seat," she offered, gesturing to one of the empty chairs situated at the small rounded table, closing her journal and adjusting the skirt she had grown accustomed to wearing, trying to make it more presentable. She was admittedly nervous, but having someone interested in her halfbreed status for once - enough to approach and ask about it - had her feeling rather excited.

"I'll not bite, promise," she added sincerely, trying and managing to keep a straight face with that comment, although Ellie thought she could feel the corner of her mouth twitching up in a grin-like expression.

The first year really did have fangs. Ambrose's face read proper surprise for a moment and then then his eyebrows returned to their usual position on his face and his eyes their normal size.

"Er, thanks." He uttered in response to the offer of sitting down. He only hoped she didn't want to eat him for supper or worse, think he wanted to be her boyfriend. First year girls were odd at times.

"I'll not bite, promise."

Ambrose let out a shy chuckle, never quite at full ease with Slytherins.

"I've written most of the stuff about prolonged 'life', or rather.. the whole second life part, and stuff in the text books, only I get rubbish grades at the best of times, and I kind of need to get this one right so I don't end up sitting a detention for being stupid." He rolled his eyes and unrolled his parchment.

"I just wanted to check I had all the facts on you know, the what can be eaten - or rather not. Like do they -er - do vampires eat stuff or is it just blood? I've like seen sweets for them, but I'm a bit in a muddle." He gestured to his essay which was riddled with crossings out, and his spelling could be a bit hit and miss too.


There wasn't a whole lot that could be done for Ambrose's spelling and dodgy sentence structure every little while, but there was quite a deal with the young Lillia Devlin could do to help him with the essay. By the time she had finished correcting his misconceptions about vampires, Ambrose had entirely forgotten she had pointy little teeth too. Of all the strange coincidences, he was rather intrigued and delighted by the younger student, to the point he might even consider her a friend.

End