The Library Where it Began
Harry ran down the extraordinarily ordinary street, his small ratty shoes pattering against the concrete as he sprinted.
Dudley and his friends had been chasing him all the way home from school. Piers Polkiss, the absolute budding psychopath friend of Dudley, found beating him up especially funny, because according to him it was ‘easier to break bones and bruise someone with less fat on their body.’
Harry, the smallest and skinniest boy in the school, who was also the freak cousin of Dudley and the troublesome bully according to all adults, was, of course, their prime subject. So here he was, running away from Dudley and his gang.
Not like that was a particularly difficult feat, seeing as Harry often had to do hard labour for his relatives, and the most Dudley and his friends had ever worked out had been on the troublesome journey from the sofa, to the fridge and back.
The air was humid and hot, and it made it feel like the air he was breathing didn’t contain enough oxygen. The sky was almost orange and the sun was soon going to go down.
Harry swerved round a corner, into a part of the block he was exceedingly familiar with, as he often ran this path to escape his cousin and co.
Although, on this particular afternoon, Wednesday the 3rd of august 1988 to be specific, a nine year old Harry Potter was forced to run into one of the buildings and not just past them.
Harry had been switching out roof tiles that entire morning, and to top it off he hadn’t eaten anything but three loafs of bread since Monday, thus he had been physically exhausted that entire day.
Of course, he would always have enough energy to escape them, since the physical mass of Dudley equaled that of a teenage blue whale, and his company had to run accordingly as to not outrun their leader, but this afternoon he was just a tad bit slower, and so accordingly it took a while longer to shake Dudley off.
He opened an old wooden door that belonged to a big white building, ran in, and closed the door behind him. If he wasn’t still gasping for air he would’ve probably admired the different colours in the glass on the door, and the designs they created.
Little Harry bent over and rested his hands on his knees, breathing in massive gulps of air. Eventually his breath caught up enough for him to look up.
He had run into the public library.
He looked at the massive shelves of books with a kind of passive admiration and curiosity. It was absolutely huge. There was only one level, but the roof was so high up that they might have been able to fit two if they tried. The ceiling was concave in shape, with its highest point being in the middle of the library, where a big wooden mast stood from the floor to the ceiling.
He was scared out of his curiosity when a woman right behind him started speaking.
“Can I help you find something dearie?”
Harry jumped around to look at her. Behind him stood a short, above middle aged woman, with a kind expression, rosy cheeks and golden brown hair with grey streaks.
She wore a brown cardigan, a cream long pencil skirt, a fluffy white blouse and a pair of elegant burgundy shoes with a small heel. She wore a name tag on her chest that said “Librarian Alice Abbott”. On her nose stood a pair of rectangle glasses, and from the arms of said green glasses rested a string of pearls. She looked like a picture book example of a librarian, Harry thought.
Harry stared at her for a couple of seconds, unsure what to say and absolutely stunned with the realization that people who came into the library, often did it to read books, and not to run from bullies.
The woman started speaking before he was able to compose himself and answer. “Where are your parents? Do you need help finding them?” she asked kindly, bending over slightly to get on his level. It was probably supposed to be comforting, he thought, but Harry only found it intimidating to have the woman towering over him.
Harry decided that his only hope at not getting thrown out was to play the act of a poor but innocent child who didn’t really know what he was doing. He prayed that it would work.
“I’m sorry ma’am!” he said with wide eyes, snapping himself out of his staring. He slightly raised his hands up in the universal gesture of ‘i’m not guilty’ and took a few steps back “i-i.. I don't really..” Harry trailed off lamely.
He started fidgeting with the edge of his overly large shirt, staring down at his ratty trainers. He bit down on his bottom lip and frowned.
“It’s alright dearie!” she said. Alice could tell that the boy wasn’t a very social person, or at the very least shy. He reminded her of a sullen dark haired boy who used to frequent her library a long time ago with his fierce red haired friend, whom he looked very much alike. Perhaps they were related?
“I can show you to the children’s section and help you pick a book if you want?” She smiled warmly at him. He nodded, if a bit reluctantly, and she gently put a hand on the upper part of his back and ushered him to a small section of the library.
It had big green chairs and a red sofa that looked incredibly soft, with shelves upon shelves of children’s books surrounding the corner.
All in all it looked very cosy, and Harry could easily spend the rest of his life in there, nevermind the fact that he could barely read.
She sat him down in the chair and gave him a bunch of books that he might enjoy reading. Harry started reading a book called ‘the BFG’ by Roald Dahl, which he immediately got engrossed in.
That is how Harry continued to spend his days.
Whenever he was done with whatever chores the Dursley’s had sicked on him, he would practically run to the library and sit down in what Mrs. Abbott had jokingly dubbed “his corner”.
He would walk up to Mrs. Abbott whenever he had a question about the books or what a word meant, and she was ever so happy to answer. When the clock struck around 5.30 pm, he would walk home to start on dinner, go to sleep in his cupboard, wake up at 5, do everything he needed to do and the routine would restart.
The library quickly became his escape and a comfort for Harry, there were barely any people there at all, and the ones who were there were often adults who knew how to be quiet, or students reading studiously, too engrossed in their work to chat.
The best part was that Dudley and his gang would rather chug motor oil than step a foot inside a library, even if it was to bully Harry, so he felt truly safe.
The corner was quite secluded as well, and it was within Mrs. Abbot’s line of sight, so if someone attacked him, he knew the kind woman would rescue him.
Because that was how kind she was. She let him ask him questions- she even encouraged them! And the best part was she didn’t look at him like he was disgusting, or like the freak he really was.
Harry wondered why that was. Harry was a freak, and he should be treated as such, but his disgusting and disrespectful tone, his ugly personality or the freaky scar on his forehead he got from a freak car accident didn’t seem to make her budge.
Harry supposed some people just were like that, they treated everyone with kindness, even though they didn’t all deserve it.
But Harry wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and he would enjoy her kindness for as long as it lasted.
Harry would go to the library every day he could, and every time Mrs. Abbott would treat him with the same kindness.
✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩ ✶⋆.˚꩜ .ᐟ˙⋆✶
One day when he sat in his corner, Mrs. Abbott walked up to him and sat down next to him. She smoothed down her long skirt to remove any non-existing wrinkles “What are you reading?” the old woman asked him softly.
“Did you know that snakes can’t feel love?” Harry said sadly, gazing up from the factual book on snakes he had been engrossed in “It’s because they lack the brain stu- sturktur” Harry frowned as he struggled to pronounce the word.
The librarian leaned over the book and read the word, “structure?” she quirked an eyebrow in question.
“Yes! It means like how the brain is built. Structure means building so I figured it was the same thing, how the brain was built. Hard word to say though.” Mrs Abbott smiled as Harry continued enthusiastically babbling about snake facts.
Harry was a small child in way too big and ratty clothing, with the brightest green eyes she had ever seen, unruly burgundy red hair, and a peculiar looking scar resembling how a realistic lightning bolt spread over a gloomy sky that started at his hairline, spread through his eyebrow, over his cheek and the bridge of his nose. (A/N we need more realistic lightning scar and red haired Harry’s out there, on GOD.)
She always loved seeing children discover a love for books, and Harry was no different.
Harry had been routinely coming to the library at least three days a week for over two months, and he’d been deeply engrossed in the books she was giving him.
And although he may not be a quick reader, he was peculiarly adept at understanding what he was reading, and he could easily read books meant for 11 year olds, although he often struggled with spelling the words out loud. Alice thought that perhaps he didn’t often get the opportunity to practice reading out loud.
He seemed to love reading factual books, especially books on sciences like chemistry, biology and physics. He was deeply fascinated by space, atoms and how everything in the world worked.
He would often share facts he had just learnt with her, and he seemed smug and happy every time he had learnt something new, as if he was becoming smarter with every space and atom fact he learnt. She supposed that was true.
Alice often tried pushing other types of literature on him, and although some types of nonfiction had managed to break its way into his heart, he held strong to his love for knowledge.
Mrs Abbott loved children, and she would’ve loved having children of her own. It was a sad fact that she was too old to be able to properly take care of a child, but it was moments like these that made her love her job.
Alice wasn’t a muggle as most would believe, but a squib. her niece, Hannah Abbott, was the same age as Harry.
She hadn’t had any contact at all with the wizarding world in over 30 years, the only news she knew was that there was a dark lord named Voldemort that had been vanquished about 10 years ago, and that she had a healthy niece born late on a February day.
✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩ ✶⋆.˚꩜ .ᐟ˙⋆✶
One day in late November, Alice was sitting behind her desk reading a copy of Jekyll and Hyde and occasionally glancing around at the people in the library when Harry stepped up to her desk.
It was often that she missed when he walked up to her, only seeing the tuft of his unruly hair sticking up the top of her desk, he was just so tiny! He looked uncomfortable, shuffling his feet and fidgeting with the hem of his too big shirt.
“What is it dearie?” she asked gently, putting down her book on the desk and turning her attention to him.
“I wondered if I could, uhm, take one of the books.. home?.. i-it’s just to borrow! I swear I would never steal!” he said vehemently, with a fast shake of his head. “It’s just that it’s going to start snowing soon, and it’ll be hard for me to walk here- and-”
She interrupted him before he could continue, “Of course!” She turned to the side and pulled a card and an ink pen out of her drawer. “This is a library card, if you want one you can write your name on it, and you can take home any book you want, as long as you return it before two months have passed”
Harry broke out into a relieved smile, immediately taking the offered pen and writing his name down on the slip.
After that she didn’t see Harry that much, only when he would return the books he had read and loan new ones, but when he did he would stop to talk to her. She knew Harry wasn’t a social person at all, and he seemed hard pressed to let anyone into his heart, but when you talked about the topics of books he had read he would start talking like there wasn’t a care in the world.