Reading in secret (Lyra)

Victoria went around the library with three heavy books in her hands, searching for an empty table. Finally when she spotted the perfect place for her, she let go of her books and gave out a sigh of relief. With a large purple ceramic coffee cup in her hand, which she decorated herself with silly little drawings, she sat down at the table and opened two of her books. 

Since the beginning of the semester, she has been completely obsessed with Hudowig Pollingtonious' book 'The Healer's Helpmate'. Considering that she was interested in becoming a healer one day herself, she found this book too interesting too put down even for a second. She had a sip of her Brazilian coffee that she made her mother send to her every month, as she read each page carefully and with a smile on her face.

Not a lot of people knew about her dabbling into the art of healing, only her brother. She decided to keep her interest a secret mainly because of her parent's reaction. Her father had a firm opinion that the only jobs worth having were in the Ministry's departments. Everything else was just a hobby or 'a waste of time'. And her mother, well she was under the impression that her daughter's main goal in life should be to find a good husband and just be a mom to her kids. So for obvious reasons, Victoria didn't expect much support from her family when it came to her career choices. Yet she still sat in the corner of the library every day, reading her healing book almost secretly, feeling that she wasn't allowed to do so.

Hogwarts was cool so far. Lyra had been exploring and came across the library, so decided to go and see if they had any cool books there. Not textbooks and stuff about old, dusty, dead wizards, but stories with adventures and animals and twins and cool stuff like that.

Wow, there were a lot of books in there. How would she ever find the interesting ones in all of this? She scanned a nearby shelf, but saw only some textbooks. Then another one. No. Nothing particularly appealing. Maybe it was just worth asking someone to recommend a good book, or at least point her in the general direction of one. The library was too big and complicated.

She noticed a slightly older girl, maybe around Hunter's age, at a table towards the other side of the room. Perfect! The girl looked cool and not too old or intimidating to be boring and stupid. "Hi! Wha'cha reading?" It looked a bit boring. Healing? Like medicine or doctors? Not her sort of thing. "I sort of need some help! You look cool!"

Victoria heard faint footsteps coming closer and soon the voice of a girl followed. Looking up, she saw a young Gryffindor asking her about the book she was reading. "Oh it is just a book about healing. And the rest are mainly about potions", she said pointing to the other two books that were scattered across her table. Quite a boring subject for most people, as Victoria assumed. Most of the books she took out from the library were either for schoolwork or about healing.

"Oh well, thanks, I guess. I am Victoria by the way", she thanked the girl with a smile and introduced herself. "Of course I can help you. I know where all the books are located by genre, and that saves a lot of time when you're looking for something specific. Did you have a certain book in mind?", asked Victoria curiously. It seems that for the first time, her extensive knowledge of the library will actually be useful instead of just making her look strange in front of people.

Medicine might be cool, but it seemed quite difficult, because you had to learn all about different diseases and stuff, not to mention face loads of blood. Lyra shuddered. "I could do that...if I didn't hate blood," she said, wrinkling her nose a little. "It makes me feel sick because it's so red and bloody." She giggled. "I bet you could manage it easily, though! Is that what you want to be when you grow up? A doc- healer?" Why couldn't wizard doctors just be called doctors? It was stupid and pointless.

"Hi, I'm Lyra!" she beamed. "Not Lyn. That's my sister. She's in Hufflepuff. Don't get me mixed up with her!" Even though the other girl may not have ever seen Lyn, it was important that in the future she saw the twins as separate, totally different individuals. "Anyway, nice to meet you! Are you in second-year?" She looked about that age. "Because you might know my brother! He's called Hunter!" That git was popular at Hogwarts, he had loads of friends. So she might know him.

Now, down to business. It seemed that Victoria WAS cool, and COULD help her find a good book to read. Lyra wasn't sure exactly what she wanted, but if she could come up with a vague idea, it might help. "Um...something exciting and cool! With mermaids or giants or unicorns or food!" she rambled, suddenly enthusiastic about what she wanted in her new book.

Victoria chuckled when she heard Lyra talk about all blood in healing. And that was true, the healing profession demanded someone who didn't mind working with a lot of blood, open wounds and other terrible things. She herself didn't really have a problem with it, at least she figured that out from the limited healing experience she had so far. Most of that experience was thanks to her brother's ability to get hurt quite often, mostly from Quidditch. But that was a valuable way for her to learn in practice the spells she already knew in theory. 

"Yes, I would like to be a healer one day. Or a doctor - I don't really mind how you call it. That's at least my wish for now. There's still a lot of time to choose", said Victoria.

"Hi Lyra, not Lyn", she smiled back and nodded, wondering how terrible it would be for people to confuse you with your sibling all the time. "Yes, I am a second year and actually I do know your brother. We met on the train ride back from Hogwarts last year! He told me about you, about both of you. But you got into Gryffindor, same as Hunter and your sister is in Hufflepuff. I think it's better that way. I think that I would start to dislike my brother if he was in the same house as me, after spending so much time with him and everything"


[size=12.727272033691406]"With mermaids?" she asked trying to think of a book that would fit Lyra's description. Victoria mostly read healing books, not fiction so she wasn't very knowledgeable in the area but she could suggest a few tittles for her. [/size][size=12.727272033691406]"Well you have the True Love Series by Estephania Jamison. This one for example! Mary and the Merman. Or Christy and the Centaur"[/size][size=12.727272033691406], she suggested, taking her to the fiction section of the library and pulling out books she knew about. [/size][size=12.727272033691406]"Or you have the adventures of Martin Miggs, I read that one - it is quite good. Or maybe the Toadstool tales."[/size]