a little night reading (Open)

[anastasia rose wood]

empty chairs at empty tables
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The library was vacant, dust beginning to collect on the still forms that sat through the vast hall, from the shelves that held the many thousands of books, to the tables and chairs that were normally occupied by the various other students in the school. It was absolutely silent, without the sounds of feet shufflin along the floor, or books being thrown back into their places on the shelf. The librarian was not sending death glares toward those who spoke in hushed tones, nor hushing them with her quick tongue. No, there was not a soul in the library, not one.

At least, not at first glance.

But at the very back, concealed behind the oak shelves and heavy volumes of parchment boun in leather, was a table with a single candle on it, throwing light out in every direction it possibly could. For a moment, a pair of deep brown eyes marvelled at the light it shed in such a vast amount of darkness before turning quickly to the book that lay on the table of mahogany before her. It was rather large in appearance, the cover a simple black with lettering engraved in gold, bold against the darkness of the front. 'The Battle of Hogwarts,' it read.

Setting the candle on the table, she opened the book, hearing the familiar creek of a spine that hadn't been open in quite sometime. A small smile appeared on her lips when she turned the first page, reading the index that would lead her through the book, section by section. But she had no desire to skip through anything, feeling a deep need to read each piece of information as it was written, trying to piece together the similarities of today with yesterday. In a world as unstable as the one they lived in, Anastasia Wood couldn't help but feel there were things in the past, namely twenty-five years ago, that were beginning to happen again, in a time that she was around to witness.

The very first page made her pause out of respect, slender fingers trailing slowly down the page, touching each name as she went. An entire page of the book had been dedicated to those who had fought for the Order of the Phoenix, for those who had lost their lives in both of the previous wars of good versus evil. Lily Potter, James Potter, Sirius Black, Alastor Moody, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks, Fred Weasley....each name gave another reason for the fight to continue, even with Voldemort having been killed all those years ago by a teenaged wizard. Since that time, the wizarding world had lived in peace, or as peaceful as it could become, considering the type of people they had evolved to become.

From there, the text began to tell of the very first war, from the time when the name of Lord Voldemort had first spread terror through every heart that heard the name. Lives had been lost there as well, almost as many that were lost nearly twenty years later, when the entire thing started again. And from there, it also expanded on The Boy Who Lived, the one who later became known as the Chosen One, the Saviour, the one who brought about Voldemort's end. He was a man now, with a family of his own. He had not died, as was once thought, but survived in time to kill Voldemort before anyone else was killed. Her respect for him was unending, as a student, as a scholar, as a witch.

A sudden noise made her look up, eyes wide as they darted around the room, searching in the blackness for signs of another body, or anything that could have been the source of the noise. She saw not a thing, but Anya knew that someone was there, watching from the shadows that made it impossible for her to see them at all. Her face knit into a tight frown, one hand slipping out of sight to grip the wand that lay, ready and waiting, in the pocket of her jeans. Her finger's wrapped themselves firmly around the end, elbow tensed, waiting for the chance to strike if needed.

"Show yourself now, or risk being hexed and in St. Mungo's," she warned, voice dead serious in word. "This is your only warning."

For a moment, there was nothing. Not a sound filled the library at all. Anya sat perfectly still in her chair, ears opened to every and any sound that might come after. Though patient, the girl was not willing to wait for long, even in those conditions. It was late enough that no one should be out and about, including her. But this thought only made her slightly more nervous of who could possibly be there, watching and waiting.

Word Count: 885
Time of Day: Night
Listening To: No Air - Jordin Sparks ft. Chris Brown
Mood: A little on the bored side...

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[pheonix narcissa malfoy]

Definitely not your average Slytherin girl

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Pheonix was in her common room. It was cool, like always, but warmer by the fire. She was doing her homework. She had three essays due later in the week, and unlike her house mates, she was not going to leave them for the last minute. She had been sitting uncomfortably at a work desk with a her potions book, trying to ignore the random glares coming her way. She had done two things wrong that day, well not wrong as in bad, but she had broken some serious rules. The first, she had ruined a prank some of the seventh year students were preparing for some Gryffindor or another. As for the second, she stopped to help a Gryffindor first-year who was being picked on by some of the older Slytherin kids. It made the house of Slytherin look like a bunch of creeps and losers. They were too weak to pick on someone their own age, so they went for the young ones. The Slytherins were very lucky that she did not catch them in the act of harming the child, she found him crying in an abandoned hallway, or they would all be sitting in detention for at least a week.

Pheonix could hear them muttering about her, that she was a disgrace to the Slytherin house. She snorted at the comment. She was probably more powerful than ninety percent of the Slytherins in the room, considering most of the older students were nowhere to be found. She placed the final sentence in her essay on the uses of the scales of a serpent, the professor had asked for approximately 12", she wrote 15" instead. She knew the professor would not be overly impressed by her extra addition, but there were more uses than she could fit in a mere 12" of parchment.

She stood, getting another sneer from a fifth year Slytherin. "If you weaklings have got shit to talk, say it too my face, but don't be cowards and mutter it under your breath, hoping I don't hear you." Pheonix hissed. She was not in a particularly good mood. The boy she helped needed to go to the nurse. He was hurt pretty badly, a broken arm two ribs and a possible concussion. She would have healed him on the spot, but the nurse would not like that one bit. She knew carrying the kid up the long climb to the hospital wing would be painful for him, so she did a quick numbing spell that would likely wear off by the time she reached the Nurse. She couldn't count how many of her own house mates, or other students for that matter, had seen her carrying the boy. She knew most other Houses probably thought she had been the one to harm the boy. She didn't particularly care. She knew she didn't do it, and so did the professors. As far as she was concerned everyone else could stick it where the sun don't shine.

She stormed out of the common room with two rolls of 10" parchment, shrunken to fit into her pocket, As well as a book on transfiguration which she also shrunk. She got a few rude comments from the other Slytherins as she walked out. She knew they were afraid of her, she made sure that if the younger Slytherins did not respect her, they at least feared her. It was the only way she could keep herself and them out of trouble. She sighed as she continued to walk to the library, she knew it was too late for even prefects to be out, so she muffled the sound of her foot steps.

She was wearing a deep green set of ankle boots, with a 4" heel. This caused an echoing clack on the stone of the dungeons. This was muffled of course, so only she could hear it. She had traded her school uniform for something more her style hours ago. That left her in a dark green halter top, and a pair of destroyed jeans. They were full of rips, four slices on each thigh, the knees are ripped out, and there were rust-stains on each of the back pockets. Her father absolutely despised that pair of jeans. He did not raise her to look like some homeless witch, she would look like a respectable young woman at all times and that was pretty much when his voice turned from understandable English to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, in her head. Her hair was pulled back in a messy set of ratted out pigtails, a hairstyle her father also despised. For two reasons, she was no longer five, therefore pigtails were too childish of a hairstyle for her, and her hair "looked a mess." It was another one of those lectures she tuned out quickly.

She reached the library, relatively quickly but she immediately knew someone else was there. She had taken the muffler off of her shoes so the clack, clack, clack, was audible throughout the library. She hadn't thought she would need to waste her energy by keeping the spell up. "Sorry to startle you doll. Didn't think anyone else would be in here" She said as she was threatened. "And there is absolutely no way you could send me to St. Mungos. There is a reason I am not allowed to take this off you know." She said fiddling with the Malfoy crest that dangled around her throat. Both her brother and her father would be furious if she were to ever take it off. So she stopped trying to trick the necklace ages ago, not matter if she could protect herself of not.

Word Count: 950

[anastasia rose wood]

empty chairs at empty tables
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Anya immediately recognized the voice to belong to a girl her own age, though placed in the house of Slytherin mostly due to her family name. Her hand lowered the instant she saw her face come around the corner of the darkened shelf, knowing that though Pheonix Malfoy was capable of harming her, that she would not, even after threatening her with being cursed. Not that she would be able to touch the girl with that damn necklace on, she realized. Draco had spared no expense in making sure that his precious little girl was well protected against anything and everything while he was not here to protect her himself.

Though Pheonix had the misfortune of being a snake, Anastasia had found her to be almost the opposite of your stereotypical Slytherin. Yes, she had her moments where she could be overly cruel and ruthless, but that seemed to appear more when she was giving out punishments to those from her own house and not the rest of the school. However, the young lioness could not recall to memory a time when Pheonix had been part of any cruel pranks on another student, more commonly being the outcast of her house who did her best to try and stop such incidents from happening all together. Perhaps that was the reason that she was made a prefect, thought the girl. Who else in that house was not corrupt by the ridiculous old ways that labelled pureblood families above the rest? And as she was a Malfoy, that came as a great shock to anyone who did not yet know of her.

Stowing her wand back up her sleeve, her eyes softened to a much more neutral face, arms folding themselves lightly across her chest as she looked up at the blonde with a small smirk. "Finally had enough of them talking, huh?"

She had to confess, she had heard the rumours circulating through the school about how she had stopped in the corridor long enough to take a first year boy up to the hospital wing. No one else would have stopped from her house, which set her above the rest in Anya's mind. True, the two of them were not friends, by any means, but there was some kind of unspoken respect that seemed to linger there, where neither one really made snide comments to the other, unless about people that they both loathed. As much as she would have liked to think that loathing was beneath her character, Anya knew that she would only be lying to herself if she did. It was part of her nature, whether she liked it or not.

Shifting slightly in her seat, she moved a hand in motion for Pheonix to take a seat if she so desired. As a prefect, she could get Anya into a lot of trouble for being up as late as she was, and in a place that was forbidden to students after hours. Though she would have hated to have cost her house points already in the semester, Anya had thought of no other alternative but this when she had been unable to sleep that night, having no one else to talk to at such a late hour. A book had seemed like a good idea at the time, a way of perhaps tiring her mind in such a way that she had been unable to do back in the common room, with the few people who were still there chatting about mindless things, like how to wear their hair the following morning for class so they could impress that cute sixth year boy. The conversation had made her roll her eyes in disgust and then flee, heedless of the time and the patrols that were sure to line the corridors for safety reasons.

A pair of dark brown orbs watched the Slytherin girl carefully, in case she had misread any signs of body language when she had stepped out into the light of the candle and made herself known. Seeing none did not exactly put Anastasia at ease, but it didn't cause her any alarm either. That was the strangest thing about being around Pheonix. She had this way of making you both uneasy and safe at the same time, though anyone who did know her would know that she would not attack without reason. Yet another redeeming quality of the Malfoy girl.

"So, what's your excuse and how much trouble am I in?" she asked in a neutral tone, leaning back against the chair as she crossed one leg over the other. "Though just so you are aware, I couldn't sleep, and I couldn't stand another conversation about how cute one of the Weasley's are."

As much as she adored most of the Weasley clan, there was only so much a girl could take in one sitting.

word count: 891
listening to: i will always love you - connie talbot
mood: tired!
time of day: night!

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[pheonix narcissa malfoy]

Definitely not your average Slytherin girl

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"Yeah, apparently the second I do something that makes me look like a decent human being I am a disgrace to the house of Slytherin." Pheonix said as she rolled her eyes. She really hated the facts of life as a Slytherin. Her own house expected her to be a cold, unfeeling, hurtful individual. Other houses expected her to be cruel, manipulative, and bitchy just because she was ambitious and a little cunning, and especially because of her family name. It was her greatest pet peeve. Sure, her father wasn't the best of people in school. She heard the stories from her father, as well as from the potters and Weasleys, indirectly of course. Just because she wasn't a stereotypic Slytherin, and a rebel Malfoy didn't mean she went to speak the posse that made up the Potter/Weasley clan. They were the most critical of her, almost worse than her own house, which was definitely saying something. They expected her to demean them, bitch at them, or basically make their lives a living hell. There were a few reasons she didn't do that. One was she had morals, but the biggest one was because she just didn't deem them worthy of her time.

Yep, that was when her Slytherin side kicked in a little. She didn't go out of her way to hurt anybody, but that didn't mean she was friendly to everyone. Not by a long shot. She was a little stuck up, and she knew it would take her a long time to change the stubborn Weasley's away from their points of view. She would not waste her time on a hopeless task. She honestly didn't care that much. They weren't people she needed to impress. The bloodfued had pretty much dwindled. It had lost it's meaning generations ago. They were just supposed to hate the Weasleys for no apparent reason.

She wasn't that petty, although she really didn't know who's views her brother chose. Being in separate years, having different friends, and being the opposite genders pretty much meant they didn't spend a lot of time together. At home the house was big enough to get lost in. It was nice if you wanted to avoid someone. It tended to be lonely when it was empty, however, the echoes tended to be enough to scare anyone out of their pants. Merlin only knew what was still lurking in the house. There were plenty of defenses her father had no idea about. Pheonix was almost positive that if anything less than a pureblood walked into the front doors the house would practically destroy them. She was exaggerating again, but with hundreds of years of blood prejudice throughout the Malfoy Manor, anything was possible.

"You aren't in trouble. I'm not on my rounds, for one, meaning if the seventh year prefects that are out right now were to catch me I'd have to have a thorough explanation as to why I was out so late, and I would have to make the head of house believe it. Second, I'm not cruel, I'm not going to penalize you for not getting along with your house-mates 100% of the time. Hell, I can barely stand mine for a few hours let alone for the entire span of my time at Hogwarts." She said, shuddering at the thought.

Pheonix laughed lightly about the general conversations that spouted into her mind when Anastasia brought it up. "None of the Weasley clan are that attractive. I mean don't get me wrong, they aren't ugly or anything, far from it really, but I wouldn't call any of them gorgeous. I mean not compared to some of the students here. But I agree, there is only so much talk about how cute someone is a girl can take. I have to tell you though, when it's usually your brother they are talking about it is much, much worse, I can assure you that." Pheonix giggled. She really couldn't take much of the female's fawning over her brother. There were plenty, and she disliked it greatly. She would rather have her eardrums ripped out than have to listen to the gold diggers for too long. Sure her brother was attractive in his own right, but when she knew what half of the people who talked about her brother was their money it pissed her off.

"It gets even worse when you can hear them whispering about you." Pheonix shuddered. It was a well known fact that the white-blond girl rarely ever dated. Sure she's had a few one-night stands, her father would go ballistic if her knew. The entire world knew of what happened to her, her first year. It meant that her "value" was already decreased, and her Dowry would have to go up. If it got around that she slept around in school too, that would be terrible. Dowries and the like in her mind were completely and utterly archaic. She begged and pleaded with her father to make her dowry and inheritance instead. She would not be sold, and she would not "pay" someone to take her hand in marriage. It took her a month of avoiding him before he finally caved. She knew how to get to her father, even if it took a long time. One might ask how she got any food if she didn't speak to her father for over a month. That was easy. She put wards on her wing of the Manor. She had her own bathroom, sitting room, library, even her own kitchen, not that she needed it. No matter what kind of wards were put on the house, if they were not specifically tuned to house elves, they could travel wherever they pleased.