Hiding From the World (Xavier)

[Angel Anna Reese]

Angel hurried into the library, avoiding all the bodies around her studying or kissing or gossiping. She nearly ran to a small secluded corner of the library that very few people even seemed to realize existed. It was tucked neatly between two small bookshelves, and was hardly visible to someone from the outside. This made it the ideal study place. She had even managed to convince the librarian to allow a small fireplace between the two chairs that sat back there, of course, the fire had to be magical and locked inside of a magically sealed glass container, to be sure it couldn't light the books on fire, but it still gave off a homely glow and wonderful heat. Angel quickly grabbed her favorite sad story off a nearby shelf where it lived and opened to a specific chapter. She had just run off from where a bunch of jerks were teasing her and making fun of her for being a theater geek and she just wanted to cry. She could already feel the tears brimming and what better excuse to cry than a book that brought tears to all it's readers. She began to read and the tears began to fall, slowly at first then faster until she was sobbing.

[Xavier Giuseppe Cavaliere]

Xavier was doing his usual duties as Librarian's Assistant, reshelving books and reverently removing older ones from the shelves to be restored. It had to be done the old Muggle way, by hand, with waxed thread and needle. Book-binding was hard work, but Xavier enjoyed it. He liked working with books.

He had made a large pile of the books he had to repair levitate with his wand because of the large load in his arms and was making his way to the little corner of the library where he usually sat to work when he heard the crying. Concerned, Xavier hurried to the source and found a girl sitting in one of the two chairs. With a flick of his wand, the levitating pile and the stack from his arms was piled neatly around the chair.

He kneeled in front of the girl, tilting his head so that he could look up into her eyes.

"Are you alright?" he asked, frowning. "That's a stupid question. What's wrong?"

[Angel Anna Reese]

Angel jumped a slight bit, startled that somebody had spoken to her. First off, very few people knew about this part of the library, and second off, people didn't often talk to her out of no where. "Oh... uhh..." she mumbled, nervous. The guy was really cute, even though her swollen eyes she could see that, and it was making her kinda nervous. "My book... it's sad, and umm... I needed to cry because of some, uh, jerks who were teasing me," she said quietly, glancing down shyly.

[Xavier Giuseppe Cavaliere]

"Hm. Well, I'm Xavier Cavaliere," he offered unsurely. "My English...it still needs work. If you'd like, you could help me with my work."

He gestured to the vast piles of to-be-repaired books that he'd found throughout the library that day. It kept him busy, spying and working for the school, but he enjoyed it. It made him feel a little less homesick....and worry less about the state of his bookstore with his empty-headed sister, Alice ((pronounced Alee-chey because they're Italian. XD)), in charge. He hoped that he didn't come back to cobwebs and disorder. That seemed like just the sort of crime against his system that she would perpetrate....

[Angel Anna Reese]

"Oh, um... sure," Angel said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "Are you the one who repairs all of the old broken books?" she asked. She had noticed that some of the older, more run down books had been disappearing off the shelves, then reappearing later in much better condition. She kind of lived in the library for studying and reading, and it was something that she noticed rather often.
Her thoughts randomly went elsewhere for a few minutes. I wonder where he's from. He says his English needs work, and he obviously has an accent... Italian perhaps? She mentally shrugged, perhaps he'd tell her?

[Xavier Giuseppe Cavaliere]

He smiled and nodded in response to her question, lifting an old History of Magic book from the top of its pile. He winced at its state of disrepair; the librarian must have been ridiculously busy to not notice. The cover was nearly ripped off, and the pages were badly dog-eared. He would save it, though.
"So...not this book, but most will be reshelved tonight," he explained. "That is part I am needing help with. Takes a very long time. I am librarian's assistant, run book store back home. Home is Italy, by the way."
The question inevitably came up, might as well get it out of the way.

[Angel Anna Reese]

Angel tilted her head sideways, "I didn't realize so many books were so damaged." She looked at him, "I'll help, but you'll need to tell me how, I don't know how to fix books." She smiled at him, "I'd love to learn and help you, though." She picked up one of the damaged books and looked at it, "so you're from Italy? Why are you here, then? It's so far from your home." She was confused. There were rarely transfers from other countries into Hogwarts. Wizards didn't tend to travel much between countries.

[Xavier Giuseppe Cavaliere]

"School is...very hard on books," he admitted with a laugh. "I work often. Came over summer to start. Would be easier to fix books if we could use magic, but there are...ah...charms! against it."

He carefully strung the first of the needles he would be using for his demonstration with the waxed thread. He remembered when he was first learning to bind books, the thread had cut his fingers and irritated him until he figured out a better way of it. Silly Alice never had; it made him feel like he'd won something.

"Ah, yes! Is very far from home; does things differently," he agreed. "Relationship between Italia and Inghilterra, uh, that is England, they have not been so close since World War Two. We are now trying to repair this. So, here I am!"

[Angel Anna Reese]

Angel tilted her head, "why is school hard on books? Especially these ones. Most of them don't seem like books the students would read." She looked at them, History of Magic, Hogwarts a History, an old Divination book... none of them seemed like what her classmates would read. She pondered that thought... perhaps, because they didn't want to read them, they used them as footballs to kick around or something. She glanced at the needle he was threading, "what type of thread is that? It looks very strange," Angel had seen her mother use thread before, but this was nothing like anything her mother used. "So, it's like an exchange, maybe? You come here and possibly someone goes there, to help with the tensions?" It was an interesting idea, she thought. Perhaps it might work?

[Xavier Giuseppe Cavaliere]

"Students kick them. I am yelling often," he grouched.

He carefully set about his work, demonstrating how to sew the pages and cover back together. When she asked about the thread, he paused and looked up.

"Is waxed thread," he explained. "Muggles are using it to bind books."

He considered her next question carefully. It was something like that, but not quite...

"I am not thinking that someone will go there; is civil war going on there," he replied thoughtfully. "But is something like that, I think."

[Angel Anna Reese]

Angel tilted her head, "okay." She pondered the idea a bit... both of them really, waxed thread, and a civil war. She chuckled a bit, "students don't treat books well, that's why the more precious books are kept away from the students. It's not only the ones with more advanced magic that should be hidden, but also the more valuable ones in the restricted section." She'd been in there several times, doing different projects. It was always a wonder the things she stumbled upon.