The Christmas was coming.

The tall hallways got darker and the candles light earlier and earlier each day. Where once were students spending time outside in the sun, was now nobody braving against the rain and gloom of late Scottish autumn. The falling temperatures had driven away even the most persistent and desperate couples. Only twice had I seen an already adult-sized wizard standing outside in the freezing rain, undoubtedly shielded by a comfortable magic, as I moved my usual path from the library to the common room. I liked travelling alone in the late hours when there was no traffic, as even the stairs worked acceptably. It was a liberating time to process the day and calm down, walking slowly while checking every nook and cranny in the floor, walls, and the ceiling. From small invisible potholes, that could have been made to hide imperfections, to small scribbles in hidden corners, lovers marks to prove their existence. The castle was full of history. How many students had walked these same hallways with the same challenges of social pressure, the same passionate love blazing in their hearts, and the insecurities hidden deep in their soul that shone through their eyes.

How different and yet, the same, we still are. How many dreams had been shattered and how many had been forged in these halls. How many friends have been lost and how many have been created. I could feel it all. They had all definitely left their marks on the castle. Just like the castle had changed their lives, they too had left a mark. A mark of much smaller magnitude, but a mark, nonetheless. A mark that by itself would be an insignificant small wave crashing hopelessly against the stony rock walls of the castle, but with tens and hundreds of thousands in number, had made the impossible possible. Such a tsunami had formed, that even the cold stone could remember. In a muggle world, this would have been impossible, but magic was at play here. The magic had been a conduit of all those feelings, making the change possible. And all those impressions were still present, as memories of a time long gone, still lingering not to fade into oblivion.

It was nice to walk through them all, just observe and check in all those forgotten dreams and nightmares. Not to take any of them into my heart, but to just watch through them. Not judge them or praise them but acknowledge their existence by just observing. Judging would be to become an active participant, take in all the impressions, internalize them, and finally press judgement. That would have been far too involved with me. I just read through them; the stories written on the walls by the lives themselves. I do not hold many opinions, and most of the ones I hold, I would be ready to let go in a moment’s notice. I have never been a strongly opinionated person. Everything in the real world was just too complicated to hold any simple positions. So many reasonable points of view existed, that I had already given up on thinking mine to be special and righteous. So instead, I consolidated and condensed all my core beliefs into that which I hold most dear, and discarded all the rest. I didn’t want to become one of the texts full of passion, despair, and strong emotions. If I were to become a text, I would like it to be similar to my dream, a pleasant, comfortable impression. Weak, but lasting, like an ever-lasting candle.

It is fascinating, how easy it is for time to grind the inward motivation, given the chance. At the start of the semester, each of my classmates, had started with confidence in their step, eyes light with unplaced arrogance, each knowing they would be the brightest wizard and witch of their generation. After all, they had been sorted into Ravenclaw. However, the reality started setting in soon, as not everyone could be the brightest. And when that confidence waned, so did their world. To hold on to their world, the world they knew where they were the brightest genius, they spent more time, time to be better, to be the best. And at that moment, they had lost themselves. At the start of the semester, each of my classmates had seemed cleverer than most, but confident, usually interested in a field of their own. However, as the competition started, they lost some of their initial wisdom. They weren’t interested in knowledge for the sake of knowledge, but for the sake of being smarter than the rest. And that doomed them all. That competition seemed like an inescapable vortex, that if you set your foot in, you would find yourself swept in before you knew it. Where time at first, had been used for reading and studying of interests, was now invested for reading books again and again, to remember each of the words, as good as one could. But that was not the end. When optimizing brightness of a student, the metric is not in fact how much knowledge one has, but the perceived knowledge. Quickly the classes had transformed into free for all battlefields, each answering questions quicker than the next to usurp the throne of the brightest, to ask the most clever questions, to make the most insightful comment.

And knowledge was safeguarded with vigor. Information, and the corresponding book to the information were guarded with hearts cold as stone, each trying to one-up each other, with such an intensity that questions were misdirected to lead to empty chases and waste time. I was indifferent to most of this, as I didn’t find it useful to prove myself to anybody. I am just as smart as I am, not a penny more, and not a penny less. That is why I nearly never answered any questions in classes, to avoid the attention of these performance zombies that instead of attacking the living, attacked the one with the best performance. At first, I had been hopeful that the competition would lead to more smart questions and attentive students, and, initially, it did, but after a while it had changed where more time was spent scouting the competition, and what information the competition had access to, rather than acquiring knowledge. The most interesting fact, was the fact, how inevitable the process had been, how swift, how subtle, and how unstoppable. No outer force was driving the dynamic, no over arching scheme from our neighboring house Hufflepuffs, which we shared most classes with. No, it had all evolved naturally from the skewed worldviews, where importance had been connected with intelligence and intelligence with the school success.

The students had all been transformed. Even Leon, my broom loving roommate, had dropped his broom design time to just once a week. Well, nearly all transformed, some had been like that from the start.

Only quidditch, the wizarding world's favorite sport, was enough to rebuild the burned bridges of genuine connections and create a small reprieve. Of course, I did not participate in watching the sport. I did not have anything against it, I just wasn’t interested. I, much rather, spent the two evenings reading books in the library. I did need to convince my roommates a few times, that I would not be going, but my plans were accepted oddly readily. I guess they have come to accept my bookish ways.

However, I came to regret my decision. Not because I did not enjoy reading, or deep down I loved quidditch, but because of a twist of fate.

I had had a nice relaxing time reading books by myself, on my schedule, and in my own time in November, when the first quidditch match of the season began. The match was Ravenclaw versus Hufflepuff, the two worst teams from last year, and in abysmal weather. However, that did not stop the students from attending as the library, and the rest of the castle, was practically empty. I thought it was empty, until my reading was interrupted by a tall red-haired giant, also known as an adult witch.

“Excuse me.” A tall, an adult tall, witch but still in red and gold school robes was clearly trying to get my attention. Conventionally speaking, she was very beautiful with a small nose, a cylindrical face, forest green eyes, and blazing red hair. She seemed friendly, with kind eyes and a polite tone.

“Are you alright?” Yeah, I take that back. There was no politeness, or friendliness to be found in her. What kind of sociopath goes asking that to strangers.

“I am fine, thank you.” I responded with a wry smile and a clearly reserved and uncomfortable tone. To signal the buffoon that she had clearly crossed a few social boundaries, that I would much rather keep between us.

My reassurance didn’t seem to reassure her, as after seeming to battle with herself for a few seconds, she sat down opposite of me, with gestures of martyrdom. As if she were suffering by accompanying me. Mind you, I didn’t want her there, and even she didn’t seem terribly interested in being there. She just had some irrational sense of honor and self-importance, that she would save me, and deep down I would be grateful. At the time I didn’t think much of it, as other than sitting uncomfortably close in an otherwise empty library, she didn’t disturb me, and let me read the books in peace.

However, like a devil stalking its prey at night, she would start finding me on other days too, when I was peacefully spending my time with the books. Like a hawk that spotted its prey, she would swoop in, to sit closer and bother me.

And bother me, she did. At first, she tried giving unhelpful advice on where I would find the best books for homework, and that she could even lend me her notes from her first year. After an absolutely uninterested look, she had given up on that front, to try to infiltrate from the other fronts. After that, her next attack came in the form of disguised interest in the books I was reading. At the time, I was reading the translated Glorphguks recollection of the Goblin kingdom, in 13 hundreds. Unlucky for her, the attack was ineffective, as I wasn’t particularly interested in the Goblin kingdom, and how the famous Trewalds ambush had been orchestrated from the goblin side. After a few similarly ineffective tries of “helping” by feigning interest, which by the way I find deplorable, she settled for just trying to keep me company as frequently as possible.

If that was all, then all would have been fine, but no. Misfortunes never come alone. They come in groups, like the noisy vandals, that she called her acquaintances. After my first encounter with the hooligans, I came to know my stalkers name, Lily Evans, a seventh year Gryffindor that was currently the head girl. And the hooligans were a group of pillagers, of which one was her boyfriend, the current head boy, James Potter.

After a brief look at the contemporary history section, I found that, generally, the head boy/head girl, and the prefects under them were responsible for the well-being of students. I suspected I had somehow become part of the head girl’s charity program.

I would have been fine with that, as I suspected at one point she would learn her ways and realize what a hopeless case I was. However, the group of hooligans was too much. As soon as they came I needed to be careful to keep track of my books, bags and pen, so they would not mysteriously disappear, only to be found on top of a bookshelf or similarly sacred place. I swear the books themselves were afraid to get into the grasp of the red-golden orcs, only safe and calmed down in my arms, as I hugged them after a furious tug with an invisible enemy.

Needless to say, I wasn’t having any of it. Thankfully, the library was large. Impossibly large. So large that I am still not sure if I have walked through all that it has to offer. So large, but desolate. The deeper you go in, the more you realize that nobody has walked through this path in maybe months, even more. After walking through the third stairs without seeing anyone, with the air smelling of old wood and even older paper. Total silence fills the air, as you listen to it closely, but when walking you are absolutely certain something was making a noise. Like you were watching the books, so too were the books watching you. Watching and waiting, just in case you picked them.

So, instead of reading at the tables near the entrance, I started using one of the many forgotten and unused reading spots. This one was located just two stairs from the entrance, near a grandfather clock that had long since ceased to tick, paused to forever show five to twelve. I had never seen anyone spend time here, in fact, I had never seen anyone as I had been here. Not that the library was a popular place, as usually near the entrance a dozen or so people could be seen at a time, a small fraction of the number of people found in the musical room on the third floor. The musical room was only accessible on Saturdays, and it was very popular. So popular, that it was packed full even ten minutes before the enforced silence.

Most people who came to the library, came for a specific purpose, a specific book to read, or a specific topic to know about. I don’t blame them; the library was too big to read everything. It would be an impossible task.

I understand that. It wasn’t a necessity or a need to read everything, but it was an amusing thought. I would not be disappointed if I could not read them all. I was just happy reading them.

Even though I found my own solitary refuge, I needed to be careful. I couldn’t be seen by the stalker and expose my new hiding place, so I had to be careful. Luckily, the first years had much more spare time, so I could arrive safely, earlier than she could spot me.

Just a few weeks before the Christmas vacation, I had found a precious, precious spell hidden in the autobiography of a medieval monk in a monastery in Wales. The printing press had not been invented yet, or at least was not widely used, so the large majority of the time the monks needed to copy books. This particular Brother Owen, however, had been a wizard, and a particularly lazy wizard at that. Instead, of being content in a life full of writing, he had developed a spell that would write for him (and used five times more time in the development than he ever saved using it). For me, however, the spell was a godsend.

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All other writing spells I have found, had been for a minute controlling of the object, with an explicit precision. However, as they were, they needed an ungodly amount of concentration to spell a single word, let alone a paragraph. Moreover, it would be much faster and easier to write the sentence conventionally than try it with those spells. It hadn’t been the spell's fault though, the spells had been optimized and developed to work in a framework of enchanting, giving precise but general instructions to enchanted quills, and were very widely used.

I had needed a writing spell, but that need was conventionally filled with the enchanted quills. However, enchanted quills could fill my needs. I was poor. Any non-useless enchanted quill would be well over 20 galleons and could easily go up to thousands. I would have enchanted my own, if I knew how, but based on introductions from books, I would have greater odds blowing myself up in a fabulous explosion than enchanting even a simple lighting charm.

So, the writing charm was a gift straight from the All-writer itself, made to solve all my problems. Well… one of my problems.

The charm itself was a captivating construct. For all intents and purposes, the charm was very lightweight. It was constrained heavily, by its scope, and the requirements. The spell, unlike all other writing spells, had discarded the automated inking of the quill with self-filling ink, and instead needed to ink from a bottle nearby. Aside from that minor inconvenience, the spell was perfect. To the best of my knowledge, the charm was constructed based on the thoughts of the caster, the thoughts would provide a framework which the spell used to perform. In practice, this means that the paper and ink bottle would be determined implicitly, rather than concentrating on specifying them. Moreover, this implicit function meant that the charm was heavily dependent on how structures linguistically the thinking was. That is why I think the charm was a perfect match for me. All my life I had spent in books. And everything, every memory, every thought was touched by them.

From the first time I tested the charm, everything worked as I hoped for. I only had to have the text ready in my head, and the quill would bring it to reality as text, in wherever I desired.

The charm wasn’t perfect, though. It could only process text, and letters, even changing the font size was a pain in the butt. When I tried for images, the spell fizzled after only a few unrecognizable scribbles that made no sense to anyone. However, even this was a massive improvement and a win in my book. The time I had taken to write my homework went from an hour a day to practically zero. The problem with the written homework had never been searching for information, but writing it all into parchment. Writing with a quill was now infinitely faster when I wasn’t required to do it myself. Although the quality of the penmanship reduced, for me, it was a sacrifice, I was willing to take to have more time with my books.

Of course, it didn’t help with my mapping adventures, but those had become quite infrequent as of late, as the map had become more and more complete.

My roommates were interested in the charm after seeing my new workflow, but after a few tries and some broken quills later, cursed me with stinging hexes for trying to hoodwink them. Even after all my reassurances, they did not fully believe me and vehemently thought I had also been interested in the study rankings. It seems there are reasons the charm is not wide-spread and has fallen to oblivion.

The closer we came to the Christmas, the crazier the suspicions and hostility grew. Desperation, that’s what shone through the eyes. The desperation to be the best. The best that they had been their whole life. That desperation manifested physically a few weeks before the midterms by crying students after the class, or even absences due to stress. I have not come across any physical or mental confrontations for study gain, but I fear for the following years. Albeit, the seniors seem to have their life a little more in control, as I haven’t seen similar human wrecks as in my year.

I was envious of the Hufflepuffs who had a nice relaxing mood the whole year. On the other hand, they were dumb as bricks, so I might just have lost myself entirely. Oh, the compromises we have to make.

The midterms had been nice, relaxing even. That is, if you ignore the absolute murderous and freezing atmosphere of all Ravenclaw students. Faces straight from juvenile detention center, with cruelty in their eyes, ready to stab anyone, and I mean anyone, preferably in the back. The exams themselves were effortless, a repetition of the topics we had gone through in the autumn, from wand lighting charm to levitating charm. Still, after the exams, at least half of the Ravenclaws were crying outside the classroom cursing their bad luck, and trying to cope with their new-found mediocrity. I truly believe, their most dangerous foe in the exam was themselves, and the pressure they built on themselves. A pressure so high, they could only spend most of the time wondering about that pressure. A pressure that blinded them of all that was truly significant, and instead only showed the surface.

However, like pressurized pipes that cannot handle the pressure, most Ravenclaw students blew up in a non-fatal explosion of emotions and dreams, which finally gave them the release. And after the explosion, the pipes can heal. More precisely, three days after the exams, all the students had managed to get themselves back together. Now, with a more robust sense of self. An ego built from the ruins was strangely more robust and durable than before the end. It might have helped that the buildup and blowup was quite controlled, and true self-implosions were not observed. I finally understood why Flitwick, the all friendly, had allowed this to happen. It wasn’t, as I initially suspected, due to encourage studying, but to allow for the students to grow up, give them a lesson a much more precious than ordinary.

And just like that, the Christmas vacation had begun. Each of my reconstructed classmates were going home for Christmas, all much better well off than me. I, of course, choose to stay here. I could have gone back to the orphanage, but in no world would I voluntarily leave the school, especially, since the vacation was full of time I could spend in the library.

After the breakfast, I was wrapped in all my warmest clothes like a small walking burrito, saying goodbyes to my housemates and especially my roommates. I didn’t really want to give them any gifts since I didn’t think they deserved them, but since I had made quite the comprehensive map of the castle, and I could make copies, I had made two copies, one for each as a Christmas present. They were both far more touched by the gesture than was appropriate, with tears in their eyes, hugging me with the words “You cared about us after all.” Needless to say, I will not be continuing this tradition of charity for the socially disabled roommates who could not understand they were making a scene. Worst of all, the hooligans noticed us, and patted my head until I was feeling like a bouncing ball, and my over-sized hat had stolen the rest of my vision. After I was saved by Lily, who was ultimately responsible for the hooligan behavior, I strategically retreated back into the warm castle to lick my wounds and finally relax without all the distracting interactions.

With a skip in my steps and walked the emptier than usual hallways and corridors, through the great Staircase with no waiting, and into the cruelly smiling Ravenclaw door. After a natural turnaround, I, of course, went to the library. I would not spend time with door, who had forgotten what doors were for. My initial plan had been to leave my outerwear in my room, but see if I care, I’ll bring them to the library if I wanted.

I, in fact, did not bring them to the library and no, I didn't want to. After a throughout reprimand from the librarian, who I hold in high respect, I was banished from the library entrance back to the castle. So, with a heavy heart and a defeated mind, I was forced back to the Ravenclaw door.

“What is the left after the end?” What are these philosophical riddles. So many possible subpar answers, that why even ask such an open-ended question?

“Inconclusive.”

The door opened, of course, but I was left defeated. Sometimes, even if you won, you had already lost by participating in the game. This game was definitely one of those. The door was enjoying forcing others to its level. I had realized quite quickly why most avoided the door, and to respond to its riddles. It wasn’t because they were so thought-provoking and clever that they demanded brilliant intellect, it was due to how brain-dead some questions were. Questions that were so out of the box, that the constraints of reality had long since left the answer space, and nearly everything could be argued to be right.

Since I had been banished from the library for the rest of the day, I settled for making notes and clarifying my thoughts about a particular topic of magic I had come across.

I took a nice relaxing pose in Oscars bed, a revenge for playing with my heart and making a scene, and spelled my trusted writing charm which woke the quill resting against the table to utmost attention. It oddly felt like I had a secretary who I was dictating my notes.

Topic: The coloring of light-emitting charms.

I had found out that by spell definition, the color of different light spells and spark spells had already been set. According to Flitwick, this was not an unsurmountable obstacle, but the spells themselves had been optimized precisely to that one color. That design choice meant that to change the color, the implicit construction of the spell needed to be changed, which required a firm will, and even then, the result was usually an inefficient mess which could have been spelled much more elegantly with an optimized version rather than trying to force a cube through a circle hole. The cube definitely would go through if pushed hard enough, but why? Why cube, when you could have just used the cylinder?

So, instead of heavily optimized spells, with inner workings so complex it all seemed a big coincidence or a miracle that anything happened at all, I preferred structurally streamlined spells. Spells I could understand, spells that had a structure I could see and feel. Spells with high predictability, and with a clear cause and effect. Well, to a degree, of course.

And just a few days ago, I had found a spell to try my luck, lumino vermillo. The spell was a lighting charm that charmed on object to emit red light. What made the spell special was it’s fundamental, primary structure, where the color of the light was specified even in the incantation. By changing the last word, it was possibly to change the color of the emitted light as one wishes. To the best of my knowledge, the spell worked like creating a pure white light with a colored filter, that would only transmit the specific color of light through. My theorem was supported by the fact that omitting the second word, the result was a pure white light. Definitely highly inefficient, but also extremely versatile.

So then, was this a family of spells, or just a single spell with a crux for each color? I suspected that this was a single spell. My reasoning stemmed from the fact that incantations are not mandatory. So similar to the writing charm, which required to know how to write, where to write, and what to write, this charm also required the color as an input. I suspect it also needed the target object as an input, but this was probably solved implicitly. However, the difference was clear, the color needed to be declared explicitly, as implicitly the spell would result in the pure white.

At this point, it was time for my test. Test if by concentrating on a given color, I could determine the color with just lumino. As a test subject, I was eyeing my trusted alarm bird, but afraid of bloody retribution, I settled for Oscar’s pillow.

Haaaa. Alright. Concentrate. Blue, like the blue of Ravenclaw. Blue. Blue.

Lumino

And, with a soft blue glow as in the Ravenclaw flag, the pillow shone.

I sighed with satisfaction. How about red?

Lumino

And like a puppy following its owner, the color changed. The analog was especially pertinent, as like the puppy tires easily, so too did the pillow tire and reverted back to its non-shining ordinary pillow life.

Experiment success, I dictated to my trusted quill who was still hard at work to save the musings of my color test.

For future development, try to isolate the color variations in the spell, and extract them. Finally, check if it’s possible to add the extracted features to other spells.

So many questions about would that even be possible and how that would be done, but a target, a goal was good to have, to better focus attention in one direction rather than everywhere at once.

Time flew by when I spent all my days in the library. I even went as far as skipping lunch to increase my book time as much as possible. Every morning, early morning, I was along with two seniors, professor McGonagall, and professor Flitwick. Everyone else was still asleep, but I needed to be ready when the library opened. I was not going to sacrifice my library time to sleep! Overall, the castle was practically empty, with perhaps twenty students besides the teachers. Other than me, there was a single first-year student, a Gryffindor, with a head so far up his bum I wasn’t surprised he could talk so much smack. I suspect, he was talking to hide his insecurities and put up a brave front, but after the fourth joke about book loving nerds, I had come to avoid him in the dinners.

Christmas morning began like all others, an early wake-up to rush to breakfast and then reading. Or that was how it was supposed to go. After ignoring a small pile of packets, presumably presents, beneath my bed, and continuing to go into breakfast through the Ravenclaw door, I found myself back in my room. To make sure I wasn’t just going crazy, I tried another time, with the same result. I could not leave my room! I have read thousands of stories of cursed objects with a varying effects from trapping children, to time loops and the like.

I wasn’t yet fully convinced, I was cursed, but I decided to ask for advice from the seven or so seniors present in the tower. Luckily, I didn’t need to wait long, as the Christmas morning had provided an energy boost to even the laziest of seniors to wake up quite early. After an inquiry, and seniors rolling on the floor and laughing, I had apparently confirmed a legend. According to the legend, if a student was spending too much time on one’s own, to even ignoring presents, he would be forced to receive the gifts, before he would be allowed to leave. That had been a legend, since nothing had happened for numerous tests of only ignoring presents, and this was the first time such an experience had been truly recorded. To prove my fate, I tried a few times with the same result, but now with witnesses present.

So be it. Presents then. I wasn’t particularly interested in the presents as I knew the best present I could get was to just spend the whole day, and preferably night, there.

The first present, a small book-sized package, with a small book mass, and a small book inside it. Very well, Leon, I accept this gift graciously. I might also reconsider forgiveness of the goodbyes.

The second present, a far more uncultured shaped cylinder, that had a good quality quill inside it with a beautiful hue of dark blue. Alright, not as elegant as Leon, but I shall accept your apology, Oscar.

The third gift from Flitwick, a new notebook. I had asked from him advise how to extend my rapidly filling notebook, and it seems he had taken that question to heart, and given a gift I rapidly needed. Thank you, Flitwick. I didn’t give anything to you, not that I would even know what to give to you…

With a fearful heart, I tried my luck in escaping from the Ravenclaw tower, and this time I succeeded. With a hurry to the breakfast, and a few Christmas congratulations, I managed to speed run my morning schedule, just on time for the library to open.

And the best Christmas present of them all was Madam Pince, the librarian, wishing me merry Christmas with an exasperated voice.

And with a smile so wide I could swallow a book, eyes twinkling with joy, like stars in the sky, and voice bubbling with happiness, I wished the same: “Merry Christmas!”