"There's an art to life's distractions;
To somehow escape the burning weight,
The art of scraping through.
Some like to imagine
the dark caress of someone else,
I guess any thrill will do."
- Hozier, Someone New
Remus Lupin was having an unusually good day. It had started with a full night of sleep, something exceedingly rare to come by and only improved with Remus's mood. It was unusually sunny and warm for November, and it did not rain as it had the previous week, so he rode his bicycle to work. It may have been the last time for a few months; the last time he felt up to it and the weather was decent, so he was careful to enjoy it.
Ashford and Hale's was a bookshop in downtown London and while it was small, it was fairly busy, well-loved. Remus adored his work; cataloguing every volume, the satisfaction of knowing everything was where he could find it. Not every book in there was second-hand, but those were certainly the majority (Gregory Hale, the living owner, wouldn't order anything new, so the glossy, stiff numbers grew sparse), and sometimes a book would be brought in that Remus could not resist. Leather-bound, older than the owner thought it was, peeling and flaking, he would smuggle them back to his flat and meticulously rebind them, bear them back to the shop when he was finished. He took pride in it, and it was one of the few things that punctured the monotony.
Two people manned the shop at a time, and Remus had his shift with Minerva, a woman in her late fourties. Tall, dark-haired, she was intimidating before you got to know her and her passion for literature.
Remus was a bit early, so it was he who got to open up, set his things beside the till and get everything into place. His latest project had been a copy of Aeneid printed in 1886, one whose spine had deteriorated so much entire patches of it had been flaked away. Luckily, it was only partially leather-bound, so that was all he really had to replace, and now he set it on the 'V' shelf with finality as the bell above the door rang.
"Morning, Minnie."
"Good morning, Remus."
Remus looked round as Minerva slipped into the small room behind the counter, emerged without her tartan coat and tote. She exhaled sharply, businesslike, clasped her hands together and let them go. It was what she always did, ritualistic. Now it was time to wait for the trickle of customers, and there was little to do. No, that was untrue. There was always something to do in a shop full of books, both in the pages and the people. Remus found boring people were exceptionally difficult to come by in bookshops, particularly those like Ashford and Hale's, when a Waterstones was probably far easier to access. The patrons fascinated him, and he knew most who had stopped in more than twice.
The first customer of the day stopped in a quarter of an hour after opening, a dedicated regular with whom Remus was on first-name terms.
"Hello, Xenophilius." He had a large quantity of fine platinum hair and a lazy eye, his eccentric appearance exacerbated by his brightly colored attire. True to his name, he tended to go for the strangest volumes in the most obscure languages.
"Hello, Remus." He gazed around. "Anything new brought in?"
"Yeah, I thought you'd be interested. There's this ancient number that came in a week or so ago, not any language I recognize."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, want a look?" It had taken four nights to piece together, and Remus was rather pleased with his handiwork.
"By all means."
Minerva watched from the till, amused, as Remus crossed the shop to the Miscellaneous Shelf, where the books that could not be deciphered were placed until Xenophilius inevitably snagged them. The book in question was very large, entirely leather-bound, and as Xenophilius accepted it, he positively quivered.
