‘’I thought you said we were going to do research,’’ Zayn grumbled, looking at the pile of clothes in his hands. My elbow rested on top of my chest of drawers, from which I had just gathered some clean clothes for Zayn, because let’s face it – he looked nowhere near presentable.
‘’We are, but we need to go to the library. So, you need to clean up,’’ I shrugged, straightening and walking over to my bed to plop down. Zayn eyed me nervously, his lips forming a small pout.
‘’Can’t we stay here, use your… thing?’’ He nodded his head towards my laptop, shuffling his feet awkwardly.
‘’Nope,’’ I said, popping the p, ‘’You can use my bathroom. I suggest you get going because we don’t have much time.’’ I lay back on my bed, smiling when I heard Zayn angrily mutter to himself, closing the bathroom door behind him a little too loud. While he was in there, I had some time to think things through. The two main events that kept playing through my mind were the fight with my dad this morning and whatever Crowley said. I felt guilty for what I said to my father, because he didn’t deserve it, even if it was true. I had to find a way to apologise.
Crowley, however, was a different case. Even just thinking of his name made my skin crawl, not just with disgust, but with something else as well. It was difficult to describe, but it felt like I was missing something, an important piece of information. He would be the first thing I’d look up. I had chosen the library for two reasons. First one being Zayn. He really needed to go outside more, try to become somewhat of a normally functioning human being. Second reason, why the hell not? We had quite and extensive library and I wanted to gather information from as many sources as possible.
I pushed myself up when I heard the bathroom door open, revealing a new Zayn. He was wearing an old pair of shorts and black tank top, his still wet hair dripping onto it. However, when I noticed how skinny he was, I frowned. I definitely had to feed him.
‘’Look at you, Zayn! All clean and stuff,’’ I cheered, scooting off my bed to stand in front of him. He just shrugged, pushing a few strands of wet hair out of his face. The way he stood there made him seem so small and vulnerable, my heart clenched.
‘’Hey, you can use my bathroom any time. Or anything of mine, really. You know that, right?’’ He slowly nodded, rewarding me with a smile. He didn’t smile often, but when he did, it felt like all air was squeezed from my lungs. There was such warmth in the gesture that I felt like I might melt right then and there. After a few more seconds of awkward shuffling and me grinning like a doofus, Zayn looked up at me. In the way he did, I could see he was calculating, thinking something through. Then, he let out a deep breath, and hugged me. At first I was a bit stiff, but soon wrapped my arms around him, resting my head on his shoulder.
‘’Thank you, Harry,’’ he murmured, squeezing softly before pulling away. One side of my face was wet from his hair, but that was fine. It was all fine. He was finally warming up to me, and this was a huge step.
‘’It’s ok,’’ I croaked, trying to calm my fluttering heart.
It really was.
***
‘’This is nice. I know books,’’ Zayn stated as we sat down at a table in the library, somewhere in the corner. It was cool in here as well, definitely better than the stifling heat outside. We had picked up a few books, ranging from subjects like cleansing rituals to an Encyclopedia of all Things Evil. The latter sounded quite promising. Although I would probably be better off starting with The Encyclopedia of Demons and Demonology. I went to the index, pleased to find Crowley’s name and page number.
He was born Edward Alexander Crowley on October 12, 1875, in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. So he had been human? I flicked through the pages, puffing my cheeks when I saw how much there was to read. And all that was about someone I absolutely despised. Just hoped it would be interesting.
***
So it actually turned out to be kind of interesting. It had taken me some time to read through all of it, sadly without much benefit. All I could gather from it was that he had lived a troubled life, gotten himself into stuff I’d rather not even think about to eventually, die of cardiac degeneration and severe bronchitis. What was I supposed to do with this? How would any of this help our situation? I sighed, scanning the pages once more. He sure wrote a lot of books, most of them about magi-. Oh. What if it was some kind of spell he cast? I looked through the different titles, pausing when I read Magick in Theory and Practice. Could that be it? It would be worth a try. I went back to the same section we got all the other books from, ignoring Zayn’s questioning looks. After a few minutes I returned with the book, laying it down on the table and turning to Zayn.
‘’Any luck so far? Because I feel like I might be onto something,’’ I said, sitting down again. He just shook his head, closing the book he was reading.
‘’Nothing. What book is that?’’ He moved from the other side of the table to sit next to me, scooting his chair as close to mine as possible. That was when I told him what I read about Crowley, and how I thought we might find something meaningful in one of his own books.
‘’That’s a good idea. You read this book and I’ll try some other things, yea? We need to be absolutely sure,’’ Zayn insisted, stretching to grab the book he had been reading. Of course I understood that we shouldn’t stop looking after finding one thing – we had to be sure we didn’t miss anything. Like how I didn’t miss that Zayn didn’t go back to his seat on the other side of the table, his knee pressing against mine. And if I smiled down at my book because of it, nobody had to know.
We're slowly getting there.. I'm sorry if it's a bit short! Not too many chapters left now :(. Thank you so much for your support, it's more than I ever expected. The next chapter will be up on Friday.
Goodbye xxx <3
