Harry Potter Fan Fiction: For Talia

Chapter 31

Talia was wide awake, a tad tired but overall, well rested. In a stunning improvement, she had slept extremely sound for more than a week. In fact, she had slept like a baby. Actually, the vast majority of Ravenclaw students had done the same. The common room was remarkably empty for so late at night, the only inhabitant was Talia herself. She was sitting in her favourite seat by the fire and she had chosen to stay up in spite of several people asking her why she wasn't in bed. At first, she had made a full range of excuses, mainly blaming homework for the lateness of the hour. Eventually, however, there had been no need. People accepted her decision and left for their own slumbers one-by-one. They gave her the space she wanted because she had earned the respect of her entire house. Talia had solved the problem of their sleeplessness and many were thankful for it.

In her hands lay the key to the nightly calm; a book of children's stories. It was fitting the answer was in a book, that her search in the library had borne the fruit of their success. Personally, Talia thought it was an incredibly Ravenclaw sort of solution. After her talk with Anton, luck had made her stumble onto the book in question; Mother's Magic: Soothing Stories for Sleepless Sons & Daughters. Each story in the book was written with ink that had the power to induce sleepiness. All that was required was for the story to be read out loud and it had a soporific effect on anyone listening. Jennifer had begun reading the most ridiculous story Talia had ever heard, Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump, and within five minutes Talia had been fast asleep. She had woken when the sunlight hit her pillow the next morning and declared that it was the best night sleep she had ever had. Soon others had tried it. The only catch was the person reading the story didn't get sleepy, which made sense, so someone volunteered for the role. Talia imagined how such a practical book wasn't out there performing miracles with screaming children. Why it remained in a school library amazed her but she was too grateful for its help to let it go.

Finding that book had taken a massive strain off her shoulders and improved the lives of a great many Ravenclaw students. Their school may be run by death eaters but no one from her house had to lose sleep over it anymore. Talia had gone to Flitwick that morning, to share her discovery and ensure that the book remained within their tower. There were no other books like it and Madame Pince had sent a warning that it needed to be returned shortly. Gracious as always, Flitwick had found a solution that worked for everyone. He removed a selection of stories from the novel and provided it to other heads of house to be distributed amongst the other houses. The book could be restored but right now, its demand caused it to be divided according to need. Talia had asked Flitwick to keep her name out of it and he had agreed. Despite that, Talia felt strangely important, sitting in her chair, knowing that many people throughout Hogwarts were at peace because of her.

Talia was up late because of another reason. Tonight was the night of the 11th of December. It was Anton's birthday. She was not afraid that a house elf would whisk her away like last year, though she felt like she had to be awake because something wasn't quite right. Anton had disappeared. Talia knew sort of where he was, she had seen him being led off to wherever Slytherin's went for detention. He had been absent from dinner because of it. If anything, he had caused something of a stir amongst the fourth years, reaching even further than that, if you measure the spread in terms of gossip. Talia might have thought it was a coincidence, if she hadn't known better, that he had chosen to act out in Alecto's class on this day of days. It probably wasn't though.

Talia had known, from the moment Anton had sat down next to her, that something was very wrong. For starters, a glance told her that he was deeply angry, even violently so. Anton never brought his anger to class; he let it grow there from his conflict with his teachers. If he had been angry at Alecto before class had started, things may have escalated much quicker and resulted far worse. Instead, Anton appear to have a mental snap instead of a full on break down. It took fifteen minutes of Alecto droning on about dirty muggles for Anton to reach the point he couldn't stand it anymore.