Post 1:
"The James Library and Wizarding Research Institute" read an enormous golden-lettered plaque that was stuck to an impressive-looking building.
Sariss Ravon, now no longer a student at Hogwarts but a young woman with grand ambitions, stood before it for a few moments, while assessing herself as to the presence of all her body parts. She was not the type to splinch herself, but it was better to make absolutely sure that there wasn't a stray eyebrow hovering somewhere.
Now since there was no access to the library of Hogwarts anymore without the entire thing seeming somewhat weird - the girl had no business at Hogwarts anymore, had she? - Jenna James' library was the place to go, and since Jenna was studying Legilimency, surely it would be interesting to practise with her in a few weeks, wouldn't it? Bring a bit of practise into your boring old theory.
As Sariss walked up the steps to the entrance, she patted her pocket in which there was sitting a note from the Ministry, requiring her to report her status in regards to her education at regular intervals.
Due to budget cuts, the Ministry finds itself unable to provide an instructor for the time being. If you wish to pursue the avenue of Occlumency any further, you will be required… etc.etc.
Translation? Here you go! The Ministry has no money to ensure that you get properly educated. You want education? Get it on your own. And if you can't, so long and thanks for all the fish.
A few years prior, Sariss would have been surprised to see that the Institute was bigger on the inside than on the outside, but no more. She had rather expected it to be so.
Post 2:
A mere 15 minutes later, Sariss found herself sitting at a gloriously large, polished and shiny table that was not complaining about the heavy book-load with the slightest sound. Heavy, solid and surely very expensive. Sariss found she liked it here. But only a few moments later, all her surroundings were forgotten as she endorsed herself in the first of the many tomes that would all be thoroughly studied within the next few days.
Sariss would show those Ministry cheapskates that she didn't need them. Idiot bureaucrats. Weren't they aware that by cutting the budget on education, they might as well hand out brochures on how to best find alternative ways of living, like a becoming a Death Eater right then and there? Indeed, it was Sariss' opinion that you only turned to the dark side for lack of other options. Arrogant of her? Perhaps. But she could afford being arrogant because if someone challenged her, they'd find themselves facing the wand point of a three times duelling champion.
Good gracious, what was all this drivel in this book? Clearly someone had been paid for their word count rather than their content. Well, that made it easier to get through that book because the young woman could just skip a dozen pages or so every now and then to the dismay of the illustrations that kept whispering something along the lines of 'lazy… dishonouring great literature… not acknowledging the effort that went into the creation of this book… etc etc.'.
"Would you mind?" Sariss hissed. "Someone's trying to get through all this great literature drivel, thank you very much."
Post 3:
This was going to be a very long day. Maybe Sariss shouldn't have gone to the library so early already. It was barely noon, and she had already had arguments with half a dozen of the illustrations in the first gigantic tome that she had read/skimmed through. It was a record. The previous days, she'd only managed that around the middle of the afternoon. Sometimes, magical books could be a real pain in the backside. Sariss couldn't help but wonder whose brilliant idea that had been.
Maybe it was a conspiracy? Maybe those images had such strong opinions because it was their purpose to annoy the living daylights out of you? And maybe the purpose of that was to get you to be extremely in touch with the very emotions that your Occlumency studies should bury deep under a pile of nothingness?
Aha! "I can see right through you all you gits," Sariss hissed, only to find herself shushed by some disgruntled portraits nearby - and of course the peanut gallery in the book. She turned the page without finishing it, poking her tongue out at the illustrations before the page was completely flipped. Ha. Sariss Ravon was not to be defeated by a bunch of chicken-scratch drawings, thank you very much. She was here to learn more about Occlumency and not about how much of a bother broken book spines, dog-ears and ink blotches were.
A few more pages went without any pictures, and it would have been an ideal study environment if it hadn't been for the fact that those pages were full of repetitive drivel again.
It seemed that Sariss just could not win.
Surprise surprise! Turning another page, the young woman found herself facing what seemed to be an extremely series of paragraphs - plus another image that seemed fairly displeased with her.
"You know, I heard everything you said, Missy, and I must say that--" it began.
"That's enough for today," Sariss finished and slammed the book closed, thus reducing the incessant complaints to muffled whinging.
Post 4:
"Good morning, books," Sariss grumbled when she returned the next day. The Ministry had better value accordingly what she was putting herself through here.
"Wouldn't know what should be good about a morning," replied one of the grumpier portraits on the walls, only to be shushed by a very prim and proper-looking portrait next to it. The first portrait sulked but shut up, which was more than you could say for the book that was to be read that day, according to Sariss' schedule. Whispers and hisses were emanating from it even before she opened it, but there was a very sudden silence when she did finally flip it open.
The young woman froze for a moment, wondering if the book had died from shock at having been opened for the first time in two centuries or something. Judging from the total absence of dog-ears that was exactly the case. Well, it had been rather high up in that shelf. And if you ever were inside the James Library, you knew that high up meant high up. Very high up.
Anyway, Sariss had another hard day of studying ahead, and she was determined to not allow herself to get deterred from her task. Not even by talking images that seemed to have made it their task to either distract the woman or give her extremely helpful advice.
That day seemed promising indeed because in this very book, Sariss found that the images really had an idea of what was written inside the book. And the book itself was good too. It was only half as thick as many of the other books that she had skimmed through for the past week, but it had way more to offer than just a high word count.
The illustrations knew it too, and thus it occurred that Sariss actually spent a very informative day with that book and its many inhabitants. So informative in fact that she had already begun to draft that essay that she was to compose.
Post 5:
The following day, Sariss had brought her owl Sherlock with her. She intended to finish her essay for the Ministry, after all. That way, she'd be able to send her work ASAP, without allowing her any brooding about changing a sentence here, a word there or just throw over the entire grammatical structure of an entire paragraph. The Ministry should be glad that someone was taking someone's education at all, even if it was only their own. They also should be glad that someone wanted to become an Auror, but as of yet, Sariss had received no reply in regards to her applications. She figured that finally finishing her Occlumency studies might convince the responsible department to actually react.
The fun thing about a witch's curriculum vitae was that it updated itself magically and automatically.
It was done.
Sariss rolled up her scroll of meticulously be-scribbled parchment and wrapped it in an additional layer before attaching it to Sherlock's leg. "There you go, Sherlock. To the Ministry with it. Annoy them and peck them until they've actually read it. There's a good owl." She gave Sherlock a treat to sustain him during his travel and then sent him on his way.
Sherlock had been a present from Seb, Sariss' first and only boyfriend. Their relationship had just faded into non-existence over the years for some reason. Alas, there had been no melodramatic break-ups or anything, so it was still a nice memory and nothing that would distract her from her studies. Sariss didn't like having painful memories anyway, so if she had any that were more than childhood shadows at this time, she'd have long since buried them under a pile of magical facts and duelling strategy. She missed duelling. Maybe she should look for some sort of club that she could join, just so she wouldn't get rusty. One had to be in good shape as soon as the Ministry came calling.
Thus were the young woman's thoughts when she magicked the books back onto their respective shelves and called it a day. No more books on Occlumency. Her next task would be meditation techniques. But that would not be before tomorrow. After such hard work, even Sariss would allow herself the rest of the day off.
Essay:
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