Flourish and Blotts | Nov 26, 1978
Leather, spread tight over bound pages, warmed under her fingertips. Bella alternated between loving and hating traveling to Diagon Alley in turns. While it was a good place to get what she needed and be seen doing inane things that weren't war related, being surrounded by people reminded her brutally of Hogwarts. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, as she had just as many lovely memories as she did bad, but Bella was often glad her school days were behind her and navigating crowded hallways was one of the reasons why.
On her useless outings like these, Bella tended to browse in stores for only a few moments and then leave, only occasionally with a purchase in hand, but Flourish and Blotts was a different matter entirely. She couldn't count how many times she had come here as a child, excited to collect her new schoolbooks, but she had never gone through the stacks as she did now. Now, though, she could always find something that was old, leather cracking as it begged to be open.
People often discarded books after they had finished reading them; it was something Bella did as well, admittedly, but the time she had spent in the library of her old home had taught her some books became temperamental if left alone for too long. It was what she was doing now, on her knees in a flurry of dust and disorganized piles of books spread around her. Her hair was tied out of her face, and she lowered her head to the open pages of the innocuous Herbology guide in her hands.
There was a creak of the floorboards that brought her from her reverie. People usually found what they were looking for on the first floor or towards the front of the stacks upstairs. Very few actually wandered in the back where Bella was currently kneeling, and even fewer came here with a purpose other than wandering. She listened to the straggler make their way towards her and silently attempted to straighten her appearance and seem as dignified as she could while inanely opening and closing random books around her.