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[Dr. Bryant Tannen]

Clop, clop, clop

Most professors left Hogwarts during the summer holiday. They had their own homes in far away places, families who only got to see them for two months of the year. But who did Bryant have to go home to? Abbey was just over in Hogsmeade and he wanted to stay close for her kids’ sake. And so, it made sense for him to stick around and look after the school, even if caretaker was already someone else’s job title.

Bryant’s actual role over the summer holiday seemed to be making life for the Hogwarts caretaker as difficult as possible. Hanging out in an empty Hogwarts was a lot like being a kid locked in the toy store after it had closed. Technically, most of the school had been roped off and Bryant was expected to stay in his own room, but he would often sneak into the kitchens to raid its bottomless cupboards and iceboxes. If he got really bored, he’d take a trip down to the dungeons and practice potion making, specifically the ones that he hadn’t learned when he was a student here. The irony of Bryant’s experience as a Hogwarts professor was that he had learned more in that role than he ever had as a student.

Clop, clop, clop

But Bryant’s favorite part of campus was the stables where they kept the thestrals. Bryant had felt a kinship with the spooky creatures as far back as his early years as a student at Hogwarts. They were easy to overlook, being invisible to most people. To the folk who could see them, they were, at best, nightmarish bat-horses and, at worst, a somber reminder of what was lost. Bryant thought that they were adorable. He would visit them daily during the school year to feed them fruit from Abbey’s greenhouses. When he was alone with them during the summer, he would let them out to stretch their feet.

Today, Bryant was enjoying a pleasant thestral ride down a quiet Hogwarts corridor.

Clop, clop, clop

One hand was outstretched to pat the thestral’s leathery neck in encouragement, the other grasped a giant tub of ice cream close to his chest. The thestral huffed in appreciation and Bryant whispered, “That’s a good girl.” He leaned back on the nightmarish bat-horse and scooped a large mouthful of ice cream from the tub for himself.

Yes, it was just another day in weird magic school paradise for Bryant. And it really was until the sudden tap of shoes on stone spooked Bryant’s thestral. Bryant dropped the scoop, reaching out again to comfort the creature, but it was too late. The thestral reared back, jerking Bryant back with it. Bryant didn’t have time to brace himself. He was flung from the thestral’s back with the sound of its strained cry in his ears.

Bryant hit the stone hard, landing flat on his back. The tub of ice cream landed with a loud plop next to him. It took a minute of shock before the pain flooded through his body. He strained to collect his breath. He couldn’t sit up, so he called out for whoever had spooked the thestral. Please don’t be a ghoul, he thought.

“Hello?” Bryant wheezed. “Who’s there?”

    Serena Woods

[Serena Woods]

Serena walked down the corridors of an empty Hogwarts. Thanks to the divorce she didn’t currently have a home outside Hogwarts. At least as she started her employment at the end of the school year she would have plenty of time to get the library in good working order. On the minus side, she was very bored. All work and no play was good for no one.

She was taking a break for organising stacks of parchment to wander around Hogwarts. She didn’t want to go out onto the grounds because she didn’t think she could resist the temptation to sunbathe by the lake instead of work. When the library was a little less chaotic she would relax more.

In the meantime, the dark-haired woman enjoyed walking in different places than she would on a day-to-day basis. She refamiliarised herself with Hogwarts, though it surprised her how easily it all came back to her.

A strange sound interrupted the silence. Clop, Clop, Clop.

It sounded like a horse. But that couldn’t be right, they were indoors after all.

She frowned, shook her head and continued walking. As did the hoof sounds. She was about to call out when another voice did first.

Serena stepped around the corner only to see a threstral around the corner for a second. She paled for a second. She had never seen these creatures as a student, but she had when she first came back to Hogwarts. Seeing the creatures then and now reminded her of Angela’s death. She pushed the wave of sadness aside. IT wasn’t these creatures' fault they reminded her of that day.

But what was it doing here? Was there still a student here up to mischief? She looked up at the rider surprised to see an adult. He was handsome enough but the sight of him riding a threstral not only indoors but upstairs, with a tub of ice cream.

“I’m pretty sure threstrals prefer the outdoors, but you might want to check with Professor Greer,” she smiled. Serena hadn’t yet met her, so she didn’t feel able to use her first name yet.

“I’m Serena Woods, the new Librarian. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Serena said, approaching around the threstral and offering her hand to shake. She might know the names of the people in each role from the information she was given when she began, but it would be good to put faces to those names.

[Dr. Bryant Tannen]

After considering for a moment that he would never recover from being thrown onto a hard stone for, Bryant sucked in a heavy breath and pulled himself up to find…some stranger! She said, “I’m pretty sure threstrals prefer the outdoors, but you might want to check with Professor Greer.”

Rude! Bryant had been hanging around the thestrals since he was like twelve years old. He didn’t need to confirm with the Care of Magical Creatures professor about their needs. He was about to bite back in his usual way, but Serena introduced herself before he could, extending her hand to shake. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

He took her hand slowly as he assessed whether she meant him harm. It wasn’t that Bryant was a mean person, but more so that he’d experienced so many unpleasant encounters in these halls throughout his life that he always assumed dangers. Those childhood bullies had really left an impression. He shook those thoughts away with her hand, pulling himself up and finding a new level of authority in himself upon learning that Serena was new. Ah! A potential new disciple?

“Bryant Tannen, Ghoul Studies,” he said in his most professorally affectation. “My friends call me Dr. Yep, I’m just looking after the school for the summer with my boy Ramesses,” he pat the thestral on its side. “Watching out for ghosts and ghouls and other miscellaneous spookies. Why are you hanging around this place during holiday?”

[Serena Woods]

Serena held his gaze as she felt Bryant assess her. Like her his tone became friendly and professional while they assessed each other. She couldn’t blame him for being careful. She was too after all.

“Ramesses seems very well behaved. I didn’t see them my first time around at Hogwarts. In fact I’ve only seen them on my carriage ride here from Hogsmeade a few weeks ago. You both surprised me,” Serena smiled. If Ramesses had been a more traditional mount she may have petted him, but she was still a little nervous to do that. The reminder of death. She hoped she got over it soon.

“I’m here because I’m getting a divorce and living here is easier until that is settled. That and I am doing an overhaul of the library, the students not being here is ideal for that. My sorting won't interfere with their ability to find anything”.

She thought about Bryant’s curriculum for a moment.

“I don’t recall there being Ghoul studies when I was at Hogwarts. You’ll have to come to check the library and see if all the books your students need are there. Can you please tell me a little about your course? Do you interview ghosts like Nearly Headless Nick, or is it different to that?”

The librarian’s mind was turning as she was trying to remember if there was a section for it in the library already and if it was adequate. She hadn’t been here long enough to have everything memorised yet, but that would be easier as she sorted.

Then something stopped her mind in its tracks as she finally processed it.

“Dr. Yep?” she asked, with an intrigued smile. “Is there a story behind that?”

[Dr. Bryant Tannen]

For some people, the first sighting of a thestral could be a very emotional thing. Sometimes the reminder was enough that it was like experiencing a person’s passing all over again. For Bryant, not so much. He’d witnessed death as a young boy. Young enough that he was barely able to comprehend what he’d seen.

“Sorry,” Bryant said when Serena mentioned only seeing them recently. He wasn’t sure if that was empathetic enough so he reached out to pat her exactly three times on the head. “To be honest it was years before I learned that they were invisible to most people. Yes, I suppose death has always been a part of me, even before I was teaching about ghouls,” he offered what he thought was a mirthless chuckle. “I saw a guy fall off a roof when I was four.”

Bryant nodded as Serena explained her presence in the school. He had gotten so used to having the place to himself that it bummed him out a little to find someone else stalking the halls. He understood her situation better than even he expected though.

“That’s tough, man,” Bryant said. “I live here. Saves me money on rent and my…friend’s kids live down the road in Hogsmeade.” Truthfully, Bryant would probably have lived in one of the swanky houses in the village if he wasn’t putting so much of his money into Abbey’s kids.

He was thankful when Serena changed the subject—not wanting to get too into the details about his complicated relationship with the mother of his…friend’s kids—but talking about his job was a similarly perilous challenge.

“It wasn’t a full course back in the day,” Bryant said. “It was more like a club. I basically started the Ghoul Studies department.” Bryant wasn’t even exaggerating here. He’d gotten his position at Hogwarts thanks to a generous donation that he’d made to the board of governors. At the time, Bryant had only wanted to get closer to Abbey who had just taken the Herbology position. He would have gone anywhere they put him. The board of governors’ priority was to put Bryant somewhere where he good do the least harm. After so many years at the school and however many half-dozen International Ghoul Conferences, Bryant had accidentally become the world’s foremost expert on ghouls without knowing a single thing.

Now, it was one thing to brag about his qualifications but another to explain what the class actually was. Bryant was still figuring out what he actually did at this damn school.

“Sometimes we have guest speakers, sometimes I just teach about something spooky,” he said, not mentioning the number of classes he’d taught on the 1984 film Ghostbusters.

“You must like libraries and awful lot,” Bryant continued. “I mostly use them to cry.”

[Serena Woods]

Serena was stunned for a moment when Bryant patted her head before giggling. She couldn’t remember anyone doing that before and it felt so genuine, she couldn’t help but laugh a little. This man was certainly strange, but he didn’t seem so bad.

“I bear no grudge against these guys,” she said, reaching out slowly to give Ramesses a pat. “It is just the memories, but I suppose the more I see these guys the less I’ll associate them with those memories. It must have been nice growing up with them being no different to any other horse. While that’s pretty traumatic to have seen at the age of four, it does also seem to be one of the kinder ways. Much kinder than my memories anyway,” she said, shuddering, hand still against the threstral as she recalled her wife being hit by that car right in front of her. She pushed the memories from her mind. They weren’t helpful right now and she had moved on, first to her ex and now to Hogwarts.

Instead, Serena picked up on the hesitation before the word “friend”, so it was clear he felt more even if it wasn’t official.

“You seem like a man who is easily contented by what’s actually in his life. You appreciate it. And I am sure your friend and their kids appreciate it too,” Serena grinned. “You must be their favourite uncle figure,” she gently teased. Honestly, she liked that he had seemed to open his heart to a family instead of just a person. He may not have said much, but he seemed like someone who would love and appreciate his family. Maybe she was making too many assumptions, but despite his quirks, Bryant seemed like a good guy.

She listened to him explain his course. It made sense now. Not the course, just why she wasn’t aware that it existed before she came back as a librarian. “It’s like humanities specialising in the previously living,” Serena thought. “Well, definitely let me know if I need to order any specific books or replacements for the library. I’ll also keep an eye out for anything that may fit,” she added. Bringing the library at Hogwarts to its full potential was a project she was looking forward to greatly.

It was then she caught his last sentence and blinked for a second before bursting out laughing.

“Yes, I suppose some people must, for the privacy,” she said once she got her composure back. “I do love libraries. Maybe it’s the Ravenclaw in me, but a library can hold more knowledge and teach more students than any single witch or wizard. I want to improve the potential of ours. I’m starting with making sure we have everything for each course we offer here at Hogwarts, eventually, I want to install a couple of private group study rooms students can book for group work and improve the selection of muggle works, both fiction and non-fiction so that not only will there be familiar things for our students from non-magical families, but also more of our students who have never known a world outside magic can see how muggles think and what they dream,” she realised she had started a monologue and blushed.

“My apologies, I got carried away”.

[Dr. Bryant Tannen]

“Yeah, I guess it’s kind of like that,” Bryant said when Serena observed that his class was ‘humanities specializing in the previously living.’ “I guess the basic idea is that ghouls aren’t as bad as most people think they are. They’re actually kind of just sad. Like the disused dungeon that’s been locked up for centuries? It isn’t locked up because the walkers down there are dangerous, it’s because it makes people sad to see humans wander the earth for eternity with no form of communication but a soul shatteringly terrible wail. Sometimes I go down there just to talk to them.”

The “walkers” that Bryant was referring to were victims of magic pox who had died and reanimated over the years. Nobody understood why or when the sufferers of the plague would reemerge from their mass graves (they had been buried somewhere near Hogwarts campus and once every ninety or so years one would shuffle out of the woods and greet the students with a shriek), but once it was determined that they couldn’t spread the pox it was decided that the best thing to do with them was to stuff them in one of Hogwarts’ dungeons.

“But some ghouls are as dangerous as people think,” Bryant continued. “And for that I have a unit on exorcisms. I tried to get a Vatican sanctioned exorcist to visit class, but the headmistress didn’t like that idea very much.”

Bryant didn’t mind Serena sharing too much. Truthfully, if she was oversharing he would have zoned out and thought about something else, but as someone who’d been around the school for a while he had his own ideas about renovations they could make to the school. Like, was there any reason to keep the evil bathroom that occasionally flooded with blood?

“Were you born a Muggle?” Bryant asked. “I’m half, but I grew up more around magic than not. See, my mum and dad were Muggles, but I was raised by my uncle, who was a Muggleborn wizard. I still missed Muggle stuff when I was in school though,” he said. “It was hard to find kids to trade my Pokemon cards with.”

[Serena Woods]

As she listened Serena liked Bryant more and more. Sure he was definitely eccentric, but then to some, so was she. He was compassionate in very strange ways, but she realised important ways. She had no idea about the ghouls down there, and the idea was very sad. She was pleased the ghouls had him because despite feeling empathy for them, she had no desire to go converse with screams herself.

“Maybe you can encourage some of your students to read to them, maybe they would enjoy the entertainment,” she mused. “Foster a similar empathy among the next generation”. Serena often thought her ideas out loud before thinking them through. She was now absent mindedly petting the threstral’s neck, no longer concerned about what he represented and instead focused on their conversation. She whipped out a wand and transfigured a spoon from a piece of paper in her pocket.

“Mind if I share some of the ice cream?” she asked, spoon in hand. If not she would just go into Hogsmeade for some or raid the kitchens. She was enjoying the conversation and the ice cream was right there. It could only make the conversation better.

“Most Vatican-endorsed exorcists are catholic, and Catholics tend not to be wizards. Water into wine is less impressive when anyone can do it,” she mused. “I wonder if instead of bringing them here, you could arrange a field trip to meet them elsewhere. The students would have to act as muggles, so we might have to get them to leave their wands here, obviously, you’d have your wand in case anything happened,” again, Serena was thinking out loud. She liked to brainstorm ideas, it was the best way to sound smart and pretend to be helpful. Although she may help Bryant out on this trip as an extra eye on the students if needed. It would be interesting.

“My parents were both magic users,” Serena answered, “but hippies. They loved hanging out with muggles so I grew up around them and played with muggle kids while our parents sat out back sharing a smoke. There were no pokemon cards. The boys were very adamant that girls weren’t allowed to play pokemon, they had more options than you I suppose,” she saif light heartedly. “My late wife was muggle born and we lived in the muggle world to help take care of her parents. When I’m in the muggle world I miss the free and open use of magic, when I am here I miss electronics or talking to people about shows,” she sighed.

“Since we’re both mixed up in both muggle and wizarding worlds in different ways, let's find some muggle stuff we both liked? It may take us years, but I suppose I can be in acquaintance with you that long,” she grinned.

[Dr. Bryant Tannen]

“I had the exorcist bit all worked out,” Bryant said. “See, we would just send him some kind of letter—you know like, ‘congratulations, you’ve won a trip to beautiful Scotland’ or something. Then when he got off the train, we’d nab him, take him to the school, make him share all his exorcism knowledge with the kid. He’d never remember after the obliviation anyway.” Bryant shrugged. “But the school was worried about ‘false pretenses’ or something. I think there’s real value in hearing what a Vatican sanctioned exorcist has to share, though!”

The line between the magic and Muggle worlds were blurring, and it became more obvious with each new class that came through Hogwarts. Bryant had one student, Patrick, who carried an iPhone around with him. It was a brick, of course, per school rules, but that didn’t stop him from tapping the blank screen and saying things like, “Wait, let me check my stocks—beep, boop, boop, beep.” Kids these days were trained to stick to and depend on technology, and that made the transition to a magic school where no technology was accessible especially hard. That was something that Bryant had understood too well himself.

Bryant considered this as he scooped ice cream from the carton into his stupid mouth. “When I was a student, I could only play my GameBoy at Hogsmeade,” he said. “And I had my Pokémon hook up at the Hog’s Head. Greasy Joe would get these big crates full of them from London. The problem was that Greasy Joe didn’t have a lot of demand in Hogsmeade to unload them, so he dealt them to me at a lower price.”

To be more specific, Greasy Joe was a smuggler who would pack Pokémon cards on top of crates full of stolen wands.

“Rest in peace, Greasy Joe,” Bryant sighed. “He died doing what he loved: committing crimes.”

Bryant whipped his head dramatically toward Serena when the gravity of her statement “girls weren’t allowed to play Pokémon” hit him. “Pokémon is for everybody!” he insisted. “Here,” Bryant reached into his pocket and pulled out a single foil Gengar. He offered it to Serena to take. “It’s never too late to start though,” he said.

He put his hands behind his head in deep thought as he searched his brain for more Muggle stuff. “I was never much into reading. Libraries were more a
He put his hands behind his head in deep thought as he searched his brain for more Muggle stuff. “I was never much into reading, libraries were a place to sleep and cry for me. I liked video games and comic books, mostly. Comic books were cool because I could actually take them to Hogwarts and read them, though Bash Naggston threw my X-Men collection into the black lake in third year.”

[Serena Woods]

Serena worked hard to keep a straight face when Bryant was telling her of his plot to kidnap someone. He was very enthusiastic, the headmistress certainly had her hands full with him. As a co-worker though, she thought he would be a lot of fun and a good ally to have at Hogwarts.

“I think a bit more concern for the person you’re kidnapping would go a long way in convincing the headmistress,” she grinned. “We can perhaps come up with a middle ground between you two. I don’t think that getting a seminar like that would be a bad idea, I think it would be very interesting,” she admitted. She was starting to want to go with the group! If only another adult would come along to keep an eye on Bryant.

As she listened to Bryant talk about his gameboy, Serena sighed with empathy. She missed the luxuries of the modern world. Magic made up for a lot of stuff, but a computer system keeping track of the books in the library would have been incredibly helpful. She suspected that the lack of one is why the position went empty for so long.

“I’ve been going to Hogsmeade almost every evening just to check my phone. I tell myself it’s to get out of the library, but I know it’s because I haven’t broken the habit of checking it all the time,” she admitted.

“Rest in peace,” the librarian echoed when Bryant had said it. She didn’t know Greasy Joe, but it felt appropriate. It seemed like he was a lonely child and this ‘Greasy Joe’ was one of his few connections.

Serena was surprised when he pulled out a shiny looking card. Not really understanding the rarity, she accepted.

“Thank you,” she said taking a look at it. She could see how wizarding children might be a bit snobbish, the pictures didn’t move like wizarding ones did. It was like a muggle child trying to watch a silent film, without all the tricks modern television used to capture their attention.

She listened to the way Bryant talked about the library and she knew it was the same for a lot of students.

“I actually met my late wife in the library here,” she said. “I have so many great memories of that place, and I want to give that gift to the students. That means changing what the library means to them, and adults. I want it to have more variety. I’d love the X-men comics to be part of the library’s collection, and so much more. Then if Bash Naggston tries throwing them into the lake he will have me to answer to,” she smiled.

[Dr. Bryant Tannen]

“When you finish your own deck, we can play,” Bryant said, nodding to the Gengar. “Maybe start up the old club.” By ‘old club,’ Bryant was referring to Hogwarts’ Pokémon Club, of which he had been the sole member.

Bryant felt something stir in his stomach when Serena mentioned meeting her late wife in the library. He’d been just ten years old when he met Abbey on the train to Hogwarts. Most kids didn’t fall into their friend groups right away—at least it never came easy for the kids who weren’t main characters. But when the compartment door slid open and he saw that lanky girl with her abnormally long arms and flowing blonde hair smile at him, he knew that she would be his best friend forever.

Hogwarts wasn’t just a place to learn, it was a place to meet your forever person, and he felt for Serena. He’d lost that person once before too, if not through something permanent like death. Even Bryant could read the room sometimes, and he bit his lip as he considered asking about Serena’s wife.

“So, you guys had books in common?” he asked.

“My best friend and I…I guess we never had that much in common, other than being in the same year and riding on the train together. But we liked animals, and we even raised a dog together when we were in school,” Bryant looked away from Serena. “Anyway, she works here too. I guess that’s, uh, I guess that’s why I got a job here in the first place. I didn’t really need the money after the Knight Bus settlement.”

Bryant’s accident had led him to a fortune, just as his brother had predicted. All it cost him was a year of physical therapy at St Mungo’s and a lengthy fraud investigation which Bryant had only managed to win thanks to the creative work of an unscrupulous attorney. Ten years later, he was still mostly living off of the settlement, even if he’d put most of the money into Abbey’s house and kids.

“I guess I always took her for granted,” he continued. “Anyway, what was the point? Hogwarts is special like that. I think it brings people together.”