CHAPTER TWELVE
was missing, too, from Important Modern Magical Discoveries, and
A Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry. And then, of course,
there was the sheer size of the library; tens of thousands of books;
thousands of shelves; hundreds of narrow rows.
Hermione took out a list of subjects and titles she had decided
to search while Ron strode off down a row of books and started
pulling them off the shelves at random. Harry wandered over to
the Restricted Section. He had been wondering for a while if
Flamel wasn’t somewhere in there. Unfortunately, you needed a
specially signed note from one of the teachers to look in any of the
restricted books, and he knew he’d never get one. These were the
books containing powerful Dark Magic never taught at Hogwarts,
and only read by older students studying advanced Defense
Against the Dark Arts.
“What are you looking for, boy?”
“Nothing,” said Harry.
Madam Pince the librarian brandished a feather duster at him.
“You’d better get out, then. Go on — out!”
Wishing he’d been a bit quicker at thinking up some story,
Harry left the library. He, Ron, and Hermione had already agreed
they’d better not ask Madam Pince where they could find Flamel.
They were sure she’d be able to tell them, but they couldn’t risk
Snape hearing what they were up to.
Harry waited outside in the corridor to see if the other two had
found anything, but he wasn’t very hopeful. They had been look-
ing for two weeks, after all, but as they only had odd moments be-
tween lessons it wasn’t surprising they’d found nothing. What they
really needed was a nice long search without Madam Pince breath-
ing down their necks.
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