Evelyn hadn't expected to feel so nervous about her first day of work. She had changed her clothes at least three times that morning and still wasn't sure she had made the right decision. Too late now. She had arrived just a minute ago and was now walking across the large open room of the main library towards where she remembered the door to the children's section to be. She took a deep breath, hiked her bag up her shoulder, and turned in.

Margaret was already there and sitting in her office behind a very messy desk piled high with picture books and construction paper and all kinds of other odds and ends. She had about as much hair as Evelyn did, which was to say a lot, but Margaret's was dark brown and very curly. Her outfit was very colorful.

"Oh, good morning," she said brightly when Evelyn approached. Then, stifling a yawn, she added, "Just give me one moment."

"Sure," said Evelyn, standing just inside the doorway. She looked around at the walls. Every inch of them was covered, it seemed, mostly by art, but there were photographs sprinkled in. Fairy lights lined the ceiling. She got the impression that Margaret felt at home where it was cluttered and busy.

"Sorry about that," she said, jumping up from her desk. She came right around to where Evelyn stood and gave her a big hug, rather than a handshake. "Good to see you again," she said. "I'm so looking forward to this. You have no idea. I never speak to adults."

Evelyn laughed. "I'm excited, too," she said. Her nerves hadn't quite deteriorated yet, but could she could feel them slipping. Margaret didn't seem to be the intimidating boss type.

"So I figured I'd show you around, talk you through a sort of typical day, if we really have a typical day, and probably by then, the kids'll be coming in for morning story hour. I'll just have you watch everything today, but eventually, you can start to take over certain things or we'll tag team it, depending on the event. Sound good?"

"Yeah," said Evelyn. Margaret talked a mile a minute.

"Great! So obviously this is the main children's section. We've got the stage up there which is fun sometimes and sometimes it's very not fun. And then the major book collection, obviously. All kid-level shelving, which means we have a lot of overflow inventory..." She paused and opened the door next to her office. "So we keep all that in here." This room had much, much higher shelves, too high even for a very tall man to have reached the top without a ladder or perhaps a broomstick.

"Out there, I keep new books, favorites, seasonal books.... That sort of thing. And then everything else is in here. So you'll definitely spend a lot of time pulling things when kids request books on a certain topic that isn't out in the main library."

"Got it," said Evelyn.

"But don't worry. I'll teach you the whole system when we have a little more time today. The three-second overview is that all the middle grade and young adult is on this back wall," she said motioning to the wall opposite the door. And then we've got thin chapter books along this side, early readers over there on the left, and this whole center section is picture books."

"Okay," said Evelyn with a nod, trying to take all this in. She tucked her hair behind her ear and followed Margaret back out and then into a door along the adjoining wall.

"In here is where we do craft projects, birthday parties... anything that might be too noisy and carry out into the main library. Sometimes we have mazoologists come in and show the kids a few creatures and we usually set that all up in here."

"Oh that's fun," said Evelyn.

"The kids get a kick out of it," said Margaret. She led her back out and into one last door to the right of the one they had just come out of. "So in here, we've got all kinds of storage. Lots of craft supplies, sensory bins... props and costumes for stuff on the stage... extra toys, because we switch out the ones in the playroom. Which..." She paused and led Evelyn all the way across the room to the last door, propped open already. "Is over here. We don't do much supervising in here because it's just kids and their parents usually who come in and play for a while before they check out books. But I usually stop in once or twice a day and tidy up if some kid left it a mess before leaving. They aren't supposed to do that, but you know some parents."

Evelyn laughed and peeked into the playroom. It was currently themed with autumn books and toys and there were leaves and acorns making a garland along the wall.

"So... yeah. That's pretty much our space. You'll kind of get to see a typical day and probably later I'll have you help me plan some for tomorrow, and then eventually we'll get you doing some of it on your own, read alouds or whatever. Any questions?"

"Not yet," said Evelyn. She could barely take it all in, but she knew one thing for sure. She was very excited about this job.

—-

The moment the kids had cleared out after the eleven o'clock story time, Margaret made a beeline for her office, shrugged on her coat and scooped up her purse. "You wanna grab lunch?" she asked Evelyn.

"Oh, okay. Sure," she said. She picked up her own coat, slipped her arms in and zipped it up.

"There's a café I like that's cheap not too far from here," she said. "I sometimes pack a lunch, but most of the time I can't be bothered."

Evelyn hadn't even thought about needing a lunch. She was so accustomed to having everything provided to her at school.

They headed out the concealed back door across from the petrol station where those boys had tried to chat her up the day she'd first come here. Margaret led her two blocks down and made a right onto a much nicer street. She pointed out things along the way, keeping up a nearly constant storm of chatter as they walked. Evelyn barely had a chance to contribute anything, but that was good, because she wasn't quite sure what to say.

The café was small but brightly lit. There were small round tables with too many chairs clustered around many of them. Mothers sat chatting with one another, pushing their prams back and forth to soothe fussy babies and picking up crayons the toddlers kept dropping on the floor. It was so strange to see normal people doing normal things. Young mothers. People who weren't solely between the ages of eleven and eighteen.

She and Margaret ordered sandwiches at the counter and then sat down at an open table near the window. "So you just graduated, right?" asked Margaret.

Evelyn nodded. "Yeah just a few months ago."

"It's been... god, like five years for me, now?"

"Does it get better?" asked Evelyn. "Because I think I hate it. I feel so...."

"Lost?" asked Margaret. Evelyn nodded. "Yeah, you start to figure things out. I didn't realize how isolated I was at school until I was back out in the world again."

"Exactly," said Evelyn. "I was..." she stopped, glancing at the other patrons. This was a muggle business. "Well my parents weren't...." Margaret nodded that she understood. "So, I didn't really have any connections outside school to get started. Like my boyfriend, he started a real like... adult job weeks after we graduated. It was all lined up before we even finished school, because his parents had a friend. I didn't even know what I wanted to do when I graduated."

Out of all this, Margaret latched on to one word. "You have a boyfriend?" she asked.

Evelyn nodded. She took a bite of her sandwich and hoped she hadn't turned pink.

"What's his name? Tell me about him," said Margaret with bright eyes. She tucked a bunch of dark curls behind her ear.

"His name's Sean," said Evelyn. She wasn't sure what exactly to say about him. "He's been my best friend since first year, but we've only been together for... nine months or ten months or something. Around Christmas last year." When she said it like this, she suddenly felt very strange about the fact that she and Sean shared a flat. It had not even been a year. Sure they had known each other much longer, it wasn't really that impulsive, but it sort of felt that way.

"Wasn't that kid that won the tournament called Sean, too?" asked Margaret.

"Oh," said Evelyn. She felt her cheeks heating up again for some reason. "Yeah, that's him."

Margaret's eyes went wide and round. "Oh my god," she said. "I knew I recognized you from somewhere. You were in that picture! When he won!"

Evelyn was pretty certain her face was bright red now. She knew exactly what picture Margaret was talking about.

"That picture," said Margaret seriously, "affected me for weeks. Weeks. So damn romantic."

Evelyn laughed a little. "It was sort of embarrassing," she said. "I wasn't thinking about the cameras."

"No, it was incredible. You better stick with this kid, because imagine having that framed next to your wedding photos."

Evelyn hadn't really thought about whether or not she might marry Sean one day. Marriage as a concept seemed so far off still.

"I wish I had a boyfriend," said Margaret. "When you work with kids you don't really meet too many eligible gentlemen. I have to make a real effort to go places where they might be and pretty much one hundred percent of my dates have been catastrophic."

"That's pretty bad," said Evelyn, glad to have the attention turned off her.

"I have a date on Friday," she said. "I'll give you a play by play next week. Always entertaining after the fact."

"Sounds good," said Evelyn. "But I hope this one's better."

"The odds are against me," said Margaret with a smile. "But I hope so, too."

---

Sean's day had gone exactly as he'd expected it to so far. He had come in bright and early that morning, sat down at his desk and spent a riveting hour and a half preparing sales reports to present to his boss, Rhett, that week. He had sat in on a meeting he really didn't need to be a part of, been called "Champ" no less than seven times by three different people, and been presented with a task list that, quite frankly, he wasn't qualified to complete without training, which meant he would be staying at the office late again tonight trying to figure out what he was supposed to be doing because he absolutely would not, under any circumstances, ask for help.

Asking for help was not an option. Not when the whole corporation thought he was a joke who didn't deserve to be there and had only won his way in by getting his name engraved on a big gold trophy last May.

He ran down to the cafeteria around noon to grab something he could eat at his desk while he worked. Taking a lunch break would only mean getting home later, and Sean did not want that.

He was just about to head to the register with the boxed sandwich he had selected from a counter labeled "Grab & Go" when somewhere to his right, someone called "Sean?"

He turned towards the voice. "Jenny," he said in surprise. "Hey. How are you? What are you doing here?"

"I'm working here," she said. "I just started."

Jennifer Prewett had been Head Girl, a Gryffindor. They had known each other fairly well since fifth year when they'd been made prefects, though he'd never really spoken to her one on one.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm just admin," she shrugged. "I just needed something, you know? What about you?"

"Technically I'm on market research," said Sean, "but honestly my official title is blown way out of proportion."

Jenny laughed. She tucked a bit of dark hair behind her ear. "I guess we all have to start somewhere."

"Yeah," said Sean. "Being bossed around."

They fell into an awkward silence.

"Well... I should let you go, I guess. But we should grab lunch together sometime. It'd be good to catch up. I've only met my boss so far."

"Yeah," said Sean. "Yeah, that'd be cool. I'm pretty much always here. Always. So..."

"So, I'll come find you," she said with a smile. "Or send a memo or something."

"Sounds good," said Sean with a nod.

"Yeah. Okay. Well..."

"See you later," Sean said, holding up his sandwich in lieu of a wave.

Although he was still at work until after seven PM that night, Sean felt marginally better about having to be back early the next morning to finish everything he had still not managed to finish that night. It would be nice to go in knowing he had something of an ally now. It would be nice to have someone to talk to who was on the inside.

—-

Evelyn was deeply engrossed in her book when Sean finally got home. She was deeply engrossed because she had had time to become deeply engrossed because Sean had gotten home so late. Again.

"Hey," he said, shutting the front door. He came over to the couch where she was sitting, leaned over the back of it, and kissed her hello.

"Hey," she said.

Sean went into the bedroom to drop his stuff off and came back out, heading straight for the fridge to grab a bit of dinner.

"How was work?" Evelyn asked, sticking her bookmark in.

He shrugged. "Not the worst. You know Jenny Prewett?"

"Of course."

"She just started working there. Ran into her when I was buying lunch."

"Oh, that's cool," said Evelyn. She sat up a little more. "Is she working with you?"

"Not really," he said. "She's just admin, but I don't know who for." Sean pulled out the milk and grabbed a box of cereal.

"Sorry I didn't make anything extra," Evelyn said. "I didn't know when you'd be home or if you were going to eat before."

"It's fine," said Sean.

He didn't ask her how her first day had been, but he was tired and he'd been working a long time. She opened up her book again, but she couldn't pull herself back into the story.