I was naught more than a wee schoolgirl of nine years at the time of my first trip to the library, which, as I recall it, was during my fifth year.

As we were still so very new to this palace of books, my fellow pupils and I, we were allowed to take home one book every two weeks, with instruction to care well for these most precious tomes.

Every little lass in my class asked for books on fairies and princesses, the lads for books on dinosaurs and dragons. Thin picture books all.

It was I, one and only, who took interest in the larger volumes. The first that caught my eye was, naturally, Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone.

It was then, there, with this book in hand, that my love of the written word took seed. As weeks passed and I read on, that seed flourished and bloomed.

At this point only the first four books in the series by J.K. Rowling were published. The fifth would come to print a year later coinciding with my own fifth year.

The first two books I finished eagerly, all within the allotted two week period. This, I am told was quite the feat for a child of my years.

The third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, I did not manage to finish on time. In fact, if I recall correctly, I had some twenty-five pages left of the book.

We queued up, as was the rule, my fellow pupils and I, to see the librarian. I'd have stayed last were it not for the ridiculous rule that we must queue up in alphabetical order by family name. I was in front with the B's.

My eyes scanned over the pages quickly as they could. I had to finish before it was my turn to see the librarian.

As we were so young, we were entrusted with one book at a time. I'd have to check out the same book again and wait another two weeks to be able to continue the story.

I flipped through another page. Thankfully the A's were a large bunch in my class and I was towards the end of the B's. I just might finish in time.

Our librarian was named Irma Prince, not to be confused with Madame Irma Pince of the Hogwarts library. If you take care, you'll notice the addition of the R; though as a child I believed them to be one and the same.

The esteemed Madam Irma Prince was a witch, this I swear, as she always seemed to know when one of the pupils young were set to cause mischief. She was highly possessive and protective of the school's books and was deemed most unpleasant by most of the student body, myself included. You can see now why I thought her to be one and the same with the witch in the book.

I found a note, hand written, once in a book I had later chosen not to read; it was a carbon copy of a note the fictional librarian had written. It reads as follows:

A warning: If you rip, tear, shred, bend, fold, deface, disfigure, smear, smudge, throw, drop, or in any other manner damage, mistreat, or show lack of respect towards this book, the consequences will be as awful as it is within my power to make them.

— Pince's note in a library book

As fate would have it, I reached the front of the queue with one page left to turn. Madame Prince leered down at me, holding out a clawed hand for the book I clutched to my chest.

I beseeched her, "Let me sit at the table in your sight-line to finish this last page. I cannot wait two weeks to continue the story."

She denied my request. I told you she was a witch.

So it was that I spent another two weeks with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in my care. I did the only thing I could; I finished the remaining page and set out to read the book once more, hoping to beat my time. This time round, I had it finished in ten days.

An adult now, having read all seven books, this, the third book, remains a favourite above all.

T'was Sirius and Remus who captured my heart, and Pettigrew whom I despised, and through it all, it was not Harry James Potter with whom I connected; rather, it was his friend, Hermione Jean Granger. The swottiest swot who ever swotted.

Other than myself, of course.

I was an erudite child; a lettered highbrow. By comparison of my peers I was quite bookish, intellectual, and wordy- in the wrong sort of way, of course.

I often struggled then, to remember that it is easy to juxtapose things that are complete opposites.

Edifying as my instructors were, they too seemed to take offence every time I raised my hand in answer to a query. Oftentimes, I found myself the only pupil in the room with a raised hand.

Never mind that I showed great pedagogic skill and took a didactic approach to my classes, I always seemed to find myself cast aside.

In fact, I had one pedagogue who seemed to take immense pleasure in ignoring me when I asked for help, infrequent as that occurrence was.

I suppose he took too humiliating me for being devoted to reading and studying, rather than in the worldly interests of my peers, who often showcased their selfish desires, cravings for wealth, and their absurd envy of others for their shiny baubles. Or perhaps it were that he was miffed that I had bested him in his own lesson?

Oh, I studied assiduously; better to hide away, thought I, than to face the inequity of adolescence.

I was a diffident youth, timorous, and at times extremely reticent about my personal affairs.

I was brought up tutored in the old ways, you see, by an imposing European father and a Welsh mother who'd do everything in her power to ensure her only daughter would become a woman of superior social position- including bringing into her home a stern woman by the name, Charlotte Adèle Adrienne D'alcy- British born; married French, and she was to be my new tutor. We may well call her governess.

In introspect, I almost missed her now that she is no longer here to criticise my waltz form.