Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Much thanks to MagnoliaMama for her beta job.
Rumors
Few students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry knew anything about Madam Pince. No one knew how old she was or where she lived or when she ate. Only a few students even knew her first name was Irma. And that's the way she liked it.
This was not, of course, the way anyone else liked it. And so the students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry reacted in the way generations of forefathers had taught them to react in the face of unknowable truths: They made things up.
It was rumored that Madam Pince, Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall met every Thursday night to sip Irish coffee and play rummy. On Sunday nights, the students whispered, she met Aberforth Dumbledore for a quick meal. It was also rumored that she and Argus Filch had tea together each morning to commiserate about the students. A particularly vivid story suggested she and Severus Snape were conducting a rather, well… graphic affair in the dungeons.
That last one bothered her. Severus was an overgrown bat who wrote in his books and she dreaded every moment she had to spend with the foul man.
One day as Madam Pince was organizing her desk, Ginny Weasley entered the library and flashed her a nervous smile. Good, the librarian thought. She'd best be nervous. She'd get a whole lot worse than a trail of books chasing her if she ate chocolate in the library again.
Twenty minutes later, Ginny approached the librarian's desk. When Madam Pince continued organizing her files, the girl cleared her throat loudly and tapped her foot.
"Can I help you?"
"Yes," Ginny said. She started to shift her books around.
"Any time now, Miss Weasley."
"I just had a quick question," she said, still fidgeting.
"Which I'm afraid I can't answer until you ask, my dear."
Ginny sighed and looked to her left and right. Seeing they were alone, she leant over the desk and lowered her voice. "I've heard you keep records of all the books we check out."
Madam Pince raised an eyebrow.
"I—it's just… well, how far back do these records go?"
"Why do you ask?"
Ginny stammered for a minute, then seemed to lose patience with herself. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and leant even closer to the librarian. "I need information about Tom Riddle. Not the textbook type stuff, not something that I can find in a history book, but stuff about him. I need to know about his personality and his wants and his interests."
"So you would like to see a record of his library use?"
Ginny nodded.
"That information is strictly confidential"
"I know, I know," Ginny said, almost desperately. "It's just… remember the Chamber of Secrets?"
"I'm not that old, Miss Weasley. I assure you, my memory works just fine."
"Right. Sorry. So you remember that it was, erm, me who did all those things?"
Madam Pince put down her files and really looked at the young lady in front of her. She was pale and her face was drawn tight from what could only be loss of sleep. The librarian sighed. "Come with me."
She led Ginny across the library, stopping to chastise no less than four students, and ushered her into a small study behind the History section. Ginny sat in a hard-backed chair and fiddled with the edge of her scarf.
Rows and rows of small drawers lined the back wall. Madam Pince tapped one of them smartly with her wand and muttered something. The drawer popped open and she rifled through it quickly. Finding what she wanted, she walked over to Ginny and dropped a piece of parchment on her lap. "You have twenty minutes," she said briskly. "You may not leave this room. When you are finished, you will leave this parchment on the shelf by the door. If you tell anyone about this, you will lose all library privileges until after your N.E.W.T.s. Do I make myself clear?"
Ginny nodded. "Thank you so much," she whispered.
Madam Pince started to walk away, but turned back to the young girl. "Miss Weasley, I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to do, but I very much doubt it will help."
"Probably not," she agreed. "I know that. I do. It's just… with everything getting darker—did you hear about Hannah's mum?—I can't stop thinking about him. Tom's everywhere and it's too much. If… I reckon if I learn everything there is to know about him, there'll be nothing left to think about and he'll leave me the hell alone." She was blushing by the time she finished her speech and refused to meet the librarian's eyes.
Madam Pince tapped her foot as she considered the young girl's words. "I'll give you thirty minutes in the Restricted Section," she said finally. "But thirty minutes only, and I will be supervising to make sure you don't go off-topic."
Ginny smiled slightly. "I'd like that."
Madam Pince opened the door to leave but paused to say, "Miss Weasley, if you ever swear in front of me again, I will personally confiscate all your books. Understood?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Good. Find me when you're finished." She walked back to her desk, stopping twice to straighten the books on their shelves and once to scold a sloppy Ravenclaw.
Instead of returning to the organizing she'd been doing earlier, she pulled out her list of overdue books. She put on her reading glasses and pretended to look at the list while she watched the students over the rims of her glasses. She didn't like them—students were hormonal little brats who needed authority—but she couldn't bring herself to actively dislike them, either. Hogwarts was a difficult place to grow up, especially since You-Know-Who's return to power.
She spotted two students whispering loudly, and swooped in on them. Difficult as the times were, there's no excuse for disturbing the peace of the library. In fact, the calm of the library was even more precious during these times; students and faculty needed to have a place of safe, quiet solitude.
Madam Pince sent the whisperers packing and returned to her desk. Her heels didn't click as she returned, thanks to the useful little charm she used every morning. Hopefully Professor Flitwick would listen to her pleas and add the charm to his lesson plan.
She'd only been sitting at her desk for a few moments when Ginny approached. She was still pale, but smiled slightly as she asked for access to the Restricted Section. Madam Pince nodded and led her to the library's most dangerous section.
"I wasn't joking earlier, Miss Weasley," she said when they reached the Restricted Section. "If you tell anyone, I will ban you from this library."
"I know."
"Good." Madam Pince gestured to the books. "You're wasting precious time. I'd recommend starting with the third shelf."
Ginny nodded and set to work.
Thirty minutes later, Ginny reshelved the books she had skimmed, thanked the librarian one last time and hurried out. Madam Pince returned to her desk, stopping along the way to confiscate some inappropriate reading material from a pudgy fourth-year.
-
A week later, there was a new rumor. Seems Madam Pince had dumped Severus and he, in his despair, had tried to seduce that twit Sybil Trelawny.
¶Madam Pince smiled. She knew just who to thank for that.
The End
A quick note: In case you were wondering how Madam Pince knew about Ginny and the Chamber of Secrets, I'm working off the assumption that all of Hogwart's staff was told the basic facts.