A/N: I apologize for this chapter taking so long to post.  I've been studying for my AP exams.  I've already begun work on part three, so it should be up sooner.

Part 2 ~ The Frigid Office

What a cobra.  No, maybe more like a black mamba.  Yes, definitely.  For all I know, he could be slithering—I can't see his feet, and I definitely can't hear them.  In her mind's eye, the girl pictured the venomous serpent curled up in hibernation, its black coils glistening.  Ugh.  He gives me the chills.  Even when they had reached his office, he still had not uttered another word; he didn't even bother to turn around to see if she was still there, much less hold the door open for her.  By now, though, her most optimistic attitude could not have made her expect such a thing, so she hadn't been disappointed.

The office, lit only by a few glass spheres on the walls, was so dim that at first she could hardly see anything save the outlines of hulking bookshelves and a desk.  Behind this desk, in a high-backed, velvet-upholstered chair, Snape seated himself.  Taking a small vial of clear liquid and an extra orb out of a hidden drawer, he made another lamp for his dark, oily desk.  A flick of his wand, and sickly green flames leapt up from the translucent potion.  Of course they weren't fairy-lamps; fairies were FAR too cheerful for him.

He apparently decided that this was enough light to read by, for he leaned across the desk and snapped his fingers impatiently, prompting her to hand over her registration papers.  The sound rang hollowly in the otherwise silent room.  Although she hated being condescended to, she decided that in this situation it would behoove her to just obey.  Not wanting to get too near his icicle-looking hands, she slid the parchments across the desk.  He blinked at the top sheet for a moment, looking extremely bored.

"Phronesis Aurora?"

"Yes, sir," she answered.  She was usually called by her last name, which suited her just fine because she liked it much better than her given one.  Also, it was the only thing she still had from her birth parents—all of her memories of them had been frightened out of her by some event when she was nine.  She had heard later that her home had been one of the many sites that night of Death Eater raids, but she couldn't recall anything other than a patch of flowers.  An odd thing to remember from one's closest experience with the Dark Arts, flowers.  Almost as an affirmation of this, the flowers themselves were odd—liquid crimson blossoms dripping from a curved stalk, almost like scarlet bluebells.

Snape had already been musing over her papers for quite some time, but he showed no sign of planning to finish anytime soon, so Aurora took to looking around the room, which was becoming more visible as her eyes adjusted.  The bookcases were overflowing with parchments and empty bottles.  On the top shelf stood a particularly thick book that she found herself paying close attention to, the title of which was Advanced Potions for the Dark Master: Deaths Silent, Painful, Prolonged, or—  ...She was rather glad she couldn't read the last word.  Her breakfast thickened in her stomach and she seriously hoped that Snape had never felt any need to open that book on students.

"So," said Snape suddenly, startling her attention away from the book.  He casually tossed the papers back down on his desk, as if he had no concern for such petty things.  "Why are you here?"  His voice slid smoothly along the walls of the cold stone room, but the satiny quality of his words did not conceal the contempt he meant to imply.

She started into her explanation, trying to make it as brief as possible so that she could get it over with in a hurry; luckily for her, she had practiced this condensed recount of the past six years of her life twice already on Dumbledore and McGonagoll, so she was familiar enough with the story that she didn't pause or stutter even once.

Late in her eleventh summer she and her adoptive parents had devised a rather unorthodox method for her schooling.  She had attended five different world-renowned schools in her six previous years, in hope that she would find herself subjected to numerous different styles of education; purposely had her last and most important year been saved for Hogwarts.  Her previous year had been spent in an obscure province in China, where she had perfected her conversational Mandarin and illegal firework-making skills, but had learned relatively little practical magic.

Snape stopped her there as if he were afraid she might go one for another year if he let her.  Even though she had already finished by then, she still felt the twinge of irk at his sneering tone.

"Enough.  This is taking entirely too much of my ti—"

"I agree," Aurora interrupted suddenly, her voice flat and hard, so much so that she almost sounded disrespectful.  "I must get going.  I've got my schedule already.  Thank you very much for your time, Professor.  Shall I go consult Professor McGonagoll in the direction of Slytherin dorms?"  Never before in his entire teaching experience had a student ever interrupted Snape to agree with him, and consequently he found himself upon rather unstable ground for a moment.

"Er...yes," he growled.

Attempting not to outwardly show her eagerness to get the hell out of this meat locker he called an office, she leapt up and pounced at the doorknob.  She was not quick enough, though, since he stopped her before she managed to bolt out the door.

"Miss Aurora."

"...Yes?"

Evidently it had been much too soft an ending to a conversation with a student for him, and he wasn't about to let her leave before he remedied that.  His voice transformed into a dark, snarling tone, one that most would suspect he reserved for threatening someone within an inch of his or her life—although, in reality, that voice was much worse.

"Don't EVER interrupt my class again."

As she stepped into the hall and began making her way out of the dungeon as quickly as possible, she heard him calling something to her from behind the closed door.

"And I hope you're duly punished for your tardiness, but you probably won't be because the rest of the staff here is ridiculously lenient!  And you'd better not let Slytherin down—" and with that, his words became indiscernible from one another.

Definitely a black mamba, she thought, shivering.