Serpentigena

Chapter 8: The Library

Josephine was told to wait in her room while Snape consulted with Dumbledore about her wanting to see her father. She paced for a while, back and forth in front of the fireplace, until she grew bored. At a loss for what to do, she looked around. Her eyes fell on her too-large Hogwarts cast-offs.

Hadn't Dumbledore said that Hogwarts had the largest library in Great Britian?

It didn't take her long to find it, but she spent several minutes staring in awe at the huge section of Potions nonfiction. She flipped a book down and caught it deftly, smiling in sheer feminine pleasure when no dust or grit rained down from the tops of the books. It was disappointing, however—all the potion books were for levels Josephine had covered in her adolescent years. She looked in vain for something more challenging, but there wasn't a volume she hadn't read. Having exhausted that possibility, she turned to books of basic spells.

Neville Longbottom stood in the section, leaning against one of the tall pillars that marched down the aisles. He was glaring at her.

"You—are related—to me?" he choked, his voice disgusted.

Josephine shrugged. She was hurt by his tone of voice, but she covered it in snobbish indifference. "I'm—related—to you?" she mimicked. "Sad, isn't it?"

Neville swelled like a bullfrog. "You little—" he spat. "You are possibly the most unfriendly person I've ever met."

"Popular opinion," she said flatly, crouching to peer at a row of books about dragons. "Join the herd, Longbottom. I don't mind in the least."

"Do you really think I hate you?" Neville demanded. "I don't even know you."

"Why let that stop you?" Josephine retorted, standing up.

"Because I'm not that kind of person."

"Well guess what? I am. I am not your long-lost little sister, Longbottom. I'm scum; I'm from Knockturn Alley! I run an illegal potions shop and live in a walk-in closet with a prostitute. My best friends are people named Toad and Charcoal Sarah. You and I have nothing in common, and we probably never will!" Josephine's face was turning a brilliant red; Neville's was fast approaching white. "You have gone to school, have friends your own age, and have had two parents and a secure home all your life!"

"My parents are crazy," Neville said flatly. "My father doesn't know who I am. My mother can't stand to see me."

Josephine was silent, her fury gone.

"When I try to hold her hand or hug her, she screams. Do you know how that makes me feel, to know that your father is the one who did this to her?" Neville's ears were pink. "My father can only be expected to be in a vegetable state for the rest of his life, and your father did that to him!" he was shouting now, and the sour-looking librarian was shooting them death looks from her counter.

Josephine felt cold, as if she were suspended in ice water. "I am not my father," she whispered. She stalked off to another section.

Rubbing her arms (why was she so cold?), she scanned the shelf to find something, anything, to get Neville's disclosure off her mind and tucked in the farthest corner of her mind possible. With a frown she bent over and pulled out a glossy, pink magazine that had been thrust between the pages of an Yvonne's Notes: Transfiguration. Her frown deepened as she read the title of the main article: Make-up Tricks for the Clumsiest Witch! See page 46 for details!

She flipped curiously to page forty-six and began perusing the glossy pages with high interest. It was perfect—she had never read anything of the sort before. After she had finished the article, she turned to the next one (Special Effects to Liven Up! the Dullest Outfit!). When Snape found Josephine, she was in her room, experimenting with the spells in the magazine.

He nearly choked on the thick powder-and-flowers scent that now saturated Josephine's set of rooms.

"What in the name of all that is holy?" he asked indiscriminately, trying to stop coughing long enough to look around.

Josephine appeared in the door of the bathroom, wand in hand. One of her eyes was kohl-rimmed and mysterious, the other was bare of makeup. Her hair was more than three-quarters straight, her natural curls poking out in the top layers. "The smell is an irritating but harmless side effect," she said haughtily, her cheeks reddening at the sight of Snape. "What do you want?"

"What in the name of God or Allah or Buddha or whomever you crazy people on Knockturn Alley worship are you doing, Josephine?"

"I'm doing my hair," she said flatly. "And for your information, most of the people on Knockturn Alley are atheists."

Snape blinked. Josephine used the momentary silence to whisper something and point her wand at her naked eye, leaving a small puff of nauseatingly pink and scented smoke that cleared around two kohl-rimmed eyes. Snape closed the door and leaned against the fireplace mantle, his face screwed into a position Josephine interpreted as pain or amusement. Continuing to ignore him, she began straightening out the remaining layers of her hair.

"Does this have something to do with Voldemort or are you just experimenting with your feminine side?"

"Would you go in front of Voldemort looking like you just crawled out of a sewer?"

"Three days ago you were living in a sewer."

"Just call it my feminine side and piss off."

"Okay."

There was an uncomfortable silence. Snape sat on Josephine's perfectly made bed, noticing the blankets on the rickety chair in front of the fireplace. Josephine finished her hair and began altering her Hogwarts robes with drastically static ripping sounds. Snape got up and prodded the fire, more for something to do than out of necessity. The girl slammed the bathroom door open, wearing what looked like a vulture diva's nightgown.

Snape raised his eyebrows. Josephine glared. "Their charm is faulty," she announced. "That's all I have to say."

She seized the blanket off the bed and dragged it into the bathroom. There was a puff of smoke from under the door, and the bathroom lights went out. Snape watched curiously as the door shook under a beating it was receiving from the party on the other side, and suddenly it burst open once more. This time, Josephine was wearing well-tailored (but thankfully plain) black robes that remarkably resembled the blanket.

"Better," Snape remarked. Josephine shrugged, her hair sliding off her shoulders to hang down her back. When not frizzed into curls, it was long and perfectly black. Snape, who had been sure that he had gotten over Josephine's resemblance to her father, felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. She was the image of the model Dark Witch. She glared at him with her piercing blue eyes.

"What?" she snapped. "Does it look that peculiar?"

"Oh, no," Snape said. "Flu powder or Apparition?"

"Apparition. That way I won't be dizzy at the end of the trip." Snape nodded, and raised his wand to transport them both to Voldemort's meeting room.

Before he brought his arm down, Josephine leaned in close and whispered in his ear, "Don't think for a minute that I'm doing this for you."

The Potions Professor nodded once more and brought his arm down with a crack that seemed to displace the world around them. The walls swirled and shifted, and stopped abruptly in a dark-paneled room with a tall marble fireplace and a crowd of masked figures. They all drew in a long breath at the sight of Snape and Josephine, and simultaneously their eyes all darted from Josephine to a dark paneled door and back again.

One of the figures stepped forward, leaning heavily into his walking stick. He offered a hand to the girl. "Josephine Riddle, I presume?" his voice was low and breathy, and when Josephine shook his hand it was cold as death and clammy. She withdrew her hand quickly. "Welcome to your father's house."