Serena Snape: Love of Magic

"Okay, they're rare metals, now, you still haven't answered my question, where did you get the money? You won't get into trouble, right?" I asked worriedly, I made a face.

"Wait, first I want to ask what's up with… all that?" Lucius interrupted pointing all over my face, I wrinkled my nose.

"That's not important, it looks good on her, like a vampire, and her eyes are more... exotic, it'll attract attention" Narcissa dismissed quickly, snorting amusedly.

"Potions accident " I shrugged only to receive a couple of unimpressed looks, I chuckled, it was obvious they didn't believe the lie "Okay, problems with another branch of magic, nothing dangerous or serious really, but they ended up like that, I could have shrunk them at any time but like Narcissa said, I like the way they look on me, and I just liked the tattoos, they're removable" I shrugged and Lucius hummed in confirmation, Narcissa still looked at me piercingly, I rolled my eyes "and no Narcissa, I didn't do anything illegal, I got a job brewing potions, they paid me plenty, even after I did my shopping for the school year I still have enough left over for my experiments" Narcissa sighed in relief.

"Thanks to Morgana you didn't do something stupid," I snorted, a woman of little faith.

"A job, you say? For whom?" Lucius asked curiously, wrinkling his nose.

"Mary Cordovin, runs a small shop on Knockturn Alley," I shrugged before watching them freeze in place.

"E-excuse me Serena, d-did you say Mary Cordovin? Are you sure that's her name?" Lucius asked almost panicked, tilting his head.

"Yes, that's the name of the Hag, short, bent over with a cane, quite wrinkled and uneven braids, 1.30 of red annoyance" I rolled my eyes amused, the pair paled even more.

"Serena! You must not speak of Lady Cordovin where anyone can hear you, least of all her," Lucius hissed, I tilted my head in confusion.

"Why? I call her that all the time" I shrugged, the pair gasped.

"And you're alive?!" Narcissa asked incredulously, looking at both of them with suspicion.

"Okay, there's something I'm missing, what is it?" Lucius cleared his throat.

"Lady Cordovin was a former black widow, she had 13 husbands and all of them died suspiciously while leaving all their money to her in their wills, no one knows how they died, she is known as The Bloody Cordovin in some places, a few decades after her last husband, she opened a shop that sells poisons. She poisons anyone who thinks to offend her, yes, she sells the best potions but even a pureblood with power would avoid offending her." now I had to look at Lucius in disbelief, was the Hag that important?! Before calming down and shrugging my shoulders, that answered many questions, like where she got all the money for the experiments.

"Huh, who would have thought" I said before snorting playfully "now the name of your shop makes sense, Blood & Mary, as in Bloody Mary, as in Mary Tudor" I chuckled.

"That's all you got out of that?!" Narcissa hissed. "Lady Cordovin is dangerous, Serena. Are you sure you're okay? We can head straight to the infirmary once we get to Hogwarts," I sneered.

"No need, I get along well with the Hag, we insult each other, we prepare poisons and we insult each other again, basically that's how I spent the last 2 months with her."

"Oh Salazar, is it your fault that Lady Cordovin had improved her poisons?!" Lucius asked, paler than before. "I heard my father shudder at the news that she was getting better at making poisons, but I didn't think it was you, Serena!" I shrugged.

"It was fun making poisons with her, the Hag had some really brilliant ideas and I helped her a lot by improving the recipes, I must say I came up with some pretty elegant solutions to several of them" I said cheerfully as a smile grew on my face "Like some dermal poisons, they are absorbed through the skin, just touching it would be lethal, oh, oh, oh, we were also working on a gaseous poison that was odorless and invisible, I couldn't improve the potency of said poison but I could delay its activation inside the body, 30 hours after breathing the poison and it would activate without any sign, I'm very proud of that poison" I was practically bouncing in my seat in happiness, it had been a test of my knowledge, it was nothing that Severus had prepared so I had to improvise, that I had succeeded made me feel really happy, it meant that I wasn't completely dependent on Severus's recipes and improvements himself, but could make my own, my smile grew wider and I looked at the pair, who were completely pale.

"Morgana, she's worse than Lady Cordovin," Narcissa muttered in disbelief.

"I promise not to poison either of you" I rolled my eyes and suppressed my happiness before stopping myself "wait, I just realized, her ex-husbands died in a strange way and then she opened a poison shop and no one suspects a thing?" I asked incredulously, Lucius snorted.

"Of course I do, you'd have to be extremely stupid not to know it was her-"

"She had 13 husbands, one more idiotic than the last," I replied amusedly, Lucius's eye twitched.

"-the point is that there was no and is no evidence, they even interrogated her with veritaserum several times, but it didn't reveal anything" Lucius ignored me.

"Eh," I shrugged, "it's pretty easy to dodge Veritaserum if you have time to prepare."

"Oh? Is there some kind of information-hiding potion or something?" Narcissa asked curiously, I wrinkled my nose slightly.

"Not that I know of, but I wasn't talking about potions. Veritaserum just makes the person being questioned answer the truth as they know it" I licked my lips playfully "You just have to make "true" what you want others to believe, so you simply copy the memory of the "crime", save it somewhere only you know where to look, erase or modify your memory of the "crime", testify with Veritaserum with the memory erased, then you would get false negatives, you're declared innocent, wait a couple of weeks and go back and check the memory you copied earlier, easy enough" It wasn't exactly difficult to come up with that solution and I could do it with my copperminds if I had to make a plea of guilty, easier, faster and safer than copying it to a physical memory where one slip and others could find the memory, was some of the uses I found for my copperminds now that I couldn't use it to abuse the Catalog and I didn't really need them to store knowledge. Despite not being able to use them to store knowledge with occlumency to suppress my emotions, I could still use it to maintain and save my memories in perfect condition, I looked at the pair who had remained silent looking at me strangely, I squirmed slightly "what?!" I snapped and the pair sighed in unison.

"Sometimes your mind scares me, dear," Narcissa sighed and I smiled widely at her.

"I'll take it as a compliment"

"It wasn't!" she snapped and I continued to smile, Lucius sighed once more.

"Let's hide that part along with your work with Lady Cordovin, I don't think any of your future suitors would feel comfortable with that information" I blinked several times without understanding.

"Excuse me what?" I asked stupidly, now it was Narcissa's turn to bounce in her seat with excitement.

"Lucius was looking over the summer for some names who might be willing to accept a marriage contract in your name, I have a list with me, I'll help you select the best options, first we have the son of-"

"Wait, wait, wait, wait!" I interrupted in panic, my mind racing through memories of old Serena, I quickly found what I was looking for, Lucius was my sponsor, basically my pure blood sugar daddy, he spoke on my behalf and used his position to help me climb the social, political and financial ladder, instead I was basically at his service, last year he had already started talking about my marriage prospects, the few who had shown any interest, had taken a step back with the debacle with the marauders and Lily, who was now remembering that even being a woman, the group had stripped me naked in the air leaving me literally only in my panties, now I was close to hating the marauders, not because I cared about those men who had been interested in marriage, nor did old Serena care, but what they had done was practically sexual abuse, I shook off my memories before looking seriously at the pair "I don't want a partner"

"What? Why not? I assure you that they are perfect gentlemen, I made sure of that, none are like the Potter group" Narcissa assured me seriously, I made a face.

"that's not the problem"

"So, I thought that-"

"They're men Narcissa" I interrupted Narcissa, she stood still and nodded.

"Of course they are, why wouldn't they be?" I tilt my head in confusion.

"I like women" I blurted out, the pair stopped and looked at me like I was stupid.

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