Author's Notes: Chapter edited and corrected by Scott Fellman.
"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?" She 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. I just liked the tattoos. They're removable." I shrugged, and Lucius hummed in confirmation. Narcissa still looked at me piercingly, and I rolled my eyes." And no, Narcissa, I didn't do anything illegal. I got a job brewing potions, and 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 meters of red annoyance." I rolled my eyes, amused, and 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, and the pair gasped.
"And you're alive?!" Narcissa asked incredulously. I looked 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 Her 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 chirped 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 before, so I had to improvise, and that I had succeeded made me feel delighted. It meant that I wasn't completely dependent on Severus's recipes and improvements, 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 strangely, and then she opened a poison shop, and no one suspects a thing?" I asked incredulously, Lucius snorted.
"Of course they 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, 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, and 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 copper minds if I had to plead guilty. It is easier, faster, and safer than copying it to a physical memory where one slip up and others could find the memory. That was one of the uses I found for my copper minds, now that I couldn't use them to abuse the Catalog, and I didn't need them to store knowledge. Despite not being able to use them to store knowledge.
I had 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 that 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 excitedly.
"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 regarding the marauders and Lily.
I 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 because 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, and 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.