Chapter Two - Unknown Quantity

It's all JKR's, except my OFC.

"I do realise that this is somewhat unorthodox, Filius, but I have been given an unorthodox student, and at this point in time, this is the best way of managing the situation."

"But almost all the students take my class, Headmaster. Why not Miss Parr?"

"I can assure you it's not a personal slight, Filius, but Chara is not able to cover some subjects during her time here at the school."

That response alone held two interesting statements, only one of which Flitwick picked up on, probably because he was still agitated at being denied the chance to teach the school's newest addition.

"Then she is only temporarily placed with us?" the diminutive professor pressed, even more disappointed than before. "For how long?"

Dumbledore spread his hands. "I'm afraid I don't know," he admitted. "Her presence here is dictated by factors outside of the school." He sighed and shelved the book he had been holding.

"Well, it's just not fair," Flitwick concluded, albeit good-naturedly. "The opportunity to teach a student that doesn't have a two-second attention span and that one might actually be able to have a coherent conversation with doesn't come up often. I had to spend the entire lunchbreak listening to Pomona rave on about how Miss Parr has more Herbology knowledge than her NEWT students."

"Yes, I understand her mother was a gifted horticulturist," replied Dumbledore mildly, heading back to his desk.

Professor Sprout was beaming at her fortune. "She's very good! She's already agreed to help me clear out Greenhouse Two for the OWL students' term projects. Oh! Providing that's alright with you, Headmaster," she added quickly.

Dumbledore looked up at her as he sat. "I see no reason to deny you an assistant, Pomona, as long as it doesn't interfere with Chara's current study commitments."

Sprout's smile widened, and Flitwick threw up his hands in mock defeat. "Then I am condemned to further post-prandial torture," he shrilled dramatically.

"Don't fret, Filius, you can sit with me during mealtimes," offered Professor McGonagall. "Miss Parr is not taking Transfiguration either." The prim set of her mouth left no doubt as to what she thought of that.

"If I may inquire, Headmaster," came a low voice from the behind the others, "is Parr to be treated differently than the other students?"

Dumbledore leaned forward and laced his fingers together, elbows on his desk and the tips of his thumbs tapping his upper lip. "In what sense, Severus?"

"She doesn't wear a standard uniform, her classes span across at least three different year levels that I know of, she arrives three weeks late into the term, and she's at least twice the age of some of our students." He paused. "Plus she seems to have a moderately serious injury around her neck."

Dumbledore's thumbs tapped a few more times before he drew his interlocked hands away from his face. "Her lack of uniform is due to a combination of medical necessity and personal request on her part, but I can assure you that it has nothing to do with vanity or aesthetics." He chose to ignore the disbelieving sneer on Snape's face. "The year levels she has been assigned to vary due to the differing levels of experience she has with the subjects she is taking, and whilst she is older than all the other students, she has assured me that this does not bother her in the slightest and seems bemused that it might bother others. After all, we have had older students before." His gaze sharpened as if he had caught a hint of an inference behind Snape's question. "I trust she has not proved disruptive?" he inquired, brows raised.

There was a long enough pause for the other teachers to turn and stare at the Potions master expectantly. McGonagall's lips had almost vanished in an accusatory expression levelled at him, Flitwick obviously thought there was some interesting trivia about to unfold, and Sprout actually stopped picking the dirt out from under her fingernails. Snape decided to downplay what had happened earlier.

"A mild altercation," he relented, brushing a speck of dust off his sleeve in an effort at nonchalance. He thought he heard Sprout give a snort of laughter, and he glared in her direction.

Dumbledore nodded. "Then I trust you have the matter in hand, Severus." He began to rummage about for some lost item on his desk, spilling a pile of parchments onto the floor in the process.

"Don't tell me you've given her detention already!" McGonagall's accusing expression distilled further.

"If I understand the Headmaster's response, Parr is to be disciplined in what manner I see fit," Snape shot back, narrowing his eyes. "Since she has no house to deduct points from, detention is a reasonable alternative punishment for disrupting the class!"

"No house?" Flitwick interrupted, catching a whiff of opportunity for Ravenclaw. "Why hasn't she been sorted into a house, Headmaster?"

Dumbledore looked up from the increasing mess on his desk, a quill in one hand and some bizarre metallic contraption in the other. "The Sorting Hat is unable to allocate her a house," he replied vaguely, his thoughts apparently elsewhere. Everyone else's eyebrows shot up at that revelation. Dumbledore decided that whatever he was trying to do was futile and dropped the contraption back onto the desk with a sigh. "I can't concentrate on an empty stomach," he announced. "I believe there is chocolate pudding tonight, and I should hate to miss the opportunity to have two helpings of that." He stepped over the pile of parchments strewn on the floor and headed towards the door of his study. "Shall we?"

It was avoidance – he'd known the wizard long enough to recognise the technique. It was a foregone conclusion that Dumbledore knew much more than the scanty pieces he had fed the four heads of house, but they were interesting pieces of information nonetheless.

Picking at his dinner, Snape kept part of his attention on the surrounding conversation. It didn't have any relevance to what was on his mind, but long-standing habits made it easy to concentrate on several things at once. Flitwick was telling Vector about something he'd read in the Daily Prophet that morning. The Charms teacher, ever the gossip-merchant, was relating the meat of the story to the austere Arithmancy witch, punctuating his words by jabbing his fork in the air excitedly. Snape raised his eyebrow. If what Flitwick had read was true, then there had been a murder at St Mungo's the previous night. Deaths were not uncommon at the hospital, but murders? He filed the information away for later consideration.

He stopped torturing the food on his plate and put his knife down. He had no appetite this evening – the headache had seen to that. The light in the hall was making his eyes hurt, increasing the need to retreat to his own quarters and nurse his head. Wretched students! He cursed silently and gripped the edge of the table as his anger increased his headache at least three-fold.

Squinting at the tables of students ahead, he noticed Finnigan fooling about with his empty plate, much to the amusement of the Gryffindors around him. He was flapping it about in the air like a tambourine, but his antics were short-lived as the plate slipped from his hand and crashed into Longbottom's still half-full one. Finnigan's audience roared with laughter, drawing McGonagall's head up from her own dinner. Tutting angrily, she rose from her place and headed towards the small chaos swirling around at her house's table.

Just as she reached it, Snape saw Malfoy enter the Hall, and to his surprise, Parr was with him. The boy still had his previously-injured wrist clamped in his other hand, though surely it would've been seen to by Madam Pomfrey. Both he and Parr were looking very serious, and Malfoy kept shaking his head at whatever Parr was saying. They both stopped a few metres inside the doorway with Parr making a curious gesture with her right hand: palm up, little finger extended in an upwards direction with the other digits curled closed. Malfoy was looking mildly incredulous and leaned away from her, his arms against his chest. Then, abruptly, he laughed out loud and shook his head again, this time ruefully. Parr said a few more words, shrugged, and then walked away from Malfoy and towards the Gryffindor table with a small smile on her face. Malfoy stared after her for a few moments with a slightly puzzled expression before joining his housemates at their table.

Longbottom's head popped out from behind the group of Gryffindors who were still getting a dressing-down from McGonagall, and he raised a hand in Parr's direction as she headed towards him. Acknowledging his wave, she gave him the dimples-and-smiles treatment and sat down on the bench next to him. Within moments, both their heads were together in deep discussion as Parr ate.

Snape stared at his plate. He would've liked to have known what Parr and Malfoy had been talking about, especially given the earlier drama during class. He sighed and bowed his head further, making his long black hair fall forward around his face, mercifully blocking some of the light from getting into his eyes. He catalogued the facts in his mind, shuffling them about in some sort of order of importance.

The woman was clearly more capable in some areas of magical education than others which was slightly odd if she had been provided with tutors prior to her acceptance into Hogwarts... or, as Dumbledore had phrased it in his earlier note, "granted a place at Hogwarts". That choice of words alone might suggest that her place at the school had been given grudgingly. Also, why the late notification of her presence to the teaching staff? It indicated one of two possibilities: it was a recent decision, one as recently made as this very morning, or Dumbledore was deliberately revealing as little information as possible about this woman. The Headmaster was given to secrecy at times, but this seemed a little extreme.

There was evidence of physical injuries: one relatively recent around her neck, the extent of which was hidden by the bandage she wore. The second was the healed cut across her face that had damaged the iris of her eye. It could be that she had more that were not immediately apparent – none that hampered physical movement, so nothing structural or muscle-related. Whether or not her sight was compromised by the facial injury was yet to become apparent, but Snape suspected not, judging from the way she moved. Were the injuries a result of fights? Parr had already shown no hesitation in physically cowing another student, but one example didn't make a rule.

Her mother was reputedly talented with plant care. Not Herbology. Dumbledore had said "horticulturist" and referred to Parr's mother in the past tense, so the woman's mother was either no longer actively engaged in horticulture or possibly no longer alive. There was also the likelihood that her mother was a Muggle.

The list of subjects that Parr was taking needed some thought. It was true that students did get the opportunity to select which subjects they chose once reaching a certain grade level, and more often than not it was connected to the careers they would follow once they graduated. Parr was taking Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures, History of Magic, Astronomy, Muggle Studies and, of course, Potions. He needed to figure out the common thread through those subjects.

Then there was the inability of the Sorting Hat to assign her a house. Snape had never heard of that happening before. Couldn't assign or wouldn't assign? Reasons for both possibilities flicked through his mind as he pressed thumb and forefinger to his closed eyes. His headache was getting worse.

"Are you feeling alright, Severus?"

He kept his thumb and finger pressed into his eyes. "Yes, I'm fine, Minerva," he lied, "despite the fact that I must waste my evening with a student's detention."

McGonagall fussed with her skirt as she sat back down at the table next to him. "Well, perhaps that will discourage you from handing them out so blithely," she responded unsympathetically. That brought his hand down from his face. McGonagall steadfastly ignored the deathlook he gave her as she went back to her meal. Not getting the required abashment from her, he swung his black gaze back over to the Gryffindor table to find Parr gone. Longbottom was still there, this time talking to Granger. Parr must've bolted her food down and left the Hall because he couldn't see her anywhere else. He huffed and pushed his chair back. Might as well get the detention over and done with as soon as possible, as his headache wasn't showing any signs of lessening.