[IRMA]

Irma Pince watched a fifth-year boy race out of the library, headed to whatever class he was about to be late for. He had crammed his textbooks into his bag in a dreadfully cavalier manner, but Irma was not in the mood to reprimand careless teenagers.

She’d been working without a break all morning. The spell she used to make the books shelve themselves was by now routine enough that she could do it in her sleep, but today she’d had to make several repairs on newly returned books. The worst was a book of potion recipes that had been recently spilt on (or vomited on�”it was hard to tell the difference); it took a full hour to dry the pages enough to begin the stain-removal process.

Then it took another fifteen minutes to think of and then dole out a punishment severe enough to fit the crime (yet not so severe that the Headmaster would object). She hoped that the third-year culprit would serve his dungeon detention on the week when Professor Snape decided to re-inventory his collection of stomach-turning ingredients. If Mr. Creevey wished to puke on school property, he could do it into a conveniently placed cauldron.

While she’d been distracted, Miss Parkinson had found the time to leave off writing an essay and drag Mr. Malfoy into a dark corner of the stacks to engage in an inappropriate display of affection. Irma hadn’t even derived much pleasure from the Stinging Hex she directed at their backsides as she shooed them away.

Mondays. How she disliked them. She lived for Hogsmeade weekends and holidays, when most students went to disturb the peace outside the castle. It was twice as bad as usual this year, because Dumbledore, in a moment of senility no doubt, had invited students from two other schools to attend Hogwarts for the Triwizard Tournament. Not only was this tempting fate, safety-wise�”Irma had read about the previous Triwizard Tournaments, and they almost always ended in fatalities�”but it populated the castle with a whole pack of extra students who smoked in the loos (yesterday she’d hexed a Beauxbatons girl’s cigarette through the stall door; it exploded and singed her eyebrows off, to Irma’s vindictive amusement) and felt it was acceptable to skip class so long as they were in the library. Irma constantly had to remind them this was not the case, mainly by causing their book bags to bite them in the backside until they vacated the premises.

She justified this later to McGonagall by explaining that nonverbal reprimands were her only option, as she didn’t know how to speak French.

Now that most students were in class, things had quieted down. Irma ducked into her private office and checked the enchanted mirror that showed her a bird’s-eye view of the library (a necessary measure, as she had no assistant to watch the library when she was busy) and then picked up a tuna salad sandwich from the tray that an obliging house-elf always left for her.

“Pince. PINCE.”

“Keep your voice down! This is a library.” The reprimand was by now an automatic answer to anything said in a raised voice, and she called it out before remembering that her mouth was full. Ashamed at the garbled sound of her usually precise diction, Irma put down the sandwich and huffed angrily through her nose. What was it now?

It was the surly, not-very-hygienic countenance of the castle’s caretaker, Argus Filch, who had allowed his mangy old cat to perch on a stray book. Irma waved her wand, sending the book back to its place, and dumping the cat unceremoniously on its tail.

“Do you want something, Mr. Filch?” she said coolly.

“You need to put a stronger locking charm on the doors to the restricted section,” Argus said. “I caught another herd of first-years in there last night. Thought they could use Dark magic to summon spirits or some other rubbish. If first-years can Alohomora your doors, Pince, then you need to read up on charms in one of these books of yours.” He flicked his hand contemptuously as he said books, an action that did not endear him to Irma.

“Mr. Filch,” she said, the temperature of her voice dropping to ice, “I have already put an extremely advanced charm on the books themselves, as you well know. The students cannot remove books from the shelves unless they have express permission to do so. It is therefore none of my concern whether they can enter the library at night. Keeping students from leaving the dormitory is part of your job, is it not?”

Argus glowered.

Irma couldn’t resist a parting shot. “In any case, you are in no position to lecture me about the strength of my magic. If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to return to my lunch.”

From the growl that issued from Argus’s throat, she knew she’d hit the mark. She experienced a momentary glow of triumph, and then a creeping sense of shame. Argus was sensitive about the fact that he was a Squib. To taunt him about it was unnecessarily cruel.

But it could not be unsaid, and Irma decided to blame it on her foul Monday mood. She bit into her sandwich and flipped to a new page in the novel she was reading. It was long and complicated, the sort of book that most students wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot wand because it had nothing to do with their homework. Despite her best efforts, wizarding literature was still not part of the Hogwarts curriculum.

Irma could hardly bear to put it down. Though to others it might seem tedious, to her it was another life she could escape to�”another life that wasn’t hers. When she read it, she wasn’t a fifty-seven-year-old librarian who had never been pretty and had only been kissed by her dearly departed mother. She became beautiful, loved, extroverted, uninhibited. Free.

She reached for another sandwich, not noticing that one of them was now missing from the tray, and there were three long cat hairs in its place.

[ARGUS]

Argus Filch muttered darkly to himself as he stomped off to mop something. That library lady got under his skin, always looking down her long nose at him and talking like she swallowed a dictionary. If she wasn’t so obsessive about dusting the shelves in the library, saving him the effort of keeping the place clean, he might outright hate her.

“Isn’t that right, my sweet?” He looked down at the cat who followed at his heel.

Mrs. Norris emitted a smug prrrow, wafting the scent of tuna salad to Argus’s nostrils. The caretaker cackled. His cat liked Pince because she was persistently absentminded about leaving food lying around.

The school was fairly quiet today, so Argus sent Mrs. Norris off on patrol duty and went into his office to put his feet up and enjoy a good book. He had abandoned Kwikspell after a year of diligent practicing yielded no results whatsoever, and now instead chose to read up on ancient wizarding torture methods. Argus had always been a bit turned on by chains.

A loud, disembodied meow reached his ears. Through his unusual mental link to the cat, Argus knew that Mrs. Norris was on the third floor and had found Peeves defacing one of the paintings.

Argus marked his place in Moste Heinous and Sadistic Tortures, removed his heavy-duty leather boots from his desk, and, grumbling, stuffed a sheaf of incident report forms into his coat pocket.

The two inhabitants of the pastoral painting, an innocent young maiden and her goat-herding boyfriend, were hiding behind a tree when he arrived on the scene. Their picnic looked undisturbed, but when they peered out at him, Argus saw that the maiden now sported a thick mustache across her upper lip, and one of her front teeth was blacked out.

The goatherd refused to come out altogether, and the maiden informed Argus through hysterical tears that “that nasty creature” had bestowed on him an obscenely large phallus. Argus tried not to laugh. Why either of them were complaining, he had no idea; but it didn’t pay to make enemies with the paintings, as they often helped him identify troublemakers and vandals.

“Which way did he go?” he growled. The maiden pointed.

Mrs. Norris bounded ahead of his stumping boots and found Peeves before he did; the poltergeist was now deeply involved in writing words like “fart,” “gullible,” and “buttcheek” on the wall, just high enough that Filch would not be able to reach them without hauling a stepladder up several flights of stairs.

“Aha!” Argus said, breathing heavily through his nose. “Peeves, I’m warning you, Dumbledore will hear about this.”

Peeves said a long string of swear words, interrupted occasionally by things like “soup” and “a stick of dynamite.”

After the poltergeist swooped away to wreak havoc elsewhere, Argus sat down heavily on the stairs and filled out the incident report form. Then he went to fetch a bottle of Mrs. Skower’s All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover and began the chore of scrubbing the marks off of the painting.

It took some time to coax the goatherd to come out. By the time he finally skulked into the light, the maiden was already sitting in a corner bewailing her raw features and the faint five o’clock shadow that still lingered on her upper lip. She averted her eyes from her boyfriend’s embarrassing state, two blush spots appearing on her painted face. Argus poured more Mess Remover on the stained rag and began scrubbing.

“Dear me, Mr. Filch,” said Charity Burbage, the Muggle Studies teacher, as she passed by. “Don’t rub that thing so hard.”

Argus gritted his teeth and focused on happy thoughts, most of which were about hanging students (or inappropriately witty teachers) by their thumbs.

[CHARITY]

“And then I said, ‘Don’t rub that thing so hard!’” Charity finished, giggling so much that she could hardly tell her story.

Minerva McGonagall, who had happened to be the only other person in the teachers’ lounge when Burbage walked in laughing like a loon, was working very hard to contain the undignified whoop of laughter threatening to escape. She settled for an amused smile.

“Merlin’s pants, but that man needs to get laid,” Charity said, mostly to herself. “Minerva, you’ve been here as long as he has. Did he ever, like, ever…?”

“I haven’t felt the need to ask,” said Minerva delicately. “Mind you, when he first started work here, I thought he was a little sweet on Irma.”

“The librarian? You’re kidding!”

“Well, he never did anything about it,” Minerva said. “Only I caught him in there a few times, asking her what books he should borrow and letting her bend his ear about how Muggle literature is undervalued in the wizarding world. I’ve never seen anyone else listen to Irma talk about books without falling asleep in the first three minutes.”

Charity laughed.

“He was just a kid, then, and she in her twenties,” Minerva reminisced. “Maybe, after all, he was a little scared of her…”

“Hmm,” said Charity, wheels turning in her head. “It’s never too late, you know.”

“I wonder if he doesn’t still carry a torch for her.” Charity grinned at this; apparently Minerva did have a romantic bone somewhere in her body. “The students certainly think so. If their gossip is to be believed, the two of them are going at it in the Restricted Section every night.”

Charity made a face. “Not with that ratty old coat�”and that hair!”

“He could stand to bathe a little more frequently,” Minerva agreed.

Charity’s wheels were turning faster. “Have you read much Shakespeare, Minerva?”

“Long ago,” said McGonagall. “I must say, for a Muggle, his portrayal of the Weird Sisters is one of the best historical accounts we�””

“Not the tragedies,” said Charity. “I was thinking of a comedy, actually. Two people so determined not to fall in love, and yet it takes only a tiny amount of prodding from their friends and family…”

“Much Ado About Nothing,” Minerva said. She tilted her head thoughtfully. “You aren’t suggesting that we encourage fraternization between staff members while on school grounds?”

“I’m suggesting exactly that,” Charity said.

She thought for a moment that Minerva would cite some rule forbidding matchmaking, but the Transfiguration professor just smirked.

[IRMA]

“Hello, Madam Pince,” chirped Professor Burbage. “I wonder, do you have any Muggle classic literature in your collection? I was thinking of assigning my students to do book reports.”

“This is a wizard library,” Irma said stiffly. “My budget for acquiring new material does not cover Muggle literature.”

“Pity.” Burbage leaned casually on Irma’s desk and nearly tipped a stack of books over. With some hasty wandwork, Irma steadied the books; then, putting her wand away, she moved the stack behind the counter, where it wouldn’t be disturbed. “You know,” Burbage was saying, “I have always thought that Muggle literature is undervalued in the wizarding world.”

“Tell me about it,” said Irma, rolling her eyes. “I’ve yet to meet a single student who knows the difference between Charles Dickens and Charlotte Brontë.”

“It’s a crime,” Burbage said sadly. “I was just saying to Mr. Filch the other day�”Mr. Filch, I said, I’ll bet no one even realizes your cat is named after a Jane Austen character.”

Irma’s eyes bugged. Professor Burbage gave her a mildly curious look, but prattled on about Shakespearean references in everyday parlance, ignoring the look on Irma’s face.

Irma, meanwhile, was unaccountably annoyed that Burbage had recognized that name. No one else ever had, or at least had never commented on it, and Irma had had the satisfaction of imagining that it was a reference she alone would understand. For it was she who had named Filch’s cat, when he had first arrived at Hogwarts with the animal in tow.

She had been the school librarian for five years when he arrived. Her ascension to the position had been fairly easy; her predecessor, Atticus Lear, had been a handsomish middle-aged wizard who leaned a little too close to the pretty girls when they asked for help finding a book. Fortunately Irma was not a pretty girl; Mr. Lear condescended to teach her the shelving spells and allow her to help him out in her free periods, but otherwise he left her well enough alone.

Thus, she’d been the only one with any experience when, in her seventh year, Mr. Lear had been asked to retire. It was a rather sudden decision; a few weeks before final exams, he had taken it into his head to study and write a research paper on Beatrix Bloxam’s Toadstool Tales, an endeavor which caused him to vomit most spectacularly all over the library, and which left the students and faculty alike very unamused. Irma had volunteered to perform the necessary cleaning charms, and was offered his job on the spot.

On the other hand, no one was quite sure how Filch had been hired. It might have been one of Dumbledore’s odd charity cases, like keeping Hagrid around as gamekeeper, or there might have been a long list of applicants for the post of caretaker’s assistant, and Argus Filch had somehow been the most qualified to take the job. Whatever the case, he had simply shown up on the first day of the new term, a poorly-dressed, shaggy-haired, supremely bitter teenager just out of Muggle school. Rumor had it that his parents were wizards, and his twin sister a witch, but Argus had never developed any magical talent whatsoever.

Rumor also had it that the entire family was no good. Not Dark, of course, merely useless. The father had been killed in a drunken wizards’ duel, and the mother couldn’t hold down a job. The sister… well, Irma remembered her as a Slytherin a few years behind her in school. She was the sort who took pleasure in malicious tricks and bullying younger students, but after quitting school, she seemed to have vanished completely from the wizarding world.

At least Argus himself seemed willing to work hard. The ancient caretaker, Apollyon Pringle, kept him moving, which was a good thing, since it kept him out of the way of the students. Irma had pitied the poor boy for the cruel teasing they heaped on him (especially the Slytherins, despite his twin sister having been in their House).

Irma vividly remembered the day Argus acquired the cat. He had been missing for a few days with no explanation, which Mr. Pringle complained loudly about, since it meant he had to do actual work instead of ordering his assistant around. Then, suddenly, Argus was back, and there was a ragged, scrawny scrap of fur trotting at his heels, its yellow eyes seeming to take up its entire face.

“What’s its name?” Irma had asked one day, while Argus took his daily ten-minute break in her library. Pringle had ordered him to clean it, but since Irma kept it spotless already, he used the time to put his feet up on a chair and page through whatever books the students had left lying around.

Argus looked up, startled that she was addressing him. He looked over his shoulder to make sure she was talking to him, then looked down at the cat. “I… don’t know,” he said. “It’s a she.”

Irma put down Mansfield Park, which she had been rereading, and bent to scratch the cat behind its ears. “Sweet little puss,” she cooed.

The cat scratched her.

Argus laughed.

“I oughta’ve warned you,” he said. “She’s right unpleasant.”

“I see that.” Irma nursed her hand. “You should call her Mrs. Norris.”

“What’s that?”

“A character in a book,” Irma said, smirking at her own joke. She retrieved Mansfield Park and found her favorite passage about the odious Aunt Norris, which she read aloud to Argus:

It ended in Mrs. Norris’s resolving to quit Mansfield, and devote herself to her unfortunate Maria… where, shut up together with little society, on one side no affection, on the other, no judgment, it may be reasonably supposed that their tempers became their mutual punishment.

Argus, suddenly and inexplicably, began to laugh. He laughed for far longer than one might normally laugh at Miss Austen’s delightful brand of sly humor. It was a dry laugh, a wheezing cackle, and Irma could not help but feel that Mr. Filch did not laugh very often.

“Mrs. Norris it is,” he said, when he had caught his breath. “How do you like that, eh, Mrs. Norris?”

The cat looked up with her enormous eyes and meowed primly, then began to wash her paw.

“Tempers became their mutual punishments,” Argus cackled. “Tell you what, library lady, can I borrow that book?”

“It’s my personal copy,” said Irma, hugging it to her chest. “And my name is Irma Pince, if you please, not library lady.”

“Well, I’ll treat it extra careful,” said Argus. He pried it from her hands. “And I’ll bring it back in a week, Irma Pince, I swear.”

Irma looked into the boy’s pale eyes for a long moment, and he stared back from behind the curtain of his unkempt hair. If it had been anyone else, she might have pulled out her wand and hexed him for daring to touch her precious book. But she pitied Argus Filch. He’d received enough rough treatment; maybe it was time someone showed him kindness.

“Don’t spill anything on it,” she said, and allowed him to take the book.

Exactly one week later, he had stalked into the library, slapped the book down on her desk, and told her in no uncertain terms that it was the most unrealistic and boring rubbish he had ever wasted his time on.

“Madam Pince?” Burbage said, bringing Irma back to the present. “Am I boring you?”

“Not at all,” said Irma, rubbing her eyes. “I’m just a little tired. Really, Professor Burbage, anytime you wish to talk about Muggle literature, my door is open.”

Burbage caught the dismissal in Irma’s tone and began backing towards the door.

“Watch out!” Irma called, but not in time to keep Burbage from tripping over Mrs. Norris herself.

The cat hissed and sat down to groom her tail angrily. Burbage said, “I’m all right, don’t mind me,” and beat a hasty retreat.

“What are you sniggering at?” Irma snapped at a Slytherin fourth year. The boy�”Crabbe, was it?�”stopped laughing, and he and his mates returned their gazes to their notes.

Which left Irma to stare down the cat.

She frowned at the beast, wondering (not for the first time) why Mrs. Norris was so very long-lived. It had been thirty-five years since Filch had started work at Hogwarts, and the cat had been there nearly the whole time. Yet Irma was certain Mrs. Norris had not aged, or even changed at all, except to grow fatter and fluffier.

Why had no one ever thought to question Mrs. Norris’s longevity, or her apparent psychic link to her owner? Irma supposed that it was not totally unheard of for a wizard’s familiar to live longer than its species’ usual lifespan, though since Argus was a Squib, that explanation was suspect. Nothing, though, explained the way that Mrs. Norris seemed to be able to summon Filch. She’d arrive on the scene, students would panic that they were in trouble, and as they tried to run, Filch would arrive and apprehend them. It had happened more times than Irma could count, yet no one ever asked how.

“Go on,” she said, waving her hand at the cat. “You’re shedding on my floor.”

Mrs. Norris, showing a typical feline disregard for human commands, leapt onto a bookshelf and lay down, purring.

“Now you’re shedding on Dressing Like a Muggle For the Clueless Wizard,” Irma muttered. She went to fetch her feather duster.

The cat wouldn’t budge, merely sat there batting at the feather duster like it was a dead bird on a stick (which, admittedly, it resembled). Irma huffed in frustration and turned around, intending to do another sweep of the library to make sure all the students were behaving.

Instead, she bumped into Argus Filch, who seemed to have materialized out of nowhere.

“What is it now, Mr. Filch?” she asked, wondering if she should apologize for yesterday’s insult, or if he had already forgotten.

“I wondered,” said Filch, shifting his feet and looking quite uncomfortable, “if you’d let me borrow your copy of Mansfield Park.”

[CHARITY]
Earlier that day...

â€�“Why in Merlin’s name,” Charity asked, folding her arms, â€�“would a painting want a bottle of firewhiskey?”

â€�“It tingles,” explained the painting of Bacchus, lounging among grapevines and the inert bodies of his passed-out-drunk maenads. â€�“Old Pringle used to use it to clean my canvas, when he was in a good mood. Filch won’t do it. Says it’ll dissolve my paint.” Bacchus scoffed. â€�“What in Jupiter’s name do they teach in Muggle school?”

â€�“Oddly enough, they don’t cover talking paintings,” said Charity. â€�“All right, fine. One firewhiskey bath for the drunken painting. But you’ll say exactly what I told you, no ad-libbing, and it might help if you wake them up.” She gestured at the snoring, barely clad nymphs.

â€�“Are you sure?” Bacchus said, eyeing them warily. â€�“It might be more convincing if I just talk to myself. The ladies aren’t exactly right in the head.”

â€�“I know,” said Charity grimly, who had happened to walk by on one of the rare occasions when the maenads were actually awake. There used to be a doe grazing in the background of the painting; she had not seen it since, though she fancied she could still see bloodstains on those rumpled togas. â€�“It might help if you keep them sober for more than three seconds.”

â€�“Hello,” said Bacchus, â€�“I’m the god of getting wasted.” But she stared him down, and finally he sighed. â€�“I’ll do it. But I expect the whole bottle, not just one measly splash.”

â€�“You’ll dissolve your paint,” said Charity, â€�“or your liver.” But that was really not her problem. Bacchus was only slightly less annoying than Sir Cadogan (who had refused bribery, because it went against his code of honor - as did deception). As long as he performed according to plan, he could drink himself into a coma for all she cared.

â€�“I’m a god,” said the painting. â€�“I’m not worried. The whole bottle, and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

â€�“Fine,” Charity said. â€�“Deal.”

The hard part done, she went off to accomplish the easy part of the plan: manipulating the students.

[ARGUS]

â€�“I’ll hang you by your thumbs for this!” Argus roared. His coat flared out behind him and caught on a suit of armor as he pursued the fleeing miscreants. It was a mystery how Fred and George Weasley managed to smuggle a seemingly endless supply of Dungbombs onto school grounds, and Argus would have to have more eyes than his mythological namesake to predict when and where they would detonate them.

By the time Argus freed his coat from the suit of armor (which laughed hollowly at him the whole time), the twins were long gone. Mrs. Norris, late to the scene, set off after them, but by the time she caught up they would probably be sitting innocently in study hall.

Sighing, Argus pulled out another incident report form, and flattened it against the wall while rummaging in his pocket for the pencil stub he used in lieu of a quill.

â€�“Love?”

â€�“Oh my!”

â€�“Love!”

Argus huffed. The paintings were talking again. It was that stupid wine god and his harem. He was surprised the women could actually form coherent words; most of the time, when they were awake, they either danced around wildly or ripped things to shreds. Sometimes both at once.

â€�“It’s true,” the wine god said smugly, sounding as though he thoroughly enjoyed the adoring attentions of his fan club. â€�“You know that painting of Daedalus that hangs in her office? He heard it with his own ears. She sits there reading love sonnets and crying his name, so tragically… Argus! Oh! Argus!”

Argus froze.

â€�“But why doesn’t she tell him?”

â€�“Yes!”

â€�“Why?”

â€�“I’ll tell you why,” said the wine god. â€�“Aside from the obvious - that hair, and never washing his clothes, and let’s not even mention the unhealthy obsession with his cat - Argus Filch is a mean old grouch. He’d just laugh at her. Poor lady. She’s a bit prudish for my taste, but no one deserves that boring librarian’s life.”

The librarian? Pince? What rubbish. Argus shook his head, tried to block out the voices, and began to fill out the incident report form.

â€�“We should give her some wine,” suggested one of the nymphs.

â€�“Wine!”

â€�“Yes, wine!”

â€�“Don’t think I didn’t suggest it,” said the wine god. â€�“The old girl could do with fewer inhibitions.”

Argus’s pencil needed sharpening. Also, he seemed to have forgotten what he was writing. Weasleys… Dungbomb… love sonnets? That painting must be drunk as a skunk. Not too far out of character, after all.

â€�“Pity she can’t be nicer to him,” the wine god was saying ruminatively. â€�“I suppose snapping at him all the time is her way of hiding her true feelings. Ah well. Ladies, who’s up for some heavy drinking and an orgy?”

â€�“Me!”

â€�“Me!”

â€�“Me!”

Argus backed away from the painting’s alcove, slightly horrified by what he had just heard. Irma Pince was in love with him? All these years, he had thought she hated him. Or maybe hate was too strong a word - cordial dislike was more Irma’s style.

He’d tried to like Mansfield Park, he really had, but that Fanny Price character had driven him mad. Always quiet and sweet and always doing the right thing. A real woman would yell at people once in awhile, and do stupid stuff like marry a man she didn’t love, then cheat on him with the man she did love. Like Maria Bertram! In fact, the book might have improved if Maria Bertram were the main character.

Argus could see why Irma liked it, though. She had been born a Fanny Price, he thought: gentle and shy and unoriginal. But she had a great capacity for being Maria Bertram - he’d seen the hexes she used on the students who drew in library books. No Fanny Price would invent a Wedgie Hex.

He had intended to start a friendly argument on the subject, but his people skills were rather stunted, and instead he had ended up offending her. She’d snapped at him every time they spoke for the next thirty-five years. And until now, he had resigned himself to the fact that the most interesting woman in the entire school thought of him in the same way she thought of slugs, or people who dog-eared pages instead of using a bookmark.

Hell with it. Argus crumpled the incident report form and shoved it into his pocket. He could punish the Weasley twins later. Right now, he had to go and see if Irma would consider giving him a second chance.

[CHARITY]

â€�“I think that went well,” Charity said smugly. â€�“The suit of armor tripping him was a nice touch - well done, Minerva.”

McGonagall tried unsuccessfully to hide a smirk. â€�“That almost made up for the ordeal of teaching the Gryffindors to waltz,” she said. â€�“Though now I will have to live down the shame of having asked the Weasley twins to set off a Dungbomb outside the Charms classroom.”

â€�“They were practicing the Bubble-Head Charm, anyway,” said Charity. â€�“This will only give Flitwick’s students an incentive to excel.”

â€�“I fear our days of encouraging misbehavior are not over,” Minerva said. â€�“We still have to set a similar trap for Irma.”

â€�“First let’s watch him make a prat of himself,” Charity grinned, setting off toward the library. â€�“Then we’ll see about her.”

Chapter 4

[IRMA]

When Argus Filch opened his mouth, Irma was in the habit of bracing herself to hear something unpleasant, usually a rudely phrased complaint. She prided herself on being able to take the worst verbal abuse without blinking an eye (and also on her ability to dish it right back out). But â€�“May I borrow your copy of Mansfield Park?” She was entirely unprepared to hear that.

â€�“As I recall,” said Irma frostily, â€�“you are not a great admirer of Miss Austen’s work. Why the sudden interest, Mr. Filch?”

Argus absently tickled Mrs. Norris’s ears; the cat growled at him. Irma began to wonder if someone had Confunded the man. He of all people should know to keep his fingers away from that beast. And then there was the request for Mansfield Park, when she knew for a fact he still had her Restricted Section copy of Sadistic Tortures checked out.

She had seen people acting less out of character under the Imperius Curse.

â€�“I feel bad for what I said that one time,” Argus mumbled gruffly. â€�“I didn’t mean to be rude, but I guess you took it that way. Was thinkin’ about it today and thought I’d give old Fanny Price another go.”

Irma pointed her wand at his forehead.

â€�“Hey, hey!” the caretaker cried, backing up, his eyes bugging. â€�“What d’ya think you’re doin’?”

â€�“This is a trick, isn’t it?” Irma said. â€�“You’re trying to steal one of my most treasured books! Wait, don’t tell me, it was a bet, wasn’t it? I’ll bet Madam Hooch put you up to it. She hates me. Or maybe it was Charity Burbage. She was in here asking about Muggle literature only a moment ago.”

â€�“Pince,” said Argus, â€�“I reckon you are clean off your rocker.”

He said it in an odd tone; not the condemning I’m-about-to-run-away tone most people would use, more like… admiring and appreciative.

â€�“And you are acting like an entirely different person,” Irma fired back. â€�“Have you been Imperiused? Confunded? Or are you one of the students taking Polyjuice Potion? I hope it’s the latter. Drinking essence of Argus Filch is probably its own punishment.”

Now she was just being nasty, and she knew it. But to have him snap back an insult would at least restore her belief in his (relative) sanity.

He did not rise to the bait. Instead, he grinned idiotically at her.

Irma, now convinced there was something very wrong with him, lowered her wand - but only so that she could point it at him surreptitiously behind the desk. â€�“Finite Incantatem,” she whispered, hoping that would reverse any spell he might be under.

Nothing happened. If anything, that frightening grin widened.

Maybe I should call Poppy Pomfrey, Irma thought.

Aloud she said, â€�“I’m not letting anyone borrow from my personal collection again. Only the other day I lent my Complete Works of Shakespeare to Professor Burbage, and when I got it back, there was a page ripped out. It seems she lent it to a student so that he could write some extra credit essay, and he used the blank pages in the back to write notes on.”

â€�“Did I mess up your book last time?” Argus demanded, a little of his usual surly demeanor returning. â€�“Have I ever once returned a library book in bad condition?”

â€�“April 1987,” Irma said promptly. â€�“You brought back Train Your Pet Kneazle To Attack People You Hate, all damp and covered in mud. I recall describing its condition as looking ‘like it was dragged it through the Quidditch pitch and then stomped on a few times.’”

Argus said, â€�“It got sat on by a student who had been at Quidditch practice in the rain for two hours. I gave Mr. Mortmain three weeks’ detention for sitting on my desk, but I couldn’t dry the blasted thing off… not without….”

Not without magic. Irma sighed. â€�“Students,” she said, in accents of deepest loathing.

â€�“Students,” agreed Argus in the same tone. They shared an understanding look, before Irma reminded herself that he was annoying her, and she wanted him to go away.

â€�“Fine,” she said. â€�“You can borrow it. Mansfield Park. But you had better treat it like it’s made of diamonds and cobwebs, Argus, or so help me, I’ll hex you into next week.”

She went into her office and pulled the old paperback - lovingly repaired multiple times, and looking almost new except for its yellowed pages - out of its honored place on her bookshelf. She held it in her hands for a moment, wondering what in the world she was doing. No matter how much she wanted to get rid of most people, she certainly wouldn’t ever use her precious books to bribe them to leave. Why should Argus be different?

â€�“Hmph,” she muttered. â€�“Maybe I’ve been Confunded too.”

She went back to the desk and handed the book over. â€�“Diamonds and cobwebs,” she said, fixing him with a stern glare.

â€�“Diamonds and cobwebs,” repeated Filch, backing away without so much as a thank-you. He looked a little dazed; Irma wondered if his mental confusion was progressing. She would have to mention it to Poppy later.

[ARGUS]

Diamonds and cobwebs. There’s probably a double meaning in that.

Argus stumped toward his office, intending to put Pince’s book somewhere safe before a student could make it rain in the hallway, or some other magical rubbish.

She was a good actress, Pince. If he hadn’t heard the painting talking, he’d have just gone on thinking she didn’t like him one bit. It’s her way of hiding her true feelings, the wine god had said. Pointing her wand at him like that, like even a little politeness must mean he was hexed… it was a good touch, he had to admit.

He was even starting to doubt the painting’s word. Could she really be madly in love, and still act all prickly like that? Was that what women generally did, or was it just Pince?

Argus looked down at Mrs. Norris, who was following close at his heel. â€�“What do you think, my sweet?” he muttered. When Mrs. Norris gave him no answer, except a general sense of disdain at his inability to interact socially, he growled to himself. â€�“Gar! Women are confusing.”

But he looked down at the faded paperback in his hand, and he thought of Maria Bertram’s secret rebellious streak. He found himself grinning involuntarily, which lifted his mood a great deal, and had the unexpected bonus effect of scaring the crap out of a passing second year.

[IRMA]

Classes were over for the day, and the library was swarming with students chattering (in hushed tones, or Irma reprimanded them with a glare and a mild Stinging Hex) about homework and the next Hogsmeade weekend and the Triwizard tasks and the upcoming Yule Ball. Irma still felt that it would be prudent to see Poppy about whatever the hell was wrong with Argus Filch, but if she left now, one of those dodgy-looking Durmstrang students would probably set the place on fire.

She settled for doing a few rounds with her feather duster, taking extra care to brush the cat hair off the books that Mrs. Norris shed on.

â€�“No, it’s true, really, it is. I’m not making this up.”

Miss Brown and the twin Patil sisters were gossiping in a nearby alcove, loud enough that anyone could overhear. Irma sniffed and was about to swoop around the corner and reprimand them when she heard her name.

â€�“Honestly, he’s in love with Madam Pince, I swear! I know it’s true because I heard him telling his cat about it, and Mrs. Norris is the only person… cat… he ever talks to semi-nicely.”

No one talked nicely to Mrs. Norris except…

â€�“But what did he say exactly?”

Miss Patil - the Ravenclaw one, not the Gryffindor one - hesitated. â€�“I - well, I couldn’t hear very well, because I was trying not to let him see me. But I think he wanted to ask her to the Yule Ball. He was trying to talk himself into it, you know, talking to his cat to give himself courage? But in the end he talked himself right out of it. He said, ‘She’d just laugh in my face. No way she’d ever say yes.’ And when he walked away, he looked all sad, with his shoulders slumped down like this.”

Irma couldn’t see Miss Patil’s demonstration, but she could vividly imagine the way dejection would look on Argus’s shoulders.

â€�“Poor Mr. Filch,” Miss Brown said sadly. Then she giggled. â€�“Never thought I’d ever say that! But I really do feel sorry for him! We all know what it’s like to have a crush on someone who’ll never look at you.”

The three girls sighed in unison.

â€�“Madam Pince is such a snob,” said Miss Patil (the Gryffindor). â€�“I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say anything nice, ever. No wonder Mr. Filch thought he doesn’t have a chance. She’s probably so mean to him all the time, and all he ever did was like her.”

Irma became aware that she had dusted the same shelf four times. She stepped back, almost tripped, and leaned heavily on a chair. Her grip on the feather duster was white-knuckled.

â€�“It’s a shame,” said Miss Brown. â€�“They’d be cute together. Sort of.”

â€�“The old library lady and the bloke obsessed with his cat,” said the Ravenclaw Miss Patil, laughing. â€�“Hey! Speaking of cats, did I tell you that Saraswati is going to have kittens? I bet it’s Hermione Granger’s ugly old kneazle’s fault. Anyway, don’t suppose you know anyone who wants a pet kitty? Everyone I know already has an owl…”

It seemed they weren’t going to say any more about Argus. Thank goodness. Irma, clutching her feather duster tight, fled back to her office. The look on her face must have been terrifying, because a group of fifth-year girls actually ducked as she passed.

Argus, in love with her? Trying to ask her on dates but lacking the nerve? Preposterous. Idiotic of her to even entertain the notion. As if anything those gossiping students ever said was true!

On the other hand… Argus had been acting very odd before. Could he have been trying to bring up the Yule Ball, and lost his nerve at the last moment? That would explain him panicking and asking to borrow a book he hated.

Irma shook herself. Even if it were true, so what? It wasn’t as if she would have accepted, even if he had had the courage to ask.
Would she?

Briefly, she imagined it. The Yule Ball. She could wear those dress robes she’d kept in her wardrobe all these years, robes she’d only worn a few times (to school friends’ weddings). They might need to be altered a bit, but she’d charmed the garment bag to keep the moths away. Maybe Argus would get rid of that raggedy coat of his and put on a suit. Maybe he would ask her to dance. She wondered if she still knew how.

â€�“Don’t be ridiculous,” she told herself aloud. Such fantasies may have excited a little thrill deep in her bosom, and turned her cheeks an unaccustomed girlish pink, but this was not a storybook. This was real life, and Argus Filch was rude and grouchy and -

Hmm. In fact, he was about as rude and grouchy as she behaved to him on a regular basis.

Were those twittering girls actually right? Was she a snob? Had she been stamping on Argus’s feelings all this time, and he’d just matched her prickly temperament to protect himself?

Worse - since when had she started to care what Argus’s feelings were?

â€�“Irma Pince, you’re losing it,” she mumbled.

â€�“You probably are, if you’ve started talking to yourself,” the painting of Daedalus said helpfully, looking up from his perpetual task of sticking feathers onto a wing-shaped frame.

She very nearly threw a book at him, before remembering herself and carefully replacing it on her to-be-repaired stack.

[CHARITY]

Madam Pomfrey had joined Charity and Minerva in the teachers’ lounge, and was thoroughly enjoying their retelling of the day’s exploits.

â€�“Miss Brown and the Patil sisters performed admirably,” Minerva said, with a pleased smirk. â€�“I must congratulate Padma Patil on her ability to improvise plausible fiction on the spot. Though Miss Brown giggled so much, I thought she would give it away.”

â€�“But Irma bought it!” crowed Charity.

â€�“She certainly seemed shaken,” Poppy said, grinning. â€�“She visited the hospital wing to inform me that Argus was acting strange, but ended up asking me if she might also be under some kind of mind-altering curse.”

The three of them chuckled gleefully as they set to plotting the next stage of their Shakespearean prank.