Vector's Challenge

Chapter 11

"Designo me Severus Snape," she murmured to her wand as she stood out in the corridor. Why couldn't those Slytherins have proper entrances to their rooms like normal persons? Of course, they're Slytherins. She followed her wand and wound up staring at a blank stone wall in the dungeons. She knocked on it. No answer. She knocked harder. "Severus! I need to talk to you. " No answer. She pounded with her fist and forearm. "Severus, open the bloody door. I know you're in there. Severus!"

Some of the stones in the wall slid to the left and the right. Severus Snape stood in the doorway, his I'm-Going-To-Squash-You scowl on his face. "Good morning, Severus," Emmy said to him.

"You look like hell," he rasped.

"Well, that's a fine greeting. Top of the morning to you too," she replied sarcastically.

"What do you want?" he snarled.

"I left my graphs down here yesterday, and I was wondering if you'd seen them," she replied.

"Right here. Come on in," he said. He stood aside from the doorway only enough to let her pass. She had to brush against him to enter. She shivered, remembering how well he had kissed her yesterday. She wanted to kiss him again, And again and again.

Snape saw her shiver, and thought that it was out of fear. Maybe it was nothing but fear that made her kiss me back yesterday, he thought. I should have known it was too good to be true.

"Heh. They're all out of order." Emmy was relieved. If Snape couldn't make head or tail out of these, it meant that her Confundus Charm was still working. As she picked up and sorted the graphs, the charm stopped working, and the true nature of the graphs was revealed.

Snape watched her behind her back. Her hair was pinned up today, rolled up on the back of her head. His fingers itched to take it down. At least she was wearing yellow robes today. Wait a minute. It looks like the graphs are changing as she's touching them. He stepped behind her to watch. He could feel the heat from her body, he was that close.

Emmy could feel the heat from his body as well. It was all she could do to stop herself from dropping her graphs and turning around and kissing him again. And falling backward on the table during the kiss - No. She could not. Could Not. No snogging or shagging the double agent on the table, Emmy, she silently told herself.

"I see that you have some sort of Confundus charm on the graphs," Snape rasped. Yes, keep talking about innocuous things, and quit thinking about spreading her out on the table like you did her graphs, he thought.

"Mmm? Oh, yes, I do. It wouldn't do to let the students know that I was keeping track of their House points by time, after all."

"So that was how you knew something was going on," Snape said. "I see that Arithmancy is a means of torturing oneself to get information."

"And you would know all about torture, wouldn't you?" Emmy shot back. Snape recoiled as if she had physically struck him. "I'm sorry. That was uncalled for."

They stared at each other in silence. Then Snape cleared his throat and asked, "So what else do you use your Arithmancy for? "

"Well," Emmy carefully replied, "I keep track of the students' grades on homework, quizzes, exams and the like, as I'm sure that you do." Snape nodded in reply. "And I also like to keep track of their grades from year to year. See if they're improving, or if they're starting to have trouble with the material. That can be a signal that there's something other than schoolwork on their minds." She cleared her throat, and continued on. "I found a very interesting result the other day in Millicent Bulstrode's grades. It seems that she thought she had to practice cheating, so she wound up performing far below her potential for the first two years."

"Indeed. And just what is her potential?" Snape knew from Bulstrode's delighted babbling to him, but he wanted confirmation from Emmy herself.

"She's probably the best Arithmancer to come through this school in fifty years," Emmy replied. As good as or even better than my father, she silently thought. But I can't talk about Da, because that leads into what Da did when he was a young man. And no one is supposed to know about him at Bletchley Park.

"Indeed? Better than you, even? I had known she was bright, but I didn't know she was a genius."

"Then why the bloody hell did you tolerate her cheating during first year? Why don't you encourage her to do any better?"

"And what do you think would happen to her if she showed her intelligence?" Emmy opened her mouth, but Snape continued on. "What do you think her family is like? What do you think her mother and father will say? Do you think they will be proud of her talents? Do you think that they will reward her? Or will they just realize that they don't have a minion, and put her on Voldemort's A-list for recruiting? Don't you realize that we are in a war, you idiot woman?"

Emmy closed her mouth, and then answered him. "I see. So she's been playing dumb for the last four years in order to survive. And here I thought that if I encouraged her ambition, it would turn her from Voldemort." She sighed.

"Emmy, please don't be discouraged," Snape said. He took a deep breath. "Thank you for being concerned over a Slytherin student."

Emmy bit her lip. "Don't thank me, Severus," she replied, shaking her head. "I didn't do it out of the goodness of my heart. " Her mouth turned down and her lips clenched together. She looked up at him. "I was checking her grades to see if I could find any evidence that you were ignoring cheating, so I could win our bet. "

Snape started laughing. Emmy smacked him on the shoulder. "You horrible man! What could possibly be funny about this?"

Snape continued laughing. "I don't ignore cheating. I pay very careful attention to it. And I should have known better than to think that a Ravenclaw would actually be concerned for a Slytherin."

"Apparently being concerned about Slytherins is more complicated and more of a challenge than I had previously realized. But forgive me, Severus, I do not find it amusing," Emmy replied sharply. "I find it saddening that I fell into the same anti-Slytherin trap that the rest of the school seems to be mired in."

"So you think that the Slytherins are actually capable of redemption?"he asked, trying to keep his tone light.

"All men are capable of being redeemed, Severus," she replied. "And women, too, of course." She paused. "Perhaps we should meet and discuss how our students are doing more often."

"Indeed. Perhaps we should."

They stared at each other. Snape's clock rang out seven a.m.

"Time for breakfast," Emmy said, and fled.