Vector's Challenge

Chapter 16

Vector noted Snape's selections as he stood at the library checkout desk. "The Wizard's Guide to Catholicism," "Muggle World Religions," the Douay-Rheims Bible, the Vulgate, and the 1917 Code of Canon Law - how did Hogwarts wind up with that, of all things?

She looked at his selections. "Not bad for a first start, Severus," she whispered quietly. "I've got some other texts written from the Muggle perspective that you may find interesting."

He turned and glared at her. I am not going to admit to That Woman that I find her religious beliefs interesting. Not at all.

She glared back at him. "It'll do you some good to read something besides Potions for a change," she whispered. She waved her wand and said, "Accio Biblio Loyola et Augustinus et Brodrick, et Codex Lex Canonicus 1983." The Spiritual Exercises by St. Ignatius Loyola , The Confessions of St. Augustine, and The Origin of the Jesuits, by Brodrick, Brodrick and Tylenda, and the 1983 Code of Canon Law, appeared before her.

"The Jesuits?" Snape asked her, with a sneer on his face.

"They're the Slytherin House of the Roman Catholic Church," she retorted. "They have been accused of many things in their long and glorious career, but an overabundance of scruples has never been one of them."*

He started to chuckle, and then to laugh in earnest. Everyone in the library looked up and turned their heads at that. Hermione shook her head in disbelief. Professor Snape laughing. Now she had seen everything.

"And who, pray tell, are the Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, and Gryffindors of the Catholic Church?" Snape asked her, sneering.

Vector frowned for a moment. "The Hufflepuffs would be the Franciscan Order, and the Ravenclaws would probably be the Dominicans. I'm not sure who the Gryffindors would be. Maybe the Guy Fawkes or Babington conspirators. Or perhaps the Holy Cross Order, who founded a school eventually renowned for its sport."

Hermione drew in her breath at this. Professor Vector, how could you say such a thing? She thought. She shook her head. Love must be making the poor woman crazy.

Vector turned her head, and smiled at Snape. "Thirty points to Slytherin if you get those finished by next week, Severus." Snape's face froze. "Or a kiss, whichever you prefer." Snape started to calculate how close Slytherin was to the House Cup. Maybe twenty points and a peck on the cheek?

Granger said, "Professors can't award each other points."

"Thank you, Miss Granger. What would I do without you?" he snarled.

"Snog away the House Cup, that's what you'd do!" he heard a familiar, Slytherin voice say. He looked around quickly to see if he could find the culprit, but could not. I'll fix them later. He glared until everyone stopped looking as though they were about to giggle.

"Forty points from Slytherin for disrespect to your Head of House, Montague," Vector calmly said.

And then That Woman had the nerve to nod and smile at him, turn her back, and walk away from him with a definite sway in her step. Snape watched her and her sway intently as she went. She was so very graceful. And so damnably, stubbornly silent when she wanted to be. He started to make notes in his head about how to secretly slip her some Truth Potion at the next meal they shared. He would have to wait until she came back from her University job. Vector had given all the Ravenclaws strict orders that Professor Snape was not, under any circumstances whatsoever, to be allowed to use the emergency Portkey again. And he had tried Apparating to her apartment and found it impossible.

Later on that evening, Emmy Vector Donovan was at her University office. She sat at her computer, frantically typing geographic coordinates into her modeling program. "God damn Cornelius Fudge to hell," she softly hissed. "Damn the sodding Ministry and the pig-ignorant American DOM. And God damn those stupid wallys at the Daily Prophet who won't give me so much as the time of day." How the frigging hell am I supposed to find the location of Voldemort's supporters and hideouts if I can't get accurate data about the location of their attacks? she thought.

She looked at the stack of cutout newspaper articles sitting beside her on the desk. It was almost impossible to tell which deaths and disappearances were due to plain human, Muggle, wickedness and which were due to the Death Eaters. She had tried just about every type of model that she could, and her answers still made no sense. GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out. And people are being tortured and killed while I sit here in my back room, sort through these, and program. If only I knew what deaths were due to what, I would at least have a start.

Mike tried to help her whenever he could. She was grateful for his reports on which deaths had been caused by the Death Eaters. However, Mike was not privy to every single investigation at the Ministry. And she doubted that all the reports Mike saw were entirely accurate. At least, when she had tried to work from his data alone, she hadn't gotten any better results. She glanced over at her bookshelf. Cryptography. Epidemiology. Statistics. Forensics. Computer programming, in at least three different languages. All these books, and still no answers in any of them.

She was so tired of working on this on her own. She was tired of trying to single-handedly outdo all of Bletchley Park. She pushed herself away from the computer, got up, and started to pace. Her head was starting to hurt. She pulled out her rosary. "For the answer to this problem, O God," she murmured, closed her eyes, and began. "In nomine Patri et Filii et Spiritui Sancti. Amen. Credo in unum Deum,"** and she was off into the ancient prayer once again.

After she finished, the thought started to come into her head, Why are you working on this problem all alone?

"Because Albus asked me to," she muttered back.

Is Albus Dumbledore always right?

"Hell, no," she replied.

Who do you trust to get help from? Who hates Voldemort with as much reason as you do? And don't you know that to solve a problem, you need to add up all the Vectors?

She squeezed her eyes tight shut and groaned aloud at that pun. "My family," she muttered. Her eyes snapped open. Her family. Her family. Her father, Uncle Nicholas, Uncle David, Aunt Mary Henrietta, and her twin Aunt Anne Alexandra, who had been part of the team at Bletchley Park, a.k.a. Station X, that had broken the German Enigma code in the Muggle Second World War. And oh, they had personal reasons in this as well. Her parents had two-thirds of the little graves of their children due to Voldemort's Death Eaters. Her Uncle Nicholas Vector had his Muggle wife and their children buried in that same graveyard, also due to the Death Eaters. Mike, her brother had seen friends and colleagues dead at the Death Eaters' hands.

"Thank You for the answer to the problem, O Holy Wisdom," she said, and took out a pen to start writing to her relatives. She started singing an old Billy Joel song that Brendon had loved. "Well, our fathers fought the Second World War, spent their weekends on the Jersey Shore...." Not entirely accurate for an Englishwoman, but never mind that. She finished that song, and went into "White Cliffs of Dover," then "There'll Always Be An England," and then "When the Lights Go On Again All Over the World."