Vector's Challenge

Chapter 17

Emmy Vector surveyed the costumes she had found so far. For the tribal part of her routine, she had a teal-green halter top, sleeveless and with a high neck, with a great deal of silver embroidery and sequins, and a full teal-green skirt with matching embroidery around the hem and the waist. It had a matching teal-green veil. It was a moderately daring outfit, but nothing too outré by Muggle standards. She supposed that if it wasn't green enough for the Slytherins, she could always change the fabric color with magic. Sinistra and Figg, the Slytherin female faculty, would certainly tell her if the color was "too Ravenclaw."

She took a deep breath as she looked at the other costume, the bedlah as she should call it. She had ordered it from a little shop in the USA, and it was wildly outrageous. It was emerald green and silver, as the terms of the bet provided. The brassiere had long strands of green and silver beads dangling off virtually all the front of it, giving it an almost waterfall-like appearance. The matching belt had the same type of strands of beads on it. It was high-quality, all the beads and sequins sewn on, nothing glued, but, Christ, was it ever daring! Even wearing it with a skirt, harem pants, and a veil, it would still be guaranteed to have every male eye on her.

She turned her attention to the third costume she had found. It was a sage green with a top that covered about as much of her as the halter top did. A slightly lower front neckline, but most of her back was covered, even if her shoulders were bare. And all of her legs were covered by the split skirt. She pulled out a silver veil. It matched the third costume very well.

The fourth costume was made from hunter-green velvet, with silver embroidery. Theoretically speaking, it was a dress with detached sleeves. The halter top was connected with the skirt, after all, even if most of her back and half of her belly were bare. The dress appeared to have a silvery belt at the waist, with long strings of silver beads as a fringe down past her hips. The skirt was tight and slit up to the middle of her thighs on the sides. The sleeves had so many cutouts in them that they looked as if a dragon had gotten at them.

Her fifth costume was a dark green dress, or beledi, that fit rather closely from shoulders to the knees, and with tight sleeves from shoulders to elbows, but then belling out quite widely down to the wrists. It had silver embroidery around the low neckline, on the bodice, from knees to the hem, at the hem, at the elbows, and around the wrists. Asides from the fit, the neckline, and the slits from her ankles to her knees, it was almost normal by the wizarding world's standards.

She frowned. She needed some other female opinion about what would be appropriate. She wondered if it would be better to ask the girls of her House, or her fellow female faculty. Her mother would be of absolutely no help, as she was still rebelling against the image of the novice nun that she had been before she had married Emmy's father. Aoife Finnigan Vector would tell her to wear whatever showed off her figure best, and blithely disregard any possible consequences. It was difficult being the age that she was. She and Severus were the two youngest faculty members by quite some years. Almost everyone else was of another generation. And having no living sisters to ask didn't help matters either.

Well, maybe she would have to take the same approach that the duck-hunting mathematicians did in the joke. "If the faculty are a generation older, and the students are a generation younger, then on average, if I put them together, they'll be my age," she murmured. "Seventh-year Ravenclaw women plus the faculty. That should be a representative group. No, wait." The female faculty were McGonagall, Sinistra, Hootch, Trelawney, Sprout, Figg this year, and she supposed Grubbly-Plank, Pince and Pomfrey should be counted in as well. Nine female faculty needed at least nine students to balance them out. So she needed a few more younger women. "Let's see, if I invite the Head Girl and all the female Prefects, this should work out to give me a median age close to mine," she muttered to herself.

She looked in her filing cabinet for the list of this year's prefects. She took up her quill, and began to pen her invitations. "Tea and a fashion show, that ought to do it," she murmured.

When Emmy Vector hosted the tea a few days later, she was pleasantly relieved to see that that fraud Trelawney had not shown up. Grubbly-Plank had excused herself due to age and infirmity, but McGonagall, Sinistra, Hootch, Sprout, and Figg, had all shown up. Madam Pomfrey and Madam Pince stopped by briefly to get a cup of tea, but they had to be on duty, so made their excuses for not staying long. The young ladies who had been able to come, namely, Alicia Spinnet, Su Li, Susan Bones, Thaliana Greengrass, and Hermione Granger, seemed a bit nervous at first among so many older women.

"So what's the fashion show?" Sprout asked, after everyone had settled into tea, sherry, cakes, and sandwiches. "Is this something to do with that bet?"

Vector smiled. "Yes," she replied. "I simply can't make up my mind on what to wear, and I've got several costumes to choose from."

"Ooh, this sounds like fun," Hootch said. "A pity you have to stick with all green and silver, m'dear."

"There's a lot more you can do with green and silver than you would think, Hetty," Vector replied.

McGonagall shot a sharp look at Susan Bones. "Girl, whatever are you putting in that punch?" she asked. Bones looked terrified. "Come on, girl, I can smell the vodka from over here," McGonagall said. "Whatever are they teaching you here these days, anyway? Don't you know that you should be using Jamaican rum instead?"

Vector shrugged. "Thank God for small favors. At least she's not using Everclear, Minerva."

"Everclear?" Sinistra asked. "I thought that was a Muggle band."

Vector grimaced. "That and a type of alcoholic beverage. About 95 percent ethanol. Very cheap and very popular among the Americans."

"Yes, thank Merlin you're back in civilization now, right?" McGonagall said. She waved her wand at the punch bowl, to fill it with a fresh batch of non-alcoholic brew. "Do you want rum or firewhiskey in it, Emmy?"

Vector replied, slowly, "I bow to your superior experience and palate, Minerva." She was vaguely starting to remember her father's stories about McGonagall. Edmund Vector and Minerva McGonagall had been in the same year at Hogwarts. Emmy had never credited her father's stories before. The hell-raiser her father had described could not possibly be the same woman who ran Gryffindor House with an iron hand.

"All right, Emmy, let's start the fashion show," Figg said. "You need some proper Slytherin advice to deal with that Snape."

Vector went into her bedroom and put on the first costume, the teal green one with the halter top and the silver embroidery on the full skirt, and the matching hip scarf. When she came out, the other teachers emitted gasps, and the girls started blushing.

"Merlin," Figg said. "Talk about showing off your assets." The costume left Emmy's shoulders and most of her back bare, as well as part of her midriff. Emmy pulled the matching teal green veil up around her shoulders, and twitched her silver headdress slightly.

"Oh, Artemis," Sinistra said, giggling. "His eyes are going to pop out of his head when he sees you in that."

"Good," Emmy shot back. "I am tired of him talking to me like I'm still a naughty little first-year."

"Oh, he's definitely not going to think that any more, Emmy," Hootch said.

Most of the students were all blushing and looking everywhere but Vector now. "Cor lummee," Greengrass whispered. "You're positively beautiful, ma'am."

Hermione and Su Li were shaking their heads. "It's too much," Su Li said. "Too --- too something," Hermione chimed in.

Vector thought about the arc from Hermione to McGonagall. The caterpillar and the full-grown moth, that's what those two are. "All right, young ladies," Vector said. "I'll try the more conservative costume, shall I?"

She went to her bedroom and changed into the sage green outfit, the one that was practically trousers and a camisole, and threw a silver veil around her body. Then she came back out.

"That's more conservative?" Su Li whispered.

Vector looked down. "Well, I thought that it covered a bit more of me, at any rate," she muttered. She twirled around.

"The color is nice on you, dear," Sprout said.

"Too washed out," Figg replied. "She needs something that's going to stand out in the candlelight. I liked the first outfit better."

Emmy Vector laughed. "All right, I'll try the third one." She went back and changed into the waterfall brassiere and belt, with a green silk chiffon skirt, and kept the silver veil.

All the witches gasped when she came out. "Now that is an outfit!" Figg said. "He definitely won't take his eyes off you, girl."

"Too much," Su Li and Sprout chorused.

"Too outré," Hermione and Alicia Spinnet said.

"He'll want to shag you on the table for sure," Hootch said.

McGonagall grinned and said, "It'll be something to look back to when you're my age."

Hootch looked over at McGonagall. "Minerva, are you're telling me that you stopped?" she asked.

McGonagall smirked. "I've stopped some things," she retorted.

"Hetty!" Emmy interrupted, before McGonagall could deliver Too Much Information. "Just how much rum punch have you had?" Granger, easily influenced by authority, looked as if she were starting to take notes.

"Not nearly enough, Emmy, I can tell you that much," Hetty Hootch retorted. "And none of the rest have had nearly enough, either." She waved her wand, and everyone's glasses refilled with spiked punch. She pressed a drink onto Vector. "Any more costumes, Emmy?" she asked, after Vector had choked down a glass of rum punch.

Emmy sighed. "Two more," she said.

"Get on with it, girl, we haven't got all night," Figg said.

So Emmy went into her bedroom, and put on the full beledi dress. She decided against the veil with this one, but she put the silver headdress back on.

When she came out, the girls sighed with relief. "That looks much more decent," Su Li said.

Figg shook her head. "Too prissy. He'll think that you're trying to welsh out on the bet, keeping yourself all covered like that. You need to show some more skin, Emmy."

Vector raised an eyebrow. "Do you want me to go out there naked, Arabella?" she asked.

McGonagall laughed. "It wouldn't be the first time there's been naked dancing in the Great Hall," she said.

"Oh, really," Vector replied. Father never told me about that.

"Well, it didn't start out as naked dancing. We useta have dancing classes, and balls every term here at Hogwarts when I wasa girl," McGonagall replied. "But then in my sixth year, the Slytherin boys gotta hold of some Disrobing and Unravelment Charms. Used them at the Spring Formal on Headmaster Dippet's daughter - they wanted to see if it was all her, or if she padded her brassiere."

"That's a lie, Minerva," Figg replied. "Way I heard it, it wasda Gryffindor girls who thought that she padded her brassiere, and used the charms on the Dippet gel outta sheer jealousy thata Hufflepuff gel had da best figgah in her year."

"Now, now ladies, let's keep it civil," Vector said. "Water under the bridge, an' all that."

McGonagall gave a hiccup. "Anyway, the Gryffindors fixed the Slytherins but good. We all learned the Disrobing and Unravelment Charms, and for weeks, people were getting stripped all around the castle. 'Specially your father and uncles, Emmy. Merlin but were they ever cute back then."

Vector choked on her tea. Sinistra pressed a glass of punch into her hand, and Vector gulped it down, frantically trying to drown the image of her father getting stripped naked by lustful witches - by Minerva McGonagall, of all people!

"A'course, I never stripped Eddie Vector, but a lot of the Ravenclaw girls did, and a lot of the Slytherin ones, too," McGonagall went on.

Dear God, no wonder my father waited until 1959 to get married, Vector thought. She cleared her throat. "Are there any spells that counter the Disrobing and Unravelment Charms?" she asked.

"Oh shure there are," Figg replied. "We Slytherins learned those right away. It was that or catch pneu--pneu--the flu from getting stripped by the Gryffindors all the time."

Vector's voice rose in pitch as she asked, "Can you teach them to me, please?"

"Ya'shure you don't want to know the Disrobing & Unravelment, to useh on Snape?" Figg asked. "Or maybe a Streakers' Spell?" The other witches started laughing.

Vector could feel her face burning. She replied, "Well, I'm certainly not going to give you all a ruddy show." She paused for a moment. Something was wrong with that statement.

"Well, what's this dance for then?" Sprout asked.

Vector cleared her throat. "Sorry. I meant that I'm not going to show you a naked Snape." She thought she heard murmured responses of, "Damn!" and "Too bad!," as well as some finger-snaps.

"Are you gonna go naked then?" Sprout replied.

"No!" Vector shouted. "And if this keeps up, I will bloody well show up in a green-and-silver-dyed potato sack! And fully veiled like a Saudi woman!"

Silence fell. The older witches looked at each other. "We're sorry, Emmy," Sinistra said. The other witches nodded.

Vector nodded back, and started to talk more seriously to the faculty. "Now. I need to learn the anti-Unravelment and anti-Disrobing Charms. Anything else?'

"Don't forget to cast the Anti-Libido Charm on the male students," Sinistra put in.

"And some charms ta protect the finishes on the table-tops," McGonagall said.

Emmy replied, "Excuse me?"

"Well, if ya dance on the table-tops, you need to protect the finish. I remember Mr. Ogg constantly yelling at ush for ruining the finishes when we danced on the table-tops, McGonagall replied.

Emmy shook her head. "I don't really think that those will be necessary. I'm not planning to dance on the tables."

"Better shafe than sorry," Figg said. "So what are ya planning to do, anyway?"

"Oh, I want to surprise everyone, Arabella," Vector replied. Everyone fell silent, contemplating what Vector was planning to do with her dance.

"Well, I suppose I'd better show the last costume to you," Vector said. She went into her bedroom and changed into the dress with the Holes, as she thought of it. She grabbed the silver veil again.

When she came out, all the older witches oohed and ahhed, and started to clap. Figg started making noise as if she were at a Quidditch match. "That's the ticket, girl! Now that's a good choice!"

Sinistra started applauding as well. "That'll teach him, Emmy! Subtlety is wasted on the male brain!"

"Even on the male Slytherin brain?" Emmy asked.

Sinistra and Figg laughed. "Some men need to be hit with a brick," Sinistra said, and then Figg finished, "And some need ta be hit with a really big brick."

McGonagall chimed in, "And if you want a man just like your daddy, you'd better bring down the best part of a wall on him!"

Sprout laughed. "With Snape, you need the whole ruddy brickyard!"

Emmy covered her eyes at this. Oh. No. McGonagall did not have a crush on my father. She did not, she did not! And please God, tell me that Sprout does not want Snape, please, please, please...She decided that she needed another glass of rum punch.

Four of the girls watched wide-eyed; Susan Bones had sampled too much punch, and by now was snoring in a corner.

Eventually, McGonagall, Sprout, Hootch, and Figg started to sing a song in four-part harmony. "And what is the use of men, fair ladies? If we had any sense, we would send them to Hades. They say all things have a use, e'en leeches, but to find it of men, we must look in their breeches."

Hermione said, "My God, I thought that Shakespeare was making it up about the 3 witches in Macbeth."

McGonagall snapped, "Don't say the name of that play; it's bad luck!"

Hermione replied, "Only for actors, Professor McGonagall."

McGonagall sat back in her chair. She said, "Well, it was an actor who told me that, come to think of it. Larry was his name. A bit of a shy fellow, but after a couple of Sonorus charms, he'd do anything you asked... I always liked actors."

Hermione wanted to ask if Larry was Sir Laurence Olivier, but she had had so much to drink that her words were coming out funny. She decided to keep quiet, and ask McGonagall about it later.

After that, Emmy started singing "Green Grows the Laurel." When she got to the verse, "Now I oft' times do wonder why maidens love men, And oft' times I wonder why young men love them; But from my own knowledge I will have you to know/That the men are deceivers wherever they go," she thought of her late husband, Brendon Donovan, and how she had seen him at that last party before he died, with his old girlfriend sitting on his lap kissing him. She went on with the chorus, "Green grows the laurel, and soft falls the dew. Don't change the green laurel/For the red, white and blue."

End of Chapter 17