Vector's Challenge

Chapter 25

Draco Malfoy in Arithmancy class on that Friday

On the Friday after Halloween, Draco Malfoy stalked into the Arithmancy classroom, and slammed his books down on the desk. Professor Vector raised an eyebrow. "Are you all right, Malfoy?" she asked in a calm tone.

Draco spat out, "Why should you care, you slut?"

"Malfoy! I will not tolerate that sort of language in my classroom!" Vector said. She pointed her wand at him, spoke a word, and suddenly he was spitting out soap bubbles. "And a month of detention for your insolence, to be served with Filch."

Draco continued to call Vector names, and finished with, "You whore! How could you do that to my father!"

Vector slapped him across the face, glared at him, and snapped out, "Detention for three months, Malfoy. And you will either apologize to me here and now or leave my classroom. I will not tolerate your juvenile behavior any longer."

Draco sneered back, "I'll tell my father on you."

Vector curled her lip. "What makes you think I'm afraid of you? I'm not going to let your father push me around, and I certainly won't take it from you, young man. And telling your father everything is what got this whole mess started in the first place. If he hadn't known from you that I was dancing, he wouldn't have bothered to show up on Halloween night, so this is your fault, Malfoy."

"Oh, I don't think that you object to the result of being with Professor Snape," Malfoy shouted back, face flushed red. "You certainly spent enough time with him that night and the next morning."

"My engagement to Professor Snape and our private dealings with each other are none of your concern," Vector retorted. "Six months detention with Mr. Filch, Malfoy. And get out of my classroom until and unless you apologize to me."

Draco Malfoy picked up his books and left, still snarling sotto voce and spitting out soap bubbles at every curse word.

After class, Emmy got an owl from Dumbledore, and went to his office.

"I understand that you had to ask Malfoy to leave your classroom today?" Dumbledore asked her.

Emmy made a faint noise deep in her throat, almost a growl. "That boy was talking to me as if I were a Soho streetwalker."

"He is quite upset over his father's interest in you," Dumbledore said. "And I think he had a regard for you as well."

Emmy muttered, in a very Irish accent, "Oh Jaysus Christ. I'm collecting the whole frigging set of Slytherins. Draco, Lucius, and Snape. Bloody frigging wonderful." She glared at Dumbledore, and said in a very correct Oxbridge accent, "I can tell you this much, sir, he's not coming back into my classroom until and unless he apologizes to me and to the class."

"I did not expect you to readmit him into the class if he did not do so," Dumbledore said. "But what about the OWLS?"

Emmy blew a breath out of her mouth. "Well, I'm certainly not going to give him private tutoring, sir. As far as I'm concerned, he can go ahead and take the Arithmancy OWL, but I'm not going to teach him anything until he gets his head out of his arse."

"Are there any senior students who could teach him?" Dumbledore asked.

Emmy frowned. "Mmm. None of the Slytherin sixth-years did all that well, and they're not taking the Advanced Arithmancy class. The seventh-years have their NEWTS to revise for. And asking a Gryffindor or Hufflepuff to teach him would be an exercise in futility. He won't bother to listen to any of them. In Ravenclaw, Chang did quite well last year, as I recall."

"You think that Miss Chang should teach him and not Miss Bulstrode?" Dumbledore asked.

Emmy smiled tightly. "I think that Miss Bulstrode is still content to hide her light under a bushel for a little while longer. She's got her own OWLS to worry about as well. And Miss Chang is a pureblood, a scholar, and an athlete. He might have a little respect for her."

Dumbledore smiled faintly. "I see. Very well. I will ask Flitwick and Snape to arrange the tutoring. And Emmy, do be careful."

Emmy nodded. "Yes, sir."

Dumbledore leaned over, and whispered, "How are the wedding plans going?"

Emmy shook her head. "Not well. For one, he doesn't want children."

Dumbledore frowned. "I see. You've seen him dealing with children and this surprised you?"

Emmy muttered, "Well, they do say it's different with your own."

Dumbledore said, "All right, let's imagine Snape dealing with a small child who's just like Snape."

Emmy's mouth twitched into a faint smile.

Dumbledore went on, "If you took a poll of everyone at Hogwarts, the virtually unanimous opinion would be that he hates children, and the 2% who say differently would say he likes them roasted with onions and potatoes on the side."

Emmy pursed her lips, and said, "Well, I want children, and I want his children. He's just going to have to lump it."

Dumbledore attempted to repress a shudder, put his face into his hands, and mumbled, "I'll have to make a note to be retired or dead before your offspring get here, as none of the genetic possibilities look good. Your looks and his temperament? Or vice versa? They definitely will have brains...and their upbringing to boot." He sighed, looked back up, and went on, loudly, "And what did you do when he told you he didn't want children?"

Emmy shrugged. "I invited him to leave, he refused, and then I cast a one-hour Petrificus charm on him, went into my bedroom, and locked the door."

Dumbledore shook his head. "Very bad tactics, Emmy. You never want to give him a chance to brood on his injuries if you can possibly avoid it. It only gives him a chance to refine his cutting remarks."

Emmy sighed. "All right, I'll keep that in mind." There was silence for a while.

"So what will the resolution be?" Dumbledore asked.

"Well, if he doesn't want to be a father and is, I'll wind up being a single mother, I suppose."

"Is that a possibility?" Dumbledore asked.

Emmy sighed. "Perhaps. I'm not sure."

Dumbledore's voice was cold. "Really. May I remind you that your contract has a morals clause?"

Emmy snapped, "Let's consider whom you've hired as Defense professors over the last four years. Having Voldemort growing out of the back of one's head is rather more serious than me bearing a child out of wedlock."

Dumbledore retorted, "Well, as long as you can keep the baby covered with a turban, there won't be any problem."

She started laughing at first, bitter, hollow laughter, and then it turned into crying. Dumbledore handed her a handkerchief, and she mopped her face with it. Emmy compressed her lips together. "He said that he was unfit to be a father, Albus." She closed her mouth again, stared into the fire, and shook her head. "It's not going to work. We're too different, and he doesn't understand any of my beliefs. I'll have to break the engagement quietly. Maybe pick a few dozen more fights with him so that he agrees to call it off." She swallowed, and tried to suppress the tears from starting again.

Meanwhile, Snape was in his quarters, and talking to Father Sorin once again about Emmy.

"You told her that you did not want to have children? That you would be an unfit father? You imbecile of a pig!" Father Sorin was acting and sounding very French at the moment.

"What should I have told her? Should I have lied to her?"

"You stupid nitwit! She told you she wanted to try to have children!"

"So now she's angry with me because she wants children and I don't," Snape drawled.

"Not only is she angry, but she could refuse to marry you and it would be perfectly justified," Father Sorin growled. "And me, I would back her up on it."

"I thought you were on my side, dammit," Snape retorted. "Why are you changing your mind?"

"Because you do not have the faintest comprehension of what the end of marriage is, you stupid Slytherin!" Father Sorin said.

Snape made a very rude gesture, and responded, "Sod off, you bloody idiot ghost."

"Sacre bleu! I tell you, Snape, that the goodness of marriage consists of faithfulness, openness to offspring or life, and the sacrament of permanence, and so far you have bungled two out of three!"

"I have not bungled two out of three," Snape said. "I have only bungled one so far."

"Kissing her brother is not a bungle of faithfulness? " Father Sorin shook his head. "You Slytherins may have ambition, but you are all as stupid as stumps when it comes to dealing with the opposite sex."

"Oh, really. So how do I get myself out of this one, O Wise Hufflepuff?" Snape dryly asked him.

"Grovel. Plead, beg, say that you were overcome with shock and weren't thinking clearly. Say that you will reconsider your position."

"Give in right away and lie and tell her, yes I want half-a-dozen children, that I want to attempt to outdo the Weasleys?" Snape replied sarcastically.

"Bah. She's too smart to believe that. But tell her that you will, oh 'work through your issues about fatherhood' is I believe how they would say it these days," Father Sorin said.

Snape snorted. "What issues about fatherhood?"

Father Sorin glared back at him. "Men and women naturally wish to reproduce, to have children. The ones that don't - well, they have no children, and so the heritable instinct is to have children. So therefore, if a person does not wish to have children, there is something that happened to that person that drowns out the natural instinct."

Snape shook his head. "Preposterous. It's irresponsible to have children in a war."

Father Sorin shouted, "I was around here when the Black Death was killing off half of England, and people were still having children then! It's no excuse! The world is never going to be a safe place to have children. You have children in the hope that you can make things better, and that's just the way things are. And what makes you think that you're unfit to be a father?"

Snape glared at the Friar. "Father Sorin, I contributed materially to the death of all her younger siblings, two sisters and two brothers, and the youngest was less than a year old. The other deaths I am responsible for in that attack were her aunt, her cousins, and many other innocent people, and this attack happened by the time I was sixteen years old. I swore allegiance to the most evil wizard of modern times, I poisoned and tortured and killed people as though they were laboratory animals, no, worse than laboratory animals. My own father hated me, and constantly called me a sniveling weakling."

He was face-to-face with Father Sorin now, and continued, "And you think that a man like me deserves to be a father? That he can stay around young innocent children and not corrupt them? That some little girl will have the right to call him 'father,' and bring him her dolls to fix?" He shook his head. "I can't do it, Father Sorin, I can't. Emmy Vector deserves better than to have me father her children."

Father Sorin looked back at him. "Justice is getting what you deserve, mercy is not getting what you deserve, and grace is getting what you do not deserve. And sacraments are instruments of grace, so you always get what you do not deserve from them."

"So I don't deserve her, but I should go after her anyway? And what the hell do I do about my involvement in the murder of her family?"

"Confess to her and do penance," Father Sorin promptly replied. "And think about your father's mistakes with you, and resolve and act to correct them with your own children." Father Sorin swirled around Snape. "Go ask Emmy Vector to teach you how to pray, Severus Snape." And the Friar vanished.