Vector's Challenge

Chapter 32

Snape went up to the Owlry with two letters in his hand. The first was a message to Edmund Vector, asking him for a meeting on "a matter of private importance." The second was a message to Emmy, saying, "Emmy dear, can we talk?" He had cheated with the second message, and put a tracer into it, so that he could track That Woman down.

Emmy Vector had attempted to work on more problems for Dumbledore that afternoon and evening at her office at the University, but her efforts had been quite unsuccessful. She had finally conceded temporary defeat and gone home to her flat. She had been talking to her pet snake Blanche, eating ice cream straight out of the carton, and crying.

She heard a tapping on her window, and opened it up for the post owl. She saw the message it carried, and frowned. It looks like Snape's handwriting. Not that he's written much to me, the treacherous bastard. But I've seen it on the students' records. She nodded to the owl, fed it a treat, and told it, "No reply." She threw the message into the fire. The owl flew off, and she kept talking to Blanche. "Blanche darling, men are fundamentally untrustworthy."

Snape had tracked the letter down, and Apparated in the alley next to the building. He used the Designo me charm again, and followed his wand into the building. He quietly opened Emmy's door, and entered into her flat. He heard Emmy talking, "Men are all pigs, Blanche darling, regardless of species. All they want is sex, and then they'll leave you without a word. Don't trust men, sweetheart."

Snape grew quite irritated at this. What do you mean regardless of species? Is this what Father Sorin meant about complicated lust? "Have you finished slandering my character and my sex with your female friend?" he asked as he entered Emmy's bedroom. Emmy gasped at the sight of Snape. Snape recoiled when he saw Emmy sitting on a bed with a large white boa constrictor in her lap, licking tears off her face. "What the bloody devil is that?" he asked.

Emmy sniffled, and her mouth twitched. "Snape, this is my pet snake Blanche. Blanche, this is Severus Snape."

Snape stared at her. "You have a pet snake."

Emmy nodded. "Yes."

Blanche slid off Emmy's lap, and toward Snape, making threatening motions and hissing. Emmy said, "Blanche, be nice. Behave yourself." Emmy got off the bed and gestured at Blanche.

Snape retreated to the bedroom doorway. He could have sworn that the damned snake smirked at him before it went back to its mistress. He asked Emmy, "Why can't you have a cat like a normal witch?"

Emmy's mouth twitched again, into something resembling a smile this time. "What's the fun in that? A cat is nothing more than a snake with fur and legs." She petted the snake, and Blanche writhed in seeming pleasure.

Snape cleared his throat. "Better not say that in front of McGonagall. I'll ask you again. Why do you have a snake?"

Emmy smiled. "I got her to dance with years ago. But now she's a bit big for me to dance with."

"I'll say," Snape muttered. "Are you a Parselmouth, by any chance?"

Emmy shook her head. "No. Some belly dancers have pet snakes."

Snape said, "So you could have danced with her on Halloween night?" He mentally entertained the fantasy of Emmy in that waterfall costume with the white snake accompanying her. She'd look like a proper mate for a Slytherin. Green and silver, and the white snake.

Emmy shook her head. "She's too big, Snape."

Snape stared at the snake. Blanche butted her head against the empty ice cream carton, and proceeded to investigate the inside. Emmy shook her head, picked up the carton, and said, "Blanche, I fed you some nice fat rats five days ago. You don't need to eat anything else for another five days, and you most certainly do not need ice cream. It does not agree with you at all, and you know that."

Blanche hissed at her mistress, and proceeded to slither out the bedroom door. Snape jumped out of the snake's way as she passed him. Emmy followed her snake. "Blanche, come back here. I don't want to spend hours searching for you in the heating duct system again."

Snape followed Emmy as she chased after Blanche. Blanche slithered into the kitchen, and Emmy caught her and held her. Blanche hissed again and again at her mistress. "Blanche, what the devil has gotten into you? I've never seen you act this way before." Blanche moved down her mistress's body and coiled herself around Emmy's hips. "Blanche!" Emmy scolded her. "Stop that. Severus is going to think that you're utterly uncivilized."

"Severus is going to think that you're damned lucky," Snape said.

Emmy blushed. "Severus!"

"What has that snake got that I haven't, that you let her hold you around the hips and not me?" Snape asked.

Emmy retorted, "It's more what she doesn't have, and you've got, Severus." She then realized what she had said, and blushed a deeper shade of red.

"Here, let me take her for you," Snape said. He reached out a hand, and Blanche hissed and nipped at him. "Ouch! Damned insolent snake."

Emmy grabbed Blanche behind her head, and said, "Bad snake. Into your box with you, Miss Blanche." Emmy carried Blanche back to her cage, shut the door, and locked it.

Snape said, "You like playing with danger, Emmy. Keeping pet snakes, seducing Slytherins, what next? Taking on a nest of Death Eaters?"

Emmy glared at him. "Severus, why are you here besides upsetting my snake?"

Snape replied, "Were you going to wait and tell me about Blanche on the wedding night?"

Emmy replied, "No, there are several things I expected you to learn over the course of the engagement. And I don't see why a Slytherin of all people should be upset over an innocent boa constrictor."

Snape retorted, "We don't believe in innocent snakes."

Emmy replied, "Be wise as serpents, gentle as doves?"

Snape retorted, "I think that's another religious reference, and I think I've had more than my fill of them for the day."

Emmy replied very coldly, "Oh, really." Her hand went to her wand.

Snape stalked over to the piece of furniture that was furthest from the door, so she'd have a harder time throwing him out. He sat down, heavily. "I came to apologize for this afternoon. I was summoned from Albus's office to a Death Eater meeting, and I heard the Dark Lord do what Father Sorin told me was a parody of the Mass."

Emmy's mouth dropped open, and her eyes widened. She gasped, "Oh, Severus. Are you all right?"

Snape shrugged. "Yes. It was another traitor who was tortured and executed."

Emmy frowned and asked, "Was it somebody you knew?"

He was quite surprised by her question. He felt absurdly pleased. He replied, "I knew him since he was eleven and at Hogwarts. He was a murderer, a Death Eater, et cetera. He died in agony screaming for help, and there wasn't any."

Emmy replied, "I'm sorry." She folded her hands and mentally ran through the old Catholic prayer, Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest forever in peace. Amen.

Snape noticed her lips moving, and said, "I'm sorry. I should have told you or gotten Albus to tell you."

Emmy realized that this was what he had arrived from when she spoke to him that afternoon. "Oh, sweet Christ. Severus, I'm sorry. I should have known that you weren't planning to smugly take advantage of me."

He replied dryly, "Oh, I was, I suppose. What was it you said, 'using someone else to escape?'"

She said, "Oh." She squared her shoulders, and asked, "Do you still want that?"

He was rather surprised. He shook his head and said, "It doesn't seem to be working well for either of us, that strategy."

She sat down beside him, took his hand, and said, "We are a proper pair, aren't we?"

Snape replied, "A proper pair of what?"

The snake hissed at that point. Emmy leaned over and said, "Quiet, Blanche."

Snape asked her, "Have you had Potter talk to that snake?"

Emmy looked back at him and replied, "No, I haven't brought her to Hogwarts yet."

Snape looked at the snake and said, "That might be just as well." The snake hissed again.

Emmy said, "She's very, very strange as it is. I'm a bit afraid to bring her to Hogwarts."

Snape asked, "There's no chance she's an Animagus, is there?"

Emmy frowned. "I don't think so. She's been a snake for about four years now, and I've never seen her change forms."

Snape replied, "But you don't have a pedigree for her, or anything of that nature?"

Emmy said, "Well, I do have papers for her, and she is a pure-blood recessive. She'd have to be to have albino coloring."

Snape thought, Well, that settles one problem. What would the insult for a snake of unknown ancestry be? Mudblood isn't quite appropriate. They're cold-blooded. Would you say Slushblood? "Emmy, there is no way that I will kiss you in front of this snake, lest Potter meet it and hear all about it."

Emmy replied, "Well, I'm sure that Blanche would be very discreet."

Snape said, "The only two people she could talk to are Potter and the Dark Lord. Would you want either of them to know about our love life?"

Emmy said, "Well, I can't imagine Voldemort listening to a long recitation of exactly what we did."

Snape hissed, "Don't even joke about that."

Emmy gulped, and said, "I'm sorry. It's the Irish in me, to joke in the face of death."

Snape snorted, and said, "When do you stop?"

Emmy replied, "Well, death is ever-present."

Snape rolled his eyes. "You are part English. Try to remember it."

Emmy said, "I don't want to wait that long to get the jokes."

Snape shook his head. "Well, you must be Irish. Here you are, cozying up to the English invader."

Emmy wailed, "Severus!" and jumped up and threw a pillow at him. It missed. Her stomach rumbled.

Snape raised an eyebrow. "Hungry after an entire carton of ice cream?"

Emmy replied, "It was only a quarter of the carton." She stood up. "Well, Severus, what do you want to have for dinner?"

Snape shuddered. "No meat. Nothing that even looks like rare meat. I'm really not that hungry."

Emmy raised an eyebrow. "Have you had anything to eat since breakfast?"

Snape shook his head. "No. I didn't eat. Nor do I want to."

Emmy let out a slow breath. She thought of the wake for her siblings, and how her aunts had all taken over the kitchen from her mother. She replied, "I'll cook something and you can just look at it for a while."

She started to fry some potatoes in butter, pure comfort food that she remembered from her childhood. She nearly reached for the bacon in the refrigerator, but checked herself. "Do you want any parsley or kale in this, Severus?" she asked. He was standing in the doorway of the kitchen watching her.

"Suit yourself," Severus replied. Emmy frowned, and decided that Severus was too English to appreciate colcannon. "I'll add a little bit of dried parsley and some onions, then," she told him.

She asked him as she cooked, "Are you in additional danger now, Severus?"

He replied, "Probably not."

She nodded and turned her attention back to the potatoes. She tasted them, and decided they needed a bit of salt and pepper. She asked, "Has this happened before?'

He said, "Yes."

The potatoes kept on cooking. Emmy frowned, and decided that what the potatoes needed was more butter. She took it out of the refrigerator, and put some more in. She asked, "Has what happened today happened before?"

He sighed. "Not in quite some time. And the last time I saw it, I wasn't guilty of what the victim was being punished for."

She looked at him, and said, "What you're doing is important and it is right."

The potatoes started smelling better. He thought, Father Sorin was right about this. They ate dinner together, and Flooed back to Hogwarts afterwards. Snape walked her to the door of her quarters, and left her there with a chaste kiss. He thought that night as he got ready for bed, I might actually end up sleeping tonight, and I hadn't expected to do that. He fell asleep remembering Emmy in a Muggle kitchen, with the smell of potatoes and butter.

End of Chapter 32