Vector's Challenge

On the next Sunday morning, Snape met Zabini and Bulstrode at the Slytherin common room. He was pleased to see them ready and dressed appropriately for the occasion, although Bulstrode's light green dress robes were a bit unfortunate. Zabini looked proper in charcoal grey dress robes, although they did tend to drown him out a bit.

Ernie Macmillan and Seamus Finnigan were shocked when Professor Snape, Millicent Bulstrode, and Blaise Zabini walked up the central aisle of Westminster Cathedral that Sunday morning. "Jaysus fecking Christ," Seamus whispered. "Macmillan, the fecking Slytherins are fecking invading."

Ernie's eyes widened as he saw the other two students and Professor Snape. "It's a sign from God. The End Times are upon us. Armageddon is frigging coming soon."

"Hush," Professor Vector hissed at them. "All are welcome in God's House; especially those most in need of His mercy. And watch your language, boys."

Ernie and Seamus were well acquainted with Professor Vector's tone, and Auror Vector's frowns. They decided it would be best to keep quiet and discuss this strange development after Mass.

Professor Snape had managed to get his hands on yet another missal during the week, and he had coached Bulstrode and Zabini about the ceremony. At least they would not all three disgrace themselves this week. He had warned Bulstrode in particular about this business of bringing the kneeler up and down with the foot alone. His fear was that if she tried it, she would set off the rest of the seats falling down like a row of dominoes.

Millie and Blaise's eyes widened when they saw the priest wearing a green vestment. They looked at the priest, then at each other, then at Professor Snape. He nodded. Our color, Millie thought. Our House color, on the body of the priest himself, and on the hangings decorating the church. We do belong here, and there is a place for us. Green and silver fit in no less than gold and red do.

All the Slytherins were shocked by the first reading, however. Not so much by the fact that the seven brothers had been tortured, but that they had defied their torturers to go ahead and take their hands and tongues, all for the sake of belief in their God. And that the brothers' belief in a life after death and punishment for those who had tortured them, had been recorded through all these years.

Professor Snape had a fine scowl on his face during the psalm and the second reading. Millie started to look at the other members of the congregation. Michael Vector was sitting close to a young woman whose hair kept on changing colors. Millie frowned at this. She must have some sort of spell on her hair, the jammy cow.

The priest finished off the Gospel reading with the words, "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. All are alive for Him. This is the Gospel of the Lord."

When the young woman turned around to shake hands, later on in the ceremony, Millie nearly swallowed her teeth. The young woman's face was changing as well as her hair. Oh, Merlin. She's a Metamorphamagus. And she seems to know Auror Vector awfully well. Millie started biting her lip, and kept watching the young woman and Auror Vector very closely.

After Mass, the Vector siblings stood in the foyer, and talked with another man who had a vague resemblance to Ted Tonks, and a woman who looked rather like Emmy. "How do you do, Aunt Alix? How was France, Uncle Martin?" Emmy asked.

"Just fine, thank you," Martin Tonks replied. He then caught sight of Ted Tonks. "Cousin Ted. How are you?"

"Doing well, thank you," Ted Tonks said. He was with Andromeda Black and the young woman Metamorphamagus. Mike laughed and tapped the young woman on the arm. "Tonksey!"

She grinned back at him. "Vector. Ready for another fun-filled week of work?"

Mike said, "I'm on light duty, Tonksey, thanks to that Dementor. I'll be joining you and the rest of the lads and lasses again in about a month or so. Give my regards to Moody tomorrow."

Millie opened her eyes wide. Tonksey is an Auror. And she must really be Tonks - oh, she's the daughter of Andromeda Black who ran off with that Muggle-born. I remember overhearing this when Mother and Grandmother would have tea, and the Mrs. Blacks would come and complain about their disgraceful children.

Snape frowned. "Where is your Aunt Phillippa, Emmy?"

Alix Tonks started to laugh. "My sister Phillippa joined the Anglican Church when she married Bennett Shacklebolt, Mr. Snape. It was quite a scandal in its day. At least, it was until Emmy's father ran off with her mother."

"Oh, really," Snape said.

Emmy blushed a bit, and Mike started frowning, and said, "Now, Auntie Alix, you know perfectly well that my mother's temporary vows were up, and she was free to leave if she wanted to."

"Oh, I know that. But it was still so shocking back then, of course. Nowadays, of course, no one would think twice about it."

"But running off with a Muggle-born like a Tonks is still a scandal, hey?" Ted Tonks put in. Now it was Alix Vector Tonks's turn to blush as Martin slid his arm around her shoulder.

"That depends on the family, Ted," Martin Tonks said.

Andromeda elbowed her husband in the ribs. "Ted, hush."

Breakfast back at Hogwarts was a rather tense affair. Macmillan, Finnigan, and Bones were sitting on the edges of their seats, and Bulstrode and Zabini were glaring back at them.

"Professor Vector, do they sing in the same style every single week?" Severus asked Emmy.

"Of course. Why would they do otherwise?" Vector replied, in a puzzled tone.

"Oh, I think it might be more interesting if they adapted some tunes from the Cure, or Echo and the Bunnymen, or Chris DeBurgh, and performed Schickele's Missa Hilarious once in a while."

Vector choked on her tea, and liquid went spraying all over the table. "Severus, are you utterly daft? There is a time and a place for everything, and punk rock and Mass do not mix! The Americans are having a difficult time enough getting rid of that God-awful folk music, let alone punk rock."

"And what's wrong with folk music and punk rock, Emmy?"

"Nothing. It's perfectly fine in its place, but it really doesn't fit in the milieu of a century-old cathedral."

The students fled the breakfast table as quickly as they could.

"Well, if the milieu and the music have to match, why wasn't the choir singing in Latin or Byzantine plainchant?"

"The Protestants stole our people and our churches, so we stole their music. Fair is fair." Emmy gave Severus a firm nod.

Now it was Severus's turn to choke on his tea at the look on Emmy's face. He started thinking, Perhaps this might work after all. "Emmy, could we sit and mark essays together?"

Emmy looked up at the ceiling, where the day looked to be crisp and clear. She nodded. "Agreed, if we can sit up in my rooms. I want to see the sunlight while it's here."

"Agreed. I'll meet you up there, Professor Vector."

Emmy gave Severus wary looks as the two of them marked essays in her sitting room. They were sitting across from each other at her large table, and she could look out the window. She had been quite startled by his attendance at Mass, and his bringing Bulstrode and Zabini along, to boot. He hadn't really seemed to be listening after the reading about the martyred family in Maccabees, and his motives for attending concerned her. Why is he coming to Mass with me? I don't think he really believes in much of anything at all. I don't know what he believes in; I only know that he was in the Death Eaters at one point. This isn't going to work. I have to give him an out.

She cleared her throat, and said, "Severus, you do realize, don't you, that you don't have to convert to Catholicism if you don't want to or if you don't believe in Christianity? Father Sorin may try to pressure you, but he is from the thirteenth century, after all, so he's not up with the most current thought on the matter."

Snape snorted. "I am only a pagan out of pure habit, as most pure-blood wizards are. I have never been particularly attached to my religion, and I haven't been to services since the last funeral I was at. For you, your religion makes a difference in what you say and do; for me, it doesn't and never has. I am more than willing to convert if it will make matters easier for all of us."

Emmy looked at him over the essay, and swallowed. "I see. Thank you, Severus. It struck me that I have been treating you unfairly, and I didn't want to force you into anything you were uncomfortable with or didn't believe."

Snape's eyes were back on his essays, and he went on with covering them with red ink. He said, "I don't think I'll be too uncomfortable. After all, if the Catholic Church has room for the Jesuits, it should have some room for me."

Emmy looked at her fiancée, thinking of whom else the Catholic Church had had room for over the centuries, such as Narcissa Malfoy's ancestor Pope Alexander Borgia. She swallowed again. "Thank you," she said.

Snape said, "Are you worried about me, or about your church if I convert?"

Emmy choked down a laugh. "That's not an 'or' question, Severus. And I think it'd be an even contest as to which I should worry about more."

Snape set his essays down. "I am curious about something, Emmy. You gave up the wizarding world, but you never gave up Catholicism? Why wouldyou want to stay in that minority?"

Emmy sighed and set her own quill back in the inkpot. She looked over at her sofa as she talked. "'To whom would we go, O Lord? You have the words of everlasting life,' and we have much better stories." she murmured to herself. Then she looked back at Severus and spoke more loudly, "There was pressure from my family to stay in the wizarding world, and pressure to leave Catholicism from the Muggles I encountered at Oxford. 'What's an intelligent young woman such as yourself doing in the Roman Catholic Church, of all things?' And that was one of the more polite questions. To rebel against my parents and society, I gave up magic but not Catholicism. At the stage of life when I was most likely to leave, I had the determination not to succumb to persecution."

Snape started laughing. "What's so funny?" Emmy asked him.

Snape retorted, "I was thinking how much of your life can be summed up as determination not to succumb."

"Oh. Does it bother you?"

"Of course not. Everybody's questioning your judgment will keep you in this marriage."

Emmy started laughing at that point, and Snape got up and started rubbing her shoulders. "Oh, thank you, Severus. That does feel good."

"You're welcome." He bent over and kissed her on the temple.

"Severus," she muttered, in a warning tone.

"I won't do anything that you don't want me to."

"That's the problem, Severus."

"What problem? I don't see any problem."

Emmy sighed and looked up at Severus. She caught his hand in hers. It was rough under hers, due no doubt to all the hand-washing he had to do from his work. She made a mental note to lend him some of the hand cream that her mother the nurse swore by. "The problem is that what I want you to do to me and what I should allow you to do to me are two separate sets. There is some overlap between the sets, but they are not identical yet."

"Eh? Come again?"

"Sorry. Mathematician jargon. Are you familiar with Venn diagrams?"

A diagram of a Venn. First you catch your Venn..."Ah, yes. The overlapping circles? I do remember those from Arithmancy."

"Yes, the overlapping circles." Emmy made a gesture with her hands, forming two circles with her fingers and thumbs. "Here is what I want you to do with me," a large circle with her thumb and middle finger, on the left hand, "and here is what I should allow you to do with me," a smaller circle with thumb and fingers on the right hand.

"Well, how much overlap is there?" I can think of plenty of things to do with my hands like this and that...

"Not as much as you want, that's for sure. And don't pretend to be Neville Longbottom with me."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You know perfectly well how Venn diagrams work."

"So I do. And shall we experiment to find out how much overlap there is, Emmy my dear?" He pulled her up from her chair, and guided her over to the sofa. Emmy had a smile on her face as Severus pulled her down onto his lap.

At the same time, Blaise Zabini and Millie Bulstrode were talking in the Slytherin common room. "So, what did you think, Millie?" Blaise asked her.

"That was absolutely incredible. The sights, the sounds, the smells -- Now I understand what my family is parodying," Millie replied.

Blaise said, "I think I'm going to go back next week."

"Why? Are you getting religion, Zabini?"

Blaise gave her a tight smile. "Maybe, or maybe I'm just doing research to become a Satanist. Or maybe it's that I'm a teenager and it's time and past for me to freak out my family. I could even start going to church regularly."

"Why stop there? Why not tell them you're studying for the Catholic priesthood?"

Zabini replied, "Oh, they'd just think I was interested in unnatural sex."

"Are you?"

Blaise said, "I don't think I've exhausted the natural possibilities yet."

Millie decided that she didn't really want to know anything more about Zabini's sex life, or lack thereof. She made her excuses, and went to take a nap. Parkinson, Greengrass, and the other Slytherin girls wouldn't be awake for quite some time, so she could get some peace and quiet.

Later on, in the afternoon, Millie Bulstrode was in the library, looking through the old Hogwarts Leaving books. She had found the ones for Professor Vector and Auror Vector's years quite easily. The Old Bastard had been a skinnier bastard back then, but the pictures of Michael Vector as a baby and as a seventeen-year-old were quite pleasing. But there weren't any pictures in any of the Leaving books from about 1983 on corresponding to the children she had seen in Professor Vector's office. She sighed. She would have to try a different tack. She had already checked Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy, but had found no entries on the Vectors in it. So the Vectors aren't good enough for the British purebloods. Not surprising if Professor Vector's grandfather was half Egyptian Muslim and half German Jew, and didn't know whom his maternal grandfather was. And if his son married an Irish Squib, there would probably be even more prejudice.

She started looking through the index for the Daily Prophet, 1960-1970. Birth of Michael Vector, son of Edmund and Aoife Vector, recorded in 1960, birth of a Theodore Jude Vector, son of Nicholas and Elizabeth Vector, recorded in 1960, birth and death of a Joseph Columcille Vector, son of Edmund and Aoife Vector, recorded in 1962. Birth and death of a John James Vector, son of Edmund and Aoife Vector, recorded in 1964. Birth of a Mary Elizabeth Fatima Vector, daughter of Edmund and Aoife Vector, recorded in 1966. Birth of a Margaret Anne Vector, daughter of Edmund and Aoife Vector, recorded in 1969.

Millie frowned. The Vectors had apparently been a prolific family. And she had to sort out which Vector was related to which. But assuming that Michael Vector and Mary Elizabeth Fatima (what a name) were Auror Vector and Professor Vector, she had a starting point. Margaret Anne Vector should have left Hogwarts sometime between 1986 and 1988.

Draco found Millie in the library, surrounded by stacks of index books, Hogwarts Leaving books, and old Daily Prophets, and scraps of parchment with scribblings on them.

"Whatever are you up to, Bulstrode?" he asked.

Millie made a face. "History of Magic research," she lied. "I need to do some extra credit if I'm to pass."

Draco frowned. "Bulstrode, I know that class is boring as hell, but you need to stay awake in there. We have to keep ahead of the Gryffies and Hufflepuffs."

Millie rolled her eyes. "I'm trying, Malfoy. Oh, would you happen to know if there's some sort of general registry book I can look at to see all the births and deaths in the Wizarding World? Who's related to whom?"

Draco laughed. "Your mother obviously doesn't tell you anything useful at all, does she, Bulstrode? Are you looking to see if Auror Vector is married or has children?"

"Sod off, Malfoy," Millie replied.

Draco's eyes gleamed. "Bulstrode and Vector, sitting in a tree..." he started to sing-song. He broke off. "Although it'd have to be a pretty big tree to support the two of you."

Millie said, "You really liked the taste of those slugs, didn't you, Malfoy? And at least neither Auror Vector or I are half-pints like some other people I could mention."

Draco sneered. "Well, he's a quarter-Mudblood half-Irishman, and you're part Troll, so I suppose it would be a good match."

Millie made a rude gesture, and Draco snickered. "Got to you, didn't I, Bulstrode? And by the way, you want to look at Who's Who in the Wizarding World." He sauntered off, having in his own mind won the exchange.

Millie was relieved to see him go. She Summoned the book Draco had mentioned, and she pulled out the 1970-1980 index for the Daily Prophet. Yet more births here to Edmund and Aoife Vector. Angela Agnes in 1971, Kevin Matthew in 1973, and Brian Luke in 1974. And then she looked at the death entries for the Vectors. There were a large number of them clustered in 1975, and all on the same date. Angela Agnes, Brian Luke, Elizabeth Anne MacGowan, Kevin Matthew, Margaret Anne, Mary Madeline, Nathaniel John, Theodore Jude.

Millie started matching birth and death dates for all the Vectors. She bit her lower lip at the results for Margaret, Angela, Kevin, and Brian. They tally with how old those ghosts looked. So why did the Old Bat and I, of all people, see them when their siblings, or whom I presume to be their siblings, couldn't? This is really strange. She gathered up her notes, making sure she had all of them, and Banished the books back to their shelves.

She Summoned the copy of the Evening Prophet for August 10, 1975. Attack on Diagon Alley, the headline read. Millie Summoned more and more newspapers from that week. A poison gas attack by the Death Eaters. Oh, poor Michael. No wonder he became an Auror. She stared at the last picture, of a fine family of six, with their proud, happy parents, which was identical to the one she had seen in Professor Vector's chambers. All his little brothers gone, and two of his little sisters. Small wonder he's so protective of Professor Vector now. She's the only one left. She pulled out the 1974 issue of the Prophet that announced Brian Luke Vector's birth. And their mother wasn't that old. Why didn't she have any more children?

She had some free time, as she was finished with all her essays, and she decided that she would go and see if she could find the Fat Friar. After all, he was a ghost himself, so he might be able to explain to her why she and Professor Snape could see the ghost Vectors, but at different ages.

Millie wandered the castle, and finally found a door that she had never seen before, and a smell of flat incense. Not as overpowering as Professor Trelawney's, but definitely incense. She heard a mumbling in Latin, which seemed to be coming from behind the door. She put her hand to the door, and opened it up. Inside, the chapel glittered with gold, glass, and color. The Fat Friar was there before the altar, mumbling in Latin. "Friar?" she asked. "May I ask you something?"

The Friar turned around. "Ah, Miss Bulstrode. How do you do?"

"I'm doing well, thank you, Friar. Just a bit curious about something."

"What is it?"

"Professor Snape and I saw some ghosts last week, of Professor Vector's younger brothers and sisters. We saw them at different ages. And Professor Vector and her brother didn't see them."

Father Sorin sighed. "Professor Snape's reasons are none of your concern, Miss Bulstrode."

Millie shrugged. "I was more curious about why we saw them differently."

"And again, I cannot tell you that, Miss Bulstrode."

Millie changed tack. "Why didn't Professor Vector and Auror Vector see their siblings?"

Father Sorin sighed. "They think that their brothers and sisters are dead and in Heaven with God."

"And they're not?" Millie asked.

Father Sorin bit his lip. "They have volunteered to come back, as I did when I was murdered. And apparently it is not part of their task to have their older brother and sister see them yet."

"Why did I see them, then?" Millie whispered.

Father Sorin shrugged. "That I do not know, Miss Bulstrode, but I can deduce that you are important to the Vector family somehow."

"Me?"

Father Sorin shrugged. "Why and how I do not know. But that you are important to them, yes, I sense that."

Millie remembered Professor Snape's advice. "Friar, Professor Snape told me to ask you more about Catholicism. He said, 'The Catholic religion seems to be fairly important to the Vectors. You will probably want to inform yourself more about it before you commit yourself even further. Professor Vector seems to like spending time in there on her knees, chanting until her voice wears out and she can't get up without assistance. It appears to be some sort of strange Catholic thing, doing penance for what a thirteenth-century celibate tells her are sins.' And I didn't know what you would consider to be a sin."

Father Sorin raised an eyebrow. "Well. Very interesting. Let us sit down, child..."