Sub Rosa

Chapter 26 – Fancy Arithmancy

Kathryn was barely aware of the others around her. She was most aware of Severus at her elbow, but even that was muted. The equations were singing through her mind, one thought leading to another. Solut wer were firing off in her, changing her petiontions and re-patterning her mind.

There was a moment in Arithmancy when possibilities opened before you like the petals of a flower and you looked into the heart of creation and the answers just came. She was almost there.

She felt a chair beneath her and she pulled out the quill again. She could see the balance point and she could feel the solution. She saw the answer and it sparkled like the jewel in the lotus. She reached for it and felt her mind click into it with something akin to completion. Her hand moved without her conscious volition and she scribbled the theorem that would describe the state they were in.

“Yes.” Suddenly exhausted, she leaned back from the table and woke to the fact that Albus, Vector, Minerva and Severus were sitting around the table, drinking tea and staring at her. She blushed scarlet and dropped her quill.

“Welcome back, Kathryn.” Albus chuckled and pushed a cup of tea towards her.

“How long was I gone for?” She asked in a tiny voice, embarrassment washing over her.

“We have been sitting here for about an hour as you scribbled.” Severus’s mellow voice calmed her and she noticed he was watching her not with impatience but with a gentle understanding. If she hadn’t already fallen for him before, she would have right then.

“Sorry, I have the solution and I think I know what to do about it.” She pushed the theorem over to Vector and watched her skim it.

“I think you are saying that the use of the Elemental for so many centuries has led to a quasi-sentience and now that it knows there is someone to talk to, it wants company?” Vector summarized, her eyes a little crossed. The room erupted into a babble of voices as they all began discussing the idea at once.

“Yes, but I also calculate that the incantation from the parchment alone couldn’t have precipitated this.” The rooml sil silent as their focus returned to Kathryn. “Voldemort has to have been snooping around the wards. I think the earthquakes are an alarm by the Elemental, warning us that there is danger.” Vector began studying the equations again, her face growing paler as she read.

“Bugger.” Vector’s near silent exhalation of profanity was only audible because there was no other sound in the room.

“Well, that sums it up aptly.” Severus snorted. “You said you knew what to do about it.” He ed ted the eyebrow at her again and she almost grinned. She was becoming inordinately fond of the eyebrow.

“Well, one thing is to try chatting up the elemental, the other is kicking Voldie’s ass.” The muffled laughter from the table was chalked up to stress. “But first, I think is getting Miss Granger to redo that summoning spell, only correctly this time.”

“You’re joking.” Severus’s voice was so flat she could have used it as a level.

“Nope, I think the problem may lie in an incorrect summoning the first time.” She cocked her head. “As brilliant as Miss Granger is…”Severus made a disagreeable noise and Kathryn poked him sternly. “She is brilliant, you just hate having someone show you up in class.” He glared, but she merely rolled her eyes at him. “I am not sure whether her translation was off, or her manuscript was incomplete, but there was something missing from their spell.”

“I tend to agree with Kathryn, on both points, actually.” Albus directed the last part at Severus who gave them his best long-suffering look. “You need to look over both that manuscript and Miss Granger’s notes.”

“I’m sure they will be copious.” Severus added, malice dripping from every syllable. There were times he could be a real brat, Kathryn mused. It was rather endearing when he got all little boy pouty. Of course, she suspected that hers wasn’t the most objective viewpoint.

“I hope so, because I really need to know what they did.” She rested her head on her hand and exhaled sharply in exasperation. “Till I do, the lack of concrete data will render the solution suspect.”

“What are you more interested in, solving the equation or stopping the earthquakes?” Vector’s voice was politely curious, as though Kathryn wan ian interesting specimen to study.

“Is that a trick question?” Kathryn looked up at her with some surprise. “Reality is described by the equations, but the equations will never fully encompass reality. The real world of earthquakes and people may not be as easy to manipulate as the world of numbers, runes and symbols, but I like a challenge.”

“Obviously.” Severus muttered from next to her and she flashed him a grin of pure affection. Vector’s face registered the exchange with a slight widening of the eyes. Either they had been more discreet than she thought, or Severus was just not considered in that light. Once more, Kathryn felt a tinge of annoyance. Was she the only woman on the planet with the eyes to see?

Her expression must have given her away, because Severus’s gaze was warm on her face. Albus had that proud look again, as if she had done something very clever. For some reason, he had the ability to make her feel like a five year old who just got a gold star. Minerva looked gratified, as if Severus and Kathryn had gotten together especially to please her.

“Let’s get Miss Granger, shall we?” Albus chuckled and sent a house elf off with instructions.

While they waited, Kathryn filled Vector in on their previous activities and what Harry and the others had been up to. She was surprisingly accepting, simply nodding, as if Harry’s world saving was merely an interesting adolescent phase he was going through.

Hermione peered into the teacher’s lounge with trepidation writ large on her face and apparent in her hesitant entry. She scooted in, looking both pleased and appalled to be there.

“Did you bring your notes?” Kathryn put out her hand to the nervous girl and Hermione fumbled in her bag, trying to stay as far away from Severus as she could. Small pink fingers pulled out a roll of parchment and passed it to Kathryn.

Rolling out the notes, so that Severus could follow along with her, she began to scan through it. It all looked quite straight forward, until she got to the translation from the original scroll. There were three languages used in the scroll, Latin, Gaelic and strangely enough Hebrew. Kathryad tad through the bits and bit back a dirty word.

“I take it you have never studied Kabala, Miss Granger.” She tried not to be annoyed, because she knew that it wasn’t exactly in the Standard Book of Spells Grade One.

“No Professor.” Her voice was tiny and tight and Kathryn looked up in surprise. She hadn’t sounded that upset, had she? She caught the nasty glower Severus was giving the girl and sighed. Right, Dream Team, Severus, not a great combination.

“Severus, didn’t you have a paper to grade?” She gave him one of her looks and he almost smiled. He didn’t, though the twitching of his lips was noticeable. Minerva smothered a chuckle.

“If I may be excused.” He sneered. He rose with the elegance and economy that made her mind think of other wholly different movements and stalked from the room in mock anger. She dragged her mind back to the issue at hand, trying hard not to let a dreamy look settle on to her face.

“Hebrew letters in Kabala have symbolic meanings as well as actual meanings, when translating a series of Hebrew letters in a Kabalistic document, one needs to pay attention to the meanings of the individual letters.” Hermione came over and sat beside her along with Vector, who had a surprising breadth of knowledge on the subject. They began the laborious task of translatihe she symbology of the letters.

Albus occasionally inserted a comment wherever his knowledge of Alchemy provided added insights. Two hours later they were debating the contextual meaning of “Gud”, when Albus cleared his throat and mentioned the time.

With a flurry of papers and clothes, the three women separated, promising to get back to it when schedules allowed.

The next evening found Kathryn sitting in the window seat of the Room of Requirement watching Harry argue with his sword. He had named it “Back –biter” and he admitted to Kathryn that it referred to him as “Monkey-brain”. Listening to one half of a conversation was strange, but Harry’s indignant replies to the sword kept her chuckling.

The room had arranged itself as a Salle, weapons hung from the wall, practice mats were scattered on the floor, mirrors lined one wall and deep windows with cushioned seats lined the other.

“Look, I know that you have a millennia of combat experience, but I don’t and you are yanking my arm out of my socket!” Harry complained as the sword lunged forward at the simulacrum Kathryn had created for him to fence with. “I’m no good at this, Professor, this hunk of tin is right.”

“Your body doesn’t have the conditioning yet to follow those moves, but you will get better.” Kathryn assured him gently.

Harry shook his head and marched over to the window ledge.

“Tell me another story.” His face was white with exhaustion and he was sweating freely. Kathryn summoned a house elf and got him water and food, as he flopped down in the embrasure with her.

“What do you want to hear about?” She watched him as he drank down the water and stuffed a sandwich in his mouth.

“Why are you with him?” He asked with confusion and hostility mixed in equal parts.

“Ah, here is where experience and age become important.” She sighed. ”I care about him.”

“I don’t understand. He’s mean, vindictive, cruel, nasty, ugly, greasy and sarcastic.” Harry sputtered.

“I see you have spent hours talking to him and have gotten to know him so very well.” Her voice had taken on a tinge of anger and Harry turned to stare out the window, his mouth set in a stubborn line. This would not be an easy discussion.

“To you, Mr. Potter, he acts a role that he finds easy to play because of your father and his past. Try and think what it must mean to him, Harry. He’s a proud man, he’s sacrificed so much in his life because of a mistake he made. A mistake he might not have made if your father and his friends, as he sees it, hadn’t driven him to seek protection from Lucius Malfoy.”

“What?” Harry was looking at her in shock from his perch across from her in the window.

“After the incident with Mr. Lupin, Severus was convinced that Sirius would find another way to kill him, since that one failed. He was approached by Malfoy and some others, they offered him protection and they offered him friendship.” Harry was blinking slowly, listening almost against his will.

“Wasn’t there anyone else he could be friends with?” Harry’s voice had dropped to a whisper.

“All the kids in the school who would have been a good influence on Severus were either friends with or afraid of offending the Marauders.”

“You’re saying it’s my father and Sirius’ fault that Snape became a Death Eater.” His eyes had gone hard and sharp again and Kathryn shook her head.

“No, people are responsible for their own choices, even Severus understands that. It’s just that they made it an easy choice for him, get mauled by Sirius and ridiculed by James, or to be friends with Malfoy, protected and appreciated.” Harry was nodding slowly, starting to see what she was saying.

“Remember how I said that if you had been raised by the Malfoys, you would be much like Draco today?” He nodded again. “Well, Severus’ parents were awful people, his mother was a vain socialite who couldn’t care less about a child and his father was a more brutish version of Lucius.” Harry dropped his head onto his knees.

“But he doesn’t have to hate me too, I didn’t do anything to him.” There was a plaintive note in his muffled words and Kathryn ruffled his hair affectionately.

“Try to imagine what it must be like for a man who has gone through all the things he has, fought his way back from the darkness, spied, lied, killed and lost friends for this cause. He is now told that he can never hope to strike the final blow. That not only is he not going to be able to end all this, but that the child of his worst enemy, a teenage boy, is going to achieve the one thing he has worked towards for nearly twenty years. That when the dust clears, he will have to give James Potter’s son the credit for killing Voldemort.”

“Ouch.” Harry replied his face screwed up in an expression of distaste. “I still don’t like him.”

“I can see how it would be difficult to like a man with honor, dignity, courage and cunning.” She kept her face impassive, not allowing her sense of humor to show.

“He treats me like I’m dirt.” There was teenage sullenness in his tones.

“He does, it’s true. Good is always so much more palatable when it’s wrapped up in a pleasant package, isn’t it.” She watched him struggling with that thought. “Tom Riddle was a handsome young man, wasn’t he?” She asked.

“Yeah, he didn’t look evil, he seemed really nice.” Harry affirmed.

“Yet, he is one of the most evil beings in existence at this time.” Harry shrugged.

“Look, I know what you’re saying, pretty isn’t always good and ugly isn’t always evil.I\'m not asking about the nature of good and evil, I just don’t understand why you\'re with Snape.” She met the boy’s eyes and tried to figure out how to explain something so ephemeral and adult to a sixteen year old.

“Because he understands me. He and I have been through a lot of the same experiences, he’s brilliant and not intimidated by my intelligence. Because he doesn’t expect me to give up my career and become a House-witch. Because he thinks I am beautiful.”

“You are beautiful.” Harry smiled at her and there was understanding in his eyes.

“Because he met my sisters and my cousins, who are gorgeous and still thinks I’m the prettiest girl in my family.”

“Ah.” He grinned at her and nodded. “He’s in love.” Kathryn tried not to fall off the window ledge in shock. Damn the kid was perceptive.