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kaylarudbekThe writing is going a bit better. Chapter 33 of Vector's Challenge is now up on FA, with 60 hits already on the first day. I now have a scene between Mike Vector and Severus Snape, about Snape's interrogation transcripts. However, I will have to tone down the language a bit, as Mike and Severus are being rather foul-mouthed. Or else bump the rating up to R, but I don't really think it deserves that. A few instances of the "f-word" surely don't deserve an R, do they? Mike is a true Irish copper....
“Oy, Moody,” Michael Vector said to Moody.
“What is it, Vector?” Moody replied.
“My sister’s gone and got herself engaged to that greasy git Severus Snape,” Mike said.
Moody sucked his teeth. “Don’t suppose you can talk her out of it?” he asked.
Mike shook his head. “Don’t think so. I’m worried she’s making a mistake as bad or worse than the time she ran off with that Yank Muggle.”
Moody grunted. “You’re right to worry.”
Mike asked, “If I could find the right thing to say, maybe she’d call it off before it’s too late.”
Moody said, “Hard to do, to tell a woman what to do about a man.”
Mike said, “I suppose that Snape’s got himself a fine past.”
“You might be right in that,” Moody replied.
Mike apparently changed the subject. “On another tack, Moody, I don’t suppose you know where we keep the transcripts from interrogations and confessions, the ones we’re not supposed to know about?”
Moody shook his head. “Last I heard, they were stored in the Department of Mysteries. And you didn’t hear that from me, mind you. But those boffins in Mysteries are quite slick with keeping their records to themselves. And they could have changed things around and not told me.”
Mike nodded and laughed. “True. They never seem to let the left hand know what the right hand is doing around here, do they?”
Moody frowned. “That’s what comes of having somebody in charge who couldn’t find…” he trailed off as Tonks came into the room.
“Moody. Vector,” Tonks said to the other two Aurors. “Are we on for tonight?”
Moody replied, “Count me in. What about you, Vector?”
Mike shook his head. “Think I’m going to stay in and get some things done. My laundry’s almost ready to do itself out of sheer self-defense by now, and I’m sure my icebox has a new civilization growing in it.”
Tonks made a face. “Yuck. Bachelors.”
“Could be worse, Tonksey,” Mike said. “You could be married to me.”
Tonks made another face. “Yuck. As if I’d want to spend my life cleaning up after the likes of you.”
Mike grinned. “A hit, a hit, a palpable hit. I’ll see you at Sunday Mass at the Cathedral, Tonksey. See you Monday, Moody.” Mike watched the other two Aurors leave, and then proceeded to the Mysteries offices himself. It was now half-past five on Friday evening, and everybody would be gone soon. If anyone else stayed late and caught Mike here, he’d simply say that he’d had some paperwork to catch up with before he left for the weekend. He’d used the excuse many times before when he gathered information for Emmy. The cover of “cleaning” was also quite useful to get out of going out drinking with the other Aurors. Mike Vector was now as neat as a cat, but he found it useful to maintain the old image of “Big Brute Bachelor Lout.” It kept the single women he worked with away from him, and a few gross stories told in mixed company kept the married women from trying to matchmake too much. Although he wouldn’t have minded the right kind of matchmaking, but it was just that he lived a delicate life, balancing the Ministry and Aurors against Emmy’s work for Dumbledore. And very few women would put up with that kind of double life in a husband. He honestly didn’t understand how his mother put up with his father’s secret work. He wasn’t stupid. He knew his own father was more than a college instructor of mathematics in Ireland. He snorted. Fortunate in his investments, my left foot! Follow the money trail, boyos, that’ll get you the answers nine times out of ten. But if his father hadn’t seen fit to confide in him, he himself would not bring the matter up. And if Father had to wait to get married until he was over forty and found the right woman, I can certainly wait my fair turn. I just hope that I get my fair turn this time, and don’t lose Millie like I lost Olivia Pangbourne.
Mike made his way into the Mysteries office quite easily. He wasn’t as good at Arithmancy as his father and sister were, but he could improvise well enough to get around most spells, particularly when he’d had a chance to deal with them before. And the boffins in Mysteries didn’t randomize their codes enough to keep him out of where he wanted to go!
He frowned as he looked around. Now where would the transcripts of confessions be? Maybe in the little office off the room with those brains sitting in the jars. Nasty heathenish things those are, to quote Mother. And what do they use them for, anyway? Mike made his way toward the tiny little office, keeping well clear of those brains…
Michael Vector sat staring at the report. It was the written summary of Severus Snape’s confession of events he had been party to when he was affiliated with the Death Eaters. “Sonofabitch,” Mike whispered. “Son-of-a-bitch!”He started reading. "He got mixed up with those bastards by the time he was sixteen years old. Before we even left Hogwarts. Son-of-a-bitch!"
Mike started reading the report: Summer 1975 – Subject devised a formula for poison gas which was used in an attack on Diagon Alley, August 10, 1975. Subject believes that Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix Black Lestrange, and Rodolphus Lestrange manufactured the gas and conducted the actual attack. Mike started counting pages. The box the report had been in was a good two inches thick. “Duplicatus,” Mike murmured, and the report duplicated itself. Mike scanned the duplicate for anti-theft spells, and then applied a disguising charm to it, to make it look like an ordinary ream of parchment. He started looking through the other boxes. “Confession of Severus Snape about events in 1976…1977…1978…1979…1980.’ Mike Vector duplicated all these boxes, scanned them, and applied the disguising charms. He then applied a shrinking spell, and was left with six little squares that looked something like notepads made out of parchment. He smiled grimly, and left the room.
Mike sat up late that night, reading through the transcripts of Snape’s questioning. He had a bottle of firewhiskey by his left hand, but he switched to water after an hour. He wanted to keep a clear head; all the better to argue with Snape the next day when he confronted the bastard. At midnight, he composed a note to Snape, telling him that he’d meet him at noon tomorrow.
Snape frowned at the note. What is Michael Vector thinking of, to summon me to a meeting as if I were a junior Auror? And such a terse note – Meet me at my flat at noon, or else I start telling home truths to my sister! He does not sound as if he’s in a good mood. And I suppose that I had better try to keep him happy, after what his mother did to me.
Snape Flooed out to Michael Vector’s flat at five minutes until noon. He did not want to prolong a meeting with Mike any more than he had to, but he did not want to be late and anger Mike either.
Mike was standing facing the fireplace, wand in hand. “Snape.”
“Vector. What’s all this about?”
Mike bared his teeth. “What I did on my 1975 Summer Holidays, by Severus Snape.”
“Fuck. You know too?”
Mike glared at Snape. “I spent an interesting little while in the Ministry last night, reading the transcripts of your interrogation and confession. Before you do anything to me, I have made copies and placed them in my Gringotts vault.”
“Oh Merlin,” Snape whispered.
“And Snape, that’s an interesting comment, ‘You know too.’ Who else knows?”
Snape cleared his throat. “Your father knew for years. Your mother only recently found out.”
“But not my sister. Snape, you coward. You don’t dare tell her because you know she’ll run or kill you when she finds out, am I right?”
“Your father told me not to tell her!”
“But you’ve known for some time. And you didn’t tell her before she fell in love with you. Before you trapped her into this farce of an engagement.”
“My engagement is not a farce, Michael Vector! I will marry your sister!”
Mike sneered, “You wouldn’t have dared announce your engagement if Lucius Malfoy hadn’t been there that night. It’s a farce and a fraud, and it never would have happened if you hadn’t opened your mouth.”
“She wants to be with me, damn you.”
“Has she told you that she loves you?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck.” Mike said, and frowned. “Well, have you told her you love her?”
“Yes. And what about you and Millie?”
“Don’t change the subject. I’m asking the questions here.”
“Are you going to tell your sister about what I did?”
“Well, if you don’t, I will. And then I’ll leave it to her to sort out how she’s going to kill you. Although I’ll provide weapons and help her hide the body.”
“Have you been listening to a single thing I’ve told you? I love her and she loves me, dammit! Just as you and Millie love each other!” Mike stared at Snape. “Am I supposed to go sneaking around Slytherin House to find out Bulstrode’s dark secrets, and encourage you to break it off with her, to threaten to kill you or her if you don’t break it off?”
Mike sat down in a chair. He sighed. “I know you don’t like the idea of Millie and me together, and I don’t like the idea of you and my sister together.’
“I have rather more justification for my attitude than you do for yours,” Snape retorted.
Mike stood up again and clenched his hands into fists. “Fuck you, you bastard. I’ve got more justification than you do. Emmy is my sister, my only surviving sister thanks to you.”
Snape winced at this. “Have you told your sister about that?”
Mike shook his head. “No. I haven’t had a chance to yet. And anyway, she never listens to me; she’d think I was just making it up to try to get her to call it off. It’s your job and your place to tell her, now that you two are engaged. But if you don’t tell her before the wedding, I will tell her, and then I’ll make sure she becomes a widow again.”
Snape sighed. “If you do that, she’ll probably kill you, so maybe I should keep quiet. But on the other hand, I’d be dead and not able to enjoy it, and she’d be in Azkaban, so on second thought, I’ll have to go ahead and tell her before the wedding.”
“Agreed.” Mike said, coldly.
“And I still want you to stay away from Bulstrode. You’re far too damned old for her!”
“So when I’m a hundred, she’ll be eighty. What’s the problem with that?” Mike replied.
Snape glared at him. “If you hurt her in any way, I will personally ensure that you do not live to regret it.”
Mike shrugged. “Fine, and turnabout makes fair play.”
“And it’s not going to hurt Emmy when I tell her what I did?”
“It’ll hurt for a bit, but then she’ll get over it. Same as she did that idiot Yank Muggle she ran off with.”
Snape clenched his jaw. If Mike didn’t know what hurts Emmy had taken from her first marriage, he was not about to enlighten the man. “Until later, Vector,” he said, and then Flooed back to Hogwarts.
“Oy, Moody,” Michael Vector said to Moody.
“What is it, Vector?” Moody replied.
“My sister’s gone and got herself engaged to that greasy git Severus Snape,” Mike said.
Moody sucked his teeth. “Don’t suppose you can talk her out of it?” he asked.
Mike shook his head. “Don’t think so. I’m worried she’s making a mistake as bad or worse than the time she ran off with that Yank Muggle.”
Moody grunted. “You’re right to worry.”
Mike asked, “If I could find the right thing to say, maybe she’d call it off before it’s too late.”
Moody said, “Hard to do, to tell a woman what to do about a man.”
Mike said, “I suppose that Snape’s got himself a fine past.”
“You might be right in that,” Moody replied.
Mike apparently changed the subject. “On another tack, Moody, I don’t suppose you know where we keep the transcripts from interrogations and confessions, the ones we’re not supposed to know about?”
Moody shook his head. “Last I heard, they were stored in the Department of Mysteries. And you didn’t hear that from me, mind you. But those boffins in Mysteries are quite slick with keeping their records to themselves. And they could have changed things around and not told me.”
Mike nodded and laughed. “True. They never seem to let the left hand know what the right hand is doing around here, do they?”
Moody frowned. “That’s what comes of having somebody in charge who couldn’t find…” he trailed off as Tonks came into the room.
“Moody. Vector,” Tonks said to the other two Aurors. “Are we on for tonight?”
Moody replied, “Count me in. What about you, Vector?”
Mike shook his head. “Think I’m going to stay in and get some things done. My laundry’s almost ready to do itself out of sheer self-defense by now, and I’m sure my icebox has a new civilization growing in it.”
Tonks made a face. “Yuck. Bachelors.”
“Could be worse, Tonksey,” Mike said. “You could be married to me.”
Tonks made another face. “Yuck. As if I’d want to spend my life cleaning up after the likes of you.”
Mike grinned. “A hit, a hit, a palpable hit. I’ll see you at Sunday Mass at the Cathedral, Tonksey. See you Monday, Moody.” Mike watched the other two Aurors leave, and then proceeded to the Mysteries offices himself. It was now half-past five on Friday evening, and everybody would be gone soon. If anyone else stayed late and caught Mike here, he’d simply say that he’d had some paperwork to catch up with before he left for the weekend. He’d used the excuse many times before when he gathered information for Emmy. The cover of “cleaning” was also quite useful to get out of going out drinking with the other Aurors. Mike Vector was now as neat as a cat, but he found it useful to maintain the old image of “Big Brute Bachelor Lout.” It kept the single women he worked with away from him, and a few gross stories told in mixed company kept the married women from trying to matchmake too much. Although he wouldn’t have minded the right kind of matchmaking, but it was just that he lived a delicate life, balancing the Ministry and Aurors against Emmy’s work for Dumbledore. And very few women would put up with that kind of double life in a husband. He honestly didn’t understand how his mother put up with his father’s secret work. He wasn’t stupid. He knew his own father was more than a college instructor of mathematics in Ireland. He snorted. Fortunate in his investments, my left foot! Follow the money trail, boyos, that’ll get you the answers nine times out of ten. But if his father hadn’t seen fit to confide in him, he himself would not bring the matter up. And if Father had to wait to get married until he was over forty and found the right woman, I can certainly wait my fair turn. I just hope that I get my fair turn this time, and don’t lose Millie like I lost Olivia Pangbourne.
Mike made his way into the Mysteries office quite easily. He wasn’t as good at Arithmancy as his father and sister were, but he could improvise well enough to get around most spells, particularly when he’d had a chance to deal with them before. And the boffins in Mysteries didn’t randomize their codes enough to keep him out of where he wanted to go!
He frowned as he looked around. Now where would the transcripts of confessions be? Maybe in the little office off the room with those brains sitting in the jars. Nasty heathenish things those are, to quote Mother. And what do they use them for, anyway? Mike made his way toward the tiny little office, keeping well clear of those brains…
Michael Vector sat staring at the report. It was the written summary of Severus Snape’s confession of events he had been party to when he was affiliated with the Death Eaters. “Sonofabitch,” Mike whispered. “Son-of-a-bitch!”He started reading. "He got mixed up with those bastards by the time he was sixteen years old. Before we even left Hogwarts. Son-of-a-bitch!"
Mike started reading the report: Summer 1975 – Subject devised a formula for poison gas which was used in an attack on Diagon Alley, August 10, 1975. Subject believes that Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix Black Lestrange, and Rodolphus Lestrange manufactured the gas and conducted the actual attack. Mike started counting pages. The box the report had been in was a good two inches thick. “Duplicatus,” Mike murmured, and the report duplicated itself. Mike scanned the duplicate for anti-theft spells, and then applied a disguising charm to it, to make it look like an ordinary ream of parchment. He started looking through the other boxes. “Confession of Severus Snape about events in 1976…1977…1978…1979…1980.’ Mike Vector duplicated all these boxes, scanned them, and applied the disguising charms. He then applied a shrinking spell, and was left with six little squares that looked something like notepads made out of parchment. He smiled grimly, and left the room.
Mike sat up late that night, reading through the transcripts of Snape’s questioning. He had a bottle of firewhiskey by his left hand, but he switched to water after an hour. He wanted to keep a clear head; all the better to argue with Snape the next day when he confronted the bastard. At midnight, he composed a note to Snape, telling him that he’d meet him at noon tomorrow.
Snape frowned at the note. What is Michael Vector thinking of, to summon me to a meeting as if I were a junior Auror? And such a terse note – Meet me at my flat at noon, or else I start telling home truths to my sister! He does not sound as if he’s in a good mood. And I suppose that I had better try to keep him happy, after what his mother did to me.
Snape Flooed out to Michael Vector’s flat at five minutes until noon. He did not want to prolong a meeting with Mike any more than he had to, but he did not want to be late and anger Mike either.
Mike was standing facing the fireplace, wand in hand. “Snape.”
“Vector. What’s all this about?”
Mike bared his teeth. “What I did on my 1975 Summer Holidays, by Severus Snape.”
“Fuck. You know too?”
Mike glared at Snape. “I spent an interesting little while in the Ministry last night, reading the transcripts of your interrogation and confession. Before you do anything to me, I have made copies and placed them in my Gringotts vault.”
“Oh Merlin,” Snape whispered.
“And Snape, that’s an interesting comment, ‘You know too.’ Who else knows?”
Snape cleared his throat. “Your father knew for years. Your mother only recently found out.”
“But not my sister. Snape, you coward. You don’t dare tell her because you know she’ll run or kill you when she finds out, am I right?”
“Your father told me not to tell her!”
“But you’ve known for some time. And you didn’t tell her before she fell in love with you. Before you trapped her into this farce of an engagement.”
“My engagement is not a farce, Michael Vector! I will marry your sister!”
Mike sneered, “You wouldn’t have dared announce your engagement if Lucius Malfoy hadn’t been there that night. It’s a farce and a fraud, and it never would have happened if you hadn’t opened your mouth.”
“She wants to be with me, damn you.”
“Has she told you that she loves you?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck.” Mike said, and frowned. “Well, have you told her you love her?”
“Yes. And what about you and Millie?”
“Don’t change the subject. I’m asking the questions here.”
“Are you going to tell your sister about what I did?”
“Well, if you don’t, I will. And then I’ll leave it to her to sort out how she’s going to kill you. Although I’ll provide weapons and help her hide the body.”
“Have you been listening to a single thing I’ve told you? I love her and she loves me, dammit! Just as you and Millie love each other!” Mike stared at Snape. “Am I supposed to go sneaking around Slytherin House to find out Bulstrode’s dark secrets, and encourage you to break it off with her, to threaten to kill you or her if you don’t break it off?”
Mike sat down in a chair. He sighed. “I know you don’t like the idea of Millie and me together, and I don’t like the idea of you and my sister together.’
“I have rather more justification for my attitude than you do for yours,” Snape retorted.
Mike stood up again and clenched his hands into fists. “Fuck you, you bastard. I’ve got more justification than you do. Emmy is my sister, my only surviving sister thanks to you.”
Snape winced at this. “Have you told your sister about that?”
Mike shook his head. “No. I haven’t had a chance to yet. And anyway, she never listens to me; she’d think I was just making it up to try to get her to call it off. It’s your job and your place to tell her, now that you two are engaged. But if you don’t tell her before the wedding, I will tell her, and then I’ll make sure she becomes a widow again.”
Snape sighed. “If you do that, she’ll probably kill you, so maybe I should keep quiet. But on the other hand, I’d be dead and not able to enjoy it, and she’d be in Azkaban, so on second thought, I’ll have to go ahead and tell her before the wedding.”
“Agreed.” Mike said, coldly.
“And I still want you to stay away from Bulstrode. You’re far too damned old for her!”
“So when I’m a hundred, she’ll be eighty. What’s the problem with that?” Mike replied.
Snape glared at him. “If you hurt her in any way, I will personally ensure that you do not live to regret it.”
Mike shrugged. “Fine, and turnabout makes fair play.”
“And it’s not going to hurt Emmy when I tell her what I did?”
“It’ll hurt for a bit, but then she’ll get over it. Same as she did that idiot Yank Muggle she ran off with.”
Snape clenched his jaw. If Mike didn’t know what hurts Emmy had taken from her first marriage, he was not about to enlighten the man. “Until later, Vector,” he said, and then Flooed back to Hogwarts.
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no subject
Date: 2003-08-12 07:59 am (UTC)He doesn't like Severus, and he's just found out the man was an accomplice before the fact to the murder of most of his siblings.
Mike should be livid and *foul*-mouthed.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-12 08:15 am (UTC)