A/N: Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition - Round Two - Kenmare Kestrals - Keeper
Prompt: Write about a relationship between a student (or former student) and his/her Arithmancy professor.
The church could not be said to be quaint. To call it quaint would imply that its aged appearance was somehow charming or rustic, but this church was simply old. The stained glass window in the steeple had likely been in need of a good cleaning for the better part of a decade, and only a few lonely patches of the brick exterior had remained free of creeping vines. Like the vines, the grounds hadn't been trimmed in a very long time; weeds and knee-high grass covered even the narrow walkway that led up to the sad, rotting stoop.
Bill looked uncomfortable in his plain, black attire as he stood at the foot of the walkway, tall grass weeping over his shoes. He checked his watch, frowned at it, and glanced around as though waiting for someone. The long, gravel trail stretched out behind him, leading back to the main road, but no other landmarks or signs of people could be seen. He was completely alone.
Bill sighed heavily and looked up at the church. Not sure what I expected, really, he thought to himself as he crossed the walkway slowly. I'm probably the only sod who drove a Muggle car. Probably the the only sod who wore a Muggle suit, too...
Bill climbed the precariously tilting wooden porch and stopped in front of the door. The door, he could now see, was held ajar by a decrepit bible wedged between it and the frame. Taking this as a favorable sign that he had at least come to the right location, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Bill was startled by how different the inside of the church was to the outside. The church wasn't well-lit, but it was cleaner and cozier than it had been at first blush. Thankfully, it was also devoid of the dank smell of mildew and rotting wood that he'd been expecting.
Bill laughed derisively at his own surprise; magic had obviously played a part in preserving the interior of the church, and he mentally chastised himself for judging based on appearance. Why wouldn't magic have been involved? Professor Vector had been a witch, after all.
"Bill, you've been spending entirely too much time in tombs with goblins," he muttered to himself, crossing the small, empty foyer.
The door the led to the nave boasted a thin glass window that was artistically warped and fogged so that the only thing he could make out on the other side was the tell-tale flickering of candlelight. Bill was suddenly reminded of ominous torchlight he'd encountered in a cave in Nepal. It was supposed to have been uninhabited, but had turned out to be the home of a particularly nasty nosferatu. Ignoring his sense of forboding, Bill slowly opened the door while clearing his throat to announce his presence.
The nave, he noticed first, was far too large to not be magically enhanced. Two rows of six polished, wooden pews hugged the aisle leading up to the altar when only half that many should have fit. Bill wondered why it had been enlarged in the first place, however, as only two people were inside, seated at the front.
The two occupants of the church turned to peer at him from over their pew, but Bill could only make out their silhouettes against the candlelight. He froze momentarily as they silently gazed at him from faces he couldn't see, but quickly fell into step once more.
As Bill drew closer, the one on the end stood slowly, and Bill recognized the staccato movements of an older woman with weak joints. He released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding as he stepped into the light.
The woman who had stood to greet him was dressed in sweeping, white robes, and thick hair of the same color was draped over one shoulder in a long plait. One of her eyes was milky, but she fixed a pale blue one on him and smiled with such warmth that the once-spooky nave was instantly transformed into a reverent and welcoming sanctuary.
"Welcome, welcome," the woman said in a gentle voice like the sound of pages turning. She took his arm in her grip and held it with both of her wrinkled hands.
"I've got sausages in the oven!" the seated witch exclaimed with excitement. She was seated, not in the pew, but in a wheelchair in front of the pew, and was wearing the same white robes. A flannel quilt was folded and draped over her lap.
"You'll have to excuse Nona," said the witch holding Bill's arm in a secretive voice. "Her belfry's not entirely bat-free these days."
Nona grinned madly at Bill, clearly not aware of where she was or what was going on. Bill nodded politely to her, and her grin broadened.
"I'm Decima," said the first witch. "Septima's youngest sister. You must be a student."
"Yes. Er, well, I mean, I was," Bill amended, "but not for a long time now."
"It's good you came," Decima said, patting Bill's arm before finally releasing him. She hobbled over to the casket, and Bill followed. She took his hand nearest to her and placed it on the edge of the casket. "You can do the eulogy."
Bill nearly choked.
"Eu-Eulogy?" he asked. "Shouldn't a family member...?"
"Nonsense, my boy," Decima said, going back to her seat on the pew. "Septima was closest to her students. It's handy you turned up."
Bill watched, agape, as Decima sat down and folded her hands in her lap, looking at him expectantly.
"But, I—I've never done a... I mean, how can I just... Surely there's someone better for—"
"Don't worry, dear," Nona interrupted in a reassuring voice. "If you just follow the recipe, it'll turn out."
Bill stared at Nona for a second, then looked back at Decima, who was smiling pleasantly as though about to listen to a sermon and not her older sister's eulogy. He felt a little dizzy, like he'd been Confunded. Had he stepped sideways into an alternate dimension where this behavior was normal?
"Er..." Bill struggled for words through the surreality of his situation. "Professor Vector... taught me Arithmancy," he began a little lamely. "She, uh... she was a good—I mean, an excellent teacher, and she... she really looked out for me."
Bill cleared his throat uncertainly before continuing, digging through his memories as quickly as he could.
"I, uh... Well, I suppose I wasn't a very good student at the start," he admitted, shifting his weight uncomfortably. "I didn't always go to classes when I should, and... and I only took Arithmancy because I couldn't bear the thought of taking Muggle Studies."
Bill wasn't sure if anything he was saying was appropriate for the situation, but the words had begun to flow a little more easily, at least.
"Professor Vector had a reputation for being impossibly strict," Bill went on, "and I think maybe I thought of that as a challenge when I picked up he class. I was a classroom nuisance whenever I did show up. I don't think I turned in a single paper in the first two months. I..."
Bill paused for a moment to laugh derisively at himself before continuing.
"I think I had more detentions those two months than I had my first two years combined," he said, shaking his head.
His eyes faded into the middle distance as he remembered, and his voice turned melancholy.
"Professor Vector had every reason to write me off," Bill said slowly, "but she didn't. Every detention I sat, she told me the same thing. She'd never met someone who was so motivated to be unmotivated. She had to drag every assignment out of me one painful line at a time. I don't really know... why she spent so much time trying to get me to study," he said. "I never gave her any reason to believe I was more than a directionless prat, but... she never gave up. Maybe she saw something in me that I didn't see."
Bill smiled a little to himself. "Maybe she was just as stubborn as I was," he said with some amusement. "Maybe she was more stubborn than I was, because she eventually won that battle with me. I don't know exactly when it happened, and I'm not sure what caused it, but I started actually... learning the material. I started seeing Arithmancy, and understanding what it was and what it could be. I started seeing how it was used in every branch of magic, and how the world was literally made of numbers."
Bill seemed to suddenly remember where he was for a moment, and under what circumstances, because he coughed and shifted his weight again. His eyes refocused on the sisters, and he flushed a little at how he'd been rambling.
"She made me want to work," Bill told them, as though offering what little solace he could. "She made me want to learn and be a good wizard. She's the reason I chose the profession I did, and the reason I didn't flunk out. Because of Professor Vector, I was able to turn things around. I became Head Boy and set a better example for my younger siblings and made my parents proud."
The church fell into silence then, but it wasn't uncomfortable. It felt like an understanding had passed between himself and Septima's sisters. Even Nona appeared to be semi-lucid.
Bill took a deep breath and ended the impromptu eulogy as best as he knew how.
"She was a good witch," he said, "and a good person. And she made good people out of bad eggs."
Not sure what else to do, he walked to Decima and took her hand.
"I'm really sorry for your loss," he told her with as much sincerity as he could.
"All our losses," Decima agreed, standing and encircling him in a quick hug.
When she released him, Bill was almost a little startled to find that he'd started to cry at some point. Nona took his hand suddenly, and she patted it gently with her other hand.
"It's all right if you've burnt the gravy, dear," she said, lovingly. "We'll just put jam on the toast instead."
Bill smiled softly and kissed the back of her hand. "Sounds fine, Nona."