Chapter 4

Author's note: This story may not please everyone as it is not the usual fluffy Christmas story. The scenes depicted in this story may be offensive and objectionable to some readers for their explicit violence and gore. This story deviates from my usual writing. Emphases are in italics and titles of books &ca are underlined. Some readers may find my characterisation OOC, but I assure you, this is how I see them in the dark distant future. I assume that Dumbledore's death in Book 6 was staged and that's why he's still alive in this story.

Christmas Presents Undisguised

Chapter 4

Hermione and Severus spent the next day writing letters to the constituencies of the Chardobis district and compiling notes and other relevant bits of information on their case. In all their letters, they plainly stated their purpose and requested information on any mysterious and violent deaths within the last few years. If there were any, would the Aurory offices and Members of Parliament for those areas kindly forward the details of the cases to Drs Severus Snape and Hermione Granger care-of the British Wizarding Criminal Prosecution Ministry?

Although Severus expressed his pessimism at obtaining any further information from the bureaucratic dunderheads who swept anything bordering on the unusual under the carpet, his colleague assured him that there were at least some officers of the law and some clerks in the constituency offices who would think twice before offending an investigative team of the British Wizarding Criminal Prosecution Ministry. Many bureaucrats were uncertain what the British Wizarding Criminal Prosecution Ministry was supposed to do, but they feared it all the same because it enjoyed the patronage of the Minister of Magic and it was rumoured to be headed by the great Albus Dumbledore. It was also rumoured among members of the British wizarding Parliament that any letter from that dreaded Ministry foreshadowed an internal investigation into their administration. Thus, it could be naturally anticipated that Severus and Hermione's letters caused much trepidation to erupt among the ranks of the incompetent Members of Parliament of Chardobis. Hermione laughingly told Severus that those prone to acts of corruption readily cooperated with these officers from the British Wizarding Criminal Prosecution Ministry out of fear that they would be striped of their positions and power.

Within the next four days following their entirely reasonable enquiries, Severus was unpleasantly surprised when he discovered that his colleague was correct in her surmise. The replies they received were indeed promising and numerous. It was amazing what a little fear of the unknown could inspire in the hearts and minds of the foolish, Severus mused, smirking ironically at the folly of human nature. Upon his perusal of the letters and attached documents, he soon realised that many of them detailed ordinary deaths and he railed at Hermione for inundating them with more work.

'Well,' she said with a brief dismissive snort at his impatience. 'At least we have secured their cooperation, which is – all things considered – a moderately good outcome. We only have to weed through them to find the most violent or horrifying deaths! If you can't stand sifting through them,' she chided wearily, rolling her eyes at his tantrum, 'Go and take a walk. I'll sort them. Provided, Professor Snape, you try to see the connection in all this when you get back.'

'Are you chasing me out of my own home, your wretched woman!' he bellowed, giving vent to the frustrations he had kept bottled up over the mystery of this case.

'No,' she replied calmly, looking through the many letters and documents without lifting her head. 'I'm telling you that you need a break. Go out there, take the air and think. It will do you much good.'

'You presume to prescribe what I ought to do!' he barked, folding his arms in annoyance.

'Your powers of observation are astounding. Now, go on a herb hunting ramble or whatever it is you do and I will have all these things sorted out when you return,' she reasoned, adding a letter to the pile of unrelated killings.

'I will not have my study commandeered!'

'I'm only using it to sort the letters. Go take your walk and the letters will be sorted,' she said quietly, her voice acquiring the hard edge of irritation that Severus had become acquainted. 'Or would you rather reverse the roles and sort the letters?'

Muttering a dark 'you had better be all done when I return' as if it were a threat, Severus turned around on his heels and dramatically swept out of the room. When he returned from his walk a few hours later, he reflected that the exercise had done him good. He had thought about their investigations thus far and was inspired enough to buy a map of wizarding London from Messrs Fred and George Weasley of the Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes – who though well-known for their amazing assortment of items fit for infusing unpleasant moments with laughter, were also famed cartographers of choice for those requiring 'non-conventional' routes to their destination. The map, the proprietors told him, had only been sold to Ministry officials and was still in the developmental stages. They would not dream of unleashing it on the unsuspecting public – who knows what the undesirable elements of the city might do with it! Thankful that the Weasley twins had acquired a modicum of civic responsibility, Severus duly bought the map and was about to show it to Hermione on his arrival home when he noticed his study devoid of the clutter of letters. It appeared that his walk was not a wasted enterprise after all, for Hermione had sorted everything out and only kept those letters and documents pertaining to the profile of the killings they had had on the Morosia side of wizarding London. He was even more surprised to find that his esteemed colleague had also taken great pains to make her own notes on each of these cases highlighting both their similarities and differences.

Hermione registered his presence with a curt nod and handed him a parchment containing her latest surmises. In return, he handed her the map he had but lately acquired. Severus frowned on reading the papers compiled by the Arithmancer. According to Hermione's notes, the killings on the Chardobis districts of Mortuary dated back to the previous year. There were two victims, one of each gender; both severely mutilated with some kind of a knife and the female nearly beheaded. The latest victim there, Terry Boot, was found slaughtered on November 22nd. Severus traced his lower lip in thought, and with narrowed eyes he flipped to the next sheet, which detailed the victims found in the Qualia and Talon constituencies. The killings were almost as brutal as the Morosia ones; the four victims there were gutted like fishes and had been rudely violated with an assortment of knifes and sticks. It struck him as most interesting that Hermione heavily underlined two killings of a shopkeeper, Sarah Fawcett, and a farmer, Cuthbert Mockridge, who had apparently been slaughtered on June the 29th, in an alleyway with a secret wall leading to Knockturn Alley's infamous red light area.

'This is most disturbing,' murmured Severus, tapping his finger on his lip, lost in his thoughts.

'Isn't it?' Hermione mumbled in absent-minded response. While her colleague was engaged in perusing her notes, Dr Granger was eagerly surveying the detailed and beautifully drawn map of wizarding London. The Weasley twins have outdone themselves this time, she thought with a smile playing on her lips as she traced her finger from one point of the Talon constituency in Chardobis to Diagon Alley. They managed to list all the thoroughfares both common and hidden in their map and even had an extra section detailing how one could make one's way to Muggle London from Mortuary, Alkane and Knockturn Alley's disused antique shop. While happily engaged in exploring this new innovation of the twins, Hermione looked up to chase away a spider that was hanging down near her left ear. Looking up at the spider's web and at the map, her eyes lit up and she suddenly gasped.

'What is it, woman?' snapped Severus testily.

Magically pinning the map on a small coffee table, she ventured a brisk reply, 'I've just realised something. Have you any tacking pins?'

'What? Why would I have something I have no use for?' he snorted scornfully while approaching her, clearly intrigued by what she had in mind.

She rolled her eyes in exasperation and withdrew her wand. 'Never mind,' she said, biting her lower lip in excitement. 'All the victims were found where they were murdered, right? Read out to me the places where the bodies were found.'

'What do you think you're doing?' he demanded, narrowing his eyes as he perched on the armrest of her sofa.

'Trying to see whether there is a pattern – your "method in madness" principle. I think I have hit on the pattern,' she answered quickly, hovering her wand over the map. 'We'll be able to see it better once I've marked the areas. Now, kindly read out the places.'

Curious as to the train of her thoughts, Severus obliged her by reading out the places where the victims were murdered. At each place he named, Hermione conjured a magical iridescent multicoloured pin demarcating the area. Though was he was puzzled at first, he soon saw that there was definitely a pattern to the killings. As soon as the last place was named, Hermione waved her wand and all the pins lit up extending lines of green light to their neighbours. Once all the pins and their extending lines were conjoined, the two investigators stepped back to observe their labours.

'Who would have thought that the design was meant to be representative from the air,' said Hermione softly, thoughtfully chewing on her thumb. 'Eighteen dots. Eighteen killings on both sides of the river.'

Staring at the design made by the joined dotted lines, Severus commented cynically, 'Somehow it seems too good to be true.'

'Which means, it must be,' replied Hermione, intently staring at the concentric ring and lines which formed the shape of a small cobweb on the map. 'Assuming this is indeed the killer's web, where do we find the wandering spider?'

'No matter how far a spider wanders, it will always return to the very centre,' came the cold reply. 'In this situation, it would be the old Wizarding Shrine to the Sainted Few.'

'Then, that is where we should be going,' announced Hermione, suppressing a shiver of anxiety and fear.

* * *

The ancient Wizarding Shrine of the Sainted Few was presently a derelict building. It had not always been thus. In its past, prior to the days of Voldemort, it was where the British wizarding community paid homage to the ancient wizards and witches who bridged the divide between the Muggle and wizarding world. Not only were the Sainted Few exceptional wizards and witches who advanced the conditions of living for the wizarding world, they were also Muggle Saints in the Christian religion. They were exemplars of the best of the wizarding world in the days of old. When witchcraft was decried by the Muggles as pernicious and self-serving, these daring witches and wizards chose not to retreat into the insular and paranoid wizarding community. Instead, they ventured forth into the Muggle world, mixing freely with them and assisting them where possible – healing the sick, alleviating the plight of the less fortunate, advising monarchs and so on. Those of the Sainted Few who were fortunate enough to have been born into the European royal houses quickly used their status as Muggle-born witches and wizards to advance the way of life for both the wizarding and Muggle worlds, and easily stayed the unfair discrimination of wizards and witches. Despite this, the Muggles they assisted refused to believe in their skills at witchcraft. Instead, the Muggles attributed their wondrous abilities to spiritualism and considered the wizards emissaries from heaven. Thus, in time, these exceptional witches and wizards who were leaders in their own wizarding community came to be regarded as Saints by both their own wizarding community and the Muggle community. Though the days of Sainted Few were long past and none of the modern wizards and witches dared to expose themselves to Muggles, the wizarding community the world over still cherished the memory of those who were brave enough to bridge the Muggle-wizarding divide and in so doing, touching the lives of many.

The Wizarding Shrine of the Sainted Few was originally built in the 14th century for the expressed purpose of honouring these exceptional witches and wizards, and as the number of Sainted Few grew, the wizarding community commissioned more statutes of their Saints and placed them in the shrine for all to admire and gain inspiration from. But, however grand the Wizarding Shrine of the Sainted Few was prior to rise of Voldemort, it was now an abandoned and dilapidated shell. When Voldemort successfully installed himself in power for the long two-and-a-half years, he was determined to eliminate any vestiges of the old ways and ordered the destruction of all the ancient shrines. The veneration of the ancient Sainted Few was to be replaced by the cult of Voldemort where all would acknowledge him as Overlord and pay homage to him as if he were a deity. During his time in power, Voldemort compelled many of his prisoners to participate in the destruction of these shrines in a perverse re-education effort. The cult of Voldemort, wizarding historians speculated, might have been successful if he was not so easily overthrown by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

With the overthrow of Voldemort, Harry Potter became the new Minister for Magic and immediately set about restoring the old traditions that the wizarding community had lived by. However, due to the continual lack of funds, he was unable to realise his aim of restoring all the former Wizarding Shrines to their past glory. Despite its historical importance, the Wizarding Shrine of the Sainted Few was one of the places that suffered due to this lamentable want of funds. While the public readily accepted this officially published rationale, Severus was of the mind that the Wizarding Shrine of the Sainted Few was not restored because it lay in one of the most disreputable areas of wizarding London.

Severus and Hermione slowly made their way through this building with its smashed windows, fallen pillars and broken statues of the Sainted Few. The first statute to catch Hermione's eye was a woman balancing two eyeballs on a scale. "St Lucy," she muttered.

'Indeed,' said Severus, 'Muggle patron saint of blindness, wizarding saint of foresight.' He viewed the statute dispassionately and noticed that it was hacked in many places, her face chiselled with pockmarks and her body full of angry gashes.

'How barbaric to destroy such craftsmanship,' opined Hermione with a disapproving frown. 'It is fortunate then that this Shrine was only targeted in the last year of Voldemort's reign.'

'The Dark Lord may order of the destruction of the shrines, but these gashes, knife strokes and angry slashes are all recent work of some person. The Dark Lord would not have left any statue standing if he had his way. This is the work of someone else familiar with his thoughts.'

'Perhaps someone who converted to his cause later in the war when his power was waning,' suggested Hermione.

'Perhaps, perhaps,' was the quiet purring reply.

They moved on to the next statute, which was a lady holding her severed head in one hand, and her other outstretched in benediction. She too was hacked and vandalised. Severus remarked that this lady must have been St Dymphna, the Muggle and wizarding saint for the mentally afflicted. 'Ironically, she was beheaded for trying to protect her virtue,' he drawled carelessly.

St Francis of Assisi, Muggle and wizarding saint of animals, was next and the dove on his right hand had been chopped off and lay at his feet. His head was bashed in and his body bore innumerable angry gashes. St Vincent de Paul suffered the same fate as his unfortunate friend. All the other statutes on the Wizarding Shrine of the Sainted Few bore such marks of destruction. St Bartholomew had his hands chopped off, St Matthew, the Muggle Saint of bankers and wizarding saint of shrewdness, was beheaded, his limbs and abacus mutilated.

The destruction of the previous statues did not prepare Hermione for the horrors committed onto the next one. It stood on a marble plinth, clutching a lute. Her crown of lilies and roses was grossly battered and countless strokes of a knife or hook adorned her delicately carved slender neck. Sts. Peter and Paul next to her had been powerless to protect her from the savage attack.

'Poor lady,' murmured Hermione to the Muggle saint of music and the wizarding saint of polyphonic charms for plants. 'Who would do such a thing to you – you who are gentle, fair and just?'

'Do you discern a pattern, Dr Granger?' asked Severus, examining the St Paul statue with great care.

'The mutilations on these statues are exactly the same as on our victims?' she offered.

'Other than the obvious. He's playing a game with us, our murderer.'

'That is obvious, Professor Snape,' cried Hermione in exasperation.

'That's not quite what I meant. Insufferable know-all-it! How can you analyse something when you have not seen the connections! How well do you know your Saint Days? Muggle and Wizards share the same dates if your confused brain doesn't already know. Quick, St Paul – what is his feast day?' retorted Severus, spinning around sharply and catching her by the wrists.

'The 29th of June,' she answered, meeting his penetrating gaze, wondering whether he had gone quite mad from sleep deprivation.

'St Peter?' he continued harshly.

'The 29th of June,' she answered slowly.

He increased the pressure of his grip on her wrists. 'Now, Dr Granger,' he purred in a dangerously low tone. 'In the reports from the Chardobis districts, who were killed on the 29th of June?'

'Sarah Fawcett and Cuthbert Mockridge.'

Raising a trembling finger at the statues of St Peter and St Paul, he hissed, 'On their saint days. Do you see a pattern here, Dr Granger, or do I have to go through the list with you?'

'Mere coincidence,' she said, attempting to break free from his iron grip.

'Coincidence?' he barked, inching closer to her face, without relinquishing her wrists. "I'll show you the kind of perverse coincidence this is!" He narrowed his eyes in malicious intent and continued his assault of her mind, 'Who was killed in the Qualia district of Chardobis on 22nd November?'

'Dolores Umbridge.'

'Feast day of St Cecilia.' he paused and slowly exhaled. 'Coincidence, you say? I'll show you "coincidence". Quickly now, who died on 15th May?'

'Marietta Edgecombe.'

'Feast day of St Dymphna,' he answered, his eyes strangely glittering in a mix of intellectual stimulation and something else he could not quite place. 'Still think it's all coincidence, Dr Granger? Susan Bones, dead 27th June!' he barked, leaning closer toward her face, hoping that she would keep up with his thought processes.

Glaring at him so as not allow him the satisfaction of having frightened her, she answered, 'Feast day of St Emma.'

'Kingsley Shacklebolt, dead 24th August!' he commanded, backing her against the statute of St Cecilia.

Hermione felt her breath hitch and she spat her response hastily, 'Feast day of St Bartholomew.'

Severus quickened his pace of questioning. 'Recall the pattern, Dr Granger. It is a most ingenious one. Dean Thomas, dead 21st September!'

'Feast day of St Matthew.'

'Nymphadora Tonks, dead 27th September!'

'Feast day of St Vincent de Paul,' Hermione answered in a near vicious manner, when she abruptly realised her intellect was intrigued by Severus's train-of-thought. He forced her to think and to see the connection between the desecrated statues at the centre of the spider's web and the victims they had encountered so far. While she despised his highhanded manner of apprising her of his notions, she was more concerned with mentally trying to plot the killer's next move to be bothered with Severus's slightly savage method.

'Colin Creevey, dead 4th October!' he hissed, breaking into her reverie.

'Feast day of St Francis of Assisi,' she answered with a gasp as her breathing picked up a notch.

'Zacharias Smith, next on 21st October!'

'Feast day of St Ursula.'

'Augusta Longbottom, dead 17th November!'

'Feast day of St Elizabeth of Hungary.'

Severus's questions continued in this vein until all the other victims were covered. By the end of it, the two Unspeakable Unspeakables stood staring at each other, their noses touching and their breathing heavily ragged.

Hermione found that her colleague's eyes had softened in their intellectual encounter and demurely lowered her eyes. 'Let me go, Professor Snape, before I lose the use of my wrists,' she said at last in an uncomfortable cough when she saw that he was intently studying her expression. He did so, mumbled something akin to an apology and swept away to examine the statue of St Lucy.

The investigators were stunned by their discovery that their killer was a rational creature who planned every meticulous detail. Hermione shivered slightly in the realisation that this person was most likely going to kill again and they had no way of knowing where or when he would strike. 'This Sainted Few theory is problematic,' she said, rubbing her wrists gently so as to encourage better blood circulation.

'And how is that?'

'Every day is a Saint Day,' she answered slowly.

'Be that as it may,' he said thoughtfully tracing his lips and staring at St Lucy. 'This theory gives us a suspect. This murderer is one who was deeply affected by the Dark Lord's policies of eliminating the old ways.'

'Former Death Eater? Crony of Lucius Malfoy perhaps?' she offered, wondering who this individual was. Whoever it was, it was evident that he was badly scarred by the events that occurred in the civil war when Voldemort was in power and when Harry was rebuilding the British wizarding world.

'That I do not know,' answered Severus truthfully. 'However, I do know this – whoever it is, he patronises this gothic establishment and uses our unfortunate ladies and gentlemen,' he waved dismissively at the statues with his back toward Hermione before continuing, "as target practice. Come, Dr Granger.' He spun around and offered his shivering colleague his gloves. 'Let us leave this place before I have to explain to the old goat why you froze to death.'

They made their way back to Diagon Alley proper in silence, neither seeing nor hearing the sounds of Christmas cheer in the air. Hermione broke the silence by asking, 'What do we do now?'

'I'm mentally compiling a list of all my former acquaintances who are skilled in the arts of bodily mutilation and relish the killing of innocents,' he said sardonically, with his hands in his pockets, trudging through the human traffic.

'All the Death Eaters have either been incarcerated or executed. Who is left to commit such atrocities? Even if there are a few left running amok out there, they are surely mad to try something like this!' She cried out.

Instinctively, without turning around, he knew that she had been borne a little distance away from him by the crowd. He waited a few seconds for her and when she finally caught up with him, he silently hooked her hand to his elbow. 'Death Eaters are not mad in the traditional sense, Dr Granger. These killings are not the work of a lunatic. And I am beginning to suspect that the victims are not quite so random after all.'

Momentarily stunned that he had linked arms with her without even offering her the use of his arm, she quickly assumed that he did not want to waste time waiting for her to catch up to his strides. 'So which Death Eater is it?'

'I have my doubts as to whether he is a Death Eater,' he muttered under his breath. Looking up at the heavens for a sign and finding none, he replied, 'We shall make a trip to Azkaban and check the records.'

Footnotes:

The title of this tale is a pun. 'Presents' is a double entendre. It means (1) gifts and (2) shows. If you take its latter meaning and dissect it, you will realise that I could mean it as a masque or pageant (in the 17th century understanding of the term). Think about it. I'll leave you to figure out how it fits with the story. 'Presents' could also mean 'current' – which would be another pun for Christmas now under the Potter Administration and Christmas then, under the Voldemort administration.

Leninist-Stalinist overtones in paragraph 28 are intentional. Also cf the Cultural Revolution in Maoist China as well as the Saddam regime and the post-Saddam regime. Think about and you will see what I'm getting at. It is not my intention to alienate readers with leftist views – it's a way of bringing politics into the plot...

Terry Boot is a Ravenclaw in the HP books and a contemporary of HP and gang. He is a friend of Michael Corner and a member of Dumbledore's Army. He appeared in Book 5 and his name can be seen in the 'Quidditch Through the Ages' Book, he was supposed to have checked out from the library.

Sarah Fawcett is a Hufflepuff in my Harry Potter books (my family reads the British edition of everything). It is unknown whether she belongs to the same year as Harry. I am inclined to think that she is academically one year his senior. Rowling is ambiguous on Miss Fawcett's age. Miss Fawcett was in the Duelling Club in Book 2 and appears in Book 4 where she grows a handsome beard for attempting to bypass the Goblet of Fire.

Cuthbert Mockridge is mentioned in Book 4 as the Head of the Goblin Liaison Office and I have always suspected that he was a part of Albus's Order.

The line 'Thankful that the Weasley twins had acquired a modicum of civic responsibility' is Severus's thoughts on the twins. It is intentionally ironic.

(1) St Cecilia's feast day is on November 22nd. She is regarded as the patroness of music (because of the story that she heard heavenly music in her heart when she was married), and is represented in art with an organ or organ-pipes in her hand and crowns of flowers in her hair. St Cecilia's story starts in Rome. She was given in marriage to a youth named Valerian. She wore sackcloth next to her skin, and fasted, and invoked the saints, angels, and virgins, beseeching them to guard her virginity. And she said to her husband, "I will tell you a secret if you will swear not to reveal it to anyone." And when he swore, she added, "There is an angel who watches me, and wards off from me any who would touch me." He said, "Dearest, if this be true, show me the angel." "That can only be if you will believe in one God, and be baptized."

She sent him to Pope S. Urban (223-230), who baptized him; and when he returned, he saw Cecilia praying in her chamber, and an angel by her with flaming wings, holding two crowns of roses and lilies, which he placed on their heads, and then vanished. Shortly after, Tibertius, the brother of Valerian, entered, and wondered at the fragrance and beauty of the flowers at that season of the year.

When he heard the story of how they had obtained these crowns, he also consented to be baptized. After their baptism, the two brothers devoted themselves to burying the martyrs slain daily by the prefect of the city, Turcius Almachius. [There was no prefect of that name.] They were arrested and brought before the prefect, and when they refused to sacrifice to the gods were executed with the sword.

In the meantime, S. Cecilia, by preaching had converted four hundred persons, whom Pope Urban forthwith baptized. Then Cecilia was arrested, and condemned to be suffocated in the baths. She was shut in for a night and a day, and the fires were heaped up, and made to glow and roar their utmost, but Cecilia did not even break out into perspiration from the heat. When Almachius heard this he sent an executioner to cut off her head in the bath. The man struck thrice without being able to sever the head from the trunk. He left her bleeding, and she lived three days. Crowds came to her, and collected her blood with napkins and sponges (think you on this tidbit), whilst she preached to them or prayed. At the end of that period she died, and was buried by Pope Urban and his deacons.

Alexander Severus, who was emperor when Urban was Pope, did not persecute the Church, though it is possible some Christians may have suffered in his reign. Herodian says that no person was condemned during the reign of Alexander, except according to the usual course of the law and by judges of the strictest integrity. A few Christians may have suffered, but there can have been no furious persecutions as waged by the apocryphal prefect, Turcius Almachius, and described in the Acts.

Urbanus was the prefect of the city, and Ulpian, who had much influence at the beginning of Alexander's reign as principal secretary of the emperor and commander of the Pretorian Guards, is thought to have encouraged persecution. Usuardus makes Cecilia suffer under Commodus. Molanus transfers the martyrdom to the reign of Marcus Aurelius. But it is idle to expect to extract history from romance.

In 1599, Cardinal Paul Emilius Sfondrati, nephew of Pope Gregory XIV, rebuilt the church of St. Cecilia.

(2) June 29th is the Feast Day of two saints - St Paul and St Peter. While Peter's chief feast day is June 29, he is also honoured on February 22 and November 18. In liturgical art, he is depicted as an elderly man holding a key and a book. His symbols include an inverted cross, a boat, and the cock.

St Paul, the indefatigable Apostle of the Gentiles, was converted from Judaism (and changed his name from Saul to Paul) on the road to Damascus. He remained some days in Damascus after his Baptism, and then went to Arabia, possibly for a year or two to prepare himself for his future missionary activity. Having returned to Damascus, he stayed there for a time, preaching in the synagogues that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. For this he incurred the hatred of the Jews and had to flee from the city. Throughout his life, he was constantly imprisoned until the year 67, when he was finally beheaded.

(3) May 15th is the feast day of St. Dymphna, who is the patron saint of those suffering from nervous and mental afflictions. Dymphna was fourteen when her mother died. Damon (Dymphna's father) is said to have been afflicted with a mental illness, brought on by his grief. He sent messengers throughout his town and other lands to find some woman of noble birth, resembling his wife, who would be willing to marry him. When none could be found, his evil advisers told him to marry his own daughter. Dymphna fled from her castle together with St. Gerebran, her confessor, and two other friends. Damon found them in Belgium. He gave orders that the priest's head be cut off. Then Damon tried to persuade his daughter to return to Ireland with him. When she refused, he drew his sword and struck off her head. She was then only fifteen years of age. Dymphna received the crown of martyrdom in defence of her purity about the year 620. She is the patron of those suffering from nervous and mental afflictions. Many miracles have taken place at her shrine, built on the spot where she was buried in Gheel, Belgium.

(4) June 27th is the feast day of St Emma. Emma was a relative of Emperor St. Henry II and also known as Hemma. She was raised at Henry's court by St. Cunegund, and according to legend was married to Landgrave William of Friesach. Their two children were murdered during an uprising at mines owned by William. Grief-stricken, he made a pilgrimage to Rome and died on the way back. Emma then decided to devote her life to God. She gave liberally to the poor, founded several religious houses and a double monastery at Gurk, Austria, and may have become a nun there. Despite the above legend, scholars believe she was of the Friesach family rather than the William one and that her son was killed in a battle twenty years after the death of her husband, Count William of Sanngan, about the year 1015, and it was at this time that she began her foundations. Her cult was confirmed in 1938.

(5) August 24th is the feast day of St Bartholomew. All that is known of him with certainty is that he is mentioned in the synoptic gospels and Acts as one of the twelve apostles. His name, a patronymic, means 'son of Tolomai' and scholars believe he is the same as Nathaniel mentioned in John, who says he is from Cana and that Jesus called him an 'Israelite...incapable of deceit'. The Roman Martyrology says he preached in India and Greater Armenia, where he was flayed and beheaded by King Astyages. Tradition has the place as Abanopolis on the west coast of the Caspian Sea and that he also preached in Mesopotamia, Persia, and Egypt. The Gospel of Bartholomew is apocryphal and was condemned in the decree of Pseudo-Gelasius.

(6) September 21st is the feast day of St Matthew, who is also the patron saint of bankers. St. Matthew, one of the twelve Apostles, is the author of the first Gospel (he edited the gospel from two earlier books). This has been the constant tradition of the Church and is confirmed by the Gospel itself. He was the son of Alpheus and was called to be an Apostle while sitting in the tax collectors' place at Capernaum. Before his conversion, he was a publican, i.e., a tax collector by profession. He is to be identified with the "Levi" of Mark and Luke. For more information, please refer to this website 'Who Wrote the Bible?' http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/matthew/intro.htm, a excellent source recommended by my lovely beta, Peri.

His apostolic activity was at first restricted to the communities of Palestine. Nothing definite is known about his later life. There is a tradition that points to Ethiopia as his field of labour; other traditions mention Parthia and Persia. It is uncertain whether he died a natural death or received the crown of martyrdom.

St. Matthew's Gospel was written to fill a sorely felt need of his fellow countrymen, both believers and unbelievers. For the former, it served as a token of his regard and as an encouragement in the trials to come, especially the danger of falling back to Judaism; for the latter, it was designed to convince them that the Messiah had come in the person of Jesus, our Lord, in Whom all the promises of the Messianic Kingdom embracing all people had been fulfilled in a spiritual rather than in a carnal way: "My Kingdom is not of this world." His Gospel, then, answered the question put by the disciples of St. John the Baptist, "Are You He Who is to come, or shall we look for another?"

Writing for his fellow citizens of Palestine, St. Matthew composed his Gospel in his native Aramaic, the "Hebrew tongue" mentioned in the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. Soon afterward, about the time of the persecution of Herod Agrippa I in 42 AD, he took his departure for other lands. Another tradition places the composition of his Gospel either between the time of this departure and the Council of Jerusalem, i.e., between 42 AD and 50 AD or even later. Definitely, however, the Gospel, depicting the Holy City with its altar and temple as still existing, and without any reference to the fulfilment of our Lord's prophecy, shows that it was written before the destruction of the city by the Romans in 70 AD, and this internal evidence confirms the early traditions.

(7) September 27th is the feast day of St Vincent de Paul, who is also the patron saint of charitable societies. St. Vincent was born of poor parents in the village of Pouy in Gascony, France, about 1580. He enjoyed his first schooling under the Franciscan Fathers at Acqs. Such had been his progress in four years that a gentleman chose him as subpreceptor to his children, and he was thus enabled to continue his studies without being a burden to his parents. In 1596, he went to the University of Toulouse for theological studies, and there he was ordained priest in 1600.

In 1605, on a voyage by sea from Marseilles to Narbonne, he fell into the hands of African pirates and was carried as a slave to Tunis. His captivity lasted about two years, until Divine Providence enabled him to effect his escape. After a brief visit to Rome, he returned to France, where he became preceptor in the family of Emmanuel de Gondy, Count of Goigny, and General of the galleys of France. In 1617, he began to preach missions, and in 1625, he lay the foundations of a congregation which afterward became the Congregation of the Mission or Lazarists, so named on account of the Priory of St. Lazarus, which the Fathers began to occupy in 1633.

It would be impossible to enumerate all the works of this servant of God. Charity was his predominant virtue. It extended to all classes of persons, from children to the elderly. The Sisters of Charity also owe the foundation of their congregation to St. Vincent. In the midst of the most distracting occupations, his soul was always intimately united with God. Though honoured by the great ones of the world, he remained deeply rooted in humility. The Apostle of Charity, the immortal Vincent de Paul, breathed his last in Paris at the age of eighty.

(8) October 4th is the feats day of St Francis of Assisi, who was founder of the Franciscan Order, born at Assisi in Umbria, in 1181. He is also the patron saint of Animals, Merchants & Ecology. He advocated living as austere a life as possible and suffered a great deal in his final days when blindness overtook him.

(9) October 21st is the feast day of St Ursula. According to a legend that appeared in the tenth century, Ursula was the daughter of a Christian king in Britain and was granted a three-year postponement of a marriage she did not wish to a pagan prince. With ten ladies in waiting, each attended by a thousand maidens, she embarked on a voyage across the North Sea, sailed up the Rhine to Basle, Switzerland, and then went to Rome. On their way back, they were all massacred by pagan Huns at Cologne in about 451 when Ursula refused to marry their chieftain. Yes, as Peri (my dear beta) pointed out, there were many pagans in one place for the Huns to kill Ursula + 10 ladies + 10,000 others. That's the legend, so I'm telling it as it appears in my notes.

According to another legend, America was settled by British colonizers and soldiers after Emperor Magnus Clemens Maximus conquered Britain and Gaul in 383. The ruler of the settlers, Cynan Meiriadog, called on King Dionotus of Cornwall for wives for the settlers, whereupon Dionotus sent his daughter Ursula, who was to marry Cynan, with eleven thousand maidens and sixty thousand common women. Their fleet was shipwrecked and all the women were enslaved or murdered. The legends are pious fictions, but what is true is that one Clematius, a senator, rebuilt a basilica in Cologne that had originally been built, probably at the beginning of the fourth century, to honour a group of virgins who had been martyred at Cologne. They were evidently venerated enough to have had a church built in their honour, but who they were and how many of them there were, are unknown. From these meagre facts, the legend of Ursula grew and developed.

(10) November 17th is the feast day of St Elizabeth of Hungary. the patron saint of bakers, countesses, dead children, falsely accused, the homeless, nursing services, tertiary institutions, widows, and young brides and is represented by her symbols of alms, flowers, bread, the poor, and a pitcher. St. Elizabeth was born in Hungary in 1207, the daughter of Alexander II, King of Hungary. At the age of four, she was sent for education to the court of the Landgrave of Thuringia, to whose infant son she was betrothed. As she grew in age, her piety also increased rapidly. In 1221, she married Louis of Thuringia and in spite of her position at court began to lead an austerely simple life, practiced penance, and devoted herself to works of charity.

Her husband was himself much inclined to religion and highly esteemed her virtue, encouraging her in her exemplary life. They had three children when tragedy struck - Louis was killed while fighting with the Crusaders. After his death, Elizabeth left the court, made arrangements for the care of her children, and in 1228, renounced the world, becoming a tertiary of St. Francis. She built the Franciscan hospital at Marburg and devoted herself to the care of the sick until her death at the age of 24 in 1231.