9 August 2009
[Severus Snape’s diary]
Thanks to Hannah Abbott and the Patil twins, we now know much about the wizarding world of 2009. (The Muggle world must wait.)
The Patils seem to be part of (or at least in contact with) Or what remains of it today. But they won’t give any details. You and I, we have become symbols—as such we must be protected (or die martyrs). But we are also a liability. On probation, under suspicion. Throughout the afternoon, both Patils watched us closely. That is reasonable; eleven years in Azkaban have our sanity hanging by a thread. You and I both know it.
(I wonder if they know what happened in the Shrieking Shack.)
At least they could tell us why there were no Dementors in Azkaban. The Dementors have become guards of the wizarding world, “protecting” us against Muggles and Mudbloods.
They can’t get in. And we…we can’t get out.
When you realised what this meant, you started counting floorboards. But there are too many, some of them obscured by furniture, and they are not square. That confused you, and you clung to me, shaking.
Parvati Patil is an Auror now. I wonder how deeply the Ministry and Hogwarts are infiltrated by They knew about the Portkey (though not about the conditions of our probation) and went looking for us at its destination, Muggle London. (So they must have connections to the DMT [Department of Magical Transportation] at least, if not to the DMLE [Department of Magical Law Enforcement].)
Still, I think it was good I threw the Portkey away; Draco’s lighthouse was already overwhelming after Azkaban, even homely Hogsmeade is still a challenge for both of us. In Muggle London we wouldn’t have lasted a day.
Padma Patil teaches Arithmancy; she’s also Head of Ravenclaw. Professor Sinistra has been made Headmistress. Alecto is Deputy and Head of Slytherin, Amycus head of the Department for Magical Education. Attendance for pure-bloods is compulsory. Formal magical education is not available for half-bloods and Mudbloods.
You snorted at Padma’s explanation of the Blood Laws: Only direct offspring of Muggle/magical liaisons are defined “half-blood”. Finer percentages of mixed heritage are ignored—for the sake of economy.
Gryffindor House has been abolished.
You didn’t cry over that. But you stopped counting. You just rocked back and forth, keening.
This news should taste of sweet satisfaction—to see the House of my childhood tormentors destroyed. But now that nothing is left of them in this world, there is no glee, just bitterness.
I want to leave now; the herb-garden of our small white house beckons with its peaceful scents and humming bees. Yet I must stay if I want to hold you. And I still have questions—while you remain silent.
But the Patils refuse to say why we must stay away from Madam Agan. She is dangerous; that is all we need to know.
They’ve promised to do all in their power to help us fulfil the conditions of our probation, though. Starting with the address of a house that will be sold to us.
Well! I must say I’m impressed by this development. As unlikely as these things are to occur, this kind of upsprung friendship where there was only the opposite before can and does happen. You portrayed it quite nicely, and I’m also glad it’s a positive plot point. Good things happen even to people who are depressed and have gone through the mill. I hope this means there’s some hope!
Too bad the picture at the top of the chapter gave it away. Seeing Maggie Smith as McGonagall in the (admittedly nicely-done) artwork at the top took all the dramatic force away from the end of the chapter. Still a positive development, though, even if it wasn’t a surprise. I’m glad for Hermione, and by extension, for Severus.
Ah, Christ, I can feel you sharpening your knives for another gloom-fest. Only five more chapters left, and already I can feel you poking holes in whatever limited happiness or security they’ve found.
Amazing! A happy ending! I love it! See–hope isn’t so bad, is it? It does seem a trifle sudden, your ending. And we never did find out about the mystery woman. But I feel able to let our Hermione and Severus go, knowing that whatever further vicissitudes they face, they have each other on a more solid, saner basis. Thank you for your writing, and thank you for the hope you left our favorite couple (and us!) with.
I had wanted to delete the third review I left (“Ah, Christ…”), but I’ve been having problems with my computer, and it didn’t allow me to send my reasons back to you, so it (the deletion) could be done. I had read “Apprentice & Necromancer” first, and was deeply disturbed by how damaged so many of the characters had been at the end of that fic. I was therefore afraid that any positives that were about to jell in this story were all going to fall apart, instead. Once I came to the end of this and found it wasn’t going to end badly for them (yay!), I was sorry I’d been so negative in that third review. So I ask your pardon, and that you disregard that one. You really are quite a special writer, and even though I hated the fact my fictional friends suffered so badly by the finish of “A&N”, I must say your plotting is excellent, and so are your characterizations. I will come back to read more of your writing. Thank you for sharing your gifts with us!
Nice to see that you’re still reading!
One thing puzzles me: You must surely be aware that the characters in “Prisoners” are much, much more damaged than those in “Apprentice”.
Of course “Apprentice” leaves key-characters badly damaged … they have been to Death and back, after all. But that story has an ending that assures readers that yes, everything will be just fine one day, this is something we can cope with, eventually.
While in “Prisoners” the challenge of the plot is met, and superficially the characters and readers are rewarded with a fairly straightforward “happy ending”, the story is really much, much worse if you take a moment to think about it. There is no way back, no matter how much they heal. Hermione will for the rest of her life live under the compulsion of counting things. Severus will in times of crisis always drift off to his parallel world. They will always remain unable to live in an emotionally stable fashion without Draco anchoring them …
I don’t mind at all that you dislike or even “hate” the dark turns and twists of my story/stories. Some people like sweet milk chocolate, others like bitter dark chocolate, it’s as simple as that – different tastes and preferences.
Anyway, from your remarks I gather that you might be interested in hearing a bit about my motivation concerning my stories, so here are a few comments about that:
What I loathe in many fanfiction stories in various fandoms is how authors make light of consequences. People are tortured, traumatised, injured … and there are no consequences. Everyone is right as rain again in one and the same chapter. Personally, I find that not only ridiculous and boring, but somewhat despicable. It doesn’t work like that. As a reader, and therefore also as a writer, I’m simply not interested in fluffy lies, I’m in it for the hard-won happy ending, like the one I wrote for “Apprentice” … I prefer characters who have looked, heck, *jumped into* the abyss of despair and have crawled out of it again and persevered. I am interested in how characters will act when they are pushed far beyond their limits, and how that will change them, and how they will move on from there.
So if you’re looking for fluff, you will rarely find that kind of thing in my stories. But I do try to come up with interesting, twisty plots, and heroes who find the strength to go on no matter what.