12 August 2009
[Severus Snape’s diary]
Moving in took us approximately ten minutes. Even that only because you fussed over how our one change of clothing should be arranged in the wardrobe, and over placing our soap, toothbrushes, and toothpaste just so in the bathroom.
The comb is mine.
You don’t need a brush yet for the dusting of stubble on your head. When I run my fingers over your scalp, you bristle. Like coarse old velvet.
(I only managed to keep my bare inch of oily spikes because both guards were afraid of me. Small wonder; the dunderheads never passed their potions OWL. They didn’t dare come close enough to Charm my hair off entirely.)
I am writing this late at night, in the kitchen by candlelight, while you lie upstairs. Asleep, I hope, adrift in happy dreams.
After we put our things away, you cornered me.
“Let’s celebrate,” you said. In the tone that once made Potter, Weasley, and Draco jump. “For one night,” you said, “let’s pretend everything is as it should have been.”
I must have gaped like a fool.
You drew your wand. Although it’s driftwood, bleached and twisted, it’s beautiful. You pointed it at your head—and suddenly your curls were back. A mess, a riot, a cloud.
Another wave, and my hair touched my shoulders again. You took some license with it, though. Sleek, not oily. Feathery, not stringy.
Next came our hands—another Glamour. The stigmata of our imprisonment vanished.
“For one night, just for one night,” you whispered, “let us pretend.”
Let us pretend that Potter was not killed. That you did not use Potter’s death to that
the Dark Lord
Let us pretend we won the war.
Let us pretend…
That you finished your seventh year in peace. That I could fulfil the promise I gave you with my Beltane posy. That I courted you while you apprenticed with a master of your choosing; Minerva, probably.
Let us pretend…
That I wooed you, and that you said yes. That we got married in the chapel at Hogwarts, with Minerva conducting the ceremony, and all our friends in attendance. That I brought you here after the reception.
I carried you over the threshold.
And now—
Now we are alone.
Husband and wife.
You turn to me, in your glorious crimson gown. I trail your cleavage with my finger tips, while you tug impatiently at my black robes.
We tumble into bed laughing, breathless with bliss.
Everything is as it should be.
Naked, you are slender and delicious. Not a shy blushing virgin, but wicked and wanton, my greedy, beautiful, Gryffindor girl.
Just like you should be.
When I kiss you, my heart soars.
And when I take you—
The candle is almost burnt down. Time to go back to bed. I’ve done my duty, written my entry. I must return to you now and hold you as tightly as I may.
It’s not all right. And it shouldn’t be like that.
But we’ll take what we can get.
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.