16 August 2009
[Hermione Snape’s diary]
Last night Severus brought me soup for a late supper, left-overs from his job. His soup of the day was Mulligatawny soup—something most patrons of the pub had never heard of, much less tasted. Still, judging from Severus’ smirk, it was a success. His reasoning seems sound: onions most finely chopped, not mutilated; carrots, parsnip, and potatoes perfectly diced, not butchered; evenly sliced, spoon-sized pieces of lamb, not meat randomly torn apart. I thought his soup tasted of paradise. Severus, however, had no appetite. Naturally; he spent the whole day keeping a full pot of it burbling steadily on the hearth of the pub.
I would like to think that he enjoyed his first day at work. But I am more than satisfied to hear that nothing went wrong.
This morning, I returned to the post office, trying not to get my hopes up.
Not surprisingly, what hopes I may have nourished in the 18 hours since I left the post office yesterday, were snuffed out as soon as I took one look at Madam Clif-Wyrt’s face today. I must say, though, that the elderly witch in charge of Hogsmeade’s mail seemed honestly sorry that she’s not permitted to hire an ex-inmate of Azkaban for even the most menial of jobs.
Her pity, however, does not change the fact that I still have no job.
When I left the post office, I collided with Madam Agan. Without the warning from Padma and Parvati, I might have thought her kind: She caught me and stopped me from falling. When she realised that her touch was uncomfortable to me, she released me at once. Then she noticed the inflamed wound on the back of my left hand. She showed no disgust. Instead, she offered her help, in form of a rare potion. But she did not press the issue, just left it at an open invitation to drop by—I know where she lives, don’t I?
But I must admit, the way her hard, black eyes focused on me, made my skin crawl. And when she gazed at the bloody, inflamed incisions on my hands, the tip of a pert pink tongue slid over her lips in quick, greedy movements that did not seem quite…normal. Or human, really.
Of course I’m not a good judge of what is and what is not normal or sane at the moment.
I should have kept going then, should have gone and knocked at every door of every shop in Hogsmeade, asking for a job.
…but I couldn’t. Just couldn’t.
I’ll come back tomorrow.
At Hogsmeade station, I had the second unexpected encounter of the day: I met Millicent Bulstrode.
The last time I saw her was right after I shoved her cat out of the way of a stray killing curse. I never knew if either of them survived the battle, much less that she knew I had survived. If you can call imprisonment in Azkaban “surviving”.
She was strangely cordial.
…I invited her for tea.
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.