1 August 2009
[Hermione Snape’s diary]
My hands feel as if they’ve never grasped a quill before.
But even after eleven years or 135 months or 587 weeks or 4,110 days, I still know how to write.
And I must write, because this is one of the conditions for my new life. Each day I must write in this diary. Where I am, what I did.
The quill is filled with everlasting Veritaserum. The ink is my blood, drawn from letters etched into my hands. Each day they will cut deeper into my flesh.
My blood is glistening in the sunset like liquid rubies.
The cuts hurt.
I love this pain.
P.
For pardon.
For probation.
This morning, the door to my cell opened.
But the door of my cell does not open on Saturdays.
It opens on Mondays. Not to provide food, or to take care of necessities. There are a Charmed plate and mug for the one, a Charmed chamber pot and jug for the other purpose. Once a month, those Charms are renewed.
The door opens solely to ascertain if the prisoner contained in the cell is still alive.
…the stench of a decaying corpse probably isn’t bad after just a week in the cold climate of Azkaban.
The door never opens on Saturdays.
But it did.
Two guards dragged me from my cell.
No one has touched me in eleven years—135 months—586 weeks—4,108 days—since that door closed behind me on 3 May 1998.
I don’t know what scared me more. The grip of their hands around my arms. Their warmth pressed against me. Their breath on my neck. Or the sound of my voice, when I was trying to scream, scream, scream—and all I could do was whine.
A human being shouldn’t sound like that.
I shouldn’t sound like that.
But while I wailed and cried a lot in the first year, and talked and muttered more in the second and third year, I have been silent for a long time now.
They ripped off my prison rags. Maybe leaving red welts on flesh grey with grime was more satisfying than a spell.
Thank Merlin I stank.
Naked, they shoved me into an empty cell with a drain at its centre. Before I could catch my breath, they started casting Aguamenti at me.
Afterwards, they hauled me into yet another cell. This time with one desk and two chairs, the surprising accessory of a caseworker of the DMLE [the Department of Magical Law Enforcement]…and a pile of clothing and other things.
The clothes I wore on 2 May 1998.
Jeans, t-shirt, sweater. Trainers.
But there was only one sock.
And no underwear.
[ . . . ]
These are the conditions of my pardon and probation:
1. Within one month, I must find a place to live.
2. Within one month, I must find a job.
3. Within one month, I must find a wizard or witch of good repute to vouch for me.
4. And I must write a page in this diary every day.
I am writing.
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.