21 August 2009
[Severus Snape’s diary]
We’ve made the front page of the Daily Prophet.
What surprises me is how long it took them.
They more than made up for the delay with those new techniques you marvelled at when we stayed with Draco: wizarding photographs that don’t move randomly but show a scene chronologically.
In colour.
With sound.
They caught you frozen on the sidewalk, paralysed by your squares and lines.
And me sweating over a pot in the kitchen of the Three Broomsticks.
Predictably, there was not a single order of my cock-a-leekie soup today. You just shrugged and said that you don’t mind eating it all week. After eleven years in Azkaban, I don’t, either. But how long will I keep my job if no one will eat my soups? And Blaise Zabini has owled his regrets; he cannot vouch for me. His position is precarious due to his part-Veela wife. Lucius may not be Voldemort, and Gabrielle’s beauty alone should secure her and her husband’s freedom, but Lucius hasn’t been in office for a hundred days yet. And they have three young children. The risks they dare take are limited.
However, they did promise to do everything for us that is within their powers.
You say that’s something.
But you’re—euphoric.
Schroedinger is purring on your lap, and you’ve been to visit Minerva again today. Tomorrow Padma has promised to take you to Hogwarts, and Milly has already filed the paperwork to vouch for you. I don’t think I’ve seen you count anything yet today! And whatever it was that Agan poured over your hand—it has worked. The cuts are clean now, and for the time being at least, they scab over quickly…which is more than I can say for my own wounds. I have been reduced to wearing Muggle band-aids.
…that you threaten to adorn with little lions. A suggestion that should annoy me and delight me.
But I am weary.
When I walk towards our cottage each evening, I find it hard to concentrate on its green door and satin-green shutters. Somewhere, just a breath, just a blink away, is another door painted Gryffindor-red that promises peace…solace…
Instead, we gulped down a bowl of cock-a-leekie soup, and you Apparated with me to the former western gatehouse of Hogwarts.
My first impression: How can she be so small? But even in human form, she seems no more than a kitten, curled into herself.
I forced myself to enter her mind.
Her eyes are wide open.
Yet shut.
(Like mine were, I expect, most of these eleven years in Azkaban.)
In Minerva’s mind I found:
Content dreaming in front of the fireplace. Paws twitching due to dangers past, mice caught, masters escaped from. The joy of juicy meat, thick gravy, chunks of cheese. But also the bone-deep, chilling ache of loneliness. Perhaps, after eleven years, only the very marrow of her bones still recalls that she once was human, that she once fought for the Light.
She needs you.
But so do I.
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.