22 August 2009
[Hermione Snape’s diary]
————I don’t want to write today.
Not because of the pain, but because it hurts.
I understand now why Severus didn’t want me to go. Why Padma and Parvati were reluctant to oblige me.
When Fawkes created Dumbledore’s tomb, he created a white mausoleum with a colonnade at the front. Four columns, one for each House. Each base and capital adorned with the symbols of that House. Badger, lion, eagle, snake.
Now—twelve years or 145 months or nearly 631 weeks or 4,415 days or around 105,960 hours after his death, only one broken column and a heap of rubble remains.
I could still make out the animal at the base of that one column. Its head has been blasted off, but its small paws and fat tail still wrap around the ruined pillar faithfully. The white marble of the shattered shaft is covered in graffiti, most of them green Vs in circles.
Voldemort’s victory?
Voldemort victorious?
That he
…only two small letters. One. Two. Breathe in. Breathe out. One. Two. Live—
in the end…that doesn’t seem to matter when I look at the remnants of Albus’ grave.
—Padma took me to Hogwarts today.
Alecto went to London for the weekend. Apart from her, none of the staff who’d object to my presence are currently in residence. But since term starts on September 7, they will be back soon. This was my only chance to see Hogwarts again for a long time.
Of Hagrid’s hut nothing remains.
The Quidditch pitch has been renovated. It is much larger than I remember it, the decor green and white and silver.
The Deputy Headmistress lives in splendour in what was the Gryffindor tower, eleven years or almost 136 months or 590 weeks or 4,130 days ago.
I only cried in the library.
Padma and I had tea in her office on the fifth floor. She has a beautiful view of the lake; with omnioculars you can even see our cottage.
She finally relented and went over my list with me.
The only names I included erroneously were Severus, Draco, and Minerva.
But there are seven names I missed, people I knew well enough that I would have wanted to remember them. I assume I could have included them by distinguishing between bottom and ceiling corners. Or—
But that is not necessary anymore. I’ve written them all down now, on the final pages of this diary. In alphabetical order.
—Padma was not pleased when I told her of my meeting with Madam Agan and of my visits with Minerva McGonagall.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” she told me. “You have no idea. Stay away from Agan.”
But she promised to assist me concerning Minerva.
Minerva has been placed under life-long house-arrest. The DMLE [Department of Magical Law Enforcement] is in charge of her affairs. To be appointed her assistant, I have to be approved by the department.
Severus came home with a huge pot of Bouillabaisse tonight. He refused to talk about work.
That means it’s not going well.
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.