23 August 2009
[Severus Snape’s diary]
Hannah cannot afford to lose money with her soups of all things. Cheaply produced, consumed in large quantities for lunch, sold again as starters at night, they are meant to bolster the precarious balance of a half-blood’s business revenue in hard times.
I have tipped the scales now, and she can’t afford that.
We both know this. But naturally, true to her foolishly faithful Hufflepuff nature, Hannah won’t consider the obvious solution.
I cooked Hairst Bree today. Harvest Brew or Summer-in-a-Pot. Meat and vegetables are at their freshest, their colours at their brightest—white, orange, brown, green. The broth is heavy with flavour.
But you know what it means that I brought another huge pot of soup home tonight.
I must make a decision.
It may tip the scales, and we cannot afford that.
At least we have another week before we must present ourselves in London, until we must prove we have met the conditions of our probation.
You say: “Miracles do happen.”
(Where, where in Merlin’s and Mithridates’ name do you find this faith, even now, after eleven years—or bloody 136 months or fucking 590 weeks or hellish 4,131 days?)
I could not bring myself to reply.
(Although there is one miracle I believed in. And it did, in fact, happen.
—You, of course.)
Instead I sat down at the kitchen table with you and went through the papers you need to owl to the DMLE [Department for Magical Law Enforcement] in order to become employed as Minerva McGonagall’s assistant.
These forms make the conditions of our probation appear child’s play.
(Which is an interesting observation all on its own, it seems to me.)
Padma, however, has produced the necessary recommendation from Minerva’s healer at St Mungo’s within a day. It seems the Patil chits are not without useful connections after all.
But what of their warning? What of Agan?
She has helped you twice now.
Why, I wonder. Why are the Patils so scared of her? And why do I feel as though I ought to know her, when I don’t? —I am quite certain I have never seen this woman before 8 August, when we met her at the lake.
The explanation could be simple: Agan may have been one of Voldemort’s inner circle, risen to prominence only after you and I were incarcerated, but after eleven years an enemy of long-standing fear and hatred to both Patils.
As I’ve stated already: she is a mystery, therefore I disapprove on principle. Worse, I fear we won’t have world enough nor time to solve it.
Am I making an error of judgment if I choose not to dwell on that now? I’ve made mistakes before; each of them has cost me dearly. Yet…when I look at you now, how you frown at your diary and pout at the pages, all I want is to distract you from your duties.
I want to fuck you.
You.
Rail-thin, stubble-headed, stubborn, bloody brilliant Hermione.
Without any doubt about where I am and who you are.
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.