4 August 2009
[Severus Snape’s diary]
You have become strange in Azkaban. You keep counting the tiles of the floor and the cracks in the wall, whispering under your breath. At first I couldn’t understand what you were saying. But then you looked at me suddenly and said very clearly:
“Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, born 1 April 1881, in Mould-on-the-Wold, died 21 June 1997, on the Astronomy Tower, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. His name was in the square below yours because you almost died for him.”
I flinched so hard at hearing his name that Draco came to me, laying a gentle hand on my shoulder.
“It wasn’t your fault, Severus,” he said. “You threw yourself in the way of a curse to save him. You almost died in Hermione’s arms that night. If it is anyone’s fault, it’s mine. I’ve never seen my father angrier than that night, when I declared my allegiance to the Order for the first time.—And besides, he would have died anyway.”
“We all die anyway,” I sneered, although his words soothed me.
“It wasn’t your fault either, Draco,” you interrupted with the barest hint of your old bossiness. “Just his.”
But then you shuddered, cringed and cowered, your head lowered, counting off tiles again and the names of the dead. Fear gripped me—have you become my own Ariana in those eleven years? Mad and strange and sweet and scared?
…I must have drifted away then. To the place I built for us inside of me. Our little white house nestling safely into that sheltered cove (because you liked Shell Cottage so much). With rambling roses always in full bloom and kittens playing in the sunshine. Four orange, like your beloved Crooks, and one black as coal…
When I came back to myself, it was late in the afternoon.
I fear I have become strange in Azkaban, too.
Draco put tea and papers on the table—the Prophet and the Quibbler.
Lord Voldemort is dead.
He died—how ironic!—on 21 June 2009, after ruling wizarding Britain as “Lord Protector of Magic” for eleven years.
Lord Voldemort died of a progressive lactose-intolerance that one fine day resulted in deadly anaphylaxis.
He had one mug of Nagini’s milk too many.
…Lucius Malfoy is “Minister for Magic” now. “Minister”, not “Lord Protector”.
Bellatrix Lestrange is dead, too.
A hemorrhagic reaction of unknown origin.
Have we been set free just be caught and killed? Who is responsible for our tenuous toehold in a life of freedom? Who is reading these pages, drenched in blood, truth, and insanity?
Draco doesn’t know—he hasn’t been to the mainland in seven years.
“We need a plan,” you said. “I must make a list.”
I could have kissed you for that.
(I did kiss you for that.)
“You can’t stay here,” Draco warned. “They don’t know I’m still alive.”
We froze, you and I.
But it was I who pulled out my diary and held it out to Draco.
“They do now,” I said.
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.