6 August 2009
[Hermione Snape’s diary]
The first time can be excused; we were not ourselves, or rather, even less than we normally are now—the wine, the past, the pain…
The night overshadowed the day.
To the point I couldn’t bring myself to…put it in writing. Today I feel I must.
I’ll never forget Severus’ empty eyes when he—well, started fucking me. He touched me in all the right places, in all the right ways, and my body, touch-starved as it must be (after eleven years or 135 months or 587 weeks or 4,112 days, or—Draco did a Calculus spell for me—then around 98,699 hours), my body responded willingly. More than willingly. Wantonly.
But he never looked at me.
Even when Draco embraced him, he didn’t react, and I know this is not his usual inclination—although he has endured the touch of men before.
Only when he climaxed, he returned.
Just in time to hear Draco moan Harry’s name.
I froze—my heartbeat still pounding in my ears from my own orgasm. Even wandless, Severus is a dangerous man.
Nothing happened, though.
After breathless, paralysed minutes we disentangled ourselves and spent the rest of the night as far from each other as possible, and the following day, too, mostly occupied with simple domestic tasks. We bathed; first in cold, cliff-sheltered sea water, then in a hot tub in Draco’s kitchen. Draco and Severus cut off their beards and shaved. Draco cooked. Severus and I wrote our diary entries. His has ink-splotches—Veritaserum—
—one—two—three—four—five—six—seven—eight—nine—ten—eleven…letters—
And when the sky blushed with dusk, we climbed the spiral staircase again. Standing in front of the bed, we stared at each other.
The sunset is golden here.
(I can’t remember if that’s normal or extraordinary; no sunlight ever reached my cell.)
We looked as if drenched in Felix Felicis.
That night, we made love.
And I am writing this down now so I will never forget: Even after eleven years or 135 months or 587 weeks or 4,113 days in Azkaban, I can still love.
I can kiss and be kissed.
I can caress and be caressed.
I can smile and be smiled at.
I can cry and dry my lovers’ tears.
I can love and be loved.
Maybe, in time, I will even remember how to live.
This morning, Draco took us to a wandmaker on the Orkney Islands, on Eynhallow. Master Manannan Lear uses driftwood. His cores are magical flotsam and jetsam, and apparently his mother’s hair. At least that’s what he said when he thrust two wands at us. “Them’s for ye. Mither’s hair. Ye need it.” Obviously he doesn’t subscribe to Ollivander’s philosophy of wands choosing their wizards. Severus’ wand is ash, mine is elm.
Afterwards, Draco Apparated us to Scotland. We’re in Hogsmeade now, in a small upstairs chamber at the Three Broomsticks.
We have wands.
And 25 days to find a home, a job, and someone to vouch for us.
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.