<\/p>\n
[Hermione Snape’s diary]<\/p>\n
[Lines on the fly-leaf of Hermione’s diary, obviously added in retrospect.]<\/p>\n
I still remember the last time I touched a book. A parchment. A quill.<\/p>\n
Even after more than eleven years I still remember.<\/p>\n
After more than 135 months.<\/p>\n
After 587 weeks.<\/p>\n
After 4,109 days.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6I can’t calculate the hours in my mind, but they have been long and dark and cold since then.<\/p>\n
Since 1 May 1998. <\/em><\/p>\n Severus presented me with a bouquet at breakfast that morning: rowan, whitethorn, furze, a sprig of juniper. He didn’t tell me what it was; he liked to challenge his little know-it-all. And he knew that nothing soothed me as quiet hours in the library.<\/p>\n We were all on edge\u00e2\u20ac\u201dliving on our nerves, tight-rope acrobats over frayed nets of fragile friendships, our safety net a web of spider’s silk, sticky with suspicion, woven above a vast abyss threatening to swallow us whole.<\/p>\n And the whole world with us.<\/p>\n My radials and spirals have turned into squares and lines.<\/p>\n Thirteen rough-tough squares to the window. Seven uneven squares to the door.<\/p>\n No bears, though; just thirteen squares to a dead wall, seven squares to a locked door, thirteen squares to a barred window, and seven squares to a narrow cot.<\/p>\n And lurking between those squares and lines: memories.<\/em><\/p>\n The scent of new parchment in the library. Severus’ aftershave\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe spicy-sour tang of freshly mown grass, of herbs and flowers and morning dew, all just a kiss away. Harry in the Shrieking Shack. The choking smell of life-blood spilling from his torn throat, the glittering scent of silver memories pouring from his mouth, eyes, nose, ears\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6the stink of his bowels, released in death. Ron crumpled, discarded, just an afterthought, even in death.<\/p>\n And that last list I made, of hawthorn, rowan, furze, and juniper.<\/p>\n Of my Beltane’s bouquet and what it meant.<\/p>\n Hawthorn\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe wishing-tree, the crown of thorns that Jesus bore and the torches that light the nuptial chambers of the wizarding world since Roman times.<\/p>\n Rowan\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbright orange berries, life in the death of winter, its wood for protection and good fortune and a peaceful death.<\/p>\n Furze\u00e2\u20ac\u201d“When gorse is out of bloom, kissing’s out of season”, <\/em>or so the saying goes; painful, then, that he gave me a twig with but one,<\/em> closed bud, and no blooms at all. Beneficial against snake-bite and scarlet fever. A symbol also for new love and fiery passion.<\/span><\/p>\n Juniper\u00e2\u20ac\u201dits oil used for mummification in ancient Egypt, its wood burnt to cleanse foul air and protect against Evil, its berries consumed to get rid of unwanted bastards.<\/p>\n A message of death and despair, of life and of love.<\/p>\n Had we been victorious, had Voldemort been vanquished, Severus Snape would have waited for me, would have waited to be crowned May Lord to my May Lady.<\/p>\n Thirteen squares for the length of my cell.<\/p>\n Seven for the width.<\/p>\n Invisible letters fill each square. Names of the fallen, one per square. Thirteen by seven, seven by thirteen. And I pace, pace, pace.<\/p>\n It is 31 July 2009, in Azkaban.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n [Hermione Snape’s diary]<\/p>\n My hands feel as if they’ve never grasped a quill before.<\/span><\/p>\n But even after eleven years or 135 months or 587 weeks or 4,110 days, I still know how to write.<\/span><\/p>\n And I must<\/em> write, because this is one of the conditions for my new life. Each day I must write in this diary. Where I am, what I did.<\/span><\/p>\n The quill is filled with everlasting Veritaserum. The ink is my blood, drawn from letters etched into my hands. Each day they will cut deeper into my flesh.<\/span><\/p>\n My blood is glistening in the sunset like liquid rubies.<\/span><\/p>\n The cuts hurt.<\/span><\/p>\n I love this pain.<\/span><\/p>\n P.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n For pardon.<\/span><\/p>\n For probation.<\/span><\/p>\n This morning, the door to my cell opened.<\/span><\/p>\n But the door of my cell does not open on Saturdays. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n It opens on Mondays. Not to provide food, or to take care of necessities. There are a Charmed plate and mug for the one, a Charmed chamber pot and jug for the other purpose. Once a month, those Charms are renewed.<\/span><\/p>\n The door opens solely to ascertain if the prisoner contained in the cell is still alive.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6the stench of a decaying corpse probably isn’t bad after just a week in the cold climate of Azkaban.<\/span><\/p>\n The door never<\/em> opens on Saturdays.<\/span><\/p>\n But it did.<\/span><\/p>\n Two guards dragged me from my cell.<\/span><\/p>\n No one has touched me in eleven years\u00e2\u20ac\u201d135 months\u00e2\u20ac\u201d586 weeks\u00e2\u20ac\u201d4,108 days\u00e2\u20ac\u201dsince that door closed behind me on 3 May 1998.<\/span><\/p>\n I don’t know what scared me more. The grip of their hands around my arms. Their warmth pressed against me. Their breath on my neck. Or the sound of my voice, when I was trying to scream, scream, scream\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand all I could do was whine.<\/span><\/p>\n A human being shouldn’t sound like that.<\/span><\/p>\n I<\/em> shouldn’t sound like that.<\/span><\/p>\n But while I wailed and cried a lot in the first year, and talked and muttered more in the second and third year, I have been silent for a long time now.<\/span><\/p>\n They ripped off my prison rags. Maybe leaving red welts on flesh grey with grime was more satisfying than a spell.<\/span><\/p>\n Thank Merlin I stank.<\/span><\/p>\n Naked, they shoved me into an empty cell with a drain at its centre. Before I could catch my breath, they started casting Aguamenti <\/em>at me.<\/span><\/p>\n Afterwards, they hauled me into yet another cell. This time with one desk and two chairs, the surprising accessory of a caseworker of the DMLE [the Department of Magical Law Enforcement]<\/span><\/span>…and a pile of clothing and other things.<\/span><\/p>\n The clothes I wore on 2 May 1998.<\/span><\/p>\n Jeans, t-shirt, sweater. Trainers.<\/span><\/p>\n But there was only one sock.<\/span><\/p>\n And no underwear.<\/span><\/p>\n [ . . . ]<\/p>\n These are the conditions of my pardon and probation:<\/span><\/p>\n 1. Within one month, I must find a place to live.<\/span><\/p>\n 2. Within one month, I must find a job.<\/span><\/p>\n 3. Within one month, I must find a wizard or witch of good repute to vouch for me.<\/span><\/p>\n 4. And I must write a page in this diary every day.<\/span><\/p>\n I am writing.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n [Severus Snape’s diary]<\/p>\n When I saw you, I knew my messages hadn’t reached you. The humiliation, the pain, the blood, the sores\u00e2\u20ac\u201dall in vain.<\/span><\/p>\n They Charmed off your hair.<\/span><\/p>\n Well. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n \n That was to be expected.<\/span><\/p>\n They put you in those ridiculous Muggle things you used to wear. You look lost in them now. Like a child in the clothes of her mother.<\/span><\/p>\n You hesitated towards me, arms half-raised, hands almost reaching.<\/span><\/p>\n I expected you to babble (a deluge of your dear, excited burbling: “You’re not dead, you’re not dead!”). And tears, yes, of course I expected tears. Hysterical tears or quiet, desperate, blissful tears. Tears to kiss away with a grand gesture, whispering against your sweet lips, your soft cheeks, that I didn’t die, that I didn’t die, not in 1980, not in 1998.<\/span><\/p>\n That I will not\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat I cannot<\/em> die as long as you shall live .<\/span><\/p>\n \n But you did not cry.<\/span><\/p>\n You let your arms sink down.<\/span><\/p>\n You stood very still and looked at me.<\/span><\/p>\n Your eyes, your mind, an open book.<\/span><\/p>\n (Never mind what I told Potter; I could always see what you <\/em>were thinking. Maybe because you never bothered to hide it\u00e2\u20ac\u201dnot when you wished for my approval as a child, not when you wanted my attention as a teenager, not when you offered your heart to me as an\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbefore <\/em>you ever had the chance to become an adult.)<\/span><\/p>\n But today you looked at me a woman grown.<\/span><\/p>\n A woman broken.<\/span><\/p>\n And you said, in a voice so hesitant and husky it couldn’t possibly be yours (I wouldn’t have recognised your voice without you standing before me, a misbegotten sparrow instead of Gryffindor’s most unruly lioness), you said:<\/span><\/p>\n “Your name is in the square below the window.”<\/span><\/p>\n “\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe middle square, four out of seven\u00e2\u20ac\u201d”<\/span><\/p>\n I saw the square.<\/span><\/p>\n There were ninety-one squares in your cell. Ninety of them the rough granite of Azkaban bedrock. One of them smooth and soft, from eleven long years of caresses.<\/span><\/p>\n Foolish, foolish girl.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n “Your<\/em> name,” I said, “is<\/em> everywhere.”<\/span><\/p>\n And that is true; it seems to be my one weakness that while I cannot be courageous for myself, I can carry a torch for others to my death and beyond. First Lily, then Albus; now you.<\/span><\/p>\n We stared at each other.<\/span><\/p>\n “What now?” you asked.<\/span><\/p>\n Vehemently, I flung the Portkey into the grey-black floods of the North Sea.<\/span><\/p>\n “We fly,” I announced.<\/span><\/p>\n Finally the grand gesture I’d planned for (eleven years, too many months, weeks and days to contemplate).<\/span><\/p>\n Like all my grand gestures, it failed.<\/span><\/p>\n That it wasn’t fatal I have to thank you for. You, and your fear of flying.<\/span><\/p>\n And Fate, of course, who’s still not done with me.<\/span><\/p>\n (\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6or you, it seems, my poor little lynx.)<\/span><\/p>\n And the lighthouse keeper of Bound Skerry, who found us when we fell from the sky on Grunay, an uninhabited island in the Out Skerries group, the easternmost part of Shetland.<\/span><\/p>\n Nominally, at least, of Scotland.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6of home.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n [Hermione Snape’s diary]<\/p>\n Yesterday’s entry is complete gibberish, the handwriting nearly illegible.<\/span><\/p>\n But I did manage to write down what I did and where I am.<\/span><\/p>\n Seventeen minutes before midnight I jerked awake from a nightmare, fearing I had forgotten my daily entry. The pain that pulsed in my hands was bliss.<\/span><\/p>\n Then the thought struck me it was just a dream that I roused Severus long enough for him to write his entry. I stumbled from the sofa, tore off his blanket, grabbed his hands.<\/span><\/p>\n Only when I saw the bloody letters etched into his hands I collapsed, weeping hysterically.<\/span><\/p>\n I had barely fallen asleep again, when the conviction gripped me that I was still in my cell, that Severus was just a name in one of my squares, not the man holding me tightly.<\/span><\/p>\n I screamed and shrieked and babbled and only quieted when he told me that it cannot be a dream because no dream could possibly contain Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger, and Severus Snape in one and the same bed. Especially a Draco Malfoy with a sun-burnt, weather-withered face and a shaggy, unkempt beard as long as Albus Dumbledore’s used to be.<\/span><\/p>\n That made sense to me even in my unhinged state and I fell asleep once more.<\/span><\/p>\n This morning I am calm.<\/span><\/p>\n But I fear that the last eleven years have left me less than sane.<\/span><\/p>\n I keep counting the squares on the flagstone floor of Draco’s living room on the fourth floor of his lighthouse-home. The way they get cut off by the round walls bothers me. That there would be 256 of them without the stairs bothers me.<\/span><\/p>\n I keep thinking of the squares in my cell. There were not enough of them. My list of our dead held 95 names, including animals and magical creatures, and I only had 91 squares. I left out the animals in the end. I put them in the corners. But it pained me. Dear Fang. Brave Mrs Norris. Faithful Hedwig. And my Crooks. My poor Crooks\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6I can still hear<\/em> the heel of Bellatrix’ boot grinding his skull into a pulp of brain, bone splinters and bits of blood-drenched fur.<\/span><\/p>\n With Severus and Draco alive, I would have had two more squares to fill with names.<\/span><\/p>\n But that would have left two corners empty.<\/span><\/p>\n It bothers me that there are no corners here.<\/span><\/p>\n We’ll stay here on Bound Skerry for a few days, though.<\/span><\/p>\n Draco says we need time to adjust after eleven years in Azkaban. He’ll bring us up to date concerning events in the Muggle and the wizarding world. And feed us properly; he promises he cooks a wicked fish stew.<\/span><\/p>\n That Severus doesn’t protest bothers me.<\/span><\/p>\n He withdraws into himself for long periods of time. One minute he’s talking to Draco\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe next he’s staring off into space for an hour. It is Occlumency, and Severus insists it has kept him sane all this time.<\/span><\/p>\n But I have seen Draco look at him.<\/span><\/p>\n He, too, wonders: How sane?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n [Severus Snape’s diary]<\/p>\n 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:<\/span><\/p>\n “Albus<\/em> Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore,<\/em> 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.”<\/span><\/p>\n I flinched so hard at hearing his name that Draco came to me, laying a gentle hand on my shoulder.<\/span><\/p>\n “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.\u00e2\u20ac\u201dAnd besides, he would have died anyway.”<\/span><\/p>\n “We all die anyway,”<\/em> I sneered, although his words soothed me.<\/span><\/p>\n “It wasn’t your fault either, Draco,” you interrupted with the barest hint of your old bossiness. “Just his.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n But then you shuddered, cringed and cowered, your head lowered, counting off tiles again and the names of the dead. Fear gripped me\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhave you become my own Ariana in those eleven years? Mad and strange and sweet and scared?<\/span><\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6I 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\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/span><\/p>\n When I came back to myself, it was late in the afternoon.<\/span><\/p>\n I fear I have become strange in Azkaban, too.<\/span><\/p>\n Draco put tea and papers on the table\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe Prophet and the Quibbler.<\/span><\/p>\n Lord Voldemort is dead.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
1 August 2009<\/span><\/h3>\n
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2 August 2009 <\/span><\/h3>\n
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3 August 2009<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
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4 August 2009 <\/span><\/h3>\n