The Phoenix: Drought Challenge
Title: The Phoenix
Team: DE
Challenge: Drought Challenge
Rating: G
Length: 4 X 100
A/N: So excited to see snape_submiss' drabble here today! Thank you for inspiring me and a special thank you to stgulik for such a great challenge. Usual disclaimers apply.
Each step brings a puff of dust, and without the wind to carry it away, it drifts back down over her booted feet. Hermione looks around at the barren, desolate environment, squinting in the harsh, unnatural glare of the sun.
Why the hell is she here? She could sift through the clues, but what good would it do?
She kneels down, and allows the ashes and rust to run through her fingers. No trace, not even a bone, a button, a tooth, to show the world that Severus Snape was here, left to die in this ruined, burned-out Shrieking Shack.
It hasn’t rained for weeks here. A pall hangs over the blackened relic, as if it knows it is a crypt, a monument to a dark and misspent life. Hermione questions herself, her sanity, her motivation. The war is over, the celebrations fading, and yet here she is, still kicking around shards of broken glass, along with her depression.
If she could find some trace of Snape’s life, would it somehow validate her own? It is a question she truly doesn’t want to answer, because it feels as if she wants to join him, anonymous and forgotten. Why live, then?
She turns, and sees the figure standing by the Whomping Willow. They are both so still they could be a photograph. He is all blacks and whites; black clothing, pale skin. The dust chokes Hermione, making her cough so hard tears form in her eyes, and roll down her dusty cheeks.
Snape watches her with a dangerous mixture of uncertainty and pity. “What exactly are you looking for, Miss Granger?” He says. His voice is as dry and cracked as the ground. He nods toward the blackened hulk behind her. “What do you expect to find there, of all places?”
Hermione stares at her former teacher, a man she last saw bleeding out his life on the grimy floor of this very building. He is the embodiment of magic and power and mistakes and missed chances. “I’m looking for answers,” she replies.
His mouth curves into a smile that carries no malice, no derision. “Indeed.” His smile fades into something more wistful. “However, since I am no longer your teacher, I’m afraid I have none to give.”
He turns away, and Hermione’s heart cramps painfully in her chest. “No! You’re wrong. Please, you’re the only one who does,” she pleads.
She walks away from the empty monument without a backward glance. Tentatively, she reaches out, and touches his sleeve. He is alive, and whole, and clean, and different.
“Can-could we talk, Professor?”
“I don’t have the answers,” he repeats emphatically. “Whatever you seek, you’ll have to find it yourself.” His expression softens. “But when you find it, we’ll talk.” That secret smile again. “Yes, Hermione. We’ll talk.”
Something in her stirs at last: If he, of all wizards, can rise from these ashes clean and changed, then so can she.
A breeze lifts his hair; in the distance, thunder rolls.
Team: DE
Challenge: Drought Challenge
Rating: G
Length: 4 X 100
A/N: So excited to see snape_submiss' drabble here today! Thank you for inspiring me and a special thank you to stgulik for such a great challenge. Usual disclaimers apply.
Each step brings a puff of dust, and without the wind to carry it away, it drifts back down over her booted feet. Hermione looks around at the barren, desolate environment, squinting in the harsh, unnatural glare of the sun.
Why the hell is she here? She could sift through the clues, but what good would it do?
She kneels down, and allows the ashes and rust to run through her fingers. No trace, not even a bone, a button, a tooth, to show the world that Severus Snape was here, left to die in this ruined, burned-out Shrieking Shack.
It hasn’t rained for weeks here. A pall hangs over the blackened relic, as if it knows it is a crypt, a monument to a dark and misspent life. Hermione questions herself, her sanity, her motivation. The war is over, the celebrations fading, and yet here she is, still kicking around shards of broken glass, along with her depression.
If she could find some trace of Snape’s life, would it somehow validate her own? It is a question she truly doesn’t want to answer, because it feels as if she wants to join him, anonymous and forgotten. Why live, then?
She turns, and sees the figure standing by the Whomping Willow. They are both so still they could be a photograph. He is all blacks and whites; black clothing, pale skin. The dust chokes Hermione, making her cough so hard tears form in her eyes, and roll down her dusty cheeks.
Snape watches her with a dangerous mixture of uncertainty and pity. “What exactly are you looking for, Miss Granger?” He says. His voice is as dry and cracked as the ground. He nods toward the blackened hulk behind her. “What do you expect to find there, of all places?”
Hermione stares at her former teacher, a man she last saw bleeding out his life on the grimy floor of this very building. He is the embodiment of magic and power and mistakes and missed chances. “I’m looking for answers,” she replies.
His mouth curves into a smile that carries no malice, no derision. “Indeed.” His smile fades into something more wistful. “However, since I am no longer your teacher, I’m afraid I have none to give.”
He turns away, and Hermione’s heart cramps painfully in her chest. “No! You’re wrong. Please, you’re the only one who does,” she pleads.
She walks away from the empty monument without a backward glance. Tentatively, she reaches out, and touches his sleeve. He is alive, and whole, and clean, and different.
“Can-could we talk, Professor?”
“I don’t have the answers,” he repeats emphatically. “Whatever you seek, you’ll have to find it yourself.” His expression softens. “But when you find it, we’ll talk.” That secret smile again. “Yes, Hermione. We’ll talk.”
Something in her stirs at last: If he, of all wizards, can rise from these ashes clean and changed, then so can she.
A breeze lifts his hair; in the distance, thunder rolls.