I am Responsible for My Rose
Title: I am Responsible for My Rose
Author: Lilian_Cho
Pairing: Can be read as H/D
Genre: Gen
Rating: PG-13
Length: Chapter one of twenty-seven=1000+ words.
Complete?: WIP. Chapter one is up.
Summary: a Harry Potter adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, told from Severus Snape’s point of view
Warnings: AU!Fic. Potential gay subtext (Two males will proclaim their love to each other. You may choose to read this platonically or romantically.) Spoilers: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, all Harry Potter books.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, J.K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Harcourt, Inc., Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books, Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made, and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Notes:Updated every Monday at 10 a.m. PST at 43sunsets
Betas:floocrookshanks, tabigarasu and trixiegogobunny
I am Responsible for My Rose
1
“C’est un chapeau.”
January 21, 1966
I spent my entire childhood years reading in the shadowed corner of the Snape library vault. The library shelves, towering from floor to ceiling, swallowed any light or sound that dared to enter the room. What would have been claustrophobic for people raised on high French windows was instead a comfort to me. The ancient spells that guarded the tomes robbed people of their speech once they entered the library. Even his shouts could not reach me here.
Although most of the library shelves only gave admission to Snapes who had command of advanced spell-work, one shelf in particular was remarkably unguarded. It housed all the books that did not concern the Dark Arts. Most of these books were devoted to Dark Creatures such as boggarts, vampires, werewolves, dementors and banshees.
I then wondered what an encounter with dementors would cause me. Which happy memories would they drain? Which unpleasant memories would they leave? Would I stop seeking for sanctuary here? On particularly bad days, when she did not even recoil from him, I wondered if mother had been kissed by a dementor.
One day, as I returned a book on banshees back to the shelf, my fingers brushed against a protruding object on the back of the shelf. I removed the adjoining books and found a thick tome that could not have been more than a few decades old. Curious as to why such a new book was given a place in the Snape Library, I reverently brought it to my corner.
Bold, firm script announced the book title as Magnificent Monsters of the Mundane. The title page was decorated by a picture of a ‘boa constrictor.’ Fascinated, I watched the creature as it seductively twined itself around a rodent. After suffocating it, the boa leisurely stretched its jaws and swallowed the rodent whole, head first. As I stared at the boa’s beautiful broken patterns, it flicked its red tail at me.
Holding the pages by their edges, I flipped through illustration upon illustration of boa constrictors. I did not want to disturb them; there’s no telling how vicious these creatures could be.
The authors Scamander and Stalk wrote that boas are frequently found near Muggle habitations-some even find their way into Wizarding backyards. Apparently, some Muggles like to keep them as house pets to kill rats.
I was appalled. How can Muggles keep such beautiful creatures just to get rid of rats? Mother used to say that beauty belongs to everyone. If Muggles cannot appreciate the beauty within their grasp, why should we impart them with ours? Even when compared with the noble occamy, my favourite animal hitherto, these boa constrictors were still distinguished in their majesty.
One single picture arrested my attention. It was a boa with scales so white it rivalled the roses and lilies that used to grow in the Snape Garden, before they were crowded out by his knotgrass, wolfsbane, wormwood, alihotsy and mandrake. Pale, silvery blue eyes glinted at me. It was a female boa bred by some Muggles in the colonies. Davis, the Muggle breeder, called her Karma.
Unlike the illustrations, this picture seemed to be unmoving. Was she asleep? I tentatively uncurled my forefinger to stroke her head. A forked tongue brushed against my fingertip. I caught my breath. At that moment I wished that I were a Parselmouth, so that I could tell her how beautiful she was.
Hands trembling, I laid the book down in the corner. Fetching a scroll of parchment and a quill, I began to draw. I drew with as much precision as a six-year-old could manage. Scamander and Stalk had written that after swallowing their prey, boas sleep unmoving through the six months that they need for digestion. No rodent was noble enough for Karma, and so I decided that her prey should be an erumpent.
After finishing my masterpiece, I decided to share Karma’s beauty. Perhaps her beauty would wake mother from her stupor. Clutching the thick tome and my drawing, I headed out of the library. Her laughter echoed from the dining room. Thrilled by her high spirits, I half-ran to her.
A plate promptly crashed against the wall, and I winced as a shard of bone china sliced my left temple. Mother laughed merrily, sending yet another heirloom plate to its destruction. My arrival seemed to add a bounce to her gait; she danced to my side and snatched my drawing.
“A white hat! You’ll need it to cover that ugly scar!” She pointed at my temple, which had started to bleed profusely. Dropping my drawing, she clamped both hands to dam the outpouring of giggles from her mouth.
I looked away and saw him standing near the fireplace. He was dangerously quiet. “I’ve called St. Mungo’s,” he said. When I neither moved nor answered him, he walked over to the entryway. He took my book away, sneering at the title: “A book on Muggle creatures.”
“Incendio!”
I watched helplessly as the sole picture of Karma burned to ashes, along with illustrations of other boa constrictors. When I protested that Muggles also have beautiful snakes, father spat out: “Snakes are for potions’ ingredients. Not artistic appreciation.”
I kept my head down as Healers from St. Mungo’s took mother away, still laughing. Left alone in the dining room, I retrieved my drawing from the shard-covered floor. Passing the window on my way back to the library, I paused. The alihotsy plants in the Snape Garden were missing their leaves.
September 22, 1971
By the time I left for Hogwarts, I had mastered enough spell-work to access more than half of the Snape Library. My drawing stayed in the bottom of the trunk-a memory of beauty, blood and broken china. I never showed it to anyone, until the day I met a boy with hair so fair it rivalled Karma’s scales.
Cold silvery grey eyes - not blue, not blue - flickered as what first appeared to be a hat revealed the erumpent in its bowel. He looked up, sitting in the middle of the Slytherin common room. Arching an eyebrow, he said pleasantly, “A Muggle snake, Severus? I myself prefer basilisks, don’t you?”
*******
Vocabulary:
boggarts, vampires, werewolves, dementors and banshees
occamy, erumpent
knotgrass, wolfsbane, wormwood, alihotsy and mandrake
Fanarts:
Go here to see the real Karma, hatched by Ralph Davis.
rea_saint is drawing an illustration of the last scene for me.
Thank you for reviewing. :-)
Author: Lilian_Cho
Pairing: Can be read as H/D
Genre: Gen
Rating: PG-13
Length: Chapter one of twenty-seven=1000+ words.
Complete?: WIP. Chapter one is up.
Summary: a Harry Potter adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, told from Severus Snape’s point of view
Warnings: AU!Fic. Potential gay subtext (Two males will proclaim their love to each other. You may choose to read this platonically or romantically.) Spoilers: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, all Harry Potter books.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, J.K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Harcourt, Inc., Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books, Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made, and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Notes:Updated every Monday at 10 a.m. PST at 43sunsets
Betas:floocrookshanks, tabigarasu and trixiegogobunny
I am Responsible for My Rose
1
“C’est un chapeau.”
January 21, 1966
I spent my entire childhood years reading in the shadowed corner of the Snape library vault. The library shelves, towering from floor to ceiling, swallowed any light or sound that dared to enter the room. What would have been claustrophobic for people raised on high French windows was instead a comfort to me. The ancient spells that guarded the tomes robbed people of their speech once they entered the library. Even his shouts could not reach me here.
Although most of the library shelves only gave admission to Snapes who had command of advanced spell-work, one shelf in particular was remarkably unguarded. It housed all the books that did not concern the Dark Arts. Most of these books were devoted to Dark Creatures such as boggarts, vampires, werewolves, dementors and banshees.
I then wondered what an encounter with dementors would cause me. Which happy memories would they drain? Which unpleasant memories would they leave? Would I stop seeking for sanctuary here? On particularly bad days, when she did not even recoil from him, I wondered if mother had been kissed by a dementor.
One day, as I returned a book on banshees back to the shelf, my fingers brushed against a protruding object on the back of the shelf. I removed the adjoining books and found a thick tome that could not have been more than a few decades old. Curious as to why such a new book was given a place in the Snape Library, I reverently brought it to my corner.
Bold, firm script announced the book title as Magnificent Monsters of the Mundane. The title page was decorated by a picture of a ‘boa constrictor.’ Fascinated, I watched the creature as it seductively twined itself around a rodent. After suffocating it, the boa leisurely stretched its jaws and swallowed the rodent whole, head first. As I stared at the boa’s beautiful broken patterns, it flicked its red tail at me.
Holding the pages by their edges, I flipped through illustration upon illustration of boa constrictors. I did not want to disturb them; there’s no telling how vicious these creatures could be.
The authors Scamander and Stalk wrote that boas are frequently found near Muggle habitations-some even find their way into Wizarding backyards. Apparently, some Muggles like to keep them as house pets to kill rats.
I was appalled. How can Muggles keep such beautiful creatures just to get rid of rats? Mother used to say that beauty belongs to everyone. If Muggles cannot appreciate the beauty within their grasp, why should we impart them with ours? Even when compared with the noble occamy, my favourite animal hitherto, these boa constrictors were still distinguished in their majesty.
One single picture arrested my attention. It was a boa with scales so white it rivalled the roses and lilies that used to grow in the Snape Garden, before they were crowded out by his knotgrass, wolfsbane, wormwood, alihotsy and mandrake. Pale, silvery blue eyes glinted at me. It was a female boa bred by some Muggles in the colonies. Davis, the Muggle breeder, called her Karma.
Unlike the illustrations, this picture seemed to be unmoving. Was she asleep? I tentatively uncurled my forefinger to stroke her head. A forked tongue brushed against my fingertip. I caught my breath. At that moment I wished that I were a Parselmouth, so that I could tell her how beautiful she was.
Hands trembling, I laid the book down in the corner. Fetching a scroll of parchment and a quill, I began to draw. I drew with as much precision as a six-year-old could manage. Scamander and Stalk had written that after swallowing their prey, boas sleep unmoving through the six months that they need for digestion. No rodent was noble enough for Karma, and so I decided that her prey should be an erumpent.
After finishing my masterpiece, I decided to share Karma’s beauty. Perhaps her beauty would wake mother from her stupor. Clutching the thick tome and my drawing, I headed out of the library. Her laughter echoed from the dining room. Thrilled by her high spirits, I half-ran to her.
A plate promptly crashed against the wall, and I winced as a shard of bone china sliced my left temple. Mother laughed merrily, sending yet another heirloom plate to its destruction. My arrival seemed to add a bounce to her gait; she danced to my side and snatched my drawing.
“A white hat! You’ll need it to cover that ugly scar!” She pointed at my temple, which had started to bleed profusely. Dropping my drawing, she clamped both hands to dam the outpouring of giggles from her mouth.
I looked away and saw him standing near the fireplace. He was dangerously quiet. “I’ve called St. Mungo’s,” he said. When I neither moved nor answered him, he walked over to the entryway. He took my book away, sneering at the title: “A book on Muggle creatures.”
“Incendio!”
I watched helplessly as the sole picture of Karma burned to ashes, along with illustrations of other boa constrictors. When I protested that Muggles also have beautiful snakes, father spat out: “Snakes are for potions’ ingredients. Not artistic appreciation.”
I kept my head down as Healers from St. Mungo’s took mother away, still laughing. Left alone in the dining room, I retrieved my drawing from the shard-covered floor. Passing the window on my way back to the library, I paused. The alihotsy plants in the Snape Garden were missing their leaves.
September 22, 1971
By the time I left for Hogwarts, I had mastered enough spell-work to access more than half of the Snape Library. My drawing stayed in the bottom of the trunk-a memory of beauty, blood and broken china. I never showed it to anyone, until the day I met a boy with hair so fair it rivalled Karma’s scales.
Cold silvery grey eyes - not blue, not blue - flickered as what first appeared to be a hat revealed the erumpent in its bowel. He looked up, sitting in the middle of the Slytherin common room. Arching an eyebrow, he said pleasantly, “A Muggle snake, Severus? I myself prefer basilisks, don’t you?”
*******
Vocabulary:
boggarts, vampires, werewolves, dementors and banshees
occamy, erumpent
knotgrass, wolfsbane, wormwood, alihotsy and mandrake
Fanarts:
Go here to see the real Karma, hatched by Ralph Davis.
rea_saint is drawing an illustration of the last scene for me.
Thank you for reviewing. :-)