Deserving Chapter 47
The author now apparently has a technical writing beta. I don't see any improvement in the technical quality of the writing, but this chapter is triple-spaced again. I don't know if there's a connection there.
Kreacher entered with a POP! “Severus, Sir, must come. The Marked One is needing Sir, now,” cried Kreacher.
Harry rolled his eyes. “The never ending night,” he said with a huff that rattled his fringe.
Screw the rules, I have metal hair!
“Mr. Creevey is needing Severus Sir. He is saying that the new saved snake will not take the potion,” answered the elf.
This looks like spy-speak. "The new saved snake will not take the potion" indeed.
“Funny how he says please to you yet I get transported with little ceremony than a yank on my neck. Which by the way, I hate,” complained Harry.
Severus had no idea what Harry was talking about, not being aware of how much Harry detested side-along apparating.
Whose POV is this?
Harry looked at him. “Go on then. Who is going to keep you from one of your little snakes? We can celebrate your birthday any old day.”
Savour this rare treat of Deserving characters not having a totally bullshit sense of priorities.
“Mr. Longbottom knows that I would never put “my snakes” as you call them, in jeopardy,” said Severus, still with a tense face.
As Harry calls them? We first saw "little snake" in Chapter 7 as a generic epithet referring to Draco from an ambiguous POV, then the next instance is in Severus' internal monologue in Chapter 15.
“And I guess there are no two ways about it; I would have to side-along with Kreacher to get there,” said Harry resignedly.
Severus finally looked human again. He figured out that Harry disliked side-along apparition but there was no way around it.
Yet he likes normal Apparition so much he uses it to get around the house. I'm calling it now: the author is using his dislike of Side-Along Apparition to symbolise how he likes being In Control. Just as the new characters the author has introduced at what she assures us is the eleventh hour are a truly anvilicious parallel of Harry and Severus.
Kreacher left Severus and Harry at the entrance of the cave to go back and take care of the children. Severus entered in a hurry and Harry followed. They found the right tent in the cave by all the commotion.
How do you pitch a tent in a cave? Do you hammer the pegs into solid rock or what? (inb4 "a wizard did it": there's no description. A wizard could have done it, but we have no way of knowing.)
“Professor! Thank the heavens that you came! He won’t listen to reason,” said Izzy smacking them with the information as soon as they walked in.
Once again, the author has this bizarre notion that calling Dennis by a baby-talk nickname is somehow conducive to drama.
“Professor! Is it really you? But… you look so… they said that you were being tortured. That Harry Potter himself was making sure you suffered every day in your life.”
For some reason, Harry's home life is the talk of the wizarding world. It's like, who wants to know about rebuilding society after a devastating civil war when we could instead be talking about what Harry Potter gets up to with Severus Snape? It's either a scathing satire on the modern news media or a plot hole.
“No, Professor, you don’t understand. He loves his children and he cannot lose them again,” Carl looked around trying to find words that would help him explain. “He lost his first child and if he thinks he has lost Anthony and Sharon also, there is no saying what he will do,” pleaded the emaciated young man.
Severus took stock of his former student’s frail body. “Did my potion have no effect on you?”
“I haven’t accepted any potions. I won’t take them until they promise to take us back,” said the frail looking man.
I'm getting the impression that he's emaciated and frail. I don't know why.
Severus shook his head. “No, I was talking about the potion that the elves distributed to all the Marked Ones over a year ago,” cleared the Professor.
By the look on Carl’s face Severus could tell that Carl had no idea what he was talking about.
Nor indeed do the readers. If it's so important and the author is as free with POV as she is, why not? It's presented like something Severus has only just realised a year later, yet we're apparently supposed to believe that he's known it all along.
“There has been some kind of a mix up. Apparently no elf was sent to the Roger’s household,” said Neville as a poor means of an excuse.
And a poor means of a contrived coincidence.
“But how is it that you are still alive?” asked Severus turning to Carl.
“My husband took me to an old hag known by his family. She gives me a potion every month, sometimes twice when I am feeling very weak.”
As he spoke an elf had approached Severus and given him a vial.
A psychic elf, apparently.
When Harry got to work he could hear a wizard pleading in Kingsley’s office. Ron looked at him with raised eyebrows.
“What’s going on?” asked Harry, trying to look into King’s office from his booth.
“Nothing, just another Guide who has “lost” his Marked One. We know he will not get any sympathy from Kings,” chuckled Ron. “So have you read the today’s Daily Prophet?”
“He seems very upset,” said Harry craning his neck to try to see the face that went with the worried voice. “No, I haven’t. What is it barking about now?”
The latest expositional infodump, of course. Except it's stuff we already know:
“Some rubbish about Sprout turning over to the Dark Side and helping the Marked Ones escape their punishment. They even mention the fact that she allowed the Professor to divorce you. And get this: they are alleging that she is trying to find a way to give the Marked Ones’ children their magic back. Hermione thinks that is very telling because according to her the Prophet all but admitted that innocent children have been punished by taking away their magic. She thinks this can… Are you paying attention?”
“He seems very upset,” said Harry, now standing on his toes to get a better view.
“Well wouldn’t you if you lost your sex slave?” answered Ron, regretting his words as soon as they left his mouth.
Ron Weasley, diplomat extraordinaire. Actually kind of in character. Aside from the talking about sex slavery part, of course, but this is Deserving.
“Potter! Weasley!” bellowed Kingsley
When does he ever do anything else in this fic? POTTERRR!
“Potter? Harry Potter?” said Mr. Rogers, turning to see Harry and Ron at the door. He walked towards Harry with a plea. “Please, Mr. Potter, help me. They have taken my family.”
That was all it took for Harry to realize that he was dealing with the counterpart of what Severus was facing in the cave.
“You must file a missing wizard report,” was Harry’s sterile response to such a plea.
The way this reads is that it's what Harry tends to say in this situation, not that it's what he's actually saying at this specific moment.
“I already told him that!” yelled Kingsley.
And there isn't even any reason for him to be yelling here.
“Mr. Rogers we will keep an eye out for your family and let you know as soon as…” Harry tried.
Harry tried what?
“Mr. Potter, Carl… He… You wouldn’t understand; would you?” said the desperate man pacing the office. “He is my responsibility. I have to make sure nothing happens to him. I took an oath.”
“He’s your husband?” asked Ron.
“And the father of my two children,” explained the overwhelmed man.
“Funny how you haven’t even mention them till now,” said Kingsley with a scoff.
I can't decide whether being a smug arsehole is just as OOC or even more so for Kingsley than his foghorn impersonations.
“They are with Carl. He wouldn’t let anything happen to them,” said Mr. Rogers as if that were the most logical thing in the world.
In the world of this fic, it probably was.
“He is going to die! Don’t you people get it? My children will be fatherless.
Uh, no they self-evidently won't.
Can’t you see? You are going to let an innocent man die while you’re here talking to me instead of trying to save him just because of that mark,” he said as he left the office of his own free will.
So Harry, Ron and Kingsley didn't Imperius him to leave? That's something, I guess.
“Carl Petri is all bruised and withered. You can tell he has been abused,” said Kingsley, justifying his unwillingness to help the man.
Yes, I really think we could have figured out the purpose of that statement without the help of the dialogue tag.
“Carl is emaciated because he never took Severus’ potion. The elves messed up,” corrected Harry.
That too.
“Can I ask you some questions?” said Harry as Ron was catching up to him.
ogers simply nodded.
“Do you beat him?”
“Smooth, Harry, very smooth,” Ron chastised.
Like you're any better, Mister Lost Your Sex Slave.
Mark closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. “You are not listening, are you? I am responsible for him. I make sure you lot don’t hurt him just because he bears the mark.”
“So you can have the exclusive right on his pain,” prodded Ron.
And his thrust.
“You wouldn’t understand. I would never bring harm to him.”
“You just said you beat him,” said Harry.
That enormous clang you just heard was the parallel to Harry and Severus falling into place. I called it, didn't I?
Ron looked at Harry. “I have never seen a Guide so worried about his Marked One. Usually they come in demanding their heads, not their safe return.”
Harry was not listening. He did not understand why he was affected by the man’s words.
I do.
“So I guess it is settled; we send him on his way,” said Ron interrupting Harry’s train of thought.
“What? Why?” said the started Chosen One.
“Didn’t you hear him? He doesn’t love his husband. No one should live with a person that doesn’t love them,” said the strategic master of the trio.
What's this comment got to do with strategic mastery?
“They have children,” was Harry’s response.
“Come on Harry you know better than that. No child should grow up in an unloving home,” said Ron trying to keep a straight face.
An extremely subtle allusion to Harry's upbringing there. Speaking of which, I've not forgotten which chapter is next.
“That’s what we don’t know. You see, Professor, Rogers admitted that he hits Petri and that he hates him,” said Ron throwing his bait and pleased when he saw Harry go for it.
“He did not say he hated his husband,” said an outraged Harry.
“He didn’t?” asked an innocent looking Ron.
“No, he simply said that he did not love him. There is a difference, you know.” Harry felt the need to clarify Ron’s misconception.
“It’s not the same thing?” ask Ron still feigning ignorance.
Oh Ron, stop being a wazzock.
“You think your little snake and his children will be alright?” Harry asked, unsure of the answer.
Severus doesn't need to worry about his little snake. The I HATE THAT YOU HAVE A COCK incident seems, most unfortunately, to have been forgotten by everyone.
Severus nodded. “Yes Sir, after speaking with Mr. Petri I believe that he would be miserable kept away from his Guide.”
“Professor, isn’t that how you felt when they try to keep you away from Harry?” said Ron trying to get back into the game.
Severus and Harry looked into each other eyes and looked away immediately as if the act had burned them. Harry decided it was best to ignore Ron’s question.
Because the parallels aren't obvious enough yet.
There was an awkward silence. “Look we all know that Kings has never, ever, had any animosity towards Draco. But besides him all the other Guides have had nothing but one thing in their mind: vengeance,” said Neville hoping to hurt and achieving his goal.
Oh STFU Neville, you total cock, just because you couldn't get into Severus' robes.
Harry raised his chin with a finger and looked into his eyes. “Don’t ever doubt that Severus Snape was and continues to be a hero. He saved my own hide more times than I care to confess.”
“Yeah, and trying to keep Harry’s hide out of trouble is like trying to keep the gnomes out of mom’s garden,” jested Ron.
Deserving!Ron is, for no adequately explored reason, American.
Mark looked at Harry. “He clings to his dad. It’s like there is a special connection between them.”
Harry recognized his own feelings echoed in the man’s words
O RLY.
Harry and Ron walked to the gate in order to apparate respectfully. Everyone knew that it was disrespectful to apparate in and out of people’s homes.
Apparition isn't completely limitless in the Deservingverse then. Even Single at his most douchey uses the Floo.
“Yeah, some blokes can’t see what’s right under their nose,” said Ron, trying not to laugh at his friend.
“You’re one to speak. It took you seven years to realize you were crazy about Hermione,” said Harry with a raised eyebrow.
Ron thought about these words for a minute and turning to Harry said: “So that means you have three more years before your aha moment.”
Continued... (yes, it's Chapter 48. Bring brain bleach.)
Kreacher entered with a POP! “Severus, Sir, must come. The Marked One is needing Sir, now,” cried Kreacher.
Harry rolled his eyes. “The never ending night,” he said with a huff that rattled his fringe.
Screw the rules, I have metal hair!
“Mr. Creevey is needing Severus Sir. He is saying that the new saved snake will not take the potion,” answered the elf.
This looks like spy-speak. "The new saved snake will not take the potion" indeed.
“Funny how he says please to you yet I get transported with little ceremony than a yank on my neck. Which by the way, I hate,” complained Harry.
Severus had no idea what Harry was talking about, not being aware of how much Harry detested side-along apparating.
Whose POV is this?
Harry looked at him. “Go on then. Who is going to keep you from one of your little snakes? We can celebrate your birthday any old day.”
Savour this rare treat of Deserving characters not having a totally bullshit sense of priorities.
“Mr. Longbottom knows that I would never put “my snakes” as you call them, in jeopardy,” said Severus, still with a tense face.
As Harry calls them? We first saw "little snake" in Chapter 7 as a generic epithet referring to Draco from an ambiguous POV, then the next instance is in Severus' internal monologue in Chapter 15.
“And I guess there are no two ways about it; I would have to side-along with Kreacher to get there,” said Harry resignedly.
Severus finally looked human again. He figured out that Harry disliked side-along apparition but there was no way around it.
Yet he likes normal Apparition so much he uses it to get around the house. I'm calling it now: the author is using his dislike of Side-Along Apparition to symbolise how he likes being In Control. Just as the new characters the author has introduced at what she assures us is the eleventh hour are a truly anvilicious parallel of Harry and Severus.
Kreacher left Severus and Harry at the entrance of the cave to go back and take care of the children. Severus entered in a hurry and Harry followed. They found the right tent in the cave by all the commotion.
How do you pitch a tent in a cave? Do you hammer the pegs into solid rock or what? (inb4 "a wizard did it": there's no description. A wizard could have done it, but we have no way of knowing.)
“Professor! Thank the heavens that you came! He won’t listen to reason,” said Izzy smacking them with the information as soon as they walked in.
Once again, the author has this bizarre notion that calling Dennis by a baby-talk nickname is somehow conducive to drama.
“Professor! Is it really you? But… you look so… they said that you were being tortured. That Harry Potter himself was making sure you suffered every day in your life.”
For some reason, Harry's home life is the talk of the wizarding world. It's like, who wants to know about rebuilding society after a devastating civil war when we could instead be talking about what Harry Potter gets up to with Severus Snape? It's either a scathing satire on the modern news media or a plot hole.
“No, Professor, you don’t understand. He loves his children and he cannot lose them again,” Carl looked around trying to find words that would help him explain. “He lost his first child and if he thinks he has lost Anthony and Sharon also, there is no saying what he will do,” pleaded the emaciated young man.
Severus took stock of his former student’s frail body. “Did my potion have no effect on you?”
“I haven’t accepted any potions. I won’t take them until they promise to take us back,” said the frail looking man.
I'm getting the impression that he's emaciated and frail. I don't know why.
Severus shook his head. “No, I was talking about the potion that the elves distributed to all the Marked Ones over a year ago,” cleared the Professor.
By the look on Carl’s face Severus could tell that Carl had no idea what he was talking about.
Nor indeed do the readers. If it's so important and the author is as free with POV as she is, why not? It's presented like something Severus has only just realised a year later, yet we're apparently supposed to believe that he's known it all along.
“There has been some kind of a mix up. Apparently no elf was sent to the Roger’s household,” said Neville as a poor means of an excuse.
And a poor means of a contrived coincidence.
“But how is it that you are still alive?” asked Severus turning to Carl.
“My husband took me to an old hag known by his family. She gives me a potion every month, sometimes twice when I am feeling very weak.”
As he spoke an elf had approached Severus and given him a vial.
A psychic elf, apparently.
When Harry got to work he could hear a wizard pleading in Kingsley’s office. Ron looked at him with raised eyebrows.
“What’s going on?” asked Harry, trying to look into King’s office from his booth.
“Nothing, just another Guide who has “lost” his Marked One. We know he will not get any sympathy from Kings,” chuckled Ron. “So have you read the today’s Daily Prophet?”
“He seems very upset,” said Harry craning his neck to try to see the face that went with the worried voice. “No, I haven’t. What is it barking about now?”
The latest expositional infodump, of course. Except it's stuff we already know:
“Some rubbish about Sprout turning over to the Dark Side and helping the Marked Ones escape their punishment. They even mention the fact that she allowed the Professor to divorce you. And get this: they are alleging that she is trying to find a way to give the Marked Ones’ children their magic back. Hermione thinks that is very telling because according to her the Prophet all but admitted that innocent children have been punished by taking away their magic. She thinks this can… Are you paying attention?”
“He seems very upset,” said Harry, now standing on his toes to get a better view.
“Well wouldn’t you if you lost your sex slave?” answered Ron, regretting his words as soon as they left his mouth.
Ron Weasley, diplomat extraordinaire. Actually kind of in character. Aside from the talking about sex slavery part, of course, but this is Deserving.
“Potter! Weasley!” bellowed Kingsley
When does he ever do anything else in this fic? POTTERRR!
“Potter? Harry Potter?” said Mr. Rogers, turning to see Harry and Ron at the door. He walked towards Harry with a plea. “Please, Mr. Potter, help me. They have taken my family.”
That was all it took for Harry to realize that he was dealing with the counterpart of what Severus was facing in the cave.
“You must file a missing wizard report,” was Harry’s sterile response to such a plea.
The way this reads is that it's what Harry tends to say in this situation, not that it's what he's actually saying at this specific moment.
“I already told him that!” yelled Kingsley.
And there isn't even any reason for him to be yelling here.
“Mr. Rogers we will keep an eye out for your family and let you know as soon as…” Harry tried.
Harry tried what?
“Mr. Potter, Carl… He… You wouldn’t understand; would you?” said the desperate man pacing the office. “He is my responsibility. I have to make sure nothing happens to him. I took an oath.”
“He’s your husband?” asked Ron.
“And the father of my two children,” explained the overwhelmed man.
“Funny how you haven’t even mention them till now,” said Kingsley with a scoff.
I can't decide whether being a smug arsehole is just as OOC or even more so for Kingsley than his foghorn impersonations.
“They are with Carl. He wouldn’t let anything happen to them,” said Mr. Rogers as if that were the most logical thing in the world.
In the world of this fic, it probably was.
“He is going to die! Don’t you people get it? My children will be fatherless.
Uh, no they self-evidently won't.
Can’t you see? You are going to let an innocent man die while you’re here talking to me instead of trying to save him just because of that mark,” he said as he left the office of his own free will.
So Harry, Ron and Kingsley didn't Imperius him to leave? That's something, I guess.
“Carl Petri is all bruised and withered. You can tell he has been abused,” said Kingsley, justifying his unwillingness to help the man.
Yes, I really think we could have figured out the purpose of that statement without the help of the dialogue tag.
“Carl is emaciated because he never took Severus’ potion. The elves messed up,” corrected Harry.
That too.
“Can I ask you some questions?” said Harry as Ron was catching up to him.
ogers simply nodded.
“Do you beat him?”
“Smooth, Harry, very smooth,” Ron chastised.
Like you're any better, Mister Lost Your Sex Slave.
Mark closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. “You are not listening, are you? I am responsible for him. I make sure you lot don’t hurt him just because he bears the mark.”
“So you can have the exclusive right on his pain,” prodded Ron.
And his thrust.
“You wouldn’t understand. I would never bring harm to him.”
“You just said you beat him,” said Harry.
That enormous clang you just heard was the parallel to Harry and Severus falling into place. I called it, didn't I?
Ron looked at Harry. “I have never seen a Guide so worried about his Marked One. Usually they come in demanding their heads, not their safe return.”
Harry was not listening. He did not understand why he was affected by the man’s words.
I do.
“So I guess it is settled; we send him on his way,” said Ron interrupting Harry’s train of thought.
“What? Why?” said the started Chosen One.
“Didn’t you hear him? He doesn’t love his husband. No one should live with a person that doesn’t love them,” said the strategic master of the trio.
What's this comment got to do with strategic mastery?
“They have children,” was Harry’s response.
“Come on Harry you know better than that. No child should grow up in an unloving home,” said Ron trying to keep a straight face.
An extremely subtle allusion to Harry's upbringing there. Speaking of which, I've not forgotten which chapter is next.
“That’s what we don’t know. You see, Professor, Rogers admitted that he hits Petri and that he hates him,” said Ron throwing his bait and pleased when he saw Harry go for it.
“He did not say he hated his husband,” said an outraged Harry.
“He didn’t?” asked an innocent looking Ron.
“No, he simply said that he did not love him. There is a difference, you know.” Harry felt the need to clarify Ron’s misconception.
“It’s not the same thing?” ask Ron still feigning ignorance.
Oh Ron, stop being a wazzock.
“You think your little snake and his children will be alright?” Harry asked, unsure of the answer.
Severus doesn't need to worry about his little snake. The I HATE THAT YOU HAVE A COCK incident seems, most unfortunately, to have been forgotten by everyone.
Severus nodded. “Yes Sir, after speaking with Mr. Petri I believe that he would be miserable kept away from his Guide.”
“Professor, isn’t that how you felt when they try to keep you away from Harry?” said Ron trying to get back into the game.
Severus and Harry looked into each other eyes and looked away immediately as if the act had burned them. Harry decided it was best to ignore Ron’s question.
Because the parallels aren't obvious enough yet.
There was an awkward silence. “Look we all know that Kings has never, ever, had any animosity towards Draco. But besides him all the other Guides have had nothing but one thing in their mind: vengeance,” said Neville hoping to hurt and achieving his goal.
Oh STFU Neville, you total cock, just because you couldn't get into Severus' robes.
Harry raised his chin with a finger and looked into his eyes. “Don’t ever doubt that Severus Snape was and continues to be a hero. He saved my own hide more times than I care to confess.”
“Yeah, and trying to keep Harry’s hide out of trouble is like trying to keep the gnomes out of mom’s garden,” jested Ron.
Deserving!Ron is, for no adequately explored reason, American.
Mark looked at Harry. “He clings to his dad. It’s like there is a special connection between them.”
Harry recognized his own feelings echoed in the man’s words
O RLY.
Harry and Ron walked to the gate in order to apparate respectfully. Everyone knew that it was disrespectful to apparate in and out of people’s homes.
Apparition isn't completely limitless in the Deservingverse then. Even Single at his most douchey uses the Floo.
“Yeah, some blokes can’t see what’s right under their nose,” said Ron, trying not to laugh at his friend.
“You’re one to speak. It took you seven years to realize you were crazy about Hermione,” said Harry with a raised eyebrow.
Ron thought about these words for a minute and turning to Harry said: “So that means you have three more years before your aha moment.”
Continued... (yes, it's Chapter 48. Bring brain bleach.)