FIC: The Late Night Visit, or Why Jo Decided to Kill Off Someone Else Instead
Title: The Late Night Visit, or Why Jo Decided to Kill Off Someone Else Instead
Author: phaballa
Summary: Jo kills off Severus Snape, but he has Other Ideas.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Um yeah. Not mine.
Comments: So, this is total crack fic. I blame this entirely on switchknife, who asked me to write it and c'mon. I'm not going to say no. Unbetad and um... right. I'm completely insane, but I loves me some Snape.
1.
If there is one thing Jo has learned in the past decade or so of working on Harry Potter, it’s that she bloody well hates being pregnant.
She can barely remember her first pregnancy. She was too worried about the state of her marriage and where her next meal was coming from to really notice things like swollen feet and hot flashes. The second was spent in the flush of finishing Order of the Phoenix, which had been absolute murder to write. She tries to look back on all the caps locking and adolescent fury with fondness, but all she can remember now is the bit where she was disgustingly pregnant, big as a sodding house, and could barely reach the keyboard when she was trying to write the entire end scene with Dumbledore and Harry. She wanted to make it touching, but it still seems flat and impatient when she looks back on it now. Probably because she had a child wriggling around inside her the entire time, giving her gas and making her feel like she was some sort of balloon about to pop.
The whole process is disgusting, really, and she swears that this time is the last. Three children is quite enough, and if Neil wants another, he can birth the bloody thing himself. If she were really a witch, she could probably make that happen, in fact. And that thought starts another one, spiraling into a plot line involving two wizards, a bleak moor, and gay marriage laws that is entirely too Bronte-esque for her tastes. Bronte meets Junior, actually, although obviously Schwarzenegger would be replaced with David Thewlis.
She stops herself before she starts trying to figure out whether Remus Lupin’s children would come out in a litter.
This is the problem with being pregnant-the incredibly weird ideas that seem to pop into her head just when she’s trying to write a death scene, and the whole thing is just Not On. She’s only four months along, but she needs to finish this before she ends up like last time, balancing the bloody keyboard on her stomach and rushing through scenes that need to be taken very slowly. Writing Sirius’s death was so difficult, and she doesn’t think it was simply the hormones that had her crying in her own damn kitchen over it. She had a small crush on Sirius, she’s not embarrassed to admit it. The man had a flying motorbike, after all. There’s no shame in it.
People loved Sirius and she still gets hate mail about his death. She feels like a murderer sometimes, the way these people talk, and children too! Writing that she should go to jail or be sent to Azkaban for killing him off. Jo doesn’t expect the littles to really understand about necessary losses and building of character, but their level of vehemence is quite astonishing to her, even still.
She doesn’t think they’ll be quite so upset over Severus Snape.
2.
“I’ve killed him off,” she tells Neil that night as she’s climbing into bed.
He looks at her over the top of his book (Foucault’s Pendulum, and how can he read that tripe?) with a smile. “You went with the greasy bastard then, eh? Brilliant. Never liked that one.”
Jo frowns. “Don’t sound so pleased. It’s a necessary thing, that’s all. Someone needs to die to, well… you’ll find out. And it just so happens he’s most convenient.”
“I notice you’re not weeping all over the fruit bowl about this one, though. And besides, maybe you won’t get so much hate mail this time round. I never did understand what was so great about that Sirius bloke anyway. Seemed a bit smarmy if you ask me.”
“He wasn’t smarmy, you git. He had a motorbike. That flew.”
“He was part dog, love. Who wants a man that’s part dog? If I was part dog, you’d kick me out of bed at night for fear of drool.”
“I suppose you’re right, in any case. Severus Snape isn’t as well-liked as Sirius, and it works for the plot trajectory. He’ll be a hero.”
“He’s an ugly, pasty fuckwit with a twenty-year-old grudge, love. There’ll be dancing in the streets. Literally.”
Jo makes a face and doesn’t bother to answer. She hates Neil’s puns. Literally indeed. He’s right though, and she knows it. Severus will not be missed, or at least not by many, and at least this way he can redeem himself in the end.
She quite likes the idea of redemption. Covers all manner of sins.
3.
When she wakes up it is still night and the bed next to her is cold and empty, but there is a man sitting in a chair by the side of the bed. He’s mostly hidden in the shadows, but she can just make out a pale, pale face in the darkness, set with two glittering black eyes. He looks strange, almost black and white and fuzzy round the edges, like he’s popped out of some old film to come sit at her bedside.
The whole thing is creepy and weird and entirely too like some sort of Stephen King novel for her liking. Not that she reads King, the man writes utter trash, but she’s seen IT! and she knows how these things go. Then she realizes that she’s just been lying there, staring at him like a complete idiot and giving him time to get out his weapons or what have you instead of screaming like any normal person, but really, shouldn’t he already be pointing a knife at her throat and demanding the family jewels? Just as she opens her mouth to do her part with the screaming and getting away, he speaks.
“Don’t make a scene, Ms. Rowling, or I shall be forced to take… drastic measures. I’d rather not. You have,” he pauses to sneer, “children so I’m sure you understand my predicament. Blood is so difficult to get out of one’s robes, and there’s just no explaining why you had to eviscerate someone to a house elf.”
Jo blinks. She thinks she just heard the man say ‘robes’ and ‘house elf,’ but the bit that really worries her is ‘eviscerate.’ And she should really go back to plan A, with the screaming and the getting away, but when she opens her mouth she finds herself speaking in quite a more civilized manner than she expects herself to, considering the threat of imminent death.
“Who are you?”
“Don’t you recognize me? I must say I’m a bit disappointed, considering it’s entirely your fault I’m here to begin with, and really, you should be more careful with your creations, my dear. I suggest that next time, you stick to good and evil, and don’t attempt to fuzzy the lines with people of questionable morals who don’t fit into your black and white view of the world.”
“If you’re suggesting what I think you are-“
“Oh, I don’t have time to listen to your prattling, woman. There’s a war on, in case you hadn’t noticed. And frankly, I’m needed in it. Spare me from the righteousness of Gryffindors, all thinking you know what’s best for others when you couldn’t find your own arse with your eyes shut.”
“Snape?” Jo bites her lip and shakes her head, feeling foolish. This is some sort of prank, some crazed fan somehow managed to sneak their way into her house and now… what? They’d read the scene, that last scene she’d written, somehow bypassing the password on her PC, and-what? They really love Severus Snape and don’t want him to die? No, more like they think they are Severus Snape and want her to die.
“Please. Just leave. I won’t press charges, I swear. Just go.”
He sighs as if he is being very put upon and draws something out of his sleeve. Something being a long stick, and Jo nearly laughs before she catches herself. It’s probably not a good idea to laugh in a madman’s face, but honestly, what does he think he’s going to do with a stick?
“I see we’re going to have to do this the hard way. Unfortunate, as I’d really hoped you’d be more reasonable than this. Imperio.”
4.
Jo wakes up the next morning feeling groggy and still incredibly tired, and she wonders what the bloody fuck all that was about. She must be making a face, because Neil leans over her with a frown in his eyes and presses the back of his hand to her forehead.
“Bad dream, love?”
“Creepy, more like. Do you know… I think I had a dream that Snape came round the house to exact his revenge on me for killing him off?”
“I told you not to have those turnips for dinner.”
“It’s not that, you git. It’s this bloody baby. I hate being pregnant.”
“Ah. Hormones.” Neil taps his nose slyly, and she really hates when he does that. It makes him look smug, as if he knows something she doesn’t, and honestly the man is reading Foucault’s Pendulum. He doesn’t know a damn thing.
She ignores him and heads straight to the computer. She doesn’t want to deal with this right now-she’s already got two children, thanks, with another on the way, she doesn’t appreciate being mocked-and she knows Neil will bring her food. But when she switches on her computer and opens up the last scene she wrote the night before, the death scene, in which Severus Snape sacrifices himself in a most noble and heroic manner…
It’s gone.
Well, not gone. There’s something there, but Jo is fairly sure she didn’t write it, because the first line is, Now then, Potter. Drop your trousers, turn around, and for god’s sake, try not to scream. My ears can only take so much shrieking in one day.
What. The. Fuck.
She’s still sitting there staring at the screen when Neil comes over with a plate of food and a cup of tea. She minimizes the window because really, Neil doesn’t need to be traumatized the way she’s just been, and she’s going to delete that entire section anyway. Soon. She must’ve been sleepwalking last night, and honestly, there’s no reason anyone need ever know that she might’ve possibly written several paragraphs involving Severus Snape, Harry Potter, a rather noisy set of chains, and copious amounts of scented oil. None at all.
“Something wrong, love? Dream still bothering you?”
“You know,” she says thoughtfully, taking a sip of tea, “I don’t think I can kill Snape off, actually. I might need him. For later. To er, do other things. Spy things, you know. Top secret. So er. Maybe I’ll just kill off Dumbledore instead.”
Neil gives her a look like she’s gone round the bend, and maybe she has, but on the other hand, she can’t imagine Dumbledore paying her any late night visits in her dreams. Or threatening her if she killed him off. Or chaining Harry to some dungeon wall and-
Right. Dumbledore it is, then. After all, death is just the next great adventure.
Author: phaballa
Summary: Jo kills off Severus Snape, but he has Other Ideas.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Um yeah. Not mine.
Comments: So, this is total crack fic. I blame this entirely on switchknife, who asked me to write it and c'mon. I'm not going to say no. Unbetad and um... right. I'm completely insane, but I loves me some Snape.
1.
If there is one thing Jo has learned in the past decade or so of working on Harry Potter, it’s that she bloody well hates being pregnant.
She can barely remember her first pregnancy. She was too worried about the state of her marriage and where her next meal was coming from to really notice things like swollen feet and hot flashes. The second was spent in the flush of finishing Order of the Phoenix, which had been absolute murder to write. She tries to look back on all the caps locking and adolescent fury with fondness, but all she can remember now is the bit where she was disgustingly pregnant, big as a sodding house, and could barely reach the keyboard when she was trying to write the entire end scene with Dumbledore and Harry. She wanted to make it touching, but it still seems flat and impatient when she looks back on it now. Probably because she had a child wriggling around inside her the entire time, giving her gas and making her feel like she was some sort of balloon about to pop.
The whole process is disgusting, really, and she swears that this time is the last. Three children is quite enough, and if Neil wants another, he can birth the bloody thing himself. If she were really a witch, she could probably make that happen, in fact. And that thought starts another one, spiraling into a plot line involving two wizards, a bleak moor, and gay marriage laws that is entirely too Bronte-esque for her tastes. Bronte meets Junior, actually, although obviously Schwarzenegger would be replaced with David Thewlis.
She stops herself before she starts trying to figure out whether Remus Lupin’s children would come out in a litter.
This is the problem with being pregnant-the incredibly weird ideas that seem to pop into her head just when she’s trying to write a death scene, and the whole thing is just Not On. She’s only four months along, but she needs to finish this before she ends up like last time, balancing the bloody keyboard on her stomach and rushing through scenes that need to be taken very slowly. Writing Sirius’s death was so difficult, and she doesn’t think it was simply the hormones that had her crying in her own damn kitchen over it. She had a small crush on Sirius, she’s not embarrassed to admit it. The man had a flying motorbike, after all. There’s no shame in it.
People loved Sirius and she still gets hate mail about his death. She feels like a murderer sometimes, the way these people talk, and children too! Writing that she should go to jail or be sent to Azkaban for killing him off. Jo doesn’t expect the littles to really understand about necessary losses and building of character, but their level of vehemence is quite astonishing to her, even still.
She doesn’t think they’ll be quite so upset over Severus Snape.
2.
“I’ve killed him off,” she tells Neil that night as she’s climbing into bed.
He looks at her over the top of his book (Foucault’s Pendulum, and how can he read that tripe?) with a smile. “You went with the greasy bastard then, eh? Brilliant. Never liked that one.”
Jo frowns. “Don’t sound so pleased. It’s a necessary thing, that’s all. Someone needs to die to, well… you’ll find out. And it just so happens he’s most convenient.”
“I notice you’re not weeping all over the fruit bowl about this one, though. And besides, maybe you won’t get so much hate mail this time round. I never did understand what was so great about that Sirius bloke anyway. Seemed a bit smarmy if you ask me.”
“He wasn’t smarmy, you git. He had a motorbike. That flew.”
“He was part dog, love. Who wants a man that’s part dog? If I was part dog, you’d kick me out of bed at night for fear of drool.”
“I suppose you’re right, in any case. Severus Snape isn’t as well-liked as Sirius, and it works for the plot trajectory. He’ll be a hero.”
“He’s an ugly, pasty fuckwit with a twenty-year-old grudge, love. There’ll be dancing in the streets. Literally.”
Jo makes a face and doesn’t bother to answer. She hates Neil’s puns. Literally indeed. He’s right though, and she knows it. Severus will not be missed, or at least not by many, and at least this way he can redeem himself in the end.
She quite likes the idea of redemption. Covers all manner of sins.
3.
When she wakes up it is still night and the bed next to her is cold and empty, but there is a man sitting in a chair by the side of the bed. He’s mostly hidden in the shadows, but she can just make out a pale, pale face in the darkness, set with two glittering black eyes. He looks strange, almost black and white and fuzzy round the edges, like he’s popped out of some old film to come sit at her bedside.
The whole thing is creepy and weird and entirely too like some sort of Stephen King novel for her liking. Not that she reads King, the man writes utter trash, but she’s seen IT! and she knows how these things go. Then she realizes that she’s just been lying there, staring at him like a complete idiot and giving him time to get out his weapons or what have you instead of screaming like any normal person, but really, shouldn’t he already be pointing a knife at her throat and demanding the family jewels? Just as she opens her mouth to do her part with the screaming and getting away, he speaks.
“Don’t make a scene, Ms. Rowling, or I shall be forced to take… drastic measures. I’d rather not. You have,” he pauses to sneer, “children so I’m sure you understand my predicament. Blood is so difficult to get out of one’s robes, and there’s just no explaining why you had to eviscerate someone to a house elf.”
Jo blinks. She thinks she just heard the man say ‘robes’ and ‘house elf,’ but the bit that really worries her is ‘eviscerate.’ And she should really go back to plan A, with the screaming and the getting away, but when she opens her mouth she finds herself speaking in quite a more civilized manner than she expects herself to, considering the threat of imminent death.
“Who are you?”
“Don’t you recognize me? I must say I’m a bit disappointed, considering it’s entirely your fault I’m here to begin with, and really, you should be more careful with your creations, my dear. I suggest that next time, you stick to good and evil, and don’t attempt to fuzzy the lines with people of questionable morals who don’t fit into your black and white view of the world.”
“If you’re suggesting what I think you are-“
“Oh, I don’t have time to listen to your prattling, woman. There’s a war on, in case you hadn’t noticed. And frankly, I’m needed in it. Spare me from the righteousness of Gryffindors, all thinking you know what’s best for others when you couldn’t find your own arse with your eyes shut.”
“Snape?” Jo bites her lip and shakes her head, feeling foolish. This is some sort of prank, some crazed fan somehow managed to sneak their way into her house and now… what? They’d read the scene, that last scene she’d written, somehow bypassing the password on her PC, and-what? They really love Severus Snape and don’t want him to die? No, more like they think they are Severus Snape and want her to die.
“Please. Just leave. I won’t press charges, I swear. Just go.”
He sighs as if he is being very put upon and draws something out of his sleeve. Something being a long stick, and Jo nearly laughs before she catches herself. It’s probably not a good idea to laugh in a madman’s face, but honestly, what does he think he’s going to do with a stick?
“I see we’re going to have to do this the hard way. Unfortunate, as I’d really hoped you’d be more reasonable than this. Imperio.”
4.
Jo wakes up the next morning feeling groggy and still incredibly tired, and she wonders what the bloody fuck all that was about. She must be making a face, because Neil leans over her with a frown in his eyes and presses the back of his hand to her forehead.
“Bad dream, love?”
“Creepy, more like. Do you know… I think I had a dream that Snape came round the house to exact his revenge on me for killing him off?”
“I told you not to have those turnips for dinner.”
“It’s not that, you git. It’s this bloody baby. I hate being pregnant.”
“Ah. Hormones.” Neil taps his nose slyly, and she really hates when he does that. It makes him look smug, as if he knows something she doesn’t, and honestly the man is reading Foucault’s Pendulum. He doesn’t know a damn thing.
She ignores him and heads straight to the computer. She doesn’t want to deal with this right now-she’s already got two children, thanks, with another on the way, she doesn’t appreciate being mocked-and she knows Neil will bring her food. But when she switches on her computer and opens up the last scene she wrote the night before, the death scene, in which Severus Snape sacrifices himself in a most noble and heroic manner…
It’s gone.
Well, not gone. There’s something there, but Jo is fairly sure she didn’t write it, because the first line is, Now then, Potter. Drop your trousers, turn around, and for god’s sake, try not to scream. My ears can only take so much shrieking in one day.
What. The. Fuck.
She’s still sitting there staring at the screen when Neil comes over with a plate of food and a cup of tea. She minimizes the window because really, Neil doesn’t need to be traumatized the way she’s just been, and she’s going to delete that entire section anyway. Soon. She must’ve been sleepwalking last night, and honestly, there’s no reason anyone need ever know that she might’ve possibly written several paragraphs involving Severus Snape, Harry Potter, a rather noisy set of chains, and copious amounts of scented oil. None at all.
“Something wrong, love? Dream still bothering you?”
“You know,” she says thoughtfully, taking a sip of tea, “I don’t think I can kill Snape off, actually. I might need him. For later. To er, do other things. Spy things, you know. Top secret. So er. Maybe I’ll just kill off Dumbledore instead.”
Neil gives her a look like she’s gone round the bend, and maybe she has, but on the other hand, she can’t imagine Dumbledore paying her any late night visits in her dreams. Or threatening her if she killed him off. Or chaining Harry to some dungeon wall and-
Right. Dumbledore it is, then. After all, death is just the next great adventure.