Series & Sequels Part 2
Sometimes a great story just cannot be confined. It spawns a sequel or spills out into a series! Join us for more of those fabulous stories that just couldn't stop inspiring their authors and fangirls everywhere!
Want to give Hermione a run for her money in the know-it-all field? Simply play the quiz by commenting on this post with your answers at any time over the weekend. All comments with answers will be screened until the answer sheet is posted on Monday morning EDT. On Monday, all quizzlings with the correct answers will receive a pretty banner to prove their quiz prowess. Ready? Set? Play!
Match the quotes to the Series without picking the red herring titles:
The Big Name Death Eater Series by shiv5468
Big Name Death Eater, Big Name Death Eater 2, Big Name Death Eater 3
The Sponge Bath Trilogy by JenKM1216 akagypsy_morph
The Sponge Bath, The Not So Long Awaited Sponge Bath Sequel and A Serious Medical Condition
The Fairy God-Jarvey Series by dracontia aka dracfic
Courtesy of Your Fairy God-Jarvey, Return of the Fairy God-Jarvey, The Fairy God-Jarvey’s Apprentice and The Ring on Her Finger
The Mission Series by Fervesco
MISSION I: Get Hermione Laid, MISSION II: Get Hermione Laid...AGAIN!, Mission III: Get Hermone Laid...Once More!, Mission Metamorphmagus: Get Hermione Laid IV and Mission: Get Severus Laid
The Moonglow Trilogy by moonglow
Hermione's List, Union of the Snakes and Sev and the Family Snape
The Sybil's Oracle by pigwidgeon37
Book 1, Book 2, Interlude, Book 3 (Book 3 is SSHG, earlier books are Snape-centric)
The Clock Series by pearle9240
For Whom the Clock Chimes, It Chimes For You, The Clock Chimed Again - Are You Talking To Me?, and The Clock Chimed Anew - What A Difference A Day Makes
The Long Wait Series by ancientgirl
The Long Wait, A Small Addition, Caught in The Act and Lestrange Days
Redivivus by ayerf
Redivivus, Resurgam and Tabula Rasa
I'll Never Take Advantage by annietalbot
I'll Never Take Advantage and Gifts
Surrender by Dryad
Surrender and Scarab
Veils of Illusion by rillalicious
Veils of Illusion and Mercy of the Fallen
1. Reggie uttered a sigh of relief, which turned to a frustrated growl as her quarry rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.
“No you don’t! Listen, arsewipe, you did something--I can’t for the life of me imagine what--that convinced the stupid sods in management that you are worthy of our intervention. Maybe it’s some sort of post-war issue, but there seem to be a lot of fairy god-thingies getting new assignments lately.
“I don’t question it; I pay my union dues, collect my wages, and shift my arse wherever it’s assigned. In exchange, I can tap into the amazing powers that are part and parcel of ‘the Magik of Faerie’. Right now, my arse is assigned to improve your sorry excuse for a life.” She looked him over critically and sniffed. “Looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me.”
“My life would be considerably ‘improved’ if you would get the hell out of my bedroom, you foul-mouthed rodent,” Severus retorted with a sneer. “Besides, life is as good as it gets for me. No Dark Lord, no pending criminal charges, and with the loss of my late, unlamented teaching job, no more students. Everything is just peachy.”
“Your standards are too sodding low, and sarcasm won’t help one damned bit,” Reggie scolded.
Suddenly, her face broke into a toothy grin. If she had had fingers, she would have snapped them. “That’s the ticket! We need to embark on a program of adjusting your attitude, which absolutely honks in case you weren’t aware.”
2. "I am taking off your trousers. Deal with it."
"No, no! I'll do it. Bloody harpy."
"There is no need for name calling, Professor. We're both adults here. Save the insults for your poor students when you go back to Hogwarts."
"I'm sure I can come up with more for them."
"We both know that you can't take off your trousers because you're temporarily paralyzed."
"I have full functioning ability; I just chose not to share that fact with you."
"Oh, really? Lift your index finger, then."
"Fine. Take them off."
"Finally. Now off with your shirt."
"I'd rather not."
3. They were coming up on their one-year anniversary. Hermione had planned a small dinner party to mark the occasion. Severus thought he must have really lost his mind to agree to have dinner willingly with Potter. Only for her, he thought.
Three days. He had three days to get her something nice. Severus was agonizing over what to get her. They had a bit of a rough go at first. Severus Snape was not known for being warm and cuddly but he was trying. He loved Hermione with all his heart. The problem was, he didn't know how to show it. Hermione was out with Ginny Weasley. They were having…….what did she call it? A hen party?
Severus was sitting in his private office contemplating the weight of the world. He had a snifter of brandy next to him. “What do I buy her?” he asked the empty room.
He looked up as his office clock chimed. The hand with his picture said, “Congratulations on your marriage. How about jewelry?” Oh bloody hell, the clock was doing it again.
“What! Are you cursed? Once a year you come alive and butt into my life?” Snape snarled at the clock.
The clock chimed. The hand moved to, “Okay.”
“A clock is just a clock. This cannot be happening.” Severus ran his hand distractedly through his hair.
The hand moved to, “A clock is just a clock, and a toaster is just a toaster until it starts giving you the stock reports.”
4. She smiled, then tied the note to the owl and it immediately flew away. She sat back in her chair and began to make her plans. Hermione would have to tell her parents of course, and then Harry and Ron. She knew they were still in their Auror training, and were for the moment, in a secluded part of England going through secret training missions. She would write them anyway and just have the note delivered to their apartment so they could read it upon their return.
After she sent off her note to Harry and Ron, she began to make a list of all the things that needed to make the trip to Hogwarts with her. If she was going to be living at Hogwarts she would no longer need her flat and most of what was in it. Deciding not to leave anything to the last minute, Hermione began to designate what was to be kept and what was to be given or throw away.
Hermione sat happily on the floor, packing some books and other smaller objects, when she came to a sudden realization. She was going to live at Hogwarts! That meant she was going to be living under the same roof as him, work at the same place, eat at the same table. They were going to be colleagues! How was she going to function around him without making him suspicious? She laughed and shook her head. He hated her so much, chances were he would not give her a second look anyway. He would never know, could never even imagine how she felt about him. Anyway, why would he even care?
No, there was no way Professor Severus Snape would ever give a rat’s rump that she was in love with him even if he did know.
5. “Hermione! Hermione, please come out!” Ginny pleaded outside her friend’s door. “It’s been a week, Hermione. We need to see you.”
Hermione buried her head beneath her pillow to drown out the noise. They probably thought she had been in here crying the entire time. Nothing could be further from the truth. She had been planning; planning what she would do to the Death Eaters who murdered her parents. She just had to find out who they were. Draco Malfoy probably knew. Maybe she could use Polyjuice potion again and get the information from him.
“Hermione! The train is leaving in less than an hour. We just want to say goodbye. Please…”
A voice in the back of her mind told her that she should care about the people standing outside her door, holding constant vigil for her, but the only thing that weighed on her mind now was revenge. They had taken away her family. For six years she struggled to prove that she fit into this world and it was all for naught. She was being punished for the accident of her birth. The blinding anger that had embraced her when Dumbledore first told her of her parents’ fate was slowly being replaced by stoic determination. They would not win; she would prove it to them all. She felt stunted, frozen, as if they had encased her in ice, stopping time and holding her prisoner in this tragic life she did not deserve. She resented it deeply.
She was not taking the train back to London this year; Dumbledore himself would be accompanying her to Grimmauld Place, where she would spend the summer with members of the Order. She knew that Remus lived there most of the time, and she was glad of it. She had always held a soft spot for the werewolf and now that there was no one else of significance in her life, she was looking forward to seeing him. Professor McGonagall had promised to visit frequently and in a few weeks the Weasleys and Harry would be there for the rest of the summer. She would talk to her friends then. In the mean time, they would have to understand that she needed space.
Finally the knocking ended and there was only silence on the other side of the door. She rolled over on her back and stared blankly above her. A slow smile crept upon her lips as she realized that there would be one other important visitor to Grimmauld Place this summer: Snape. Perhaps he knew who killed her parents.
6. “Bloody hell!” I think out loud. Then turn back to Harry and Ginny, “You know what? There is no one here worthy of shagging!”
Outburst seems to have shocked them into breaking their grope for a moment or two.
“Excuse me?” Harry asks, looking quite surprised.
Ginny giggles. “Oh, come on, Herm. There must be someone…what about Neville?”
Glance back at boy wonder - wonder how he ever passed his NEWTS. He is completely comatose on the sofa now. “I prefer my boys to be alive!”
“Rules out Snape them, doesn’t it,” Harry laughs, then freezes at the exchange of looks between Ginny and I. I glance around the room, but our deliciously snarky Potions Master is no where in sight.
“Looks like he’s taken himself out of the equation,” I reply with a sigh and am quite satisfied by the shocked look on Harry’s face. Ah, well even if removal of virginity isn’t possible tonight, Harry at least appears to be looking at me in a different light. Good.
“Well, why don’t you go find him?” Ginny suggests, but even in this state I can still translate that as ‘bugger off and leave me to snog Harry!’
“Nah. Think I’ll just head for bed,” I reply with a resigned sigh. Flag it, there’s always the end of year ball in two weeks.
7. The dark wizard scowled down into his mixed vegetables, pushing them around on his plate. He half-heartedly skewered a carrot on his fork and bit into it, finding the usually scrumptious food held no taste for him.
When Severus had been alerted by Nymphadora Tonks’s Patronus that Potter was delayed, he had hoped that the bigheaded brat would know where his friend was. It was a disappointment when Potter asked him where Miss Granger was.
The only comfort was that if the girl was now in the Dark Lord’s hands, he would surely let Severus know, as one of the Inner Circle of Death Eaters, even if he was only summoned to be executed as a traitor. The girl knew too much, especially about his own position as a spy. What was worse was that Severus had allowed her to know more, more about him than even Albus knew.
Severus found himself more concerned for Miss Granger’s fate than his own. ‘I let her get too close. I should have… but even if I could go back, I wouldn’t change anything.’ Even as Severus tried to reprove himself, he was well aware that the events since the Dark Lord had returned would have been much harder for him if he didn’t have his tentative friendship with Miss Granger.
‘Now Herm-Miss Granger is missing despite what I wrote to her to assure her of her family’s, and her own, safety.’ Although Severus constantly referred to the girl as ‘Miss Granger,’ her given name kept slipping out in his thoughts, no doubt because in those letters they had exchanged, they had referred to each other by name. Not once had they slipped up in person, thankfully.
As someone who could count his friends, living and deceased, on one hand, Severus was highly protective of those few who had managed to work their way far enough into his trust to be considered as such. Miss Granger had the potential to be more if she survived long enough to graduate. If she was still alive…
8. Minerva’s Journal
December 15, 1998
I am guilty of an appalling breach of ethics…I eavesdropped on a colleague’s most private thoughts. Yet I cannot apologize, as he would be horrified to know what I had overheard and would never trust me again. I don’t know what to do to remedy this transgression as well as the situation it revealed.
It began accidentally, of course. I was to sit with Hermione while Severus went out hunting amorous students (truly, dear journal, I believe it is his only pleasure, despite his claims to the contrary), and I arrived early. I was eager to learn whether there had been any change in Hermione’s condition after they administered the new potion tonight. Poppy must have left the door unlocked when she left; it was open so I just tapped and went in.
Severus was in the bedroom with Hermione, bathing her. He clearly hadn’t heard me enter, as he did not stop what he was doing. I was touched and amazed by his tenderness in dealing with her. Poppy had told me that he insisted on caring for her himself, but I never imagined how gentle he could be…I digress. I was so shocked by some of the things he revealed, my mind (and my pen, dear journal) keeps shying away.
That poor boy. That poor, dear boy. I remember his Sorting, how terrified he was. An ugly, scrawny little duckling sent to the House where status was everything. He lacked all outward signs of the qualities that would mark him a true Slytherin, yet he became one. His Sorting I attributed to his mother's status as the last pureblooded descendant of an ancient house. As I grew to know him, I could see his hunger to learn and to use that knowledge to advance his own cause. The Hat had seen what I could not; the boy’s ambition was immense.
And to think I was pleased that some of his housemates had taken him under their wings.
9. She sniffed and wiped her hands across her eyes. She didn’t want to cry. She was supposed to be strong. But for someone who had all the answers, she felt so bloody trapped.
It could have been worse; Severus wasn’t cruel, as many of the purebloods had been to their wives. She was allowed to continue her studies. He even allowed her to work out of the home. But it wasn’t enough.
She hated the fact that she loved him. There, she admitted it, if only to herself. She wanted to be there for him, wanted to hold him at night, and to ignite what passion she knew was there that he kept hidden from her. But he had been alone for so long, he no longer trusted anyone, much less himself. In a strangely sweet way, she knew that he held back to protect her. She loved him, but she was alone.
I can’t do this anymore. The thought kept running through her head like a mantra. She was drinking some of Severus’ fine brandy. He’d caught her like this before, muttering something about silly romantic girls, and their fits of the sulks. She choked, knowing there was no escape, no happiness waiting for her.
Her husband was a potions master after all. A simple dreamless sleep draught. An extra added ingredient. She mixed it with the brandy.
The herbal honey flavor nipped at her tongue. She closed her eyes, and sank into oblivion.
10. He’d joined the Death Eaters to make friends and influence people, and got it half right.
Once he managed to escape Malfoy Manor, with the excuse that he had school in the morning, he’d headed off to find his comrades in the seedy Muggle boozer near Diagon Alley that they always went to. As regulars, the landlord didn’t ask too many questions, and even supplied them with free nibbles provided they kept the noise down, and kept Smudger from playing darts.
They would sit and complain about their bosses, and he’d complain about Dumbledore, and then they’d whine about the Inner Circle and how they got all the perks - they conveniently ignored that he was one of the Inner Circle for these purposes - and then they would have some more to drink and play darts (apart from Smudger).
He even allowed them to call him Snapey.
Want to give Hermione a run for her money in the know-it-all field? Simply play the quiz by commenting on this post with your answers at any time over the weekend. All comments with answers will be screened until the answer sheet is posted on Monday morning EDT. On Monday, all quizzlings with the correct answers will receive a pretty banner to prove their quiz prowess. Ready? Set? Play!
Match the quotes to the Series without picking the red herring titles:
The Big Name Death Eater Series by shiv5468
Big Name Death Eater, Big Name Death Eater 2, Big Name Death Eater 3
The Sponge Bath Trilogy by JenKM1216 akagypsy_morph
The Sponge Bath, The Not So Long Awaited Sponge Bath Sequel and A Serious Medical Condition
The Fairy God-Jarvey Series by dracontia aka dracfic
Courtesy of Your Fairy God-Jarvey, Return of the Fairy God-Jarvey, The Fairy God-Jarvey’s Apprentice and The Ring on Her Finger
The Mission Series by Fervesco
MISSION I: Get Hermione Laid, MISSION II: Get Hermione Laid...AGAIN!, Mission III: Get Hermone Laid...Once More!, Mission Metamorphmagus: Get Hermione Laid IV and Mission: Get Severus Laid
The Moonglow Trilogy by moonglow
Hermione's List, Union of the Snakes and Sev and the Family Snape
The Sybil's Oracle by pigwidgeon37
Book 1, Book 2, Interlude, Book 3 (Book 3 is SSHG, earlier books are Snape-centric)
The Clock Series by pearle9240
For Whom the Clock Chimes, It Chimes For You, The Clock Chimed Again - Are You Talking To Me?, and The Clock Chimed Anew - What A Difference A Day Makes
The Long Wait Series by ancientgirl
The Long Wait, A Small Addition, Caught in The Act and Lestrange Days
Redivivus by ayerf
Redivivus, Resurgam and Tabula Rasa
I'll Never Take Advantage by annietalbot
I'll Never Take Advantage and Gifts
Surrender by Dryad
Surrender and Scarab
Veils of Illusion by rillalicious
Veils of Illusion and Mercy of the Fallen
1. Reggie uttered a sigh of relief, which turned to a frustrated growl as her quarry rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.
“No you don’t! Listen, arsewipe, you did something--I can’t for the life of me imagine what--that convinced the stupid sods in management that you are worthy of our intervention. Maybe it’s some sort of post-war issue, but there seem to be a lot of fairy god-thingies getting new assignments lately.
“I don’t question it; I pay my union dues, collect my wages, and shift my arse wherever it’s assigned. In exchange, I can tap into the amazing powers that are part and parcel of ‘the Magik of Faerie’. Right now, my arse is assigned to improve your sorry excuse for a life.” She looked him over critically and sniffed. “Looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me.”
“My life would be considerably ‘improved’ if you would get the hell out of my bedroom, you foul-mouthed rodent,” Severus retorted with a sneer. “Besides, life is as good as it gets for me. No Dark Lord, no pending criminal charges, and with the loss of my late, unlamented teaching job, no more students. Everything is just peachy.”
“Your standards are too sodding low, and sarcasm won’t help one damned bit,” Reggie scolded.
Suddenly, her face broke into a toothy grin. If she had had fingers, she would have snapped them. “That’s the ticket! We need to embark on a program of adjusting your attitude, which absolutely honks in case you weren’t aware.”
2. "I am taking off your trousers. Deal with it."
"No, no! I'll do it. Bloody harpy."
"There is no need for name calling, Professor. We're both adults here. Save the insults for your poor students when you go back to Hogwarts."
"I'm sure I can come up with more for them."
"We both know that you can't take off your trousers because you're temporarily paralyzed."
"I have full functioning ability; I just chose not to share that fact with you."
"Oh, really? Lift your index finger, then."
"Fine. Take them off."
"Finally. Now off with your shirt."
"I'd rather not."
3. They were coming up on their one-year anniversary. Hermione had planned a small dinner party to mark the occasion. Severus thought he must have really lost his mind to agree to have dinner willingly with Potter. Only for her, he thought.
Three days. He had three days to get her something nice. Severus was agonizing over what to get her. They had a bit of a rough go at first. Severus Snape was not known for being warm and cuddly but he was trying. He loved Hermione with all his heart. The problem was, he didn't know how to show it. Hermione was out with Ginny Weasley. They were having…….what did she call it? A hen party?
Severus was sitting in his private office contemplating the weight of the world. He had a snifter of brandy next to him. “What do I buy her?” he asked the empty room.
He looked up as his office clock chimed. The hand with his picture said, “Congratulations on your marriage. How about jewelry?” Oh bloody hell, the clock was doing it again.
“What! Are you cursed? Once a year you come alive and butt into my life?” Snape snarled at the clock.
The clock chimed. The hand moved to, “Okay.”
“A clock is just a clock. This cannot be happening.” Severus ran his hand distractedly through his hair.
The hand moved to, “A clock is just a clock, and a toaster is just a toaster until it starts giving you the stock reports.”
4. She smiled, then tied the note to the owl and it immediately flew away. She sat back in her chair and began to make her plans. Hermione would have to tell her parents of course, and then Harry and Ron. She knew they were still in their Auror training, and were for the moment, in a secluded part of England going through secret training missions. She would write them anyway and just have the note delivered to their apartment so they could read it upon their return.
After she sent off her note to Harry and Ron, she began to make a list of all the things that needed to make the trip to Hogwarts with her. If she was going to be living at Hogwarts she would no longer need her flat and most of what was in it. Deciding not to leave anything to the last minute, Hermione began to designate what was to be kept and what was to be given or throw away.
Hermione sat happily on the floor, packing some books and other smaller objects, when she came to a sudden realization. She was going to live at Hogwarts! That meant she was going to be living under the same roof as him, work at the same place, eat at the same table. They were going to be colleagues! How was she going to function around him without making him suspicious? She laughed and shook her head. He hated her so much, chances were he would not give her a second look anyway. He would never know, could never even imagine how she felt about him. Anyway, why would he even care?
No, there was no way Professor Severus Snape would ever give a rat’s rump that she was in love with him even if he did know.
5. “Hermione! Hermione, please come out!” Ginny pleaded outside her friend’s door. “It’s been a week, Hermione. We need to see you.”
Hermione buried her head beneath her pillow to drown out the noise. They probably thought she had been in here crying the entire time. Nothing could be further from the truth. She had been planning; planning what she would do to the Death Eaters who murdered her parents. She just had to find out who they were. Draco Malfoy probably knew. Maybe she could use Polyjuice potion again and get the information from him.
“Hermione! The train is leaving in less than an hour. We just want to say goodbye. Please…”
A voice in the back of her mind told her that she should care about the people standing outside her door, holding constant vigil for her, but the only thing that weighed on her mind now was revenge. They had taken away her family. For six years she struggled to prove that she fit into this world and it was all for naught. She was being punished for the accident of her birth. The blinding anger that had embraced her when Dumbledore first told her of her parents’ fate was slowly being replaced by stoic determination. They would not win; she would prove it to them all. She felt stunted, frozen, as if they had encased her in ice, stopping time and holding her prisoner in this tragic life she did not deserve. She resented it deeply.
She was not taking the train back to London this year; Dumbledore himself would be accompanying her to Grimmauld Place, where she would spend the summer with members of the Order. She knew that Remus lived there most of the time, and she was glad of it. She had always held a soft spot for the werewolf and now that there was no one else of significance in her life, she was looking forward to seeing him. Professor McGonagall had promised to visit frequently and in a few weeks the Weasleys and Harry would be there for the rest of the summer. She would talk to her friends then. In the mean time, they would have to understand that she needed space.
Finally the knocking ended and there was only silence on the other side of the door. She rolled over on her back and stared blankly above her. A slow smile crept upon her lips as she realized that there would be one other important visitor to Grimmauld Place this summer: Snape. Perhaps he knew who killed her parents.
6. “Bloody hell!” I think out loud. Then turn back to Harry and Ginny, “You know what? There is no one here worthy of shagging!”
Outburst seems to have shocked them into breaking their grope for a moment or two.
“Excuse me?” Harry asks, looking quite surprised.
Ginny giggles. “Oh, come on, Herm. There must be someone…what about Neville?”
Glance back at boy wonder - wonder how he ever passed his NEWTS. He is completely comatose on the sofa now. “I prefer my boys to be alive!”
“Rules out Snape them, doesn’t it,” Harry laughs, then freezes at the exchange of looks between Ginny and I. I glance around the room, but our deliciously snarky Potions Master is no where in sight.
“Looks like he’s taken himself out of the equation,” I reply with a sigh and am quite satisfied by the shocked look on Harry’s face. Ah, well even if removal of virginity isn’t possible tonight, Harry at least appears to be looking at me in a different light. Good.
“Well, why don’t you go find him?” Ginny suggests, but even in this state I can still translate that as ‘bugger off and leave me to snog Harry!’
“Nah. Think I’ll just head for bed,” I reply with a resigned sigh. Flag it, there’s always the end of year ball in two weeks.
7. The dark wizard scowled down into his mixed vegetables, pushing them around on his plate. He half-heartedly skewered a carrot on his fork and bit into it, finding the usually scrumptious food held no taste for him.
When Severus had been alerted by Nymphadora Tonks’s Patronus that Potter was delayed, he had hoped that the bigheaded brat would know where his friend was. It was a disappointment when Potter asked him where Miss Granger was.
The only comfort was that if the girl was now in the Dark Lord’s hands, he would surely let Severus know, as one of the Inner Circle of Death Eaters, even if he was only summoned to be executed as a traitor. The girl knew too much, especially about his own position as a spy. What was worse was that Severus had allowed her to know more, more about him than even Albus knew.
Severus found himself more concerned for Miss Granger’s fate than his own. ‘I let her get too close. I should have… but even if I could go back, I wouldn’t change anything.’ Even as Severus tried to reprove himself, he was well aware that the events since the Dark Lord had returned would have been much harder for him if he didn’t have his tentative friendship with Miss Granger.
‘Now Herm-Miss Granger is missing despite what I wrote to her to assure her of her family’s, and her own, safety.’ Although Severus constantly referred to the girl as ‘Miss Granger,’ her given name kept slipping out in his thoughts, no doubt because in those letters they had exchanged, they had referred to each other by name. Not once had they slipped up in person, thankfully.
As someone who could count his friends, living and deceased, on one hand, Severus was highly protective of those few who had managed to work their way far enough into his trust to be considered as such. Miss Granger had the potential to be more if she survived long enough to graduate. If she was still alive…
8. Minerva’s Journal
December 15, 1998
I am guilty of an appalling breach of ethics…I eavesdropped on a colleague’s most private thoughts. Yet I cannot apologize, as he would be horrified to know what I had overheard and would never trust me again. I don’t know what to do to remedy this transgression as well as the situation it revealed.
It began accidentally, of course. I was to sit with Hermione while Severus went out hunting amorous students (truly, dear journal, I believe it is his only pleasure, despite his claims to the contrary), and I arrived early. I was eager to learn whether there had been any change in Hermione’s condition after they administered the new potion tonight. Poppy must have left the door unlocked when she left; it was open so I just tapped and went in.
Severus was in the bedroom with Hermione, bathing her. He clearly hadn’t heard me enter, as he did not stop what he was doing. I was touched and amazed by his tenderness in dealing with her. Poppy had told me that he insisted on caring for her himself, but I never imagined how gentle he could be…I digress. I was so shocked by some of the things he revealed, my mind (and my pen, dear journal) keeps shying away.
That poor boy. That poor, dear boy. I remember his Sorting, how terrified he was. An ugly, scrawny little duckling sent to the House where status was everything. He lacked all outward signs of the qualities that would mark him a true Slytherin, yet he became one. His Sorting I attributed to his mother's status as the last pureblooded descendant of an ancient house. As I grew to know him, I could see his hunger to learn and to use that knowledge to advance his own cause. The Hat had seen what I could not; the boy’s ambition was immense.
And to think I was pleased that some of his housemates had taken him under their wings.
9. She sniffed and wiped her hands across her eyes. She didn’t want to cry. She was supposed to be strong. But for someone who had all the answers, she felt so bloody trapped.
It could have been worse; Severus wasn’t cruel, as many of the purebloods had been to their wives. She was allowed to continue her studies. He even allowed her to work out of the home. But it wasn’t enough.
She hated the fact that she loved him. There, she admitted it, if only to herself. She wanted to be there for him, wanted to hold him at night, and to ignite what passion she knew was there that he kept hidden from her. But he had been alone for so long, he no longer trusted anyone, much less himself. In a strangely sweet way, she knew that he held back to protect her. She loved him, but she was alone.
I can’t do this anymore. The thought kept running through her head like a mantra. She was drinking some of Severus’ fine brandy. He’d caught her like this before, muttering something about silly romantic girls, and their fits of the sulks. She choked, knowing there was no escape, no happiness waiting for her.
Her husband was a potions master after all. A simple dreamless sleep draught. An extra added ingredient. She mixed it with the brandy.
The herbal honey flavor nipped at her tongue. She closed her eyes, and sank into oblivion.
10. He’d joined the Death Eaters to make friends and influence people, and got it half right.
Once he managed to escape Malfoy Manor, with the excuse that he had school in the morning, he’d headed off to find his comrades in the seedy Muggle boozer near Diagon Alley that they always went to. As regulars, the landlord didn’t ask too many questions, and even supplied them with free nibbles provided they kept the noise down, and kept Smudger from playing darts.
They would sit and complain about their bosses, and he’d complain about Dumbledore, and then they’d whine about the Inner Circle and how they got all the perks - they conveniently ignored that he was one of the Inner Circle for these purposes - and then they would have some more to drink and play darts (apart from Smudger).
He even allowed them to call him Snapey.