Categories > Books > Harry Potter > Light
Having turned the Malfoy brat over to Death Eaters who will gladly shelter that family, Snape is left alone. They overflow with smooth words of gratitude and admiration, of course, praising his courage and professing all doubts now removed. He knows better. Perhaps, now, they are convinced of his loyalties, but no double agent is ever really trusted, and no half-caste is ever really wanted. It doesn't matter. They give him what he most immediately needs: a place to hide, and wait.
If he had faith, this waiting would be different, but however much he loved his mentor he is practical about that love; it does not extend to letting him believe in impossible things. He is no child, has no easy comfort to cling to, and knows too well that the grave releases no man. The only one who trusted him lies buried, and the truth lies buried with him, for who will believe when the only other witness is a turncoat?
And yet hope, that damnable emotion, rises up to haunt him. There was one among his pupils who was keen enough, intelligent enough, rational enough to resist the impulse to leap to the worst conclusions about him. Even when the evidence was ambiguous, she had tried to follow it; even when her dearest friends proclaimed his guilt, she had argued with them. He wonders, now, if she has the wit and will to see once more that events bear more than one interpretation.
They have concealed him in a Muggle dwelling to wait out his days until--what? One side or the other will, he supposes dully, come to kill him. He cannot rouse himself to care, knows only that he is tired of trying so hard and always, always being hated and doubted and despised. This Muggle cottage: is that meant to be yet another sneer at his origins? He eyes it with loathing, but even in his blackest moods the spark of curiosity is there, and he finds himself idly examining the little packets left beside each candle. "Close cover before striking," he reads, baffled. The Death Eaters who offered him this shelter were probably sniggering to themselves that he'd fit right in, but in truth this side of his parentage is wholly lost to him, as obscure and unknown as if he'd been a pureblood. He was never taught these alien skills. He never wanted to learn them. He wonders, now, what other things his muggleborn students knew that he didn't.
At night, he dreams of her. In his dreams she comes to him willingly, her eyes alight not just with her usual eager intelligence, but with impossible desire. His dream-version of her has known no rebuff or sarcasm from him, or, if she has, she has somehow seen through it and understood his hidden thoughts, his tangled motivations, the necessity to appear to dislike her, and the respect and fondness he could never once reveal. In his dreams she speaks to him. "Kiss me, caress me, love me, fill me completely. I want to lie in Your arms."
He wakes alone to the unforgiving darkness, and whispers his reply. "See me. Understand me." She is not there to hear--she never will be--and he rises from his bed to shake off the heavy sadness that closes in like a weight on his chest.
Sitting on the edge of the bed he remembers that the little table next to him has a candle and, in the broad dish it stands in, a little box, another of those stupid muggle devices. When he picks it up he catches the scent, familiar in the darkness: brimstone. The properties of brimstone, unlike the properties of people, are known to him, and suddenly the remembered instructions tumble through his mind and assume a perfectly logical meaning. He pulls out a brimstone-laden stick and strikes it against the rough side of the box. The tiny flame hisses into life, and he sets it to the candlewick automatically. The light dances, as delicate and yet as undeniably real as hope itself.
If he had faith, this waiting would be different, but however much he loved his mentor he is practical about that love; it does not extend to letting him believe in impossible things. He is no child, has no easy comfort to cling to, and knows too well that the grave releases no man. The only one who trusted him lies buried, and the truth lies buried with him, for who will believe when the only other witness is a turncoat?
And yet hope, that damnable emotion, rises up to haunt him. There was one among his pupils who was keen enough, intelligent enough, rational enough to resist the impulse to leap to the worst conclusions about him. Even when the evidence was ambiguous, she had tried to follow it; even when her dearest friends proclaimed his guilt, she had argued with them. He wonders, now, if she has the wit and will to see once more that events bear more than one interpretation.
They have concealed him in a Muggle dwelling to wait out his days until--what? One side or the other will, he supposes dully, come to kill him. He cannot rouse himself to care, knows only that he is tired of trying so hard and always, always being hated and doubted and despised. This Muggle cottage: is that meant to be yet another sneer at his origins? He eyes it with loathing, but even in his blackest moods the spark of curiosity is there, and he finds himself idly examining the little packets left beside each candle. "Close cover before striking," he reads, baffled. The Death Eaters who offered him this shelter were probably sniggering to themselves that he'd fit right in, but in truth this side of his parentage is wholly lost to him, as obscure and unknown as if he'd been a pureblood. He was never taught these alien skills. He never wanted to learn them. He wonders, now, what other things his muggleborn students knew that he didn't.
At night, he dreams of her. In his dreams she comes to him willingly, her eyes alight not just with her usual eager intelligence, but with impossible desire. His dream-version of her has known no rebuff or sarcasm from him, or, if she has, she has somehow seen through it and understood his hidden thoughts, his tangled motivations, the necessity to appear to dislike her, and the respect and fondness he could never once reveal. In his dreams she speaks to him. "Kiss me, caress me, love me, fill me completely. I want to lie in Your arms."
He wakes alone to the unforgiving darkness, and whispers his reply. "See me. Understand me." She is not there to hear--she never will be--and he rises from his bed to shake off the heavy sadness that closes in like a weight on his chest.
Sitting on the edge of the bed he remembers that the little table next to him has a candle and, in the broad dish it stands in, a little box, another of those stupid muggle devices. When he picks it up he catches the scent, familiar in the darkness: brimstone. The properties of brimstone, unlike the properties of people, are known to him, and suddenly the remembered instructions tumble through his mind and assume a perfectly logical meaning. He pulls out a brimstone-laden stick and strikes it against the rough side of the box. The tiny flame hisses into life, and he sets it to the candlewick automatically. The light dances, as delicate and yet as undeniably real as hope itself.
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