Author's Note 1: Written for Round 7 of the QLFC
Team: Pride of Portree
Position: Chaser 2
Chaser 2: Write about a witch or wizard trying to figure out how (one or more) Muggle technology works in an experimental space, i.e. a lab of any kind, and the chaos that ensues.
Prompts Used: 5. (phrase) Change the light bulb, 14. (word) Cartoons and 15. (dialogue) "What do you mean, these pictures don't move?"
Word Count (excluding Author's Note): 3,000
Poetry in Motion
Eileen frowned as she took in the enormous and very odd looking Muggle machinery before her. True, she had seen it once before but that had not prepared her for this—whatever this was supposed to be. Tobias had explained, in great detail, how this aircraft of his—an autogyro—was not just a hybrid between an aeroplane and a whirlybird but something that the aerospace industry would one day allow for personal flights manned by the common Muggle.
Eileen doubted that his assurance of it becoming a commuters' plane was correct. The appearance of the craft was even more peculiar now than it had been when it had crashed into Hagrid's poor hut months ago.
"How's yer family Eileen?" Hagrid asked as he tried to skip a stone across the peaceful surface of the Black Lake. "Yeh haven't mentioned them at all during tea."
Eileen forced her smile to stay in place. "They are doing fine."
She relaxed her forced smile into a natural one as she accepted the offered stones for skipping. Hagrid was her longtime friend and formerschoolmate.
"Father is still on the Governor's' Board;Mother is… still herself, and Elizabeth… well, you know Elizabeth. She is still traversing the States on her post-Hogwarts sabbatical," she explained as she looked through the stones weighing down her hand.
"And how about you?"
Eileen sent a polished stone skipping across the tranquil lake. "Hmm?" She hummed.
"What are you planning on—"
A loud noise prevented him from finishing his question. Both of them froze and turned back to see some type of aircraft was failing and falling fast out of the sky. A loud screech preceded the crash as it and its pilot barreledinto the modest hut Hagrid called home. The ground shook and heaved. Eileen was unsure whether it was simply from the downed autogyro alone or from Hagrid as he ran towards his demolished home, but it was a feeling she was sure she would never forget.
The Muggle contraptionwas in pieces in and around the remains of Hagrid's poor hut. It was a miracle that both of them had been taking a friendly stroll by the Black Lake or—she stopped herself from thinking such morbid things as she joined Hagrid by the ruins of the craft and hut. Now was not the time to think about that. She knew all too well what could have been. If the war had taught her anything, it was what happened to those buried under fallen bombs or planes.
Hagrid gave a shout as he found the form of the unconscious pilot under a section of thatching that used to be the roof.
"I think he's alive," Hagrid muttered after pulling the roof off of the man.
"He is," Eileen agreed, welcoming the sight of the unknown man's chest rising and lowering.
"Is the little fella alright, then?" Hagrid asked as he poured water onto the rising smoke that was still wafting from the combined wreckage of homestead and plane.
She nodded as she continued to check the man for any potentially fatal injuries. "He's still breathing and his pulse is steady. Looks like his ankle might be broken. Can you fetch Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey, if she's in?"
"Righto!"
Just as Eileenunlaced his shoes to check his injury more closely, the man stirred and moaned softly before opening his eyes. They were a soft green and were captivating, albeit a little unfocused at the moment. Both Eileen and the man stared into each other's eyes and, for a long moment, neither moved nor said anything. It was like they had fallen under some enchantment that neither dared to break.
"Am I dead?" The man finally asked.
"No, you're not dead." Not yet anyway, she silently added before berating herself for the morbid thought. Surely, if he had survived that crash then he would live. Fate and God weren't that cruel.
"Then why is an angel staring at me?" he asked, trying to smile before his attempt failed and his lips lapsed into a painful grimace. "What happened?" he asked before Eileen could reply to his surprise compliment as he pushed himself up to a sitting position and uttered a painful sob mixed with a humorless laugh at the sight that greeted him. "Damn, that right rotary blade must have finished cracking...those were my last three triplets too."
Mistaking her for an angel and now nonsensical talk about triplets and rotary blades? Clearly this Muggle was severely concussed!
"If you could help me up, Miss...?" he trailed off in clear invitation for Eileen to offer her name as he surveyed her form. Definitely not an angel. He silently corrected his previous assessment of the sullen and frail creature before him.
"My name is Eileen Prince and the hut you smashed into over there belonged to Hagrid." Eileen offered her hand which was quickly followed by her shoulder as he found that, sure enough, his ankle was busted.
His already light complexion paled even more. "I crashed into someone's home?"
At her simple nod of confirmation he quickly scanned the wreckage. "Please tell me it was empty."
"Noone was inside. We were just walking—"
"Thank goodness. I really didn't want to face the law." He smirked, "I've found that whenever one deals with magistrates and old wigs that time for inventing and test flying is gravely diminished."
Eileen blinked. Was that supposed to be a joke? He was leaning on her and limping in obvious pain and yet he was joking with her . . . who was this man?
"Sir, you haven't given me your name."
"Ah, yes my manners must still be in the clouds. The name's Tobias Snape."
"Eileen, love, come back down."
Eileen blinked and turned to see Tobias in his work tugs roll out from the confines underneath the autogyro.
"I've been asking for a wrench for the past minute."
Eileen quickly handed him one, ashamed that she had been caught daydreaming. She missed Tobias's smirk.
"You weren't perhaps daydreaming about me, were you?"
"Of course not!" she quickly defended herself, then walked over to the open cockpit and looked in. Ignoring Tobias's repeated pleas to come back, she picked up a photograph that had been pinned to the windshield. It was a picture of them during their first date.
Hagrid had come to stay in the Prince guest cottage located just off the main Hogsmeade estate while his hut was being rebuilt. Eileen had insisted on it. She had already rented a small apartment in London for the duration of her summer internship at the Ministry of Magic. Somehow, Tobias had found out her temporary address and every other weekend would stop by, unannounced, and ask her to go out with him.
Even despite his slight limp, a cane-less Tobias (since he was apparently too stubborn to use one) had been busily trying to court her. She had no idea why. She was no fool;she knew that she would never be considered beautiful, not with her sharp features and eyebrows that refused to stay neat no matter how much she plucked. She was also without any curves or other womanly endowments that one could boast about. Finally, measuring in at five foot eleven didn't help matters either when it came to dating. There weren't many tall wizards or Muggles around.
Except for Tobias who's six foot three, an annoying inner voice reminded her as she stacked the now empty tea plates upon one another and vanished them back to the kitchen with a wave of her wand.
A knock at her door helped break the almost whimsical daydream that was threatening to overtake her senses. A daydream that starred her fallen pilot and herself.
Merlin, she couldn't be falling for him. She didn't have time for a silly infatuation, not with her internship, and definitely not with someone that her family would vehemently forbid her to see.
Then again, maybe she should take him up on one of his requests.
Eileen knew all too well that the cold, harsh truth of reality always vanished the warmth and perfection of fantasies.
With a quick series of wand waves and muttered charms her Ministry-approved and Muggle London appropriate dress suit was transformed into a simple, modest evening dress. Something just right for the cinema.
"Hello Eileen!"
Speak of the devil himself—Tobias stood in a slightly-too-loose yet not unattractive suit with a bouquet of cut flowers peeking out from where he hid it behind his back. Like always.
"Care to go to the cinema with me? I have an extra ticket..." He trailed off as he saw her frown turn into a tight smile.
"Yes, the theater would be lovely." She accepted the flowers and with a discrete wave of her wand sent them into the kitchen where they would also find a half-filled vase to gracefully fall into.
"What are you looking at?" Tobias asked as he joined her by the cockpit before seeing the small photograph. "I see that you found my good luck charm."
"Why isn't it moving?"
"Moving?" Tobias asked, unsure what Eileen was asking.
"Yes, moving. We're just standing there."
Tobias chuckled. "Of course we are. It isn't a moving picture show."
"What do you mean, these pictures don't move?"
"Pictures by themselves don't move, love."
"But I—" she stopped herself. Maybe this was another of those Muggle things that were different from their Wizarding World counterpart.
"Your parents must have had a zoetrope that you played with as a child," Tobias reasoned aloud.
"Yes, that must be it."
Taking the photograph from her, Tobias carefully put it back. "I'm going back to work. She's almost ready."
Eileen smiled as Tobias slid back under his prized autogyro. Her thoughts, however, didn't stay in the present as she remembered how their first night out had gone.
She had agreed to go out with him to rid herself of fanciful thoughts by getting to know him better and thus become disappointed when reality didn't match up with fantasy, and to stop him from constantly stopping by with flowers. In the end, it did something unexpected— it marked the start of their whirlwind romance.
Eileen ran her hand along the repaired surface of the hybrid plane as she revisited memories of sitting in the cinema, watching the cartoon shorts before the feature film while sharing popcorn and laughter with Tobias.
Now, she had seen cartoons before, having sneaked out once with her sister to the local cinema by Diagon Alley after purchasing their school supplies, but that had been years ago during the real threat of invasion by Grindelwald's Army and the Muggle Germans and they hadn't made it past the newsreels and cartoons to the feature film before an air raid had ended their contraband fun.
She quietly shook herself from the bad memories of wartime and focused on the here and now.
Now she was in a rented hangar with her boyfriend, helping him with tuning up his invention. She had tried to follow his technobabble, but no matter how hard she listened and tried to picture it in her mind's eye she always got lost along the way. She knew it was not a good sign for a witch that one day desired to be Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office at the Ministry, but it was the truth.
"Be useful and hand me that screwdriver would you, love?"
Eileen turned from admiring the aircraft and picked up the lone screwdriver sticking out of Tobias's toolbox, "This one?"
"Yeah, that's the one."
He accepted the tool and after only a quick twist or two he threw the screwdriver back into the open toolbox before sliding out from under the body of the aircraft. Wiping his hands on an almost equally stained towel, he jumped to his feet and grinned.
"Good as new."
"You finished fixing it then?"
"Sure did and I tweaked a few things here and there while I was at it. So she's even better now. "
Just as he spoke, the lone light bulb above them flickered before going permanently dark.
"If it isn't one thing, it's another," he muttered good-naturedly as he shook his head. "I'd better change that lightbulb. Why don't you go wait in the cockpit?"
Eileen hesitated. "Tobias, I don't know if I should."
"Nonsense, it'll provide you with the opportunity to get acquainted with Little Lu."
"Little Lu?"
"That's her name," he explained as he patted the autogyro lovingly. "Now then, hop in while I fix this lighting problem. Won't be but a minute."
Eileen shrugged but got into the fixed autogyro, careful not to close the rounded glass door behind her.
A minute turned into a couple of minutes, it was apparently taking Tobias more time to find the ladder he needed to reach the dangling and burnt-out lightbulb, and she was rapidly becoming bored.
Eileen and boredom did not mix well, and even though she was uneasy about being inside Tobias's pride and joy alone, she also had a terrible desire to play with the assorted gadgets and doodads lining the modest console before her.
After a brief moment of hesitation, she assured herself that simply touching a few things while the hybrid aeroplane was powered off couldn't hurt anything. She cautiously began to explore her surroundings.
Even though four people could ride-two in the front and two behind, much like a Muggle car-the interior was rather confining. Then again, she had never actually been in a Muggle car and for all she knew it could have been the same space or larger.
However, she was sure that a car didn't have the array of dials and buttons and pedals and a stirring staff, or whatever one called the lever that controlled the movement of the aircraft while airborne; that much she was certain of.
Then, Eileen found herself touching, albeit ever so lightly, the various little buttons dotted around, wondering how it would feel to fly this instead of those awful brooms that never felt right, missing the small noise that signaled the start of the rotary blades beginning to spin. It was only when she felt a sudden breeze that quickly increased that she noticed her mistake.
She quickly hit the button again hoping it would stop, but it just kept spinning.
"Oi! Eileen, what are you doing?!" Tobias shouted as he began his descent back down the ladder after replacing the lightbulb. "Don't touch anything else! I'm coming!"
Eileen pulled her hands away from the control panel, but it was too late. Tobias had apparently prematurely removed the two wooden blocks that acted as brakes to keep the wheels stationary. The autogyro slowly began moving, increasing its acceleration with each rotation of its blades.
Tobias swore as he noticed what was happening and with only a second of hesitation jumped past the remaining four rungs of the ladder and ran the best he could after the now moving and slowly turning autogyro. If he didn't get to the controls and shut it off it would run into the side of the hangar, which could possibly damage it and his meal-ticket inside.
Eileen resumed frantically mashing buttons and turning switches in hopes of stopping her unexpected motion. When she noticed that nothing seemed to be working and that the door– the very locked and closed hangar door– was coming closer and closer, she reflexively grabbed her concealed wand and waved it. "Alohomora!"
Tobias froze as, to his utter astonishment, the locked and closed hangar door opened.
"A bloody miracle," he whispered breathlessly as he watched the autogyro move onto the runway before kicking himself back into motion.
Luckily, the runway was narrow and the autogyro drove off it onto the grass, which slowed its forward momentum just enough for Tobias to grab the latch on the cockpit's door and open it, before hustling himself up and inside.
"You just had to take her out yourself didn't you?" he lightly joked after steering Little Lu back into the safety of the hangar.
"You were taking too long," she managed, as she forced her rapid heartbeat back to normal.
"Here I thought you wanted to take things nice and slow," he smirked impishly. He quickly sobered however, when Eileen didn't respond. "Are you alright, love? Nothing broken or bruised?"
She snorted. That was a novel question. She had never been asked that her entire life. "I'm fine! I'll have you know that I wasn't Captain of the Hogwarts Gobstones team for nothing."
"Hogwarts? Gobstones?" Tobias asked, clearly amused. "You sure you didn't bonk that noggin of yours?"
Eileen stilled. She hadn't meant to say that. She couldn't have said that.
"I must have."
Tobias studied her for a long moment before offering one of his playful smiles. "Funny thing is I'm sure I remember that name, Hogwarts, from back when I first crashed."
"Must be something to do with your plane here."
"Autogyro," he corrected with a friendly tone of voice before going around the plane and opening her door for her. "Planes are different: metallic, cold, and unyielding. While this is-"
Eileen smiled, "I know- poetry in motion."
Tobias bowed with an exuberant flourish. "Correct, my lady."
"So how's that rich bird of yours, Toby?" Alan York—bartender and Tobias's RAF buddy—asked as he placed Tobias's usual order, a neat whiskey, down in front of him. "Still swallowing your lies?"
"Still ugly as a dodo," Tobias smirked, coldly. "And she absolutely believes that I'm her knight in shining armour. I can't do anything wrong."
Alan laughed. "Some blokes have all the luck."
"Either you have it or you don't," Tobias boasted, drink in hand, as he silently thanked that giant oaf who had unknowingly let slip that Eileen was a very wealthy heiress which presented Tobias with the answer to his financial woes.
If he could snag an heiress then he wouldn't have to worry about corporate contracts or how he would get new parts.
After all, if one didn't have money, one married money. It would be just like magic.
Fini
Author's Note 2: A big thank you to all my teammates on Pride of Portree and our awesome captain, Story Please, for their suggestions and beta help.
Inspired loosely by the fan work by Alomoria (on DeviantART) entitled The Diary. I would strongly recommend it.
A quick note about Tobias Snape's and Eileen Prince's portrayal in this story:
This story is set in the years between the end of the Global Wizarding War (1945), World War II (1947), Eileen's Hogwarts graduation (c.1948), and the birth of their son, Severus Snape (1960). With that in mind, I argue that Tobias and Eileen are in character due to them both being younger than their first appearance in Severus's stolen memories which painted the canonical abusive, poor, and depressing family life he grew up in.
Here, both still have options and the bright chance of fulfilling their dreams.
Also, it's worth mentioning how alcoholism can be a progressive addiction for some and how abusive individuals are highly apt at disguising their true nature while in the "courtship" and "honeymoon" phases of a relationship. Although, one can see the groundwork for future abuse has been laid already-his objectification of Eileen as a "meal-ticket" instead of a woman.