Author's Note:
Round 6: Cult Classics
Team: Pride of Portree
Position: Beater 2
Film: Frankenstein
Prompts used: 5. (word) bloodthirsty
8. (location) Nurmengard
12. (poem) A Walking Song — J. R. R. Tolkien
Word Count: _1875_ excluding Author's Note
This story is an alternative ending to the Second Wizarding War. It is also a sort of a companion piece for "A Feast for a Lord" though the two stories can be read separately as well. Also, when I imagine A Walking Song sung, the tune is from "Edge of Night", as Pippin sings in the "Return of the King", only with the original lyrics.
Of Monsters and Men
Severus Snape had never been to Nurmengard before. He'd heard of it, of course- the infamous prison that held Gellert Grindelwald. It was the castle he had once built for his many enemies. Now, after the aforementioned wizard had died, Nurmengard only held one prisoner; a witch so dark, dangerous, and bloodthirsty that they didn't dare put her in Azkaban.
Once, years ago, Snape had spent time between the walls of the prison guarded by dementors. Nurmengard was nothing like Azkaban. It was an old and forgotten building that seemed to be slowly decaying. There wasn't a guard in sight, only old magic to keep the prisoner behind the cold, stone walls.
Snape navigated the maze of empty cells carefully until he finally stopped in front of a door with a small window and the number 25 peeling off above it.
The witch stood at the back of the small cell, looking out of a window towards the welcoming darkness. She didn't look like much. He hadn't exactly expected the same level of insanity as Bellatrix Lestrange, but she was almost too composed. Her hair had been braided, her lips were a vain red. Just looking at her, one would never have thought her a prisoner there but merely a guest.
Snape sighed and pushed the door open. She gave no indication that she noticed, so he coughed softly and took a step forward.
"Headmaster, how nice to see you."
"There is no need for that title, Miss Davis. Professor McGonagall is the one who holds it now."
Tracey Davis stepped away from the window and into the dim light offered by two candles floating near the low ceiling. In their ghostly light she looked pale and inhuman. Her features had thinned a bit since he last saw her and even the carefully applied makeup could not hide a certain tiredness within her.
"You were our headmaster during the most dangerous time. I think that deserves to be remembered." She turned and gestured at a chair in the corner of the cell. "Won't you sit down?"
When Snape's year as Headmaster began, the Slytherins had done something he'd never expected. They'd stuck together, with quite a lot of them even stepping up to fight against the new regime and aide the headmaster in keeping everyone alive. Tracey Davis had been one of the more active fighters. It wasn't that surprising, given that she was a halfblood who cared deeply for her Muggle father. She'd become a beacon of hope for all Slytherins not wanting to be defined by the choices of their parents or the reputation of their house. The most inspiring part of her, though, was that she never lost hope. She seemed to believe with every fiber of her being that the light would win and that hope that burned within her spread to all those around her, too.
She sat down too, on the small and hard bench that, judging by the thin blanket and deflated pillow, was supposed to be a pathetic excuse for a bed. "So, what brings you here, Headmaster? To see the murderess?"
Snape shook his head, not sure if he could give an answer. "Headmistress McGonagall wants to know how you are."
Her laugh was so different from the once childish giggles that even the grim atmosphere of a Carrow-run regime could not snuff out. It was like nails scratching a blackboard. "If I may contest that, the esteemed Headmistress wants to know how she is. She merely wants to make sure she doesn't feel guilty."
The trouble was, no one knew they could bleed. No other teacher, not even Slughorn, stopped to think about their pain. Slytherins just hid it well under cold sneers and expensive robes. They were just dolls that way and who would ever wonder if porcelain had blood vessels? The Slytherins knew how to suffer in silence and, despite it all, they never stopped fighting. They couldn't. In times of war, apathy was as dangerous as malice. So even under the hateful glares they got from those on the side of the Light, even when they were called collaborators in the corridors, they never backed down.
"Perhaps you judge her too harshly."
Tracey shrugged. "What does it matter how harshly I judge anyone? I'm nobody and nothing. My thoughts cannot hurt her." She examined her polished fingernails and Snape glanced around the room where, despite the bare furnishings, he could see that someone had tried to make her comfortable. There were books, makeup and jewelry, neatly arranged.
"Do you believe me wrong? For what I did?"
Snape sighed. "You murdered them."
"A choice had to be made. I was the only one brave enough to make it."
Despite the care she took, the Carrows still started to suspect resistance amongst the Slytherins, so Tracey did what she thought she had to. She took the fall for everything. Snape tried to protect her but he couldn't. Not at the expense of everyone else. So Tracey suffered. She suffered as they tried to break her and recreate her as a warrior on their side. Her blood was tainted but even minds as dull as the Carrows saw her resilience and desired to weaponize it. Yet she did not break. She'd spend her nights on bare cold floors and he'd hear her still whisper lullabies to whoever was in the cell next door.
Home is behind, the world ahead,
And there are many paths to tread
Through shadows to the edge of night,
Until the stars are all alight.
The world behind and home ahead,
We'll wander back to home and bed.
She'd sing it over and over again and hold on to a world where she could still dream of adventures. And his heart would break anew each night as he knew that she too would break one day and he'd never hear it again.
"Have you ever heard the story of Frankenstein? A careless doctor creates a monster and the monster ends up destroying his whole life?"
Snape nodded slowly. It was one of the few movies his father had taken him to and he'd devoured the book later.
"Tell me, do you believe the monster was evil from the moment of its creation? Or was it the world that made it that way?"
"I believe it had the potential to be good."
"Did I?"
Snape could pinpoint the exact moment when she snapped. They'd taken everything from her already, but the thing that made her break was when she returned to the castle and saw that all but the snakes had fled. He'd been forced to be the one to explain that the professors had had the chance to save some of the students and they had each saved their own Houses in a mad hope that the Slytherins would have the best chance of survival in a Death Eater regime if they had to remain behind. She'd listened without a tear. But that night, her words of passing by hidden paths and secret gates did not echo in the corridors and he knew.
Monsters came into the world in all shapes and sizes. Some were born with fangs and horns who hid in dark forests. Some were bright-eyed and cheery little girls taking their first steps in a world of magic, hearts full of a sweet hope that the world was set on crushing.
"I could not possibly judge your actions. I helped commit your crimes."
"I tricked you." she argued.
"I allowed myself to be tricked," was his grim counter.
She had been so perfectly composed after the conversation. Just like the monster from the films, the final rejection after her creation was what drove her over the edge. And just like the monster, she would have her revenge.
They were at a fork in the road. They had to choose. So she asked him to invite the Death Eaters in and he did. She said she'd give her life for the life of the youngest students. Her surrender would be valuable, she reasoned. Snape knew he was allowing her to deceive him. But even when he saw the bottle of poison go missing from his office, he chose to look away. They all did. And when their enemies died at her hand, they helped her. They watched the poison slowly kill everyone gathered to celebrate the victory of darkness. Even the Dark Lord himself. That's when he looked into her eyes and saw black. She may not have had veins visible under jaundiced skin, or horribly deformed features. But those two hollows in her face scared Snape far more than Christopher Lee's monster on the screen ever could.
"I could have stopped you."
"And we'd all be dead. Voldemort would never have allowed us to live after what we did. He'd never have stood for a free Muggleborn, even if they were a Slytherin, no matter what I offered them. And we'd have died protecting our own. But a noble death is still a death."
"You didn't do it to save them. You did it for revenge. Just like Frankenstein from the story," he argued though he wasn't sure if he was trying to absolve himself of the guilt of murdering those who thought him a friend, or of the guilt of helping them imprison her. But it made sense. Whoever kept her in these conditions had clumsily tried to ease their own conscience by gilding her cage.
He'd been a coward. God, he hated that word. He was willing to curse a man just for saying that word in the same sentence as his name. But he was a coward and he was afraid of her. She'd poisoned the Dark Lord without flinching. She'd looked at all the death she'd caused, unmoved, and he was afraid of her. So when she took the blame for it all, he said nothing. Even though he couldn't deny that other Slytherins must have known. Even though he himself had suspected. They'd done all of it together, but she was the one who had planned it and Snape was afraid of a seventeen-year-old girl who was responsible for such brutality.
They sentenced her to life in Nurmengard and he never spoke up. He didn't have a chance at first. They'd put him in Azkaban until Dumbledore's portrait and some found memories cleared him. And, later, he was as afraid as the rest of the Wizarding World. She had ended the Second Wizarding World, by all logic she should have been a hero. But people were terrified of a Dark Lady rising. They had, after all, created her and perhaps they all had something on their conscience. They hadn't run her out of town with pitchforks and torches but monsters weren't made in a vacuum, no matter what some wished to believe.
Her mouth twisted into a smirk. "You know, it's a very common mistake you made… most people think it was the monster that was named Frankenstein, when it was actually the creator. But then, perhaps there is no mistake. Perhaps it was the careless creator all along who didn't bother to think about consequences when he acted, who was the monster in the story…"