Author's Note:
Writing School: passive voice and tension
School: Ilvermorny
Year: Exchange 1
Word Count (900 word limit): 815
Writing Technique: Raising the Tension
x1 point for making the stakes personal
x1 point for your main characters actions being responsible for their troubles
x1 point for including a ticking time bomb
x1 point for making the stakes life of death (literal or figurative)
Technical: The Passive Voice
x1 point for using the active voice everywhere but in the following sentences
x1 point for using the passive voice to hide a subjects Identity:
Sentence: The face is obscured by a thick, dark cloak that hangs down past its chest.
x1 point for using the passive voice to add emphasis to the object or action
Sentence: Before her, a thick, leather-bound book lies open, the edges of its pages glowing like embers.
x1 point for using the passive voice when the subject is an unconscious entity
Sentence: The unconscious form of Ms. Pince has been obscured by a large canvas cloth helpfully provided by Hermione in a fit of guilt.
A Spectre Comes
Death is coming for Professor Hermione Granger, and it is all her fault. A chill creeps into the library as all colour and sound drains away. The unconscious form of Ms. Pince has been obscured by a large canvas cloth helpfully provided by Hermione in a fit of guilt. She hadn't understood at first, but she understands now. Students lie frozen and sprawled across the library like marionettes with their strings cut. They still appear to breathe, which is a small mercy, but Hermione still feels sharp pangs of guilt for causing such quiet chaos.
Before her, a thick, leather-bound book lies open, the edges of its pages glowing like embers. The writing within is complex and appears to shift when Hermione glances at it. She tries, and fails, to keep her eyes focused elsewhere. The spell is strong and it calls the dark, stalking thing that takes souls to the hereafter. She will have one chance to win something more precious to her than gold. She has only her own soul to barter for it.
"I'm not afraid," she murmurs to herself through softly chattering teeth.
A rolling fog spreads suddenly down the aisles. Hermione hastily grabs her wand and lights the tip. She holds up her hand in front of her face, and gasps as she glimpses something large moving towards her like a shark. It dips down below the fog and disappears.
"W-who's there?" Hermione cries out, pointing her wand erratically around her.
She nearly trips as she turns abruptly to her left. A figure looms over her. The face is obscured by a thick, dark cloak that hangs down past its chest. Hermione can feel the entity beneath staring at her.
"You called me," the entity rasps.
"Yes," Hermione replies. "Thank you for coming, Death."
The spectre nods in acknowledgement. "Do you wish to barter? Your hour grows shorter with each passing moment."
"Yes," Hermione says again. "I wish to barter."
"Excellent." Death grabs something from a hidden fold in its long, flowing cloak.
Hermione's eyes widen when she sees the parchment. The fog clears enough to show that she now sits across from Death at a solemn marble table.
Death sets down the parchment. "You will write twenty-four inches on a subject that I do not already know."
Hermione gives Death a puzzled look. "I thought we would play chess."
Death bends forward on long elbows and she suppresses a shudder. "There is more than one type of chess, Hermione Granger."
Death raises one shroud-wrapped hand and summons a golden shining clock. "You have fifty-four minutes."
Hermione grabs the quill that she keeps tucked behind her ear and begins. An essay is not hard to create, but she struggles with coming up with a topic that she thinks that Death would not know about. The clock counts down further and she looks away from it.
'Start as though you mean to continue,' she chides herself.
Death is sitting back, arms crossed.
"Can I ask you a question?" Hermione asks.
"Certainly," Death replies.
"Will you answer honestly?" she asks.
"Yes," Death says.
Hermione is certain she detects a hint of humour in that raspy voice.
"What is it that you do not know?" Hermione ventures.
"Many things," Death replies.
"What is one thing, specifically, that you do not know?" Hermione shoots back, growing frustrated.
"The problem with something that I do not know is that I do not know what it is," Death says simply.
"Is that so?" Hermione asks.
Death pauses for a moment, as though expecting a trick.
"I cannot know what I do not know, therefore I honestly do not know what I can tell you," Death says finally.
Hermione's eyes light up and she grins fiercely. Her pen scratches against the parchment with gusto. She rolls up the parchment and hands it proudly to Death with only minutes to spare.
"You are confident." It is a statement, not a question.
Hermione stares at Death and is not afraid.
Death unrolls the parchment and reads it quickly. A soft, impressed gasp escapes the shroud. Death finishes and rolls up the parchment, tucking it deeply into its voluminous robes. "What is it that you wish, Hermione Granger?"
"I want him back," Hermione says, drawing up to her full height and speaking in her most serious Professor Granger tone of voice.
"Be specific," Death says softly.
"Give me my husband. You took him from me. I want him back."
"Come and get him." The reply is strangely soft and almost tender.
Hermione steps around the table. Death takes a step backward. Hermione steps forward again and gently grasps the hood of the shroud, pulling it back over Death's head.
Severus Snape stares back at her with soft, sad eyes. "I'm here."
"Welcome home," Hermione reaches up to touch his face and softly presses her lips to his.
Postscript Note: AU relationship (Adult Hermione Granger/Severus Snape who survives the war only to contract cancer later in life). She changes her name back to Granger after her husband dies.