Les Sylphides, chapter 7: Dreaming Hexes

by flax, June 2003

JK Rowling owns the characters. They're only in this daydream for a profitless romp. :)

a/n: I was trying to model my Granger/Snape thing on the Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin friendship. I tried to make this story a mystery in order to highlight that, but it didn't work. Perhaps next time.

-------------------------------

Snape had to make a choice. And he wasn't one to get help if he could avoid it. So either he weathered Melusina's hex, to see what she'd thrown at him, or he pulled it off and dismissed it now. The obvious choice was to pull it off and dismiss it. But Snape wasn't in his twenties anymore and he'd known Melusina too long and to well to ignore her parting shot. He was faintly curious what she was thinking about things. And whether it was salvagable.

There, he admitted it. To himself at least. Bah.

Melusina did give him the chance to laugh at Cornelius Fudge at four in the morning on the steps of Hogwarts in front of lots of people. Which shaped up to be a pleasant memory. So she deserved a free shot.

Snape lay down and tried to let it have its way with him, and it pulled him into slumber and dreams.

It was all fairly predictable, as Snape relived in a dreamscape Melusina's version of their life together. When they met, when they courted, when they engaged, danced, married, and when he left her. That figured large in the first half of the dream. Snape did have to cringe to see the caricature of himself that Melusina provided for this dream - his walk on self seemed a bit too tall, a bit to angular, a bit to crass. But mirrors from the hurt spouse are often unflattering. Snape also watched snippets of his visits, her visits, and bits of her life where he was missing. Occasions she thought he should have been there. Holidays, troubles, the sorts of things couples ought to be able to depend on each other for, and he wasn't there.

The whole dream took on a frustrated angry cast, and Snape wasn't surprised, but stuck it out to the end. There was no way that _this_ was Melusina's dramatic gesture: a mere catalogue of what had not happened. She'd already done that by mail. Then the dream resolved into the ball from the night before, her entrance, her spotting him, her going up to the balcony, and her witnessing Snape cherishing some other woman who was dressed as a Sylph.

And suddenly Snape got it. Melusina would get over him being an idiot. The problem was that she thought he was ok with the farewell: she'd heard him say farewell to the other woman, and she felt boxed in. Cornered into a divorce. Snape sniffed in the dream, watching it all unwind again - disagreeing with Melusina's vision of his behavior. He had _not_ been tender. OK, maybe a bit soft. Snape tried to stop getting defensive in the face of no accuser but rather a free floating hex. He had nothing to make up with this spell - only with Melu, if possible, at a later date.

So Melusina was angry at the peaceable vision of their break up. Fine, he could handle that. And she was worried that he actually did feel things for other women, evidenced by his ability to tenderly break up, when it wasn't her. Heh. He could disabuse her of that, too, he was fairly certain.

One thing the flocking was good for - Melusina knew he wasn't lying when they talked. The problem to date was figuring out what were the issues that were dividing them. Oddly enough, they were quite a match, both of them a trace too driven and clueless for their own good. Six of one, half dozen another, welcome to my life, thought Snape, aware that he was still waiting for the curse's grand finale. Melusina didn't throw this hex to communicate, despite this being how they often did communicate. (Might want to work on that, he thought to himself.) So Snape was still waiting for the moment when he'd have to decide whether to laugh or groan.

He watched himself dancing with the woman in masquerade, and thought for a moment whether or not he was going to be learning yet more intimate details of his life in the gossip papers. There was something uniquely annoying about finding things out that way. But in the dream Snape got a better glance at his dance partner - the dream was coming from Melusina's perspective, and Melusina was not confused as to this young woman's identity. And Snape now groaned.

He'd mistaken a student for his wife. And the clues had been there if he'd only been paying attention. Odd how a teenager reflecting on adults would mirror a sylph reflecting on wizarding customs. And in both cases, communication had been at an all time minimum. "I might as well give up trying to be sensitive" thought Snape whimsically, "I don't socialize any better." He looked more pointedly and realized which student. It could have been much worse, he realized, and then dismissed Miss Granger from the dreamscape.

At which point he felt the hex dig in. The vision of Melusina laughing burned as he woke from the dream, stuck. His body was suddenly unfamiliar and the world was even stranger. When he tried to get up, he rocked on unknown limbs. And an echo of Melusina's hex echoed in his ears. He must be an ass now.

(First, talk to Melusina about spending more time together. Second, stop trying to be social. Third, damage control with Granger. Fourth, get body back.)

Snape looked in a mirror, and sure enough, looking back at him from a mirror, was a big brown ugly donkey. Snape thought to huff, it came out a bray, and he cringed, and it came out a full body shake. He decided to move point four on the to-do list up to point one.

After a few tries at this himself, the choices seemed to be Poppy or Albus. Of which, under the circumstances, he preferred his old friend. Even if he'd been a complete annoyance with his bow, arrows, and humor the other night. Even if the old man had been pulling for a romantic reconciliation. (As if either Melu or I ever did romance?, thought Snape.) Snape shuffled off his bed and to a table, bit on a portkey and let himself dissolve into Albus Dumbledore's office. Being a risk taking spy for the old man did come with some benefits.

Though the friendship probably meant more.