Author's Notes: In this chapter, we get to hear Mira's story. What events
led to her coming to Hogsmeade, and the chain of events that brings she and
the professor together for a common cause starts to come together.
A little bit about how I perceive the main characters, in the HP universe, and interpret them in my own mind: They say a little bit of learning is a dangerous thing, and my undergrad degree in Psychology really leads me to interesting life stories like a moth to a flame. What makes a character the way they are? Essentially the same things that make a real live person the way that they are.
From the first time I read the books, I was absolutely fascinated with the character of Professor Snape. This is a character, which is extremely complex. I don't see him as evil. I really don't. For those of you who have studied the Meyers-Briggs personality types, I think he's an INTP who is very unfulfilled and who has made some astronomically poor choices and who now wallows in a pit of self-loathing misery. Which in no way means that he is incapable of feeling joy, love, or hope. I intend to explore his feelings on how he came to be where he is during the time frame of the story in a later chapter.
Mira? She's not without her own psychological warts. She's not made quite as poor of choices during her life, but she's unfulfilled as well. Whereas I think Snape is trapped in a probably no win situation, Mira is simply getting by the best way she can, with what she has to work with. In the final chapters, she will make a choice that on the surface might seem heroic and altruistic, but is really out of self-interest. This is a modern woman who has learned the hard way how to look out for herself.
Will they partner up and become heroes and save the world, riding off into the sunset to live happily ever after? No. They can't. It's simply not on the path that they have laid out for themselves. The absolute best that either of them can hope for is to find somebody who can look past the surface to see their true potential and appreciate it for what it is while forgiving the flaws. And find solace and affection with each other for as long as they can. Kindred spirits? On a certain level.
I wanted to write a story that showed quite a bit of the professor's human side. That explored the possibility that he actually is a man with feelings and frailties under the hard exterior he has built up around himself. He does grow as a person during the story, and reveals himself to be more human than he comes across as, but he makes no quantum leaps.
Disclaimers: Not mine if you recognize it from the books.
Chapter 9: Skeletons in the Closet.
Mirabelle returned to the shop, deposited her bag under the counter, fluffed her hair in the mirror, dabbed on a bit of perfume from the display testers, and headed back out the door. She made her way through the evening crowd to the tavern, and spied the professor sitting at a massive high backed booth in the rear corner of the main seating area. "Damn, why couldn't he have gotten a table up close to the fire, I always feel like I'm in a cave back in those booths." She slid into the seat, and a serving girl immediately came to take their order.
"I would like a tall glass of chilled apple mead," said Snape.
"That sounds good, make it two," replied Mirabelle.
"So, you're not from England are you? By the way, may I call you Belle?"
"Please professor, call me Mira. My name's Mirabelle, my cousin's daughter calls me Belle, but I prefer Mira. My full name's Mirabelle DelMare, but I think it's too formal and old fashioned, all my friends just call me Mira".
"That's a French name, isn't it? But your accent isn't French".
"No not really, I come from the United States, from a city called New Orleans. My ancestors are from France. My grandmother lives there now. But I was born in the United States, and lived there until I came here to Hogsmeade to stay with my cousin for a while, and a while turned into three years. "
The serving girl brought their drinks; Mirabelle took a sip and sat back in her seat. Snape picked up his glass, noticed a smudge on the rim, wiped it off with his finger, and set the glass back down with a disgusted sigh.
"So, why did you choose to make your visit to Hogsmeade more permanent Mira?"
"Are you sure you want to hear the story professor? It's full of twists and turns. I don't want to bore you".
"If it's not prying, I'd like to hear your story, I've never traveled to the United States, and other wizarding cultures fascinate me."
"Okay professor, but remember...you asked for it." Mirabelle took a long sip from her drink, and settled herself in the high-backed bench. "My great, great, great grandparents came to New Orleans from their home near Calais, France as importers of fine European trade goods, like furniture and textiles".
"Were they muggles?"
"Oh no, my family has had magical roots as far back as we can trace our lineage. But my ancestors wanted to branch out and do business in the muggle world. At the time, New Orleans was a bustling port city where a shrewd entrepreneur could make a fortune through importing trade goods. Eventually they bought a building in the old French Quarter, where they opened a shop catering to the wealthy. They then retired, moved back to France to enjoy their old age in the countryside, and left the shop to the next generation, and so on, and so forth until it came to me just under twenty years ago."
"You run the shop now, from Hogsmeade?"
"Oh no, I closed the shop before I came here. I own the building. Prime real estate, I'd never let it go. The ground floor and second floor are leased out to a new tenant. But I keep an apartment on the third floor".
"Are your tenants muggles?"
"No, but you have to understand; there isn't a wizarding community in New Orleans like there is here in Hogsmeade, or even in London. There are some primarily muggle shops, which are owned by magical folks who have small back rooms that are accessible by hidden back doors. They do business with wizarding folk there. The wizarding folk know which shops have back alley entrances. The veil between magic and muggle is very thin where I come from. My tenants are both magical folk, but they do business primarily within the muggle culture."
"What was it like? Being raised in the muggle world?"
"Well, my parents and my aunt and uncle were partners in the shop. They were selling antiques. Muggle antiques in the front of the store, and wizarding antiques and collectibles in the back room. Our families had apartments on the upper two floors. When my cousin, Suzy, and I turned ten, our parents started sending us to France for summer holidays every year and our grandmother hired a tutor from Beauxbatons School to come and give us lessons. Suzy really took to it; she was completely fascinated with all things magic and immersed herself in the French wizarding culture. Myself, I was more grounded in the muggle world. I felt so different. Instead of giving me an identity like magic did for Suzie, it made me feel more alienated. I had all muggle friends, and my family never really used magic much at home, in our day-to-day lives. We lived in the middle of a primarily muggle city, we interacted so closely with muggles, that we couldn't take magic for granted and let our guard slip. After our parents' deaths, I hired help for the shop and went to a muggle college and didn't really study magic anymore until I came to live here, in England."
"Your parents' deaths? Your parents and your cousin's parents all died?"
"Yes, it happened 18 years ago. Suzie and I had just graduated high school, our parents sent us to France, where our grandmother was going to take us on an extended tour of wizarding Europe. From what I can tell, my mother made arrangements for she and my father to show some artifacts in the back room to a wizarding collector from abroad. She wrote it in the calendar, they only opened the back room by appointment. My mother and father were found dead in the doorway to the back room, which was totally ransacked and demolished. My aunt and uncle were found dead in the main shop. There were no marks on their bodies, the muggle authorities ruled their deaths as caused by a gas leak, and said the gas must have exploded and destroyed the back room."
"How horrible. But you felt it was dark magic that killed your family?"
"Yes. I felt it. Suzie felt it. She refused to step foot in the shop ever again and signed over her share of ownership in the building to me, and then she returned to France. She met her husband while she was on a sightseeing daytrip in England, and moved to Hogsmeade. I hired salesclerks for the shop, went to a muggle college, where I met my husband."
"You're married? Does he still live in New Orleans?"
"No, I'm not married anymore. He and I divorced a few years ago, that's when I came here."
Snape took a sip of his drink, raised an appreciative eyebrow and set it back down on the table. He looked back at Mira. "I see. Please, go on. This is getting better and better".
"Well, I met and married my ex husband, and we lived above the shop, and ran the shop ourselves. He found out about magic and what I really was by accident when he stumbled upon an inventory of merchandise in the back room, a list of the items and what they did. I hadn't secured the inventory log properly after showing some merchandise to a wizard collector one evening. I had been so very careful to only make appointments to open the back room to wizarding folk during times that my husband would be away. But I slipped up and got sloppy. That's when our marriage went sour. He wanted me to use magic to unethically get money by cheating while gambling. I refused. He demanded to see the hidden back room of the shop. I told him no, there were dangerous items there. He wanted me to make him a wizard; he said that I could initiate him. When I told him that it didn't work that way, he became jealous, and felt that I was keeping the wizarding world from him to have some kind of control over him."
"As is unfortunately the case in many mixed muggle-wizard marriages I'm afraid. How did he react when he realized that you weren't at all what he had thought?"
"He became very angry, then very distant, and started spending a lot of time away from home. I used magic to find out what he was up to. He was seeing a woman con artist, who made her living posing as a witch and telling bogus fortunes and making useless potions for tourists. She had him convinced that she could initiate him into being a wizard if she had access to the magical items in my possession. They had conspired to do away with me and dispose of my body, and then steal my wand, break into the back room, steal the magical artifacts, and take over ownership of the building and shop. The worst part was, during the time they were making their plans; he acted as if he wanted reconciliation, and pretended to want to renew the marriage with a fresh new start. I went along with him until I could figure out what to do. He had no idea I knew what he and his mistress were planning, and I couldn't let on that I felt he was anything but sincere about the reconciliation. The hardest part of the whole ordeal was trying to pretend to be the loyal, loving wife while making my own plans to protect myself against him."
"He sounds like a right bastard of a muggle. And she no better. What did you do when you found out their plans against you?"
"I don't know if I should be telling you this professor. I mean, I kinda lost my cool and did some stuff that could get me in a lot of trouble."
Snape smirked at her and chuckled cynically. "Surely it can't be that bad Mira. I mean, what could be so awful, did you turn them into toads or something?"
Mira choked on the last of the glass of mead. When she regained her composure, she replied to the professor. "I don't know, I really shouldn't be telling you this. My cousin's husband said I shouldn't ever tell anybody, because I could go to wizarding prison over it. I didn't even know there was a wizarding prison".
" I have absolutely no intentions of turning you over to the wizarding authorities over something that happened years ago, and half a world away. We all have skeletons in our closet that we would not wish to be judged for today".
"Okay, I'll tell you what I did to them, but you must promise me that you won't tell a soul".
"Mira, for Merlin's sake, it won't leave this table, now please finish the story".
"Alright". Mira looked around to make sure they weren't being eavesdropped on, leaned in over the table, and continued the story in a hushed voice.
"Well, as I said, I found out they were plotting against me, and I made plans to protect myself against them. But when it came down to it, I snapped and totally lost my cool. I put a curse on him, made him file divorce papers and ask the judge for nothing except what he came into the marriage with. When the divorce was granted, and the court papers signed and filed, I released him from the curse. He went to his mistress, and the two of them came after me. When they broke the door down, I pulled out my wand, turned them both into frogs, stuffed them into a shoebox, drove them out of town to a swamp marsh, and threw them out of the car window and into the water."
Snape cocked his head to one side and looked at her with a puzzled look on his face. "So, you're telling me that you placed the Imperius curse on your husband, turned he and his mistress into frogs and as far as you know, they're living in a swamp marsh?"
"Oh no, the frog curse was temporary, they reverted to human form after a couple days, and made their way out of the swamp to the highway and hitched a ride back into town."
"What did they do to you when they made it back?"
"What could they do to me? What would the police say if they tried to file charges against me? They knew better than to bother me anymore. The last I heard, he's in jail for gambling fraud, she's still ripping off tourists with bogus tarot card readings and worthless sugar water love potions".
"So, after that fiasco, I closed the shop, sold off all the merchandise at an auction, leased the storefront and second floor as an art gallery and studio apartment to a wizarding couple, and kept the third floor apartment for myself. I used some of my money to travel for a while, and wound up at my cousin's house. Her daughter took to me instantly, and it was a welcome change of pace. After a few months, my cousin offered me a job, running the tailor shop, and gave me the keys to the small apartment upstairs. I've been here ever since."
"Well Mira, I must say, that was quite an exciting story, and you've led an interesting life." Snape pulled a small pocket watch out, looked at the dial, and frowned. "I'd love to stay and chat some more, but it's getting late, and I have a long workday ahead of me. We'll have to continue this discussion another day. I'm quite curious about the magical artifacts your family sold in their store. May I walk you back to the tailor shop? It's after dark, and you shouldn't be out on the street by yourself this late".
Snape rose from the bench, straightened his robes, and offered his hand to Mirabelle. She took it, slid out from behind the table, and let him escort her out of the pub, down the street, and to the tailor shop. They bid each other good night, and after Mirabelle locked herself in the shop, Snape set off down the deserted street towards the carriage house to get a ride back to Hogwarts. He didn't notice the hooded figure that was standing just in the shadows across the street, watching him.
A little bit about how I perceive the main characters, in the HP universe, and interpret them in my own mind: They say a little bit of learning is a dangerous thing, and my undergrad degree in Psychology really leads me to interesting life stories like a moth to a flame. What makes a character the way they are? Essentially the same things that make a real live person the way that they are.
From the first time I read the books, I was absolutely fascinated with the character of Professor Snape. This is a character, which is extremely complex. I don't see him as evil. I really don't. For those of you who have studied the Meyers-Briggs personality types, I think he's an INTP who is very unfulfilled and who has made some astronomically poor choices and who now wallows in a pit of self-loathing misery. Which in no way means that he is incapable of feeling joy, love, or hope. I intend to explore his feelings on how he came to be where he is during the time frame of the story in a later chapter.
Mira? She's not without her own psychological warts. She's not made quite as poor of choices during her life, but she's unfulfilled as well. Whereas I think Snape is trapped in a probably no win situation, Mira is simply getting by the best way she can, with what she has to work with. In the final chapters, she will make a choice that on the surface might seem heroic and altruistic, but is really out of self-interest. This is a modern woman who has learned the hard way how to look out for herself.
Will they partner up and become heroes and save the world, riding off into the sunset to live happily ever after? No. They can't. It's simply not on the path that they have laid out for themselves. The absolute best that either of them can hope for is to find somebody who can look past the surface to see their true potential and appreciate it for what it is while forgiving the flaws. And find solace and affection with each other for as long as they can. Kindred spirits? On a certain level.
I wanted to write a story that showed quite a bit of the professor's human side. That explored the possibility that he actually is a man with feelings and frailties under the hard exterior he has built up around himself. He does grow as a person during the story, and reveals himself to be more human than he comes across as, but he makes no quantum leaps.
Disclaimers: Not mine if you recognize it from the books.
Chapter 9: Skeletons in the Closet.
Mirabelle returned to the shop, deposited her bag under the counter, fluffed her hair in the mirror, dabbed on a bit of perfume from the display testers, and headed back out the door. She made her way through the evening crowd to the tavern, and spied the professor sitting at a massive high backed booth in the rear corner of the main seating area. "Damn, why couldn't he have gotten a table up close to the fire, I always feel like I'm in a cave back in those booths." She slid into the seat, and a serving girl immediately came to take their order.
"I would like a tall glass of chilled apple mead," said Snape.
"That sounds good, make it two," replied Mirabelle.
"So, you're not from England are you? By the way, may I call you Belle?"
"Please professor, call me Mira. My name's Mirabelle, my cousin's daughter calls me Belle, but I prefer Mira. My full name's Mirabelle DelMare, but I think it's too formal and old fashioned, all my friends just call me Mira".
"That's a French name, isn't it? But your accent isn't French".
"No not really, I come from the United States, from a city called New Orleans. My ancestors are from France. My grandmother lives there now. But I was born in the United States, and lived there until I came here to Hogsmeade to stay with my cousin for a while, and a while turned into three years. "
The serving girl brought their drinks; Mirabelle took a sip and sat back in her seat. Snape picked up his glass, noticed a smudge on the rim, wiped it off with his finger, and set the glass back down with a disgusted sigh.
"So, why did you choose to make your visit to Hogsmeade more permanent Mira?"
"Are you sure you want to hear the story professor? It's full of twists and turns. I don't want to bore you".
"If it's not prying, I'd like to hear your story, I've never traveled to the United States, and other wizarding cultures fascinate me."
"Okay professor, but remember...you asked for it." Mirabelle took a long sip from her drink, and settled herself in the high-backed bench. "My great, great, great grandparents came to New Orleans from their home near Calais, France as importers of fine European trade goods, like furniture and textiles".
"Were they muggles?"
"Oh no, my family has had magical roots as far back as we can trace our lineage. But my ancestors wanted to branch out and do business in the muggle world. At the time, New Orleans was a bustling port city where a shrewd entrepreneur could make a fortune through importing trade goods. Eventually they bought a building in the old French Quarter, where they opened a shop catering to the wealthy. They then retired, moved back to France to enjoy their old age in the countryside, and left the shop to the next generation, and so on, and so forth until it came to me just under twenty years ago."
"You run the shop now, from Hogsmeade?"
"Oh no, I closed the shop before I came here. I own the building. Prime real estate, I'd never let it go. The ground floor and second floor are leased out to a new tenant. But I keep an apartment on the third floor".
"Are your tenants muggles?"
"No, but you have to understand; there isn't a wizarding community in New Orleans like there is here in Hogsmeade, or even in London. There are some primarily muggle shops, which are owned by magical folks who have small back rooms that are accessible by hidden back doors. They do business with wizarding folk there. The wizarding folk know which shops have back alley entrances. The veil between magic and muggle is very thin where I come from. My tenants are both magical folk, but they do business primarily within the muggle culture."
"What was it like? Being raised in the muggle world?"
"Well, my parents and my aunt and uncle were partners in the shop. They were selling antiques. Muggle antiques in the front of the store, and wizarding antiques and collectibles in the back room. Our families had apartments on the upper two floors. When my cousin, Suzy, and I turned ten, our parents started sending us to France for summer holidays every year and our grandmother hired a tutor from Beauxbatons School to come and give us lessons. Suzy really took to it; she was completely fascinated with all things magic and immersed herself in the French wizarding culture. Myself, I was more grounded in the muggle world. I felt so different. Instead of giving me an identity like magic did for Suzie, it made me feel more alienated. I had all muggle friends, and my family never really used magic much at home, in our day-to-day lives. We lived in the middle of a primarily muggle city, we interacted so closely with muggles, that we couldn't take magic for granted and let our guard slip. After our parents' deaths, I hired help for the shop and went to a muggle college and didn't really study magic anymore until I came to live here, in England."
"Your parents' deaths? Your parents and your cousin's parents all died?"
"Yes, it happened 18 years ago. Suzie and I had just graduated high school, our parents sent us to France, where our grandmother was going to take us on an extended tour of wizarding Europe. From what I can tell, my mother made arrangements for she and my father to show some artifacts in the back room to a wizarding collector from abroad. She wrote it in the calendar, they only opened the back room by appointment. My mother and father were found dead in the doorway to the back room, which was totally ransacked and demolished. My aunt and uncle were found dead in the main shop. There were no marks on their bodies, the muggle authorities ruled their deaths as caused by a gas leak, and said the gas must have exploded and destroyed the back room."
"How horrible. But you felt it was dark magic that killed your family?"
"Yes. I felt it. Suzie felt it. She refused to step foot in the shop ever again and signed over her share of ownership in the building to me, and then she returned to France. She met her husband while she was on a sightseeing daytrip in England, and moved to Hogsmeade. I hired salesclerks for the shop, went to a muggle college, where I met my husband."
"You're married? Does he still live in New Orleans?"
"No, I'm not married anymore. He and I divorced a few years ago, that's when I came here."
Snape took a sip of his drink, raised an appreciative eyebrow and set it back down on the table. He looked back at Mira. "I see. Please, go on. This is getting better and better".
"Well, I met and married my ex husband, and we lived above the shop, and ran the shop ourselves. He found out about magic and what I really was by accident when he stumbled upon an inventory of merchandise in the back room, a list of the items and what they did. I hadn't secured the inventory log properly after showing some merchandise to a wizard collector one evening. I had been so very careful to only make appointments to open the back room to wizarding folk during times that my husband would be away. But I slipped up and got sloppy. That's when our marriage went sour. He wanted me to use magic to unethically get money by cheating while gambling. I refused. He demanded to see the hidden back room of the shop. I told him no, there were dangerous items there. He wanted me to make him a wizard; he said that I could initiate him. When I told him that it didn't work that way, he became jealous, and felt that I was keeping the wizarding world from him to have some kind of control over him."
"As is unfortunately the case in many mixed muggle-wizard marriages I'm afraid. How did he react when he realized that you weren't at all what he had thought?"
"He became very angry, then very distant, and started spending a lot of time away from home. I used magic to find out what he was up to. He was seeing a woman con artist, who made her living posing as a witch and telling bogus fortunes and making useless potions for tourists. She had him convinced that she could initiate him into being a wizard if she had access to the magical items in my possession. They had conspired to do away with me and dispose of my body, and then steal my wand, break into the back room, steal the magical artifacts, and take over ownership of the building and shop. The worst part was, during the time they were making their plans; he acted as if he wanted reconciliation, and pretended to want to renew the marriage with a fresh new start. I went along with him until I could figure out what to do. He had no idea I knew what he and his mistress were planning, and I couldn't let on that I felt he was anything but sincere about the reconciliation. The hardest part of the whole ordeal was trying to pretend to be the loyal, loving wife while making my own plans to protect myself against him."
"He sounds like a right bastard of a muggle. And she no better. What did you do when you found out their plans against you?"
"I don't know if I should be telling you this professor. I mean, I kinda lost my cool and did some stuff that could get me in a lot of trouble."
Snape smirked at her and chuckled cynically. "Surely it can't be that bad Mira. I mean, what could be so awful, did you turn them into toads or something?"
Mira choked on the last of the glass of mead. When she regained her composure, she replied to the professor. "I don't know, I really shouldn't be telling you this. My cousin's husband said I shouldn't ever tell anybody, because I could go to wizarding prison over it. I didn't even know there was a wizarding prison".
" I have absolutely no intentions of turning you over to the wizarding authorities over something that happened years ago, and half a world away. We all have skeletons in our closet that we would not wish to be judged for today".
"Okay, I'll tell you what I did to them, but you must promise me that you won't tell a soul".
"Mira, for Merlin's sake, it won't leave this table, now please finish the story".
"Alright". Mira looked around to make sure they weren't being eavesdropped on, leaned in over the table, and continued the story in a hushed voice.
"Well, as I said, I found out they were plotting against me, and I made plans to protect myself against them. But when it came down to it, I snapped and totally lost my cool. I put a curse on him, made him file divorce papers and ask the judge for nothing except what he came into the marriage with. When the divorce was granted, and the court papers signed and filed, I released him from the curse. He went to his mistress, and the two of them came after me. When they broke the door down, I pulled out my wand, turned them both into frogs, stuffed them into a shoebox, drove them out of town to a swamp marsh, and threw them out of the car window and into the water."
Snape cocked his head to one side and looked at her with a puzzled look on his face. "So, you're telling me that you placed the Imperius curse on your husband, turned he and his mistress into frogs and as far as you know, they're living in a swamp marsh?"
"Oh no, the frog curse was temporary, they reverted to human form after a couple days, and made their way out of the swamp to the highway and hitched a ride back into town."
"What did they do to you when they made it back?"
"What could they do to me? What would the police say if they tried to file charges against me? They knew better than to bother me anymore. The last I heard, he's in jail for gambling fraud, she's still ripping off tourists with bogus tarot card readings and worthless sugar water love potions".
"So, after that fiasco, I closed the shop, sold off all the merchandise at an auction, leased the storefront and second floor as an art gallery and studio apartment to a wizarding couple, and kept the third floor apartment for myself. I used some of my money to travel for a while, and wound up at my cousin's house. Her daughter took to me instantly, and it was a welcome change of pace. After a few months, my cousin offered me a job, running the tailor shop, and gave me the keys to the small apartment upstairs. I've been here ever since."
"Well Mira, I must say, that was quite an exciting story, and you've led an interesting life." Snape pulled a small pocket watch out, looked at the dial, and frowned. "I'd love to stay and chat some more, but it's getting late, and I have a long workday ahead of me. We'll have to continue this discussion another day. I'm quite curious about the magical artifacts your family sold in their store. May I walk you back to the tailor shop? It's after dark, and you shouldn't be out on the street by yourself this late".
Snape rose from the bench, straightened his robes, and offered his hand to Mirabelle. She took it, slid out from behind the table, and let him escort her out of the pub, down the street, and to the tailor shop. They bid each other good night, and after Mirabelle locked herself in the shop, Snape set off down the deserted street towards the carriage house to get a ride back to Hogwarts. He didn't notice the hooded figure that was standing just in the shadows across the street, watching him.