LJ Drabble Night, Dec 26, 2003

[amanuensis1]

Another Poetry night theme. (Though it also looks like Snape night, too!) This time, I have for you four drabbles...and a sonnet. Kinda doggerel-y for a sonnet, but it was written in 15 minutes and fit the word count, so, I'm satisfied.




"If I can stop one heart from breaking, /I shall not live in vain." Dickinson, Snape/Lupin (challenge by sharp_tongue)

"I've come to say thank you."

"Have you."

"Look, don't be a prat about this, Snape. This is so large I hardly know where to begin, and if you keep this up--this attitude that bringing Sirius back was no more effort for you than is stirring sugar into your tea--"

"I don't take sugar."

"You insufferable--" Lupin gets himself under control. "This is exactly why Sirius hasn't come yet. He has no idea what to say to you. How can he possibly thank you for this? Dammit, how can I thank you?"

Snape knows. He knows what he would have from Lupin.

What he will settle for, however, would be for Lupin to stop telling him over and over again, how much it means to him. Even if that's precisely why Snape did it.

He will not confess the reason.

He doesn't want Lupin's pity.

Not that.

---

Faster and faster / They vanish into darkness / our years together. (Wendy Cope) Snape/Dumbledore (challenge by isiscolo)

Harry sits on the edge of his bed in 12 Grimmauld Place and thinks about what he's just seen.

They couldn't have known he was there.

It wasn't even lascivious. It was only the touch of two hands. And the look in two pairs of eyes.

Harry is only sixteen, but he doesn't need experience to tell him that the way Dumbledore bid Snape goodnight means anything but one thing.

He tries to imagine it. Dumbledore--old Dumbledore--and Snape.
It should be ludicrous.

But he remembers the look again. Thinks about the Order. And Voldemort. And Sirius.

And how very uncertain the future looks to everyone. Including Dumbledore, and Snape.

Including him.

A sound at the door. "Harry? Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't--"

"N--!" It's coming out too loud. He tries again. "No."

Reaches out a hand. "No, please, Hermione, come in. Will you sit with me?"

---

"I kept him for his humor's sake,/For he would oft beguile" WIlliam Cowper Voldemort/Snape (challenge by venivincere)

In sleep, this is what he sees:

The hair, which is called limp in its usual vertical orientation, turning to a splay of tendrils that evoke Medusa's serpents. The mouth, held in a pursed sneer of disapproval during the day, relaxing into the humblest of lines, lips separating with a hint of moisture at their corners. Snape's eyelids no longer standing like sentries, but fallen quiet, off-duty for the duration of the night. And the fingers, usually clasped or steepled so deliberately, instead lying open, reaching, every so often, for a corner of the pillow or the edge of the sheet. Or even his lover's shoulder.

Voldemort has many nights where he sleeps little, himself. But he has no lack of entertainment, during that time.

---

"Because I could not stop for Death,/ He kindly stopped for me;/ The carriage held but just ourselves/ And Immortality." Dickinson. Lucius/Snape (challenge by sharp_tongue)

"Severus?"

No longer cold.

"Severus, get up."

His side didn't hurt anymore. Had someone cast a healing charm?

A hand clasped his, tugged. Snape turned his head to see Lucius Malfoy standing above him, forcing him to rise to his feet, whether he would or no.

When he was standing, Snape began to laugh.

Lucius's mouth twitched. "You find this funny?"

"Yes, and why not? Tell me, something, Lucius: did it hurt?"

"The killing curse? I doubt it was worse than a sword through the ribs."

"We'll never know, will we?" Snape was still laughing. "Can't go through each, and compare."

"No, but who knows what knowledge lies ahead for us? Are you...glad that I waited?"

He stopped laughing. "Yes."

Hands still clasped, the two walked away from the battlefield.

---

"Without warning/ as a whirlwind/ swoops on an oak/ Love shakes my heart." Sappho. Harry/Snape. (challenge by sharp_tongue)

I said, "Detention, Potter," and the brat
Remained within his seat, and did not scowl
But waited 'til the class had gone, and sat
With eyes as wide as some strange green-eyed owl.
I knew he planned more mischief. Had I known
The sort within his mind, I would have fled.
But I believed myself too wise, too stone,
My heart changed years ago to mere base lead.
So when I stalked my way across the room
And stood before him, daring him to speak,
He only smiled, not fearing any doom,
And stood, and did a thing to turn me weak:
He placed a wicked kiss upon my lips.
My heart's not lead--it must be flesh: it skips.

Comments

[brevisse.livejournal.com]

Oh, but those were good! I loved the first one, though it made me want to cry for Snape, who is so hurt , so bitter and so proud. The third one is lovely in its quietness (I have a thing for "watching so-and-so sleep fics"), and the fourth one was darkly funny. Well done!

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Oh, you darling. That means so much! Thank you.

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

God, aren't these lovely! The Snape/Lupin is particularly fine, but they all work beautifully.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

*blushes* Am very very thrilled you liked! Thank you so much!

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I missed a SONNET??!!!
I love it!

(and I am happy to report that the Swiss Dark tastes awesome on cherry vanilla ice cream!)

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

(Ooh, so glad the tastes work! Damn, now you've made me hungry for Black Cherry ice cream...)

What you REALLY missed was me having a freak-out all over the chatroom because the challenge given right before the Sappho one was a sonnet couplet that I absolutely could not decipher. Could not figure out what it was referring to, could not take its abstraction and get any image that I could turn into a theme, could not get past the fact that the meaning wasn't concrete in those two lines and was therefore stubbornly, completely stonewalled at trying to make something of it. Felt very very stupid. Was "Bah, humbug"-ing all over the place. So, as a result, I decided that with the next challenge I would try to redeem myself by writing a sonnet for it, just to prove I could. Meter, rhyme, plot, and word count! 'S good enough for my bruised ego. ^_^

[mctabby.livejournal.com]

Wheee! Brain bouncing through Snape/Lupin, Snape/Lucius, Snape/Harry!

BOUNCE! BOUNCE! BOUNCE!

Wheeeeeeeeee!

[/giddy delight]

Thanks for that. :)

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Snape watches you bouncing at his expense and shakes his head wearily.

(Too bad for him! ^_^ So glad you liked!)

[meemobunny.livejournal.com]

The drabbles were all great; I especially liked the Lucius/Severus one and how you incorporated the idea of the lines from Dickinson's poem - the ending gave me a fuzzyish feeling, but not at all a warm fuzzy feeling... if that makes any sense at all ;) And I admire the sonnet ever so: the content (heehee) and the well use of words - not to mention the well-written rhymes (I remember attempting to write a sonnet, trying to make the right amount of syllables and making rhymes; it didn't turn out too well -.-).

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

I LOVE affectionate Sev/Lucius but they can never really be warm fuzzy, you're so right! And I'm gratified that the sonnet kept its meter and rhyme scheme--that's all I was askin'! Because I don't think I've written one of those since seventh grade, as an assignment. ^_^

[aretina.livejournal.com]

I should be accostomed, by now, to looking at a premise and a pairing and wincing at my own thoughts of how it would work, then reading your interpretation and being delighted, but it seems that I am not jaded yet.

For something "doggerel-y" as you say the sonnett is very admirable. The repetition of the idea of the heart as lead, the surprise of whimsey at the end. The spondee of "it skips" lends to the idea of Snape's surprise.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

*hugs you*

And she can throw around terms like "spondee"! Oh, I am so outta my league. ^_^ *goes back to copy of "Sound and Sense" and looks up the "Metric Feet" poem*

[rane-ab.livejournal.com]

Whee! Harry/Snape! :: bounces :: How delightful!

it skips.

Perfect.

And Snape/Lupin... lovely. How everything's tangled up. Snape saving Sirius to make Lupin happy, Lupin telling Snape how much it means to him and thereby reminding him every time that it's Sirius he loves and... and... Just lovely.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Very pleased you thought the sonnet worked! And I'm grinning at how much substance seems to be between the lines on the Snape/Lupin--but yes, that was exactly what I was hoping for! Thanks MUCHLY.

[exbentley]

Oh, my god, the last one. They're all brilliant, but much love for #4.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

#4? Or the last one? Oh, never mind, I'll assume you liked both! Yippee! *dances with the simplicity of the solution!*

[ptyx.livejournal.com]

A Snarry sonnet! Squee! I'll link to you.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Oh, my! You are too nice to me! ^_^

(HEY! That icon! Who's art is it, do you know? I've been using this icon with the same art and don't know who drew the original...)

[surexit.livejournal.com]

They're all lovely, but the Snape/Lupin... My OTP! I <3 them. Poor Severus. All noble and suffering and sarcastic.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Ooh, glad I got your OTP in there for ya! ^_^

[persephone-il.livejournal.com]

The first one made me go "Aw," and sniffle. It's just the way I see Snape/Lupin. It's sad and beautiful and I feel sorry for Snape.

The Snape/Lucius makes sense, and I'm tempted to say it's cute. I am a disturbed person.

The sonnet is quite surprisingly good. I particularly liked the last line and the owl simile. Cuteness!

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Unrequited love, character death, and the like, is so fun to put in drabbles! Because it's short, see! And I'm so happy you thought the sonnet. ^_^

[leni-jess.livejournal.com]

I liked 1, 2 and 4 - especially 4 and 1, because I love Lucius (and that sense of ease, and more than ease, between old friends, now that they've come to an end of enmity, is lovely), and I fear I'm starting to love Snape (especially one who loves Remus and is willing to admit it to himself!). Hmm. Getting incoherent here. But I also liked Harry's sense of mortality in 2 (if it had been focussed more on Snape and Dumbledore I fear I might have gone 'eeech!').

I'm jealous of anyone who can write a sonnet in 15 minutes! It's years since I could write sonnets. They're such buggers, not just the rhyme, the metre, but the very images have to flow neatly - grr. And a suitable word count too! *sulks off*

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Your take on Snape/Lucius is just the way I love them, oh yes! And I haven't ever really written sonnets--not since 7th grade assignments, anyway, but it helped to think of this as just a puzzle, with rhyme and meter and a bloody time limit! Puzzles I can do. Poetry--that's hard! ^_^

[cluegirl.livejournal.com]

Oh, you're horrible.
Who told you I have no saving throw versus sonnets?
That was totally unfair.
And I loved it utterly.

And really, I thought the simplicity of the lines to be charming, not doggerel. You even kept the metre perfectly. Gotta love iambic pentameter. And I do. Thanks for sharing this.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

*wibbles* Oh, my, no, thank YOU! That's...oh, jeez, thank you so much for that!

(and now I need to make icons on the theme of "I have no saving throw against..." because that's a terrific phrase!)

[gothikmaus.livejournal.com]

Great drabbles! I especially liked #1 and #3. *sigh*

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I was fond of #3...fluffy Voldemort, hee!

[writteninsable.livejournal.com]

*smiles*

I really like the sense of bitterness/sadness the first one made me feel and the last one made me laugh. The het was watched for and kinda...interesting, in a way, but I don't even mildly ship H/Hr, so...yeah. *laughs*

And I did like the LM/SS one, as well. The idea of Lucius waiting was...romantic and sweet...but the way he prodded Sev up was totally in character.

~Cai

[soawen.livejournal.com]

Love your icon.

[soawen.livejournal.com]

Snape/Lupin: So very, very sad. It makes me want to whack Remus on the head until he sees the obvious (and writing Snape guilt-tripping Remus into sex and committing suicide because he sullied his love, and then he haunts Remus and Remus falls in love with the sad ghost because you can never have too much angst, but that's another thing for another day).

Snape/Dumbledore: I like this one the best. The distance - Harry's POV in stead of either Snape's or Dumbledore's - works well, and the overall insecurity and fear of the future stands out very clearly.

Snape/Voldemort: Aww, sleeping lovers ... The lines in the challenge makes it slightly, I don't know, sinister?

Snape/Lucius: This one made me laugh. It was so typically the two of them. Now that I'm thinking about it, I read it as if they killed each other and still their relationship remains the same.

Snape/Harry: I'm deeply impressed by you remembering the formula for a sonnet. The last line made quite the impression as I don't connect anything Snape-related with 'skipping' ;)

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

New motto: You can never have too much angst. Hee! I'm with you on that. As long as there's a happy ending! (don't tell me that's a contradiction!)

Oh, and I'm so glad you liked the Snapledore! That was fun, weaving around that one...and oh, thank you for all the comments! *hugs*

[lilka.livejournal.com]

All very lovely, as I've come to expect (you had me thinking of Snape/Lucius as sweet, which is a seriously weird mental place for me). However, I principally wanted to comment on the sonnet. I love it when people use this form correctly, and just that you'd managed to do that, and stuck to the word count, in fifteen minutes, would have had me very impressed. But that last line - that really knocked me off-balance. Subtley sexy and quite, quite beautiful. Thank you :)

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

*wibbles incoherently* Eep! Thank you so very, very much. That--wow. That means a lot. wibble.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_hannelore/]

It's the last that's the most memorable. Wow.

"What he will settle for, however, would be for Lupin to stop telling him over and over again, how much it means to him. Even if that's precisely why Snape did it."

*Lovely.*

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

I had a good time with the sonnet. Thank you extremely. ^_^

[plausive.livejournal.com]

They're all so good! I really loved your sonnet, and the Lucius/Snape one would make a great fic.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

So much Lucius/Snape is full of betrayal and sadness. You tempt me to write it the way I like to read it! ^_^ (But I'd miss Harryfic. Sigh...)

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

I loved the first one, even though the feeling that they'll never get together because of Snape's stubborness and Lupin's ignorance just made me *ache*, but the second one... I found it really, really moving. Harry suddenly making that leap of maturity, and reaching out for someone. And you did that in, what, 100 words? I'm in awe.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, thank you! 150 words, actually, so, I'll just take 2/3rds of the credit you've given me, hee.