200 ficlet #9 - Snape & Lily

[pauraque_bk]

This one is for mariagoner, who asked for Snape and Lily with jealousy.

Partly inspired by the discussion of wizarding pictures chez cruisedirector.

G, gen. 292 words.


Vierge

Snape's boots squelch through the muddy grass. Not really raining hard enough to merit a charm, but enough to dampen his hair after a walk across the grey-mist field, to make flecks of cold across his face. He pounds at the door with the cracking paint and Lupin answers, beckons him in with a drawn, false smile.

'You're, ah...' Lupin gestures, and Snape looks down-- he's tracked mud onto the threshold. 'Well-- never mind,' Lupin says. 'I'll just... get what you came for.' He turns and goes back into the other room (he's barefoot; Snape notices the taut tendons of his heels). Muffled: 'I think you'll find it good; the garden was splendid this year, before the rain...'

A flicker of movement catches the corner of Snape's eye: a small portrait above the patched and careworn armchair. White skin warmly illuminated by candlelight in the style of the old Dutch masters, and thick red hair in loose, coming-undone braids. Cradling the child, rocking him gently for all time, eyelashes lowered and demure. A beatific icon-- never feeling, never growing old.

'It wasn't painted from life.'

Snape turns round. Lupin's pale eyes search the canvas, his thin neck craned at though seeking some comfort in the layers of glaze and oil. The paper-wrapped package rests idly in his hands.

'That's why it doesn't speak,' he goes on. 'It's a good likeness, though. Don't you think?' Lupin looks at him sidelong.

'Yes,' Snape says stiffly, taking the package. But only a likeness. No longer asked to face judgment for her actions-- only worshipped for her sacrifice.

And he goes back out into the wet and grey, the packet of dried Northstar mosses cradled under his arm, not a trace of colour on the horizon.

end.


I still owe ficlets to _hannelore and stiletto.

Comments

[noria.livejournal.com]

Touching. Thank you.

[pauraque]

Thanks. :)

[dphearson.livejournal.com]

A lovely, tense snapshot- very atmospheric and painterly on it's own.

[pauraque]

Thank you.

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

A beatific icon-- never feeling, never growing old.

'It wasn't painted from life.'

Aie. I think that sums up the whole discussion, when I browsed it over. It matters how much life is in a portrait, how much care was taken to capture warmth/hatred/whathaveyou. I love all that Snape notices and all that Lupin doesn't. I love the smallest touches of what he notices about the barefoot man, the moss.

[pauraque]

Merci. :)

Eeeeeeeeeee...

[mariagoner.livejournal.com]

eeeeeeeeeeee! Thank you for the ficlet! I love it like a very, very loving thing! I completely forgot that I had asked you for a ficlet previously, but now the memory strikes my mind like a very zaftig object. Thank you!

And I love how... ambiguous this piece is as well. What is Snape jealous of anyway? The forces that took Lily away from him? That canonized her while leaving him alone? Lupin for painting her? Her for being with Lupin? Some combination of these things? All of these things at once?

Must... get... to...work... on... bad fanart... for it now!

Re: Eeeeeeeeeee...

[pauraque]

Thank you, I'm very glad you liked it.

[cruisedirector]

That's very lovely and spooky (I was picturing Caravaggio's Madonna, even though you said Dutch masters).

[pauraque]

Thanks!