Author:
Riley
Fandom: Harry Potter
Themes: Drama, Romance, Angst
Warnings: Torture, sexual themes
Rating: 18 (though, trust me, a 15 would suffice for most of
this one)
Other Details: Hermione Granger/Severus Snape ‘pairing’
Status: Incomplete, last updated mid 2002
Web Source: Witchfics.org;
Fanfiction.Net
“Pawn to Queen” is a very interesting HP fan fiction. It deals with the highly controversial coupling of a teacher and a student - and not just any teacher, but one Severus ‘greasy git’ Snape, at that. You may be sat there as I usually would, snarling ‘sick’, but the author in this case has at least had the decency to make Hermione the ‘age of consent’, and to be very careful in how she deals with the adult themes in her story.
So why have I read this story if this kind of thing would usually make my nose rise in distaste? Well, it’s because it isn’t mindless pornography, like so many seem to be - it’s a well-constructed and almost plausible look into the difficulties faced when an adult and a teenager (one past the age of consent, but still something of a child) grow feelings for one another. It’s a subject that I’ve almost written a story about before, and, let’s face it, it takes a brave author to delve into a theme that’s so taboo. Technically, a girl aged 16 or above is perfectly able to decide for herself whether or not she wants to sleep with a man (at least in the United Kingdom, that‘s so), but be that man ten or more years her senior, then common prejudices and stigmas arise. Yes, there are sick and twisted individuals in this world who would take advantage of a teenager’s whim and lull them into a false sense of security in order to bed them, but there are also the honest individuals who truly fall for a very young person and are barred by the invisible wall that is erected against this kind of relationship. They say that love conquers all, but it doesn’t seem to have conquered discrimination.
So, where am I going with this? The reason I have selected “Pawn to Queen” as a worthy adult “Harry Potter” fanfic and my Fanfic of the Moment is not because I like the sexual themes all that much (because I don’t, I find the amount of sexually themed HP fanfics out there quite disturbing) but because, at its heart, lies not an author’s desire to quickly throw a couple of characters they fancy together into bed and see what their imaginations can make of it, but a want to put two characters in a difficult and complex situation and try and depict how they would react to it, highlighting to the reader exactly how much of a struggle this is.
" He sighed deeply, feeling the concern for her, the apprehension of what would happen if they were caught, prick at the edges of his consciousness. "
How does this pairing develop, then? Well, it would seem that Snape has identified in Hermione Granger a purely brilliant mind, and one he would love to hone and mould with all the knowledge he can offer her; as all teachers have a dream of a star pupil, so, in turn, does our Severus, and in this case, it’s Hermione. Primarily, under the pretence of detention, he uses her as his extra pair of hands in the production of a new potion to help Remus Lupin and his condition (an apt ‘punishment’ that he has been put to by the ever ingenious Dumbledore for his purposeful uncovering of Lupin’s condition, during “Prisoner of Azkaban”). Hermione turns out to be every bit as helpful as he anticipates, and he keeps throwing detentions in her direction on flimsy pretences in order to have her assistance. But Draco ‘brat boy’ Malfoy picks up on this, and lets slip the situation to his malevolent father, Lucius Malfoy, trusting that Snape’s aims in this matter are as twisted as his father’s would be. This is where the disturbing, sexual element of the story really starts: Lucius turns out to be as dark and wicked a Death Eater as they come, and he invites Snape (a former Death Eater that he, along with many others, is deluded into believing is still a true servant of the Dark Lord) with many other Dark Wizards to his chateau in France where they are to be ‘entertained’ by a ‘Dark Revel’ - basically, a fest of sexual torment and rape, committed on innocent Muggles. A sick notion in its own right but, in a world like ours, you wouldn’t put it past magical ‘gangsters’ (for this is, in essence, what they are) to indulge in such affairs. Of course, this kind of thing disgusts Snape to his very core (for he is, of course, a double agent) but that is not the worst of it all - Lucius has a ‘present’ for the Potions Master in the form of a kidnapped and manacled Hermione, whom he expects Snape to treat like the rest of the Muggles gathered there, i.e., to rape her. Snape is naturally stricken with horror by all this, and, at first, refuses to touch her - then is dismayed to see Malfoy make a move toward her, deigning to commit the act himself. It is here that Snape has to make a terrible decision - he decides that what Malfoy would do to the girl is much worse than what he would do - so he calls Lucius back; he makes up a story, says that he has been using the girl as a pawn whom he’ll mould into his servant and who will, in turn, become his spy over Potter - an invaluable asset to their cause. Malfoy senior buys the story and watches as Severus demonstrates his power over Hermione, arousing her, though not raping her, touching her, but not having intercourse with her; this, in itself, shows a barrier of respect that the author possesses, at least, who writes the entire scene in a decently roundabout way, going rarely into detail, and without using any course language, though still managing to make it a wholly unpleasant scenario.
Ultimately convinced by the display, Lucius dismisses Snape when he has finished his ‘performance’, allowing him to return the girl to Hogwarts to, I suppose, erase some of the suspicion surrounding her disappearance, and to allow the Potions Master to continue to use his influence over her and bend her to his will.
Snape is a broken man as he returns to the school with the young lady, feeling that he’s destroyed not only Hermione’s recently forged trust in him, but also her innocent life.
Indeed, why does their ‘relationship’ continue? Well, evidently, Hermione can never see her teacher in the same light again. He has done things to her that she has not yet, in her young life, ever experienced before, and especially not under the raucous conditions of Lucius’s perverted presence; never would she (nor would anyone, let’s face it!) dream that they’d be ‘woken up inside’ by one of the teachers at their school, and a teacher that they once despised so much, as well! Snape is mentally destroyed by it all - not content to just be disgusted at himself for ever falling into line with Voldemort and acquiring the Dark Mark, he now has the extra weight of guilt on his shoulders that he’s sexually abused a student, despite the fact that, under the circumstances, it was the best thing to do.
It’s all a great mess and the author deals with it practically perfectly. Hermione is terrified by it all and shaken, but, with her sharp mind, she manages to see that, despite it all, her teacher did what he had to do in order to save her from far worse; it’s a difficult truth to come to, but she does reach that decision with her characteristic assiduousness. It is Snape more than Hermione who wallows in deep self pity, unable to come to terms with what he’s done, for he is the perpetrator, not the victim - though he has only become a perpetrator because he was a victim of circumstance (can you see the ‘black’ beauty of this horrific scenario? It’s a complex one to deal with on its own, never mind the developments that follow, and the author does it with an appropriate pace, as well as with sympathy and tenacity).
" Because she did want him. Never mind that it was shameful and impossible and that he'd have every reason to rebuff any advance she made, and that the whole situation was madness. That if she had any dignity she'd hate the thought of that touch--- though it would be beneath that same dignity to hate him: he'd only been trying to save her life, after all!
None of that stopped her, though, from reacting to his every breath and the slightest twitch of those fingers with an abject and terrifying... want. "
The thing is, Hermione cannot bring herself to hate her Potions Master because he, to put it bluntly, saved her life, even if it was via appalling means. Snape cannot see it as just that, however, and is thrown into a depressive lull in which he seems to be willing to do all in his power to amend whatever damage he has done to Hermione, damage he knows he can’t undo but that he hopes he can somehow relieve, whilst at the same time doing as much harm to himself as to make him feel that he can compensate for the crime he‘s committed.
" She opened her mouth to ask--- on this strange and twisted night, it seemed nothing was out of bounds--- but he spoke before she could. "Child," he said gently, "I cannot help but say it again--- I am so very sorry for the harm I have done you, so sorry that your first experience of--- a man--- had to be this---"
She wasn't sure if he meant the horror of tonight... or the simple fact of his own ugliness. "
And so their relationship continues from there; it soon becomes a routine for Hermione to see Severus every night, to go back to working on the potion that they were labouring over before - back to some form of normality - though, through this, their bond is only given room to intensify. It must be noted that he has now promised her another thing - he has seen the strength and resolve within her for her to become ‘strega’ (a form of all-powerful witch) and he aims to help her achieve her potential by coaching her to become one, so that , one day, she can gain some form of vengeance on the evil Lucius Malfoy, the Death Eaters and even Lord Voldemort himself; this is the transition of “pawn to queen” that the title describes. It is during these sessions and their potion-making that (if you’ll excuse the pun) the chemistry between them intensifies. As the story progresses, they become closer, he often unloading the traumas of his past life onto her, and her, in turn, confiding in him.
" Blaise lowered her voice. "Let me put it this way--- I think you could probably get anything you wanted out of dear Cousin Severus at the moment--- his conscience has him in a hammerlock and is beating his head against the wall." Blaise grinned. "So the ball, my dear, is in your court."
Hermione digested this. And was only certain of one thing. "I like that. Oh, I like that." "
Also - a sign that she is growing up - Hermione begins to want some power over him, and has to fight the urge to make him as helpless unto her as she was to him at Chateau Malfoy. It’s this hormone-driven urge that makes the two become very close on occasions, but, as ever, they know that they are separated by that barren wasteland we call age, as well as by ‘rank’, and, though never saying it aloud, they keep their feelings for one another half-buried because of it. This naturally makes their relationship a confused one - far past the ‘crush on the teacher/crush on the student’ phases, but not quite a solid ‘seeing each other’; neither ‘teacher and student‘, nor ‘lovers’ - they are, in essence, forced to live in a state of limbo, their meetings kept private, their feelings equally so, so much in fact that Hermione begins to become confused on exactly where she stands with the Potions Master. It takes an explanation of how Draco now treated her (him knowing of what happened to her at the chateau through his father, of course) to bring Severus’s deep-felt longings to the surface; when Hermione tells him that Malfoy has approached her, hoping for ‘something of the same’, Snape becomes jealous and irate, and the two embark upon a flirtatious little encounter via which Hermione realises that she does have a power over him, and that he does want her. This makes things even more awkward, for Snape cannot allow himself to fall into that black hole of love, especially love for a student, because with that comes the weight of prejudice, persecution and responsibility. Hermione knows this, so the two are forced to continue to keep each other ‘at arm’s length’...
" Snape looked rather poleaxed, then he relaxed, laughing weakly. "No, I suppose not--- it's not as though we have... that sort of... understanding."
Enlightenment dawned, and Hermione nearly fell off the arm of the chair. "But you wish we did?" She couldn't quite keep the bitterness out of her voice.
Snape looked up, horrified. "Merlin--- not under the circumstances, no." Wry look. "Though I must confess I've wondered once or twice how things would have been different if we'd been... contemporaries." "
Unfortunately, this fan fiction will never be finished, because it took such a toll on the author - more because of the fans badgering her constantly rather than the actual writing of the story (how many of us have had those well-meaning but irritating fans email us constantly about our online endeavours…?). How far Severus and Hermione would get as a couple remains never to be seen - I know from the author’s old notes that Severus and Hermione do make love (on Hermione’s request), but how they deal with this from the morning after onward is another thing all together. It is only in those dark places of the imagination, that we do not want to admit exist, that we can hazard our own guesses at how things would turn out in the end. I don’t personally believe that Hermione would remain with her teacher, but that’s only my opinion. I just don’t think it’d be appropriate, and I reckon the author was heading in another direction; I’m sure Snape, if nothing else, would feel this a selfish move on his part.
Of course, there is more to this fic than just the strange turn of events that lead up to Hermione and Severus making out. The generous writer does not spend an entire fanfic dallying between two characters - a story doesn’t work that well in such claustrophobic confines - and so we are not only given other canon characters to deal with, but several new ones, and all of them incredibly deep and likable in turn. My favourite non-canon char hangs between the self-willed and determine Blaise - a name mentioned in “Philosopher’s Stone” that’s been fleshed-out into a feminist witch - and the charismatic feathered Boa Constrictor, Esmé, a delightful familiar of Severus who serves as his companion in the lonely dungeon he calls ‘home’. You have to admire an author who cannot only intertwine the main plot with several others, but who can relate each of these plots to each other fluently, as well as spread a whole cast of memorable characters and events across them all.
Because it was a risky fanfic, pulling of a coupling of a student and a teacher, yet it wasn’t porn; because it was a story that took the “Harry Potter” franchise down into the bowels of evil that does indeed exist in humanity, and told us a story of the wickedness that could occur if humans did indeed possess magical abilities and abused them; and because it told of the struggle of a middle-aged man and a girl in her teens who found themselves in love with one another, but bound from one another by the manacles and prejudices of society, ironically prejudices placed there by those wicked wizards and witches aforementioned who dare commit such sins in the first place. It was a darkly romantic fiction set in a world of turmoil, and it was written not only with a beautiful style and careful structure, but with the love of a “Harry Potter” fan who dared to write a good risqué fan fiction, and who not only tried, but succeeded; I’m only sorry to say that too many of the HP fanfics that dare tread on this fine subject are often written poorly and only for the lust of the author (a ‘lust’ identical to that shown by Draco in this story) rather than to serve as a dark and mature piece of entertainment; it’s a blunt thing to say, but it’s true. I only wish that the talented Riley had completed such a tremendous piece of work, wherever the finale may have taken us.
If you’re anything like me, then you will feel a tad soiled once you’ve finished reading this fic - it’s that kind of story, one that you know you shouldn’t really be reading, but you have to for the sake of your own morbid curiosity. The themes may also make uncomfortable reading for some, but if you get your head round it all, you’ll get a kind of understanding of why certain things happen. The care and attention of the author has, at least, put my mind at rest when reading most of this story.
9/10 - If you’re a shipper of this ‘coupling’, read it - you’ll never find a better written story than this. If you’re not a fan, but you don’t mind taking your imagination into that dark place of human lewdness and wickedness, still give it a read - it’s a very well constructed piece and it deserves all the support that it gets. I dropped a point because I feel that Snape did fall a bit too much out of character as the story progressed, even more so than perhaps the plot should have allowed - but that’s a minor gripe in what is, overall, a credible piece of fan writing.
I must admit on a final, final note that I think another reason I liked this story so much was because of its parallels with my own twisted epic, “Eclipse” - albeit that mine is set in the “Star Wars” universe, with the characters of Count Dooku and Padmé as the centrepiece, rather than in the HP one with a teacher and a student. It’s the echoes between Severus and Serenn (never mind the name similarities) and their growing self-loathing for themselves that really interest me, and the way they abuse the young ladies they find themselves in company of (Serenn because he wants to, whereas Severus because he has to, mind), which leads them down this detrimental path. It’s also the ways in which said young ladies grow to trust their abusers again that’s rather alike.