The Sempra Deck 03 - The Empress
Jun. 27th, 2011 10:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teddy_radiatorThe amazing ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mimimanderly has just released the next card of The Sempra Deck, a set of Major Arcana cards forming the Tarot. Each time Mimi posts a new card, I will post another edition of the story, so you can see how the story and the cards meshed together. Here is the next card - 03 The Empress, and here is the next chapter of the story.
This Chapter is rated PG for content. Happy Reading!
The Sempra Deck is dedicated to the real mystic goddess Mimi Manderly; to her beloved SeverusMuse, and to my precious Dahlra. All characters with the exception of Mimi Manderley, Peter and Dahlra belong to JK Rowling. I make no money from this publication.
Chapter Two – Compiling the Tools Part 2
“As you can see, Miss Manderly – “
“Please, call me Mimi,” she replied, her face ashen, her voice shaky. “I think, considering the circumstances, formalities seem a bit redundant.”
Snape, who’d been standing off to one side, leaning on the fireplace mantle with his arms crossed, snorted. “Formalities? You, a Muggle, have blundered into our world at the most unstable time in our history.” He pushed himself from the mantle and walked over to her.
“We are threatened by the worst monster since Hitler and you blithely open some sort of magical portal no one has ever heard of and fall at our feet - and you question formalities? Miss Manderly, you don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into! Do you have any idea what a dangerous weapon you could be, in the wrong hands?”
“That is quite enough, Severus,” Dumbledore chided gently. “I think from what Mimi has revealed, she is quite aware of how dangerous she could be in the hands of the enemy.” Mimi watched as the younger wizard turned away angrily. She was absolutely stunned at what had happened to her. She was now a living, breathing part of a fictional story known to millions in her universe – a story that had already played itself out and was already finished.
She had told the two wizards all about the witch box and the Tarot deck it had contained, and how the Sempra deck had somehow transported her here. At this news, both wizards looked grave and began to pace.
It did Mimi no good to tell herself this was a dream or hallucination. She was trapped in it, and, from what the two men were telling her, it was permanent. They had no idea how to return her to her own reality. Mimi looked at Snape and Dumbledore, the two most important characters in the story, next to Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. These two powerful wizards were the lynchpins in the fight against the Dark Lord Voldemort.
Her eyes followed the restlessly pacing Severus Snape. How many times had she read the stories and envisioned him, her secret favourite character? It had never mattered to Mimi that his creator had painted him as an unattractive, petulant, mean-spirited man. That same creator had also bestowed upon him a deep undying love, a sense of unwavering duty, and stalwart courage. Mimi had developed a crush on him reading book one.
As Mimi watched him, she also thought of his love for Harry’s mother, and his betrayal and subsequent enslavement by Dumbledore to spy for the Order of the Phoenix. As the endgame played out, Snape would meet with his destiny at the top of the Tower –
“Oh, shit!” Mimi whispered, causing the two wizards to turn and look at her. Her lovely eyes were enormous with barely controlled panic. “What is the date?”
“It’s the twenty-seventh of February, 1997. Why, Miss Manderly?” It was Snape who answered.
Mimi looked from one man to the other. She felt tears pricking her eyes. “It’s 2011, in my time.”
Both wizards looked at her in dawning horror. Finally, Professor Dumbledore spoke. “In other words, Mimi, you know what will happen to us. You already know our future, and the future of the Wizarding world.” He glanced at Snape. “And that means you know the parts we will play in the war, and its outcome.”
Mimi slowly nodded, and looked from one to the other. “I think I’m going to be sick.” She stood, and felt herself falling forward, just as Snape rushed to catch her before she hit the ground.
When Mimi awoke, she was not in the infirmary, nor was she in Dumbledore’s study. She was in a bed in a brightly-lit room, and she stretched and relaxed. Her eyes flew open and she sat upright. She was in a huge bed, draped with green velvet curtains and a matching duvet. The room was large and dark, and the walls were made of stone worn smooth by time and the friction of human energy. It had rubbed up against the stones, just as it rubbed against Mimi’s skin.
She could literally feel the residual energy of those who had lived and breathed and died within the walls. She was still in Hogwarts. Mimi hugged her knees to her chest and tried, for the millionth time, to reconcile what had happened to her, but every time she thought she might be close to an answer, it skidded away from her consciousness like a cloud of gnats.
She had revived quickly from her sudden faint in the Headmaster’s office, and, after meekly submitting to another examination by Madam Pomfrey, Mimi sat in the study quietly, as Dumbledore and Snape spoke amongst themselves. They stole occasional glances her way, and each time, Mimi found she could not meet their eyes. Finally, the Headmaster addressed her again.
“Miss-” He made a little courtly bow. “Forgive me, Mimi, I have arranged lodgings for you down in the dungeons, while we endeavour to discover how you got here, and more importantly, how to get you home again.”
Mimi was shocked. “You mean, you can’t send me back?” She looked beseechingly from one man to the other. Dumbledore looked sympathetic; Snape defiant.
Mimi felt her heart contract. Tears filled her eyes. “Are you telling me that there is a possibility that – that I might never leave?”
Dumbledore sat down beside her and patted her hand reassuringly. “I promise we will do everything we can to get you home. Rending the fabric of space and time is an aberration, and must be righted for you to find your place in the universe.
“But, I’m afraid my colleague was right, Mimi. You have literally dropped into our midst during a very dark and troubled time, as you well know. Resources are quite limited and compromised at this point. It may be awhile before we can truly help you.”
This was why, several minutes later, Mimi found herself trotting down the hall, trying valiantly to keep up with the long strides of Hogwarts’ most feared and loathed professor, Severus Snape. He had barked, “This way, Miss Manderly,” and had taken off so quickly Mimi literally had to run to catch up with him.
“Do you – think we – could – slow down a little?” Mimi panted, as she galloped beside him, her shorter legs having to take three steps to his one. If Snape had heard her, he paid her no attention. Mimi’s temper, already on a short fuse, began to smoke.
“Hey!” she grabbed his arm, and he whirled on her as if ready to hex her. She took an uncertain step backward. “Would you look at me? I’m practically cantering here, Severus!”
The dark man looked down at her with undisguised contempt. His onyx eyes flashed with suspicion and mistrust. “I do not recall giving you permission to call me by my christian name, Miss Manderly!”
Mimi fumed, and her eyes narrowed. She stepped closer. “And I don’t recall meriting your rudeness, Professor Snape! Now, slow down!”
Equally furious, Snape turned and resumed walking. Mimi followed in his wake. She did not thank him for slowing down, to allow her to keep up with him. She merely smiled and trotted more easily by his side.
As he showed her the room that Dumbledore had prepared for her, Mimi was struck again by Snape’s very presence. He was sullen and brooding, but underneath, Mimi sensed something else.
“I trust everything is in order, Miss Manderly,” Snape said, his cold formality back in place. He gestured to a bell on the nearby table. “If you require anything, just ring this bell. It will summon one of the house-elves for you.”
“Thank you, Professor Snape,” Mimi replied. He regarded her for a moment, then turned to go.
Impulsively, Mimi called out, “If you ever need someone to talk to, Professor, I’m a good listener.”
He turned at looked at her suspiciously. “Why would I wish to discuss anything with you, Miss Manderly?” Again, that look of contempt, and something more inwardly directed. “You don’t even know me, nor I you. Nor do I wish to.”
Mimi grimaced. Now she understood it; that indefinable something hidden behind his dark eyes. It was fear. Self-basting, testicle-shriveling fear. “Ouch. I should have suspected that.”
Snape’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
Mimi shrugged, and took a deep breath. “I mean, I should have known you would react this way!” She tried to smile. As gently as possible, she added, “I know you. I’ve watched you grow up from a boy.”
She flinched inwardly at the sudden, naked fear she saw flash in his eyes, but she pressed on. “I know all about you, Severus Tobias Snape. I know every sad moment, every humiliation, every dirty deed you’ve felt or experienced or done.”
She hesitated, and only because he seemed frozen to the spot, was she able to continue. “I know everything that has happened or will ever happen to you, and I want to be your friend. I care about what happens to you,” she said, with a sad smile, “And let’s face it, Severus, friends are a little thin on the ground for both of us right now.”
For a moment, she thought he was going to tear into her with all the vitriol he was capable of conjuring, but he did not.
Instead, he looked deeply into her eyes, and in that voice that literally made Mimi shiver, he said quietly, “If I asked you to tell me what will happen in the future, would you?”
Mimi closed her eyes. The unguarded, unmistakable silent cry for help nearly drove her to her knees. A tremor passed through her, and she had to turn away. “Ask me anything, but please not that, Severus.”
She looked at the severe, lonely man, and her heart broke for him. “Aside from the possibility that knowing the future will change it, do you really, really want to know?”
He merely looked at her for a long moment, then nodded quietly. “I understand. Goodnight, Miss Manderly.” With bleak certainty in his eyes, he turned and left, quietly shutting the door.
Mimi, exhausted and upset, slowly crossed to the bed and sat down. It occurred to her that Severus had not rejected her outright. It also occurred to her that she’d just talked to one of her favourite characters, ever, and tried to make friends with him. Following close on the heels of this thought was the awful, final realization that, in her time, this quietly brave, often misunderstood man was dead, and nothing she could do or say would change that.
Mimi then did something very rare for her. She lay down on the bed and cried herself to sleep.
Back in the Headmaster’s study, Severus was facing down the wrath of Albus Dumbledore.
“You assured me you had destroyed the deck, Severus!”
The younger wizard held his ground. “I put it away, Albus! When she sent it back to me I hid it -“
“You sent it to – “
“Lily!” Severus sank to his knees. “I sent it to my Lily, stupidly hoping it would bring her back to me. But she rejected it, just as she rejected me.” He lowered his head and closed his eyes, as if half-expecting to be physically chastised.
Dumbledore stood over the younger man like an avenging patriarch of old. “The fabric of time and space has been torn, Severus. An innocent has been sucked into your feeble attempt to re-create that which never belonged to you. You will have to repair it, and make amends to that lovely woman.”
Severus bowed his head. “I will make things right. With Miss Manderly, with you.” Snape swallowed, and put his past behind him. “With Lily.”
mimimanderly has just released the next card of The Sempra Deck, a set of Major Arcana cards forming the Tarot. Each time Mimi posts a new card, I will post another edition of the story, so you can see how the story and the cards meshed together. Here is the next card - 03 The Empress, and here is the next chapter of the story.
This Chapter is rated PG for content. Happy Reading!
The Sempra Deck is dedicated to the real mystic goddess Mimi Manderly; to her beloved SeverusMuse, and to my precious Dahlra. All characters with the exception of Mimi Manderley, Peter and Dahlra belong to JK Rowling. I make no money from this publication.
Chapter Two – Compiling the Tools Part 2
“As you can see, Miss Manderly – “
“Please, call me Mimi,” she replied, her face ashen, her voice shaky. “I think, considering the circumstances, formalities seem a bit redundant.”
Snape, who’d been standing off to one side, leaning on the fireplace mantle with his arms crossed, snorted. “Formalities? You, a Muggle, have blundered into our world at the most unstable time in our history.” He pushed himself from the mantle and walked over to her.
“We are threatened by the worst monster since Hitler and you blithely open some sort of magical portal no one has ever heard of and fall at our feet - and you question formalities? Miss Manderly, you don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into! Do you have any idea what a dangerous weapon you could be, in the wrong hands?”
“That is quite enough, Severus,” Dumbledore chided gently. “I think from what Mimi has revealed, she is quite aware of how dangerous she could be in the hands of the enemy.” Mimi watched as the younger wizard turned away angrily. She was absolutely stunned at what had happened to her. She was now a living, breathing part of a fictional story known to millions in her universe – a story that had already played itself out and was already finished.
She had told the two wizards all about the witch box and the Tarot deck it had contained, and how the Sempra deck had somehow transported her here. At this news, both wizards looked grave and began to pace.
It did Mimi no good to tell herself this was a dream or hallucination. She was trapped in it, and, from what the two men were telling her, it was permanent. They had no idea how to return her to her own reality. Mimi looked at Snape and Dumbledore, the two most important characters in the story, next to Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. These two powerful wizards were the lynchpins in the fight against the Dark Lord Voldemort.
Her eyes followed the restlessly pacing Severus Snape. How many times had she read the stories and envisioned him, her secret favourite character? It had never mattered to Mimi that his creator had painted him as an unattractive, petulant, mean-spirited man. That same creator had also bestowed upon him a deep undying love, a sense of unwavering duty, and stalwart courage. Mimi had developed a crush on him reading book one.
As Mimi watched him, she also thought of his love for Harry’s mother, and his betrayal and subsequent enslavement by Dumbledore to spy for the Order of the Phoenix. As the endgame played out, Snape would meet with his destiny at the top of the Tower –
“Oh, shit!” Mimi whispered, causing the two wizards to turn and look at her. Her lovely eyes were enormous with barely controlled panic. “What is the date?”
“It’s the twenty-seventh of February, 1997. Why, Miss Manderly?” It was Snape who answered.
Mimi looked from one man to the other. She felt tears pricking her eyes. “It’s 2011, in my time.”
Both wizards looked at her in dawning horror. Finally, Professor Dumbledore spoke. “In other words, Mimi, you know what will happen to us. You already know our future, and the future of the Wizarding world.” He glanced at Snape. “And that means you know the parts we will play in the war, and its outcome.”
Mimi slowly nodded, and looked from one to the other. “I think I’m going to be sick.” She stood, and felt herself falling forward, just as Snape rushed to catch her before she hit the ground.
When Mimi awoke, she was not in the infirmary, nor was she in Dumbledore’s study. She was in a bed in a brightly-lit room, and she stretched and relaxed. Her eyes flew open and she sat upright. She was in a huge bed, draped with green velvet curtains and a matching duvet. The room was large and dark, and the walls were made of stone worn smooth by time and the friction of human energy. It had rubbed up against the stones, just as it rubbed against Mimi’s skin.
She could literally feel the residual energy of those who had lived and breathed and died within the walls. She was still in Hogwarts. Mimi hugged her knees to her chest and tried, for the millionth time, to reconcile what had happened to her, but every time she thought she might be close to an answer, it skidded away from her consciousness like a cloud of gnats.
She had revived quickly from her sudden faint in the Headmaster’s office, and, after meekly submitting to another examination by Madam Pomfrey, Mimi sat in the study quietly, as Dumbledore and Snape spoke amongst themselves. They stole occasional glances her way, and each time, Mimi found she could not meet their eyes. Finally, the Headmaster addressed her again.
“Miss-” He made a little courtly bow. “Forgive me, Mimi, I have arranged lodgings for you down in the dungeons, while we endeavour to discover how you got here, and more importantly, how to get you home again.”
Mimi was shocked. “You mean, you can’t send me back?” She looked beseechingly from one man to the other. Dumbledore looked sympathetic; Snape defiant.
Mimi felt her heart contract. Tears filled her eyes. “Are you telling me that there is a possibility that – that I might never leave?”
Dumbledore sat down beside her and patted her hand reassuringly. “I promise we will do everything we can to get you home. Rending the fabric of space and time is an aberration, and must be righted for you to find your place in the universe.
“But, I’m afraid my colleague was right, Mimi. You have literally dropped into our midst during a very dark and troubled time, as you well know. Resources are quite limited and compromised at this point. It may be awhile before we can truly help you.”
This was why, several minutes later, Mimi found herself trotting down the hall, trying valiantly to keep up with the long strides of Hogwarts’ most feared and loathed professor, Severus Snape. He had barked, “This way, Miss Manderly,” and had taken off so quickly Mimi literally had to run to catch up with him.
“Do you – think we – could – slow down a little?” Mimi panted, as she galloped beside him, her shorter legs having to take three steps to his one. If Snape had heard her, he paid her no attention. Mimi’s temper, already on a short fuse, began to smoke.
“Hey!” she grabbed his arm, and he whirled on her as if ready to hex her. She took an uncertain step backward. “Would you look at me? I’m practically cantering here, Severus!”
The dark man looked down at her with undisguised contempt. His onyx eyes flashed with suspicion and mistrust. “I do not recall giving you permission to call me by my christian name, Miss Manderly!”
Mimi fumed, and her eyes narrowed. She stepped closer. “And I don’t recall meriting your rudeness, Professor Snape! Now, slow down!”
Equally furious, Snape turned and resumed walking. Mimi followed in his wake. She did not thank him for slowing down, to allow her to keep up with him. She merely smiled and trotted more easily by his side.
As he showed her the room that Dumbledore had prepared for her, Mimi was struck again by Snape’s very presence. He was sullen and brooding, but underneath, Mimi sensed something else.
“I trust everything is in order, Miss Manderly,” Snape said, his cold formality back in place. He gestured to a bell on the nearby table. “If you require anything, just ring this bell. It will summon one of the house-elves for you.”
“Thank you, Professor Snape,” Mimi replied. He regarded her for a moment, then turned to go.
Impulsively, Mimi called out, “If you ever need someone to talk to, Professor, I’m a good listener.”
He turned at looked at her suspiciously. “Why would I wish to discuss anything with you, Miss Manderly?” Again, that look of contempt, and something more inwardly directed. “You don’t even know me, nor I you. Nor do I wish to.”
Mimi grimaced. Now she understood it; that indefinable something hidden behind his dark eyes. It was fear. Self-basting, testicle-shriveling fear. “Ouch. I should have suspected that.”
Snape’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
Mimi shrugged, and took a deep breath. “I mean, I should have known you would react this way!” She tried to smile. As gently as possible, she added, “I know you. I’ve watched you grow up from a boy.”
She flinched inwardly at the sudden, naked fear she saw flash in his eyes, but she pressed on. “I know all about you, Severus Tobias Snape. I know every sad moment, every humiliation, every dirty deed you’ve felt or experienced or done.”
She hesitated, and only because he seemed frozen to the spot, was she able to continue. “I know everything that has happened or will ever happen to you, and I want to be your friend. I care about what happens to you,” she said, with a sad smile, “And let’s face it, Severus, friends are a little thin on the ground for both of us right now.”
For a moment, she thought he was going to tear into her with all the vitriol he was capable of conjuring, but he did not.
Instead, he looked deeply into her eyes, and in that voice that literally made Mimi shiver, he said quietly, “If I asked you to tell me what will happen in the future, would you?”
Mimi closed her eyes. The unguarded, unmistakable silent cry for help nearly drove her to her knees. A tremor passed through her, and she had to turn away. “Ask me anything, but please not that, Severus.”
She looked at the severe, lonely man, and her heart broke for him. “Aside from the possibility that knowing the future will change it, do you really, really want to know?”
He merely looked at her for a long moment, then nodded quietly. “I understand. Goodnight, Miss Manderly.” With bleak certainty in his eyes, he turned and left, quietly shutting the door.
Mimi, exhausted and upset, slowly crossed to the bed and sat down. It occurred to her that Severus had not rejected her outright. It also occurred to her that she’d just talked to one of her favourite characters, ever, and tried to make friends with him. Following close on the heels of this thought was the awful, final realization that, in her time, this quietly brave, often misunderstood man was dead, and nothing she could do or say would change that.
Mimi then did something very rare for her. She lay down on the bed and cried herself to sleep.
Back in the Headmaster’s study, Severus was facing down the wrath of Albus Dumbledore.
“You assured me you had destroyed the deck, Severus!”
The younger wizard held his ground. “I put it away, Albus! When she sent it back to me I hid it -“
“You sent it to – “
“Lily!” Severus sank to his knees. “I sent it to my Lily, stupidly hoping it would bring her back to me. But she rejected it, just as she rejected me.” He lowered his head and closed his eyes, as if half-expecting to be physically chastised.
Dumbledore stood over the younger man like an avenging patriarch of old. “The fabric of time and space has been torn, Severus. An innocent has been sucked into your feeble attempt to re-create that which never belonged to you. You will have to repair it, and make amends to that lovely woman.”
Severus bowed his head. “I will make things right. With Miss Manderly, with you.” Snape swallowed, and put his past behind him. “With Lily.”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-06-28 02:50 am (UTC)Your story helps motivate me. It galvanizes me into getting the cards done expediently!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-28 03:01 am (UTC)Once you realise someone full of fear and not full of hatred, you can reason with them.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 04:44 pm (UTC)OMG! How did the Sempra Tarot Deck end up in the witch box? Who was the person who watched Mimi leave the Witches Museum from behind the upstairs curtain? Whose spidery script was on the card Mimi was given with her breakfast? And how in hell did the deck tear the fabric of space and time to carry her to Hogwarts?
What has Severus wrought?
no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 05:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-07 09:05 pm (UTC)I love this description. Its perfect for describing "tip of the tongue" things!
How hard would it be to be in Mimi's shoes. I would want to tell Severus immediately what his future holds, but at the same time knowing that it would completely change everything if I did. Breaks my heart!
no subject
Date: 2011-07-07 09:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-07 09:53 pm (UTC)