Because in the darkness

Snippet that I thought of while trying to come up with a Traditionalist and/or Pureblood handfasting blessing that Sirius offered to recite to Lily (with the thinking that many would assume she didn't want to hear anything like that):

May the goblet of your heart overflow with happiness,
may the sword of your heart be unstained with blood, and
may the jewel of your heart gleam for many a year.

I'm not always the best at getting poetical or sounding truly old-fashioned with blessings, but I wanted him to settle on this one because it doesn't have anything specifically about children. The goblet line just asks for happiness, the sword line is a reference to peace, and the jewel line can be 'may you live really long' and/or 'may you not lose all your money'.

Archived draft excerpt. The original Tumblr post was bookmarked on 29 October 2022.

Original Tags, Author's Note, and top matter

(This is an entry that is not ready to be posted on AO3 yet. It's being shared so I can add a bookmark to the Snack-O-Ween collection. At the time of original drafting, it was being counted for HP Fear Fest, but mods can elect to ignore this.)

I don't have anything filled in yet for Work Title, Rating, Archive Warning, Category, Relationships, Characters, or Summary.

Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No House Elves, Different Whomping Willow Incident, Ghosts, Curse Breaking, Severus Snape Does Not Join The Death Eaters, Ghosts As Curse Side Effects, Severus Snape Works Multiple Jobs.

A/N: 👻 Trick Or Treat - For the Snack-O-Ween 2022 prompt 3: Ghosts or Haunting. Also counts for the HP Fear Fest 2022 prompt 5-B: Haunt.

Chapter 1: The Afflicted

Severus Snape's life was starting to look up in his Seventh Year. Tobias had gotten himself injured in a mill accident at some point in the spring, which involved a great deal more sobriety and bed rest than he could possibly fuck up. Lucius had a spare wing ready for after Hogwarts, and he had an apprenticeship with a Curse Breaker lined up for the fall. Signor Gigliotti was well-respected and had a good alliance with the hags in Knockturn Alley, which meant that he was well on his way to becoming a Curse Breaker in a few years. Severus' life changed, irrevocably, in his Seventh Year.

The tenth of June. A Sunday. Shortly after three in the afternoon. He had never paid much attention to when moonrise was, and he had no idea that a certain classmate of his had just transformed into a wolf barely a few minutes prior. In hindsight, everyone could clearly figure out that poking around at the warding around the Whomping Willow was dangerous during the full moon. However, Professor Thwaite had tossed out a preliminary warding draft - complete with proper cross-hatching - for extra credit that term, and there were no rules about when his N.E.W.T. Defence students could or could not stop by the tree.

Severus received a nasty trio of cuts from one of Lupin's front paws, but he did not get bit. He was too busy trying to cast every shielding spell he'd ever remotely read to even notice that he was bleeding until Rose Parkinson passed out - a bit dramatically - afterwards. Some of the Second Years who were lounging by the lake had screamed, someone had run off to the castle, and it was quite a scene. Unfortunately, somewhere in there, the seed of a rumour had already started that Severus was now a werewolf.

Bit embarrassing, really. It's not like Severus had actually transformed into a wolf on the next full moon, and he wasn't even contacted by the Werewolf Registrar or anything. Still, he'd gone nosing around where he shouldn't at that time of the month and had silvery-white scars on his left forearm. Wolfish scars - and in such an easy to see place. Opportunities evaporated in front of his still human eyes. There was no longer even a spare room at Malfoy Manor, and neither the Dark Lord nor Signor Gigliotti were interested in his Curse Breaking studies. (The afflicted did not get Marked and couldn't cleanse the after effects of curses as well as humans, after all.)

Severus was reasonably certain that his mum didn't mind that Lord Voldemort had backed away from him, but the problem was that a great deal of The Daily Prophet readers had as well. Headmaster Dumbledore and Professor Slughorn had talked to a few sympathetic ears, but a tantamount werewolf was no easier to hire than a real one. He slunk off to a small flat above an apothecary nestled into a side street off Knockturn, which allowed him to stay as long as he washed out the dirty cauldrons every night. He got a few sickles every week that he stocked the shelves and refilled bottles and phials of the common potions sold.

[Kindly overlook the gap from not having the names for certain things, character names picked out, or the name of the school where Severus becomes a tutor.]

On a slightly less chilly day somewhere in the beginning of March, he didn't really think much of overhearing a student complaining about doxies. They crawled out of winter hibernation to breed around this time of the year, and every witch and hag strolling down Knockturn Alley was trading tips for getting them out of the house. However, Severus wasn't one to bypass a few extra knuts for a collection of doxy eggs, so he sent a note home to make arrangements with the Campbells. He wasn't an expert doxy remover by any means, but Care of Magical Creatures classes and a few months of handling doxies at the apothecary had taught him enough. Mr Campell complimented his hexie work.

It depended on who one talked to, but 'hexie' or 'jinxy' work - often done by a hexie or jinxy - could very well be some degree of an insult. They were the lowest of the Curse Breakers, who often weren't expected to do any "serious" curse-breaking per se, and they mostly did small jobs like this. Magical pest removal, inspecting a cursed or "haunted" object, and writing up referrals to specialised Curse Breakers. For the average witch or wizard struggling with a ghoul or haunted mirror, a hexie was invaluable and cheaper to hire than a fully licenced Curse Breaker. Occasionally, some communities who cast spells outside of Latin would have a preference or differentiation - a hexie only does this type of job, everyone's a jinxy, a hex doctor "diagnoses" or does an inspection, and the like.

In contrast, specialists often looked down on hexies for messing about with magic they hadn't truly studied or making curse side effects worse. A common example was that poking around at the wrong layer of warding could create ghostly apparitions to defend its object. It was not uncommon for former students who attended Hogwarts to be a bit flummoxed by realising that they had interacted with personifications of Hogwarts' warding instead of proper "ghosts". (Very common with ancient wards.) Obviously, becoming a hexie or jinxy wasn't glamourous work. Severus might not convince any other Curse Breakers to take him on as an apprentice if he established himself as a hexie, but really, he also didn't have much of a reputation to lose any more. Even if he could only get a few odd jobs from werewolves, it would be better than nothing.

I have absolutely no memory of what What We Do In The Shadows has or has not said about Dracula, which is either a sign of a small bit of canon lost or free reign to poke around at how the characters would handle Dracula Daily.

Step 1. Actually remember to sign up instead of leaving the tab open for a week.

Step 2. Backread the archives.
See: May 3rd, May 4th, May 5th, May 7th, and May 8th.
Step 3: Probably write out a brief outline for the plot, or something.

A tumblr post pointing to fairy chess pieces (example: Phoenix) led to List of chess variants, and I like the idea of the one version of Falcon-Hunter chess (1943) where the variant pieces start off board and are introduced in the starting place of a queen, castle/rook, bishop, or knight that's removed off the board.

I also like the idea of using correspondence chess in a fic and - maybe - extending the letter writing out by have variant pieces introduced, but I would (probably) have to know something about chess.

ETA: Drop chess (year unknown) allows you to add pieces captured from your opponent back onto the board [switch colours to become yours]. Hostage chess (1997) allows you to drop your own pieces that have been captured by your opponent back onto the board.

ETA: Tamerlane chess (Medieval) has a lot going on (extra board space, variant pieces, etc.), but I like the idea of each piece having a pawn (pawn of X). When a pawn of rooks reaches the opposite side of the board, it becomes a rook. When a pawn of king reaches the opposite side, it becomes a prince and moves like a king.

I can't remember exactly how I found myself looking at the Ace Tropes series on The Asexual Agenda, but I kept a link for 'Ace Tropes: Cis-ace & Trans-allo' in a draft because I've got a WIP featuring this.

{Heads up: Yeah, I know that shit's gone past a tipping point regarding JKR's slide into TERF tweeting this summer. As a trans fan, I've seen other trans fans point out her Twitter sliding in that direction before 2020, but I've made the decision to keep going with writing HP fanfic. I appreciate leaving JKR out of any comments on this particular post.}

First, the Cis-ace & Trans-allo trope:

Many (though not all) of the stories which use the cis-ace/trans-allo trope contain problematic ace representation and/or problematic trans representation. For example, most of the cis-aces are presented as being completely flawless in how they handle trans issues, and the trans allos are usually presented as being just as flawless in handling asexuality.

In particular, the trans character will often allo savior the ace character and/or the ace character will cis savior the trans character [...] Sometimes the trans character even reads like a Magical Queer.

Also, the ace character will often have no contact with other aces, and the trans character will often have no contact with other trans people. The ace character not having contact with other aces can often be justified, but trans readers tend to find it implausible that a trans character would not know other trans people.

( Some fic details. )

( Expanding on the fic in relation to the trope. )

( Some thoughts on how to fix stuff. )


( Notes )