Chanukah story
Dec. 10th, 2004 02:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamadebI'm not sure I like this story, but it's the best I could manage. I think an essay is called for.
Harry Potter Severus Snape. G
Note to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
museclio -you can claim this as your b'day story, but I'd be happy to write you another one.
25th DAy
He took the thing out of his trunk - the same trunk his mother had packed it in all those years ago, while his father was out. The brass branches were slightly out of true, and the larger one in the center was bent, and there were dents and scratches all over it. It was, in fact, not beautiful, but beauty, as Snape knew well, was meaningless.
Twenty-five days since the second New Moon after Halloween. This was the formula his mother had told him. She said there were calendars around that would tell them the exact date each year. She said they'd also, possibly, tell him the proper way of doing this. She didn't remember, though. Grindelwald had killed her family, but she'd been taken for a Muggle child and transported with other small children who were fleeing a different monster.
She told him the story - how a witch found her among the other children, and asked her if she were a pureblood. She was, of course, in both ways, and she'd said so. "I am the daughter of Miriam and David Ha-Levi, of the wizarding community in Berlin," she'd said. "I am Elisheva."
But Elizabeth was taken to a Wizarding couple who raised her as their own, and she began to forget. So, when she received two OWLs in one day, she decided to go to Hogwarts as her foster parents wished. She would be out of place in the other one, she felt.
And every year, she counted from the second New Moon after Halloween and lit this thing, with her foster parents looking on. She sometimes mumbled words to herself, but the words disappeared. At Hogwarts, her housemates in Slytherin stared at her for being different, so she learned to light it in secret. Later, she married a older housemate who was proud of his lovely and ambitious wife, and she began her career in commercial potions. And then she had her son.
And when he was eight days old, she stole him away to Manchester and his father raged. And then he grew cold as the boy looked more like her than like him. Snape was like his father - cold or angry. His mother was warm and hot with temper, but she could not warm either husband or son.
And on that 25th day, Slytherin green and silver decorations filling the house and covering the tree, she'd summon her son and they'd light the battered old menorah. And when Snape got *his* two letters the summer he was eleven, his father ripped up the one that would have sent him to a faraway land. "You are my son. You are a British pureblood wizard and you will go to Hogwarts, with your own kind!"
His mother yelled at his father then, claiming, outrageously, that her ancestors and her son's had been wizards in the court of King Solomon, while his had been who knew where. And they would have dueled except she took her broom and she left. She'd only returned at the end of summer, to slip the menorah into his trunk and kiss him goodbye.
Later, he found the letter led to a pair of schools that moved when necessary, but were in Israel now - one for boys and one for girls, schools that wove magic around the religion like a snake, with holy legal works that not even the Jewish Muggles knew about. But by then, he was in Slytherin, where he belonged.
And on the twenty-fifth day past the second New Moon after Halloween, he set up the battered thing and lit candles all in a row, one more per day and the extra, until the dented branches were all filled. And sometimes he mumbled words, and sometimes he didn't. And he thought about his mother and all the things he didn't know.
Harry Potter Severus Snape. G
Note to
museclio -you can claim this as your b'day story, but I'd be happy to write you another one.25th DAy
He took the thing out of his trunk - the same trunk his mother had packed it in all those years ago, while his father was out. The brass branches were slightly out of true, and the larger one in the center was bent, and there were dents and scratches all over it. It was, in fact, not beautiful, but beauty, as Snape knew well, was meaningless.
Twenty-five days since the second New Moon after Halloween. This was the formula his mother had told him. She said there were calendars around that would tell them the exact date each year. She said they'd also, possibly, tell him the proper way of doing this. She didn't remember, though. Grindelwald had killed her family, but she'd been taken for a Muggle child and transported with other small children who were fleeing a different monster.
She told him the story - how a witch found her among the other children, and asked her if she were a pureblood. She was, of course, in both ways, and she'd said so. "I am the daughter of Miriam and David Ha-Levi, of the wizarding community in Berlin," she'd said. "I am Elisheva."
But Elizabeth was taken to a Wizarding couple who raised her as their own, and she began to forget. So, when she received two OWLs in one day, she decided to go to Hogwarts as her foster parents wished. She would be out of place in the other one, she felt.
And every year, she counted from the second New Moon after Halloween and lit this thing, with her foster parents looking on. She sometimes mumbled words to herself, but the words disappeared. At Hogwarts, her housemates in Slytherin stared at her for being different, so she learned to light it in secret. Later, she married a older housemate who was proud of his lovely and ambitious wife, and she began her career in commercial potions. And then she had her son.
And when he was eight days old, she stole him away to Manchester and his father raged. And then he grew cold as the boy looked more like her than like him. Snape was like his father - cold or angry. His mother was warm and hot with temper, but she could not warm either husband or son.
And on that 25th day, Slytherin green and silver decorations filling the house and covering the tree, she'd summon her son and they'd light the battered old menorah. And when Snape got *his* two letters the summer he was eleven, his father ripped up the one that would have sent him to a faraway land. "You are my son. You are a British pureblood wizard and you will go to Hogwarts, with your own kind!"
His mother yelled at his father then, claiming, outrageously, that her ancestors and her son's had been wizards in the court of King Solomon, while his had been who knew where. And they would have dueled except she took her broom and she left. She'd only returned at the end of summer, to slip the menorah into his trunk and kiss him goodbye.
Later, he found the letter led to a pair of schools that moved when necessary, but were in Israel now - one for boys and one for girls, schools that wove magic around the religion like a snake, with holy legal works that not even the Jewish Muggles knew about. But by then, he was in Slytherin, where he belonged.
And on the twenty-fifth day past the second New Moon after Halloween, he set up the battered thing and lit candles all in a row, one more per day and the extra, until the dented branches were all filled. And sometimes he mumbled words, and sometimes he didn't. And he thought about his mother and all the things he didn't know.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-10 11:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 05:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-10 11:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 02:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 05:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-10 12:07 pm (UTC)this was lovely.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 05:50 pm (UTC)Thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-10 01:13 pm (UTC)Yay. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 05:51 pm (UTC)Thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-10 03:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 05:51 pm (UTC)There will be an essay.
Thank you!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-10 05:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 05:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-10 06:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 05:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-10 07:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 05:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-10 07:51 pm (UTC)Wizarding conversos - it makes so much sense.
thank you for this.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 06:01 pm (UTC)Huh.
Thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 08:13 pm (UTC)thinking about it, they might be more like the people in the American southwest whose ancestors came over with Columbus (leaving Spain in 1492 seeming like a great idea), and they still light candles on friday nights and don't necessarily know why.
there's interesting stuff here - I'm excited to see where you take it (if you decide to take it anywhere. no pressure, I promise!)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 08:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-13 05:44 am (UTC)Yes, but that happpened with descendents of conversos also. There were a lot of things that descendents of conversos used to be without understanding why... lighting a candle (or candles) on Friday night, breaking eggs into a separate bowl before adding them to your recipe, and (interestingly) sweeping the floor toward the middle of the room, rather than out the front door (so as not to sweep dust past the mezuzah...only they didn't have mezuzot and didn't know that's why they were doing it).
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 02:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 06:01 pm (UTC)Thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 07:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 06:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 09:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 06:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 10:44 am (UTC)Seriously, this is fabulous. My marrano soul rejoices.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 06:09 pm (UTC)Not a full third Talmud, no, but several masechot that deal exclusively with magic. They also have a couple extra books of prophets and writings in their Tanach (although, of course, the Torah is the Torah, unchanging and inviolate.) There is also a chapter in the Shulchan Aruch that we don't have and they have their own commentators and works of halacha that deal with all the variously legalities of magic. And since this is vital stuff, it's taught to both the boys and the girls. They don't, however, have time for Quidditch.
Pretty icon.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 08:16 pm (UTC)I'm hard pressed to think of things I *wouldn't* do to read a story set at that school.
are you bribable?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 08:40 pm (UTC)Also - it would be entirely original characters. Are we ready for original stories set in Potterverse?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-12 05:36 pm (UTC)I don't think I'm qualified to answer the larger 'original Potterverse stories' question. I just know that I'm fascinated by this little pocket of Potter that you've posited, and am eager to read more. What that more should look like (story, essay, rambling late-night thoughts...) could be almost anything at all.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-13 05:46 am (UTC)Tee hee. That phrase made me giggle. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 09:47 pm (UTC)Gah, I'm rambling. But this was fabulous, I loved it muchly.
And thanks!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 11:19 pm (UTC)I suppose I can see why JKR's left out religion from the books, but I'm fascinated by the idea of what Wizarding religious practice would actually look like. And I, also, have to believe that they mostly follow variants on the same religions as Muggles do.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-12 05:30 am (UTC)Which I like - it means there are traditions, maybe, but no religious aspects to the magic itself. The magic is genetic. Which is why I would not, for example attach Kabbalah to it - Kabbalah is an entirely different thing, a primal force that I'd hate to have kids fool around with. (Frankly, it frightens and confuses me, and I'd rather not deal with it myself.) I do mean the real thing, not the stuff the Bergies dish out, or the safely watered down stuff of Chasidus. Nor is the magic paganism. Not that there aren't pagan wizards and witches. I suspect that's largely a US thing, though.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-12 07:56 pm (UTC)Heh. Nope. Some of my best and truest pagan friends are in Europe. There are less fluff-bunny pagan *idiots* in Europe, though. That seems to be mostly an American creation. *sigh*
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-13 11:17 am (UTC)I would be very interested to see stories about the Jewish wizarding school. Having moved it throughout the Ashkenazic and Sefardic worlds would certainly make for some interesting regional influences over the years -- and maybe keep the Wizarding Jewish Community in closer contact between the regional communities than their Muggle counterparts in distant lands. Just a thought.
The joy when they made the decision to move the school to The Holy Land. The controversy over starting a Girls' school [the Israelis and Americans probably pushed that one!] The post-grad Yeshiva for really closeted Rabbis operating in the regular Muggle Jewish world. So many possibilities!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 01:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 06:10 pm (UTC)I'm very glad you liked this. Thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 07:00 pm (UTC)That is all.
*cries*
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Date: 2004-12-11 08:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2004-12-12 07:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-13 11:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-11 11:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-12 05:31 am (UTC)