Part 0: Genesis
This story was written for the SSFF three-word challenge, and my assigned words
were: feere, chastity, and Paris . I had to look up "feere", which
turned out to mean a companion, consort, or wife. The juxtaposition with
"chastity" somehow suggested to me a paid companion (maybe thinking of lack of
chastity = whore) and the last word added the idea of a trip to Paris .
Why would Snape go to Paris with a paid companion? Because he was
attending a family event, and his mother expected him to have a wife, I
decided. And therein hangs the tale.
When I started writing, the bones of my story were as follows: Snape is
invited to a relative's wedding, his mother thinks he's married and tells him
he must bring his wife, he hires a courtesan who turns out to be Draco in
hiding. And that was it. I didn't know how I was going to end
things except with the vague idea that his companion's identity would be
revealed (to Snape). And there would be sex, because I like writing
sex. This is actually much less than I usually start a story with - I
usually already know how things will end at least in general terms.
At the time, I was also beta-editing a story for another writer called "In Want
of a Wife." I snagged the title from her, not really from Austen, because
it seemed so apropos!
Part 1: Opening
Nearly all my stories begin with a very short scene which establishes the tone
and throws the reader a teaser -- here, it's the invitation to the
wedding. I drew things out, not stating explicitly why the
invitation threw Snape into a tizzy because I wanted the reader to see Snape's
discomfiture and become curious about it. Questions and mysteries
draw the reader in. I also prefer advancing the story through dialogue,
so I saved the actual revelation of the "wife" requirement until the next
section, when he's talking with the madam, rather than having him just think
about what was in the scroll. It just didn't seem something he'd talk
about with Minerva!
My original reason for having Dumbledore dead and Minerva headmistress was to
help establish timeline - that it's in the future, post-Voldemort. But it
turned out at the end to have other benefits. More when we get
there. It's neat, I think, how little decisions made lightly near the
beginning end up having unexpected (positive) consequences. This has
happened in other of my stories, notably Before The Cock Crow and Dark
Creatures.
Part 2: Sally's
I stole "Sinshoe Alley" from Fabula Rasa's fic "Stone Cold Sober". A
perfect sin-shoe-al name for a street of ill repute!
This scene was needed for two reasons: to establish that Snape preferred
men, and to set up the plot by showing why he needed a wife, and how he was
going to get one.
Sally sprung from my forehead fully grown. I wanted someone earthy and
bawdy, who would call Snape "Sev" and contrast with his unease and
formality. I think I might have modelled her a bit after Luciana in
Josan's fic "A Gift of Light." Snape's mother has not yet made an
official appearance, but she was totally clear to me as well. I think
she's my grandmother, actually. Urbane, bossy, meddling, loving.
(The name Alighieri is of course a nod to Dante!) Elizabeth hasn't shown up
either; she was originally named Sophia, until I realized that was the perfect
name for Snape's mother. I then chose Elizabeth , because it strikes me
as an elegant and English name.
And I love puns, so "A Feere Affair" was born. It had to be the name of
the establishment because I couldn't see trying to use it in a sentence!
Part 3: Felicia's
The name Felicia Fox was chosen to echo "Feere" and to suggest an elegant but
sly woman.
And here I drop the first hint by comparing Elizabeth to Narcissa. This
has two functions, really: obviously it's a suggestion about Elizabeth's
identity (I thought it seemed terribly blatant but several people said they
didn't 'catch' it until later, because naturally Severus knows Narcissa and
might draw that comparison, which made me happy!) but it also allows me to
allude to the Malfoys being in Azkaban, laying out the background for why Draco
might become "Elizabeth". The bit about "answering to a name not my own,"
of course, is another hint that the girl isn't at all what she seems to be.
The mention of "The Second Fall" helps establish the timeline of this story,
and also suggests that ex-Death Eaters were having tough times. I do like
devices to serve multiple purposes, don't I?
Part 4: To Paris
This is just a transition scene. More evidence that Elizabeth is an
aristocrat, to build more curiosity in both Snape and the reader as to why
she's a courtesan. The only important bit is Elizabeth using magic,
demonstrating she's not a Squib and suggesting that she doesn't use magic
frequently for some reason (again, raising more questions about her).
Tari Elensar, one of my betas, is fluent in French and suggested l'Auberge du
Chaudron d'Or (The Golden Cauldron Inn) and Rue Blard (the word 'roublard'
means 'rogue' and so was a nice pun for a Diagon-Alley-like street -- 'rue', of
course, is 'street' and 'blard' could be a name.)
Part 5: In the hotel room
This scene builds the relationship between Severus and Elizabeth through
dialogue and emphasizes the mystery of who Elizabeth is, that she's hiding
secrets. A hint that she was a student of Snape's. The bit about
Snape's parents came out of nowhere, following from the dialogue, but I like it
because it underlines the theme of family, marriage, relationships which pops
up later - again, not really planned, but when I look at the whole story I see
the thread which I must have unconsciously been laying down, about Snape and
his view of relationships, his loneliness that he doesn't realize.
Elizabeth being out at the beginning of the scene was just a device to get the
conversation going, but in a later scene it became important - another case of
a minor point turning major later.
Part 6: At the wedding reception
When I reached this point I was a bit stymied about the direction of the
story. My mental notes (I don't outline, but I "think out" the story)
were only, "Political discussion about fate of Death Eaters." There was a
long pause in the writing while I tried to work out what was actually going to
happen. Finally I figured I'd better just get the wedding over with and
start writing the reception as dialogue, because writing dialogue is my way of
getting the characters to reveal the story to me. The characters'
reactions to what is said to them drive what they say, which drives the
conversation, which drives the story.
The Italian that Snape's mother speaks was provided by one of my lj-friends,
Ligeia. Snape's father's name of Sebastian is another borrowing from
Fabula Rasa - it always seemed so right to me!
The magical eyeshadow was something I added in a bit later, because I felt that
the story was getting a little too "ordinary", too far away from the magical
world, and I wanted to underline that yes, we are in the Potterverse of witches
and wizards. And of course, another comparison to Narcissa as a hint.
L'Hibou Vorace = "The Hungry Owl", another suggestion by Tari Elensar.
The Italian name for the Daily Prophet, and the French name for "Muggle", were
taken from a list of the terms used in the Italian and French translations of
the Potter books.
Elizabeth talking with Sophia about her family was the lead-in I needed to get
my political discussion underway. It also gave me a good place to put a
few more of Snape's thoughts about family and the future, as I abruptly
realized that hiring a wife wasn't exactly a long-term solution. The
discussion tells the reader what the political situation is, shows Snape as
sympathetic to those who got caught up in its effects, particularly to the
children of Death Eaters - his Slytherins (suggesting that he'll be sympathetic
to Draco when he reveals himself, and giving Draco a reason to like him), gives
more hints (some misleading) about Elizabeth, and for the first time mentions
Draco by name, saying that he's disappeared - another little hint.
Part 7: Revelation. And sex.
I still wasn't sure where the story was going, exactly, but I knew it was time
for Elizabeth to be revealed. This had been in my mental story notes as
"she offers - he declines - she reveals - he accepts".
This is where all the backstory gets explained. Again it's through
dialogue because I find exposition boring to read and hellish to write.
And as usual it surprised me - Snape's deprecation of his own looks led to
Draco's line, "Faces are only masks…who you are has nothing to do with what you
look like," which pretty much sums up this story (as well as most of my other
stories - my "core story" that I tell over and over is, "who am I - who are
you?"). I also managed to work in that hey, Draco prefers men too.
There's a bit of an undercurrent of homophobia in this version of the world,
which pulls the two men together under the shared illusion of marriage.
And then there's sex. Mmm sex. This is really where Elizabeth turns
into Draco, where the female characteristics are noted and then swept away by
the male ones. Draco's directness of speech underlines his current
circumstances. He's a whore, and he knows it. And yet I tried to
write a real growing affection between them, because Draco has always respected
his head of house and Snape has always favored Draco, and "young men, blond and
pretty." I was working toward a happy ending, even though I wasn't sure
if there would be one, but I could see it being a possibility.
I like to have sex scenes rise, fall back a little, then rise higher - a little
pause in the middle for conversation or action. In this case, Draco
summoned the lubricant, they talked about using magic, and I suddenly realized
how this scene would have to end. I realized that (although I didn't
consciously write it earlier) he'd bought a new wand in the Rue Blard - so that's
why Elizabeth went out! - and that Draco had to disappear. This was his
chance to get out, what he'd been working towards. This wasn't at all
what I'd planned on writing - I had already started planning the "breakfast"
scene - but it was totally clear to me that it had to be that way.
Part 8: Back to Hogwarts
Another transition scene. I was winging it here, still not sure what the
ending would be, but Snape's wistfulness and thoughts about family made me feel
that it wouldn't be right to leave things unresolved between him and
Draco. And here's where Minerva being Headmistress is so useful - I like to
circle back, end the way I started, with a conversation between the same two
characters, and Minerva sounding like his mother was such a great image to me -
everything comes down to family and the complex web of relationships, and he
realizes that it really is what he wants.
Besides, even though I didn't really name this story after Austen's, I still
felt influenced by her romance-novel feel, and I knew it had to end without an
explicit reconciliation but a gesture toward that - I like things that don't
"tie it all up with a bow" as Amanuensis calls it, but that just suggest the
resolution in broad strokes.
Part 9: The End
And so that's how I wrote it. Back to the daily grind, but then a letter
arrives - and I thought it would make an interesting circle back to the story's
premise to have it be not from Draco but from "Elizabeth." The timing is
deliberate - they had supposedly eloped at Christmas one year before.
Chouette is a French pet name meaning "owl" (again suggested by my
French-fluent beta).
Part 10: The extras
Many of you have already seen it, but in my "Snarky Beta" essay
series I gave
some examples of changes my betas suggested to my original draft of
this story.
back to In Want of a Wife
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