P.SophyUnsigned | Chapter : 10 | Date : 23/02/07
A little, silent girl walking alone down one of Hogwart’s passages. Nobody around, just silence and the sunlight that filters through the windows, painting a motif of white and dark grey shades on the floor. There’s life in the castle, people in classrooms, spells cast every moment, but nothing gets there, where she is now, relieved to be alone and so tired, at the same time, because being unable to speak is being almost always alone. Just, not in her head, all those voices and screams never seem to leave her.
A secret passage, secret place, darker but more secure, nobody is going to find her there. Except for one. A warm hand grabs hers. A shy, worried, sweet look in his green eyes. A chance to hide her face in his chest, a chance to breath his smell, to look at the world in a different way, ‘cause they both know, they are not alone. Never will be.
The first impression I had of Voiceless has been like “wow…and now what’s going to happen?” I mean, can Hermione still be Hermione if she can’t speak? My dear –though sometimes irritating- miss Know-It-All can’t say a word! She’s so frail, so scared, her nightmares seem to drain all the strenght out of her..and yet she’s so Hermione! She’s different from the one we used to know, but it isn’t hard to recognize that this is the same girl, going through a different situation, going through something that could destroy a lot of persons, and still trying to resist, in all that desolation.
Silence is a magic dimension. What do you do with someone who cannot communicate? I can almost imagine the feelings of the people around her, they know that she suffers but they don’t know why, and they can’t help her, there’s a misterious, disquieting world inside of her and they can’t reach there. And, what is she going to do if she can’t speak at all? She is unabled to explain, to let anything out, she can’t even search the confort of confession. Totally alone. And all her moves become magic, they give other people the alien sensation of being in presence of a very familiar mime. She seems to disappear, even at school, the place where she used to be noticed for her sometimes insufferable intelligence. And so she chooses to disappear all by herself, hiding in secret places, friend of forgotten passages and cobwebs ( spiders are so silent too).
What happened to her? Where has she been? What did they do to her, and why? I felt all these questions rising, and I felt impatient for explanations, at least for clues. But, did you notice? Silence and haste don’t seem to go together so well. Silence puts you in an enchanted world, governed by his own rules. You can ask all the questions you want, you will get no answer. Wait, and see. There’s quiet everywhere, and hell inside.
Of course she’s not alone. A lot of noise around her, questions and cries and a lot of worried faces. Everybody’s trying to get something out of her. Where can she hide from all them? It’s pretty clear they are not able to help her, so couldn’t they just leave her in peace? Her mutism deepens, so lonely in the middle of so many people. Do they really need those worried or compassionate looks on their faces?
Dumbledore. He’s one of the greatest wizards of all time. He should know what to do. He must know what to do. And it is so sad to see him so discouraged, continually defeated by the fact that, no, still nothing. I mean, he is the adult, the pit of all knowledge, he’s so wise and able. As a reader, I would expect him to be always ready to face, and to defeat, anything. And so would his students. I felt so much pity for him, so old (for the first time, I actually realized that he is old), tired, worried. I could not blame him for anything, I could not say that Harry was right to scream against him, he seemed so exhausted, so puzzled. But I admired him for his strengh, when he kept on searching and trying and he accepted other’s blames with his usual (apparent) calm. He’s not a superhero, despite of his powers, but he’s undoubtely a great man.
So, they keep on tryng to heal Hermione pain. Trying to understand. Is there any serious danger? What can the dark forces do? They’ve been able to steal her from her house, so easily. There’s a tense atmosphere, a lot of suspence. What happened? What is going to happen from now on?
And, what about Draco Malfoy? That sly, deceitful, stupid little guy! He thinks that he is the big evil, that Voldemort really needs him! I was so angry at him! I mean, I was worried for Hermione, hoping that somebody could find a way to cure her, curious to know her secret, and suddenly there he is, playing is childish yet viscid game, trying to hurt her..I always hated that boy. If Voldemort can be great, in his own way of course, but quite scary, I find Malfoy just irritating and very hard to bear. And here he played his role, once more. Working in silence, following Hermione around, spying on her, using silly tricks when he can’t strike her directly, that is just so him! And it makes the plot even richer, introducing a quite surprising element: not only people at Hogwarts are curious to know what happened to Hermione, but Voldemort is, too. He could not understand why his try-outs, i.e. his tortures (he really is horrible, in many ways), didn’t work out. So what happened to that poor girl?
Here’s a totally new element, a new character. Tiresias. The blind prophet. We have a blind healer for a dumb student. Somebody who can’t speak, somebody who can’t see. There is a clear need for a different way to communicate. Vision is forbidden, “logos” is too. And still, Tiresias is able to sense something, he’s the one to guess the truth. Because he can understand things that go far beyond the appearances, he can sense feelings, even when they are unconcious to the people who actually feel them. What I found simply wonderful about him is his reserve at the things he’s discovering, he seems to know that it’s not right to enter other’s private feelings, because these are truths that don’t belong to strangers; and he’s inquiring into the feelings of two young persons, who haven’t descovered them yet; and it’s so delicate and precious, the birth of a young, strong, love. Tiresias seems to catch glimpses of it, and then to retreat, as if he felt like an intruder. His dialogues with Dumbledore are beautiful, these two wise men confronting with the discovery of such a wonder, so universally human and so surprising every time; these two old wizards finding out the real existence of a legendary spell…Both the new character and the new charm sound perfect to me. “The power of love”. Such an old, silly thing, good for people who buy chocolate on Valentine’s day...Well I’m sorry for all those people who have been so alone, for so long, that they’ve lost their faith in love and in this unique capacity that human beings have to form bounds strong enough to give meaning to your life and everything that’s in it. The “Cariad” is an invention that would definitely deserve to appear in one of Rowling’s books, as well as Tiresias. I think it’s genius the point when he hints at his past, he lets us have a glimpse of what his life was before these days, and we can understand that he is a character with an history, a deepness of his own, he doesn’t look like a character who’s been invented for this story but like someone who had a life of his own, and I am curious to know, now, what did he do before Dumbledore summoned him to get help?
But, as we mention the word “love”, I think it is time to speak of the other main character of this story. Hermione is not alone. There is always Harry by her side, and by “always” I really mean in every moment. Even the darkest one. There’s a new Harry in this story, he’s more adult, he seems stronger, so sweet, always taking care of her, trying to save her from pain and dangers, trying to make her feel calm..and so tragically incapable of doing that. He doesn’t want to scream, and she’s expecting him to; he does’t reproache her for giving back her pin, but she did that only to get a reaction out of him; he doesn’t know how to help her, he wants to find it out, and he has to face the fact that she’s silent to him too; and he can’t help blaming himself for what has happened. This Harry is really touching, with his mixture of rage, pain, tenderness, blame, insecurity and protective attitude. One moment he looks like a grown-up men, and the following he’s the child who screams at the top of his lungs against the “big ones” who are showing not so skilled, not so powerful as he would like them to be. I love the moments when he’s so shy with Hermione, because he doesn’t know what to say not to harm her; and I love when she gets so irritated at him, when they are so close, the reader can feel it, but then one of them says the wrong word… I love the slow, warm, hesitating way in which they find out what their feelings really are. I love their moments of passion, and the sweeter ones, I love the picture of the two of them sharing the same bed, conforting each other in the long dark nights. I’ve been moved by the strenght they seem to give to each other. And the people around them notice that. They seem to gravitate about each other, even when they are far, even when they’re among their mates, it’s like they’re in a bright, delicate bubble of light, and this is enough to make them sure that they can face a lot of things.
I think that their story is of unbelievable beauty. The way they hesitate, then they get closer, the secrets they hide each other, the way they take care of one another…with Hermione always unable to speak. He knows what she wants to say. She seems to become lighter, smaller, frailer, and he’s always there to wrap his arms around her, to make her feel good. But there’s always that pain, that secret inside of her, that makes him feel weak; and that thought inside her head, he was there with her…nothing’s easy, but all seems magic. I love when we see Ron, so sweet, so clumsy, he knows, he understands, he feels a bit jealous, and a bit happy for them, he tries to protect the both of them and he fails, maybe, anyway he’s so good; and still, he can’t understand entirely, neither Harry and Hermione do. When they feel embarassed of what they are discovering, they are so sweet! And when Hermione speaks ( well, when she mimes) with Ron, they sound so real, and she is Hermione Granger again, with her rising eyebrows and her tipical looks..
Every chapter, every word, all is so perfect!This is not a story that you read as a pastime waiting for the “real books” to be published, this a beautiful story written by a great author, that gives a lot to the ones who read it! The plot is beautiful, and the more you go on, the more you want to read further, you want to know what’s going to happen, and you fall in love for the characters, so real , so human, so touching.
But what really strikes me, is not the story, but the big attention for every detail: the dialogues, the different tone of the characters – I mean, you can understand who is speaking without any othes clue, just the style; and it’s great the way you show the difference between the way Harry speaks to Hermione or to Dumbledore, and the different emotions he lets out. The way the characters move, perfectly shows how they feel. Not to mention the beautiful descriptions of the castle, his passages and rooms, the depiction of atmospheres, the colours and smells, and the peculiar sensation I felt at certain points, that I could almost touch the things you described, that I could almost feel that warmth, all around me. Every word is at the right place; and if it’s hard to describe a world pervaded by silence, the absence of words adequate to express what they feel, well you succeded in it with an extraordinary skill.
If I can say that, it’s real poetry. This way of writing is able to create this world, the darker and the brighter corners of it, the happy and the terrifying situations, and it is something that a reader can feel, the different thickness of the air, the different temperature; I could feel the extreme heavy atmosphere of the encounter of Voldemort, I could touch the warm, soft cloth of Harry and Hermione’s sheets, I could imagine their passionate kisses as well as the funny dialogues with Ron. I felt like walking in the same world, and I felt sad when I had to leave it. Strong and beautiful like butterfly’s wings. It’s so sad to read the words “the end” on such a story, but I feel really thankful to you for this great gift, and this big emotion, and I’m sure that when I’ll think about Harry Potter, I will think about Voiceless too.
One last thing: your translator did a really good job! At least, that’s what I think, I can’t speak english very well as you might have noticed (sorry!) but I have read both versions (twice) and I loved them, and I think that Snivella really did all that she could to allow us to enjoy all the beautiful characteristics of your style and of your story. And she managed to create a wonderfully written beautiful “italian” story! I have to say thank you to the both of you for the love that shows out of your works. And please, please please please: go on writing these stories! Or whatever you want: I’ll be waiting to find out your new creations!
Have a good time in Australia
Silvia (p.sophy)
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Well, mainly cos you had a couple of questions.
