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a_t_rainIn which Severus forms his first impressions of the Danish royal family and draws some partially correct and partially erroneous conclusions about The Murder of Gonzago; and the story, rather improbably, acquires a plot.
Part One can be found here. About 85% of the dialogue in this section is Shakespeare's, rather than mine.
Act Two: The Murder of Gonzago
Severus had no very high opinion of royalty. Tobias Snape had always referred to them as “overbred wankers,” and this was one of the few topics upon which father and son were in agreement.
His first meeting with King Claudius of Denmark did not induce him to revise his opinion. The king, a florid-looking man in his early fifties, sipped incessantly from a tankard of wine, although it was only midday. He was still vaguely handsome, and he smiled a great deal, but Severus thought that ten more years would turn him into a broken-down drunk.
The portrait of old King Hamlet in the presence-chamber showed a man of a different mold: lean and grim-looking, in full battle armor. He must have been at least sixty when the portrait was painted, although his widow – Queen Gertrude – seemed nearer to forty than fifty. She must have been little more than a child when she married her first husband; Severus wasn’t surprised that she had chosen to seek consolation elsewhere after his death.
Claudius and Gertrude gave the visitors their instructions: they were to bear Hamlet company, encourage him to divert himself with any of the pleasures the court afforded, and try to glean what was troubling him. Guildenstern did most of the talking, while Snape merely nodded. It seemed easy enough.
“Thanks ... Rosencrantz.” The king looked from Severus to Guildenstern for a moment, apparently confused, and finally offered his hand to Guildenstern, who bowed and kissed it. “And gentle Guildenstern,” he added, turning to Severus.
“Thanks, Guildenstern,” the queen corrected, “and gentle ... Rosencrantz?” Her eyes rested on Severus; she was apparently not quite satisfied, and he decided that she might well prove more dangerous than her husband. “And I beseech you instantly to visit my too much changed son. Go, some of you, and bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.”
Guildenstern bowed again. “Heavens make our presence and our practices pleasant and helpful to him!”
* * *
The Lord Chamberlain, an excessively talkative old fool named Polonius, ushered them in to Hamlet’s presence an hour later. At first Severus thought that he was, unbelievably, about to get away with the impersonation, for Hamlet greeted him as “Rosencrantz” and seemed to notice nothing amiss. The prince was plainly distracted, responding vaguely to Guildenstern’s queries and claiming that he could be bounded in a nutshell and count himself a king of infinite space, were it not that he had bad dreams.
He was insane, Severus decided, which was just as well.
Then Hamlet gave them both a shrewd look and asked, “What make you at Elsinore?”
Caught off guard, Guildenstern shot a guilty look at Severus.
“To visit you, my lord,” said Severus blandly, “no other occasion.”
“Were you not sent for?” Hamlet demanded. “Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, deal justly with me; come, come, nay, speak.”
Guildenstern blushed furiously. Severus tried to pull up the hood of his cloak to conceal his features. He had cast a few Appearance Charms on himself before entering the Danish court, but he could not hope to pull off a perfect impersonation without Polyjuice, and there had been no time to brew any.
“What should we say, my lord?” Guildenstern asked.
“Why, anything, but to the purpose. You were sent for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks which your modesties have not craft enough to cover. I know the good king and queen have sent for you.”
After exchanging the briefest of glances, Severus and Guildenstern decided to confess that they had, indeed, been sent for.
Hamlet, as it turned out, also knew why they had been sent for, and proceeded to tell them about his melancholy at great length. Severus found his conversation tedious in the extreme, and had just started to relax when Hamlet suddenly turned to him and said, pointedly, “I am but mad north-north-west; when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.”
Mad or sane, Prince Hamlet was evidently not as much of a fool as the rest of the court. Severus had no time to decide how to react to this when Polonius interrupted them, with the actors following close behind.
Hamlet elected not to expose the deception to Polonius. Evidently he was playing a game of his own, one that Severus did not understand. He commanded one of the actors to deliver an excessively long speech about the slaughter of King Priam and the grief of Hecuba, and then ordered them to perform a play called “The Murder of Gonzago” on the following evening before dismissing everyone from his company.
“We bore it off well enough, I think,” said Guildenstern as they went up to the chambers that had been prepared for them.
“Not so well,” Severus replied. “He knows.”
“How? Did you tell him?”
“Of course not, fool. But he isn’t an idiot or a lunatic. I don’t know what he is, but he’s certainly not as stupid as you are.”
* * *
Severus and Guildenstern reported to the king and queen on the following morning. By mutual agreement, they placed as rosy a construction as possible on their conversation with Hamlet, and refrained from mentioning that the prince had exposed them as Claudius’s pawns within five minutes of their meeting. Claudius seemed pleased that his stepson had taken an interest in the dramatic arts, and promised to attend the play that evening. From what he had seen of the prince, Severus suspected that Hamlet rarely took an interest in anything besides himself.
The play was to begin after supper. Severus resigned himself to several hours of boredom, but as it turned out, the theatrical interlude that followed was brief and decidedly interesting.
As soon as they entered the hall where the play was to be performed, along with the lords and ladies of the court, Guildenstern exclaimed, “O, we are lost!” and ordered Severus to keep his head down.
“And you – keep your voice down!” Severus hissed. “What’s the matter now?”
“The king never warned us that he was here. That is Horatio, Hamlet’s dearest friend from Wittenberg. He’ll know you from Rosencrantz, even if no one else does. Take heed that he marks you not.”
Severus took a seat in the back of the hall and snuffed out the candles in the bracket above him. This vantage point gave him an excellent view of the rest of the court as they took their seats. Polonius whispered something to the king and looked meaningfully at Hamlet, who had seated himself on a cushion at the edge of the stage, next to a fair-haired, fragile-looking girl who had been introduced to Severus as Polonius’s daughter. He said something to her that caused her to blush and giggle, and the actors entered with a flourish of oboes.
Severus did not pay a great deal of attention to the dumb show that preceded the play, and neither did the rest of the court, except for Polonius’s daughter, who watched with an increasingly puzzled expression on her face and turned to ask Hamlet a question.
One of the actors reentered, dressed as a king, and began to speak.
Full thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart gone round
Neptune’s salt wash and Tellus’s orbed ground,
And thirty dozen moons with borrowed sheen
About the world have times twelve thirties been...
Severus yawned. Was this a play, or a problem in Arithmancy?
It did not take the other members of the audience long to grow restless. By the end of the first scene, Hamlet seemed to be in the middle of a lively conversation with his mother and stepfather, and when the villain entered, it was a minute or two before Hamlet and his little girlfriend allowed him to get a word in edgewise.
Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;
Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property
On wholesome life usurp immediately.
Severus noted that Lucianus’s technique was off; one gathered hebenon, as he supposed the poison was meant to be, at noon rather than midnight, and if one had any sense one handled it with gloves rather than one’s bare hands. More interesting, however, was the fact that the playwright knew of the poison’s existence at all.
He was the only member of the audience who observed the performance with such clinical detachment. When Lucianus poured the poison into the king’s ear, Claudius sprang to his feet and called for lights. Gertrude tugged anxiously at his sleeve; Hamlet gave a whoop of triumph and exclaimed, “What, frighted with false fire!” The performance broke up in confusion, and Severus made a hasty retreat as a number of servants rushed in with torches.
He made his way to the battlements of the castle, which were deserted except for a few guards, and paced about, trying to think. The king had been very offended by the play; that was clear. That chit of the Lord Chamberlain’s had been upset about something, too. Severus knew of only one substance that killed by being poured into the victim’s ear, and hebenon was a a wizarding poison. Was the playwright a wizard himself? That seemed unlikely; why would a wizard be writing plays for the Muggle stage? But he must have been someone who had knowledge of the wizarding world, if only through old wives’ tales. Did he know of a particular murder that had been committed that way? Might that account for the king’s reaction? If so, there must surely be a witch or wizard at the court, or at the least someone who had dealings with one.
Who, though? Severus considered Claudius. He had never heard of wizardry cropping up in any of the royal families of Muggle Europe, but something about the play had obviously struck a chord with the king. Yet, if Claudius were a wizard and had poisoned someone, why had he chosen to make a public scene and flee when he might just as easily have Confunded the rest of the audience?
His next thought was Polonius, but he dismissed this even more quickly. It was true that wizards had often found places as trusted advisors of medieval and Renaissance kings, but the man was patently a Muggle or a Squib. He had a family, though; what about his wife? A gifted witch might have been able to maneuver her husband into a powerful position at court, and sometimes witches did marry Muggles for inscrutable reasons; his own family was a case in point...
Hamlet? Severus stiffened, remembering that Hamlet had actually written part of the play. Oh, yes. The prince – be he mad, melancholic, magical, or merely a dreadful poet – would bear watching. Severus felt a twinge of annoyance that he would have to be the one to watch him, but Guildenstern was plainly unfit for the task.
His thoughts were interrupted by one of the guard. “You had best go within doors, sir; this night air is not healthy.”
“My health is no concern of yours,” snapped Severus.
The guard hesitated for a moment. “There have been strange sights abroad,” he said at last. “Those who need not stand guard should keep to their chambers at this hour.”
“What sort of strange sights?” Severus asked.
There was an even longer pause. “They say the old king doth walk about o’nights,” said the guard reluctantly. “I have not seen him, but I have heard he goes about in armor, and looks pale with anger, but he will not speak no word to any man.”
Stranger and stranger, Severus thought. Ghost or Inferius? “Have any of the people who saw him lived to tell the tale?”
“Aye, Captain Marcellus has, and Bernardo too. They brought Horatio to see him, but I know not whether he walked that night.”
“When was this?”
“Some two months past, sir. I have not heard of him walking since, but Horatio would know.”
So the old king had become a ghost, which implied that he had been a wizard as well. The pieces were beginning to fit together; he was almost sure he knew how King Hamlet had met his death, and by whose hand. He deigned to allow the guard to escort him inside the castle.
He intended to go directly to his bedchamber, but the queen buttonholed him in the corridor. “Good Rosencrantz, I would have you seek out my son and tell him I must speak with him in my closet ere he goes to bed. The king his father is in high choler, and I myself am amazed at his behavior. Tell him I am in the greatest affliction of spirit until I speak with him.”
Severus could think of no suitable excuse, so he hurried down to the great hall to deliver his message. Unluckily, Horatio was present; still more unluckily, Hamlet sent out for some recorders and proceeded to give Guildenstern a well-deserved dressing-down.
“Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. ‘Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me!”
It was time, Severus decided, to drop all pretense. Horatio was staring at him, and there seemed to be little point in going forward with the charade.
“Give the woe-is-me act a rest, Hamlet,” he said in a tone of intense boredom. “Whatever the courtiers may have permitted you to think, you are not in any way profound or unique.”
Hamlet rounded on him. “And as for thou,” he said imperiously, “I know not who thou art nor why my uncle installed thee in the castle, but I would have thee remember that thou stay’st here but by my sufferance!”
“Why, my lord,” said Guildenstern desperately, “are you well? Know you not Rosencrantz, your old friend and school-fellow?”
“Stay out of this, cretin,” said Severus. “Back against the wall. You too, Horatio.” He reached for his wand, judging that Hamlet was about to do the same. Unless he missed his guess, the prince of Denmark was both a powerful wizard and a murderer, and he had no particular desire for the Muggles to get caught in the crossfire.
He wondered, with rather more excitement than apprehension, what dueling would be like in the lawless times before modern regulations. He was not the sort of young man who was very attached to his life, and a part of him craved absolute license.
But before any duel could break out, the door burst open and Polonius bustled straight into the line of fire. “My lord,” he said to Hamlet, “the queen would speak with you, and presently.”
Severus lowered his hand. He had almost sliced the old fool’s face open, which would have been gratifying but difficult to explain, and he had a definite sense that the scene had just degenerated into farce.
“Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?” asked Hamlet, squinting at the casement.
Polonius nodded knowingly. “By the mass, and ‘tis like a camel indeed.”
“Methinks it is like a weasel.”
“It is backed like a weasel.”
“Or like a whale?”
“Very like a whale.”
It seemed clear to Severus that there was a veiled threat in the conversation, and the message was meant for him: if Hamlet was able to perform a wandless Confundus Charm on Polonius with his back turned, he was quite capable of doing worse to Severus. He threw up a subtle Shield Charm, but it puzzled him that he had not been attacked already.
* * *
When Hamlet at last obeyed his mother’s summons, Guildenstern hurried off to report to the king and Severus was left alone with Horatio. He was weighing the merits of an ordinary Memory Charm versus something more powerful but more liable to cause permanent damage, when Horatio finally spoke. “I shall not ask you who you are,” he said, “but I must warn you that the game you are playing is dangerous.”
Severus raised an eyebrow. “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Forgive me for being so direct, but Prince Hamlet thinks you are an intelligencer in the king’s pay. Are you?”
“No.” Severus decided to tell a partial version of the truth. “I came only because Rosencrantz suffered a slight accident just before he and Guildenstern were due to depart, and Guildenstern insisted on having my company and presenting me to the king as Rosencrantz. Why, I do not know, but I caused the accident, so I thought it would be better to oblige him.”
“Have you any intention of spying on Hamlet for the king?”
“No,” said Severus truthfully. If Claudius was too stupid to see that Hamlet had murdered his father and intended to murder his uncle, it was not his affair. In any case, he thought that Claudius was not that stupid. The play had been a taunt – foolishly, Hamlet had not been able to resist bragging about his crime – and the king had recognized it for what it was.
“Good. He despises intelligencers, and he has not been fully himself since his father died; that is why he gave you such rude entertainment today. As a rule he is far more courteous to strangers. If I were you I would make it clear that you are not his uncle’s man; that is the fastest way to win his love, and believe me, it is worth the winning.”
“Thank you for the advice,” said Severus, careful to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. He was not sure what he made of Horatio. He was a friend of Hamlet’s, and perhaps an accessory to the old king’s murder, but his courtesy, and his anxiety that Severus should not think badly of the prince, seemed genuine. Indeed, that was part of what troubled Severus; in his experience, people just weren’t that nice without an ulterior motive.
But at any rate, Horatio did not seem to pose any immediate threat. Severus decided not to Obliviate him, and hoped he wouldn’t live to regret his decision.
* * *
No one in Elsinore slept that night, with the possible exception of the wretched players who had started all the trouble. One of the palace servants called Severus and Guildenstern into the king’s chamber at two o’clock in the morning. Gertrude was nearly in tears; Claudius’s face was pale with anger as he informed them that Hamlet had killed Polonius in his madness, dragged the body from the queen’s closet, and concealed it somewhere in the palace.
“And what, precisely, are we supposed to do about that?” Severus asked.
“Go seek him out, speak fair, and bring the body into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this.”
Severus stifled a groan. The only person he wanted to seek out was Dr. Faustus, so that he could have the pleasure of wringing the man’s neck in person – after finding out how to get back to the twentieth century, of course. He was about to tell Claudius that he was neither a coroner nor a garbage collector, when a sudden thought struck him cold.
There could be only one possible reason to hide the corpse. Hamlet was planning to create an Inferius.
Grudgingly, angrily, wondering why he was going to so much trouble to save a bunch of ignorant Muggles from a miserable death, Severus set out to hunt for a body.
Part One can be found here. About 85% of the dialogue in this section is Shakespeare's, rather than mine.
Act Two: The Murder of Gonzago
Severus had no very high opinion of royalty. Tobias Snape had always referred to them as “overbred wankers,” and this was one of the few topics upon which father and son were in agreement.
His first meeting with King Claudius of Denmark did not induce him to revise his opinion. The king, a florid-looking man in his early fifties, sipped incessantly from a tankard of wine, although it was only midday. He was still vaguely handsome, and he smiled a great deal, but Severus thought that ten more years would turn him into a broken-down drunk.
The portrait of old King Hamlet in the presence-chamber showed a man of a different mold: lean and grim-looking, in full battle armor. He must have been at least sixty when the portrait was painted, although his widow – Queen Gertrude – seemed nearer to forty than fifty. She must have been little more than a child when she married her first husband; Severus wasn’t surprised that she had chosen to seek consolation elsewhere after his death.
Claudius and Gertrude gave the visitors their instructions: they were to bear Hamlet company, encourage him to divert himself with any of the pleasures the court afforded, and try to glean what was troubling him. Guildenstern did most of the talking, while Snape merely nodded. It seemed easy enough.
“Thanks ... Rosencrantz.” The king looked from Severus to Guildenstern for a moment, apparently confused, and finally offered his hand to Guildenstern, who bowed and kissed it. “And gentle Guildenstern,” he added, turning to Severus.
“Thanks, Guildenstern,” the queen corrected, “and gentle ... Rosencrantz?” Her eyes rested on Severus; she was apparently not quite satisfied, and he decided that she might well prove more dangerous than her husband. “And I beseech you instantly to visit my too much changed son. Go, some of you, and bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.”
Guildenstern bowed again. “Heavens make our presence and our practices pleasant and helpful to him!”
* * *
The Lord Chamberlain, an excessively talkative old fool named Polonius, ushered them in to Hamlet’s presence an hour later. At first Severus thought that he was, unbelievably, about to get away with the impersonation, for Hamlet greeted him as “Rosencrantz” and seemed to notice nothing amiss. The prince was plainly distracted, responding vaguely to Guildenstern’s queries and claiming that he could be bounded in a nutshell and count himself a king of infinite space, were it not that he had bad dreams.
He was insane, Severus decided, which was just as well.
Then Hamlet gave them both a shrewd look and asked, “What make you at Elsinore?”
Caught off guard, Guildenstern shot a guilty look at Severus.
“To visit you, my lord,” said Severus blandly, “no other occasion.”
“Were you not sent for?” Hamlet demanded. “Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, deal justly with me; come, come, nay, speak.”
Guildenstern blushed furiously. Severus tried to pull up the hood of his cloak to conceal his features. He had cast a few Appearance Charms on himself before entering the Danish court, but he could not hope to pull off a perfect impersonation without Polyjuice, and there had been no time to brew any.
“What should we say, my lord?” Guildenstern asked.
“Why, anything, but to the purpose. You were sent for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks which your modesties have not craft enough to cover. I know the good king and queen have sent for you.”
After exchanging the briefest of glances, Severus and Guildenstern decided to confess that they had, indeed, been sent for.
Hamlet, as it turned out, also knew why they had been sent for, and proceeded to tell them about his melancholy at great length. Severus found his conversation tedious in the extreme, and had just started to relax when Hamlet suddenly turned to him and said, pointedly, “I am but mad north-north-west; when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.”
Mad or sane, Prince Hamlet was evidently not as much of a fool as the rest of the court. Severus had no time to decide how to react to this when Polonius interrupted them, with the actors following close behind.
Hamlet elected not to expose the deception to Polonius. Evidently he was playing a game of his own, one that Severus did not understand. He commanded one of the actors to deliver an excessively long speech about the slaughter of King Priam and the grief of Hecuba, and then ordered them to perform a play called “The Murder of Gonzago” on the following evening before dismissing everyone from his company.
“We bore it off well enough, I think,” said Guildenstern as they went up to the chambers that had been prepared for them.
“Not so well,” Severus replied. “He knows.”
“How? Did you tell him?”
“Of course not, fool. But he isn’t an idiot or a lunatic. I don’t know what he is, but he’s certainly not as stupid as you are.”
* * *
Severus and Guildenstern reported to the king and queen on the following morning. By mutual agreement, they placed as rosy a construction as possible on their conversation with Hamlet, and refrained from mentioning that the prince had exposed them as Claudius’s pawns within five minutes of their meeting. Claudius seemed pleased that his stepson had taken an interest in the dramatic arts, and promised to attend the play that evening. From what he had seen of the prince, Severus suspected that Hamlet rarely took an interest in anything besides himself.
The play was to begin after supper. Severus resigned himself to several hours of boredom, but as it turned out, the theatrical interlude that followed was brief and decidedly interesting.
As soon as they entered the hall where the play was to be performed, along with the lords and ladies of the court, Guildenstern exclaimed, “O, we are lost!” and ordered Severus to keep his head down.
“And you – keep your voice down!” Severus hissed. “What’s the matter now?”
“The king never warned us that he was here. That is Horatio, Hamlet’s dearest friend from Wittenberg. He’ll know you from Rosencrantz, even if no one else does. Take heed that he marks you not.”
Severus took a seat in the back of the hall and snuffed out the candles in the bracket above him. This vantage point gave him an excellent view of the rest of the court as they took their seats. Polonius whispered something to the king and looked meaningfully at Hamlet, who had seated himself on a cushion at the edge of the stage, next to a fair-haired, fragile-looking girl who had been introduced to Severus as Polonius’s daughter. He said something to her that caused her to blush and giggle, and the actors entered with a flourish of oboes.
Severus did not pay a great deal of attention to the dumb show that preceded the play, and neither did the rest of the court, except for Polonius’s daughter, who watched with an increasingly puzzled expression on her face and turned to ask Hamlet a question.
One of the actors reentered, dressed as a king, and began to speak.
Full thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart gone round
Neptune’s salt wash and Tellus’s orbed ground,
And thirty dozen moons with borrowed sheen
About the world have times twelve thirties been...
Severus yawned. Was this a play, or a problem in Arithmancy?
It did not take the other members of the audience long to grow restless. By the end of the first scene, Hamlet seemed to be in the middle of a lively conversation with his mother and stepfather, and when the villain entered, it was a minute or two before Hamlet and his little girlfriend allowed him to get a word in edgewise.
Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;
Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property
On wholesome life usurp immediately.
Severus noted that Lucianus’s technique was off; one gathered hebenon, as he supposed the poison was meant to be, at noon rather than midnight, and if one had any sense one handled it with gloves rather than one’s bare hands. More interesting, however, was the fact that the playwright knew of the poison’s existence at all.
He was the only member of the audience who observed the performance with such clinical detachment. When Lucianus poured the poison into the king’s ear, Claudius sprang to his feet and called for lights. Gertrude tugged anxiously at his sleeve; Hamlet gave a whoop of triumph and exclaimed, “What, frighted with false fire!” The performance broke up in confusion, and Severus made a hasty retreat as a number of servants rushed in with torches.
He made his way to the battlements of the castle, which were deserted except for a few guards, and paced about, trying to think. The king had been very offended by the play; that was clear. That chit of the Lord Chamberlain’s had been upset about something, too. Severus knew of only one substance that killed by being poured into the victim’s ear, and hebenon was a a wizarding poison. Was the playwright a wizard himself? That seemed unlikely; why would a wizard be writing plays for the Muggle stage? But he must have been someone who had knowledge of the wizarding world, if only through old wives’ tales. Did he know of a particular murder that had been committed that way? Might that account for the king’s reaction? If so, there must surely be a witch or wizard at the court, or at the least someone who had dealings with one.
Who, though? Severus considered Claudius. He had never heard of wizardry cropping up in any of the royal families of Muggle Europe, but something about the play had obviously struck a chord with the king. Yet, if Claudius were a wizard and had poisoned someone, why had he chosen to make a public scene and flee when he might just as easily have Confunded the rest of the audience?
His next thought was Polonius, but he dismissed this even more quickly. It was true that wizards had often found places as trusted advisors of medieval and Renaissance kings, but the man was patently a Muggle or a Squib. He had a family, though; what about his wife? A gifted witch might have been able to maneuver her husband into a powerful position at court, and sometimes witches did marry Muggles for inscrutable reasons; his own family was a case in point...
Hamlet? Severus stiffened, remembering that Hamlet had actually written part of the play. Oh, yes. The prince – be he mad, melancholic, magical, or merely a dreadful poet – would bear watching. Severus felt a twinge of annoyance that he would have to be the one to watch him, but Guildenstern was plainly unfit for the task.
His thoughts were interrupted by one of the guard. “You had best go within doors, sir; this night air is not healthy.”
“My health is no concern of yours,” snapped Severus.
The guard hesitated for a moment. “There have been strange sights abroad,” he said at last. “Those who need not stand guard should keep to their chambers at this hour.”
“What sort of strange sights?” Severus asked.
There was an even longer pause. “They say the old king doth walk about o’nights,” said the guard reluctantly. “I have not seen him, but I have heard he goes about in armor, and looks pale with anger, but he will not speak no word to any man.”
Stranger and stranger, Severus thought. Ghost or Inferius? “Have any of the people who saw him lived to tell the tale?”
“Aye, Captain Marcellus has, and Bernardo too. They brought Horatio to see him, but I know not whether he walked that night.”
“When was this?”
“Some two months past, sir. I have not heard of him walking since, but Horatio would know.”
So the old king had become a ghost, which implied that he had been a wizard as well. The pieces were beginning to fit together; he was almost sure he knew how King Hamlet had met his death, and by whose hand. He deigned to allow the guard to escort him inside the castle.
He intended to go directly to his bedchamber, but the queen buttonholed him in the corridor. “Good Rosencrantz, I would have you seek out my son and tell him I must speak with him in my closet ere he goes to bed. The king his father is in high choler, and I myself am amazed at his behavior. Tell him I am in the greatest affliction of spirit until I speak with him.”
Severus could think of no suitable excuse, so he hurried down to the great hall to deliver his message. Unluckily, Horatio was present; still more unluckily, Hamlet sent out for some recorders and proceeded to give Guildenstern a well-deserved dressing-down.
“Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. ‘Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me!”
It was time, Severus decided, to drop all pretense. Horatio was staring at him, and there seemed to be little point in going forward with the charade.
“Give the woe-is-me act a rest, Hamlet,” he said in a tone of intense boredom. “Whatever the courtiers may have permitted you to think, you are not in any way profound or unique.”
Hamlet rounded on him. “And as for thou,” he said imperiously, “I know not who thou art nor why my uncle installed thee in the castle, but I would have thee remember that thou stay’st here but by my sufferance!”
“Why, my lord,” said Guildenstern desperately, “are you well? Know you not Rosencrantz, your old friend and school-fellow?”
“Stay out of this, cretin,” said Severus. “Back against the wall. You too, Horatio.” He reached for his wand, judging that Hamlet was about to do the same. Unless he missed his guess, the prince of Denmark was both a powerful wizard and a murderer, and he had no particular desire for the Muggles to get caught in the crossfire.
He wondered, with rather more excitement than apprehension, what dueling would be like in the lawless times before modern regulations. He was not the sort of young man who was very attached to his life, and a part of him craved absolute license.
But before any duel could break out, the door burst open and Polonius bustled straight into the line of fire. “My lord,” he said to Hamlet, “the queen would speak with you, and presently.”
Severus lowered his hand. He had almost sliced the old fool’s face open, which would have been gratifying but difficult to explain, and he had a definite sense that the scene had just degenerated into farce.
“Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?” asked Hamlet, squinting at the casement.
Polonius nodded knowingly. “By the mass, and ‘tis like a camel indeed.”
“Methinks it is like a weasel.”
“It is backed like a weasel.”
“Or like a whale?”
“Very like a whale.”
It seemed clear to Severus that there was a veiled threat in the conversation, and the message was meant for him: if Hamlet was able to perform a wandless Confundus Charm on Polonius with his back turned, he was quite capable of doing worse to Severus. He threw up a subtle Shield Charm, but it puzzled him that he had not been attacked already.
* * *
When Hamlet at last obeyed his mother’s summons, Guildenstern hurried off to report to the king and Severus was left alone with Horatio. He was weighing the merits of an ordinary Memory Charm versus something more powerful but more liable to cause permanent damage, when Horatio finally spoke. “I shall not ask you who you are,” he said, “but I must warn you that the game you are playing is dangerous.”
Severus raised an eyebrow. “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Forgive me for being so direct, but Prince Hamlet thinks you are an intelligencer in the king’s pay. Are you?”
“No.” Severus decided to tell a partial version of the truth. “I came only because Rosencrantz suffered a slight accident just before he and Guildenstern were due to depart, and Guildenstern insisted on having my company and presenting me to the king as Rosencrantz. Why, I do not know, but I caused the accident, so I thought it would be better to oblige him.”
“Have you any intention of spying on Hamlet for the king?”
“No,” said Severus truthfully. If Claudius was too stupid to see that Hamlet had murdered his father and intended to murder his uncle, it was not his affair. In any case, he thought that Claudius was not that stupid. The play had been a taunt – foolishly, Hamlet had not been able to resist bragging about his crime – and the king had recognized it for what it was.
“Good. He despises intelligencers, and he has not been fully himself since his father died; that is why he gave you such rude entertainment today. As a rule he is far more courteous to strangers. If I were you I would make it clear that you are not his uncle’s man; that is the fastest way to win his love, and believe me, it is worth the winning.”
“Thank you for the advice,” said Severus, careful to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. He was not sure what he made of Horatio. He was a friend of Hamlet’s, and perhaps an accessory to the old king’s murder, but his courtesy, and his anxiety that Severus should not think badly of the prince, seemed genuine. Indeed, that was part of what troubled Severus; in his experience, people just weren’t that nice without an ulterior motive.
But at any rate, Horatio did not seem to pose any immediate threat. Severus decided not to Obliviate him, and hoped he wouldn’t live to regret his decision.
* * *
No one in Elsinore slept that night, with the possible exception of the wretched players who had started all the trouble. One of the palace servants called Severus and Guildenstern into the king’s chamber at two o’clock in the morning. Gertrude was nearly in tears; Claudius’s face was pale with anger as he informed them that Hamlet had killed Polonius in his madness, dragged the body from the queen’s closet, and concealed it somewhere in the palace.
“And what, precisely, are we supposed to do about that?” Severus asked.
“Go seek him out, speak fair, and bring the body into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this.”
Severus stifled a groan. The only person he wanted to seek out was Dr. Faustus, so that he could have the pleasure of wringing the man’s neck in person – after finding out how to get back to the twentieth century, of course. He was about to tell Claudius that he was neither a coroner nor a garbage collector, when a sudden thought struck him cold.
There could be only one possible reason to hide the corpse. Hamlet was planning to create an Inferius.
Grudgingly, angrily, wondering why he was going to so much trouble to save a bunch of ignorant Muggles from a miserable death, Severus set out to hunt for a body.
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no subject
Date: 2008-12-16 04:36 am (UTC)Mad or sane, Prince Hamlet was evidently not as much of a fool as the rest of the court.
Well, it's not like most of them had any reason to remember Rosencrantz as well. Such as it is.
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Date: 2008-12-16 03:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-16 06:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-16 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-16 09:24 am (UTC)Severus had no very high opinion of royalty. Tobias Snape had always referred to them as “overbred wankers,” and this was one of the few topics upon which father and son were in agreement.
Heh. Well, at least they'd have something to bring them together at Christmas....
Poor stupid Polonius. Do you think he'd be more life-like as an Inferius (and I love the way Snape can't think there might be other reasons to hide a body.
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Date: 2008-12-16 03:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-16 01:55 pm (UTC)From what he had seen of the prince, Severus suspected that Hamlet rarely took an interest in anything besides himself.
Oh, so true. Hamlet really is lost inside his own head, isn't he?
Snape's conclusions actually make a lot of sense in context, particularly since he's an outsider and coming into the narrative as someone with absolutely no idea what has happened. And Hamlet's 'madness' interpreted by a wizard is fascinating, particularly his conversations with Polonius. Loved the Confundus bit in particular, even though Polonius really doesn't need a Confundus Charm to be completely baffled.
As for him turning into an Inferius, I'd be very curious to see how he'd act...
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Date: 2008-12-16 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-16 03:49 pm (UTC)This had me laughing with tears. It should be made into an icon.
This is awesome, I love it.
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Date: 2008-12-16 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-16 04:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-16 04:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-16 09:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-21 09:08 am (UTC)Please go on! I'm not one to beg, but in this case, I'll make an exception: Please write more!
no subject
Date: 2008-12-21 03:14 pm (UTC)