CHAPTER 6
Chapter 6 ~ Love Can More Than Hurt
”The poor boy,” Hermione whispered, her eyes glistening.
Snape didn’t respond. Suddenly, the heavy iron door opened and in walked Mrs. Lovett, followed by Sweeney Todd, the firelight flickering over their faces adding an more sinister cast to their drawn expressions. Mrs. Lovett’s eyes darted about.
”Toby! Where is he?” she breathed looking toward the dark, flickering shadows as they moved through the bakehouse. Todd followed, one hand behind his back.
”Toby!” he called as they both passed over the grate where the boy was hiding.
”Todd’s hiding a razor behind his back,” Hermione hissed as the blood-thirsty entered the sluice tunnel. Mrs. Lovett was singing sweetly an attempt to get the boy to show himself.
“Nothing’s gonna harm you, Not while I’m around,” she crooned
“Toby? “ Todd called in a frustrated voice.
“Where are you hiding?” Mrs. Lovett sang.
“Toby?” Todd called again, clearly frustrated.
Mrs. Lovett continued to try and draw Toby out. “Nothing’s gonna harm you, darling. Not while I’m around.”
Finally, Todd declared, “You wait for him here,” and hurriedly stalked out of the bake house.
Hermione breathed a sigh of relief.
”He’s gone,” she said. “Now, maybe Toby can get away. Maybe he’ll come out because only Mrs. Lovett is here.”
“He will leave here, eventually,” Snape replied watching Mrs. Lovett as she poked about, looking for the boy.
Hermione frowned at him. Knowing Snape, he didn’t necessarily mean Toby would be leaving under his own power. But she knew it would do no good to press him for more information.
For the next five minutes, they watched Mrs. Lovett look for Toby, calling the boy, trying to convince him it was safe to show himself, then cursing under her breath. Suddenly, the ceiling opened and another body tumbled out, landing on top of the dead Beadle.
Hermione gasped as both she and Mrs. Lovett hurried over to see Todd’s latest victim. Hermione’s eyes widened, as did Mrs. Lovett’s.
”Bloody hell,” the baker breathed. “Oh no. No! Not her!”
There was a note of abject fear in her voice.
”It’s the old woman that begged for coins in the street. Why would he kill the old woman? She was harmless,” Hermione breathed. She felt Snape’s hand on her shoulder.
”Come away,” he said softly. “It’s almost over.”
”It’s so senseless,” Hermione said tremulously as Snape led her to the far wall.
“No matter what you see or hear, Hermione, it is imperative you stay put,” he warned her.
The shimmers of the witch and wizard blended with the flickering firelight and they stood in silence for the next five minutes as Mrs. Lovett wrung her hands over the old woman, muttering.. Suddenly, the ceiling flew open and Judge Turpin hit the floor with a thud, landing on his back, blood gushing from his throat pooling around him.
Mrs. Lovett slowly approached him, leaning over the body. Suddenly, Judge Turpin lunged at her, grabbing the hem of her dress desperately, his mouth working.
Hermione was in shock, and in her shock she remembered . . . something like this occurring before. Snape’s dark eyes glittered and his jaw tightened as he looked at his double gasping, blood streaming freely from his throat and also remembered.
Both witch and wizard remembered when Nagini had bitten him and he was left to die on the floor of the Shrieking Shack and his desperate grab for the boy-who-lived, how he clutched him in his death throes. Seeing this bloody and similar end to Judge Turpin made Snape’s insides grow even colder than normal. Hermione trembled at the memory.
But that ending was different from this. From the shadows within the just-emptied shack, a shimmer appeared and dropped down next to him, swiping his wound with Phoenix Tears, pouring a vial of Blood Replenisher, then the coveted Felix Felicis down his throat. This treatment was followed by a Beazor being pushed between his bluing lips.
”Come on, Professor,” Hermione’s voice said softly. “I’ve come to help you. You have to live.”
When Snape responded, his eyes opening slowly, Hermione melted into view, a Time Turner around her neck and a smile on her lips.
Snape spit out the Bezoar.
“You should have let me die,” he rasped at her.
Hermione shook her head.
”Oh no. Not after all the good you’ve done, Professor and all the hell you put us through thinking you were the enemy. I’m not letting you get out of this ‘unsung hero’ role so easily. You’re going to suffer fame and adoration just like the rest of us, and to be honest, probably more since you’re such an insufferable, anti-social git. Now, let’s get back to the castle. Voldermort is dead, or will be shortly, thanks to you. And Harry, of course.”
Both Snape and Hermione snapped out of their memories as Mrs. Lovett screamed at the top of her lungs, tugging at her dress. Turpin had it in a death grip.
”DIE! God in heaven, Die!” she screamed as she managed to rip her dress from his grasp.
The judge rolled to his back and with a final gurgle, died.
Mrs. Lovett moved forward again, staring at the dead man, then her eyes shifted toward the old woman.
”You,” she breathed as if the murdered woman could hear her.
The sound of heavy footsteps sounded and Mrs. Lovett desperately grasped the old woman by the arm and started dragging her towards the oven.
The door to the bake shop crashed open and Todd strode in, looking like the madman he was. His face was streaked with blood, and his clothing covered in it. He still held the bloody razor in his hand. Obviously he wasn’t as meticulous as usual when he dispatched his nemesis. Judge Turpin met a very sticky end.
“Oh my gods, he’s covered in blood,” Hermione breathed.
”Your astounding ability to state the obvious always irritates me,” Snape replied snarkily. But the horror Hermione had just witnessed made his snide remark sail right over her head.
“Why did you scream?” Todd demanded.
Still dragging the old woman, Mrs. Lovett answered, “He was clutching onto me dress,
but he’s finished now.”
Todd noticed her dragging the body.
”I’ll take care of it,” he said, walking forward. “Open the door.”
Mrs. Lovett continued to drag the woman’s body as if she didn’t hear him. Todd walked up and tore her away from the corpse.
“Open the door, I said,” he hissed at her.
Mrs. Lovett backed away toward the oven, her face drawn as Todd rolled up his sleeves. She opened the oven door, revealing the huge roaring fire within, her eyes round.
Todd looked down, and he stiffened as he looked at the blood-soaked body. He moved closer, staring at it, then slowly kneeled and brushed the hair aside so he could see the woman’s profile. His eyes widened with recognition, then horror as he gently rolled her to her back, her familiar face clearly revealed.
In a broken voice, Todd intoned, “’Don’t I know you?’ she said. You knew she lived.”
”What’s going on?” Hermione asked. “Does he know her?”
”Yes,” Snape answered soberly.
Mrs. Lovett walked toward him.”
“I was only thinking of you.”
”You lied to me,” Todd said softly, his eyes fixed on the still face, the woman’s hard features softened by death. He looked up at Mrs. Lovett.
“No, no, not lied at all. No, I never lied,” Mrs. Lovett replied in song, a pleading note in her voice.
”Lucy . . . said she took a poison,” he murmured in tenor counterpoint as he looked back down.
Mrs. Lovett took another tentative step forward.
”She did, never said that she died,” Mrs. Lovett sang.
”Oh no,” Hermione exclaimed within the Silencing Spell, “Is that . . . oh that’s awful!”
Todd gently brushed back his dead wife’s hair.
”I’ve come home again,” he sung to her, his eyes glistening.
As much of a monster as Sweeney Todd was, Hermione couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He had resorted to revenge on the world when he believed his wife had died because of the shame Judge Turpin visited upon her, but she had lived. If only he had known, perhaps he wouldn’t have taken the bloody path he did. Hermione’s eyes were hard as they rested on Mrs. Lovett. She truly was as evil as Bellatrix LeStrange. And now that she had done this terrible thing, she tried to justify it. She sang to him desperately.
”Poor thing, she lived but it left her weak in the head. All she did for months was just lie there in bed. Should’ve been in hospital. Wound up in Bedlam instead. Poor thing!”
Todd knelt there unmoved.
“Better you should think she was dead.”
“Lucy…oh my god. What have I done?” Todd lamented.
“Yes, I lied ’cause I love you! I’d be twice the wife she was!” Mrs. Lovitt sang, encouraged now by her own boldness
“I love you! Could that thing have cared for you like me?” Mrs. Lovitt demanded, her voice ringing shrilly.
Suddenly, Todd stood up, his back to Mrs. Lovett and he began to sing brightly, almost joyously, his eyes gleaming.
“Mrs. Lovett, you’re a bloody wonder, eminently practical and yet appropriate as always. As you’ve said repeatedly there’s little point in dwelling on the past.”
He turned to face her. “Now, come here, my love,” he sang.
”Do you mean it?” she asked him, backing away. He still had the bloody razor in his hand.
Todd outstretched his arms.
”You have nothing to fear my love,” he replied, then began to waltz with Mrs. Lovitt.
”Oh, don’t tell me he’s forgiven her? How could he when she lied to him? All of this killing could have been avoided if only she had told him the truth about his wife. That she lived.” Hermione said as they whirled around the bake house.
”She was lonely and selfish,” Snape responded. “Love can be very sticky indeed. Overly so, in this case.”
The couple whirled faster and faster, moving closer and closer to the open oven door, Todd’s voice growing more enthusiastic . . . Mrs. Lovett explaining everything as they danced. Todd’s voice overpowered hers.
The history of the world, my pet
Is learn forgiveness and try to forget
And life is for the alive, my dear
So let’s keep living it
Just keep living it, really living it!
Just keep living it, really living it!
Todd roared the final line and slung Mrs. Lovitt into the open oven, the flames engulfing her as she screamed, the hot pie grate falling in front of her ignited body, blocking her escape.
“No!!!!” Hermione screamed, not expecting this grisly ending to the dance.
Todd looked in at the blackening, crisping, flailing woman coldly, then slammed the door on her screams. He looked in the window once more, then closed that too, bringing an sizzling end to the treacherous Mrs. Lovitt.
“I must say,” Snape’s shimmer quipped as Todd returned to the corpse of his wife and dropped his razor on the floor. “Mrs. Lovitt certainly went out in a blaze of glory.”
“Oh spare me, would you?” Hermione hissed, shuddering.
Behind a mourning Todd, a floor grate slowly and silently began to lift.
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A/N: Another chapter. I had to watch the last scene of Sweeney Todd several times over to write this chapter. It’s so grisly. Ack! But I did it, wincing the whole time. Lol. Thanks for reading. 🙂