Fic Post: Hotel Transylvania
Title: Hotel Transylvania Pairing: Snape/Lupin pre-slash Rating: PG Summary: A Muggle construction project in Spinner's End wreaks havoc. Note: this began as a series of drabbles in the Snape100 and Lupin100 communities
The crane loomed over the open foundation like some prehistoric beast. Remus squinted at the neatly printed sign.
"'Future site of the Hotel Transylvania. Hard hat area. Trespassers will be prosecuted.'" He turned to Severus, who was glaring at the concrete pit with the same expression he usually reserved for mentions of Sirius Black. "It's a construction zone."
Severus bared his teeth at the sign. "It's part of a coordinated effort to bring tourism to the North. That means restaurants. Shops. Muggles."
"I'm not sure what you want me to do."
"It's a block from my house."
"Oh. Dear me."
*****
"Severus. I thought this already was a Muggle neighborhood." Remus leaned forward to get a better look at the foundation hole.
"The old neighbors left me alone. Tourists staying at a vampire-themed hotel?" Severus glared at the glossy sign from Northern Darkness Properties, Incorporated. "I've already had one of the investors ask if I wanted a job!"
Remus forced back a laugh. "Well, if you didn't wear a cloak in public - "
"I was wearing Muggle clothes. Do you think I'm stupid?" Severus had turned an alarming shade of red. "I've always lived here. I don't want to move."
*****
Remus bit back a comment about even a vampire-themed hotel livening up the grim old Northern town. "What do you want me to do? I'm neither a solicitor nor a saboteur."
"You're a werewolf! Haunt them! Piss on the foundation!" Severus thrust his hands in his pockets as a cold north wind whipped down the street.
"That I will not. Moony isn't a weapon," said Remus, a bit too crisply. "The workers have done nothing wrong."
"I should have known better than to ask."
Remus kicked at a lump of concrete. "Maybe I could do some research on the land."
*****
"The land? It was a factory. My father worked there." Severus gestured with his wand. The image of what had been loomed over them: smokestack belching filth, the faint clack of looms, lorries bringing yarn and fiber and canvas, lorries carrying rolls of carpet north and south, grimy men and grim-faced women lining up for pay envelopes after a shift….
"And they want to put up a silly horror-themed hotel." Remus watched as the ghost factory faded into the dusk. "That's - insensitive, to say the least."
"Will you help?"
Remus hesitated. "What precisely do you want me to do?"
*****
Jack Quaters (born Squartatore in North London) looked up as his secretary ushered the tweedy, graying man into his office. "So. You have a proposal for me, Mr. Loopner - "
"Lupin." He smiled pleasantly. "It's from one of your stockholders. Mrs. Tonks."
"Tonks?" Jack frowned. "You're her solicitor?"
"Not precisely, but she's authorized me to speak for her on this matter." said Lupin, still smiling. He handed over a sealed letter. "She's decided to exercise her opt-out clause on the Hotel Transylvania."
Jack stared. "We've started construction!"
The tweedy man stopped smiling. "I'm sure something can be worked out."
*****
"Just because you're from the south doesn't give you the right - "
Remus, still smiling, shut the door on Jack Quarters' tirade. Severus rose as Quarters' secretary dashed past into his office.
"I take it he's not pleased."
"Rather the opposite." Remus stuck his hands in his pockets. "He had no idea Andromeda owned enough stock in his business to block construction. Neither did she, for that matter, but as long as it works, does it matter?"
Severus made a face. "Your mother-in-law - "
"Ex-mother-in-law."
" - is being unexpectedly helpful. What's the catch?"
"Perhaps there isn't one."
*****
Severus laughed, not kindly. "No catch? She's a Black. Of course there's a catch. Is she asking for custody of Teddy? Demanding you move in with her?"
"No catch. She was just as outraged by the idea of the Hotel Transylvania as you are." Remus shrugged as they walked out into the sunlight. "She decided to holiday in Corfu - "
"She left her widow's weeds and went south for the winter?" Severus sneered at a news kiosk.
" - and met a widower from Transylvania." Remus tossed a coin at the terrified newsboy. "She's tired of the vampire jokes."
*****
"She's dating again?" Severus froze in mid-stride. "Didn't she give an interview to that Skeeter woman about being in 'perpetual mourning'?"
"Evidently a trip to southern Europe was what she needed." Remus tucked the newspaper neatly under his arm. "This fellow isn't a vampire but one of his cousins is related to the Draculas, so she was a bit miffed when I showed her the plans. I think the 'Hotel Transylvania Happy Hour Blood Cocktails' was what sent her over the edge."
"Sends me over the edge," muttered Severus. "Especially since there's not a drop of real blood in them."
*****
"I never knew you cared about truth in advertising laws," said Remus. "The recipe they use at the Hotel Transylvanias in America supposedly includes cranberry juice, not blood."
"Jolly for them." Severus glared at the construction site. The equipment stood silent, much of it covered in blue tarpaulins against the wind from the south. "How much stock does she own?"
"About thirty percent. Ted inherited it from a great-uncle, and Andromeda inherited it from him." Remus' expression was unreadable. "Add in the other Tonks heirs, and what I hold in trust for Teddy, and it's enough to block Mr. Quarters."
*****
Severus digested the news that the Tonks family owned enough stock in Four Quarters Hotels to block or modify construction of the Hotel Transylvania. Ted had always struck him as amiable but ineffectual (rather like Lupin). That he had been good at investing, and presumably finance, was not expected.
Neither was Lupin's ability to dominate a businessman like Jack Quarters.
"I assume you need to head south," he said.
"Not immediately." Remus cocked his head. "Andromeda is watching Teddy for the day. Why?"
Severus hesitated. "The least I can do is stand you a pint."
Remus nodded, slowly. "You're welcome."
*****
"And so you see, when I told Andromeda about the vampire-themed cocktails - Severus? What's wrong?"
Severus had stopped, snarling, on their way to what he claimed was the best pub in Halifax. "That is what's wrong! Look at that!" He gestured at a green and white pub. "It's a corporate chain, complete with talent contests and wedding fairs. Wedding fairs!"
Remus blinked. "Wedding fairs? In a pub?"
Severus gestured in disgust. "Attended by girls who can barely pay the rent but want the 'perfect wedding.'" He scowled. "Dunderheads!"
An east wind blew down the street, cold and bitter.
*****
They walked east, into the wind. Severus scowled at what city planners called "economic revitalization," from the boutique selling exotic teas to the storefront displaying stylish women's clothing to the gourmet sausage shop with its tempting ropes of savory meats. By the time they'd reached his favorite pub, an ancient stone building stained black from coal smoke, he was staring down at sidewalk.
"You don't like gentrification." Remus slid into the vinyl banquette and waited for Severus to order.
"As much as I like being shat on by Lucius Malfoy's peacocks," said Severus, holding up two fingers to the bartender.
*****
Remus waited until they'd been served more than acceptable pints to reply. "The peacocks can fly? One would think that the tails would be too heavy."
"One would be mistaken." Severus scowled at the memory. "Narcissa hates them. They eat the corn she puts out for songbirds, they scream like they're being tortured, and they're useless for anything but their decorative qualities."
"Ah. I can see - "
Severus gestured at a lorry advertising St. Charles Curries, Exotic Eastern Spice. "Just like that. Mediocre food in a pretty setting, and six months later the curry shop was out of business."
*****
"I have a question," said Remus, when they were well into their second pint, plus a basket of salty snack foods. "You always hated Halifax, at least when you were at Hogwarts. Now you're trying to save it from gentrification. Why?"
Severus toyed with a pretzel. "I'm not welcome at Hogwarts or Diagon Alley, even with that wretched Skeeter woman's profile in the Prophet. If I'm stuck here I might as well defend it."
Remus leaned forward in his seat. "You own your house. You could sell and move east."
"To another provincial town with chain pubs? That's no answer."
*****
"You could live in the country. You could live in Hogsmeade. You could move - "
"With what money? They buy the row houses cheap and do them up to look like Nigella Lawson lives there," Severus snarled. "Company housing! With marble countertops!"
Remus finished his pint. Severus had spent most of his teen years trying to erase every hint of his background, from lying about the Snapes being old Eastern purebloods to taking elocution lessons. "You wanted to be rich. You wanted to be like the Malfoys."
"I learned my lesson." Severus, eyes alight, clenched his fists. "Never again."
*****
Excerpt from the "Your Say" column in the Halifax Evening Courier found in Severus Snape's dustbin. "DUNDERHEADS!!!!!" is written in black ink across the page.
HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA WOULD BRING JOBS, MONEY
Spinner's End West Halifax
I can't believe someone is trying to block the new Hotel Transylvania on the site of the old carpet mill. What used to be a thriving industrial neighborhood has become a wasteland since the mill closed, with abandoned houses, trash on the streets, and few residents.
The Hotel Transylvania would bring jobs, tourism, and tax revenues. Outsiders have no business holding us back.
W. Dunbar
***** Letter to the "Your Say" column in the Halifax Evening Courier, written on fine, slightly yellowed 100% linen laid paper in a cramped, scratchy hand strongly reminiscent of a Victorian clerk with bad handwriting
Spinner's End West Halifax
Sirs:
I really must respond to your letter shilling for the proposed 'theme hotel' on the site of the old carpet mill. That carpet mill sustained generations of workers with steady, respectable work. Asking those workers to sell desiccated chicken chunks ('Dracula Bites') and tomato juice cocktails for low wages is not the answer, and verges on the insulting.
Idiots.
S. Prince
*****
Excerpt from article in the Halifax Evening Courier
…Mr. Quarters stated at a public meeting that his proposed hotel, which is already partially completed, would inject money and life into an aging city without changing its essential character. "The old mill hands can still go to the pub for a pint. That won't change," he said. "The Hotel Transylvania is for young folk, the ones who want a bite and a flirt and a glass of good red wine."
Stephen Prince, who lives in Spinner's End West, pointed out even some of Mr. Quarters' investors are opposed to the development….
*****
Partial text of letter from Andromeda Tonks' solicitor, L.Q. Westenra, to Jack Quarters
…My client stands ready, as always, to negotiate with you concerning the exact terms of her acquiescence to Mr. Quarters' construction plans for the proposed hospitality development at Spinner's End West. She does not object to a hotel in principle, only the vulgar and sensational aspects of the plans.
In specific, the following items should be modified or omitted entirely: "vampire-themed cocktails," wait staff with artificial fangs, "vampire balls" on Friday nights….
Reply from Jack Quarters to his solicitor.
Tell that bitch and her friends her yes.
*****
Review in Severus Snape's copy of the "Western Rough Guide."
**** HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA
The name may promise one thing, but the latest hotel from developer Jack Quarters is a welcome surprise. Instead of the vampire theme promised by the name, the Hotel Transylvania is a wonderfully evocative throwback to the grand hotels of an earlier century, with dark woodwork, lush window treatments, and an air of fin de siecle grandeur that transports guests to an earlier time.
A standout is the Timisoara Café. The chef, trained in Le Chateau Anglais, just received a coveted Michelin star for her fine work….