pervy snape-fancier

So there's a deleted scene from HBP recently released that's making the rounds (first one here; the other two are behind the scenes clips I didn't watch), and it has a few seconds of fantastic dramatic Snape content prior to the Astronomy Tower scene, that you really gotta wonder why they cut out of the film, unless because it makes it too obvious that he doesn't want to do what he's about to do. But yeah, it's just oh, oh Severus *heart breaks*. If you don't care about the other two, here it is:

Snarry 3 by ~Umino-aka-Morskaya on deviantART

So sweet. I love Severus's glasses and apparent age and the contented familiarity in him ruffling Harry's hair.



Connichi 2009 - poking Snape by ~HowellJenkinsSama on deviantART

There are some other photos of this interesting Snape cosplay as well. Normally I would say that nose prosthesis takes it over the top into slightly cruel caricature, but somehow it really brings this particular costume together.



The Long Road by ~TGP on deviantART

I loved the moody colour and how a frightened child grows into a sullen teenager, a disaffected adult, and then a total mystery with his back turned to the viewer. Very simply drawn but quite effective.



The Banes of Her Existence by *Vizen on deviantART

This made me LOL IRL. Just look at Severus and Minerva's poses and expressions, and Albus's drink with the umbrella! Poor woman, being headmistress and sharing an office with those two...

( ten fic recs behind the cut: gen, Severus/Lily, Harry/Draco, Severus/Harry, Sirius/Harry )

It won't be long now by *mybreathingselfagain on deviantART

I just... *sob*

Now and Then by sweet_lemmon (Harry/Hermione, (strong) R, NWS)
"WTF?" you may be thinking, since this is so not the kind of thing I am usually interested in. I said as much in my comment, too, but I liked the soft shading in this piece and the sensuality and drape of Hermione's body in the second (third?) panel.

-----

So after that strange interlude, here, let me make it all better:

DH Chapter 33 by lilyhbp (Severus, Lily, G)
Illustrations for the scene outside the Gryffindor portrait in "The Prince's Tale" are about a dime a dozen gross, but Severus's downcast expression in this is just the greatest thing ever, even though with his hair hiding most of his face you can hardly see it. I recommend taking a look at the detail in which you can more closely see their faces. The other thing about this piece is that it really shows how much she's advanced as an artist over just a few years when you compare it to the original piece that used the pose for Severus she mentions in the artist's notes. (She's taken that one down, but you could also compare it to Head of Slytherin or Best Friends, for example.)

-----

( And now for some ancient fic recs from holiday fests )

(nehalenia and feyandstrange, I haven't forgotten you, honest.)

OK, Mimi, take two on this. I felt pretty lame about the first attempt, especially since I had asked for a prompt for a birthday present, for f's sake. The comic-book idea was fun (and is recycled here), but the rest of it, frankly, flopped. Although I don't say that I wouldn't love to see drawings of Severus having something to do with spun sugar or recycling. ;)

This, on the other hand, kind of got away from me in terms of length, but you can't have everything. So without further ado, Five things that Severus Snape does only when he's absolutely certain that he's alone and unobserved (even by the portraits!) that he would be mortified if word got out about.

( Brooding, bathing, leisure reading, practicing handwriting, and painting. )

It is an IC entry in an RP journal (and "private" at that), so obviously no replies, but please, please, do yourself a favour and go read this post from a Regulus awash in grief, disillusionment, remorse, sorrow, fear, and turmoil, and coming to the conclusion that he must Do Something About Voldemort.

(Final entry also very poignant, given canon death.)

The Right Decision by unbroken_halo
(200 words, PG)
Double drabble about Severus making the choice and taking the Mark, the first from Voldemort's POV and the second from Severus's.

Highly Toxic by midnight_ljc
(~530 words plus art, PG-13, mabye barely NWS if a girl in a bra or hints of teenage sexuality are a problem)
Older Severus/Lily (2006). Yummy and tender and sad. I especially like the way he's kissing her cheek and jaw in the last picture. I've had to re-read this a few times before the narrative actually fell together in my head, because it's told kind of backwards, but I love its dreamy quality.

The Raven by atdelphi
(~800 words, NC-17)
"A play on Poe's famous poem: Filch receives a rather persistent late-night visitor."
Severus/Argus Filch. Wait, wait, come back! It's only a parody, and a hilarious and very well-made one at that. And somehow, even though it's potion-induced and the, er, unfortunate victim of the blast radius is Filch, somehow Severus's insatiability still comes off really hot.

Trusting in Fanfiction by gmweasley
(~475 words, soft R)
Severus/Remus. While we're on the subject of humorous poetry, yeah? This one is original, not parody, but is also quite well-constructed. In brief, I LOLed.
It occurred to Remus one fine day: his past was unrewarding
So off he set to start anew; in short, he stopped Marauding.
He said goodbye to all he'd known; decided to commit.
At last he found (or so it's told) our favourite Greasy Git.

Five things Regulus Black regrets in his life and one thing that he doesn't by curia_regis
(~1300 words, PG)
This is great in so many ways. I love the Severus/Regulus content, the hints that from the first he doesn't really want to do what his family apparently expects him to, and the quiet bravery. The little bit of Severus expounding excitedly on a potion to little Regulus because he made the mistake of getting him started on the topic is just precious.

Can't Run But by kaydeefalls
(~5850 words, PG-13)
Gen with Regulus and Draco in alternating sections, eventually dealing with the locket Horcrux. Older stuff again (2005), set after the end of HBP, so canon-shafted now (albeit not that badly). I like the echoes between Regulus and Draco, and Severus gets some great lines in this:
Snape looks over at him sharply. "A coward?" he repeats. "A coward would have exulted at the opportunity before him. Dumbledore was a weak, helpless old man, without even the strength to run. A coward could have killed him."
"So what does that make me?" Draco snaps, his face flushing with shame. "Less than a coward?"
"It makes you a human being," Snape replies shortly.

Players by snegurochka_lee
(~3500 words, NC-17)
"If Grimmauld Place is a stage, and all the men and women in it merely players, then there really isn't any reason for Snape to take it all so seriously, now is there?"
Again a bit older (mid 2007). Severus/Sirius with plenty of hate in, although it's that special kind of Snacky hate that has clearly got something else going on inside of it. Focuses on how, as Sirius observes, Severus's entire existence is this constructed stage show, and how Severus gets off sexually on that. Characterization is razor sharp on both; I love Sirius's bad attitude and the aside that "Remus isn't any fun any more".

Since I've already gone and violated taboos today, here's something else that contravenes several of what I have deduced to be the commandments of fanfic:

1. Thou shalt have thy work betaed (at least if it's over a certain length).
2. Thou shalt have thy work Britpicked (where applicable).
3. Thou shalt not post WIPs unless thou dost not mind losing a lot of thy possible readership (the many who refuse to read WIPs until they're completed).

I just want to seem like I'm doing something, yeah?

Title: Lost Causes
Characters/Pairings: this part Lily/James talked about, Sirius/Remus hinted at, Severus, Regulus
Rating: this part PG
Words: this part ~3100
Summary: Second chances are all well and good, but sometimes things really are lost. Maybe. Depending on your definition of "lost".
Warnings: As said above, unbetaed, unBritpicked, and WIP. Future parts will contain both slash and het, strong language, and drug use.

( Lost Causes )

( five more recs )

( 5 recs covering a pretty broad spectrum of stuff. See tags. )

Free for the Girls by lorena_snape. R, 100 words, angsty.
Just a drabble about sixth-year Severus, but it's so heartbreaking. I can't say any more about this without revealing too much (about me, or about the drabble? mmm, more the former I think...).

Professor Grunge by bohemianspirit. PG-13, ~4000 words, humour/satire/AU.
Upon graduating from Hogwarts, Severus pursues an employment opportunity in the northwestern United States, with somewhat unexpected results.
"Grunge" does in fact have something to do with grunge rock, but I'd rather not give it away. ;) bohemianspirit also tacked on an unusual "warning" that made me laugh: "Severus Snape gets to have a HAPPY LIFE!!!" *snicker* ya gotta warn for that now, do ya?

What Harry Loves by potion_lady. Severus/Harry, hard R, ~1500 words, romantic/sexual/sensual. (Very sensual, in fact.)
Harry loves everything about his lover.
Mmmmmm, taaasty descriptions, yesss precioussss.
...Yeah, I think that's plenty of reason to read this.

Escape from the Shrieking Shack by ellid. PG, 100 words, action (?).
I say "action" because it's done in fragmentary, rapid-fire phrases that take place over just a few seconds of time. A little morsel that made me go "woo-hoo!"

(abandon fic! abandon fic!)

Some abandoned drabblish things. The first two are from the same prompt set as the one Make-Believe came from, but I'm not keen on these.

( Forgetfulness )

( Wars )

( Mistake )

( Presents )

( see tags; a fairly wide variety of stuff here! )

less_for_you reveals are up. Here are the three fics I wrote (author's notes slightly edited):

Summer Shade
Rating: R
Words: ~5,000
Warnings: None
Summary: Lily shares some of her young sexual curiosity with Severus, but that may not have been the best idea.
Author's Notes: Request was for "whatif!scenarios, pre-Hogwarts, angst, hurt/comfort, unrequited love". Sort-of-three out of five ain't bad? I think it's at least ambiguous whether it's requited love or not, and there's angst at the end. AU: Severus and Lily didn't grow apart and then crash and burn they way they did in canon. They are still quite good friends in the summer after sixth year. Thanks to my betas who_la_hoop and juniperus.

Lilies Are Red, Roses Are Blue
Rating: NC-17 (barely)
Words: ~5,500
Warnings: Sexual activity between teenagers (who are of age in their jurisdiction); gratuitous ignoring of canon; fluff; extreme sappiness; Severus being too pretty; no nutritional value.
Summary: Best friends? Maybe so, but clearly there have been some other thoughts occurring on both sides as well.
Author's Notes: Request was for Marauder era, shy Snape, long hair, awkwardness, first time having sex/kissing/etc (but no PWP), fluff, and preferably above PG-13. Wa-hey, I think I might have ticked most of those boxes.

aaand... I've just now noticed I didn't thank my betas on that one. Wow. Let's see, that would have been spidermoth and... um... oh crap. Once these were posted I deleted all the betaing emails. Now it's totally escaped me. Um. Pipe up, and I'll add in a thank-you note? (I can't believe I've forgotten this; now I feel like a heel... :( )

Call of the Dark
Rating: R
Words: ~3,800
Warnings: Some purple prose, brief drug use, slight dub-con (but see rating; no sex).
Summary: Severus has learned that Dark magic can burn away his imperfections, but can he convince Lily to see it his way?
Author's Notes: Request included plot, angst, dark, after Hogwarts, Lily not returning and/or playing with Severus's feelings, and Severus as "a flesh and blood person: desires, ambitions, complexes, weaknesses but also brains". Thanks to my betas hobgoblinn and lilyevans_snape, who did record-breaking turnaround time on this.

All three of these are pinch-hits, which means they were written under some duress, so please to excuse their not being the greatest things ever. The last one especially was squeezed out in about two days.

I'm still startled that I wrote over 14,000 words of fic for an exchange I never signed up for in the first place. Between that and all that Snack blither I tried to do for drachenmina that means I've written something like 23,000 words in a little over a month's time. O.o (Still, that ain't hacking NaNoWriMo. ;) )

Why Summer Orchids Wither

This 9600-word fic is a little hard to classify, as you can see in the subject. Lily's been hit with a curse that makes her lose some of her recent memory. She doesn't know why she and Severus are no longer friends, or how she got engaged to James. So she calls on Severus to help her out with it, since she figures her best friend (as she still remembers him) would know, and as he works out a cure for her, things go from there.

This is one of those fics that pulls the rug out from under you. There's such tenderness and love and you glow with what's happening to Severus and Lily and then wham, the end just breaks your heart. My reaction when I first read this fic about three weeks ago was to want to scream out loud. "You bitch, you bitch, how could you do that!!!1!1!" Someone commented on another fic in the exchange that it was a success because it had made her feel an emotion, and wow, did this ever do that for me.

Clean by potteresque_ire

Thirty years after the Second War, Draco Malfoy witnessed the downfall of Harry Potter.

I'm not sure where I ran across this fic, but I'm glad I did. This is really not your standard Harry/Draco (compared to my experience, anyway). It's rated NC-17 but it's not smut by any means; sex is just one of Harry's addictions as he struggles with a kind of "fading into darkness".

There is hauntingly dark imagery and the pacing is wonderfully languid, as though I were leaning shoulder to shoulder with Draco up against a stone wall on a dark hill, listening to him quietly tell me this story while we smoked cigarettes and looked out from our vantage point but never at each other.

It's 4700 words done as 47 drabbles. I've generally been unsure about "drabble series" as a format for fic; haven't you really written a 4700-word story at that point? But I suppose if the drabbles can also individually stand, self-contained, then it works, and I think this one achieves that.

Christmas Past and Present, but No Future

Heart-wrenching, ~2900, R-ish, "what might have been" Severus/Lily.

(Goddamnit, what went wrong with these two? *is being all emo and crazy* Mental health day on Friday. My brain is failing to function, lately.)

Push, Pull by Eunike

Every time Severus reaches out for Lily, he ends up pushing her further away from him. A series of melodramatic Snape&Lily moments, set in various times between their fifth year and her death.

~11k angsty/tragic kinda-romance, PGish. ( spring )

I liked the "broken reflection" setup of the two descriptions there, especially. But the fourth chapter made me want to cry: ( autumn )

But then, of course, we know what happens, because of the becauses, and... and... *sniffle*

I am such a huge sap, I tellya.

I think I'm sorting out my thoughts on whether I think this whole "you meet a perfect person when you're a kid and that's who you end up with" theme that plays out several times in Harry Potter (tragically, of course, in Severus's case) is a good thing or a bad thing. I hear a lot of people say "ew, creepy!" and it's true that there's a mode or setup in which it's very creepy. I imagined what my life might be like if I were still with any of the boys I had crushes on when I was about ten years old, and... yeah. No thanks. That would definitely be a sign of a lack of emotional maturation, if nothing else.

But there's also a mode or setup in which it is non-creepy, though goopily romantic and not all that realistic, and that's the What Dreams May Come style. The two main characters in that film are true soul mates, and at the very end they meet again, reborn, as children. This idea is the tear-jerkingest thing that ever jerked tears, for me (partly because, and here's some woo-woo and schmoopy TMI, I think myself and enotsola have this kind of relationship). It is probably inconsistent that I immediately apply this idea to Severus and Lily (and I know it requires a kind of non-canon reading of Lily) and am neutral to slightly negative about pair-ups like Harry and Ginny (after all, they do kind of deserve each other!), but what the hey.

This does mean I am bringing my own "baggage" to the story, as someone who misinterpreted my purposely over-the-top sarcastic thoughts on Deathly Hallows accused me of doing. But don't we all? Isn't that how art and literature work -- everyone identifies with different elements because of their own pasts? This is how it is possible to read things into a piece which the artist or writer may not have intended, but which are nevertheless valid.

Title: Not Every Flavour
Rating: PG
Characters: Severus Snape, Regulus Black
Word count: 100
Prompt: snape100 #204 Weather
Warnings: kinda emo!Severus. And a bit of a ripoff of an idea from Sideways Stories from Wayside School.

---

Severus stared sullenly out the rain-streaked window of the train.

"Have a bean, go on," said Regulus.

"Piss off." Severus listened to the rain beating an insistent and, he hoped, silencing tattoo.

"Don't make me put one in your mouth."

Regulus sounded a little too eager about that idea. "I'll have your fingers if you dare. Besides, they don't come in the flavour I’d really like to try."

"Oh? What flavour? You'd be surprised."

But Severus ignored Regulus and resumed watching the rain. And after that damned fiasco by the lake last term, now I'll never get to try it.

Title: No Regrets
Rating: PG-13 (mature theme; sex is only hinted at)
Genre: Angst; vaguely slashy
Characters: Severus is the subject, but someone else is the narrator (Lucius?).
Word count: 106
Notes: 94% dark irony by volume. Edited since jillypooh's post.


He has done something terrible to his soul, and embraces it. He reaches out for no one's redemption, no one's succour. He does not plead the slightest thing with his black gaze piercing mine so silver-grey. He does not once again latch on with those long fingers to my flesh already bruised, for he is wholly a stranger to deeds of desperation. His voice never falters, not a whit, for there is nothing he could say he needs from anyone, nor even me. He feels no sense of loss, has no regrets. He does not, he says again and again. He does not... he does not...