>VERBOSE

Puzzle by we_built_the_shadows_here
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing/Characters: Severus/Lily, past James/Lily, Sirius, Regulus, others
Rating: Teen
Words: 143,137

Author's summary: Three years after Voldemort visited Godric’s Hollow, Lily now lives under the protection of loyal Death Eater Severus Snape in a world ruled by the Dark Lord’s conquest. But the Order of the Phoenix is not completely eradicated, and two names are beginning to return to her: Harry and James.
Additional tags: [somewhat edited] Dark, First War with Voldemort, Alternate Universe - Voldemort Wins, Horcruxes, Horcrux Hunting, Dead Harry, Dead James, Lily Lives, Lily Evans Potter & Severus Snape Friendship, BAMF Lily Evans Potter, POV Lily Evans Potter, Present Tense, Memory Loss, Severus Snape may love her but that doesn't make him good, in fact that might make it worse, Slow Burn, Not A Fix-It, more like break it in a new and different way, sharp left at the sign of canon, hand-holding as a form of revenge, i am not here to make anyone happy, i live for angst, manipulative lily potter, cruel Lily Potter

Quote:
“Maybe you didn’t notice how he was after you ditched him at the end of fifth year, but I did. Stared after you. Watched you all the time.” Sirius is savage, leaning close, his breath hot and awful on her. “I know what he wanted. Don’t think for an instant he’s keeping you safe out of the goodness of his heart . If he hasn’t done it yet, I imagine it’s only to wait for you to come to him of your own accord. To really win you from James. Or maybe--maybe he’s already done it, and you just can’t remember.”

there's no smoke without reason (it's a sign there's something wrong) by tonberrys
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing/Characters: Regulus, Bellatrix, Narcissa, Evan, Wilkes, Barty Jr., Voldemort
Rating: Teen
Words: 9808

Author's summary: Responsibility to family, restoration of family - the wounds of Sirius's departure fester in his wake, and Regulus takes a dark plunge into the Death Eaters to settle the storm.
Author's notes: Title is from "Things We Lost in the Fire" by Janet Devlin. For those who are interested in our nerdy headcanon about the specifics of the Trace (as interpreted by us/in the Renascentia-verse), I tossed up a brief meta on my tumblr, but the important bits are referenced in the narrative, so as always, it's not essential.
Author's warnings: [author selected No Archive Warnings Apply, I guess because the depiction of violence is not that graphic and the deaths are not major characters, which are two possible archive warnings, but there is murder by means of fire]
Additional tags: Welcome to the Baby Death Eater Murder Club, Murder, Coercion, Fantastic Racism, Underage Murder, Dark Mark, self-delusion, Pureblood Society, Magical Artifacts, POV Third Person, POV Regulus Black, First War with Voldemort, Marauders' Era, Emotional Manipulation, Bellatrix is a Terrible Cousin

Quote:
There was no room to falter (no room to breathe). Responsibility curled around him like some constricting serpent, squeezing tighter with each breath. People like his mother, people like Bellatrix - they were the sort of people who could just become the serpent, could sink fangs into their problems and rip them to shreds. Regulus had never been particularly good at ripping his problems to shreds, but with every passing day, he had less and less choice.

(Hmmm. It occurs to me that now I've become somewhat multifannish, I should probably add a line for Fandom: to my rec template.)

Regulus' Worst Memory by jaxon
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing/Characters: Regulus, Severus, Avery, Mulciber, Evan
Rating: Teen
Words: 1611

Author's summary: On the evening of Snape's Worst Memory, Regulus Black is left to pick up the pieces. Tumblr prompt: Could you fic the evening of Snape's Worst Memory?
Author's warnings: implied/referenced self-harm

My comment: "Pretty powerful stuff!"

Quote:
He swallowed bitterly, sick that this had become his problem and the others had washed their hands of the situation. It was his own fault for being one of the only Slytherins – one of the only students full stop – to really engage with Snape. He wouldn’t have ordinarily given him the time of day, greasy halfblood that he was – but Snape fitted beautifully into the rules that moulded Regulus’ life: Everything that Sirius did, Regulus didn’t. Everything Sirius didn’t, Regulus did.

et_tu_lj (after gamma_x_orionis):

Post a random sentence (or three whole paragraphs) from every WIP you're currently working on, even if it's very short. Then invite people to ask questions about your WIP. With any luck, you'll get talking about writing, and the motivation to take that WIP one step closer to completion will appear as if by magic!

Haha, rly? sure I will. *skeptical Severus eyebrow* Warning, some of these are very old indeed, just... not deleted yet.

---

Behind the door, there was another man slouching in an old leather armchair on a landing at the top of some stairs. He was smoking a cigarette and he was neither thin nor dark; he was blond and strongly built and obviously had been hired to mean business at people.

---

"You might be willing to die for a reason," Regulus continued, "but there's no way you'd increase your own suffering just out of stupidity or stubbornness. You've given yourself away by not turning me in immediately. And that means I can count on you to help me, Severus. I need you."

---

Truthfully, Severus did, but he began feeling like a leech the first time he spent the night. It would have been ludicrous to try to tell Regulus it was too much expense, and in a way that made it worse. If he were a burden, at least he would be taking on an honest debt he'd have to work to pay off, which was a concept he could get his mind around.

---

Regulus felt his cheeks get warm. He hated being compared to Sirius, good or ill; had hated it all his life, but especially nowadays. He was almost seventeen, damn it; sole male heir to the Black line he might be, but that didn't mean he wasn't his own person, an adult wizard in his own right.

---

But take tonight's dinner, for example. Severus had been observing the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall and trying to avoid thinking about how it resembled the sky in his memory of that night, when Harroway addressed him without any preamble: "Who was she, Severus?" He hated how the man could come up with things like that without, it seemed, employing Legilimency, unless he was a greater Legilimens than the Dark Lord had been, which he could scarcely credit.

---

After twenty or thirty seconds, though, he noticed that Snape's breathing didn't seem to be improving; he was still gulping air as though he had been drowning. "Are you going to be all right, Snape?" he asked. "Only I'd rather not have to deal with your corpse, you see." He took a swallow of his whiskey.

---

Today's smorgasbord includes Severus/Harry, Severus-Lily failing friendship, Severus/Lily with Severus/Remus, ensemble-cast gen, Severus gen, poetry (!), Beatles crossover (!), Severus/Regulus, Regulus gen. ( Read more... )

Roleplay Drawings by ~sevenluck on deviantART


Under A Black Cloud by ~MistressBlackwater on deviantART

I like Regulus's expression in the top one, and the second is just really striking. Will make a nice desktop, methinks.

Secret Santa by aramintasnape (Severus/Aurora, sexy fluff, R, 2875 words)
Every year, Albus organises a Secret Santa for the staff. This year, Severus decides to liven up the proceedings...

Three words: Black silk lingerie. Hee! Also, this is set in my favourite under-written era for Severus, the young professor (1980s).

Christ, what was wrong with him? Maybe Albus had slipped him a Get-Totally-Over-Excited-and-Act-Like-An-Idiot-At-Christmas potion on the sly. It couldn't be possible that he was actually looking forward to Christmas presents.

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There must be something in the water mulled wine this year, because besides mimimanderly's A Visit from Severus, we also have A Visit from St. Severus by hexgirl (both are a strong PG-13 or soft R, I think):

His black eyes they glinted! His skin was like chalk!
His cheeks were like marble, his nose like a hawk!
The sneer on his lips was enough to rouse fright,
And the hair on his head was as dark as the night.

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Sort of oldish, from this summer's Snarry Games:
Connecting the Dotty by igtow (Severus/Harry, romance/family, PG-13, ~19200 words)
A gentle tale of growing old together.

igtow's summary pretty much says it. Harry and Severus begin this story aged in the middle of their second centuries, and it's about them and their considerable number of descendents and family dealing with Severus's growing senility -- and, as the story goes on, some of Harry's problems as well. This grabbed me in the gut early on and didn't let go. I'm having a really hard time picking a good excerpt out of this because it doesn't seem to want to be carved into little chunks like that. So... next!

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A Severus Christmas Carol by Strega Arvay (gen/supernatural, PG, ~26900)
What the Dickens? Severus Snape finds himself at the end of the year, feeling particularly foul. Leave it to the 'ghosts' of Christmas Past, Present and Future to set him straight. AU story with DH spoilers! Takes place in Harry's 5th year... sorta.

Probably a cliched idea by now, but I thought this was a good take on it that had its own life and didn't feel limp or stale. Regulus stands in for Marley, and the three spirits are Lily, Dumbledore, and (naturally, given the appearance) a Dementor. It has the predictable ending as it's a clear example of based-on-X homage, but again, I was taken with the way the HP characters were adapted into the known storyline and made relevant there with their own twist.

Snape stood transfixed by the scene in front of him. He wanted to believe with all his might that the heat in his face came solely from the setting sun shining in through the kitchen window. Without looking at Dumbledore, he asked, “Tell me, does [Harry] live or die?”

“That I cannot say, Severus,” Dumbledore sighed. “I only know what lies… well, technically, what lay ahead of me in my life. But I do see an empty chair at the Gryffindor table, and a wand without an owner. If things remain as they are then, yes, I do believe Harry will die.” His voice changed, harsher and cutting. “But he should consider himself lucky, right? Lucky to be so blissfully removed from the torment of this world?”

The echo of his own words cut through Snape like a knife [...]

From the script for HBP:

Slughorn, with practiced ease, mixes a concoction of powders and potions into a goblet while Ron peers into a mirror. As he paces, Harry passes “the shelf” and finds, front and center, a PHOTOGRAPH of himself and Slughorn -- the one taken at the Christmas party. In deep b.g. is photograph of Snape, as a young student, clutching his POTIONS TEXTBOOK.

SLUGHORN
I’d have thought you could whip up a remedy for this in no time, Harry -- an expert potioneer like you.

HARRY
I figured this called for a more practiced hand, sir.

I was excited to get hands on the DVD finally because I thought I could freeze-frame it and finally find this, but IT'S NOT THERE. Slughorn's shelf isn't in this scene at all as far as I can tell, and it's far too far away in an earlier scene ("Did Voldemort ever get on the shelf, sir?") to tell hardly anything at all about the pictures except that they contain people and someone's riding a broom in one of them. Grr. I'll have to actually watch the film and see where else the shelf appears, if anywhere, but I'm annoyed about this. Not only does it mean lack of young Severus (who ought to be there; Alec Hopkins did do the tiny bit of filming required, AFAIK) but Regulus too, who was supposed to appear in a photo like this, I thought.

Did anyone else actually find this, and could tell me where to look? (hh:mm:ss would be helpful, if so)

edit: I'd forgotten Regulus appears in the Slytherin Quidditch photo near the beginning of the film, so yay for that, even if we don't see him again. Any clues on Severus, though?

Nice drawing of Regulus Black in hp_toujours today: It's my normal expression by as-yet-anonymous
(G/worksafe portrait)

for nehalenia, an unfortunate week-plus after her actual birthday, from this prompt, Five things in Sirius Black's closet (or drawers, or wherever he keeps his clothes and stuff).

( Read more... )