Written for the April 2009 challenge, "Severus as a Squib." This essay plays a bit fast and loose with the topic, but it also features a classic Elton John song, so dive right in...
April 27th, 2009
April 26th, 2009
I proposed the Squib Snape challenge, but to be honest, I find it very hard to picture Snape as a Squib. Maybe that was why I suggested it, to get other people's viewpoints on the subject. It's just that, for me, magic seems such an intrinsic part of Snape that it's difficult to separate the two.
( Read more... )
April 22nd, 2009
Hi - just a brief ramble, perhaps 200 words, on the subject of Snape living as a Muggle. I expect most of you know that this is exactly what I envisioned for him after reading HBP, and DH certainly didn't make me change my mind! I thought - and still think - not only that the Wizarding World is very imperfect, but that its imperfections were bad for him, and that he would not be able to find a place there after the war. Many of you surely read my story, Gift and Burden which I posted here at the end of November, 2007. Slashpine made some lovely comments on the story, and here are my responses to a couple of comments of hers:
What Snape did with no magic any more - I'm starting to wonder if he isn't a chemistry teacher, after all? Lily, as you'll have gathered, is a born scientist, and she and her father have a love of chemistry in common. But, originally, I had him working in his Muggle friend Tim Fawkes's garage, keeping the books, and then in the local hospital, where his wife also works. The one thing I know for sure is that he is still a brewer: he and Jane collect wild plants on the family's Sunday hikes and Michael concocts herbals for sale.
Which is altogether too much information, isn't it? ) Thanks again for your comment, and I hope you'll enjoy the others in the series. Then, after Slashpine's response, I continued-
in this au novel I'm not writing (rather like the comic Sydpad is not drawing; have you *seen* that!?), Jane and Severus met in the summer of 1996, just before that dreadful 6th year. They met arguing over a patient - Maggie Fawkes, or "Aunt Maggie", who's Tim's mam - whom Severus had treated for a heart condition. Jane actually went to his house to read him the law, and ended up with an explanation and a potion to test. Because Severus really cared about Maggie - in my alternate universe, little Sev was not the racist he was in canon, precisely because of the Fawkes family. Maggie was his Molly Weasley.
Anyway. You're quite right about the Post traumatic stress disorder, and the challenges Severus faces in getting his life together. One of the things that draws him to Jane is that she actually recognizes what he's going through; her younger brother was a veteran of the Gulf war who committed suicide afterwards. At one point she says, "Sorrow kills. I know. It killed my brother. I won't let it kill Severus." (This was around the time of the trial, in which she and the Fawkes family all testify for him. The WW is totally shocked at all these Muggles speaking up for SNAPE, of all people.)
So much for the novel I'm not writing.
And - I'm still not writing it! I see no need. But I am convinced, even though DH proved that Snape had (apparently) no friends in the ordinary world, that he could adapt and survive there. Not only survive: I think he might, eventually, find more happiness living as a Squib than he ever did living as a Wizard. It would, of course, be a horrible blow to lose his magic, but, in my original conception, this and the near-death experience would be blows he needed to evaluate and remake his life. He'd also need some counselling and some real friends; something he never had in the Wizarding World. And how does magic connect to the personality, anyway? Severus Snape, in canon, had a sharp wit, a logical mind, a capacity for creativity, considerable courage, and great loyalty. These qualities are intrinsic to him and he wouldn't suddenly lose them just because he lost his magic. They would help him to live in the real world, and, eventually - assuming he found the friendship and support he needed - to live well.
Just my two cents.
What Snape did with no magic any more - I'm starting to wonder if he isn't a chemistry teacher, after all? Lily, as you'll have gathered, is a born scientist, and she and her father have a love of chemistry in common. But, originally, I had him working in his Muggle friend Tim Fawkes's garage, keeping the books, and then in the local hospital, where his wife also works. The one thing I know for sure is that he is still a brewer: he and Jane collect wild plants on the family's Sunday hikes and Michael concocts herbals for sale.
Which is altogether too much information, isn't it? ) Thanks again for your comment, and I hope you'll enjoy the others in the series. Then, after Slashpine's response, I continued-
in this au novel I'm not writing (rather like the comic Sydpad is not drawing; have you *seen* that!?), Jane and Severus met in the summer of 1996, just before that dreadful 6th year. They met arguing over a patient - Maggie Fawkes, or "Aunt Maggie", who's Tim's mam - whom Severus had treated for a heart condition. Jane actually went to his house to read him the law, and ended up with an explanation and a potion to test. Because Severus really cared about Maggie - in my alternate universe, little Sev was not the racist he was in canon, precisely because of the Fawkes family. Maggie was his Molly Weasley.
Anyway. You're quite right about the Post traumatic stress disorder, and the challenges Severus faces in getting his life together. One of the things that draws him to Jane is that she actually recognizes what he's going through; her younger brother was a veteran of the Gulf war who committed suicide afterwards. At one point she says, "Sorrow kills. I know. It killed my brother. I won't let it kill Severus." (This was around the time of the trial, in which she and the Fawkes family all testify for him. The WW is totally shocked at all these Muggles speaking up for SNAPE, of all people.)
So much for the novel I'm not writing.
And - I'm still not writing it! I see no need. But I am convinced, even though DH proved that Snape had (apparently) no friends in the ordinary world, that he could adapt and survive there. Not only survive: I think he might, eventually, find more happiness living as a Squib than he ever did living as a Wizard. It would, of course, be a horrible blow to lose his magic, but, in my original conception, this and the near-death experience would be blows he needed to evaluate and remake his life. He'd also need some counselling and some real friends; something he never had in the Wizarding World. And how does magic connect to the personality, anyway? Severus Snape, in canon, had a sharp wit, a logical mind, a capacity for creativity, considerable courage, and great loyalty. These qualities are intrinsic to him and he wouldn't suddenly lose them just because he lost his magic. They would help him to live in the real world, and, eventually - assuming he found the friendship and support he needed - to live well.
Just my two cents.
April 3rd, 2009
April Challenge: Squib Snape
This month's challenge comes from![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
geri_chan :
1) Squib Snape--there seem to be a lot of fanfics where Snape loses his magic post-war, either permanently or temporarily. How does he react? Is it traumatizing to lose his magic, or does he find it easy to leave the wizarding world behind and slip into an anonymous Muggle life?
Have fun with it.
This month's challenge comes from
geri_chan :1) Squib Snape--there seem to be a lot of fanfics where Snape loses his magic post-war, either permanently or temporarily. How does he react? Is it traumatizing to lose his magic, or does he find it easy to leave the wizarding world behind and slip into an anonymous Muggle life?
Have fun with it.