Snapedom

Ahem. O.K. Had to keep it clean, per the rules of the contest, so no wand jokes a la Daniel Radcliffe, here. And Severus remains fully clad. And see how soft-hearted Severus is, to rescue an innocent animal from the terrible fate to which Harry Potter would have subjected the poor creature.




Well, you know, Sev's got his own saving-people thing, whenever he can, and apparently he's developed a saving-animals thing, too, as long as they aren't potions ingredients or annoying little toads brought into the classroom by dunderheaded students.

The man's a marshmallow, I tell ya, one of those marshmallows that's been held over the flames too long and has a crusty, burnt exterior--but the inside is pure goo.

Hey, it's canon. Even if the horse ain't.

O.K., the artwork doesn't QUITE match the vision in my head--I fear I may have done worse things to Charity Burbage here than JKR did to her in canon--but close enough for jazz. This is based on my "Summer Holiday" series being posted this summer on snape100, in which Severus and Charity get away from Hogwarts for the summer of 1993 and fly somewhere overseas, probably Florida, if the kitschier-than-thou tourist attraction of Lizard World is any indication. They have lots of lizards, I hear, in Florida. And of course kitschy tourist attractions abound all over the 50 states here in America.

So, Severus wants to see Lizard World. Charity does not seem particularly enthused about Lizard World, but love (and self-interest) makes necessary compromises. ;-)



Really, I think the lizards are the best part of this artwork. I'm especially proud of the lizards.

P.S. - Here's the link to my laborious process: http://artpad.art.com/?knuvpp9c1oo

"Snarry" is, for better or worse, firmly entrenched as shorthand for "Snape/Harry," but I refuse to call Severus and Charity "Sevarity." :-P I also don't get why the hell people pair Severus' last name with his partner's first name in these shorthand dealies; whatever happened to parallel construction? But I digress. ;-)


First, I want to direct you to an absolutely gorgeous Severus/Harry postwar fic. It was based--by request of the recipient, venturous (venturous1 on LJ)--upon the story I wrote for Ven for last year's Snapedom Summer Fest: Merry Meet Again. The author picked up where I left off and spun a fascinating tale of woundedness and healing, magic and love.

We Shall Meet in all Directions

Author: megyal (on LJ)
Pairing: Snape/Harry
Rating: PG
Summary: Right after the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry's beleaguered mind continues to deal with comforting hallucinations and stark reality.


Second, I've continued to write drabbles for snape100 about Severus and Charity. My latest drabbles have been a series centering around Severus and Charity going out of the country on holiday for the summer (1993 is implied). Rather than link to each story on LJ, IJ, and DW versions of Snape100, I'll just provide the links on my fic archive.


The Summer Holiday series, in order:

* High Flying Lover
* Letting Off Steam
* Not Going That Way
* The Dunderheads Had Not Pained Him for Nineteen Hours, All Was Well
* Begin at the Beginning
* Whenever We Begin
* Ruminations on an Anonymous Correspondence
* No Escape from Reality

Future drabbles will also be archived on my IJ, linked on the sidebar under "Summer Holiday series - Severus/Charity."

I decided that Severus would choose to do just about anything that left him a free man without the stresses of serving a cold, cruel puppetmaster. (He couldn't wait to get away from Voldemort, either.) So rather than illustrate whatever routine but peaceful occupation he might pursue for a living, I decided to show what he does after work, moonlighting for a bit of extra cash:



Because he's got a really nice voice--how many hundreds of times are we told it's "silky"?--and we see in HBP that he can sing, I think Severus does pretty well at the karaoke bar. ;-) Don't you know he's still standing, better than he ever did, looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid!

Bonus points to those who recognize the song which Severus is singing in the picture. :-D


(My process was a mess, and the final version mashed up the text, so I'm not bothering with the ArtPad link this time.)

This week I wrote more Severus/Charity drabbles; these center around Neville Longbottom and the Terrible Toad Trouble.

Lessons in Safety on IJ on LJ on DW

Pedagogically Effective on IJ on LJ on DW

Or, you can just read them on my archive bohemianspirit on IJ. Both stories are PG-13, mainly for language, as well as for vivid depiction of toady violence.

(Just as an aside, does it really matter to anyone reading the Friday Recs whether we post to links on IJ, LJ, or DW, or will people follow the links and comment no matter which archive we link to? Not that posting links in triplicate isn't fun...)

And a rec for a short, funny, satirical story written by another member of the Underground:

The Supernaturalists, or Why Harry and Brains Have Never Been Close (G) by skitty_kat. Technically it isn't a Snapefic, but it serves as an amusing bit of creative meta about DH and a certain character who (at least in the eyes of the One who made Him) just might be bigger than John Lennon, now. ;-)

Several more Severus Snape/Charity Burbage drabbles, written for snape100. In all probability, Severus Snape hooked up with someone (or several someones) during his lifetime. Why not make one of those someones Charity Burbage? Any happy life a fic writer can create for her is certainly better than her canonical role of Gratuitous-Death Fodder That Readers Won't Care Too Much About.

Since we have next to zilcho information about Ms. Burbage in canon, I'm working with the assumption that she is more or less within shouting distance of Severus' age.

Fics are rated PG-13, mainly for innuendo and the freedom to use four-letter words as I see fit. Of course, in my household, four-letter words were G-rated, but that's irrelevant to the purposes of this post. ;-)


Silent Sentences on IJ on LJ

This is the bitterest pain among people, to have much knowledge but no power. -Herodotus


Suffer the Bastard on IJ on LJ

Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title. - Virginia Woolf


This Moment, This Day, This Lusty Month of May on IJ on LJ


P.S. - This post is also an excuse to display my latest icon. ;-)

My first foray into ArtPad! The theme is "Snape in Love," though in this case, it's Severus who is the object of unrequited affections:



If the rules didn't say to keep it clean, I might've shown a bit more variety in the student fantasies. ;-) How disappointed they are to discover that detention is only detention...

You can view my slower-than-molasses Artistic Process here.

P.S. - Can we add instructions to the FAQ, or somewhere, about how to save a copy of one's work on ArtPad? It took me a lot of clicking around to discover that we have to do a Print Screen and edit/crop it in our own image editor and save the file in there.

If he could, Severus Snape might choose something like this:



But as an experienced spy, he would never blow his cover. ;-)

It's May 2nd, eleven years later, and somewhere in the world Severus Snape is leading a quiet life, enjoying his freedom, and not giving a flying hoot about the Wizarding World he left behind.

...because Afterlife is much more interesting when it takes place on this side of the veil.




(Image created with Tombstone Generator.)

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...

More drabbles!

The first one is sheer silliness: Sev's Twin, written for Writercon100 over on LJ, inspired by the prompt, "Twin." PG, gen, and (hopefully) AU. ;-)

For snape100's Challenge #278: The Eye of the Beholder, I wrote a series of seven drabbles pairing Severus Snape with Charity Burbage: And So She Saw (IJ - linked here on LJ). PG-13, het, and written to be canon-compliant--at least up to the beginning of DH. (*cough* FawkesAntiveninBloodreplenisher *cough*) Generally I'm one of those who figure, what's the point of writing fanfic if you don't depart from canon at some point, but once in a while it's fun to write within the confines of canon and see what might be lurking between the lines.

Writing these drabbles got me wondering just how much history Severus and Charity did have in canon; her plea to him in the first chapter of DH at the least suggests she had considered him someone she could trust. Alas, we'll never know, because in canon she basically serves to be the first of many gratuitous deaths so we realize that War Is Serious Business. Anyway, as several readers of my drabbles commented, I've given her a bit more of a history and a personality, and a hint of happiness in her life prior to when we see her in canon. Certainly canon makes it easy to write Charity Burbage "in character." :-D

The above fics are also archived on my bohemianspirit IJ.

I'm also working on a couple of fics for the Severus Big Bang Birthday Bash. See icon. Copy icon. Use icon to promote the fest. :-D

And... I used my YogiSev picture from March's Snarc to make a banner for the Severus Big Bang Birthday Bash!



If you want to use it to promote the Big Bang, just copy and save to your own image storage, wherever that may be. ;-)

Mods of the Big Bang, please feel free to copy and add both the icon and the banner to the collections on the Big Bang site. Thanks!

Seems I just can't leave the good professors alone. More crossover crack from the land of Gilligan's Isle, featuring the One True Pairing of Severus Snape (HP Professor) and Roy Hinkley (GI Professor). The fics are PG-13, humor, crack, suspension of disbelief to the Nth degree, and somewhat bawdy in theme, though still rather tame as these things go.

Written for this week's prompt on Writercon100: "Redemption"

1. Professor Hinkley's Second Chance

2. Professor Snape's Second Chance

The first ten drabbles in the series are linked in last Friday's fic rec post.

This week, I also posted a drabble on the theme of redemption (prompt: "his first time") on snape100: Washed Away (also PG-13), posted on IJ and on LJ. As one commenter put it, a rather strange means of finding atonement, yet perhaps not so uncommon, in fiction and in life. ;-)

Oh, and I'm finally catching up on archiving my fics on my bohemianspirit IJ. Future fics, wherever originally posted, will end up there, indexed on the sidebar.

Oh, oh, oh--and in case you haven't heard about it, yet, it appears that Severus is having a 50th Birthday Bash. ;-)

IJ link

LJ link

This ended up being bigger than I originally planned, so I'm putting it behind a cut.



The trickiest part of this was getting Severus to still look like Severus with a 1920s hairdo. I think maybe he looks more like F. Scott Fitzgerald with a big nose ;-) but I did my best.

"They're a rotten crowd," I shouted, across the lawn. "You're worth the whole damn bunch put together." - The Great Gatsby

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful Ship...

The other day I looked over the listings on snapenews, and saw an announcement for Drabbles for Dollars, a drabble-writing fundraiser on LJ for monetarily-challenged attendees of Writercon. Donors pay a certain amount for each drabble written, with bonus amounts paid for drabbles written in specific fandoms or meeting specific challenges. It seemed like a quick and easy way to do a bit of good in the world, so I communed with the Muse and started to write.

One of the fandoms listed was Harry Potter, so I dashed off a Snapey drabble on a classic theme, namely, Severus survives the war. (Big surprise to all of you, I'm sure.) It also fit this week's prompt, "con," very nicely. Check it out; it's Gen, PG, and will likely appeal to everyone on this community:

So Dark the Con of Man

Then I browsed the "fandom of one" list of smaller fandoms, and saw that Gilligan's Island was among those fandoms. Hmm, I certainly watched enough GI in my formative years; surely I could do something with that fandom, as well, maybe send Severus to the island and make it a crossover.

Then I noted that "dirty" drabbles also got bonus pay. Well, I don't do explicit, but surely PG-13 innuendo and double entendre would count? Hey, it was worth a try.

From Severus Snape + Gilligan's Island + dirty drabble, my Muse very reasonably concluded: Pair the Professor with the Professor!

We don't do ship wars on Snapedom, so I will not be so bold as to claim that Severus Snape/Roy Hinkley is the OTP of the future. I'll just point you in the direction of my humble drabbles featuring said pairing, and let you decide for yourselves. ;-)

#1: The Professor and The Professor

#2: Essential Experimentations in Frivolity

#3: The Fly in the Denouement

#4: Concerning the Matter of Gilligan

#5: Shipshape

#6: The Professor to the Rescue

#7: Getting Naked

#8: Such Sweet Sorrow

#9: Professors in Paradise

ETA: I've added a (somewhat disturbing) Epilogue to the series:

#10: The Pleasurable Secrets of Professor Hinkley


Only a few of these are tagged "dirty," and even that's a stretch, but all of them are fairly silly. Let me know if they make you laugh. And feel free to join me in writing Snapefic over there, should you be so inspired!

Behold! I haz made Artz!



Making pixelated art requires more patience than Potions, but the image came to me and, well, it just seemed perfect. ;-) (If you're not sure why, look up the asana on an introduction to yoga.) Deeper meanings aside, I just like the idea of Severus doing yoga. So there!

ETA: Created in good old-fashioned PaintShop Pro 5, which heretofore has been used solely for cut-and-paste iconage, using only a roller-ball mouse and my imagination.

And I have discovered what he's been doing: living in the sunlight, loving in the moonlight, having a wonderful time.

Just as we all suspected!

Here, at last, is the second of my Summer Fest stories. Dollar-chan, I hope you find it worth the wait!

Title: Ask Someone Who Cares
Author: bohemianspirit
Genre: Gen, Post-war AU, Coming-of-Age, Humor
Characters: Severus, Draco
Rating: PG-13

Summary: Severus helps Draco build a new life for himself after the war, and in the process finds his own way towards healing.

Notes: Written for Dollar-chan, for the snapedom Summer Fest 2008. This story was inspired by these pictures of Severus and Draco: On the Run (gen), Childhood (gen), and Study Session (slash, work safe).

Writing Draco sympathetically was a challenge for me. Unlike Severus in this story, I've never been particularly fond of Draco. However, I do think that in the last couple of books he showed (along with his more negative traits) signs of change for the better, glimpses of a potential, eventual maturing in perspective and behavior, so I built on that side of him in developing this story.

I took the idea of Severus fleeing Hogwarts with Draco at the end of HBP, combined with the idea that Severus had been a friend of the Malfoy family since Draco was a child, and came up with Draco accompanying Severus on a post-DH exodus from Britain's wizarding world. The relationship of Severus to Draco in this story is that of a mentor or father figure, but the Severus/Draco picture gave me the idea to write them as gay men; not, however, in relationship to each other.

Gen story about gay characters. Nothing explicit. DH Epilogue cheerfully ignored, of course. ;-) Severus lives!

Here's the first of my two SummerFest fics. Finally! (Real life circumstances delayed finishing and posting sooner.) I meant to have this brit-picked for the marijuana slang, but at this point I figure I'd just better get it posted. If I got anything wrong, just pretend this is the American edition of the tale. ;-)

Title: Merry Meet Again
Author: bohemianspirit
Genre: Humor. Weirdness. And Slash. Probably. Maybe.
Pairing: Severus/Harry. Probably. Maybe.
Rating: PG-13

Summary: Harry, in search of a post-war sandwich, encounters Draco Malfoy, a stash of weed, and an unexpected reconciliation.

Notes: Written for venturous for the snapedom Summer Fest 2008. Inspired, very loosely, by Venturous' Beltane bonfire picture (NOT work safe!) as well as by a fair amount of back-and-forth brainstorming with elethian on her LJ. I strove to incorporate related spiritual/religious themes thoughtfully, though I can't vouch for how intelligently the characters handled the religious aspects. The end result: slightly hallucinatory, but I hope it pleases. Beltane themes, California grass, and the closest I'll ever get to writing a Snarry. ;-)

Here's a little bonus fic for the Summer Fest. My "official" exchange fic is progressing nicely; meanwhile, this one's for the entire Underground. It was originally going to be just a short riff on the joke that inspired it, but it morphed into a larger and slightly satirical story of Escape from Hogwarts. ;-)


Title: Professor Grunge
Author: bohemianspirit
Genre: AU, Satire, Gen
Main Character: Severus
Rating: PG-13, for language

Summary: Upon graduating from Hogwarts, Severus pursues an employment opportunity in the northwestern United States, with somewhat unexpected results.

Notes: Yet another variation on the Infinite Possibilities of the Life of Schroedinger's Snape. ;-) Crack, maybe. Definitely cracked. And cracking. Written for the Snapedom Summer Fest 2008 and dedicated to Sev's Underground. Rock on!

WARNING!!! WARNING!!! Severus Snape gets to have a HAPPY LIFE!!!

Don't say I didn't warn you.

( Professor Grunge )

Something I've been wanting to write about for a while is the subject of "Slytherin self-preservation" as a virtue, in contrast to the Gryffindorian emphasis on "self-sacrifice." Eventually, there will be an essay exploring that theme. Meanwhile, here are some thoughts related to that subject, originally posted to my personal journal. Probably not as organized as I'd like them to be, but it will do for a beginning. ;-)

In recent discussion on someone else's personal journal, a question about my story Light Between the Cracks has prompted me to collect my thoughts about why I am moved by the theme of having Severus "get over" Lily and "move on" with his life. One result, a beginning, is this little essay on analyzing Severus Snape through the lens of "redemptive survival" rather than the canon-preferred value of "redemptive sacrifice."

My motivation, in writing "Light Between the Cracks," was to find a way for Severus Snape to have a life--within the parameters of canon--that wasn't as thoroughly miserable and bleak as it appeared to be at first glance. Severus was revealed in Deathly Hallows to have a powerful capacity for love and loyalty. And I think it's fair to say that he was always shown to have a fair share of Slytherin self-interest as well. I wanted to find a way in which he might reasonably have directed his capacity (and desire) for love to a living person, requited, rather than solely to the unrequited and now-dead love of his youth.

Why would I want to write that? Why am I not content with canon as it is popularly presented and interpreted?

( Severus analysis behind the cut; conclusion below... )

THIS is the sort of thing I find noble and inspiring: healing and integration, moving on in spite of our wounds, finding a way back to some semblance of happiness, triumph of the human spirit over adversity and trauma, triumph over tragedy, refusing to let defeat be the final word.

I'm not real keen on the myth of redemptive sacrifice. In fact, I think it's fair to say I positively loathe the mythologization of sacrifice as redemptive. But that's another essay for another day, one which I am just starting to pull together.

Here's a bit of Creative Meta for the Underground. ;-)

In our recent discussions about Snape's Worst Memory and the issues of prejudice in the series as a whole, several people have commented on the friendship of Severus and Lily. As I said in my first post on the subject, why in the world did he continue to "love" a woman who had rejected him years ago? It's not so much that they broke up, but how it happened, that I object to, along with the notion that Severus continued to think so highly of Lily, despite how she treated him, that he remained eternally devoted to her memory and sacrificed himself to that devotion.

Realistically, all romantic fantasy aside, I think Severus and Lily had a circumstantial, superficially-founded childhood friendship that both of them would have outgrown, even if Severus had never become a Death Eater. Based on what we see in the texts, it appears that Lily had started to pull away from Severus once they got to Hogwarts and she discovered other friends who could also do magic. Lily and Severus really don't seem to have been all that comparable, or compatible, in terms of intellectual capacity and personality, and Severus seems to have read far more into the friendship than Lily ever did.

I think the forces of survivor guilt and idealizing the memory of the dead had more to do with Severus' devotion in later years than a True Love based upon a solid and genuine soulmate-level friendship. A good counselor would have pointed this out to him within the first few years of Lily's death, but, alas, poor Severus had no good counselors available to him, only Albus Dumbledore.

So here's how I think it would have played out, had Severus given up his Death Eater associations and had he ended up marrying Lily. And now that I think about it, it kind of says a few things about his devotion to her in canon, too... ;-)


Title: Childhood's End
Author: bohemianspirit
Genre: AU, Het
Pairing: Severus/Lily
Rating: PG

Summary: Severus had known for a long time that he and Lily were growing apart, but an early morning conversation about their marriage still leaves him in shock.

Note: Story title shamelessly lifted from Arthur C. Clarke, because it fits.


"The only thing worse than not getting what you want is getting what you want." - Oscar Wilde

( Childhood's End )