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Tweak says, "Have you guys seen Mark?"

snarryhols (snarryhols) wrote in snarry_holidays,
@ 2008-12-07 10:17:00

Entry tags:

fic, giftee: florahart, rated: nc-17

Fic: The White Road
Title: The White Road
Author: perverse_idyll
Giftee: florahart
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 45,044
Pairing: Snape/Harry, also Lily/Snape in a totally unconsummated sense, Lily/James
Warnings: Hettishness but no outright heterosex, voyeurism, accidental incestuous overtones, a bloody moment. I'm sure, in some universe, this is epilogue compliant.
Disclaimer: Is not, never was, never will be, mine
Summary: One day, comfortably set up in the afterlife, Lily Evans Potter switches on the telly and gets hooked on the Harry Potter show.
A/N: So, this was supposed to be short and cracky. The Muse apparently had other plans. Dear Flora, I truly did start out with your requests in mind, but the fic wandered far afield. I hope you enjoy where it ultimately ended up. Thanks to L for encouraging me to change horses midstream and for urging me to sing, R for reading the early fragments and loving them. The mods have been unbelievably kind about my deadline panic. Absolutely every single mistake here is of my own making.

The White Road

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	florahart 2008-12-07 02:14 pm UTC (link)
	Hi, I see this and will be back to read it later in the day because I really have to finish my other fic that is (badly, badly) overdue first and it is thisclose. Also, this will serve as a good reward. Also also, it is unlikely I mind the wandering far afield. :D (Reply to this) (Thread)

	florahart 2008-12-09 03:30 am UTC (link)
	...Yep, didn't mind. Also, I'm a complete wreck because you pulled me right to the edge of tears and then made me laugh, over and over. I can't even try to quote lines or say what was good (all of it) or explain what, uh, ever I'm trying to explain. Yeah, completely incoherent. Anyway. I can't believe someone wrote this for me. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

florahart
2008-12-12 01:00 pm UTC (link)

Okay, so I am back again to tell you that while there were many pieces and phrases (and, you know, the whole) that I liked, I keep coming back to Snape's opinionated armchair. Just, that whole little bit with the unpacking and then the feet in the air, and Lily blushing to watch him read all engrossed, just slayed me, and starting it with the chair taking an opinionated position at a determined angle, the adjectives odd enough to make the reader stop and blink, I dunno, it just worked, for me, like, here, stop and look at this bit, and it seems that's when she starts to really think about him, coming right after the whole hair-stroking thing. Anyway, I don't know why that parts resonates so hard with me (though we're not going to talk about me being nearly forty and ...occasionally reading on my belly with my feet in the air) but I keep coming back to it.

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perverse_idyll
2008-12-15 09:54 pm UTC (link)

Oh, I grabbed and hugged this comment and jumped around the room with it. Because all through this fic there are emotional or personal linchpins, all involving Snape, and for me, they hold the fic together. They're the landmarks on the map. I can point to them, the hands, the head-touching thing, all these small, incandescent moments that came first, before the scenes themselves. And this one – it occurred to me late in the writing, and I was aware that a beta might argue that it doesn't move the plot or it slows down the pacing or whatever. But I would have fought tooth and nail to keep it in, because it's so important to me and I couldn't even tell you why. The whole sense of who we are in private, of Lily seeing this side of Snape that no one else sees, that's still there after all these years and all these horrible events – and it's something so ordinary, so innocent almost, and then the fact that it's books -

*g* So, yeah, you made my day with this comment.

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perverse_idyll
2008-12-15 09:45 pm UTC (link)

Do you know how relieved I was to see this? Oh my. I really wanted to write a fic you would like, because you've given so much pleasure to this fandom. I had my heart set on treating a cracky premise seriously, with sparkling dialogue and snark (although, since you're one of the supreme queens of banter, it was bloody intimidating). My initial idea was that Lily would meddle somehow, through the medium of TV. Interrupt Snape and Harry having sex, that sort of thing.

Actually my first idea was entirely different and much more solemn and I spent two months on it before realizing, I can't give this to Flora! This isn't a Flora fic at all! So I grabbed at this other tiny plot wisp that had been floating around in the back of my head, and I chanted to myself, Short and smart. No getting obsessed. Then Lily's voice just rose up out of nowhere and the plot hatched and I wrote the scene in the marsh. After that there was no turning back. Once I was emotionally committed, it was hopeless. All the stuff that had been seething in me about DH came out of the woodwork and started weaving furiously together. All I could do was hope you'd enjoy the ride as much as I loved (and hated *g*) writing it for you.

So *deep breath* hallelujah with bells on!

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florahart
2008-12-15 09:59 pm UTC (link)

Oh good grief, I can't be intimidating! Silly! Hee! (also, I am jealous as hell that you can start writing in the middle and wind up with this. I can't do that.)

Also, ahaha, you totally did take a wild premise (come on! watching, uh, multi-streamed video past-to-future-and-back from the afterlife while babysitting a broken baby in a physically-inconstant house and being occasionally interrupted by a de-aging meddler in love) and take it absolutely seriously! Which is totally why it's brilliant--it takes all these pieces and puts them all in there in ways we care about because they are real because they are believed-in and loved (fic is like the velveteen rabbit, evidently) and makes this whole that just--dude, if I didn't think it would make everyone drop out of every fest ever upon being assigned to write for me, I would just point here in every signup and go "This. Do this."

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	florahart 2008-12-31 01:01 am UTC (link)
	Also, so I thumbtacked this to watch other people roll around in it in the first place, and I never untacked it, so I'm having such fun watching you answer, too. :D Er, not to make you self-conscious or anything. Just, you know, it makes me happy, watching you be happy at everyone's pretty comments. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

perverse_idyll
2008-12-31 01:34 am UTC (link)

Haha, OMG. *facepalm* You get to watch me be deplorably late in answering everyone's comments.

And they are pretty, and wonderful, and embarrassing, and delightful, and it's hard to know how to respond. Except to blather some more. :)

Also, I must admit, I always tack comments when

rinsbane posts a fic, because I want to peek over her shoulder and rejoice at the way her readers respond. And because sometimes when she posts a reply it includes some delicious, intimate glimpse into her relationship with the fic and what it means to her.

*blushes with pleasure*

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