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snarrymod (snarrymod) wrote in snarry_games,
@ 2009-09-20 09:38:00

Entry tags:

fic, snitch

Team Snitch Entry (FIC): "Rapture" by Mia Ugly
Title: Rapture
Author: Mia Ugly (mia_ugly)
Team: Snitch
Genre(s): Time-Travel
Prompt(s): The Long Goodbye, Achilles Heel
Rating/Warnings/Kinks: NC17; Highlight if you wish to know: *Epilogue Compliant, non-explicit Harry/Ginny*
Word Count: ~50,000
Author Notes/Disclaimers/Betas A huge thank you to whitecotton and accioslash, for their tireless (and last minute) beta work. Another huge (throbbing) thank you to joanwilder, who was a fantastic team capitan, an amazing beta, and a great person in general - infinitely generous and infinitely kind. Thank you to the Mods for granting me extension after extension, for being exceedingly patient, and for running this lovely fest. Thanks to all my team-mates who volunteered to help out when I was going crazy, and above all, thank you to the lovely Fast9s, who put up with my panic attacks, my late nights, and my passion for hot wizard love. And for Fast9s.

Summary: Snape sees the man, for the first time, on his twenty-fifth birthday.

"Rapture"

Don't forget to vote and review!

MOD NOTE: POLL IS NOW CLOSED. THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING IN THE SNARRY GAMES.

Mod note: If you rec this story, please link this POST, not the story url, or the author will not get her proper vote tally. Thank you!

Mod note 2: Today is the last day of regular posting for the 2009 Mixed Snarry Games! Stay tuned for Team Cauldron's last entry tonight and announcements regarding the Closing Games!

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Damn it, I have to split this into pieces

perverse_idyll
2009-09-20 11:36 pm UTC (link)

Jesus fucking God. I've been sitting here for ten minutes trying to pull myself together and not explode with flailing emotion all over this comment box. There is no way to get around saying, I LOVE THIS MORE THAN WORDS CAN TELL AND MY HEART JUST GREW FIVE TIMES ITS NORMAL SIZE, just so we're clear, but that doesn't even begin to express how I feel about this fic. And I have to admit, I made it almost all the way to the end without crying, my eyes just stinging now and then and my breath backing up in my chest, but no crying, because I am a stubborn bitch and because, damn it, it would have interfered with my ability to keep reading. And then I got to the end, and you pulled the rug out from under me by breaking the fourth wall and throwing this whole intense, private, unshakable demonstration of life-long, sacrificial love out of the fic's bounds and into the world, and I fucking lost it. *pauses to keep from bursting into tears again* Because yes, you earned that, this story earned the right to challenge canon's law and turn the whole interpretation back on itself, rewrite history, and save the unsalvageable, not just Snape's life but his whole bloody existence as a human being. You fucking broke my heart with a Severus who was damaged and careworn and bitterly defensive and deprived and still too young to completely understand why the world hurt so much and so touchingly vulnerable to the slightest hint that someone might - hell, not even love or want him, but not be repelled by him. Might think he was worth making breakfast for, OMG. I don't know how you did it, how you created a young Severus who seems a natural precursor to canon!Snape, whose traits are so recognizable but whose motives are so much deeper and more compelling and complex and heart-wrenching. (Well, yes, I do know, because I know who's the better writer. But.)

I'm sorry, I tend to fall into run-on sentences when I'm trembling with excitement. This is the sort of mow-you-down fic that sometimes happens in Snarry, that absolutely takes possession of the reader, and right now it's like every cell in my body's lit up and electrified by the sheer beauty of this fic. I mean, it's breathtaking. And one of the things that makes it unaccountably painful to read, painful because it's like the answer to a longing I've been carrying around forever and this fic is - not the antidote, but the embodiment of that longing - the thing that raises this fic into the realm of "I didn't know this was possible, how did she do that" is the way you portray the doomed, tentative, self-denying, inadmissible depth of love on both sides - both sides. Yes, it's worth repeating that. And you achieve it through the ravishes of language, of images that contain so much emotion and sorrow and humanity it's a wonder they don't burst. It make so much sense that these two young, lost souls would form a bond if allowed to meet each other on common ground. And both of them are exactly the kind of people who would give themselves, and once having given, not be able to take back, not be able to give up, not - at least in Severus' case, as the self-hating one - be able to give in. And each needs the other to save him from himself, for himself, whether he realizes it or not. My God, the whole fic sings like a cello, with its almost unbearable range of warmth and yearning. It's astonishing how you keep adding layer after layer to the heart-hammering tension between them, the tentative emotional duets - and oh, while I'm thinking about it, the sex scenes are astonishing for the way erotic discovery becomes a vehicle for such powerful interior transformation, such breaking and remolding, a physical act capable of touching their deepest beings - and without resorting to romance clichés. It rings absolutely true because of who they are and everything in their lives that has brought them to this point, which you lay bare for us with grace and economy, grit and judgment.

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Re: Damn it, I have to split this into pieces

perverse_idyll
2009-09-20 11:36 pm UTC (link)

I love the scene with Aganetha - awful and funny (I've known people exactly like that) and a glimpse into Snape's Muggle side. Into his stubborn loyalty. I love how the watch keeps sabotaging Harry, forcing him to betray Severus over and over, to abandon him, dangle hope in front of him and snatch it away. It's emotional torture, and yet it's a joyful thing to see him persist, to see Severus thaw into banter, to watch the shy infatuation break through the rude surface. His inexperience seems both inevitable and hopelessly endearing, because he had no idea. So of course sex, of course love, would be devastating. And Harry's blossoming obsession with returning to him, the ache of knowing that the story ends with Snape dead, since the watch is purely a retrospective sort of magic and history can't be changed; the fact that love grows up between them in tiny bursts despite a separation of months, years, is both a balm, a thing of beauty, and an ice pick to the chest. Because that love is another reason why Severus will enslave and sacrifice himself for Harry's sake, will live years of torment watching Harry grow up (as that opening scene proves, where Severus vomits uncontrollably). It seems destined only to make each man suffer the knowledge of what true love is while denying him any chance of ever having it.

And through it all runs the beauty of your prose, the unique observations, the gorgeous, delicate, blessed words that deal emotion and delight, play them against each other, and then reshuffle the deck. You have a marvelous visual gift, conjuring scenes and characters with wasting words. But even more spellbinding, because more rare, is the intensity and subtlety of your emotional descriptions. You've got a light touch, and it's no doubt due to the hints and silences and small breaths in between that the evolution of Severus and Harry's emotions seems so natural and yet miraculous and so deeply layered into their bones, their very beings, so that their absence in each other's lives has the impact of tragedy. You write them in such a way that they make each other whole. I could go on at great length about your writing style, my immersion in your prose and the way my own heart sometimes stopped at certain images and I felt I couldn't go forward until I'd absorbed my delirious pleasure or fist-clenching pain. Ordinarily I'd select lines to quote at you, but it would be a never-ending comment, and besides, I've already tried that and got so engrossed in re-reading that this comment languished for half an hour.

And there's so much more. I'm delighted by the subplot around Ginny and Harry's "rational" marriage and poor Ginny's unreciprocated feelings for Hermione. I found that oblique detail unexpectedly moving. Also, thank you for the moment in which Dumbledore is actually saddened to hear that Severus will die, because damn it, that grief is completely lacking in canon. I still shudder a little over the way Harry's first confession of love affected me - my God, the way you wrote that scene made me feel I couldn't take much more - I don't know what to call it, triumph, exaltation, the sense that Severus' world is about to shatter. He will never not know love again. I was also impressed by the shift from the focus on Severus' slow waking up, his being possessed by this love that will never leave him, that will inform who he is until the bitter end, the most magical, meaningful thing in his life - to the revelation (because that's what it was to me) that Harry shares the same kind of desperate, too-late, ineradicable experience of losing his heart. It shook me to see Harry as smitten and bereft and dedicated as Severus, as resigned to never loving anyone as much as he'd loved Snape. The unreformed romantic in me pretty much died and went to heaven.

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Re: Damn it, I have to split this into pieces

perverse_idyll
2009-09-20 11:37 pm UTC (link)

And then Snape's reaction to his father's funeral, oh good heavens, and Harry's kindness. The poetic epigraphs and Snape coming back to save Harry and "Please do not make me continue," he murmurs, "I'm hideous at this" and the fact that they can't stay away from each other. How every conversation is composed of humor and ripped-bare truth and verbal fencing and - I'm just blown away by the artistry of this fic. It turns me into a babbling idiot who wastes words and yet can't quite articulate how much this exhilarates me. Or how I fell head over heels in love with both Severus and Harry, to the point that their pain gave me pain and their happiness gave me happiness. In most fics, calling Snape beautiful is a sign to hit the backbutton, but Harry's right this time, he's right and it's the truth and I'm so impressed that you found a way to say this that shines out of the fic and haloes them both - because beauty and prettiness are two different things, and many people don't realize that Snape can be beautiful while remaining exactly who he is. But you get that. And so does Harry.

And then the ending. You trump brilliance with brilliance. I'm not sure a fic's ever kicked me over the edge like that into wonder and triumph and, you know, coming to pieces. And I thank you for it. I've spent all day with this fic - reading it, thinking about it, trying to give back to you some inkling of what you gave me and what this story means to me. All I can do is conclude with a word that sums up both my response and my belief in what this fic was created from and what it achieves.

Love.

*bows at your feet*

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	Re: Damn it, I have to split this into pieces mia_ugly 2009-09-21 07:56 am UTC (link)
	I still don't know how to reply to this comment... but I will. There are things to say. For now, though - thankyou, thankyou. A million times. So much. TBC (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: Damn it, I have to split this into pieces

mia_ugly
2009-09-22 07:06 am UTC (link)

Okay, I'm back. I just want to tell you how much this comment affected me, on so many levels.

To begin with, I have to thank you for the eloquence of this comment. You are such an exquisite writer. "Sings like a cello"... my god. This is the most gorgeous comment I've ever read, ever. I was completely enraptured by your writing (and not just because you were talking about me, ahem.)

You are one of my alltime favourite Snarry writers - your fics are just exquisite, and have broken my heart several times over. I'm already thinking of lines I want to quote to you, but I must rein myself in. For now... I am deeply flattered that my little story had an effect on you, because I have such deep respect for your work and your artistry.

Thank you again for such kind words. At the risk of a maudlin overshare, I got this message after a brutal day at gradschool, where I sat silent in class after class, feeling like dirt on the bottom of someone's shoe. To get home and read this overwhelming review made me actually cry. Which is ridiculous, I know, but you cannot understand how much I was touched. And surprised. And so grateful.

Mia

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	Re: Damn it, I have to split this into pieces naatz 2009-09-21 09:11 pm UTC (link)
	Out of curiosity, I checked how long your review was. ~1,700 words. You just wrote the equivalent of a small fic! worships \|Meduza\| (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Damn it, I have to split this into pieces perverse_idyll 2009-09-22 03:51 am UTC (link)
	Oh God! falls over laughing I'm really not convinced that writing 1700 words of feedback deserves worship. If I could learn to say things concisely, it would be a great aesthetic leap forward. Heh. But thank you. I think. ;) (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Damn it, I have to split this into pieces naatz 2009-09-22 04:30 am UTC (link)
	Hey, it took me ~700 words, and I'm not one to gush over . . . anything. So, yeah. Worship much. Off topic, I sent you a PM on LJ, if you didn't notice. :) \|Meduza\| (Reply to this) (Parent)

Re: Damn it, I have to split this into pieces

literatelier
2009-09-29 02:34 am UTC (link)

Sorry, butting in - I kept trying to hit the 'like' button to your comment, but then finally had to surrender to the fact that I'm not on Facebook, and that I should just comment to say I agree with everything you wrote, and don't think anyone could have better expressed all the things that made this story amazing. Your comment made me teary and it has nothing to do with me in even the slightest way. *cheers Mia*

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