Insidious! Yes! What a great word! I have a multi-CD set of Alan Rickman reading an entire novel by Thomas Hardy (and if Henry James puts you off, Hardy will make you want to slit your wrists). It’s depressing, but that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t even matter that the first chapter is a turgid, brooding monologue on the metaphorical aspects of a really dreary stretch of heath. (!!) Because listening to the words drip and curl and drawl off Mr. Rickman’s lips is a religious experience all by itself. His voice is insanely rich and velvety and insinuating and sooooo controlled. Goosebump city.
I haven’t seen Sweeney yet. The reactions I’ve read have persuaded me I know exactly what to expect, and I’m going to be SO disappointed. The movie will be heavy on Burton and light on Sondheim. I can already predict that I’m going to rush home and immerse my head in the original cast recording until I’ve washed the movie soundtrack out of my ears. Yes, I am a complete snot about the things I love. ;) But hey, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.
You wouldn’t mind reading half-formed fic? Heh, if you're game, here are your choices: two from Harry’s POV, both with rather angry versions of Harry. One’s a structural disaster, but I’m not fixing it until I’ve actually got a whole draft of the dratted thing finished. There are parts of it I really like, but the pacing! Augh! The other’s the world’s longest PWP – well, okay, there’s some plot, but in the ratio of plot to smut, I think the smut wins hands-down. It’s also the first fic I’ve ever written in pieces, skipping to scenes as my fevered imagination suggested them. So it’s got lots of missing bits. And again, pacing problems. And it's *cough* dirty. The third fic’s post-DH and it starts out in Severus’s POV and switches to Harry’s – or will eventually, as I haven’t actually written that far yet.
In the first two fics, I’d say it’s more or less the same Snape. Writing from Snape’s POV and after DH kind of forces me to make him more human in the last one. Also, Harry’s a notoriously unreliable narrator when it comes to Snape, and I’ve tried to use that in the first two fics (which are post-HBP, btw). You never really know what’s going through Snape’s mind because Harry's still fixated on his own gripes and grudges. Much like canon!Snape, in fact.
As for the question of Snape hooking up with Harry . . Well, Snape’s obsessive and emotionally immature, and Harry’s love-starved and emotionally immature. Snape’s enormously competent and a bit of a git, and Harry’s enormously gifted and a bit of a dweeb. They’re both irrationally responsible and they both have a sacrificial streak. I’m sure I could come up with other excuses, if pressed. :D To me the biggest stumbling block, oddly enough, is that Harry just wants to be Mr. Normal Suburban Nice Guy. There’s no evidence that Severus has any conception of what it is to be ordinary, and couldn’t fake “normal” if you handed him a textbook and a set of diagrams. He’s got “outcast” stamped into his very bones.
I do hope you don’t mind these long comments. I’ve had some spare time lately and I’m apparently bursting with the need to express myself. *wry grin*