Okay, this is something I had planned on posting here for quite some time, but always procrastinated on. Some of you may remember this fic from the STFU (God rest its soul), but I don't think it got NEARLY the amount of snark/horrified reactions it deserves when it was posted there. This is the single worst Harry Potter fanfiction I have ever read. It is in the running for the single worst piece of fanfiction I've ever read (the other contender is a typo-ridden screed I found on deviantART in which Eponine Thenardier, the queen Woobie from "Les Miserables," is kidnapped, bound, sexually tortured, and... the fic thankfully went dead before it could reach the rape and snuff, but I have a feeling that's where it was headed). Grangerverse, Subjugation, Girl Who Lived; this tops them all in my opinion, and it amazingly does so without a single orifice being penetrated. Yes, it reached this lofty height on canon-defilement ALONE.
Ladies and gentlemen, I humbly offer you "The Golden Age."
Where to begin, where to begin? This fic sells itself as a "deconstruction," of sorts, of the happy ending of the books, perhaps targeted toward people who thought the epilogue was a bit TOO saccharine for their tastes. This COULD be incredibly interesting, but what it hides is everything this community set out to mock, turned up to eleven, and then that eleven turned up to eleven, and then... you get the picture. All the cliches are there, but even they are so twisted that they cease being cliches and become eldritch abominations of fanwank. Saint Snape? This fic has it. Heartless prankster Ron? Has it. Sociopathic Dumbledore? Has it (for instance, it's implied that he sent Harry to the Dursleys not because of the blood ward, but because he hoped the abuse would drive Harry to suicide, which would also kill Voldemort... or something). Molly bullying Ginny into dating Harry? Has it. The revelation that Muggleborns DO NOT EXIST, instead being the product of wizard men raping or having one-night stands with Muggle women? Has it. A Sue named "Jane Rochester" (and yes, she's the descendant of EXACTLY who you're thinking of) who resurrects and marries Snape? Has it. Hermione murdering Marietta Edgecombe's mother? Has it. Fortysomething Ron dumping Hermione for Oliver Wood's just-barely-above-jailbait daughter? Has it. A chapter called "Harry Potter and the Midlife Crisis?" Has it. Random cameos from Gilbert and Sullivan characters? Has it!
Here are a couple samples, from the chapter that revives Snape:
Narcissa shook her head, and hesitantly asked, "A Time-Turner, then? Is that how it was done?"
Snape sneered at Lucius in amusement. "How many times have I told you that she's the brains in your family?" The amusement faded to a pensive frown. "So often the case… Nevertheless, Narcissa is absolutely correct. Dumbledore indeed had a Time-Turner—two Time-Turners, to be exact, and one was quite powerful, capable of sending one back over a year. I cannot tell you how I obsessed over that object, during those dreadful months in the Head's Office, trying to think of a way to save the situation. In the end, Dumbledore himself was the obstacle: I could think of no way to overcome his blind determination to send Potter to his death. I believe the old man was more than a little mad in his last months."
"Oh, really?" Lucius snorted.
"And it was too late to bypass him and approach Potter directly. I realize now that antagonizing the boy was a strategic mistake. Dullard that he is, he was the key to destroying the Dark Lord. Had I known Dumbledore's plans earlier—had I known about the bloody horcruxes—I could have gone after the wretched things as soon as Dumbledore realized what we were facing—but he could not bear to share his secrets, the old fool. It would have been different, had the Time-Turner been strong enough to take me back to Potter's first year, because I can see an entirely different path that I could have taken. I should have befriended Potter."
"Yes, you should have," Jane agreed. "If you wanted revenge on James Potter, what sweeter revenge than to take his son away from him?"
Jane spoke up. "Then I began speaking to the portrait of Severus in my office. What began as an exercise in possibilities moved rather quickly from the realm of hypothesis and fantasy to action and quite corporeal reality."
Snape saw their curious stares fixed on Jane, and said impatiently, "Obviously I could do nothing myself. It was Jane who did all the heavy lifting, so to speak. I, however, was the one who knew the way to return to the world of the living."
Narcissa's stare narrowed. "But why you?" she asked Jane, suspiciously. "Why would you go to the trouble?
Snape actually laughed at that point, but it was Jane who answered.
"Because Harry Potter is a little shite."
"Miss Crouch-Granger," corrected Lucius, with mock reproof.
Jane smiled. "I always call her 'Miss Crouch.' It irritates her so. I can already see years of misery if I stay. She'll be a millstone around the neck of the Head of the Albus Dumbledore School until the day she dies. She'll always know better and will always believe that only her opinion has value. And she, in my eyes, is quite uneducated and ignorant, and very much convinced that she knows everything."
"She was quite a good student—" Narcissa pointed out, hesitantly.
Jane waved that away fiercely. "Her general education ceased at age ten. She has not since studied literature, languages, history (don't describe what's taught at Hogwarts by that word!), maths, the arts, geography, physical or biological science, psychology, sociology, anthropology, or the philosophy of education. And don't try to tell me that Astronomy as it is taught at Hogwarts deserves to be called science. It's nothing more than constellation and planet identification for the purposes of drawing astrological charts. There is no theory, no system, no investigation into first principles. Hogwarts education is essentially practical education in performing magic. I can't tell you what I went through trying to catch up my first year at muggle university. As it was, it took me an extra year to finish. But as to Miss Crouch-her knowledge of current events in the world as a whole is shaky at best. I grant you it's better than any other witch or wizard her age, but she has no education to speak of, as I would define education. And I have studied the subject of education itself, studied it for years and worked in the field. Her pushing interference in the syllabus of the school is unwanted, unwelcome, and condescending. That she brings her little boyfriend along like a weapon to governors' meetings is offensive. Quite obviously, the boy is bored to death, and is only there to provide her 'muscle.'
Jane explains how she revived Snape:
"You performed the rite at the Dumbledore School?" Narcissa asked.
"I needed the portrait and I needed a great deal of space, and I could have the required equipment there without undue comment. That snooping Crouch girl came by early in the evening, but I got rid of her. She wanted to speak to Daddy Dearest anyway."
"What?" Lucius asked, choking.
Snape smirked. "Suffice it to say that she's become very close to Crouch Senior, who is pleased to have an audience willing to listen to his pontifications about power and how to get it and keep it. Much good may it do her. I'd keep an eye on her, though. Anyway," he continued, "Jane had the school office prepared for my reception. She had the Time-Turner, two highly illegal portkeys, and a pocketful of potions. She also carried a bag containing a bone and some grave dust."
"I knew you were never in the grave!" Lucius declared, very pleased with himself.
"A million points to Slytherin," Snape congratulated him, rolling his eyes.
"I also had a N.E.W.T. in Transfiguration," Jane remarked. "Severus and I had decided that we did not want to risk contaminating the timeline that existed. Therefore, he would remain dead for the period until his revival. That meant we had to provide credible remains. I portkeyed to the Shrieking Shack, and prepared to treat an injured man there. I transfigured the bone and dust into a simulacrum of a dead Severus, dressed it in a set of his old robes, and took it with me when I traveled back the necessary months of time to one minute after the departure of Potter & Co."
The Malfoys were silent, entranced by the story.
Jane smiled briefly. "I left the decoy on the floor and at once returned to my own time, bringing Severus with me. It took only a few seconds. However, he was indeed quite dead in the original timeline, and so his portrait became animate, and everything you remember is quite unchanged and correct. Immediately on returning to my own time, I followed the protocol that Severus had devised: stopping the bleeding, administering antidotes and blood-replenishers. I could then portkey us back to the school to perform the charms that would restart his heart. The results are before you."
An author's note from the chapter:
Post Script: A red-letter day for me! I have received my first flame as a fanfic writer: To the brave anonymous Alex: Yes, I do rather despise our "heroes," or at least the way they were written in DH. Of course time-turners are absurd. Rowling, however, used them and dropped them, like so many other interesting plot devices. I feel quite free to do as I like. And the chapter was meant to please fans of Severus Snape, which you clearly, alas, are not.
Before I go, I absolutely HAVE to tell you about the ending, because it completely defies description. It's written in an incredibly mindscrewy way that would make Grant Morrison proud, but I'll do my best to relay the events to you. It begins with James Sirius, who, due to possessing Potter, Evans, and Weasley blood, is of course the Antichrist. It turns out that he ended up with all the worst traits of his uncles and his namesakes, again dialed up to eleven. He plays a horrendous prank on a Muggleborn classmate (wait, I thought Muggleborns didn't exist?); we're not given the details, but it evidently traumatizes her, likely for life. She withdraws from Hogwarts and exposes the Wizarding World to the Muggle press in revenge. Muggle Britain thereafter declares war on Wizarding Britain. Meanwhile, Wizarding Ireland takes advantage of the war as a chance to secede from Wizarding Britain (a premise itself based on an EXTREMELY minor scene from the books: Fudge accepting the Quidditch Cup for Ireland), so the war becomes a three-way one. The author's treatment of Irish people is INCREDIBLY creepy, too; they're portrayed like noble savages, but without the noble. Anyway, the Muggle British Army is ordered to go to Hogwarts and kill everyone there, and then comes the most insulting scene in the whole fic. Are you ready for this? Neville, now Professor Longbottom, charges at the soldiers to defend his students, Sword of Gryffindor in hand, in a scene that deliberately echoes the culmination of his character development from the books... and then he gets MOWED DOWN BY A FLAMETHROWER! Back with the Irish, they've engineered a magical disease, which they unleash on the British. Unfortunately, they can't control it, so it ends up killing them and every last human on Earth, too. The end.
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NOW how do you feel? |