A Recommendation This time, it's slash. I promise. Since I am, well, a slasher.
Wabi-Sabi, by Kai, is a fic I read a long time ago, and loved, and inexplicably had forgotten about, until I saw the name today. It is short, eloquent, and utterly wonderful;
Wabi-Sabi captures in words the feeling that I never had words for, the reason behind my love of wounded toys and wounded souls. As the author's note at the end explains, "Wabi-sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete; it is a beauty of things modest and humble; it is a beauty of things unconventional."
Wabi-Sabi looks at the oft-examined question of why Harry would choose to love Severus Snape, of all people, and finds not only the right words, but the right images, the most plausible of all reasons within Harry's own history.
Wabi-Sabi is the best "why" story out there.