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snarry_reader's Journal
Title: This Boy's Life
Author:
![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
pir8fancierRating: NC 17
Warnings: none, really
Summary: After the war, Harry wants more answers.
Set after the war, this story features a Scheherazade! Snape. Harry is old enough now to want a lot more backstory than he got when he was at Hogwarts, and approaches Snape (one of the few survivors) to coax as many tales as he can out of Snape.
The story is told in a first-person Snape POV, which might take a few pages to adjust to. But by the end, I'd decided that the POV device heightened the impact of the story. Many of the tales that Snape gives Harry are familiar from canon, but the way he tells us these tales does an exquisite job of character development. And in telling these stories to Harry, he builds a bridge between them. This story is not heavy on action, but is emotionally and psychologically powerful. It blew me away. And we come to know this Snape's thinking so well that it adds enormously to our understanding of the relationship that develops between them. "This Boy's Life" is intelligent, profoundly erotic, and heart-filling. This Snape is going to stay with me for a long time.
Title: What Remains, Else All That Matters
Author:
opaquevisionRating: NC 17
Warnings: dub con (but very mild, by my lights), angst, rimming
Summary: An unexpected reunion some years after the war, and many wounds -- old and new -- still need healing.
This story understands that the war is going to take a terrible toll on Harry. It's set after the war, and both Snape and Harry are damaged and complex. They meet in a bar, and things unfold from there. This is gritty and hot, and the characterization for both of them is breathtakingly good. Yes, yes, this is absolutely one way it could happen, between them. But after putting you through the wringer, the story closes with the most delicately sketched moment of ambiguous hope that one could imagine. Lovely.
Title: Splinter
Author:
sansa1970Rating: NC 17
Warnings: Angst
Summary: Harry's still determined to save the world. Snape's determined to accept it as it is.
In this postwar story, Harry and Snape inhabit a wizarding dystopia. In order to supress any future civil wars, the wizarding authorities have drastically limited wizards' use of magic, and instituted totalitarian controls. Snape is determined to survive. Harry is determine to resist. And holy God, this is erotic, tense, and intelligently done. The pacing of the story is simply masterclass level. I was on the edge of my seat, gripping the laptop tightly, right up to the very end. And did I mention hot?
Title:Old Bugger's Disease
Author:
junediamantiRating PG 13
Warnings: Character death.
Summary: Harry and Severus’ partnership is of many years standing. All good things come to an end.
Yes, character death. And yet, that is the whole point of the story. The process of dying is the complex and very adult subject that this story explores, slowly and carefully. This is not about a death tossed off in the middle or at the end of a story, to add dramatic weight to an otherwise shallow story. This is a meditation on how it is to grow old inside a partnership, and how two people process the end of life.
June Diamanti's strength here is that she resolutely refuses to sentimentalize old age and death. This is as realistic and clear-eyed as one can imagine. And yet, not grim or cheerless. Both men are drawn perfectly, and the story's depiction of how they both come to terms with death is note-perfect. This is not a story that many people could have written, because Snape here (like June herself, clearly) knows that death comes to us all. He doesn't fear it; he knows that there are worse things than death. The tragedy here doesn't lie in the characters' resistance against death, or fear of it; neither emotion is present. Rather, the heartbreak comes in how completely human both Snape and Harry are in their reactions and thoughts.
This story makes use of a whole palette of emotions. It is truly adult fiction.
Title: The World As It Is
Author:
dementordeltaRating: NC 17
Warnings: none
Summary: Ten years after the war and Harry Potter is doing just fine. Really.
This is a feel-good story, but an intelligently done one. Harry is a florist, and Snape (who has been blinded during the war) wanders into his shop one day, looking for some rare plants. This story is full of clever or amusing details, and the build between the two of them is deeply satisfying. The emotions here are lovely, and the ways they engage with each other are persuasive and (in the end) almost tender. And the sex is anything but cliche.