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Exegesis by Femmequixotic

Title: Exegesis
Author: Femmequixotic
Genre(s): Alternate Reality & Romance
Prompt: The Root of All Evil
Rating/Warnings/Kinks: NC-17; minor character death, religious/theological elements
Word Count: ~49,150
Summary: Every culture has their tales regarding creatures of the night.

Reviewer: Gaycrow

In this story Femme has successfully managed to weave her characters together in quite an alternate setting. She gives credit to Elizabeth Kostova's "The Historian", Bram Stoker's "Dracula", and Florescu & McNally's "In Search of Dracula". Inspiration was also drawn from various films including "Nosferatu, Dracula" (1931), Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (1992), and "Van Helsing". I’m not familiar with any of these, so I missed any references that may have been included.

Femme also delves deeply into religious themes and Romany life, again subjects that I’m not familiar with. My feelings about religion are similar to Harry’s in this story. (But if it meant so much to Snape, it was the least I could do to keep reading.) I did become a little tangled up with some aspects of those beliefs at times, and I also found Harry’s and Snape’s ancestry a little confusing, but I was reading very quickly (I couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen) and my confusion didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the story.

"Exegesis" starts off in America, where Snape is studying to become a priest. He has a major stumbling block in his mind though, because he’s gay.

As the story unfolds, we see him learn of his past history and meet up with people he knew during his childhood in England. His meeting with Harry is well written - I could feel the subtle attraction to his old enemy’s son coming through, although Snape never admits it. The power of good story telling!

The characters from Harry Potter are introduced gradually, with Femme capturing their personalities and characteristics perfectly, whilst at the same time working some of their canon histories into this Alternative Universe. Seeing them all appear here - written in such a clever and interesting way - makes for compulsive reading. I really wanted to know what was going to happen to them, whether they'd survive or not. She made me care about them. Sirius's fate was inevitable, but done extremely well.

The way the ending of the story ties up by repeating the beginning, works very well for me. I really do love the ending.

I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish this; I couldn't stop reading, which shows the strength and appeal of Femme’s writing. Altogether a strong and powerfully written story. I can't recommend it highly enough. Ten out of ten!