Status: Completed

Length: Short Story

Tags: Gen, Drama/Angst, Snapecentric, Tragedy, Pre-Hogwarts

Story Summary: A door can open either way.

AlbaLark’s Rec:

Every once in awhile there comes along a piece of fan fiction so transformative that you never look at the original in the same way again.  This is one such for me.

From the very beginning, the amazing writing lets you know that you’re in for something wonderful - the near cinematic level of description puts you right into the middle of the story.  You wake with Severus on the morning of his 11th birthday, listening to the sounds of his mother doing the morning chores as quietly as possible so as not to disturb him.  But there is another sound he is listening for - the sound of owl wings.  Today should be the day his Hogwarts letter comes, but there is a hint that there is something extraordinary about his circumstances, and he worries that he might not get the letter at all.

When his letter arrives, it comes not by owl, nor is it brought by a member of the Hogwarts staff, but by an auror - by Mad-Eye Moody.  At this point we are propelled into something much darker and deeper than the story seemed to be at first.  Here we discover that Eileen Prince Snape is not at all the sort of person we had imagined her to be, and this is definitely a world in which the sins of the parents are visited upon the son in spades.

Poor Severus has been born into a world of half-understood secrets and dark destinies - mysteries he cannot comprehend, yet is trapped by just the same.  Scenes and objects familiar to us from the stories are shown in ways that give them entirely different significances from our original ideas of them.  Little details layer every scene with depth and portent, the characterizations are profound and the entire dynamic of the Snape family is so much different than the usual assumptions.  In fact, the whole story has the sharp, surrealistic hyper-detail reminiscent of the way time seems to slow just before a life-threatening impact.  The impacts of this day will shatter Severus, and he comes back together in a way that makes it clear that things will never be the same again. The burdens he must bear, the meaning of his legacy as a Prince, the losses he must bear now and in the future make your heart break for him.

The ending is astounding, with possibly the most perfect closing line for a story I have ever seen, and all of this in less than 6000 perfectly placed words!  This story is a true masterwork, one that should be read several times so that you miss none of its incredible intricacy.

Status: Completed

Length: Short Story

Tags: Gen, Drama/Angst, Snapecentric, Friendship/Mentorship, Missing Moment, Pre-HBP

Story Summary: Severus attends two very different celebrations of his 37th birthday.

AlbaLark’s Rec:

It is January 9th, 1997.  Severus is teaching DADA, Draco is up to something unspeakable, and Albus Dumbledore has invited him to his office after tea to celebrate his birthday.  And so he goes, with both trepidation and careful hope to see what the Headmaster has planned.  This audience is later interrupted when his other master calls him, and he finds himself at a surprise celebration of his birthday there.  It is his feelings and introspections about these two very different acknowledgements of his birth that form this acutely moving story.

This short tale is soaked in Severus’s deep loneliness and longing for connection, a side of him we don’t get to see in canon until ‘The Prince’s Tale‘ in DH.  The contrast of the distance, the chill of the day at Hogwarts, and the warmth of his welcome at Malfoy Manor is heartwrenching.  That we know how this will end, where all of these players will be and where they will be headed on Severus’s next birthday (and some of the people involved also have a pretty good idea where that will be), makes it all the more poignant.

That the author manages, in so few words, to convey so many insights into the characters of the main participants, to humanize and make real a group of people generally treated in broad brushstrokes as utterly evil (and make absolutely obvious why Severus was drawn to them in the first place) is astounding.  Stories like this one, which offer deep insight, reveal hidden moments and make these beloved stories all the richer, are fan fiction at its very best.

Status: Completed

Length: Short Story

Tags: Gen, Snapecentric, Friendship/Mentorship, Post-DH, Missing Moment, Sproutcentric, Multi-Era

Story Summary: Pomona Sprout performs a melancholy duty in fulfillment of a promise she made to Severus years before he died.

AlbaLark’s Rec:

This is a gorgeous story, with a brilliant concept and told with powerful economy - not a word wasted.

It is the eve of what should have been Severus Snape’s 39th birthday, and Pomona Sprout is preparing for a requiem of sorts.  From the time Severus was a first year at Hogwarts, until the birthday before Albus Dumbledore died, Pomona had been helping Severus maintain an old Prince Family rite he calls ‘The Janus Rose’, one that through blood magic, allows us a view of the state of Snape’s soul.  She broke with this tradition the year Snape was Headmaster, and now, in sorrow and guilt, she goes to the place where the rite was performed to honor his memory.

Through her reminisces, we see him as the the small, rough-around-the-edges North Country boy he was when she became a part of this:  sharp, deeply intelligent, just as deeply vulnerable and proud.  We also get to see him as he matures through his Hogwarts years and beyond, as, at the end of his schooling, she promises to allow him to continue the ritual at Hogwarts, since he doesn’t yet have a place of his own.

We get to watch, too, the way in which this short, once a year ritual grows into a deep friendship; one which will mean so much to Severus as the years wear on.  We watch all of the many changes he undergoes through Pomona’s eyes, as he returns to complete the rite.  We feel his isolation, his fear, his efforts at redemption, his pain and her reactions to them as she tries to be there for him and give him what he needs.

This lovely story is so full of perfectly drawn moments, told with remarkable reverence for the small details which bring everything vividly to life.  I especially love the author’s portrait of Pomona Sprout, a character often seen only in passing or used for comic purposes, who shows herself to be a remarkable woman who embodies all of the best traits of her house, and someone we’d be proud to call friend.  She and Severus both are so beautifully characterized, it just took my breath away.

This is an extraordinary story, beautifully told, that moved me deeply.  Keep the tissues handy while you read - unless you have a heart of stone, you’ll need them .

Status: Completed

Length: Short Story

Tags: Slash: m/m, Romance, Rare Snape Slash, Post-DH, SS/FF

Story Summary: After the war, Severus finds himself dealing with excessively apologetic former colleagues, struggling through a difficult recovery from his injuries, and holed up inside Hogwarts in order to avoid the Ministry. Strangely, Filius is somehow making it almost enjoyable.

AlbaLark’s Rec:

This is another unusual Snape pairing that might strike one as unlikely, but I have greatly enjoyed this author’s efforts in the past, and so I decided to trust that this would be good.  It’s safe to say that expectations were exceeded!

The story opens with Severus waking up in the infirmary after the Battle of Hogwarts, with everyone (except the Ministry) falling all over themselves to apologize for having doubted him.  When Severus has had just about enough of this, in walks Filius Flitwick, who refuses to apologize for anything.  That sounds ominous, but it’s just Flitwick’s rather smart way of disarming Severus’s snark bomb and jollying him into conversation.  And he keeps it up, too, visiting daily to bring books, play chess, and gossip about what’s going on in the castle.  And when Severus is well enough to leave the infirmary, but in need of some exercise to bring himself back up to par, he talks him into being his regular dueling partner in lieu of Poppy’s physical therapy.

The friendship this engenders is very natural and real.  Different feelings begin to creep up Severus before he even realizes something’s changed - for the both of them - and this, too feels a very natural consequence.  When the slow burn heats up a little more, the scene that follows is tender and surprisingly hot.

The two of them have a very happy next few months, but the Ministry will not wait any longer to take Severus to Azkaban and then to trial.  He has to make a choice.  Should he stay and stand a trial he is pessimistic about winning, or take flight and have a chance to keep his freedom?  The author makes the choices he makes, and his reasons for them, feel as genuine as can be.  And while the final outcome is in doubt, we’re sure about the feelings they have for each other.

This is a lovely story, with characterizations which ring true, written with warmth and humor, making a romance that just *works*.

Status: Completed

Length: Short Story

Tags: Het: m/f, SS/MM, Missing Moment, Pre-HBP

Story Summary: Just another day in the life of two Hogwarts professors.

AlbaLark’s Rec:

I had a hard time attempting to categorize this little gem of a ficlet/short story.  The situation is somewhat angsty, but the dialogue is exactly what you’d expect between these two, with several wonderful turns of phrase that had me laughing out loud.  The two of them are snarky and unsentimental, yet are full of such obvious affection for one another.  This is a lovely little missing moment, one you are sure to enjoy.

Status: Completed

Length: Short Story

Tags: Humour/Parody, Fluff, Rare Snape Slash, SS/AF

Story Summary: In which Albus Dumbledore makes an error, Severus Snape is certainly not married, and Argus Filch is the happiest man in the world.

AlbaLark’s Rec:

This clever, splendidly humorous fic opens with a quote from Mrs. Euphemia Buttons’ wizarding guidebook on marriage and yet another hare-brained scheme by Albus Dumbledore.  Severus Snape is in his first year of teaching at Howarts, and Dumbledore decides that he wants to use an old ritual to bind Severus to him in his capacity as the ‘Head of Household’ at Hogwarts to insure his loyalty.  The only problem is, the Headmaster *isn’t* the head of the castle’s household - the caretaker is.  Thus, unbeknownst to them both, after Dumbledore repeats the ritual three times, seemingly without success, Severus ends up the ‘bride’ of Argus Filch.  This sounds like it ought to be crack-fic, but, amazingly enough, it is not.  It will, however, frequently have you gasping with laughter.

Turns out, Filch has been fancying Snape for a while and is thrilled to be married.  He begins referring to Severus as ‘poppet’ and taking advice from the aforementioned marriage guide on being the perfect husband.  Severus, for his part, once the shock wears off, resists mightily any notion of being married, though he does enjoy the sex that is the side effect of the bond.  This is just a magical mishap, and any notion that he might really want or need this is just ridiculous.  But Argus is sweetly patient and persistant, managing his prickly ‘bride’ every bit as well as he handles Hogwarts. Filch is so adorable here that you just want to hug him - not one’s usual reaction.  His attempts at cosseting Severus are so sweet and funny, and Severus’s tart responses make them even funnier.

In spite of himself, however, Severus slowly succumbs to Argus’s genuine affection and tender attentions.  Suddenly, breaking that misguided spell doesn’t seem so urgent, and our favorite Potions master seems on his snarky way to unbounded domesticity.  And this winning story, full of delectable lines, lovely insights and charming scenes, will leave you smiling long after you’ve finished.

Status: Completed

Length: Short Story

Tags: Het: m/f, SS/MM, Alternate Universe, Post-DH

Story Summary: Many years after Voldemort is finally overthrown, a Bulgarian former refugee comes forward to help answer one of the great mysteries of the wars: what happened to Snape and McGonagall. AU after the Battle of Hogwarts.

AlbaLark’s Rec:

In this engrossing and original tale, we leap thirty years into the future in a world where Voldemort won the Battle of Hogwarts, though Harry eventually defeats him. The first person we meet here is Ivo Dobrev.  Wait a minute - who??  Ivan Marinov Dobrev.  Surely you remember him? No?  Well, it doesn’t take long after you begin reading this story that you forget that he is not one of JKR’s creations, so naturally does he belong to this world.

Ivo was one of the heretofore nameless Durmstrang students present at Hogwarts during the year of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, the year that Voldemort was re-embodied and the Second War really began.  Two years after that, Bulgaria was getting far too uncomfortable for former proteges of Igor Karkarov, so he fled to Romania and ended up in a refugee camp.  Now, all these years later, The Dumbledore Institute has begun an oral history project to collect the stories of those whom the war affected outside of Britain.  Ivo responds, full of ambivalence, to an ad they placed in the Bulgarian equivalent of The Daily Prophet, deciding to at last tell his story after years of silence. He can tell about the life in the Vanda refugee camp, yes, but he also holds part of the answer to an enduring mystery of the war: what happened to Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape after they disappeared from Hogwarts post battle.  It is this story he both wants and does not want to tell, and he does not mention that he knows anything about this when he agrees to meet with the Institute’s historian in a small, out-of-the-way wizarding cafe in Sofia.

Thanks to the author’s superb powers of characterization, we immediately understand both the grizzled survivor, trying to decide what to tell and when and how to tell it, and the eager, naive young woman who is charged with recording his story.  Diantha Morris knows nothing, really, about war yet believes she can come to understand it from recording these stories.  She listens, almost patronizingly, to what he has to say, thinking that she is collecting a routine story about life in the refugee camp, and is utterly unprepared when Ivo slyly drops his bombshell.

She is shocked, then skeptical, at Ivo’s assertion that he knows what happened to these two key people after Hogwarts fell.  But he convinces her, and then, like she, we burn with curiousity to know everything he knows.  Through his eyes, we watch Minerva and Severus arrive in the camp, and settle in.  With him, we relive his memories, feel his respect for them and his scruples about listening in on their conversations and watching them at intimate moments.  Through the author’s spot-on ear for the way they speak to one another, and her luminous descriptions, we are transported there with him, hearing what they don’t say as well as what they do, and feeling the fierce tenderness between them.  The two of them feel very real, as does their relationship.  When the story comes to its close, in a finish which feels absolutely right, we are left as astonished as the historian must have been, at the power of this poignant and perceptive story.

Status: Completed

Length: Novella

Tags: Slash: m/m, Drama/Angst, Romance, Rare Slash Pairing, SS/MM, Rare Snape Het, Missing Moment, AD/HS, DH/Epilogue Compliant

Story Summary: Horace's relationship with Albus has never been straightforward; he has always been left at once ecstatic, confused and hurt to the bone. As the two friends become reacquainted during one of the wizarding world's most trying years, what, this time, might play out differently? How might memories of times past impact upon the future, and what secrets might come to the surface? Set during 'The Half Blood Prince.'

AlbaLark’s Rec:

The Horace Slughorn of Canon isn’t exactly, if you will pardon the pun, terribly fleshed out.  We know him only as the Head of Slytherin House and Potions master who preceded Severus Snape- a man who has quite a few character flaws (gluttony, hedonism, cowardice, someone who ‘collects’ people he believes can be of use to him later and so he can bask in their reflected glory, an avoider of uncomfortable truths).  In other words, he’s not a terribly admirable person, and he is meant to be someone for whom we feel a mild disgust when he intrudes upon our notice.

But this brilliant fic is guaranteed to change your point of view regarding Slughorn.  It humanizes him in a way JKR failed to do, setting his flaws in context, making them understandable and much less repellant than our original one dimensional view made them seem.

Told from Slughorn’s POV, the story begins just before Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter show up in Budleigh Babberton to induce him to return to Hogwarts.  Slughorn had fallen hard for Dumbledore long ago, who seemed to reciprocate his feelings to a point, only to wound Horace deeply and without seeming to notice that he’d done so.  We see Dumbledore’s manipulations here in an entirely different light than in HBP, and in spite of himself, Slughorn gives in.

As Harry Potter’s 6th year unfolds from Slughorn’s perspective, he falls easily into the old routines, renews old acquaintances, discovers a budding romance between colleagues and tells himself that he can handle being in such close proximity to Dumbledore, - even be friends with him without danger.  But we know as well as he does how impossible that will prove to be.  Dumbledore still has the power to wound him, even without meaning to.

The backstory of their past relationship unfolds in reminisces and flashbacks, and we see how he idealized Dumbledore, how insecure he felt at the disparity in their looks and talent, how unequal the feelings seemed to be.  These ideas haunt him still, making him feel the hopelessness of his longings even as he cannot prevent himself from having them.  Dumbledore won’t allow him to get close, will not allow any acknowledgement of feelings, nor would he in the past, though they were involved physically.

In the wake of one particularly devastating attempt make his feelings known, Slughorn spills his anguished grief to a photograph of Dumbledore.  It is a heartbreaking scene that will ring deeply true to anyone who has fallen for someone they feel is out of their league.  What Dumbledore has to say in the aftermath of this rings true as well, and gives one some keen insight and a bit of sympathy for past behavior one might otherwise find in short supply when it comes to him.  As things move toward the end we know is coming, the author crafts a denouement that is very moving, and a finale that gives us what we and the characters dearly hoped for.

In truth, I almost passed over this amazing story because of the primary pairing - the background helping of Severus and Minerva was the main reason I decided to read it at all.  I am *so* glad I decided to give this a chance.  It is beautifully written, exquisitely well characterized and deeply satisfying.  Don’t miss it!

Length: Short Story

Tags: Slash: m/m, Drama/Angst, SS/RL, Tragedy, Pre-HBP

Story Summary: Lupin discovers the skeleton in Snape's closet.

AlbaLark’s Rec:

The Diary was written prior to OotP, and is therefore no longer ‘canonical’, but is still well worth reading.  Severus goes to meet a spy for a report, and discovers from an injured Remus Lupin (his contact), that security has been breached and Voldemort has a spy in residence at Hogwarts.  Snape rescues Lupin, and hides him in his rooms at the castle while they try to find out the identity of the Dark Lord’s informant.

This is the frame for the real meat of the story (the identity of the spy turns out to be rather anti-climactic):  while trying to find something to amuse himself while in hiding, he comes across an ancient diary and a portrait of Snape’s maternal grandmother.  These two items lead to the uncovering of Severus’s tragic family history (remember that this was written at a time when we assumed that the Head of Slytherin was a pureblood and born to privilege, rather than a half-blood born into poverty and neglect).  What he learns gives Remus new insight into Severus’s character and what made him the man he is, and this endows him with the courage to take a chance on a new beginning for the two of them.

Both men are very in-character here, the dialog is nicely done, and the revelations shocking and very sad.  All in all, a well told tale, and one of the classics of the ship.

Status: Completed

Length: Novella

Tags: Slash: m/m, HP/SS, Drama/Angst, Humour/Parody, SS/RL, Alternate Universe, Pre-HBP

Story Summary: "Moony, you alright? I heard you groaning and--CHRIST! Shit, Moony, sorry, I didn't rea--wait...is that SNAPE?!"

AlbaLark’s Rec:

Recovery Position is an AU fic which ignores everything after Goblet of Fire.  In this world, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Severus Snape all survive into a post-war furture in which Hogwarts is a devastated mess, with Dumbledore crushed beneath the wreakage and 18 year old Harry Potter’s fate uncertain, but he is assumed to be dead.

Severus himself narrates the story.  His voice is hauntingly true - funny and pain-wracked at the same time.  You can’t help but hurt for what he’s saying at the same time you laugh out loud at the way he’s saying it.  He’s gotten himself addicted to muggle morphine to deal with the grief of losing Hogwarts, Dumbledore and Harry Potter, whom he loves unrequitedly, now forever - or so it seems.

Remus Lupin, who has much experience in the muggle world, recognizes Severus’s addiction and detoxifies him with quiet devotion, just in time for Harry to reappear.

Severus fights his craving for the morphine, his past attraction to Harry, his growing, unwilling, attraction to Remus, and discovers that his feelings are not so unrequited after all.  The triangle is drawn with such precision and feeling, and every character is so true to our understanding, that you ache for all parties as Severus contemplates his choices.

The sex in this fic is extremely well written - hot and emotionally intense, starting out as a not-quite-casual shag that, as the relationship continues, evolves into full-bore lovemaking.  The warm, hopeful ending is a just-right conclusion to this marvelous fic.

A technical note: This story is archived at the Lupin-Snape Community site on LiveJournal in several separate posts which are not linked.  Each post has to be accessed individually.  You will need to click the forward button to find the next post, and they are not all one after another.  Posts 1/2 through post 7 are sequential; there are 2 clicks forward to post 8; there are 4 clicks forward between post 9 and 10, then another 2 forward to post 11; post 12, the final post, follows next with one click.  Yes, it’s aggravating, but definitely worth it!