Reviews for the October, 2012 Snarry Reader Update

[snarry_reader]

Review: A Long Time Coming
Title: A Long Time Coming
Author: conzieu
Artist: veridari
Rating - Fic/Art: NC-17/PG-13 (NWS)
Word Count: 193,210 words
Warning(s): (highlight for spoilers) *Non-Snarry pairings, Dub/non-con under the influence (not Severus and Harry), rough sex (not Severus and Harry), brief infidelity (not Severus and Harry), het, intentional twists of canon, voyeurism, minor character deaths, masturbation, fellatio, rimming, anal sex, ridiculously extended period of UST with a happy ending.*
Summary: There are signs from the days after the battle of Hogwarts that there is much more to Severus and Harry’s relationship than the conflict and hatred that had define it until then. It will take ten years of changes, personal growth, and maturing, as well as one year when both of them change careers and return to Hogwarts, for their feelings to finally overcome their prejudices, assumptions and fears and for the love of these soulmates to triumph.

Conzieu’s epic "A Long Time Coming" is the sort of longfic that you wind up reading in one sitting, simply because you cannot put it down. Spanning a decade, the story begins in earnest when it is discovered that Snape and Harry have perfectly compatible magic, which is put to use in the final defeat of the remaining Death Eaters just months after Harry’s triumph over Voldemort. The experience of sharing magic leaves Snape, in particular, changed; feelings that he has kept tightly under wraps for years demand acknowledgement, leaving him more open to experience than ever before. He ultimately leaves Hogwarts to seek his fortune elsewhere, and it’s not until he returns as Hogwarts’ Headmaster that we realize he has loved Harry from afar all these years. For his part, Harry learns to love this new Snape as well, and only knowledge of Snape’s prior attachment to another man keeps him from revealing his feelings. Yet, as though they cannot be kept apart for long, the two share intimate experiences of flying and conversation that leave no doubt as to their true feelings, and it’s these too-fleeting, but intensely affecting, moments together that see them – as well as the reader – through the myriad misunderstandings and missed opportunities leading to the story’s satisfying conclusion.


Review: Across the Galaxy
Title: Across the Galaxy
Author: centaury_squill
Artist: swtalmnd
Rating - Fic/Art: NC-17/NC-17 {NWS}
Word Count: 30,350 words
Warning(s): (highlight for spoilers) *Offscreen character death (not Severus or Harry), non-magical AU*
Summary: When Harry sees an intriguing stranger on a video transmission from a far-distant planet, he knows he just has to meet him. Even if he has to cross the galaxy to do it.

Snarry in space! With "Across the Galaxy" Centuary_squill transplants our beloved characters into a non-magic AU so seamlessly that you will think this could be canon. The fic opens with Harry Potter, newsjock and orphan with a secret. Obsessed with scientist Severus Snape after seeing him just once, he crosses the galaxy for the man knowing nothing about him except that he wants him. And that Snape became equally obsessed with Harry lays the foundation for this intriguing, cleverly plotted fic with the perfect balance of humor, mystery, romance and drama. A must read for Snarry fans of all kinds.


Review: Elementary Rituals
Title: Elementary Rituals
Author: gin_tonic
Artist: andreanna
Rating - Fic/Art: NC-17/NC-17 (NWS)
Word Count: 35,500 words
Warning(s): (highlight for spoilers) *Physical violence and men being men*
Summary: Harry has plans for the next weeks. Plans that involve Severus Snape and possibly a date or five. Unfortunately for him, the universe likes to throw stones in his path – and this one might just change the future of the whole wizarding world.

In "Elementary Rituals", Gin_tonic skillfully melds romance, mystery, and a bit of Muggle ingenuity together in a tale that will keep you hooked to the very end. Harry, a newly minted mediwizard, is in the process of redoubling his efforts to attract the attentions of a deceptively indifferent Snape when the fabric of the magical world is suddenly and fundamentally altered. When attempts to use magic nearly end in disaster, the pair compares notes with Auror Ron Weasley and Hermione to try and unravel a mystery that encompasses ancient magic, shady wizards and witches, and a trail of seemingly disparate clues. Snape and Harry eventually embark on a chase that spans the English countryside and becomes a race to keep one step ahead of the masterminds of this alteration and gather the necessary ingredients for a potion that will help in a ritual to restore magic to its former state. The time they spend working together has the effect of strengthening a trust and love that has long lurked just under the surface of their relationship, and it’s this unwavering focus on Harry and Snape throughout a truly unique tale of magical intrigue that makes this a Snarry to remember.


Review: Follow Me Home
Title: Follow Me Home
Author: emilywaters76
Artist: laniern
Rating - Fic/Art: NC-17/R (NWS)
Word Count: 33K words
Warning(s): (highlight for spoilers) *OoC, violence, noncon, BDSM, rough sex, corporal punishment, bondage, humiliation, knife-play, rack (risk-aware consensual kink)*
Summary: Seven years after the war, Harry Potter is gone from the wizarding world. A chance meeting in a Muggle BDSM club leaves Snape wondering about the reasons that made Harry leave.

Emily Waters’s intricate character study, "Follow Me Home", is set in a BDSM world that can be off-putting to some Snarry readers, but to let that environment – and both Snape and Harry’s roles within it – keep you from reading is to deny yourself a terrific story that transcends this milieu. The Snape of this story is almost ascetic in his colorless life, and his initial encounter with a startlingly dominant Harry at Claiborne, the BDSM club he frequents, seems at first glance to go particularly badly. Yet, Snape is drawn to this Harry, who gives him a certain satisfaction in submissiveness that he has never achieved with another, leading him back to Harry again and again almost despite himself. Although not unrecognizable, this is a colder, more businesslike Harry than we’ve been used to; the story hints at his reasons for utterly abandoning the Wizarding world in favor of life as a programmer of ersatz dragons for Muggle games, and it’s a heartbreaking moment when the scope of his perceived magical handicap is revealed. From almost bleak beginnings evolves a relationship that becomes richer the closer the two men come back to the world of their origins, culminating in an ending to satisfy even the most ardent romantic.


Review: Forget Me Not
Title: Forget Me Not
Author: emynn
Artist: vividescent
Rating - Fic/Art: NC-17/PG-13
Word Count: 36,560 words
Warning(s): (highlight for spoilers) *EWE, some violence*
Summary: A story in which the world remembers Severus Snape, Severus remembers that he will never be free of Harry Potter, and Harry remembers pretty much nothing at all.

Emynn begins the charming "Forget Me Not" with an entrance by Harry Potter, amnesiac ex-boy hero, that’s especially sweet for Snape’s blustery surprise at discovering him on his doorstep. The Snape of this story is an unsung recluse, presumed dead, to whose memory Harry has clung in the years following the war. As he helps Harry attempt to recover his memory and discover what caused him to lose it in the first place, it is revealed that Harry has been writing a book about Snape whose manuscript reflects not only Harry’s own evolving feelings for the man, but his place in the lives of fellow Order members, former pupils, and colleagues (of so many touching reminisces, it is a heartbreaking interview with Poppy Pomfrey that lingers long after the story is done). Harry’s desperate desire to see Snape recognized for his long years of service and suffering becomes a refrain throughout the course of the story, and when Snape – confronted with the choice of whether to remain in his quiet life-after-life or seek something new with Harry in the Wizarding world – makes his decision, the way he is embraced and vindicated is at once bittersweet and amazingly life-affirming.


Review: Harry Potter and the Erudite Wanker
Title: Harry Potter and the Erudite Wanker
Author: gingertart50
Artist: savagesnakes
Rating - Fic/Art: NC-17/PG=13
Word Count: 46,100 words
Warning(s): Chan, 17 (highlight for spoilers) *Gratuitous use of mythology. This fiction begins immediately after the Battle of Hogwarts, so Harry, although old enough to know better, is not old enough to flaunt his activities in Australia. Keep away from babies, children and impressionable pets. Contains profanity, irreverence and expletives. Handle with extreme care and dragon-hide gloves, particularly when grasping hawthorn bushes. Contents may settle. Beware of the wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.*
Summary: Dumbledore is up to something and a minor obstacle such as death isn't going to stand in his way; Hermione remains a clever-clogs but experience has diminished her know-it-all tendencies; Ron's skill at chess is far from being a fluke; Harry sets out on a journey of self-exploration; and Snape still suffers the after-effects of doing as he was told. The Fair Folk are Not Nice, and neither is Snape, but at least he never pretended otherwise. There's also a lot to be said for being a Wanker.

Gingertart50’s "Harry Potter and the Erudite Wanker" is so original and amusing that there’s a great temptation to call it a ‘delightful romp’; and yet, to do so would be to overlook the depth and richness that she brings to the story. Nothing is ever easy for Headmaster Snape; immediately after he’s resurrected from an almost certain demise by an exhausted Golden Trio, the four come under attack from an unknown assailant and are whisked away by Hermione to “the Forest of fucking Dean again!” Once a wary Snape returns to consciousness in a world of angry Fair Folk, incomprehensible Gryffindors, and one scene-stealing, gutter-mouthed Jarvey, the group embark on a mission to right wrongs and finally, finally put an end to the war once and for all. I love any story in which Snape learns to appreciate Harry for who he is, and here that discovery is multiplied: Hermione’s sincerity, he discovers, is no act, and Ron turns out to have a better-than-passing intelligence. But, in true Snarry fashion, it’s Harry – who’s having a few choice realizations of his own – who captures Snape’s attention with his intensity and quiet thoughtfulness, and the way they gravitate towards one another in an ever-tightening circle of observations and newfound truths makes this a romance to savor.


Review: Harry Potter and the Quest for the Sangreal
Title: Harry Potter and the Quest for the Sangreal
Author: avioleta
Artist: zarkir
Rating - Fic/Art: NC-17/R (NWS)
Word Count: 48,600 words
Warning(s): Chan, 16-18 (highlight for spoilers) *Chan, Harry is 16-18. Teacher/student relationship. First time. Explicit m/m sex. Brief mentions of religious/theological themes. General angst and drama.*
Summary: Horcruxes are dangerous to destroy. Snape knows this. He also knows that Voldemort has his sights set on something more powerful, something more terrifying, and something that, once invoked, cannot be undone. Together with Harry, Snape sets out to find this artefact before the Voldemort can obtain it. If they succeed, they can use its ancient magic to defeat the Dark Lord once and for all. But time is running out.

What’s extraordinary about Avioleta’s exquisite "Harry Potter and the Quest for the Sangreal" isn’t just its innovative plot, in which an attempt to neutralize the threat of Voldemort’s Horcruxes meets Grail lore, but also her fresh take on familiar faces. Avioleta has an amazing ear for dialogue, and interactions between Snape and Dumbledore, Harry and Ron, and even a memorable moment in Trelawney’s Divination classroom ring true; and her precision with characterization extends far beyond dialogue in the case of Snape and Harry. The Snape of this tale is a man carefully balanced on a razor’s edge, and his moments of anger, jealousy, and even passion, rather than being gratuitous, are sharper and all the more cutting for it. So, too, is Harry’s immaturity here less an immutable character flaw than an unavoidable consequence of his callowness. Together, the pair are a wonderfully volatile combination that lends both their growing desire and their horrific predicament an immensely satisfying depth, and because this is a volatility that lasts only as long as the conditions that sustain it, the idyllic postwar peace of the story’s end is especially well-deserved. Alone, the story is compelling – a late-game standoff at the Ministry of Magic is especially tense and terrifying – but it’s the characters, in all their wonderful fallibility, that give it its emotional resonance.


Review: The Boy Who Died A Lot
Title: The Boy Who Died A Lot
Author: starcrossedgirl
Artist: acid3
Rating - Fic/Art: NC-17/PG-13
Word Count: 72K words
Warning(s): Chan (highlight for spoilers) *Repeated major character death (don’t worry, it doesn’t stick!), bucketloads of dark humour, chan (one kiss at 15, sexual awareness from Snape’s part ~age 15/16 onwards, but no actual underage sex), angst with the odd touch of horror, brief attempted non-con (not in Snarry pairing), suicidal ideation and attempt, moral greyness and flawed characters, wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey. Oh, and a decidedly happy ending. ;)*
Summary: Harry’s always been known as The Boy Who Lived. Only Severus knows that this is a lie. (Or: a portrait of Severus Snape, in seven acts.)

There comes a moment in Starcrossedgirl’s breathtaking "The Boy Who Died a Lot" when something that has been darkly humorous suddenly turns deadly serious. The Harry Potter in this reworking of all seven years’ of HP canon is unusually prone to death, and an increasingly exasperated Snape is charged by Dumbledore with turning back time in order to keep persistent fate from taking the boy again and again and again. Snape’s initial detachment from the task provides the story with much of its early humor, but when he’s present for Harry’s fatal third-year attack by Dementors while on the Quidditch field, his grip on that detachment begins to falter, and it’s Snape’s ever-intensifying emotional investment in keeping Harry alive, at all costs, that’s at the heart of this heartbreakingly humorous tale. Snape – by turns darkly sarcastic and unexpectedly vulnerable – is the star of the story, but Harry – all overwhelmed, angry adolescence and, later, war-tempered compassion – is no less compelling for the way he haunts the story. The delicate denouement, taking place in a postwar world in which Harry and Snape finally meet as men on equal footing, is the perfect counterpoint to this spirited tale – the safety of a far shore at the end of a long, tumultuous journey.


Review: The Courtship of Severus Snape
Title: The Courtship of Severus Snape
Author: meri_oddities
Artist: vividescent
Rating - Fic/Art: R/R (NWS)
Word Count: 25,100 words
Warning(s): Chan, 15 (Not Snape or Harry) (highlight for spoilers) *Brief Albus Severus/Scorpius*
Summary: Severus Snape was not going to be the half-blood who made a mockery of the most respected pureblood courtship ritual. Even if Harry Potter was participating.

In "The Courtship of Severus Snape", meri_oddities gives us a wonderful new take on a trope of which she is an unparalleled master. The Snape and Harry of this courtship fic are no longer Hogwarts Potions Master and reckless boy saviour, but mature men mellowed with age and experience. Through a web of both intrigue and Slytherin machinations, divorced Auror Harry ends up as one of a select group of people vying for the hand of Severus Snape, who must marry and procreate in order to lay permanent claim to the Prince estate; and even though I just knew that, in the end, love and Snarry would win the day, it’s a testament to Meri’s grasp of her readers’ emotional investment in seeing Snape and Harry finally come together that each of Harry’s fellow contenders constitutes a palpable threat to that longed for happily-ever-after. Even Harry’s own early ambivalence towards Snape seems as much an impediment to wedded bliss as either lonely bachelor Charlie Weasley or – in a surprisingly believable turn – Neville Longbottom, and the result is a story that kept me on the edge of my seat in breathless anticipation of a happily-ever-after that is, in the end, made all the more delicious for never being a foregone conclusion.


Review: With Eyes Wide Open
Title: With Eyes Wide Open
Author: suitesamba
Artist: kaleran
Rating - Fic/Art: NC-17/PG-13
Word Count: 70,500 words
Warning(s): (highlight for spoilers) *Character death (not H/S), voyeurism*
Summary: When Narcissa Malfoy calls in her life debt so that Severus can fulfill the terms of his grandfather’s will and secure the Prince family estate, Harry agrees to marry Severus Snape and live with him for a year and a day. But Prince Manor hides a secret in its overgrown gardens, and Narcissa isn’t helping Severus out because of her kind heart. Harry thinks he’s going into the marriage with eyes wide open, but he has to maneuver around the Malfoys’ machinations and come to terms with his growing feelings for Severus even as the magic in the gardens gives his life a new, unexpected purpose.

If ever there were a story you could wrap around you like a favorite quilt, it would be Suitesamba’s slow-burning bonding tale, "With Eyes Wide Open". The premise – that Snape must marry for a proscribed amount of time in order to claim the Prince estate – is a familiar one, but Suitesamba brings to it both a gentle, inviting humor and a subtle poignancy that envelop the reader in its warmth. No whirlwind romance, the relationship that grows between a still-young Harry and a Snape who is at once emotionally distant and physically impassioned is one of embers being coaxed to flame, and it’s telling that their bodies bespeak their growing attraction to one another long before they confess it in words. More than this, though, the story sees Harry to manhood through the interest he takes in an abandoned magical labyrinth at Prince Manor; and the hours he spends studying its intricacies and bringing it back to life piece by piece ready him to love a man whose heart has been equally abandoned and only now begins to awaken under Harry’s care. Motivations are puzzled out and hidden emotions lured into the light in this wonderfully wistful tale, in which nothing is quite what it seems at first glance, and fresh possibility lurks around every corner.