Advanced Potion-Making, Chapter 5: The Reversal

[maraudermods]

Title: Advanced Potion-Making, Chapter 5
Author: fire_everything 
Beta, cheerleader and all-around facilitator: brighty18 
Artists: lilmisblack  (banner), niccc  (all other art)
Pairing: Snape/Lily
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Authorial presumption, profanity, magical dub-con, mild kink, possibly disturbing reproductive issues/procedures, angst, excessive length
Word Count: Um…shorter than Half-

Comments

[acanismajoris]

ooo how exciting. Azkaban seems to violate a lot of cruel and unusual punishment guidelines, doesn't it? But just the way Voldemort reels him in - you can hardly blame Snape for turning to him, next to Dumbledore who just acts grumpy and disappointed in the whole affair. A lovely and exciting update indeed. :-)

[fire_everything]

Aw, thanks! I've maybe made Azkaban more of a frustrating mindfuck of a place here than it actually is in canon, where it seems to resemble a psychiatric ward full of terminally depressed patients more than anything else. Maybe because mindfuckery tends to be more narratively interesting than depression? I mean, Dementors and Dolores Umbridge are both bad news, but you can build a whole book around the twisted mind games of the latter.

See what a nice guy Voldemort can be when he feels like it? Dude was just so tragically misunderstood. ;)

[endeni]

Wow, that was really wonderfully written. It took me a while to get through the five chapters posted but now I can’t wait for more. ;).

I loved your Severus very much. And I was absolutely taken by your Voldemort, so sophisticated and fascinating.

I can easily buy into Severus’ mindset: the Ministry did nothing to help him and his mother, only endangering them more. Voldemort instead did a number worth of Prince Charming... :) By the time Severus succeeded in meeting him again I was most excited.

And Dumbledore: judgmental and a bit manipulative.
Really, the story is full of well-rounded and interesting characters, even the smallest Ocs are realistic and peculiar...

Lastly, loved your explanation of Eileen’s magic degradation, so clever.
And the whole final scene of chapter four, so powerful and dramatic!

A really captivating read! ^^

[fire_everything]

Endeni, thanks so much! Reading your comment last night was a bright moment at the end of an otherwise craptastic day.

I’m thrilled that you came away with these impressions of the characters! I love Snape very much myself (did you notice?;)), and am definitely trying to brainwash my readers into some fellow feeling toward him if they don’t have it already. I also wanted to, if not exactly rehabilitate Voldemort, then at the very least complicate him and put him under a different sort of spotlight than he gets in canon

[endeni]

Ah, I definitely feel brainwashed (in a positive way), since I can’t help but feel and experience other characters through Severus’ experiences and emotions.
I think that on the whole Dumbledore comes across as a lot of things: weary, a bit sad but also kind and attentive - that bit with the window for example was very sweet.
Yet I still resent him for not telling Severus he wasn’t going to be expelled - going back to that mess with the Patronus. And I find all those cryptic warnings of his just irritating: I mean, I know there’s truth in his words, but then again that’s easy in hindsight.
On the contrary, your Voldemort appears to be pretty layered and not at all the usual bad guy and I’m taken by every bit of kindness he shows to Severus...
Also yay, more Voldy next chapter!! That makes me so happy! :)

[fire_everything]

You know, I'm probably an idiot, but I didn't realize until I reread the OOTP chapter on Harry's hearing that the Ministry can't, by definition, expel students from Hogwarts (nor can they "destroy wands forthwith" for underage magic). So Dumbledore knew all along that Harry, too, wouldn't be expelled for casting the Patronus, but didn't bother to tell him either.

In Harry's case, of course, that was due to Dumbledore's whole fifth-year policy of Ignoring Harry for His Own Good, but my jaw kind of dropped when I realized that Dumbledore had been OK with letting Harry freak out needlessly for weeks about his potential expulsion. And Harry wasn't mad enough at Dumbledore at that point to call him on it - if I remember right (I'm at work and don't have the book with me), Harry is so relieved at the outcome of the hearing that he doesn't even think about Dumbledore's part in his pre-hearing angst. So I made sure to have Snape call Dumbledore out on Future!Harry's behalf! Sorta

[shyfoxling]

Ch. 5:

There seems to be a code error here:

“Azkaban has no record of your ever having been incarcerated here, and if you step over this threshold now” - he looked down at it -

[fire_everything]

There seems to be a code error here:

“Azkaban has no record of your ever having been incarcerated here, and if you step over this threshold now” - he looked down at it - marauderbigbang “you should find the wall offers you no resistance.

Fixed - I think. Getting the code for this fic in a condition that makes both LJ and Dreamwidth happy has been a challenge, to say the least. I’m handling all the coding stuff for the later chapter posts, but I can’t say I’m great at it yet, so please bear with me. I do appreciate your pointing it out, though - there’s so much text to proof that it’s inevitable I will miss a few things.

In HBP it's just in the Great Hall ("May I emphasise that you will not be able to Apparate outside the walls of this Hall, and that you would be unwise to try")

True, but I’m not sure Voldemort is enough of a linguist to make the distinction. Just pretend it’s a metonymy or whatever. :)

In any case I gotta wonder what Voldemort was doing just hanging around in the Shrieking Shack (and my, isn't it a lucky

[fire_everything]

The delay in getting chapter 6 posted has been absolutely ridiculous, for which I really must apologize. I can only say that life has intervened in peremptory and exhausting ways over the last few weeks - a midterm in one of my two classes and a Sisyphean stream of homework in the other, plus, on the work front, a horrible, completely undeserved ouster of a close coworker by my pathologically insecure boss that has left my office reeling. I'm only now starting to find my way back to a mental state that's somewhat compatible with fic writing.

Thanks so much for your patience and continuing interest! The fic postings will resume any day now, just as soon I can get my head and my schedule together to finish up the next installment. :)

[brighty18]

You know, I honestly that I’d commented on this ages ago, but (apparently) I did not.

Anyway, as usual, I love it. And I’m liking Snape more and more!

One of the most brilliant aspects of your writing is depth and subtlety of detail, and this is true in terms of characters, settings, plot devices, imagery, and more. For example, the idea of Riddle having cleared Snape’s name was genius on many levels. Not only does it work as a plot device, but it makes him rather sympathetic and likable. And that makes sense because, since we are seeing him through Snape’s eyes he should be likable.

It also serves a lovely bit to seal their fates. As Dumblesore so appropriately puts it: “Severus,” said the headmaster quietly, “I will not pretend I am sorry to see your place at Hogwarts restored to you. But it has been so dearly bought that in the end you may wish your expulsion had been successful.” Snape, however, found it impossible to imagine any circumstances in which he would ever wish such a thing. So true

[fire_everything]

Aw, Brighty, this is lovely. Thanks so much!

I'm happy you liked Voldy's little intervention-with-strings-attached on Snape's behalf. Many people in fandom have theorized that joining the Death Eaters must be like a gang initiation rite, requiring displays of violence if not outright murder from potential applicants, but while I'm intrigued by that idea, I'm taking Snape's "And my soul, Dumbledore? Mine?" in book seven to mean that he hasn't actively killed anyone up to that point. I imagine Snape to have been a sort of white-collar Death Eater whose skill set and contributions were primarily intellectual, thus allowing him to keep his hands relatively clean, and I've written a DE entreé for him that accords with that idea