Try to contain your shock
But I actually wrote something and posted it this morning. For the first time in months, I feel capable of stringing two sentences of fiction together, which is frankly a relief. I think Azkatraz has done me a tremendous amount of good in terms of jump-starting my creativity and reinvigorating me. There was just such enthusiasm, so many
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I really like that pairing as well. As I said to drinkingcocoa, I was very upset by Minerva's parting words to Severus when I read DH, but after some reflection, I think that I see part of her uncharacteristically vindictive attitude stemming from 1) a year spent watching people like Amycus Carrow ruin the school and torment the students she's devoted her career to protecting and more importantly 2) profound disillusionment, hurt and anger that Severus Snape is (apparently) not at all the man she thought he was. From her perspective, she's trusted him, she's LIKED him, and he's turned out to be a killer without conscience, spitefully biting the hand that fed him. This isn't reality, but it's what she's meant to perceive. (If Dumbledore had intended otherwise, he would have let her in on the arrangement at some point.) I really have to imagine that she would have felt profound regret after learning the full truth. (And most likely, she would have been both devastated and spitting mad at being left out of the loop.) So when you write an AU in which Snape survives, that leaves the two of them in a very interesting place, and the question becomes whether he can forgive her mistrust and whether she can forgive herself for misjudging him.
Still, I do find it hard to reconcile her approval of Harry's Cruciatus Curse with the rest of her character. She has every right to hate Carrow, but to call an Unforgivable gallant... ?
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She's a gifted witch and she had plenty of other ways to subdue the already defeated Carrows without that. I would have expected her to say they weren't worth the trouble of big firepower or something, myself.
Yes, and this is where it really goes off the rails for me, too. It would have been so easy--and not at all intrusive or moralizing--for JKR to either use that situation as an object lesson in the difficulty of doing what's right versus what's easy, or else to make it clear that Harry or Minerva feel a twinge over the choices they've made. War is hell, after all, and even good soldiers don't always make the right decisions, but I don't think the text ever shows us any of the conflict of conscience that should come with having to make those judgment calls.
But I could go on forever about the muddled moral messages of DH!
And I'm glad you like the pairing. :-)
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