Night-Blooming Heartsease by Julad (NC-17)
Title: Night-Blooming Heartsease
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Neville/Snape
Categories: Romance, drama, war
Length: Long (~32,000 words)
Warnings: Character death, slash
Author on LJ: julad
Author on AO3:
Julad
Author Website: Ambivalent Pleasures
Summary:
Snape swooped around the room like a giant bat, adding ingredients to some cauldrons and stirring others. Then he stopped and tapped his wand against the benchtop impatiently. "Well? What is so important that I must risk a vital brew of Animaserum by having you in the room with it?"
His tongue was so dry, he didn't know how he would ever get the words out. "Heartsease, Professor." There, that wasn't so hard. He took a deep breath. Dementors were worse, surely.
Review:
There's a little throw-away remark in Resonant's story Transfigurations (which unaccountably hasn't been recced here (yet)): Then George raised his glass. "To Neville Longbottom," he said ... "And to Severus Snape, may he rest in whatever he prefers instead of peace." This is the story of that remark.
It is a gloriously impossible romance, and it tugs on your heart-strings the whole way through. We know from the start that Snape won't live to the end of the story, and the Snape we meet still terrifying Neville at the beginning of the story isn't the sort of man that we would mourn much, just as he should be. By the end, he's still the same man; it's our view of him through Neville's eyes and Neville's growing self-confidence that has changed. That's the great achievement of this story, keeping true to the characters but making us care anyway.
It's worth saying that Neville's viewpoint is appropriately odd all by itself. He is a pureblood, and there's a lot that he takes for granted, particularly about magical plant breeding. There's enough logic to it that we get drawn into accepting what Neville accepts, and correspondingly have to think a moment before recognising ordinary Muggle things like credit cards.
If you haven't read this story, you definitely should, even if you have to put your fingers in your metaphorical ears for the short slash parts. It's the romance and the growth that matters; just keep a hanky near to hand.
Night-Blooming Heartsease
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Neville/Snape
Categories: Romance, drama, war
Length: Long (~32,000 words)
Warnings: Character death, slash
Author on LJ: julad
Author on AO3:
Julad
Author Website: Ambivalent Pleasures
Summary:
Snape swooped around the room like a giant bat, adding ingredients to some cauldrons and stirring others. Then he stopped and tapped his wand against the benchtop impatiently. "Well? What is so important that I must risk a vital brew of Animaserum by having you in the room with it?"
His tongue was so dry, he didn't know how he would ever get the words out. "Heartsease, Professor." There, that wasn't so hard. He took a deep breath. Dementors were worse, surely.
Review:
There's a little throw-away remark in Resonant's story Transfigurations (which unaccountably hasn't been recced here (yet)): Then George raised his glass. "To Neville Longbottom," he said ... "And to Severus Snape, may he rest in whatever he prefers instead of peace." This is the story of that remark.
It is a gloriously impossible romance, and it tugs on your heart-strings the whole way through. We know from the start that Snape won't live to the end of the story, and the Snape we meet still terrifying Neville at the beginning of the story isn't the sort of man that we would mourn much, just as he should be. By the end, he's still the same man; it's our view of him through Neville's eyes and Neville's growing self-confidence that has changed. That's the great achievement of this story, keeping true to the characters but making us care anyway.
It's worth saying that Neville's viewpoint is appropriately odd all by itself. He is a pureblood, and there's a lot that he takes for granted, particularly about magical plant breeding. There's enough logic to it that we get drawn into accepting what Neville accepts, and correspondingly have to think a moment before recognising ordinary Muggle things like credit cards.
If you haven't read this story, you definitely should, even if you have to put your fingers in your metaphorical ears for the short slash parts. It's the romance and the growth that matters; just keep a hanky near to hand.
Night-Blooming Heartsease