Why I Love HBP Snape (and Salman Rushdie Does too!)

[harmony_bites]

I was just discussing with gioiamia, who like me recs on KIA, why I love Snape. She's involved with a LJ Community that speculates about Book 7, called hpbook7thoughts. That group isn't particularly SS/HG oriented, and Gioia actually considers Harry/Ginny her OTP. She says that everyone she knows in her corner of the fandom, Snape fan or not, believes Snape is still one

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[harmony_bites]

I suppose that is true--that canon has narrowed. But I think shippers narrow it even further by stubborning telling the same stories over and over. You know how much I love Thirty Pieces (which itself is post-HBP) and part of what I love is that it's not the five hundredth apprentice or 1,001st seventh year fic or the 2,002nd MLC. There was something Shiv once said on WIKTT about MLC fics that resonated with me. That the shame about them wasn't the stories told, but the ones that weren't. Where were the stories about Hermione with her own business, or championing elf-rights, or finding a cure for Lycanthopy?

It's true fluff is much harder, but not impossible postHBP. In fact, I could give you a post-HBP scenario, two, where Snape is not even a killer. Both staying strictly within the lines of current canon (though not with things JKR has said since she says AD is definately dead).

1) It was all a ruse. Snape didn't even cast AK on the Astronomy Tower. He said one thing but cast another spell that landed AD safely on the ground in a deep sleep. There's a Final Battle where AD is revealed still alive, fighting, and kicking, Snape's shown to be a hero and is reinstated at Hogwarts with that Medal of Merlin around his neck. A scenario similar to that is used by StormySkize in a fic and Jodel of Red Hen at one point argued along these lines.

2) See my comments above with Shiv. AD was already dying by the poison Harry fed him. Snape performed AK on an AD that was already dead. This is revealed and Snape gets off w/o even a visit to Azkaban.

These aren't frankly very plausible scenarios--but they are *possible* w/o throwing away HBP.

And Duj's is a good example of a realistic postHBP tale that argues for Snape being good. Another is SnarkyRoxy's "What I know You've Done" But both are short stories though, not the kind of meaty tale that usally locks someone into a ship.

But I have actually few beloved stories which take place during the HBP time. And from those, Books of Shadows has to me mentioned in the first place, because I'm still full of it. These seven chapter made the reading time during my vacation a real bliss and I just want to have a little more time to write you a thoughtful review or two. Because I have been bewitched...

:preens: Thanks!

Uh oh. Does this mean every time I try to get you to write more Thirty Pieces you're going to mention Book of Shadows to me?

*gulp*