If this makes no sense to you, ignore it.
A while ago, there was a chat going on Skype with thanfiction and others about Snape, Terry Boot, and Fenrir Greyback in Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness. (Those who read it and didn't like the way Snape was portrayed might find this interesting.) This is mainly as a place keep this information and as a link to those at the DAYD community--though if others are interested, by all means enjoy.
Warning: Language, mentions of violence, murder, drugs, etc., Spoilers for DAYD.
This is where thanfiction talked about Snape, his motives during DAYD, and a secret about Terry Boot.
Thanfiction: I agree wholeheartedly that Snape was a fucked up monkey. Culpable? Oh yes, people have proven that your background does not set your behavior in stone. Criminal? Again, he'd have had his butt in Azkaban reeeeally fast if Voldy hadn't snakenuked him. But were his actions justifiable from his POV? Very much so. I don't mean with Harry, I mean with the DA in 97-98
ceirdwenfc: snakenuked. Is that a diagnosis?
imagined_away: don't most people like snape think what they're doing is justifiable?
faeriegal713: *falls out of chair*
angakkuq_01: Most serial killers do.
liebedance: Everybody thinks that what they do is justifiable.
ceirdwenfc: I also thought that said snakePUKED
faeriegal713: Or if they don't, they really don't care to try to justify it.
Thanfiction: He was looking at it from a coldly tactical perspective. He considered himself to be fulfilling the letter of the law of his promise to Dumbledore while still riding both sides of the fence so that whichever way it came out, he'd be relatively intact. The only remaining student he had any personal feelings about was Neville, but even that wouldn't have mattered more than it had before if it weren't for the DA.
ceirdwenfc: riding both sides of the fence so that whichever way it came out, he'd be relatively intact. That's the Slytherin in him, though
imagined_away: they're different to me
angakkuq_01: Fence-sitters are the first to get shot off, I've noticed.
liebedance: In terms of little day to day things, yes. But in terms of larger things, life decisions, etc...
Thanfiction: At the start of the year, it was made clear that the Carrows were there as sort of Zampolit. To help "ensure things were running smoothly." He was in charge, but it was only his announcement, not his call that they be put in charge of discipline. When they 'suggested' it to 'help get this place back under control from the mess Dumbledore made of it", there wasn't a big option for no. The Cruciatus being used freely and the day to day punishments - pretty much everything through the encounter with Ernie and Neville in the GH in Chapter 3 - wasn't him. I hate Snape as much as the next fellow, but I'm being bald honest about where what shit fell.
Thanfiction: He knew he had caught genuine!Neville in the GH after he didn't rise to the goading that Harry would have (in Snape's opinion), but he couldn't prove it. He also knew he had a mystery second person, and he was kicking himself for not having paid more attention to height or build.
Thanfiction: When he discovered it was in all the classrooms, though, he knew he had a big problem. This was organized resistance, and he remembered how Umbridge had been all but driven out in 5th year. He knew that this was a crossroads, and that the Carrows - by extension Voldemort - and the whole student body would be watching how he handled this.
magikcat112: But his decision could've killed them.
Thanfiction: So he made a very bold decision. He decided to go for shock value, come down as hard as legally possible, simultaneously prove his shit to Voldemort and scare the students so bad they wouldn't consider so much as leaving a shirttail untucked all year. And it DID strike him as lovely that he'd get to do it to Neville. He assumed the second boy was a Gryffindor as well, so he laid a very Gryffindor-aimed trap by setting up a very showy "we're going to do something awful to innocents if you don't play hero" and setting it with guaranteed Longbottom Bait.
Thanfiction: He had no intention of letting them die, but he wanted everyone to think he would have. It was come down so hard, so early, for so little that they would be sat down and shut up hardcore. By waiting until Pomfrey hit the ceiling and then letting them down, he maintained the stance of a hardass who would let them die and kept the card of "merciful". Unfortunately, when you look up "backfired" in the dictionary....
Thanfiction: The Carrows tried everything in their book, and so did he, but he'd already played the trump card, and he was now proper fucked as the DA started really going for it. Thankfully, for the first two months or so, the Carrows agreed to keep it quiet.
ceirdwenfc: Neville was personal I think - he pissed Snape off. And he tried to knock him out with Dobby remember - that would have pissed off the potions master. the arrogance of Neville
Thanfiction: Then they went for the Sword of Gryffindor. That was the good news and the bad news for Snape.
ceirdwenfc: The Lestranges went after Frank & Alice - his second. Wasn't Crouch there too? I mean that Bellatrix was his second
Thanfiction: The bad news was that there was no way to keep something of that magnitude from Voldemort. And oh, shitsalad, was he in trouble. He had to talk slick and fast to keep his position at all, and only because he promised this WOULD stop.
Thanfiction: The good news was that he was given permission (implicit orders) to do "whatever it took" to make it stop, as long as there wouldn't be public repercussions. Basically, it was made very clear between the lines "Kill the ringleaders, but make it look like an accident." Enter Project Werewolf Chow. To be blamed on everyone's favorite serially student-endangering half-giant. Thanfiction: If you look up the SECOND entry under "backfired"..
Thanfiction: Fortunately, he managed to work with Lucius on that one and they plied every ounce of their old sway over Voldemort, who was still at least a little rational when it came to non-Potter issues. Enough, at least, to understand that the escape from the Forbidden Forest was about the same odds as a three-legged fat man running blindfolded across a three-mile mine field safely. Runcorn actually saved his bacon a little bit...it got him a little bit of slack because they didn't want to talk about the worrisome factor of a 'loyal' one turning on them. And he gave them Luna, which earned back some brownie points.
Thanfiction: Then they came back from Christmas, and it all got worse. The DA was actively, openly recruiting. Trouble was coming thick and fast. They were somehow training first years. Draco's promise that he could get into the RoR turned out to be a dead end for no explicable reason other than that maybe he'd had his memory wiped. The Creevey's had gotten away and unquestionably been take in by the Order as seen by Colin's new hand. The letters of concern were becoming...ah...firm in tone.
Thanfiction: Because the Carrows, realizing they were in over their heads with these kids, had decided to throw Snape to the wolves and tattle like three year old parrots on speed.If they couldn't stop them, at least they could deflect Voldemort's wrath. No punishment seemed to have effect, and they were watching their backs too well for there to be another convenient "accident." There were, however, starting to be implications that SNAPE might have an 'accident' necessitating a new Headmaster. Then Dragon Pox hit.
Thanfiction: Slughorn was good, but it's required that the most highy rated Potions specialist at Hogwarts at any given time must approve any potion or medication to be dispensed to ten or more students. So Snape found himself sick, miserable, and tediously double-checking over a hundred little vials for the very pipsqueaks he hoped would choke on their phlegm. And on the third day, he noticed a new one, labled "Longbottom, N."
Thanfiction: If he was a religious man, he would have fallen to his knees and thanked God. It was so beautiful, so easy, a chance to just end it all, behead the DA, get back in Voldy's good graces, rub out that fucking little upstart who shouldn't have been there to begin with, and poetic justice on top of it for the attempted drugging earlier in the year. And all it took was a few drops of extract of Brassica Oliveria Carnivorous to boost the fever just enough to kill.
angakkuq_01: His mistake was using a plant to try and take out a Herbology expert.
Thanfiction: But apparently McGonagall wasn't the only one at the school with the lives of a cat. You cannot imagine the headdesking that ensued when Neville was pronounced out of danger.
Flutter: someone should have gotten him a big rubber stamp that read FAIL!!!
Thanfiction: Things seemed to settle down a little, and he thought maybe the DP had taken the wind out of their rebellious little sails, and then there was the entire Hagrid's Hut Incident.: Thankfully, that was an even bigger embarassment to the DE's, and for some reason that he wasn't going to argue, Amycus announced that it hadn't been students in there, it had been Order Members, and so there was no point in trying to hunt among the student body. (It is entirely possible that Mssr. Carrow may have had his pride handed to him in a neatly giftwrapped blue and bronze package). And of course, the DA resumed.
Thanfiction: The first thing to go RIGHT for him was when he was informed that they were coming to retrieve Mr. Whitby, and even through the Macmillans' stunt, he was able to keep control and actually make it seem like the rebellion was just a lot of ineffective flash and noise. Even better, Longbottom started to look steadily more like shit from that point on, which was a beautiful, beautiful thing to see.
Thanfiction: The other top suspects for DA ringleaders were looking worried, scared, unsettled, Longbottom was looking like he had forgotten what sleep was, and for the first time that year, Severus Snape got a few good night's sleep.Now, his assumption was that the Dementors had brought back the memories of Neville having his butt handed to him in the DoM and that had broken his confidence, but it wasn't a stupid assumption, even if it was wrong.
Thanfiction: It was just misplaced projection. He assumed that Neville's worst memory, like his own, would be a moment of humiliation; having his nose and wand broken and the Prophecy taken.
angakkuq_01: THe DoM would be something approaching a good memory for Neville--he fought full-grown Death Eaters and lived to tell the tale, which was a lot more than most kids his age could boast.
Thanfiction: Actually, he had SUPPLIED Neville's worst memory, which was very straightforward and not all that psychologically impressive. What he remembered when the Dementors came was the lovely experience of having your back laid open to bone about oh, twenty hours in. So they get break again, Snape goes home, actually is relaxing and thinking there's a possibility he might make it through this year when he gets a letter about the Knockturn Alley incident. He answers it for pages of succulent, reveling detail, managing somehow to avoid saying "neener neener, now YOU know what I've been dealing with; pain in the ass, isn't he?"
Thanfiction: And yes, he does experience a heavy quantity of schaenfreude when Neville and Hannah escape, because although that means they're his problem again, it also means he's going to have a lot more leverage in saying that they really ARE that much of a headache, and he now has the "yeah, so why couldn't THE ENTIRE MINISTRY stop JUST TWO of them?" card to play when the howlers start up again. Thanfiction: Of course, the first day back, as if to remind him why he was going through warehouse-club sized vats of headache potions, he gets shanked with a butter knife by an eleven year-old nerd.
imagined_away: nice use of the word shanked
Thanfiction: Who, much to his relief, has no concept of the location of the sternum.
deadskyblacksun: sounds like my school
ceirdwenfc: Of course, the first day back, as if to remind him why he was going through warehouse-club sized vats of headache potions, he gets shanked with a butter knife by an eleven year-old nerd.
This is a beautiful statement and needs art.
deadskyblacksun: ^^
Thanfiction: He thinks he's going to have another chance at Neville if he leaves the kid on the wall, so he orders Elliot to stay hanging and uses the very extremity of his own magical skill to conceal himself and hold a bit of a stakeout.
Thanfiction: The only way he could have been more surprised at who showed up would have been if it had been Dumbledore. He almost revealed himself and did a simple capture, but there is a true fascination with the magical arts in Snape, and what Mike was doing captivated him, so he kept watching. When he finally made the capture and returned to his office, leaving Mike attached to the wall and under (now conscious) guard and with the doors sealed, there was a genuine twinge of regret that they couldn't have talked about the Patronus Side-Along like gentlemen.
Thanfiction: However, that left the issue of what to do with Corner. Floggings had lost their impact, they'd run through damned near everything else, and he knew he would have to get creative. He thought about it for around three hours, the most appealing options he was considering being either playing with some of his OWN original spellcraft (yes, he did want to show off a bit in return..."you're good, kid, but I'm better," so to speak) or doing something mutilatory to play off of how handsome Corner was and how much that would both have psychological impact on the other students ad how he'd wanted to fuck up a pretty boy since Sirius Black.
Thanfiction: It was while he was sort of mentally paging through the most esoteric torure techniques he had ever heard of that he noticed a letter on his desk that had come through two days before, mentioning that Hans Belsen had been granted amnesty to come from Egypt and give some consulting lectures at the Ministry on Bloodline Maintenance. Have you ever had one of those lightbulb moments? Lionel Corner had been a geneticist, and his first notable paper had been rather famous for once and for all stomping the shit out of Belsen's old theories by proving that magic was a chromosome. Which meant Belsen - one of the foremost torture experts in the wizarding world - was not only in the UK, but had reason to have a grudge against his current downstairs wall decor.
Thanfiction: We all know what happened next. In addition to what I've already said, it was also a second try at the "shock and awe" resistance-crushing technique first employed with the floggings. Only this time, to his credit, it actually kind of worked. The DA pulled back. Rather than getting complacent, though, Snape had learned from how the Ministry hadn't acted with the DE's seemed dormant, and he took advantage of the "kick 'em while they're down" principle. Riding on the success with Corner but Belsen's outraged reports of being backsassed by students during his esteemed lectures, he managed to get what Jack described as "Educational Decree I-Can't-Bloody-Well-Keep-Track" passed.
Thanfiction: It was then he learned the very definition of headdesk. Headdesk is when fully 15% of your student body fucking VANISHES out from under your nose when no one can leave the castle grounds. And the only of-age student that hasn't vanished is doing an astounding impression of a vocally challenged clam. Fortunately, the Carrows weren't any more eager to tell Voldemort "Um, we've kind of misplaced them," than he was, so the reports were carefully phrased to imply that everything was going fine and the rebellion seemed suppressed without technically lying. While they desperately tried to pump Smith and/or come up with any kind of idea for finding the little assholes before they had to produce a graduating class.
Thanfiction: 10:38pm, 1st May, 1998, they found 'em.
Thanfiction: Snape's evening went downhill from there.
angakkuq_01: To say the least.
Thanfiction: Seen from Neville's POV, Snape's just the devil incarnate (well, until he meets the DD), but from Snape's, it is, as always, a different story. Not that by ANY means it makes him a nice man.
deadskyblacksun: oh no
Thanfiction: Though there was another thread or subplot, if you will, running through that year. Snape had his own Snape, so to speak. Another double agent, and a story that I've never told because the individual in question kept it so utterly secret that even the one closest to him didn't know, and I just haven't found a suitable way to tell it.
Thanfiction: I still don't know how to weave it into the official fabric of the Daydverse, but I can tell it here, if you are willing to have what you know about a fairly major character completely turned inside out.
deadskyblacksun: if we werent we wouldnt be here
Thanfiction: Ok, leave now if you don't want to know. I'll give two minutes.
ceirdwenfc: You are an evil, evil man.
angakkuq_01: How could we leave after that?
ceirdwenfc: You should let us guess.
Thanfiction: In fifth year, they found out ten days before OWLs that they were going to be tested on the official DADA standards; not the disasterous mishmash they'd been taught for five years under Quirrell, Lockhart, Lupin (who was good, but more taught Dark Creatures than DADA), Moody, and Umbridge. Now, those who had been DA actually had a fighting chance because Hermione had been helping Harry build the curriculum from the official texts, but there was, nonetheless, wholescale panic in Ravenclaw Tower. Particularly for one young man whose entire worth when he went home was encompassed in his marks, and who was taking a full load of OWLs as it was. He panicked so badly, in fact, that he resorted to Calming Draughts to handle it, and wound up kind of screwed over on them by the time they hit break, necessitating a very unpleasant intervention by his best friend and a lot of promises never to touch the shit again.
Thanfiction: Now, what we know officially is that Terry started using again right after the flogging in seventh year, and it got increasingly serious until, by the time of the battle, he was blitzed off his head and a hardcore addict. That, however, is the version Mike got, and only the technical truth.
Thanfiction: The full story starts the afternoon after Neville and Ernie were flogged. Mike and Terry went to Snape's office with what was, quite frankly, a beautifully prepared and logical argument as to why this needed to be stopped immediately. For their trouble, they received, courtesy of Amycus Carrow, their very first Cruciatus Curses. They were so intense and the boys had never had it before, that it knocked them out cold, and they woke up about twenty minutes later in Ravenclaw Tower, sore as shit and with Tony and Steve informing them that they had been idiots, something they heartily agreed with. However, the soreness of a Crucio does pass, and as far as they could tell, the only physical damage that had been done was that Terry had a small nick or abrasion on one elbow that he'd somehow managed to get without tearing his shirt.
Thanfiction: They finished classes, and Terry was feeling kind of off and panicky, but he'd just been Cruciated, so he kind of wrote it off and forced himself to bed early. He woke up, however, at five o'clock the next morning, nearly hysterically panicked, sick as a dog, and desperately craving the Calming Draughts. He fought the impulse for about half an hour, but it was so overwhelming that he was almost in tears by the time he snuck out. He'd been going to go to the Potions storeroom, but at the last minute, he forced himself by pure willpower to go to the infirmary instead, intending to report himself to Madame Pomfrey on the WTF Is Wrong With Me principle.
Thanfiction: Severus Snape was waiting for him in the Hospital Wing. He revealed that he knew damned well what Terry had done in fifth year - he watched his stores closely - and that Terry's name had been on the list for the first DA. Now, Mr. Boot had a bit of a reputation outside Hogwarts, having published his first scholarly paper at the age of twelve and having had a long correspondance with Antonin Dolohov, who (apart from his little side allegiance) was one of the most brilliant minds in Charm Development. Mr. Dolohov had requested that Snape do what he could to recruit the now of-age Mr. Boot to the DE's, and Snape saw an opportunity to not only do that, but to have someone he knew from the first DA would be on the short list for this next rebellion under his thumb. Because he had something on Terry. He'd dosed him the day before, reawakening the addiction with a vengeance, and a bit of a hyptnotic on top of it, which made Terry not Imperiused, but definitely vulnerable to suggestion. And so he made his offer.
Thanfiction: If Terry would spy for him among the DA, he would give him what he needed. If not, he would make sure that the stores were utterly inaccessable and made it clear that the withdrawals he'd had before would be child's play. If, however, Terry was willing to go the next step and take the Dark Mark, he would not simply give the potion, but the antidote. Thanfiction: Terry would not take the Dark Mark, but he COULD not betray the DA, because he was under the Fidelius. And so began an eight-month game of highest stakes chess.
Thanfiction: Terry lied. He used half-truths, plausible falsehoods, gave things just close enough to accurate that it would be worth SOMETHING to Snape while still not coming close enough to trip the Fidelius or actually endanger his friends. And Snape, knowing that he had to keep Terry needing, kept upping the dosage, eventually winding up with a staggeringly potent cocktail of not one, but thirteen different potions, each needed to cancel the side-effects and prevent the formation of tolerance, keeping Terry functional but very, very hooked. And he let Terry know this, know that by the end of the year, he'd HAVE to take the Dark Mark because the withdrawals by that point would kill him, and he would no longer have access once he left school.
Thanfiction: Terry, however, had his own ace up his sleeve. He couldn't dare do it until the end of the year, but if he hadn't found another way out - or been caught in the lies and Merlin only knew what then - he had been working deep Legilimency with Mike since he was fourteen, and Snape didn't know that. His plan - desperate, almost insane - was at the last minute to slam Snape with every bit of raw power he had...and one of their minds would break. Either he'd get the information to make the antidote, or it wouldn't matter.
Thanfiction: As it was, however, they were forced into the RoR, where Terry was only able to keep duplicating what he already had from Snape, which was enough to keep him borderline functional, but because of the escalating pattern, he was increasingly unstable, hence the rather odd behavior we see from him in the last few days. The dose he took when he knew battle was imminent was nearly toxic, but he wasn't just going into battle, he was also hoping to set himself up with enough to not just get through until morning, but to be able to hunt down Snape and crack his last chance.
Thanfiction: That's why Snape was always almost-but-not-quite a step ahead of them. He almost-but-not-quite had an insider. He thought he had beaten Dumbledore at his own game and created of another what Dumbledore created of him. And he was more right than he knew.: Because as he was to Voldemort within the Order, Terry Boot was to him within the DA. Mike never knew because damned if Terry was going to let the person he loved more than life itself be caught in the same toxic tango.And Neville never knew because he couldn't risk being kicked out of the DA, especially when he'd been made Lieutenant. And as I said, there was no way to weave it into the story workably.
This is where thanfiction talks a little bit about Remus Lupin, and tells the origin story about Fenrir Greyback
angakkuq_01: Werewolves seem to be persecuted for what is basically something they can't help. Something that they didn't ask for. Something that they would gladly be rid of if they could.
Thanfiction: Add to that the human need for community, when we can see how much, through Lupin, being a werewolf gets you ostracised...
angakkuq_01: Yeah.
Thanfiction: With Greyback's tribe, there's the additional factor that he deliberately turned them young to add to his pack. That four year old doesn't have much of a choice about how he's going to grow up.
angakkuq_01: Remus was--by all appearances--damaged by the way he was treated. Maybe he had a meek personality even before he was bitten, but the treatment sure didn't help. Greyback is a textbook psychopath. That guy went the opposite route Lupin did--instead of rejecting that part of him, he revels in it.
Thanfiction: I think Remus was so afraid of his own lycanthropy that he didn't trust himself even the other 27 days out of the cycle and therefore squashed down and hated himself for any impulse or personality trait that he associated with "turning." Hence why his meekness seems oddly forced and flaggelant, almost like the meekness of a penitant monk, while when he's acting off his guard, he's as bold as you'd expect of a Gryffindor.
angakkuq_01: I tend to think that he was pretty much Lucius Malfoy's attack dog--so to speak--while Riddle was for all intents and purposes dead. Yeah, exactly. Like two opposite ends of the spectrum.
Thanfiction: Oh, I fully agree with you, Angakkuq. I don't think Remus was a meek or reticent man, I think he forced himself to behave that way.
angakkuq_01: Yeah, almost as if we're supposed to see the two as being at opposite ends of a range of reactions. Greyback embraced the monster; Lupin utterly rejected it, even at the expense of his own personality traits.
Thanfiction: That kind of thing isn't made, though. Greyback was a monster before he was ever bitten.
angakkuq_01: As for what his real personality was like, look at who Remus hung out with. That's probably true. I've sometimes kicked around a theory that there may be people who seek out infection.
Thanfiction: I don't know if JKR ever said, but Daydverse at least, Greyback's origin story is legendary...as in, told to kids to scare the living bejeezus out of them.
Thanfiction: But it's accurate. Like fucking Gacy or Dahlmer.
Zeviz: What is his origin story?
Thanfiction: His birth name was Oswald Grey, one of nine children, low-level magical family, just on the line between poverty and working class. His father worked for a tannery that worked magical hides like dragon and such. It wasn't a nice layer of society or nice work, so it took a little while to notice that Wally wasn't a run of the mill bully. Fire setting, animal torture, ran his own street gang by the time he was nine.
Thanfiction: Because of the separation of the cultures, it took a while to start drawing lines between Muggle disappearances and someone who was working with no magic at all -brutal bare-handed torture and partial cannibalistic killings - but who came from the magical side.By the time they started investigating Grey, he was sixteen and had killed over twenty people, all young women or children, because he liked the power imbalance, the cries, and the texture of the skin. Grey had always had a fascination with all things werewolf, including stealing portions of wolf pelts and decorating himself with wolf paraphenalia. He deliberately killed in the style of werewolf attacks he had read about, and considered himself the next step in lycanthropy, a werewolf who didn't need to change to hunt.
Thanfiction: It wasn't until the DMLE started closing in on him, though, and he realized how close his seventeenth birthday was, that he actually took the next step on those fantasies. Fleeing to France, he sought out a Loup Garou - a werewolf - and kidnapped him during the crescent moon, holding him until the full and then locking them up together so that he could be sure he was bitten but that the werewolf would be too weakened to kill him.
Thanfiction: It was in France that he began to build up the unholy crossbreed of wolf pack, cult, and street gang that he lead as Alpha, and by the time he crossed back to England twenty years later, he was already near legendary. By the time Neville and co. meet him, he has been terrorizing both the wizard and Muggle worlds for almost forty years, responsible for untold deaths and over 200 turnings: The living, breathing, stinking, deadly boogieman.
angakkuq_01: Wow.
deadskyblacksun: i'd never considered the psychological effects that might have on the D.A. like jason vorhees showing up on your doorstep
Zeviz: About that number of conversions, I always wondered, why doesn't the number of werewolves grow exponentially? (Since a single one could convert an entire town.)
dave_agnew: He is what goes Bump in the night.
angakkuq_01: Because they're as likely to kill you as turn you.
lyssa_adelia: so, why did he join up with Voldemort in the first place?
deadskyblacksun: you dont fuck around do you andy?
Thanfiction: "Neville knew him instantly. Indeed, he had, like every wizarding child, known him by reputation his whole life; and despite himself, he felt his knees begin to tremble. He was the nightmare. The creature that will get you if you're bad. The reason not to go into the forest alone or leave the house at night. The thing that waited under your bed. The monster that preyed on children and was all too real. Fenrir Greyback."
angakkuq_01: I got the impression that he was more in hired-gun territory as far as Riddle was concerned. A mutually beneficial relationship, as it were.
Thanfiction: It took a lot of convincing. There was no converting him to the cause, it was more dangling meat.
Thanfiction: Fenrir Greyback was his adopted pseudonym. "Oswald Grey" just doesn't ring terror so easily.
angakkuq_01: Fenrir, son of Loki, foretold to kill Odin during Ragnarok. Quite appropriate.
dave_agnew: Norse Mythology is the best mythology.
Thanfiction: He was sort of the Osama Bin Ladin of the wizarding world in that everyone knew him, knew roughly where he was, to say he was wanted by authorities was an understatement, and he was maddeningly public...but they just could never get their hands on the slippery motherfucker.
dave_agnew: Well, that, and what I've experienced of the Gaelic stuff. Although some Native American stuff is quite scary
Thanfiction: That it is, Dave
angakkuq_01: Comparative mythology can be interesting. And you notice weird bits of synchronicity.
dave_agnew: I've noticed that. It's quite cool. And slightly terrifying, as it makes you wonder what of it is actually real. Like the Aztec belief in shedding blood as penance can be compared to Judeo-Christian traditions about sacrifice, not to mention flagellants...
angakkuq_01: Probably why Christianity caught on so fast in Mexico...Anyway.
dave_agnew: That makes a lot of sense, anga.
Thanfiction: Privately, though they've only admitted it to each other, Ron and Neville - who were raised, as you saw above, Purebloods with all the fear of Greyback and his pack - consider mutually wiping the floor with that sumbitch to be the most badass thing they ever did or will ever do.
Warning: Language, mentions of violence, murder, drugs, etc., Spoilers for DAYD.
This is where thanfiction talked about Snape, his motives during DAYD, and a secret about Terry Boot.
Thanfiction: I agree wholeheartedly that Snape was a fucked up monkey. Culpable? Oh yes, people have proven that your background does not set your behavior in stone. Criminal? Again, he'd have had his butt in Azkaban reeeeally fast if Voldy hadn't snakenuked him. But were his actions justifiable from his POV? Very much so. I don't mean with Harry, I mean with the DA in 97-98
ceirdwenfc: snakenuked. Is that a diagnosis?
imagined_away: don't most people like snape think what they're doing is justifiable?
faeriegal713: *falls out of chair*
angakkuq_01: Most serial killers do.
liebedance: Everybody thinks that what they do is justifiable.
ceirdwenfc: I also thought that said snakePUKED
faeriegal713: Or if they don't, they really don't care to try to justify it.
Thanfiction: He was looking at it from a coldly tactical perspective. He considered himself to be fulfilling the letter of the law of his promise to Dumbledore while still riding both sides of the fence so that whichever way it came out, he'd be relatively intact. The only remaining student he had any personal feelings about was Neville, but even that wouldn't have mattered more than it had before if it weren't for the DA.
ceirdwenfc: riding both sides of the fence so that whichever way it came out, he'd be relatively intact. That's the Slytherin in him, though
imagined_away: they're different to me
angakkuq_01: Fence-sitters are the first to get shot off, I've noticed.
liebedance: In terms of little day to day things, yes. But in terms of larger things, life decisions, etc...
Thanfiction: At the start of the year, it was made clear that the Carrows were there as sort of Zampolit. To help "ensure things were running smoothly." He was in charge, but it was only his announcement, not his call that they be put in charge of discipline. When they 'suggested' it to 'help get this place back under control from the mess Dumbledore made of it", there wasn't a big option for no. The Cruciatus being used freely and the day to day punishments - pretty much everything through the encounter with Ernie and Neville in the GH in Chapter 3 - wasn't him. I hate Snape as much as the next fellow, but I'm being bald honest about where what shit fell.
Thanfiction: He knew he had caught genuine!Neville in the GH after he didn't rise to the goading that Harry would have (in Snape's opinion), but he couldn't prove it. He also knew he had a mystery second person, and he was kicking himself for not having paid more attention to height or build.
Thanfiction: When he discovered it was in all the classrooms, though, he knew he had a big problem. This was organized resistance, and he remembered how Umbridge had been all but driven out in 5th year. He knew that this was a crossroads, and that the Carrows - by extension Voldemort - and the whole student body would be watching how he handled this.
magikcat112: But his decision could've killed them.
Thanfiction: So he made a very bold decision. He decided to go for shock value, come down as hard as legally possible, simultaneously prove his shit to Voldemort and scare the students so bad they wouldn't consider so much as leaving a shirttail untucked all year. And it DID strike him as lovely that he'd get to do it to Neville. He assumed the second boy was a Gryffindor as well, so he laid a very Gryffindor-aimed trap by setting up a very showy "we're going to do something awful to innocents if you don't play hero" and setting it with guaranteed Longbottom Bait.
Thanfiction: He had no intention of letting them die, but he wanted everyone to think he would have. It was come down so hard, so early, for so little that they would be sat down and shut up hardcore. By waiting until Pomfrey hit the ceiling and then letting them down, he maintained the stance of a hardass who would let them die and kept the card of "merciful". Unfortunately, when you look up "backfired" in the dictionary....
Thanfiction: The Carrows tried everything in their book, and so did he, but he'd already played the trump card, and he was now proper fucked as the DA started really going for it. Thankfully, for the first two months or so, the Carrows agreed to keep it quiet.
ceirdwenfc: Neville was personal I think - he pissed Snape off. And he tried to knock him out with Dobby remember - that would have pissed off the potions master. the arrogance of Neville
Thanfiction: Then they went for the Sword of Gryffindor. That was the good news and the bad news for Snape.
ceirdwenfc: The Lestranges went after Frank & Alice - his second. Wasn't Crouch there too? I mean that Bellatrix was his second
Thanfiction: The bad news was that there was no way to keep something of that magnitude from Voldemort. And oh, shitsalad, was he in trouble. He had to talk slick and fast to keep his position at all, and only because he promised this WOULD stop.
Thanfiction: The good news was that he was given permission (implicit orders) to do "whatever it took" to make it stop, as long as there wouldn't be public repercussions. Basically, it was made very clear between the lines "Kill the ringleaders, but make it look like an accident." Enter Project Werewolf Chow. To be blamed on everyone's favorite serially student-endangering half-giant. Thanfiction: If you look up the SECOND entry under "backfired"..
Thanfiction: Fortunately, he managed to work with Lucius on that one and they plied every ounce of their old sway over Voldemort, who was still at least a little rational when it came to non-Potter issues. Enough, at least, to understand that the escape from the Forbidden Forest was about the same odds as a three-legged fat man running blindfolded across a three-mile mine field safely. Runcorn actually saved his bacon a little bit...it got him a little bit of slack because they didn't want to talk about the worrisome factor of a 'loyal' one turning on them. And he gave them Luna, which earned back some brownie points.
Thanfiction: Then they came back from Christmas, and it all got worse. The DA was actively, openly recruiting. Trouble was coming thick and fast. They were somehow training first years. Draco's promise that he could get into the RoR turned out to be a dead end for no explicable reason other than that maybe he'd had his memory wiped. The Creevey's had gotten away and unquestionably been take in by the Order as seen by Colin's new hand. The letters of concern were becoming...ah...firm in tone.
Thanfiction: Because the Carrows, realizing they were in over their heads with these kids, had decided to throw Snape to the wolves and tattle like three year old parrots on speed.If they couldn't stop them, at least they could deflect Voldemort's wrath. No punishment seemed to have effect, and they were watching their backs too well for there to be another convenient "accident." There were, however, starting to be implications that SNAPE might have an 'accident' necessitating a new Headmaster. Then Dragon Pox hit.
Thanfiction: Slughorn was good, but it's required that the most highy rated Potions specialist at Hogwarts at any given time must approve any potion or medication to be dispensed to ten or more students. So Snape found himself sick, miserable, and tediously double-checking over a hundred little vials for the very pipsqueaks he hoped would choke on their phlegm. And on the third day, he noticed a new one, labled "Longbottom, N."
Thanfiction: If he was a religious man, he would have fallen to his knees and thanked God. It was so beautiful, so easy, a chance to just end it all, behead the DA, get back in Voldy's good graces, rub out that fucking little upstart who shouldn't have been there to begin with, and poetic justice on top of it for the attempted drugging earlier in the year. And all it took was a few drops of extract of Brassica Oliveria Carnivorous to boost the fever just enough to kill.
angakkuq_01: His mistake was using a plant to try and take out a Herbology expert.
Thanfiction: But apparently McGonagall wasn't the only one at the school with the lives of a cat. You cannot imagine the headdesking that ensued when Neville was pronounced out of danger.
Flutter: someone should have gotten him a big rubber stamp that read FAIL!!!
Thanfiction: Things seemed to settle down a little, and he thought maybe the DP had taken the wind out of their rebellious little sails, and then there was the entire Hagrid's Hut Incident.: Thankfully, that was an even bigger embarassment to the DE's, and for some reason that he wasn't going to argue, Amycus announced that it hadn't been students in there, it had been Order Members, and so there was no point in trying to hunt among the student body. (It is entirely possible that Mssr. Carrow may have had his pride handed to him in a neatly giftwrapped blue and bronze package). And of course, the DA resumed.
Thanfiction: The first thing to go RIGHT for him was when he was informed that they were coming to retrieve Mr. Whitby, and even through the Macmillans' stunt, he was able to keep control and actually make it seem like the rebellion was just a lot of ineffective flash and noise. Even better, Longbottom started to look steadily more like shit from that point on, which was a beautiful, beautiful thing to see.
Thanfiction: The other top suspects for DA ringleaders were looking worried, scared, unsettled, Longbottom was looking like he had forgotten what sleep was, and for the first time that year, Severus Snape got a few good night's sleep.Now, his assumption was that the Dementors had brought back the memories of Neville having his butt handed to him in the DoM and that had broken his confidence, but it wasn't a stupid assumption, even if it was wrong.
Thanfiction: It was just misplaced projection. He assumed that Neville's worst memory, like his own, would be a moment of humiliation; having his nose and wand broken and the Prophecy taken.
angakkuq_01: THe DoM would be something approaching a good memory for Neville--he fought full-grown Death Eaters and lived to tell the tale, which was a lot more than most kids his age could boast.
Thanfiction: Actually, he had SUPPLIED Neville's worst memory, which was very straightforward and not all that psychologically impressive. What he remembered when the Dementors came was the lovely experience of having your back laid open to bone about oh, twenty hours in. So they get break again, Snape goes home, actually is relaxing and thinking there's a possibility he might make it through this year when he gets a letter about the Knockturn Alley incident. He answers it for pages of succulent, reveling detail, managing somehow to avoid saying "neener neener, now YOU know what I've been dealing with; pain in the ass, isn't he?"
Thanfiction: And yes, he does experience a heavy quantity of schaenfreude when Neville and Hannah escape, because although that means they're his problem again, it also means he's going to have a lot more leverage in saying that they really ARE that much of a headache, and he now has the "yeah, so why couldn't THE ENTIRE MINISTRY stop JUST TWO of them?" card to play when the howlers start up again. Thanfiction: Of course, the first day back, as if to remind him why he was going through warehouse-club sized vats of headache potions, he gets shanked with a butter knife by an eleven year-old nerd.
imagined_away: nice use of the word shanked
Thanfiction: Who, much to his relief, has no concept of the location of the sternum.
deadskyblacksun: sounds like my school
ceirdwenfc: Of course, the first day back, as if to remind him why he was going through warehouse-club sized vats of headache potions, he gets shanked with a butter knife by an eleven year-old nerd.
This is a beautiful statement and needs art.
deadskyblacksun: ^^
Thanfiction: He thinks he's going to have another chance at Neville if he leaves the kid on the wall, so he orders Elliot to stay hanging and uses the very extremity of his own magical skill to conceal himself and hold a bit of a stakeout.
Thanfiction: The only way he could have been more surprised at who showed up would have been if it had been Dumbledore. He almost revealed himself and did a simple capture, but there is a true fascination with the magical arts in Snape, and what Mike was doing captivated him, so he kept watching. When he finally made the capture and returned to his office, leaving Mike attached to the wall and under (now conscious) guard and with the doors sealed, there was a genuine twinge of regret that they couldn't have talked about the Patronus Side-Along like gentlemen.
Thanfiction: However, that left the issue of what to do with Corner. Floggings had lost their impact, they'd run through damned near everything else, and he knew he would have to get creative. He thought about it for around three hours, the most appealing options he was considering being either playing with some of his OWN original spellcraft (yes, he did want to show off a bit in return..."you're good, kid, but I'm better," so to speak) or doing something mutilatory to play off of how handsome Corner was and how much that would both have psychological impact on the other students ad how he'd wanted to fuck up a pretty boy since Sirius Black.
Thanfiction: It was while he was sort of mentally paging through the most esoteric torure techniques he had ever heard of that he noticed a letter on his desk that had come through two days before, mentioning that Hans Belsen had been granted amnesty to come from Egypt and give some consulting lectures at the Ministry on Bloodline Maintenance. Have you ever had one of those lightbulb moments? Lionel Corner had been a geneticist, and his first notable paper had been rather famous for once and for all stomping the shit out of Belsen's old theories by proving that magic was a chromosome. Which meant Belsen - one of the foremost torture experts in the wizarding world - was not only in the UK, but had reason to have a grudge against his current downstairs wall decor.
Thanfiction: We all know what happened next. In addition to what I've already said, it was also a second try at the "shock and awe" resistance-crushing technique first employed with the floggings. Only this time, to his credit, it actually kind of worked. The DA pulled back. Rather than getting complacent, though, Snape had learned from how the Ministry hadn't acted with the DE's seemed dormant, and he took advantage of the "kick 'em while they're down" principle. Riding on the success with Corner but Belsen's outraged reports of being backsassed by students during his esteemed lectures, he managed to get what Jack described as "Educational Decree I-Can't-Bloody-Well-Keep-Track" passed.
Thanfiction: It was then he learned the very definition of headdesk. Headdesk is when fully 15% of your student body fucking VANISHES out from under your nose when no one can leave the castle grounds. And the only of-age student that hasn't vanished is doing an astounding impression of a vocally challenged clam. Fortunately, the Carrows weren't any more eager to tell Voldemort "Um, we've kind of misplaced them," than he was, so the reports were carefully phrased to imply that everything was going fine and the rebellion seemed suppressed without technically lying. While they desperately tried to pump Smith and/or come up with any kind of idea for finding the little assholes before they had to produce a graduating class.
Thanfiction: 10:38pm, 1st May, 1998, they found 'em.
Thanfiction: Snape's evening went downhill from there.
angakkuq_01: To say the least.
Thanfiction: Seen from Neville's POV, Snape's just the devil incarnate (well, until he meets the DD), but from Snape's, it is, as always, a different story. Not that by ANY means it makes him a nice man.
deadskyblacksun: oh no
Thanfiction: Though there was another thread or subplot, if you will, running through that year. Snape had his own Snape, so to speak. Another double agent, and a story that I've never told because the individual in question kept it so utterly secret that even the one closest to him didn't know, and I just haven't found a suitable way to tell it.
Thanfiction: I still don't know how to weave it into the official fabric of the Daydverse, but I can tell it here, if you are willing to have what you know about a fairly major character completely turned inside out.
deadskyblacksun: if we werent we wouldnt be here
Thanfiction: Ok, leave now if you don't want to know. I'll give two minutes.
ceirdwenfc: You are an evil, evil man.
angakkuq_01: How could we leave after that?
ceirdwenfc: You should let us guess.
Thanfiction: In fifth year, they found out ten days before OWLs that they were going to be tested on the official DADA standards; not the disasterous mishmash they'd been taught for five years under Quirrell, Lockhart, Lupin (who was good, but more taught Dark Creatures than DADA), Moody, and Umbridge. Now, those who had been DA actually had a fighting chance because Hermione had been helping Harry build the curriculum from the official texts, but there was, nonetheless, wholescale panic in Ravenclaw Tower. Particularly for one young man whose entire worth when he went home was encompassed in his marks, and who was taking a full load of OWLs as it was. He panicked so badly, in fact, that he resorted to Calming Draughts to handle it, and wound up kind of screwed over on them by the time they hit break, necessitating a very unpleasant intervention by his best friend and a lot of promises never to touch the shit again.
Thanfiction: Now, what we know officially is that Terry started using again right after the flogging in seventh year, and it got increasingly serious until, by the time of the battle, he was blitzed off his head and a hardcore addict. That, however, is the version Mike got, and only the technical truth.
Thanfiction: The full story starts the afternoon after Neville and Ernie were flogged. Mike and Terry went to Snape's office with what was, quite frankly, a beautifully prepared and logical argument as to why this needed to be stopped immediately. For their trouble, they received, courtesy of Amycus Carrow, their very first Cruciatus Curses. They were so intense and the boys had never had it before, that it knocked them out cold, and they woke up about twenty minutes later in Ravenclaw Tower, sore as shit and with Tony and Steve informing them that they had been idiots, something they heartily agreed with. However, the soreness of a Crucio does pass, and as far as they could tell, the only physical damage that had been done was that Terry had a small nick or abrasion on one elbow that he'd somehow managed to get without tearing his shirt.
Thanfiction: They finished classes, and Terry was feeling kind of off and panicky, but he'd just been Cruciated, so he kind of wrote it off and forced himself to bed early. He woke up, however, at five o'clock the next morning, nearly hysterically panicked, sick as a dog, and desperately craving the Calming Draughts. He fought the impulse for about half an hour, but it was so overwhelming that he was almost in tears by the time he snuck out. He'd been going to go to the Potions storeroom, but at the last minute, he forced himself by pure willpower to go to the infirmary instead, intending to report himself to Madame Pomfrey on the WTF Is Wrong With Me principle.
Thanfiction: Severus Snape was waiting for him in the Hospital Wing. He revealed that he knew damned well what Terry had done in fifth year - he watched his stores closely - and that Terry's name had been on the list for the first DA. Now, Mr. Boot had a bit of a reputation outside Hogwarts, having published his first scholarly paper at the age of twelve and having had a long correspondance with Antonin Dolohov, who (apart from his little side allegiance) was one of the most brilliant minds in Charm Development. Mr. Dolohov had requested that Snape do what he could to recruit the now of-age Mr. Boot to the DE's, and Snape saw an opportunity to not only do that, but to have someone he knew from the first DA would be on the short list for this next rebellion under his thumb. Because he had something on Terry. He'd dosed him the day before, reawakening the addiction with a vengeance, and a bit of a hyptnotic on top of it, which made Terry not Imperiused, but definitely vulnerable to suggestion. And so he made his offer.
Thanfiction: If Terry would spy for him among the DA, he would give him what he needed. If not, he would make sure that the stores were utterly inaccessable and made it clear that the withdrawals he'd had before would be child's play. If, however, Terry was willing to go the next step and take the Dark Mark, he would not simply give the potion, but the antidote. Thanfiction: Terry would not take the Dark Mark, but he COULD not betray the DA, because he was under the Fidelius. And so began an eight-month game of highest stakes chess.
Thanfiction: Terry lied. He used half-truths, plausible falsehoods, gave things just close enough to accurate that it would be worth SOMETHING to Snape while still not coming close enough to trip the Fidelius or actually endanger his friends. And Snape, knowing that he had to keep Terry needing, kept upping the dosage, eventually winding up with a staggeringly potent cocktail of not one, but thirteen different potions, each needed to cancel the side-effects and prevent the formation of tolerance, keeping Terry functional but very, very hooked. And he let Terry know this, know that by the end of the year, he'd HAVE to take the Dark Mark because the withdrawals by that point would kill him, and he would no longer have access once he left school.
Thanfiction: Terry, however, had his own ace up his sleeve. He couldn't dare do it until the end of the year, but if he hadn't found another way out - or been caught in the lies and Merlin only knew what then - he had been working deep Legilimency with Mike since he was fourteen, and Snape didn't know that. His plan - desperate, almost insane - was at the last minute to slam Snape with every bit of raw power he had...and one of their minds would break. Either he'd get the information to make the antidote, or it wouldn't matter.
Thanfiction: As it was, however, they were forced into the RoR, where Terry was only able to keep duplicating what he already had from Snape, which was enough to keep him borderline functional, but because of the escalating pattern, he was increasingly unstable, hence the rather odd behavior we see from him in the last few days. The dose he took when he knew battle was imminent was nearly toxic, but he wasn't just going into battle, he was also hoping to set himself up with enough to not just get through until morning, but to be able to hunt down Snape and crack his last chance.
Thanfiction: That's why Snape was always almost-but-not-quite a step ahead of them. He almost-but-not-quite had an insider. He thought he had beaten Dumbledore at his own game and created of another what Dumbledore created of him. And he was more right than he knew.: Because as he was to Voldemort within the Order, Terry Boot was to him within the DA. Mike never knew because damned if Terry was going to let the person he loved more than life itself be caught in the same toxic tango.And Neville never knew because he couldn't risk being kicked out of the DA, especially when he'd been made Lieutenant. And as I said, there was no way to weave it into the story workably.
This is where thanfiction talks a little bit about Remus Lupin, and tells the origin story about Fenrir Greyback
angakkuq_01: Werewolves seem to be persecuted for what is basically something they can't help. Something that they didn't ask for. Something that they would gladly be rid of if they could.
Thanfiction: Add to that the human need for community, when we can see how much, through Lupin, being a werewolf gets you ostracised...
angakkuq_01: Yeah.
Thanfiction: With Greyback's tribe, there's the additional factor that he deliberately turned them young to add to his pack. That four year old doesn't have much of a choice about how he's going to grow up.
angakkuq_01: Remus was--by all appearances--damaged by the way he was treated. Maybe he had a meek personality even before he was bitten, but the treatment sure didn't help. Greyback is a textbook psychopath. That guy went the opposite route Lupin did--instead of rejecting that part of him, he revels in it.
Thanfiction: I think Remus was so afraid of his own lycanthropy that he didn't trust himself even the other 27 days out of the cycle and therefore squashed down and hated himself for any impulse or personality trait that he associated with "turning." Hence why his meekness seems oddly forced and flaggelant, almost like the meekness of a penitant monk, while when he's acting off his guard, he's as bold as you'd expect of a Gryffindor.
angakkuq_01: I tend to think that he was pretty much Lucius Malfoy's attack dog--so to speak--while Riddle was for all intents and purposes dead. Yeah, exactly. Like two opposite ends of the spectrum.
Thanfiction: Oh, I fully agree with you, Angakkuq. I don't think Remus was a meek or reticent man, I think he forced himself to behave that way.
angakkuq_01: Yeah, almost as if we're supposed to see the two as being at opposite ends of a range of reactions. Greyback embraced the monster; Lupin utterly rejected it, even at the expense of his own personality traits.
Thanfiction: That kind of thing isn't made, though. Greyback was a monster before he was ever bitten.
angakkuq_01: As for what his real personality was like, look at who Remus hung out with. That's probably true. I've sometimes kicked around a theory that there may be people who seek out infection.
Thanfiction: I don't know if JKR ever said, but Daydverse at least, Greyback's origin story is legendary...as in, told to kids to scare the living bejeezus out of them.
Thanfiction: But it's accurate. Like fucking Gacy or Dahlmer.
Zeviz: What is his origin story?
Thanfiction: His birth name was Oswald Grey, one of nine children, low-level magical family, just on the line between poverty and working class. His father worked for a tannery that worked magical hides like dragon and such. It wasn't a nice layer of society or nice work, so it took a little while to notice that Wally wasn't a run of the mill bully. Fire setting, animal torture, ran his own street gang by the time he was nine.
Thanfiction: Because of the separation of the cultures, it took a while to start drawing lines between Muggle disappearances and someone who was working with no magic at all -brutal bare-handed torture and partial cannibalistic killings - but who came from the magical side.By the time they started investigating Grey, he was sixteen and had killed over twenty people, all young women or children, because he liked the power imbalance, the cries, and the texture of the skin. Grey had always had a fascination with all things werewolf, including stealing portions of wolf pelts and decorating himself with wolf paraphenalia. He deliberately killed in the style of werewolf attacks he had read about, and considered himself the next step in lycanthropy, a werewolf who didn't need to change to hunt.
Thanfiction: It wasn't until the DMLE started closing in on him, though, and he realized how close his seventeenth birthday was, that he actually took the next step on those fantasies. Fleeing to France, he sought out a Loup Garou - a werewolf - and kidnapped him during the crescent moon, holding him until the full and then locking them up together so that he could be sure he was bitten but that the werewolf would be too weakened to kill him.
Thanfiction: It was in France that he began to build up the unholy crossbreed of wolf pack, cult, and street gang that he lead as Alpha, and by the time he crossed back to England twenty years later, he was already near legendary. By the time Neville and co. meet him, he has been terrorizing both the wizard and Muggle worlds for almost forty years, responsible for untold deaths and over 200 turnings: The living, breathing, stinking, deadly boogieman.
angakkuq_01: Wow.
deadskyblacksun: i'd never considered the psychological effects that might have on the D.A. like jason vorhees showing up on your doorstep
Zeviz: About that number of conversions, I always wondered, why doesn't the number of werewolves grow exponentially? (Since a single one could convert an entire town.)
dave_agnew: He is what goes Bump in the night.
angakkuq_01: Because they're as likely to kill you as turn you.
lyssa_adelia: so, why did he join up with Voldemort in the first place?
deadskyblacksun: you dont fuck around do you andy?
Thanfiction: "Neville knew him instantly. Indeed, he had, like every wizarding child, known him by reputation his whole life; and despite himself, he felt his knees begin to tremble. He was the nightmare. The creature that will get you if you're bad. The reason not to go into the forest alone or leave the house at night. The thing that waited under your bed. The monster that preyed on children and was all too real. Fenrir Greyback."
angakkuq_01: I got the impression that he was more in hired-gun territory as far as Riddle was concerned. A mutually beneficial relationship, as it were.
Thanfiction: It took a lot of convincing. There was no converting him to the cause, it was more dangling meat.
Thanfiction: Fenrir Greyback was his adopted pseudonym. "Oswald Grey" just doesn't ring terror so easily.
angakkuq_01: Fenrir, son of Loki, foretold to kill Odin during Ragnarok. Quite appropriate.
dave_agnew: Norse Mythology is the best mythology.
Thanfiction: He was sort of the Osama Bin Ladin of the wizarding world in that everyone knew him, knew roughly where he was, to say he was wanted by authorities was an understatement, and he was maddeningly public...but they just could never get their hands on the slippery motherfucker.
dave_agnew: Well, that, and what I've experienced of the Gaelic stuff. Although some Native American stuff is quite scary
Thanfiction: That it is, Dave
angakkuq_01: Comparative mythology can be interesting. And you notice weird bits of synchronicity.
dave_agnew: I've noticed that. It's quite cool. And slightly terrifying, as it makes you wonder what of it is actually real. Like the Aztec belief in shedding blood as penance can be compared to Judeo-Christian traditions about sacrifice, not to mention flagellants...
angakkuq_01: Probably why Christianity caught on so fast in Mexico...Anyway.
dave_agnew: That makes a lot of sense, anga.
Thanfiction: Privately, though they've only admitted it to each other, Ron and Neville - who were raised, as you saw above, Purebloods with all the fear of Greyback and his pack - consider mutually wiping the floor with that sumbitch to be the most badass thing they ever did or will ever do.