FIC: Too Old for Playing (NC-17)

[iulia_linnea]

Title: Too Old for Playing
Type: Fic
Age-Range Category: Two
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Severus & Lily, Severus/Lily, Severus/Remus. Features also Severus's mother and father (Eileen and Tobias) and his Potions teacher (Horace), James, Sirius, Peter, Albus, Lucius and (barely) Rabastan. Discusses briefly Aberforth, and Hank Marvin.
Author: paulamcg
Beta(s):

Comments

[iulia_linnea]

Oh, the angst! I didn't know that I needed that. I appreciate how Severus' path unfolds here; it has a more complete canonical feel to it while diverging in some obvious ways that just seem right to me. Straightforward and convoluted, his emotional journey, in your hands, is complicated and rich. I wish it could be happy, but of course, I'm too old to pretend. Thank you for sharing this fic.

[paulamcg]

Thank you for your generous praise (both here and in the email)! This is the story I felt I needed to share when taking Severus through his school years. I'm sorry I didn't consider carefully enough if doing angst and dark was a proper way to celebrate the character in this community. In any case I'm glad that you sense a more complete canonical feel in how I write him. All my fanfic is canon-divergent-after-OotP, but I've chosen (first of all, the age category and) the way to craft this fic so that it doesn't explicitly contradict canon.

[iulia_linnea]

We celebrate Severus however we wish to do in snapecase, and I hope nothing I said made you feel otherwise. Angst, darkness, death, murder, love, fluff, flangst, smut, erotica, silliness, canonical ideas, and otherwise are all welcome here. I invite you to return in 2023 to examine Snape's life, again, however you would like to do!

[paulamcg]

Thank you for your reassurances and kindness! Everything you've said has always made me feel welcome, encouraged and appreciated. <3 I'm sorry that, after comparing the reception of my fic with that of less dark ones, I ended up replying to your lovely and thoughtful comment in a way that made you wonder how I felt about your words. Thank you again for hosting this fest so wonderfully! I'm so glad I participated, and I'll be looking forward to next time!

[yletylyf]

Oh this was dark. Wow! You have a real gift for storytelling. A truly embittered Severus with an unpleasant inner life and you can definitely see how he came to be that way. Not just one thing - a combination of so many things... I really enjoyed the separate scenes - all of which stand on their own - but also bouncing around in time and weaving together to show the tale. The last few scenes are rough but they felt quite inevitable. 💔

[paulamcg]

Ah, the way you've received my writing has been enough to make me overly glad I participated in Snapecase with this fic. I'm afraid all this - up to the rough scenes - was inevitable, because, although I'd barely written Severus's perspective before, I'd composed some of these events in other fics, and all my fics belong to the same canon-divergent-after-OotP universe (while each fic also stands on its own). (I must confess that I've recycled some parts, most significantly Dumbledore's monologue, which has its first incarnation in Sense of Strategy).

I wasn't aware of how rare some aspects in my contribution would be at this fest: slash, a high rating, darkness (not based only on evil!Dumbledore), and teenagers at Hogwarts! I'm thrilled that even the unpleasant (inner life) in the story worked for you so well. :) You've amazed me by making me realise that each section (scene) of this fic could be read also as a separate story. On the other hand, it's wonderfully reassuring to hear how well you think I've managed to weave them into a

[kellychambliss]

You've created such a complex, fascinating, disturbing - and believable - version of Severus here. I like the shifting povs. Of course he'd end up with second person, having moved away from himself and others, the ultimate outsider (and all the more outside once he's "accepted" by the Dark Lord.) Chilling and powerful.

[paulamcg]

Thank you so much for all your beautiful words about my Severus and my writing! It's reassuring to hear that "the shifting" here appeals to you. I suppose poor Severus was bound to end up with second person also because I'd got overly fond of second-person narration a few months before I started writing this. :) I've wondered if the shifting ended too early. Dumbledore's monologue offered such a good opportunity for leaving first and third person behind. I'm glad you think that the change reflects how Severus moved away from others and from himself. I love the way you've worded it. <3

[eldritcher]

I'd share my secrets with Lily alone, and she'd stay loyal to me.

The terrible and all too common pattern a lonely child falls into. Oh, MA. You have spared us nothing in this. We see the cracks form, one by one. Even with a child's simple motives, the understanding of loyalty as something that can be bought is saddening. It doesn't get easier from there. The strange confluence of his own emotional barometer and the all-too-easily-mocked-and-reviled target he presents to better-off children doesn't take him to better places from there.

I've to say that the tense-dancing is simply divine. It sets colour, sound, and pace, through the stories you have knit together of a child becoming boy becoming an agent of change. The turns between the tenses are as tense and harrowing as the turns through the labyrinthine tale. As an aside, it is quite poignant to see how you move him through the years with a sharpening sense of isolation and leave him at his loneliest until then.

[paulamcg]

The beautiful and thoughtful way you write to me about my writing makes me overly glad and grateful. At the same time it's startling to read what you say about the contents of this fic. Oddly enough, I hadn't quite realised how saddening a story I'd written. It turns out I haven't spared Severus or my readers. I suppose isolation and loneliness have been what I've needed to write about, but I enjoyed knitting together these events (some of which had been dictated by my earlier fics, including Sense of Strategy) and moving the character through his school years so much that I failed to realise that the outcome could hardly improve lives, at least not Severus's. :)

Thank you for using such a divine term as tense-dancing among other words I'll treasure!

[eldritcher]

Ah, but the stories worth telling and retelling are quite frequently rife with sadness and isolation and grief and change. You oughtn't fret when you have given us a story like that; memorable and provocative in the traces and the shadows it's left.

[paulamcg]

You've made me smile again. And your wise and beautiful phrases must be memorable enough to keep me from fretting in the future, too. :) Thank you for everything!

[blueartemis07]

This was so dark, but it fits the character so well. Nicely done.

[paulamcg]

Thank you for reading this story despite the darkness, and for posting such a kind comment! I didn't consciously choose to write dark (and I didn't intend to write an NC-17 fic, but the rating was required because of the brief explicitness in the final scene). I'm glad you feel that what I've done here fits Severus Snape well. <3