FIC: Mutability (NC-17)

[snapecase_mod]

Title: Mutability
Category: Four
Characters and Pairing: Severus Snape/Minerva McGonagall, Albus Dumbledore, Lord Voldemort
Author: kellychambliss
Beta Readers: therealsnape and mountainmoira
Rating: NC-17
(Highlight to View) Warning(s): None.
Note: My grateful thanks to my beta readers, who save me from countless blunders and who notice everything from a missing letter to OOC moments

Comments

Too Long a Comment, Part the 1st

[albalark]

This is probably the most canon Severus/Minerva I've ever read - as unsentimental as both protagonists and very much in character for both.

Dumbledore's words filled the Great Hall of Hogwarts, soaring to the enchanted ceiling almost as if they were owls on the wing, and Severus Snape gritted his teeth against the sanctimony of it. "A choice between what was right and what was easy. . ."

As if the wrong choices weren't equally difficult. As if one could even tell what the right and wrong choices were.

Gods, what a great beginning this is - Dumbledore's self-righteous piety in the books got up *my* nose more than once - I can imagine that was particularly hard for Severus to deal with.

He deliberately turned his back towards her. There were many things Severus didn't need, and one of them was to witness the expression of desperate hope that he was sure he'd find on Minerva's face as she listened to Albus--because he knew that only years of hard-won self-control enabled him to keep a similar expression off his own face.

He wanted to despise Minerva for her unquestioning faith in a man who seemed to enjoy keeping even his most loyal lieutenants in a state of uncertainty. But he couldn't, not completely.

He couldn't, because despite everything, Severus still had some of the same faith. He still wanted to think that salvation lay in a flamboyant old man who could roll phrases off his tongue with the glibness of the born con artist. He still wanted to be able to shout aloud, the way the way the other children had done at the Christmas panto his Muggle gran had taken him to see: "We believe! We believe!"

Already I'm in the process of quoting your whole fic back at you. :-P Sorry, but I can't help myself when the writing's this good. How well you show the magical thinking we can so easily fall prey to when we desperately want a thing to be true, even when we know better!

when he again caught sight of her folded hands, Severus realised that they were clenched so tightly that the bones seemed about to break through the skin.

A very vivid observation, that.

He was at his most genial, focusing his attention on Severus with that single-minded, concerned intensity that had once made an awkward, bitter boy from Spinner's End feel interesting and important.

Yep.

in truth, the only times he could even see Lily clearly were when someone--Dumbledore, or tonight, Voldemort--came directly into his mind and brought her back.

This is so much more realistic than the idea that he's clung to her memory as if the loss were yesterday for 14 years. No matter how dear a person was to us, when they've been gone as long as that, it's hard to recall them clearly. :-(

He was still committed to working against Voldemort, against the Death Eaters. But he was not working for Dumbledore or for Lily's memory or for her unspeakable son's sake or for the freedom of the wizarding world.

He was working for himself--for the chance, for the first time in his life, to live in servitude to no one. Not his parents, not Voldemort, not Dumbledore, not Lily. He was working for the chance to live for himself alone.

That he probably would not live at all was another truth he did not deny. But at least he would get to decide what he was willing to die for.

This, too, is so much more realistic than the idea that he was doing it all for *her*. What a great and sorrowful injustice that he did not get to have that chance!

She is unattached. She is not young, Severus, and she is apparently unwanted. She will be grateful to you, you'll see.

The whole patronizing tone of Voldy's attempt at 'persuading' Severus to bed Minerva made me want to throw things, which is precisely how it should be. :-) Magical society is apparently every bit as patriarchal as Muggle society.

Too Long a Comment, Part the 2nd

[albalark]

There was so much about the scene between he and Minerva as she proffers her apology for not acting on his behalf after the Shrieking Shack incident and the growth of their relationship that I really liked. It's more than clever turns of phrase (though there are so many: He didn't like gifts of any sort, viewing them as simply prepaid expectations.; With the typical Gryffindor air he hated--that of a martyr bravely about to mount the pyre--she'd got directly to her point.; Severus had welcomed the chance to push her harder, though he let his voice go quiet. There was no need to shout facts as damning as these; the words themselves were loud enough.; She’d seemed sincere, which to his mind was a sure indication that he ought to be suspicious.; And so he had kept the bottle, not as a gesture of forgiveness--he honestly had never understood what that word meant--but as an indication that he was willing to let them be on an equal footing with each other. That he was willing to give up the advantage over her that her failure had given him.; at least he saw her as a fellow inmate in the prison and no longer as one of the Dementor guards; he couldn't decide whether to feel vindicated or insulted that she thought she knew him well enough to be sure he wouldn't cheat. . Gah . . . I'm doing again . . . sorry!) It's that it shows both characters so clearly and beautifully - Minerva's fortitude and forthright personality, Severus's suspicion and hurt, the olive branch taking root and growing into the relationship we get glimpses of in canon and which sublimates a mutual attraction that's organic and believable. Which in turn make's Severus's deciding to look forward to seducing Minerva because he wants her and wants her to want him for himself very believable.

The seductions scene itself rings true and is very erotic. They are equals in every way, including in their understanding of what this might mean, even if Minerva has no inkling that Riddle has told Severus to to do it. HIs unsentimental contemplation the morning after is so right. It's hard to think of what went on afterward without wondering what both must have felt in the wake of Dumbledore's death and Severus's time as headmaster. Did she know? If he didn't tell her, how could she have not figured it out? A bitter and melancholy future foreseen, indeed. My hat is off to you, Mystery Author, for such a well written and poignantly thought-provoking story!

Re: Too Long a Comment, Part the 2nd

[kellychambliss]

I know I've told you this before, but I'll say it again: I just love learning which lines you liked. Thank you, thank you for quoting them. I know it takes time to put together detailed review like this, and I want to let you know that I appreciate it fully!

a mutual attraction that's organic and believable

And I was very pleased to read this comment. I love Severus/Minerva as a pairing, but it can be a challenge to make them believable. I'm always so glad to hear when they seem to work.

Thank you so much!

Re: Too Long a Comment, Part the 1st

[kellychambliss]

I can't tell you how much this comment made my day! Trust me, there's no such thing as too-long a piece of feedback, especially one as thoughtful and detailed as this one. I was so pleased to receive it.

I'm also very pleased with some of the points that you find realistic -- such as the notion that the power of Lily's memory diminished over time for Snape. One of my goals in writing fanfic is always to complicate the characters, make their thoughts and actions more believably adult. I'm glad you seem to think I succeeded here.

the most canon Severus/Minerva I've ever read

I added this line to my "favorite bits of feedback" file.

(And I love your amazing icon).