Lily's Friend: A WIP

[terri_testing]

I don’t normally post completely unfinished fics, but this is a Christmas gift for my niece and I don’t have a regular beta. So I want feedback as I’m writing. Anyone want to oblige? This is my Lily/James/Severus triangle fiction, told from the point of view of Mary Macdonald. (Which was my solution to the problem of presenting James

Comments

[lynn_waterfall]

I didn't even realize there was an update, at first!

Hmm... I'm not sure what to say. I'm certainly enjoying the story, despite the unpleasant characters. Mary is thoroughly objectionable.

Is that kind of your strategy? Mary gets the most detailed objectionable traits, so that James looks good by comparison? Kinda unfair to someone who may not have been all that bad in canon, but I suppose it's effective. I mean, it isn't entirely effective with me, but Mary certainly draws the negativity away from James.

(The only setup I could think of to portray both Severus *and* James sympathetically involved... well, a night of drinking, in which James and Severus somehow managed to bond over women who don't understand them, or something. Not exactly a story I'd want to give to a twelve-year-old, though. And it would probably be pretty OOC anyway, despite all of that.)

Looking at canon... how many times do we see Slytherin house, or Slytherins, actually denigrated? In PS/SS, Hagrid certainly speaks negatively about them. In DH, James speaks negatively about them on the train. Also in DH, McGonagall 1) kicks out all of the of-age Slytherins for the words of one, and 2) when Slughorn questions the wisdom of some people fighting Voldemort instead of *everyone* evacuating, makes these charming statements: "But if any of you attempt to sabotage our resistance or take up arms against us within this castle, then, Horace, we duel to kill. [...] The time has come for Slytherin House to decide upon its loyalties."

As if it weren't already clear that Slughorn was *not* a fan of Voldemort, by any stretch of the imagination. Mostly I like McGonagall, but not in those two moments. Not her best hour.

Still, that's only three people. Sure, Harry picked up Hagrid's prejudices thoroughly. There's also some anti-Slytherin stuff in CoS, but considering that someone claiming to be the heir of Slytherin was going around attacking people, there really wasn't a surprising amount of it. Am I missing anything?

So, I do wonder whether Mary would necessarily have this "Slytherins are beneath me" attitude. If she's been admiring James for long enough, maybe. But I still wonder how widespread it might be.

Oh, ick -- now I'm wondering if James' attitude, and his position as an admired student, might have been one of the major factors in Slytherins current status. Not that he could be responsible for all of it, by any means. That couldn't explain Hagrid, McGonagall, or Dumbledore. But he apparently went to school with that attitude, and if he set trends... he could have furthered that view without trying, or even being aware of it.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Ron arrived at Hogwarts with an anti-Slytherin attitude, and nobody in his family overlapped with James. And why would McGonagall, who thought of James as a bright trouble-maker, adapt her views to his?

I think for the Weasleys the main reason to think of Slytherin as the worst House (considering Arthur's mother was a Black and most probably a Slytherin herself) was the outcome of the post-first-war trials and whatever else there was between Arthur and Lucius. It is harder to tell about others.

[oryx_leucoryx]

BTW Lynn, there are more places I find McGonagall not up to Harry's praise of her. She is probably an effective teacher (though not particularly thoughtful about her students until anything hits her in the face) and a loyal warrior. That's about it.

[lynn_waterfall]

Well, I don't agree with the "strict but fair" assessment. Although I'm not sure where that assessment comes from. In PS/SS, it doesn't say "fair," it says:

Harry had been quite right to think she wasn't a teacher to cross. Strict and clever, she gave them a talking-to the moment they sat down in her first class. (my emphasis)

The HPL says she "refuses to favor her house," but the context in which that appears is refusing to give the students of her house less homework than the other students:

"Wish McGonagall favored us," said Harry. Professor McGonagall was head of Gryffindor House, but it hadn't stopped her from giving them a huge pile of homework the day before.

As someone on Deathtocapslock (I believe) pointed out, Severus doesn't exactly favor his house by *that* standard, either.

I don't consider McGonagall to be up to Harry's praise of her, but I still generally like her as a character, if not always as a person. But I don't like what I've seen of her in DH, though.