Levicorpus, a Fanfic

[terri_testing]

Disclaimer:  Any reader, I assume, already knows to whom the characters and setting belong.  I claim nothing.

AU to canon, and to my fanfic “Liberacorpus.”

Warning for language, and for (non explicit) violence.

Summary:  Snape reconsiders a decision that he had previously reached.  So does Lily.

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

So, how would things have turned out in this AU

Getting the prophecy orb

[terri_testing]

Well, we know that in canon Tom jumped on the bit reported to him, but never tried going after the original and finding out the whole until Harry's 5th year--after he'd been bit by it. Note that he had to wait to get Augustus out of Azkaban before he found out that only he and the "one" would be able to lift the orb from the shelf, so they had never discussed it before Augustus's incarceration. So I suspect that originally Tom didn't know that prophecy-copies were stored in the DoM, and that checking for new prophecies wasn't part of Augustus's duties for his august master. (And that Tom was not inclined to share with ANYONE the information that he was prophesied to be vanquishable.) Otherwise Tom would have asked to see the whole in 1980, and Augustus would have explained back then why he couldn't oblige

Re: Getting the prophecy orb

[jana_ch]

...Albus is going to start suspecting Sev of disloyalty and be interested in tracking him down.

Then Sev had better get himself under Barty Sr’s protection as soon as possible. Better to be beholden to an honest hard-ass than a lying, manipulative, two- (or three- or four-) faced twinkly grandfather.

Re: Getting the prophecy orb

[oryx_leucoryx]

Not sure there was anything honest about Barty Sr?

Re: Getting the prophecy orb

[jana_ch]

Perhaps “principled” would be more accurate than “honest.” Crouch kept strictly to his principles, even when it meant sending Barty Jr to prison and destroying his own political ambitions. Then he gave in to his wife’s desire to break their son out of Azkaban. This one violation of principle led to an endless spiral of deceit and crime from which he never escaped.

Re: Getting the prophecy orb

[oryx_leucoryx]

I don't think it was a principled stance. He is the person who was supposedly fighting the Dark Arts by having Aurors perform Unforgivables on suspects. Elkins sees Barty's treatment of his son a personal thing - he punished his son for becoming something different from himself (or really a more honest version of himself). And then he broke his son out in order to 'reform' him - ie mold him into a copy of himself as his son was supposed to be all along. When it turned out that Jr still supported Tom Sr amplified the total destruction of his son's individuality by keeping him Imperiurized and invisible, yet in the public area of the house (within hearing distance and eyesight of the front door).

See Elkins' essay series 'The Crouch Novenna'.

"...my father, the Lucius Junius Brutus of his race..."

[jana_ch]

Both of us are speculating on a character whose motives are never explained. Your speculations are as valid as mine, but I have a completely different view of Crouch. I see him as the Lucius Junius Brutus of Wizarding Britain

Re: "...my father, the Lucius Junius Brutus of his race..."

[oryx_leucoryx]

I will reply at more length later. At this point I think your position is close to what Rowling thought she was writing, but then she thought she was writing Gryffindors (except for Peter and maybe Percy) as noble characters

[jana_ch]

What does “Turbo-TBAYed” mean?

Just wondering. The context gives the general gist, but I am curious about the actual term, which I have never encountered before.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Elkins wrote on a Yahoo group called Harry Potter for Adults. I have never been there, but came upon some of their terminology. While in many parts of fandom, ships and shipping refer to romantic couples (and trios and more), HPfA folks refer to any theory as a naval vessel of some kind, and the forum where all these are discussed is called Theory Bay, or TBAY. I think she means that she applied the writing style of TBAY participants

[oryx_leucoryx]

Oops, it was 'Harry Potter for Grown Ups'.

Also, at Igor's hearing Crouch is fit and alert. In Ludo's he is tired and gaunt.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Part 3: Here Elkins tells about Brutus the Elder

[oryx_leucoryx]

Part 4: Were Crouch's political actions (prior to his son's arrest) motivated by adherence to ideals or self-serving acts

[oryx_leucoryx]

Part 5: We only heard that Crouch broke his son out of prison from Jr, who wasn't present when the alleged plea and the decision to act on it were made.

Jr's account of his rescue uses 2 pronouns - 'she' and 'they', never 'he', until the point where his mother was left in Azkaban. But he says 'They gave me a draft of Polyjuice Potion containing one of my mother's hairs' when logically only one person physically handed him the draft. Elkins concludes it was Crouch who did it, and Jr was doing the best he could under veritaserum to minimalize his father's active involvement.

So: Jr doesn't know under what circumstances his father decided to rescue him, he speculated based on what he did know and in light of his attitude to both respective parents. (And since by the time of his testimony Jr had killed his father, he really doesn't want to think of what he owed his father.

Crouch

[terri_testing]

Actually, whether we adopt the Brutus version of Crouch or Elkins's reading, we can at least agree that Crouch could hardly be a worse choice than Dumbledore to give one's life to

Re: Crouch

[jana_ch]

Exactly. At least with Crouch, Severus would be going to someone official. He would be turning himself over not to Barty Crouch, be he principled or unprincipled, but to the legitimate government of wizarding Britain, rather than to an independent guerrilla leader with his own private agenda--a phrase which also describes Voldemort. From where Snape stands now, the character of Crouch as an individual is not the point.