Folly, A Harry Potter Fanfic

[terri_testing]

Summary: Snape’s life has been a series of spectacular errors of judgment, to put it kindly.

This has to have been his worst.

“All the privilege I claim… (it is not a very enviable one, you need not covet it)…. is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone.” Jane Austen, Persuasion

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

That was intense!

The two of them are rather alike, using drama to get through to each other. Nobody will ever doubt who Neville's father was.

Does this mean Severus has to revise his plans for September? (Yet again.)

[oryx_leucoryx]

BTW, nice touch with 'look at me!'.

So now that Neville proved 'artistic' - what is Severus going to do with the ideas the librarians got him pondering? Because beyond a short-term childcare solution he needs to think about all of Neville's future. And what will Severus think of Hogwarts after reading the book about dealing with traumatized children? Considering his own experience as a student and what he sees as a teacher?

What alternatives does he have? Revolutionize Hogwarts in 6 years? Send Neville to one of the continental schools? Send him to a Muggle school and train him in magic out of hours?

[lynn_waterfall]

Yes, I really liked the "look at me" bit, too. :)

[terri_testing]

Aw, thank you. Yes, a deliberate echo of canon.

And, also, what Severus really always wanted.

What anyone does, really. To be seen, and seen truly, appreciated.

What we all hope earnestly (and mostly hopelessly) to merit.

[mary_j_59]

Excellent! But I wonder - again - if Severus is hearing himself. "No one likes to be forced", indeed. But he was on the point of forcing the little boy to leave him, against Neville's will. Does he see this?

I am very relieved, however, and looking forward to more.

[terri_testing]

Oh, at this point he absolutely does not

[dreamingjewel]

This made me tear up.

[terri_testing]

Thanks! I wanted to provoke that reaction....

[ioanna_ioannina]

Yes! Action speaks more loudly than words!
Re: Hogwarts... well... is there any danger involved, if a magical child does not study magic? If yes, then Severus has to send Neville to a magical school. If no... And there is a question about wasting a Green Thumb, has he not been taught magic at all.

[terri_testing]

They do indeed. And Severus did need to do something rather desperate to communicate to Neville that he wasn't unwanted....

Hoqwarts.... what would a father make of Hogwarts, indeed?

And as I pointed out to Mary, above, at this point Severus is an unabashed Wizard supremacist; the question of NOT teaching Neville to use his magic, I think, would never arise.

[ioanna_ioannina]

I think the question can be: does Severus know any better school than Hogwarts, or are they all the same? And would he send his son to, say, Durmstrang for 10 months, or would he prefer to stay with his son in the same premises? And maybe, can he move himself to Durmstrang at this point, or is he bound to Old Dumbles so firmly, that he has to stay at Hogwarts?

The Hat, I can see that with the Paternity potion, it will list Neville as Neville Snape. If all the other spells, wards etc. do so, why should the Hat be an exception?

[oryx_leucoryx]

There is also the option of private tutoring by Severus outside of Hogwarts. It was only in DH that Hogwarts became obligatory.

I'm also concerned that Dumbles would be suspicious of Neville's origins and use Legilimency on the boy.

[malic_ba]

I'm extra happy to see this! I'd been thinking what a great ending the last instalment had, how it had the sense of a phase ending but left what would happen next so open, but I was superstitiously afraid to say anything in case it really was the end :)

Very nicely done to keep them together without being really sentimental.

Interesting to hear you say that Severus couldn't bear to give Neville up.

(I was reading that as he couldn't bear to see him hurt, even for his own good. I thought that's why he was willing to go to Azkaban, too, when he thought Neville was hurting about having to wait before being reunited with his family. Thanks be that he didn't have time to act on that before Neville made his real feelings clear!)

Does he realise that, do you think, or is he managing to hide it from himself?

By the way, happy Easter to you, and to everyone here!

[terri_testing]

... the end....?

You're very astute; yes, the end of the plot bunny that burned into me when I imagined Severus watching Algernon push a tiny child into the ocean was that final death-denying "Incendio."

Severus admitting at last, and going to extremes to prove, that he loves the child and will claim and protect him at any cost.

That was the original ending.

But now I'm inconveniently interested in what the libratians will have to say, and how Severus will react in a few weeks to Albus's benevolent attempts to (re-)direct his devotion to, and for, the Greater Good..

Oops.

Regarding your last, how does the fiction itself read, absent my later comments? Why does it seem to you that Severus gave in finally to Neville's, shall we say, dramatically, if not verbally, expressed desire to stay?

Bujold, Memory, once had a female character opine, of males' emotional intelligence; "Delia's working on it. [Persuading the man that Delia--the speaker's sister--had chosen as her life-mate, to buckle down and actually woo her

[oryx_leucoryx]

If this Neville ends up attending Hogwarts you will probably have a yet another configuration of the Draco-Neville-Harry interaction, different from both canon and UA-verse.

[malic_ba]

Oh, you couldn't possibly have ended /here/. Surely that would be too neat