Abusive!James/ Lily, Potter Marriage, Snape; Liberacorpus

[terri_testing]

A/N: None of the characters is mine, though this interpretation of them certainly is. Canon-compliant in terms of facts: if anybody sees anything I overlooked please, PLEASE tell me so I can change it. I’m just borrowing JKR’s setting to tell a story about a relationship that Smallpotato (marianros) asked for…. (It’s her fault, hers, hers.

Comments

[mary_j_59]

Ohmygosh! The scary thing is that this fits in so well with the little we know from canon. It's all too believable. The strange thing is that, way back in the days between HBP and DH, when I had such a strong Aragorn vibe from Severus, I actually thought out a story in which Death Eaters attacked the Evans family and Snape rescued them - but Mrs. Evans died, anyway, of a hart attack

Thanks for your comments!

[terri_testing]

When we were talking on Snapedom about abusive!James I was quite unconvinced: it seemed a possible but not a probable version of events. But then I started writing the story (modeling this James on a real-life abuser of a friend of mine) and the more I wrote, the more it fit

[mary_j_59]

Yes. There is, as Swythyv says, a semi-coherent story running deep under the incoherent (and somewhat pernicious) mess that is Rowling's canon. And, in that relatively coherent and moral story, James is, at the very least, a potential abuser. And Severus is a hero (though he certainly makes some serious mistakes) and, in the end, a saint - or on the road to being such. This buried story was, I thought, coming to the surface in HBP; and one of the reasons I'm so very upset with Rowling is that, both in DH as it stands and in her interviews, she's just buried it further. Indeed, she doesn't seem even to know it's there

You're welcome

[terri_testing]

I take it I met your specifications?

By the way, I'm still playing around with it; do you think it works better as is, or should I move the first scene down and make it strictly chronological? I set it up this way because I wanted the reader to view everything precedent through that understanding, but it might also work by sort of creeping up on the reader--as it does on Lily.

Re: You're welcome

[terri_testing]

Wow, I'm flattered to have generated this level of response. I'll have to think about what you're saying, though. I'll probably post my reply on Snapedom.

[shyfoxling]

Me being a nitpick: "Room of Requirement", no S on the end. I don't think the following should be capitalized: potions lab (since it's not the school subject of Potions being referred to), invisibility cloak, dragon pox, wizarding world.

His charm must have been to keep his robes from obeying gravity; they looked like a statue’s robes, turned upside down like that. Lily giggled, and Sev’s grin widened. He crossed one leg casually over the other and pillowed his head in his hands.

LOL! Sev gets playful if you get him alone with the right person.

But the half-secretive, half-smug expression that he wore when he pulled something off was the same as ever.That's our Severus

[mary_j_59]

Just chiming in, Terri, to say that I do think James was not actually physically abusive to Lily in their marriage. But, Emestrella, he very clearly had those tendencies in canon, and I do think that, had they survived, he might have become abusive. I don't think James Potter was an especially good person, though he was not (I think) consciously malicious or cruel, and though he was on the "right side" in the war

[shyfoxling]

trying to convince young girls that Severus was abusive (he wasn't, IMHO, but I do get a couple of faint warning chimes from him)

I agree. He seems like the type who could be overprotective to a fault, thus seen as controlling. But if so, he would be doing it out of a genuine desire to see that person safe, I think, not because he thinks of them as a possession. (He certainly stays the hell out of Lily's life when she finally chucks him, as far as we can tell from canon. Someone who was actually abusive wouldn't do that.)

James' secretly hexing Severus during their seventh year while persuading Lily he had cleaned up his act

Yeah, that's a pretty ugly piece of work there. Way to be honest with your future wife, pal.

[mary_j_59]

To your last comment - yes, exactly, and that is *CANON*! It is in this kind of thing, (and it was admitted to by the other marauders who were *apologizing for him to Harry) that could really make you see James as abusive. Honestly, the more deeply you look into these books, the more warped they start to seem.

But I do agree strongly that Snape would be overprotective - which can actually be hurtful. That's how I imagine him, and try to write him, as a father.

So I don't think you and I disagree too much at all. I can't see James abusing Lily quite as harshly as this in canon - but, my heavens, it's actually possible. There is nothing in canon that contradicts it.

Possessive James

[terri_testing]

A definite point about James being too possessive to do that, but two subcurrents:

If his top priority is to break her, the semi-public exposure and making HER send the picture to Sirius is a nice touch. And, after all, he is still letting her wear underwear. It's not like anyone is actually seeing more than they would in a bikini....

But two... it's a nod to all the Marauder (esp. James/Sirius) shippers out there--after all, sharing a woman, directly or vicariously, is one of the favorite ways for homophobic men to act on an attraction to each other.... You know, Arnold Schwartzenegger's idea of an orgy, 20 body builders flexing their muscles at each other with one whore in a corner to prove they're not really gay.

Glad you, er, liked, the ending. Um, maybe appreciate is the word I meant here, not like.

Two minds with but a single thought

[terri_testing]

I started writing the story as an atheist about James being an abuser; I could see some warning signs but didn't really think so.... Discovering how easy it was to channel C. (my friend's abuser) into James was rather a shock. Thinking about it, reading smallpotato's long post and all the thoughtful comments, I ended up exactly where you apparently are: that the only thing really preventing James from being an overt abuser was his self-image, his need to uphold the myth of The Great James Potter