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donnaimmaculataHere's little write-up that I announced some time ago. It's longish, and it's based on the assumption that Sirius and Severus are both shaggable.
First of all, I must admit a certain shallowness: I’m here for the porn. I don’t consider Rowling’s books as outstanding literature, but I enjoy the world she created, and I enjoy her characters, most of whom feel very real for me. I especially enjoy the interaction between Sirius, Severus and Remus in various combinations. I love these guys and I want to see them shag. That’s that.
Now, I’ve always liked antagonist sex. As cheesy romances go, I want the protagonists to fight and bitch and snark only to meet in a passionate kiss in the end, tear each other’s clothes off and then - fade to black. I’m not interested - in that kind of literary of movie-wise entertainment - in resolving issues and dealing with relationships. Reality, I’ve got home aplenty. What I want is hot, adrenaline-fuelled action that leads up to some just as hot shagging.
So although I love Remus dearly, I prefer pairing Sirius with Severus, because Remus doesn’t bitch. He remains cool and rational when faced with aggressive behaviour on Sirius’s or Severus’s part, and that’s not quite what I’m after.
That much said, I don’t think that in canon, Sirius and Severus could have ever had or ever come to an understanding. Their mutual hatred, as I see it, is not fuelled by pent-up lust, but by disgust - both personal and situation-wise. As teenagers, they hated what the other one represented, and as adults, there are too many issues between them to be solved easily. Especially since they’re both not exactly experts on rational communication.
But here it goes: I don’t write canon. The fandom doesn’t write canon. What we do is, we take canon and twist and turn it to meet our personal requirements and end up interpreting Rowling’s characters in a way she would be shocked to hear. It is possible, without stretching canon too much, to imagine that the forced handshake at the end of GoF implied red-hot lust rather than deepest disgust. It is more likely than to interpret the interaction between Draco and Lucius as indicating Malfoycest or the one between Fred and George as indicating Twincest. If one’s not prepared to reach beyond canon, one doesn’t end up writing Harry Potter slash.
I do want the characters in fandom to feel and act like Rowling’s creations, but since we put them in situations that aren’t imaginable within the novels, we have to alter their behaviour slightly to fit the altered reality, regardless which characters we use. After all, there aren’t many established couples in the books. (No, not even Sirius and Remus; personally, I don’t give Rowling enough credit to think she implied they’re gay. But of course they so fuck.) With any couple we create, we have to take liberties with the characters we use. So even though I've got my personal preferences as to the pairings I read, I am willing to accept plenty combinations, if only the author creates a believable setting and sticks to the characterisation we know from the books.
Then, there’s the notorious flashback scene in OotP, which apparently makes even former Snape/Black sympathisers think Sirius and Severus could never work together. But, frankly, I haven’t got any problem with that particular scene. We knew long before that Sirius sent Severus after a changed Remus, which, in my opinion, is a much, much worse thing to do than bully the boy in front of the school. Yes, Sirius’s behaviour was unforgivable, and yes, he was an arrogant jerk with a great fondness for violence - but that we knew before. That Sirius would make use of violence was plain enough all throughout PoA, from his slashing the Fat Lady to his breaking Ron’s leg. Plus his behaviour in the Shrieking Shack scene. Plus the undeniable fact that he had sent Severus after a werewolf.
I know that in fandom, many theories have included the idea of Severus’s having been involved with or interested in Sirius/Remus/James/Lily and that’s what made Sirius snap. But it was pretty clear that this theory would not be used in the novels. So there had to be a different explanation for the whole disaster, and it is plainly, Sirius was a cruel, hot-tempered kid who hated Severus enough, for reasons known only to himself, to kill him. And he grew up to be hot-tempered man with an enormous aggression potential. But that, as I said, we did know before OotP.
My only issue is the characterisation of Severus in the Worst Memory scene, where he was merely the helpless victim. It doesn’t go at all with what we’ve heard about him having been a master in Dark Arts - one should think he could have defended himself. And yes, they caught him by surprise, but I do think that the scene is told from a subjective point of view. There are many Pensieve theories around, and I support the one that says Pensieve memories are subjective. They are, after all, extracted from the bearer’s head years and years after the actual event, and everybody who’s ever read their old diaries might know how different the account of former events is from what one presently remembers.
I’m not saying that Sirius and James were perfectly innocent. They probably were pretty horrible in many respects, but from Severus’s memory alone, we don’t know what exactly happened.
Anyway, I still do think that sending another person after a fully-grown werewolf is a much worse thing to do than hang them in mid-air and try to take off their pants. Even if we would assume that Severus had provoked being-sent-after as opposed to not provoking being hexed and humiliated at all. Trying to kill your fellow students by means of one of your best friends is inexcusable - even had you been provoked, hexed, beaten, left for Filch, or looked at funnily. So since the pairing worked for me before I read this scene, it still does. And since I’ve never been a supporter of the theory that they really only lusted after each other at school and all that shit that happened was merely one huge misunderstanding, it doesn’t change anything about my view on this pairing. Snape/Black sex only works as the desperate variety, when they’ve got nothing to lose and only one another to shag. And, yes, that’s what I want. (Though some hurt/comfort is always appreciated, too.)
So, now for the final and most important argument against post-OotP Snape/Black: One half of the pairing is dead.
The problem here is, Rowling didn’t write a death. She wrote a Mysterious Disappearance.
Yes, I know she said Sirius won’t come back, that he’s dead and gone for good. But she didn’t say so in the novel. She had to state that in interviews, which for me means that I can largely ignore it. I haven’t read or watched one single interview with Rowling, and I base all my canon knowledge on the novels. Oh, I do believe her when I hear she says she won’t bring him back and that he’s gone in canon, but that doesn’t signify, because what she says is often not compatible with what she writes. Another, and less important, example to illustrate this is the fact that she obviously said there are more students per class than we see. Rowling stated this in interviews, but in her novels, she continues writing eight people in Gryffindor in Harry’s year. And for my purposes, I use what I see in the books, even though that’s not what the author intended.
It is, of course, a less significant matter whether there are eight or thirty Gryffindor students in Harry’s year than whether a major character died or not, but the principle remains the same. The author describes a fact or a situation in the book and has to give interviews to clarify what she meant. And honestly, would anyone believe that Sirius is dead if we haven’t all heard of Rowling’s interview? She created a scenario full of plot devices that can be used to bring him back, regardless whether one takes the element of time, the possibility of travel to a different dimension, or the Orpheus scenario. (Severus wasn’t a Death Eater for nothing. Yeah, that’s right, Snape, go on eat some death.) The difference between RL and narrative art - regardless whether it’s literature or film - is that in art, all pieces have to fall together in the end and introduced devices have to be used. There are only that many red herrings a novel can take.
I don’t care whether or not Rowling will use the mirror, the veil or any of the time-related devices that are connected with Sirius’s death. If she doesn’t, it was a stupid thing to introduce them all. But it would be a waste of a perfect set-up if fanfic writers would completely ignore all possibilities offered just because Rowling does so. After all, as I said before, we don’t write canon. We take the ingredients from canon, shake them, mix them and create new realities. If we can imagine hot cane action with Lucius & Son on the basis of the few occasions we’ve seen them together, we can make use of the multitude of possibilities that Rowling gave us to play around regarding Sirius’s disappearance.
On a side note: I’m not saying this merely because I like Sirius. I would say so if any other character were concerned (though not in quite as many words), apart from minor ones like Colin Creevey or Bill Weasley. Or Dumbledore, who, in the first four books, was merely a plot device and whose transition into a real character has not quite worked out.
First of all, I must admit a certain shallowness: I’m here for the porn. I don’t consider Rowling’s books as outstanding literature, but I enjoy the world she created, and I enjoy her characters, most of whom feel very real for me. I especially enjoy the interaction between Sirius, Severus and Remus in various combinations. I love these guys and I want to see them shag. That’s that.
Now, I’ve always liked antagonist sex. As cheesy romances go, I want the protagonists to fight and bitch and snark only to meet in a passionate kiss in the end, tear each other’s clothes off and then - fade to black. I’m not interested - in that kind of literary of movie-wise entertainment - in resolving issues and dealing with relationships. Reality, I’ve got home aplenty. What I want is hot, adrenaline-fuelled action that leads up to some just as hot shagging.
So although I love Remus dearly, I prefer pairing Sirius with Severus, because Remus doesn’t bitch. He remains cool and rational when faced with aggressive behaviour on Sirius’s or Severus’s part, and that’s not quite what I’m after.
That much said, I don’t think that in canon, Sirius and Severus could have ever had or ever come to an understanding. Their mutual hatred, as I see it, is not fuelled by pent-up lust, but by disgust - both personal and situation-wise. As teenagers, they hated what the other one represented, and as adults, there are too many issues between them to be solved easily. Especially since they’re both not exactly experts on rational communication.
But here it goes: I don’t write canon. The fandom doesn’t write canon. What we do is, we take canon and twist and turn it to meet our personal requirements and end up interpreting Rowling’s characters in a way she would be shocked to hear. It is possible, without stretching canon too much, to imagine that the forced handshake at the end of GoF implied red-hot lust rather than deepest disgust. It is more likely than to interpret the interaction between Draco and Lucius as indicating Malfoycest or the one between Fred and George as indicating Twincest. If one’s not prepared to reach beyond canon, one doesn’t end up writing Harry Potter slash.
I do want the characters in fandom to feel and act like Rowling’s creations, but since we put them in situations that aren’t imaginable within the novels, we have to alter their behaviour slightly to fit the altered reality, regardless which characters we use. After all, there aren’t many established couples in the books. (No, not even Sirius and Remus; personally, I don’t give Rowling enough credit to think she implied they’re gay. But of course they so fuck.) With any couple we create, we have to take liberties with the characters we use. So even though I've got my personal preferences as to the pairings I read, I am willing to accept plenty combinations, if only the author creates a believable setting and sticks to the characterisation we know from the books.
Then, there’s the notorious flashback scene in OotP, which apparently makes even former Snape/Black sympathisers think Sirius and Severus could never work together. But, frankly, I haven’t got any problem with that particular scene. We knew long before that Sirius sent Severus after a changed Remus, which, in my opinion, is a much, much worse thing to do than bully the boy in front of the school. Yes, Sirius’s behaviour was unforgivable, and yes, he was an arrogant jerk with a great fondness for violence - but that we knew before. That Sirius would make use of violence was plain enough all throughout PoA, from his slashing the Fat Lady to his breaking Ron’s leg. Plus his behaviour in the Shrieking Shack scene. Plus the undeniable fact that he had sent Severus after a werewolf.
I know that in fandom, many theories have included the idea of Severus’s having been involved with or interested in Sirius/Remus/James/Lily and that’s what made Sirius snap. But it was pretty clear that this theory would not be used in the novels. So there had to be a different explanation for the whole disaster, and it is plainly, Sirius was a cruel, hot-tempered kid who hated Severus enough, for reasons known only to himself, to kill him. And he grew up to be hot-tempered man with an enormous aggression potential. But that, as I said, we did know before OotP.
My only issue is the characterisation of Severus in the Worst Memory scene, where he was merely the helpless victim. It doesn’t go at all with what we’ve heard about him having been a master in Dark Arts - one should think he could have defended himself. And yes, they caught him by surprise, but I do think that the scene is told from a subjective point of view. There are many Pensieve theories around, and I support the one that says Pensieve memories are subjective. They are, after all, extracted from the bearer’s head years and years after the actual event, and everybody who’s ever read their old diaries might know how different the account of former events is from what one presently remembers.
I’m not saying that Sirius and James were perfectly innocent. They probably were pretty horrible in many respects, but from Severus’s memory alone, we don’t know what exactly happened.
Anyway, I still do think that sending another person after a fully-grown werewolf is a much worse thing to do than hang them in mid-air and try to take off their pants. Even if we would assume that Severus had provoked being-sent-after as opposed to not provoking being hexed and humiliated at all. Trying to kill your fellow students by means of one of your best friends is inexcusable - even had you been provoked, hexed, beaten, left for Filch, or looked at funnily. So since the pairing worked for me before I read this scene, it still does. And since I’ve never been a supporter of the theory that they really only lusted after each other at school and all that shit that happened was merely one huge misunderstanding, it doesn’t change anything about my view on this pairing. Snape/Black sex only works as the desperate variety, when they’ve got nothing to lose and only one another to shag. And, yes, that’s what I want. (Though some hurt/comfort is always appreciated, too.)
So, now for the final and most important argument against post-OotP Snape/Black: One half of the pairing is dead.
The problem here is, Rowling didn’t write a death. She wrote a Mysterious Disappearance.
Yes, I know she said Sirius won’t come back, that he’s dead and gone for good. But she didn’t say so in the novel. She had to state that in interviews, which for me means that I can largely ignore it. I haven’t read or watched one single interview with Rowling, and I base all my canon knowledge on the novels. Oh, I do believe her when I hear she says she won’t bring him back and that he’s gone in canon, but that doesn’t signify, because what she says is often not compatible with what she writes. Another, and less important, example to illustrate this is the fact that she obviously said there are more students per class than we see. Rowling stated this in interviews, but in her novels, she continues writing eight people in Gryffindor in Harry’s year. And for my purposes, I use what I see in the books, even though that’s not what the author intended.
It is, of course, a less significant matter whether there are eight or thirty Gryffindor students in Harry’s year than whether a major character died or not, but the principle remains the same. The author describes a fact or a situation in the book and has to give interviews to clarify what she meant. And honestly, would anyone believe that Sirius is dead if we haven’t all heard of Rowling’s interview? She created a scenario full of plot devices that can be used to bring him back, regardless whether one takes the element of time, the possibility of travel to a different dimension, or the Orpheus scenario. (Severus wasn’t a Death Eater for nothing. Yeah, that’s right, Snape, go on eat some death.) The difference between RL and narrative art - regardless whether it’s literature or film - is that in art, all pieces have to fall together in the end and introduced devices have to be used. There are only that many red herrings a novel can take.
I don’t care whether or not Rowling will use the mirror, the veil or any of the time-related devices that are connected with Sirius’s death. If she doesn’t, it was a stupid thing to introduce them all. But it would be a waste of a perfect set-up if fanfic writers would completely ignore all possibilities offered just because Rowling does so. After all, as I said before, we don’t write canon. We take the ingredients from canon, shake them, mix them and create new realities. If we can imagine hot cane action with Lucius & Son on the basis of the few occasions we’ve seen them together, we can make use of the multitude of possibilities that Rowling gave us to play around regarding Sirius’s disappearance.
On a side note: I’m not saying this merely because I like Sirius. I would say so if any other character were concerned (though not in quite as many words), apart from minor ones like Colin Creevey or Bill Weasley. Or Dumbledore, who, in the first four books, was merely a plot device and whose transition into a real character has not quite worked out.
