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rec50First rec of Round II!
Table of Recs
Claim: Harry Potter: General
Title: Path of Glittering Darkness
Author: Diamond Raven
Characters: Severus Snape
Prompt: Character Study
Rating: Mature
Length: Epic: 270,332 words
Brief summary: Severus Snape’s long journey from an abusive and horrific childhood to Hogwarts, Voldemort and finally, the Order. In other words, one person’s long stumble through the darkness towards the light we all crave.
This is the first book of a series. The second book is now in progress and there will be at least one more following that. I have really enjoyed this series since its inception because of its in-depth look into Severus Snape’s childhood and the circumstances that formed him into the person we meet in Rowling’s books. It’s a long read but the time will pass fast as it is engrossing and extraordinarily well written.
Severus turned back to the hat and gently ran a finger along its frayed brim. The hat was covered in holes and frayed threads poked out of it everywhere, but apparently it had quite a bit of magic in it. Severus found himself slightly respecting it.
Suddenly, he got an idea. The bird had said that all students were sorted on their first day, depending on their personalities. But he saw no reason to wait until the first day of school.
Ignoring Gorgon’s anxious hissing, he picked it up and put it onto his head.
Immediately, another voice erupted into his head. This time, the voice was lower and sounded quite old.
“Hmm, isn’t this a bit too early for a sorting?”
Severus rolled his eyes, wishing that voices in his head could see his facial expression as well.
“I know I’m a bit early but that is none of your business. It’s simply your business to tell me what house to put me in.”
“Well, well, well. You’re just as I expected, Severus Snape. I, for one, can’t understand why the phoenix decided you were worth it.”
Severus frowned and was about to ask it what it had meant by that, but the hat was already muttering on.
“Alright, let me see. Quite a bit of courage here and a good heart underneath quite a bit of pain and darkness. I would say Gryffindor, but you don’t quite strike me as the type. Well, I see a brilliant mind here too. You’re really going to be a brainy one, you know. Should we make it Ravenclaw then? No, no. That wouldn’t quite fit either. No. The darkness will always cloud the courage and the intelligence. That leaves me with only one choice. Slytherin!”
The last word was screamed out of the hat and echoed around the office so suddenly that Gorgon leapt out of his chair with a screech and the bird nearly fell off its perch.
Satisfied, Severus pried the hat off and gently put it back on the perch.
He glanced at Gorgon. “Well, lucky the headmaster put us into the Slytherin common room already. It means we won’t have to move.”
Link to the story : http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1626507/1/
Claim: Harry Potter: General
Title: Saving Connor
Author: Lightning on the Wave
Characters: Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy, Severus Snape,
Prompt: Epiphany
Rating: Mature
Length: Epic: 79, 220
Brief summary: AU, eventual HP/DM slash, (very) Slytherin!Harry. Harry’s brother Connor is the Boy-Who-Lived, and Harry has devoted himself to protecting him—by being ordinary. But certain people aren’t content to let Harry hide in the shadows.
The summary does not do this story justice. Saving Connor is the first of seven books (one for each year) and of those seven three have been completed and the fourth is in progress. There is no way to describe how much I am enjoying this series. It is well written, suspenseful, orgional, funny, heartbreaking, and so many more things. When I first discovered this story I stayed up until 4am reading it, and spent the next three days reading the other books. There is no praise too high for this author and I urge you to read it.
“What are your vows, Harry?”
Harry knew what they were, even though he was only five. He whispered them as his mother held him over his brother’s bed, and his mother said them with him, murmured hypnotic words that Harry had heard his whole life.
“To keep Connor safe. To always protect him. To insure that he lives as untroubled a life as he can, until he has to face Lord Voldemort again.” There was the pause for breath that his mother always took, as though she were frightened. Harry waited until she started speaking again, and then joined his voice to hers. “To be his brother and his friend and his guardian. To love him. To never compete with him, never show him up, and never let anyone else know that I’m so close to him. To be ordinary, so that he can be extraordinary.”
Harry remembered stumbling on that last word, back on his and his brother’s birthday, when his mother had first coached him into saying it and not just listening to her say it. He’d never asked what it meant, though. His parents thought he was smarter than he really was, sometimes. But now he wanted to know, so he turned around as his mother bore him towards the other bed and asked.
“Mum, what does extraordinary mean?”
Lily Evans Potter hesitated for a long moment, looking down at Harry as though she didn’t know how to answer that. Then she smiled faintly, and shook her head, and sat on the bed beside him. Harry wriggled under the covers. He kept his eyes on her face, never taking them off. They both had eyes the same extreme, bright green, while Connor and their father James shared bright hazel eyes. Harry considered, in the secret box of his thoughts where he put everything he couldn’t say aloud, that he and his mother had a special bond because they had the same eyes. He knew it wasn’t really true, of course, not when Connor was the Boy-Who-Lived, but Harry liked to pretend, sometimes.
Lily smoothed back his fringe from the scar on Harry’s forehead, absently. It was shaped like a lightning bolt. Harry knew how he’d gotten the scar—from a bit of falling rock when Voldemort attacked, on that horrible night he couldn’t quite remember, when Lily and James had been lured away from home by the idea that their twin sons had already been kidnapped. Voldemort had stamped in, and shot the Avada Kedavra curse at Connor, and Connor had deflected it and destroyed him. He had a cut shaped like a heart on his forehead, a curse scar.
Thinking about that night, Harry realized he knew the meaning of “extraordinary” even before Lily whispered it to him.
“It means—special, Harry. It means not ordinary. It means standing out from the crowd.” She hesitated again, as though she didn’t know how to speak the next words.
“And I have to be ordinary, so that Connor can be special,” said Harry, nodding. He understood. His little brother would need help from him. It wasn’t an easy destiny, Lily had explained to him every day, being the one expected to defeat Lord Voldemort from scratch. Voldemort wasn’t really gone, and would come back someday. Connor had to be ready for that day, had to concentrate, which was another word that Harry had learned early. So Harry would help him concentrate by being ordinary.
He didn’t know just how that would work yet, but he would find out. Whenever he looked over at Connor, he felt a fierce surge of love for his little brother. Connor was special, and he was going to be special. Harry would help him.
When he glanced back at his mother, she was smiling at him, that secret little smile that only the two of them shared. She nodded, whispered, “Yes, Harry, that’s it exactly,” and kissed him before she stood and walked out of the room.
And Harry knew then, in a rush of joy, that their special bond wasn’t fake after all. His mum trusted him to take care of his little brother. That was important. That was special.
He turned and bowed in the direction of Connor’s bed, a gesture he’d learned about from an old story his godfather had told him the other day. “I’ll protect you, Connor,” he said. “I’ll be your knight, and you can be king.”
Link to the story : http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2580283/1/</
Table of Recs
Claim: Harry Potter: General
Title: Path of Glittering Darkness
Author: Diamond Raven
Characters: Severus Snape
Prompt: Character Study
Rating: Mature
Length: Epic: 270,332 words
Brief summary: Severus Snape’s long journey from an abusive and horrific childhood to Hogwarts, Voldemort and finally, the Order. In other words, one person’s long stumble through the darkness towards the light we all crave.
This is the first book of a series. The second book is now in progress and there will be at least one more following that. I have really enjoyed this series since its inception because of its in-depth look into Severus Snape’s childhood and the circumstances that formed him into the person we meet in Rowling’s books. It’s a long read but the time will pass fast as it is engrossing and extraordinarily well written.
Severus turned back to the hat and gently ran a finger along its frayed brim. The hat was covered in holes and frayed threads poked out of it everywhere, but apparently it had quite a bit of magic in it. Severus found himself slightly respecting it.
Suddenly, he got an idea. The bird had said that all students were sorted on their first day, depending on their personalities. But he saw no reason to wait until the first day of school.
Ignoring Gorgon’s anxious hissing, he picked it up and put it onto his head.
Immediately, another voice erupted into his head. This time, the voice was lower and sounded quite old.
“Hmm, isn’t this a bit too early for a sorting?”
Severus rolled his eyes, wishing that voices in his head could see his facial expression as well.
“I know I’m a bit early but that is none of your business. It’s simply your business to tell me what house to put me in.”
“Well, well, well. You’re just as I expected, Severus Snape. I, for one, can’t understand why the phoenix decided you were worth it.”
Severus frowned and was about to ask it what it had meant by that, but the hat was already muttering on.
“Alright, let me see. Quite a bit of courage here and a good heart underneath quite a bit of pain and darkness. I would say Gryffindor, but you don’t quite strike me as the type. Well, I see a brilliant mind here too. You’re really going to be a brainy one, you know. Should we make it Ravenclaw then? No, no. That wouldn’t quite fit either. No. The darkness will always cloud the courage and the intelligence. That leaves me with only one choice. Slytherin!”
The last word was screamed out of the hat and echoed around the office so suddenly that Gorgon leapt out of his chair with a screech and the bird nearly fell off its perch.
Satisfied, Severus pried the hat off and gently put it back on the perch.
He glanced at Gorgon. “Well, lucky the headmaster put us into the Slytherin common room already. It means we won’t have to move.”
Link to the story : http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1626507/1/
Claim: Harry Potter: General
Title: Saving Connor
Author: Lightning on the Wave
Characters: Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy, Severus Snape,
Prompt: Epiphany
Rating: Mature
Length: Epic: 79, 220
Brief summary: AU, eventual HP/DM slash, (very) Slytherin!Harry. Harry’s brother Connor is the Boy-Who-Lived, and Harry has devoted himself to protecting him—by being ordinary. But certain people aren’t content to let Harry hide in the shadows.
The summary does not do this story justice. Saving Connor is the first of seven books (one for each year) and of those seven three have been completed and the fourth is in progress. There is no way to describe how much I am enjoying this series. It is well written, suspenseful, orgional, funny, heartbreaking, and so many more things. When I first discovered this story I stayed up until 4am reading it, and spent the next three days reading the other books. There is no praise too high for this author and I urge you to read it.
“What are your vows, Harry?”
Harry knew what they were, even though he was only five. He whispered them as his mother held him over his brother’s bed, and his mother said them with him, murmured hypnotic words that Harry had heard his whole life.
“To keep Connor safe. To always protect him. To insure that he lives as untroubled a life as he can, until he has to face Lord Voldemort again.” There was the pause for breath that his mother always took, as though she were frightened. Harry waited until she started speaking again, and then joined his voice to hers. “To be his brother and his friend and his guardian. To love him. To never compete with him, never show him up, and never let anyone else know that I’m so close to him. To be ordinary, so that he can be extraordinary.”
Harry remembered stumbling on that last word, back on his and his brother’s birthday, when his mother had first coached him into saying it and not just listening to her say it. He’d never asked what it meant, though. His parents thought he was smarter than he really was, sometimes. But now he wanted to know, so he turned around as his mother bore him towards the other bed and asked.
“Mum, what does extraordinary mean?”
Lily Evans Potter hesitated for a long moment, looking down at Harry as though she didn’t know how to answer that. Then she smiled faintly, and shook her head, and sat on the bed beside him. Harry wriggled under the covers. He kept his eyes on her face, never taking them off. They both had eyes the same extreme, bright green, while Connor and their father James shared bright hazel eyes. Harry considered, in the secret box of his thoughts where he put everything he couldn’t say aloud, that he and his mother had a special bond because they had the same eyes. He knew it wasn’t really true, of course, not when Connor was the Boy-Who-Lived, but Harry liked to pretend, sometimes.
Lily smoothed back his fringe from the scar on Harry’s forehead, absently. It was shaped like a lightning bolt. Harry knew how he’d gotten the scar—from a bit of falling rock when Voldemort attacked, on that horrible night he couldn’t quite remember, when Lily and James had been lured away from home by the idea that their twin sons had already been kidnapped. Voldemort had stamped in, and shot the Avada Kedavra curse at Connor, and Connor had deflected it and destroyed him. He had a cut shaped like a heart on his forehead, a curse scar.
Thinking about that night, Harry realized he knew the meaning of “extraordinary” even before Lily whispered it to him.
“It means—special, Harry. It means not ordinary. It means standing out from the crowd.” She hesitated again, as though she didn’t know how to speak the next words.
“And I have to be ordinary, so that Connor can be special,” said Harry, nodding. He understood. His little brother would need help from him. It wasn’t an easy destiny, Lily had explained to him every day, being the one expected to defeat Lord Voldemort from scratch. Voldemort wasn’t really gone, and would come back someday. Connor had to be ready for that day, had to concentrate, which was another word that Harry had learned early. So Harry would help him concentrate by being ordinary.
He didn’t know just how that would work yet, but he would find out. Whenever he looked over at Connor, he felt a fierce surge of love for his little brother. Connor was special, and he was going to be special. Harry would help him.
When he glanced back at his mother, she was smiling at him, that secret little smile that only the two of them shared. She nodded, whispered, “Yes, Harry, that’s it exactly,” and kissed him before she stood and walked out of the room.
And Harry knew then, in a rush of joy, that their special bond wasn’t fake after all. His mum trusted him to take care of his little brother. That was important. That was special.
He turned and bowed in the direction of Connor’s bed, a gesture he’d learned about from an old story his godfather had told him the other day. “I’ll protect you, Connor,” he said. “I’ll be your knight, and you can be king.”
Link to the story : http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2580283/1/</
