Gacked from a_t_rain and others. Mine is of course painfully Snape-centered, as usual :/.



Three key pairings in my own personal canon

Severus/Narcissa. Narcissa Black represents everything Snape covets but cannot have: pure blood, upper-class breeding, wealth, and beauty. More than love, Snape feels desire for her, but he doesn’t act upon it. He worships her from afar; he fears rejection as well as the ravages of emotion he would be prone to if he gave in to his feelings. Lucius Malfoy knows of his passion and finds it rather amusing. Narcissa herself has absolutely no loving feelings for Snape – nothing about him is attractive to her. She is kind to him though, rather like she would be to an excellent servant.

Harry/Luna. Just a fantasy. I can’t help it; I like Luna so much more than Ginny, and I think Harry deserves some dotty fun in his life, to balance out his many and heavy responsibilities. Plus, Luna possesses a kind of wisdom that could bring Harry peace, if he’d care to listen to her. She’s unconventional. They’d be an amusing couple.

Wilkes/Snape. Toby Wilkes so has a crush on his best friend. Unfortunately (or maybe luckily) for him, Severus is pretty straight.


Three OCs in my canon

Brynhild Bromley. Together with Wilkes and Snape, she forms my alternative Trio, Slytherin version. Spoilt, capricious and nervous, Brynhild can be quite a handful, but at least she doesn’t mind putting up with Severus’s moods. She grows up to be a level-headed, clever woman. An expert flyer, she once laughed at Snape when he struggled with a bucking broomstick. He still hasn’t forgiven her.

Madam Gunhilda Von Bork. I am exceedingly fond of Madam Von Bork, Brynhild’s mother, because she is a half-hag who looks like a mean old crone out of Grimm and yet isn’t at all malicious, sharp tongue notwithstanding. She is very ugly, but likes to deck herself out in baroque, expensive clothes and heaps of jewels; she isn’t troubled by her scary appearance at all. She also has a darling of a husband who loves her just the way she is *g*.

Elfriede Gravelius. The German Minister for Magic is a woman. She has wisdom and vision, as well as the shrewdness and occasional Machiavellian streak that enable her to push her policies through, seen or unseen. She is an odd cross between Scrimgeour and Dumbledore.


Three plot points that are integral to my canon

Severus Snape has been marked much more profoundly by the Marauders’ bullying than by his parents’ quarrelling.

If canon is “a litany of bad fathers”, Tobias Snape exemplifies the exception to the rule.

Severus Snape is an escape artist. He survives and starts a new life after Voldemort’s defeat. It involves a family (because he is conventional that way) and the headmastership of Durmstrang (because knowledge is power, and power over knowledge is the greatest power of all).


Three concepts that are integral to my canon

Magic isn’t at all about wands and trappings. At heart, it is an outward manifestation of inner feelings and will. Magic draws on the witch or wizard’s core personality.

The Dark Arts are not evil; they have acquired a bad reputation because they can easily be used for less honourable purposes. They are old and earthy and physical and involve personal sacrifices of some kind, like hair or blood or flesh – or soul. They are one kind of approach towards magic in which the caster directly learns about the (moral and other) consequences of his/her art, be they good or bad. If used to do evil, the Dark Arts damage the caster. But because they are all about balance, their effects on the caster can be undone by an equivalent action in the opposite spirit.

When we are happy, we are always good, but when we are good, we are not always happy. (Oscar Wilde)