This Fest Keeps Getting Better and Better

[teddy_radiator]

As you know, I'm not one to write a sustainable bastard!Snape, but the folks over a deeply_horrible keep delivering fics that are stunning in their quality. Today's The Headmaster is just such a fic. Taking place during that last hideous year when Snape makes the choice to become The Headmaster, because that is the only way he can deal with the unspeakable life he has been forced to lead.

To say much more would be to give it away, but this is simply one of the best written character studies of what he was going through that awful year, and how he had to cope. He realises he is turning into a monster, and on some level there's a grim pleasure to it - because it is the only pleasure he can afford to take during this period of absolute misery. He simply becomes what Dumbledore has molded him to be, and the result is simply heartbreaking for everyone involved, especially Minerva, who knows what is going on, and suffers the consequences of it all.

I am still reeling from reading this story. It is simply brilliant, and the Mystery Author has created a masterpiece of hopeless, fear and desperation. Please go and read and show this author how much you appreciate a fantastic story.

Comments

[mimimanderly.livejournal.com]

I've bookmarked it for later. Fortunately, it's not epic length, so I WILL have time to read it! Yay!

[kittylefish.livejournal.com]

you won't regret it.

[lemonade8.livejournal.com]

I will check it out after the holidays. Sounds interesting!

[kittylefish.livejournal.com]

i have avoided that fest as i am not interested in deeply horrible snape for the most part, but your rec of this story intrigued me so i stopped by. wow. it really is a masterful bit of storytelling. heartbreaking, but a horrible snape who i could understand and still feel compassion and empathy and love for. thanks for sending me there.

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

To be honest, Kitty, I have avoided it as well, but there was an SSHG story there that just floored me, so I started dipping my toe in and occasionally reading, and that's where I came across this gem. It is terrible, and he is terrible, but it is a terrible that you understand and pity him for. It's that awful feeling of 'don't make me do this' that got me, and how it gradually became something he took some sort of pleasure in, perhaps because it was the only thing he really could control.

I personally can't see Severus getting this far gone (I can't imagine this Severus taking the sword to the Forest of Dean, for example), but I can see how the right elements were there for him to become this way. I'm glad you enjoyed it as well!

[delphipsmith]

Wow. So wrenchingly grim, but so deeply believable. Thanks for the rec!