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Nightfall Rising

  • Valley of the Shadow

    Britain, 1980. No one cares what's fair when their people are on the line. Truth would be subjective even if everyone told it, and this is a Slytherin war: smoke and smiles, masks and mirrors. CH111: A chapter with a sad lack of dragon fangs and magical guitars, in which Severus is still figuring out the limits of his job and will probably be murdered by colleagues well before tea.

  • The Lion-Taming of the Shrew

    Sirius babysits and Severus bakes cookies. Neither of these things is strictly true. CH2: Lily subtles like a subtle thing that subtly subtles.

  • The Delectable Mountains

    One week after graduation, all manner of terrible events completely fail to show up for work. Contains makeshift Quidditch, variably appalling culinary experimentation, Lucius (being a bit much, Severus (being awkward and unfair), Evan (too burned out on fretting to pay proper attention), disgusting quantities of heart-eyes, and a flat filled only with possibility.

  • Interpreter's House

    Autumn, 1975: Evan Rosier has got the 'I don't know where I'm going, but I'm going nowhere in a hurry' blues, and Severus can't understand why everyone's in such a rush.

  • A Quartz Contentment

    "You actually *are* joking, Perce... I don't think I've heard you joke since you were—!"

  • Distillation, Observed

    A study in camouflage. It's the best teachers whose students grow past them. Or: Horace knows the story of the moth.

  • Grey in the Dark

    It's a chocolate-scented August in the Sherwood, and there's a stormcrow at the door.

  • How James Potter Didn't Save The World Enough

    A heartwarming and mystical tale of rebirth and renewal, filled with the weight of ancient spiritual connections or possibly just with so very much crack. The Green Man and the Horned Man. Please don't hurt me. :D

  • Valley of the Shadow (gen)

    Britain, 1980. No one cares what's fair when their people are on the line. Truth would be subjective even if everyone told it, and this is a Slytherin war: smoke and smiles, masks and mirrors. CH 82: In which we find that sometimes being responsible and gloating are quite easy to mistake for one another, depending who's getting the message. (Snape vs. Potter, round 2)

  • River of the Water of Life

    Hovering between graduation and the opening shots of war, two Death Eaters will work towards their masters' degrees—if they can find time between All Of The Feels and bickering about the rent. Perhaps unexpectedly, it's the art student who's burdened with Ancient and Lethally-Forbidden Secrets, but Severus's biggest problem in life is always being someone else's solution. (Not AU.)

  • Hogwarts Prefers the Mongoose

    ...Yes, even Slytherin. At the end of OotP, Severus is not, in fact, gloating about Sirius's death. He has another victory to quietly glee over, and Minerva is with him all the way.

  • Interdepartmental Memo (Scheduled Delivery, Event-Triggered)

    Some proposed curriculum changes to be enacted in '98. Well, I say proposed. Strongly advised. Dictated with waning patience, if you must know. Or: Schrodinger's cat snarks like a bitchy boojum. Quite (probably) academic (pun intended). Can be a prequel to Inconceivable or a stand-alone. Because quantum.

  • The Boomslang Effect

    "And you're quite sure your students only know the sensible parts of the story, are you?" Filius asked reasonably. "There were some?" Minerva wondered aloud, dust-dry, as Severus's face fell. (It's 1985, and Hogwarts's most junior (permanent) faculty member may have slightly underestimated his influence on his admiring students. …No, seriously. It's, like, a problem.)

  • Inconceivable!

    [revised 3/24] Severus had been mostly-dead all day. ...The snake doesn't get him. I'm explaining to you because you look nervous. (Bad jokes, good Slytherins, and Severus is a wicked dork. A DH fix-it.)

  • Biannual Senior Faculty Fall Term Clustersparkle '92

    Albus believes in knitting as hugs, friendship as armor, laughter as a weapon, love as a power, the redemption of Death Eaters, and today, sadly, basilisks. What he can't believe is what one uninvited DADA teacher has done to his unusually serious and important end-of-term staff meeting. Or, some days, that he employs any of these clow—highly qualified and very professional people.

  • The Prince and the Marauders

    Severus Snape, while fierce, isn't actually all that good at defending himself. But it's just plain suicide, however slow, to go after a child in his care. He's very much his mother's son, and he was in hers. Four AU shorts, variably cracky: the Marauders each find that the summer after their fifth year is not quite going to plan.

  • The Wicket Gate (gen)

    [platonic version] The spring of Severus's fifth year wasn't so much one long nightmare as one of those tooth-rattling roller coasters that turns you upside down, spins you like a top, bangs your skull repeatedly against the headrest, toys with free-fall—and looks, to your friends on the ground, at least as horrifying as it feels. Not that those don't have their moments...

  • The Wicket Gate

    The spring of Severus's fifth year wasn't so much one long nightmare as one of those tooth-rattling roller coasters that turns you upside down, spins you like a top, bangs your skull repeatedly against the headrest, toys with free-fall, and looks, to your friends on the ground, at least as horrifying as it feels. Mind... the way free-fall feels like flying? With a wand, it can be.

  • A Key Called Promise

    Slytherin has been lumbered with a disagreeable, low-class, shouty, raggedy bat-troll. With a most unreliable sense of self-preservation. Ick. And he's even half *muggle.* Or maybe just half mother-hen... But either way, noisy, and trouble, and... an excellent decoy, come to think of it... and what do you mean the only Black the little mudblood hasn't scooped up is the Gryff?

  • Twas Brillig (On the Shores of Lethe)

    Sirius slowly realizes how much of his memory was frozen away in Azkaban. Meanwhile, Remus nobly refuses to clarify thing one, and Severus swoops around maliciously washing Molly's dishes and sabotaging Sirius's hurt-comfort NEWT with surly panache.