Snape makes the first move

[resonant]

There are a lot of HP stories where Harry gets up from the table at the Leaving Feast and blows off a chance of the party of the decade in order to go down to the dungeon, shout, "I'm not your student any more," and fling himself at Snape.

Sometimes Snape is expecting this, and sometimes he's as shocked as Warner Bros.' lawyers. Sometimes he accepts Harry's offer, and sometimes he nobly sends him away to get old enough to be interesting gain Useful Experience and Perspective so that he can Make An Informed Relationship Decision.

What I want to know is, why is it always Harry who makes the first move?

Because, really, can't you see it the other way around? After the Leaving Feast, Snape comes up to the Gryffindor common room and sends everybody scattering, and he talks for a while to Harry in private and then sweeps away, and the rest of the Gryfs come cautiously back in:

"What'd Snape want, Harry?"

"Probably wanted one last chance to assign him a detention."

"Er, Harry? I really think it's not terribly healthy to be casting Scouring Charms at your lips ..."

And then Harry goes off into the world to get old enough to be interesting gain Useful Experience and Perspective and Enough Distance To Become Intrigued.

But meanwhile, Snape's despairing of Harry's ever changing his mind, since Harry didn't say "No thank you" or "I'm flattered, but" or "It's not you, it's me" -- he said "Wha -- aaaaagh -- no, no, no, make it stop, make it stop --, god, the nightmares, where's my wand ..."

That's a story I would really like to read.

Comments

[celandineb.livejournal.com]

True enough about the reckless bit, but he's never given any indication of having any feelings towards Snape except dislike verging onto hatred... well, maybe shading to very grudging respect laced with distrust in OotP. So to me it is implausible. Not impossible, but implausible. Which is not to say I haven't/won't read it. But it would be, hm, interesting, to see Snape as the primum mobile. If you hear of someone writing it, do share!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

he's never given any indication of having any feelings towards Snape except dislike verging onto hatred.

But that's the First Law of Slash: All intensity is sexual intensity.

(I once saw a cartoon where Popeye and Bluto were at a party, holding hands, and one of them was telling one of the other partygoers, "We finally figured out where all that anger was coming from.")

I find Harry/Snape quite compelling; it isn't so much that the canon supports it, as that it does something for me. I think it's all that loneliness -- it's very satisfying to take two characters with such depths of emotional emptiness and give them both what they need in one fell swoop.

[celandineb.livejournal.com]

First Law of Slash: All intensity is sexual intensity.

Humph. Well, yes, okay, I know that's a common attitude. But gets boring, says I. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar...

I've certainly enjoyed reading your Harry/Snape - I don't actually read very much in the HP fandom, so I don't know what the more popular slash pairings are or how they're typically handled. *cough* No untoward implications intended. In general if the author of a fic can convince me of the plausibility of the situation, and the emotions, I'm happy. "Transfigurations" did that especially well, I felt.