I've just started (finally!) reading the
snarry_games fics, so I'm progressing backwards. Or maybe just out of sequence. But the beauty of
fuschia's fic
Playing Azkaban caught me totally off guard. Both in the sense that I wasn't expecting it, and with joy at its sharp, heartfelt language. The extraordinary wealth of detail in this fic summons a lost world vividly to mind and fills it with intense emotion. Or perhaps I should say it fills
me with emotion. The writing is chockful of precise, sensual observations, and the mood is urgent, melancholy, slightly twisted and - dare I say it - satisfying. It's an unusual variation on the theme of pensieve memories, and it gave me that sense of closure that canon lacks. Harry has the chance to say what he needs to say, so directly that it will almost make you squirm. For myself? I like to know Harry's capable of transgression. It means he's growing up.
Also, any fic that gives me a glimpse of young!Snape is welcome. There's a bonus in that young!Lily not only appears, but actually wins me over. For perhaps the first time I genuinely regret that Severus lost Lily's friendship, because this fic convinces me, in a very short span of words, that they
were friends, close and quarrelsome and well-matched.
I've avoided saying much about the plot, because the fic is short and I don't want to spoil it. But it's so tightly written, and it gets so many things right, and
fuschia's skill is just breathtaking. Prepare to be a bit sad at the end. It's the sadness of "if-only" and the sense that the fic is handing Harry back to his mundane destiny. But first it gives us a secret glimpse of something that falls between the lines of canon, and I'm very grateful for it.
Read! Vote! The Games are overflowing with wonderful things. I suppose I ought to make the usual disclaimer that I'm a member of Team Phoenix and this is one of ours, but that's not why I'm reccing it. It's simply lovely. Go check it out.