cabinetcaligari | Rectober: Atrata

Title:In Between Days
Author/Artist:

atrata
Pairing(s) Snape/ Harry
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 68708
Warnings: dubcon, dubious consent, dubious morality, angst, depression
Summary: Snape kidnaps/rescues a clinically depressed Harry from the Dursleys, but nothing is quite what it seems.

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capitu

Why I loved it:
In short: Even if you don't ship Snarry, read this. It will make you ship it, or at least ship this Snape with this Harry, because it is just. that. good.

~
This fic. Where do I even start.

I postponed reading this fic for a long time, because of the warnings. Clinical depression, bleak, angsty, I wasn’t sure if I could handle that. Even though it was recced all over Snarry fandom, described as probably the best Snape characterization around, and also one of the best Snarry fics ever.

This fic is also the reason I didn’t read Snarry for quite a while after finishing this. Because, this fic is SO GOOD, I felt no other fic, no matter how well-written, would give me the feelings this one gave me.

The story takes place when Harry is sixteen and the war is still raging. Snape rescues him from the Dursleys and takes Harry to several abandoned houses, where he prepares Harry for the battle with Voldemort. The story is bleak and the situation seems hopeless at times, but despite these heavy themes it is a surprisingly light read.

But what makes this fic so, so incredibly good, is the way Snape is portrayed, and the way the dynamics between Snape and Harry are written. This Snape is sarcastic, cruel, veiled, unreliable, powerful, slightly dark, and incredibly layered. He seems to hate Harry with a vengeance, and Harry hates him back with equal turbulence, furiously fighting Snape and the way Snape makes him feel. Even the smut is beautifully in character, hateful and cruel and emotionally layered and ridiculously hot. Take all the things that made Rowling’s Snape and the dynamics with Harry such a brutal joy to read, magnify these things a thousand times, and voila, this fic. It kept me awake during the night, and set the bar for fic Snape (or any Snape, actually) and the dynamics between Snape and Harry so ridiculously high it left me wanting nothing else but this Snape, millions of words please, and it still would not be enough.

Excerpt:
"As for Snape, he hadn't yet acknowledged Harry's presence, which was fine with Harry, as it gave him time to stare. His Potions professor was sitting in the far corner of the bed, his back propped up against the wall, reading. Snape had tied his hair back and was dressed as a Muggle, sort of -- black flannel pyjama bottoms and a faded black t-shirt. Harry's gaze caught on the man's feet, bare and pale, the skin blue-veined and translucent. His forearms, elegantly muscled, were equally pale, and his long, slender neck... Harry swallowed audibly and tried to remember why in the world he was there.

"Something I can help you with, Mr. Potter?" Snape inquired politely, not looking up from his book.

"I can't sleep," he said, not sure where the words were coming from. Had he been trying to sleep? He barely recognized his own voice.

"And this concerns me how?" Snape looked up from his book and fixed Harry with a cool stare."