requited, and companion piece, by FayJay (PG13)

[anenko.livejournal.com]

Fandom: HARRY POTTER
Pairing: Lily/Snape
Author on LJ: pandarus
Author’s Website: Spreading the Yay, one Ho at a time
Why this must be read:

Most of what we know about Harry’s parent’s generation focuses around James Potter: the Marauders were his friends, Snape was his rival, Harry looks like James, and has James’ knack for Quidditch. I have a real fondness for stories that take on Lily Evans, without needing James’ or Harry’s presence to help define her.

I enjoyed how FayJay handled both Snape and Lily: they are both complex, layered characters. She doesn’t whitewash Snape, and makes Lily human, without pushing too far into “edgy” characterization.

It is a vulgar truism that history is written by the victors, and by adoring friends and offspring who are armed with distorting and rose-tinted lenses. James Potter won Lily Evans, and as a result she is remembered as nothing but an adjunct of her son's story. But Lily was never the milk-and-water paragon of blandness the textbooks describe. She was not nice. Good, perhaps, whatever that may mean, but Lily Evans was far too vivid and passionate and fascinating a girl to be constrained by any adjective so repellently bland as 'nice'.

requited
Lily/Snape Redux