![]() Author has written 7 stories for Harry Potter. It has been several years since I started writing fanfiction, but my bio has stayed relatively the same. Time now to change it. I'm still a 40-something bibliophile addicted to the Potterverse, married for twentyfour years to a wonderful but snarky man, and I have two teenaged children. My pen name comes from those children. They were yelling at each other one day-- one of them crying in righteous indignation, the other in murderous fury-- and I realized I lived in Bedlam, or some sort of Purgatory... "Mother of Tears" just popped into my head and it fit. It still fits even now though one of my chicks has left the roost to go away to college. I'm still amazed... and proud. How wonderful that the hyper little boy who used to get kicked out of daycares, was always in trouble, and who was reguarded with suspicion by camp nurses, guidence councelors, and high schoool principles alike (I still can't hear the word "atypical" without a shudder) is now in his second year at State College on a full and complete scholarship (Ring the bells!) double majoring in Physics and Engineering. I always told him life got better out of high school and for him it really has. Sometimes the Snapes in this world do get a happy ending, and my son is the proof of it. One child is still at home, a varsity cheerleader. She is the spunky little thing that gets lifted up in the air by one foot while flashing an impossibly perky smile. Her sport is the inspiration for my story "Bring it on Hogwarts." They always say write what you know, and I do know Cheerleading. That story is sort of therapy. About the Potterverse: I am still fascinated by the character of Severus Snape. Maybe it's because I like Alan Rickman who plays him in the movies, or maybe it's because there is something in Snape that I identify with. I used to be the high school outcast, the lonely oddball, and in my youth I knew the desperate sort of unrequited love that our Severus has been saddled with. Life, thankfully, turned out better for me, but I still feel different and I always root for the underdog. My heart goes out to the nobodies, the losers, the geeks, and the loners-- especially if they have redeeming qualities. Snape, in spite of his nasty behavior, does have redeeming qualities and his obvious pain resonates with me. I want to read or write stories where he is vindicated and that give him a chance to be happy. The Mommy in me wants to take care of him. Deathly Hallows really threw me for a loop. I honestly didn't think it would affect me as much, but it did. All along I knew Snape was going to die in that wretched book and I thought I was prepared for it, but what bothered me was the terrible pathos of it all. Yes Snape died a hero, but he died lonely and despised, rejected and completely unagknowledged. He died unloved, still eating his heart out for a long dead woman who never gave him a thought beyond friendship. After all his sacrifices, he should have had more than that. needless to say, I am definitely dissapointed in Rowling. She also killed off too many characters. Snape wasn't the only tragedy. But at least he went to his death with the knowledge that he never wavered from his duty. We can't say that much for Lupin. I never liked ANY of those Marauders by the way. As for the whole Snape/Lily thing, I'm still a HG/SS shipper. I have read many starcrossed stories of Lilly and Snape-- how a poignant romance went sour because of misunderstandings; how two people who should have been together were sundered forever because of a single tragic mistake. I don't buy it. There was no romace to break up. They were only friends. Severus may have loved Lily but she never returned the feeling. Even if poor Snape had never taken the dark mark, even if he had renounced all dark magic and championed the cause of Muggleborns I doubt Lily would have fallen in love with him. It was a one-sided love-- a shy, lonely geek worshipping the pretty popular girl next door. Girls like that don't usually love such boys, even if they are already friends with them. Especially if they are already friends because familiarity breeds contempt. A teeneaged girl isn't likely to see the childhood friend she feels sorry for as the romantic ideal her heart longs for. James Potter, however, does fit that ideal. I think Lily was always attracted to James even if she didn't want to admit it. James was handsome, easy going, and personable, with a devilish bad-boy charm that young girls always seem to find attractive. And they had a lot in common. They both came from wholesome loving homes, were both smart, and had similar expectations in life. Lily's antagonism to James stems from her dissapointment in him. We hold the people who attract us to a higher standard, and James' cruel, immature behavior infuriated her. Once he began to change-- perhaps after he saved Snape's life-- Lily allowed herself to fall in love with him. Could Lily have known Snape loved her? Of course she did. Perhaps the reason she didn't forgive him after his disastrous mistake was because it was the simplest solution to her problem. Deep inside she knew she was going to have to hurt him eventually, and being a kind person, she shied away from that. How much easier it was to stay angry over that stupid insult and refuse all his apologies "on principle" because of his dark associations than it was to have to make up with him and then hurt him later. If Lily had actually loved Severus, if she had been attracted to him as a man, she would have forgiven him. Women usually do. Women put up with all sorts of bad behavior from the men they love if they ultimately believe their offending lover is sorry. Lily did not love Severus Snape. She probably never would have. Does the HG/SS ship work? If the writer can keep both characters alive, yes. Despite the fact that cannon Snape continually carried a torch for Lily, it was a schoolboy sort of love. I really don't think she was his type. Snape had an adolescent boy's passion for a nice, kind, drop-dead gorgeous girl. She was said to be smart, but I never got the impression that her inteligence was similar to his. Severus was an intellectual, a geek. Lily was a normal type of smart. She did well in school, but her intelligence was well rounded. She probably liked all the normal things young girls are into-- clothes, make-up, hairstyles, and sports. She may have been an avid Quiddich fan. I can picture Lily in her early chool years listening with friendly interest to Severus Snape, the intense intellectual, without truly sharing his passion for reading and experimenting. She probably only did well in Potions because he coached her. We can't use Slughorn's memory as absolute truth because he believed Harry was a wiz at Potions too and we know Harry was only using Snape's old book as a guide. Lily and Snape were not the same sort of people. That doesn't mean that if they had gotten together they wouldn't somehow found a way to coexist. But they would never have been an ideal couple. They didn't speak the same language. I can't think of another character that would better suit Severus Snape than Hermione Granger. Like him, she IS an intellectual, an unconventional person, a book worm and a geek. She's a deep thinker, and she's just as kind as Lily ever was if not more so. She would appreciate his passion for books and his love of experiments. Their relationship would be a meeting of the minds before it ever became anything romantic and phsysical, which would provide a sturdy foundation for romace to grow. Hermione would be able to understand him. And what she didn't understand, she'd persist in trying to learn untill she succeeded. The HG/SS relationship seems the perfect combination to me. It is like meeting like and opposites attracting at the same time. They are intellectually suited but differ widely in background. They are similar in temperament but different in age. It is a dance of innocence and experience, light and darkness-- the dark craves the light and the light seeks to illuminate the darkness, but they battle each other as well. The possibilities here are incredible. \Snape needs someone who could love him and Hermione could. She has a thing for "causes" as well... Hermione and Ron do NOT work as a couple. While an intellectual man might be comfortable with a stupid wife, an intellectual woman would be bored to tears, lonely and frustrated with a man who was not her equal. Rowling made a boo boo here. I can picture them marrying. After all, everyone expects it and they're very young, but it wouldn't last. As for my writing, I DO intend to update, but it may take a while. So much is going on in my life that the writing process is... well... slow. I'm working full time, my house is in the process of a remodel (We're putting an addition on the side so that my mother can come and live with us) and chaos reigns in every room. The biggest thing right now is a major test coming up in November. I'm taking the National Contact Lens Exam, and I HAVE TO PASS THIS TEST! My company demands I take it and I paid $150.00 to sign up for it, and I haven't taken a test like this for over twenty years. The nerves are getting to me. My co-worker has an actual ulcer over it, but I just have a case of the stupids. I can't seem to concentrate on anything. It's like a mini nervous breakdown and I forget things. Anything I write looks like drivel and I have a hard time sleeping. I'm getting some wonderful new ideas for stories though... I seem to be thinking about everything BUT my test! 1/9/08 I passed my test! With a 92! Ha!Ha!Hooyay! Now I can write again. Next update should be soon... |