White Hound fan-fiction

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This started out as a bit of frippary - a holiday away from the serious SF novel I am working on. But you have to go with whatever inspiration you currently have, because it'll never leave you alone until you write it out, and the more I worked on it the more serious it got.

The site has now been updated to make the graphics resize in accordance with your screen resolution, so that they maintain constant proportions and always fit on-screen.

N.B. I have a habit of using punctuation partly as musical notation, to control the rhythm of a sentence and thereby to indicate inflection of both speech and thought. This means basically that I omit commas after quotes, in cases where I feel that the dip in emphasis caused by the comma would spoil the music of the line, and sometimes insert commas where I think that the speaker/thinker would pause slightly, even if a comma isn't grammatically necessary at that point. This is not an error, this is a stylistic quirk - so please don't bug me about it. This is also why my stories will not be appearing on the Occlumency site, or any other moderated site.

Stories:

Harry Potter stuff

Yggdrasil [nominated for a MultiFaceted Fanfiction Award in the Tears section]
A little stream-of-consciousness meditation on Snape's part, on the vexed subject of Sirius Black and the Whomping Willow.

Mood Music
Set a few months after HBP. Snape has finally made a slip and has incurred Voldemort's most dire and inventive displeasure. Meanwhile the Death Eaters are kidnapping samples of various types of Muggle psychics and witches, to see if they have powers which they can use. Snape and an OC shamanic witch escape together into a system of underground tunnels and fight a running battle with the Death Eaters - and also with each other, snapping at each other, provoking each other and generally arguing about who will be in command (it will be Snape, of course - eventually). Includes expositions on the magical uses of shamanic drumming etc..

Style: songfic, on a longish hook (there are verses of songs stitched through parts of it because it's actually about the act of singing). Mood: bittersweet and a bit sinister (like the man himself). Fairly graphically bloody in places, and with references to torture and non-consensual sex which have occurred in the past, although very little of it is actually seen.

Sons of Prophecy
Sequel to Mood Music. Following his escape from Voldemort and his return to the Order of the Phoenix, Snape hardly has time to get his breath before he is arrested and imprisoned for the murder of Dumbledore. It falls to McGonagall to get him out of Azkaban - and to Lynsey, the shaman, to support him through the aftermath of recent traumatic events. Snape himself, meanwhile, has a war to organize.

Style: as for Mood Music, but with less singing. Again, references to torture and non-consensual sex which have occurred in the past; plus some current, not very graphic consensual sex.

Lost and Found
Inspired by another writer's story in which Snape was returned to Hogwarts with horrible injuries which could not be fixed by magic, so that there was nothing his friends could do except support him while he died. This takes the same scenario and looks at what you could actually achieve if you combined magical and mundane medical techniques. It begins as a medical drama, progresses into a hurt/comfort story about psychological repair, and finishes as a flirtatious HGSS romance.

Style: begins desperately grim and graphically bloody, but ends up quite light-hearted and hopeful. Again, references to torture and non-consensual sex which have occurred in the past, plus fairly graphic description of the treatment of severe injuries; some current, not very graphic consensual sex.

Giving Extras
Post-Deathly Hallows story which follows on from the drabble Flower Remedy. He knew he was going to die: he knew he had died. So why wasn't he dead - and why was everyone else suddenly so much older?

Available Resources
100-word drabble. Voldemort has invaded Hogwarts, and Harry is the last Order member standing. He needs a little something to tip the balance his way....

Monster
100-word drabble. Sometimes, the same patterns of behaviour repeat themselves through history....

Message in a Bottle
100-word drabble. There may be more than one way to put a stopper in death....

Turn and Turn About
100-word drabble. Sometimes, the obvious answer isn't the right one....

Flower Remedy
100-word drabble. Sometimes, the old ways are the best....

Still Recruiting
100-word drabble. The new Headmaster has his own method of dealing with graffiti....

Treacherous Road
A filk (Science Fiction or Fantasy-based folk song) about the position Snape finds himself in at the end of The Half-Blood Prince.

Biased
A filk about the way in which Snape is judged in comparison with the other characters: companion-piece to the essay But Snape is just nasty, right?

Duet for One
Poem: in order to pass as a Death Eater, Snape must rotate the dark side of his mind forwards and suppress every good thought and impulse which might betray him to the Dark Lord; but doing so isn't exactly psychologically healthy.

The Scalpipede
A missing entry from Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them, written not by me but by John Nettleship - who was J.K. Rowling's Chemistry teacher at secondary school, and is about 70% of the blueprint for Snape.

Essays:

Harry Potter stuff

Where is Spinner's End - and for that matter, where is Hogwarts?
A LiveJournal essay (under the name Borolin - I couldn't get the whitehound ID) examining everything we've been told about Spinner's End, and analysing what that tells us about its likely location.

Reserved!Snape - Canon or Fanon?
An examination of Snape's character as revealed in the books, with particular reference to how Dyce and I have portrayed him in Lost and Found.

But Snape is just nasty, right?
A consideration of the evidence for Our Hero being exceptionally unpleasant. Now revised to take account of the new canon in Deathly Hallows.

Population and Pupils
What we know or can deduce about the number of students attending Hogwarts, and the size of the wizarding population in general.

Birthdates in the Harry Potter universe
An examination of what we know or can deduce about the dates of birth of various Potterverse characters. Includes not one but two coherent solutions to the anomalies surrounding the dating of Charlie Weasley.

When was Albus Dumbledore appointed as Headmaster?
A consistent timeline for Albus's appointment, based on discussions on the Loose Canon group.

Links:

This is a list of fan-fiction stories which I personally find strikingly interesting and well-done. The majority of them are Harry Potter-verse stories about Snape, but other fandoms will be included if I see something which particularly appeals to me.

Loose Canon:

Discussion-group for anyone interested in analysing the details of the Harry Potter canon - when did Dumbledore become Headmaster? How large was Voldemort's army during the first war? All welcome.

Britpicker's Guide:

This is intended as a sort of FAQ sheet to aid American (usually) fan-writers trying to give their stories a convincing British setting. It lists common (and some less common) errors which seem to pull a lot of writers up. More will be added as I think of them.

FanFiction Follies:

Some common errors in fanfiction which are best avoided - a few words of advice for new authors. More will be added as I think of them.

Fanfiction.net How-To:

A guide to navigating Fanfiction.net's uploading and text-editing features, with sample designs for attractive section-breaks which will display correctly on ffn.

Character Codes

Supplement to the Fanfiction.net How-To: a comprehensive list of all characters which have HTML Named Entity or Windows Alt+ codes, plus some others suitable for making attractive designs, with notes on their behaviour in Fanfiction.net.

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