Lentesco

Lentesco – Author’s Notes



I began Lentesco as I ended “The Nothing I’ve Become” as I dislike having a gap between stories. However, I haven’t started the next one (the idea for which I had at the same time as Lentesco) as it is a major project! Mind you, had I realised how long Lentesco was going to be, I don’t think I’d have been so keen to begin it!



I had the first half of this story in my mind as I began it. Sadly, I didn’t think about what would happen when I ran out of ideas!



Chapter One –This chapter set up Harry’s problems regarding Snape – namely that he fancied him!



Chapter Two – The whole alternating between the past and present wasn’t something I’d initially intended, it just made sense with this story. I will work out the full chronological order for this story – for my own satisfaction if for no other reason!



Chapter Three – I’m not a fan of Ginny, but neither am I a hater either. I felt she deserved at least some explanation for why she and Harry weren’t together. My dear friend CT who encourages me came up with Aidan’s name after I asked her for one.



Chapter Four – I really think the Marauders were wankers, and I think it shows in this story. I know they changed when they grew up, but as kids they were arrogant gits! Poor Severus, mind you he got his revenge at the end!



Chapter Five – ‘Cliodna’ (Harry’s owl) is pronounced Cleev-na. I nicked the name off the Lexicon site, so all credit to them.



This chapter introduces the idea that both McGonagall and Dumbledore know something that Harry doesn’t. As she looks at him Minerva has “an odd something” in her eyes, and when talking about Severus Dumbledore says “Sometimes that which we most want is just the worst possible thing for us”. Obviously, these two know that in their past a person named Harry Potter went back in time to try and help Severus with his curse.



Chapter Six – A delightful past chapter showing the relationship between Lucius and Severus. And no, it’s not a healthy relationship!



Chapter Seven – Although it’s never made clear in this story, Hogwarts doesn’t actually have a head teacher. Instead, Albus is “acting” head teacher, and he makes recommendations to the board of Governors, and they either approve them or not. So, really, it was Albus who made Severus move to be Potions Master again!



Also, as I re-read this chapter, I felt a little surprised that Dumbledore had shared something so deeply personal about Severus with Harry (i.e. the curse), but he had no real choice. He had to tell Harry to ensure things got moving between the two men as quickly as possible, as he knew the situation with Severus needed resolving.



Chapter Eight – It’s never made clear in the novels whether or not Lily knew about Severus’ love for her, so I figured I’d make it clear that she does find out, and that she isn’t interested in him that way, but does still care about him.



Chapter Nine – The sex here hopefully has a few resonances later when Aidan and Severus get together. I certainly wanted Severus to link the happiness he gets with Harry to Aidan. There’s a comment: “aching like he hadn’t ached for … years, if he was honest.” That shows he’s thinking of Aidan at this point. Obviously, you, dear reader, do not yet know about Aidan.



Chapter Ten – Ah, the first of many vials makes its appearance! I try not to think about the logistics of one potion an hour for 31 days, and how many doses that actually is!



Chapter Eleven – I don’t know if you noticed, but sex with Harry knocks Severus out! As a boy, with Aidan he was exhausted after being with him, and having Harry suck him off is enough to make him knackered – they’re meant for each other – ah!



I also made sure that most readers would not link Harry with Aidan by stating that Aidan had died. Obviously, Severus didn’t know that for himself, he was told it by Dumbledore as a boy.



Chapter Twelve – This was the first chapter that featured a lot of Aidan, and I had to be VERY careful that I wrote ‘Aidan’ and not ‘Harry’, as a couple of times I started to do it. I had to think of Aidan as Harry in my head, to ensure I got his character right. I didn’t want Aidan to do anything that Harry might not have done.



Chapter Thirteen – It was a complete fluke that Severus went limp during chapter thirteen. Ah yes, the famous letter! If you’ve read the whole story, that letter should be familiar to you.



Chapter Fourteen – I had such trouble writing this chapter to make it seem like Aidan was just good at ‘reading’ people, rather than that it was Harry. I think I wrote ‘Harry’ in a couple of places and had to go back and change them. Ah, more misdirection, I made sure Aidan was physically dissimilar from Harry – so he had brown eyes and brown hair.



Chapter Fifteen – And in this chapter the idea of Harry going back in time is first raised. See how sneaky I was? I did play with the idea of having the cure being as simple as Severus believing the curse was over, but thought that that would be cheating my readers a little!



Chapter Sixteen – I had great fun messing with people’s heads in this chapter. Cos, if you check ‘Half-Blood Prince’ Harry reads to add the clockwise stir after every seventh counter-clockwise stir from Severus’ book. As an adult he goes back and tells Severus to do it – so where did the knowledge actually come from? Brain aching yet?



And, hopefully you noticed how sensitive the two are to each other.



Chapter Seventeen – I had to search for this chapter later on, to make sure that Dumbledore’s conversation with Severus could have been summarised in this way.



And yes, I did enjoy the irony of it being Harry’s fault that Severus got cursed initially!



Chapter Eighteen – I gotta wonder about the stuff Lucius was including in his essays, that a book which had that curse in it was amongst his school belongings!



And more evidence of how good Severus and Harry/Aidan are for each other!



Chapter Nineteen – It might not be obvious, but what is happening in the past is taking place at an equivalent time to the present. So, if I write that a week passes in the present, then a week has passed in the past. I was trying to ensure the symmetrical and cyclical nature of the story. Bloody stupid SP!



Chapter Twenty – I had forgotten, when I wrote this chapter, that I hadn’t revealed who Aidan was as yet, so had to alter what Aidan discovered, as it would have given it away if he came across the curse and thought about it (as he did in the first draft).



Chapter Twenty-One – You know, I’m not convinced this chapter makes sense. Does it help people make sense of the story? (In retrospect if not initially?) Or does it need a re-write? I’d welcome your views, as I’m not entirely happy about it.



Chapter Twenty-Two – I had such trouble making the letter reasonably clear without being repetitive. Nearly bloody killed me to explain the laws!



Chapter Twenty-Three – I never had any intention of harm coming to Harry, and thought it’d be mean to up the tension by suggesting he might not make it back! So, of course, I went for it!



Chapter Twenty-Four – The first of the chapters that are closely linked to earlier chapters. I tried to avoid re-writing the same incidents from Harry’s point of view, but some just leant themselves to that.



And also, in this chapter the idea of Harry making Severus develop the eyebrow lift is touted. I wanted there to be real… what’s the word? … Harry is having a real impact on Sev’s world! All of these things are things Harry really associates with Sev, but he –Harry – is the reason for them in the first place! Let’s face it, would Severus have scowled so much if he hadn’t been walking around with a hard-on for over 20 years?!



Chapter Twenty-Five – This whole thing with Severus realising he loved Harry came out of nowhere, but it’s nice to see I can be fairly soppy (in my own twisted way, of course!). And also, it was used to show that he was still afflicted with the crappy part of the curse – the limpness.



Chapter Twenty-Six – Ok, I admit it, I was lazy. I took the earlier chapter and just re-wrote from Harry’s view, but I did use the events to push him to into sex with Severus – yay!



Chapter Twenty-Seven - Not much to say, apart from this chapter does clear up some of the confusing stuff from earlier in the story.



Chapter Twenty-Eight – I had such fun putting in the two verb tenses from the two viewpoints – Harry’s and Aidan’s!



I also enjoyed adding in all the stuff I hadn’t been able to put in the chapter that was like this one earlier. I think it has more emotional impact now that we see what’s going on in Harry’s head.



Chapter Twenty-Nine – This chapter was the result of Jilliane’s help. Seriously people, without her I’d still be puzzling over how to cure Severus. She suggested that Severus would have to beg Lucius to have sex with him, and was just enlarging on her idea when I saw the rest of the story. So, I asked her to stop writing (cos she had loads of ideas, and I knew – if I saw them – that I’d want to use them all) and quickly worked out the second half of Lentesco. That was all it took! A couple of sentences in the right place to nudge the brain – so, THANK YOU! To Jilliane!



I also put this chapter in misdirect people slightly. In my AN at the top I put that it’s there to relieve the angst. Actually, it’s there to provide the vital clue to help Sev and Harry! Studdy knows all about Dobby and how he managed to annoy the Malfoys, and Studdy wants to do the same.



Chapter Thirty – One of my chapters that deals with the bloody insanity that is time travel, and the problems it throws up.



Chapter Thirty-One – Hmm, I had a reviewer who whinged about the length of the chapters (you know who you are!), so I REALLY was very tempted to make this only the first two paragraphs long. I added the extra bit purely to remind you, dear reader, of the risk to Harry, and to make it clear that Harry had to come back soon or else the plan would have failed.



Chapter Thirty-Two – Poor Harry! No sooner does he find a bit of happiness than he has to return to a miserable situation! I figured that most of you got that his vision blurred because he was crying at having to say goodbye to Dumbledore.



Chapter Thirty-Three – I’m not convinced this chapter is as good as it could be. I wanted the idea of Severus seeing Aidan one last time to be important, and for the reader to be gutted they missed each other, but I don’t think it is as gutting as it could be. Hmm, might come back to it and edit it.



Chapter Thirty-Four – You just know Lucius was thrilled at the idea of having Severus desperate and begging for help, yet he didn’t tell the other how to cure the problem. Clearly the idea of the power was key!



Chapter Thirty-Five – I put this particular idea in – about the Imperio – as one reviewer suggested that that might be used to end the curse. It was a good idea, but not how the curse was going to be lifted, so I put this in to clarify that. Also, I have no idea where this whole thing with Severus thinking Harry’s not really interested came from, but I like it!



Chapter Thirty-Six – I found it deeply frustrating having all these wonderful starts to smut scenes which were scuppered by Severus’ curse! Still, it must have been nothing to what Severus was feeling!



Chapter Thirty-Seven – Really, this chapter is just there to make it clear that Severus was told by Dumbledore than Aidan had died, and to introduce the letter (which, obviously, we’ve already seen in the present).



Chapter Thirty-Eight – I enjoyed twisting the typical qualities of a Gryffindor so that Harry made the vengeance sound almost noble. But, Severus being Severus, cut through the bullshit to make it clear that it was vengeance, not justice.



And we finally get some smut! YAY!



Chapter Thirty-Nine – I knew, when I wrote chapter twenty-nine, just how Harry would get the ingredient he needed for the polyjuice potion, and I was quite surprised no one else saw the hint that was given in that chapter. Sadly, as regards this story, Studdy isn’t freed. Maybe I can somehow work it into the next one?



Chapter Forty – I did enjoy writing this chapter! Smut gets surprisingly boring to write, so anytime I can do something different with it is great! I also included an evil cliff-hanger. But did any of you really expect anything different?!



Chapter Forty-One – Obviously, in this chapter, Severus looks tired because he and Harry have been enjoying the fact that the curse has been lifted. But, as I phrased it as “haggard” I knew it was open to other interpretations.



I did rather like Severus finally getting free of Lucius – I think what Lucius did to him (not just the curse, but the sex) messed him up A LOT but he now seems to have moved on – amazing what finding the right person can do.



Chapter Forty-Two – I really intended to make this a smut scene, I truly did. But it has been built up and built up so much in this story – Severus and Harry – that I knew I wouldn’t be able to write it well enough, so I chickened out. Also, quite unintentionally, the last sentence of chapter forty-one is echoed in the first sentence of chapter forty-two, so I think it was fairly obvious that they’d been fucking like rabbits!



For a while I’d known that I intended to end the story with Severus writing to Lucius and using the same style of letter as the first one he received, and I had intended it to actually be the last thing to the story, but Harry wanted the last word, so it ends as it does.



General Comments – Most rarely for me, I don’t have the original notes written down. In any case, the idea I had was only half completed, as I had not a notion of how the curse would be lifted. The idea itself stemmed from a dream I had one night. It was as I woke up that I realised that making Aidan really be Harry would be deliciously ironic.



I had two ideas at the same time, and shared both with Jilliane. She really wanted me to start the other story, but it as such an angst fest that I couldn’t face it – I wanted to write something I bit lighter than Areas, which this (hopefully!) is!



These notes take a long time to write, so, what I put at the start about the next story, is no longer true. My next story has now been begun, but it will probably be some time before it is published, as I am certain that I will need to keep re-visiting it to get it right. Thus far, three chapters have been drafted. I crave your indulgence as you wait for ‘Low Man Is Due’, and I thought I’d whet some appetites (hopefully) with a little sample:



Chapter One: Nowhere safe from the storm…



“Ron?” Harry whispered the word urgently, all too aware of the pounding in his skull where he must have cracked it; and the burn about his wrists from the ropes that cut into the flesh so deeply blood was showing and still trickling sluggishly over his cold mottled arms. His teeth chattered in the frigid air, and he gasped, his breath hurting as it was pulled into his lungs.



The red head lay still upon the worn flag stones, unmoving.



“Ron?” Harry tried again, forcing his sore body into a half sitting position, then determinedly closed his mouth to hold back the vomit rising in his throat.



The red head groaned and started to shift, drawing in his breath sharply as the rope about his own wrists cut in and drew fresh blood. He coughed; the air was so cold it almost contained ice crystals. His eyes opened and stared glassily past Harry to the stonework behind his friend. Slowly, he focused on the other boy.



“Wha happened?” he slurred, trying to rub his throbbing forehead with his bound hands. He failed, too tired to try any more.



Harry was prevented from expressing his ignorance by the approach of cloaked and masked figures. Even with faces hidden, he could tell they were gloating at his demise. One leant down and closed sharp nailed fingers tightly around his frozen flesh. He was pulled roughly to his knees and dragged over the sharp stones. The group around him ignored the blood that soon began to flow from his ripped knees.



After what felt like miles to Harry’s pain wracked body, he was thrown so that he slumped against a cold wooden door. He gasped, head spinning, gorge rising again. He bit back a cry when his support vanished.



The door had opened, and another black robed figure stood there, undoubtedly staring down at him.



Harry couldn’t hold it back anymore. He threw up over the black material, and his green eyes rolled back into his head.



When he came back to, he was sitting in a crudely made wooden chair, not bound in place. He was hardly able to hold his body upright, let alone attempt escape. His captor was clearly not threatened by him, as he had his back to the untied boy, and the man seemed engrossed in some intense activity.



He turned, and Harry felt the wind knocked out of him. The figure no longer had his mask on, and even in profile, Harry recognised the beak-like nose, and lank bangs.



---



If it’s not obvious from the chapter, LMID is NOT a happy story.



Final –



To all of my reviewers: Jilliane, mixed_up, SnapesSweetheart, Toxic Tears, Tina109, Poohbear74, jin, celestialuna, evalhanne, karisma, js, Zuka, Carmeleyes, willow, Dark Sora, Hine, AkaneIkeda, Dace, Child of the Dark Moon, xaraxn, Katharos, Lilith, Nikte, Ladieraie, never_tempt, sweet asphodel, Qtness.Quill, Ann, crissy, chantalmalfoy, cravedom, snapeisthebest, Anon, Iarejedi, CT, lost in thought, berkie88, Inugrl2004, spoon, pywacket, Flic, DarklessVasion, Veracityrules, When It Dawns, Lunatic with a hero complex, Tenar10r, Doodle_Penguin, beth2438, prettypinkpony, Mocha, Duchess Ravenheart, KnowingDivine, dominique, iGlow, Kay, and Mie.



To everyone who read and didn’t review – WHY?!



I’m not gonna start on the whole “I want to receive x reviews before I’ll update” but, seriously people, a review is all that is needed to make me feel happy! Don’t you want to make me feel happy? As of currently, this story has had over 14,000 hits. Even allowing for people to have hit on it several times, that still means an awful lot of people are reading and not reviewing! If you hate it and think it could be improved, say so. Please see what people have said – I can take constructive criticism!



Anyway, a HUGE thanks to those of you who have reviewed regularly, and have hung on when my muse went missing. Thank you all!



I look forward to hearing from you all when ‘Low Man IS Due’ is published.



In the meantime, I’ve branched out from Snarry into Storm Hawks. Check out “Twelve Hours”.



SP