Potions and Snitches
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Summary: Being an ex-spy makes fatherhood difficult for Severus, and his son Harry knows this. Therefore, Harry has never been surprised that his father has talked so little of what happened during the first Wizarding War, a time when the Ministry of Magic still refused to believe he was acting on Dumbledore’s orders. It is a silence Severus has been able to keep without question, but when Harry discovers an old trunk of his father’s, he finds in it something Severus had never intended to see the light of day - a muggle war medal. No longer can Severus keep his past hidden, and no longer can he shelter his son from the reality of what happens when one war bleeds into another … the truth of where traitors go when Azkaban is full.

Takes Place: 1st Year Chapters: 12
Snape flavour: Snape is Loving Completed: Yes
Categories: Parental Snape > Biological Father Snape Genres: Action/Adventure, Angst
Tags: None Word count: 54131
Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Eileen Prince, Lily, Original Character, Tobias Snape Read: 40727
Rated: 16+
Warnings: Suicide Themes, Violence
Series: None
Challenges: None
Published: 13 Aug 2013 - Updated: 04 Nov 2013
Awards:
Story Notes:
 An important (and I am sorry to say long winded) aside:

I never really intended to write this story. In fact, I tried hard not to write it. You see, I feared that it was irreverent to mix fantasy, like Harry Potter, with the emotionally charged history of real life war - in this case the Falklands War, which I chose simply because it occurred at a plausible time given the time-line of Harry Potter. I didn't think I would ever post this, or could ever, which was why I tried so hard not to write it, but the story came out anyway. For even while researching the Falkland's War and telling myself I wouldn't write the story, it just felt meant to be. This story had always started with underlying themes of suicide, and imagine my surprise and horror when I found out the very war that fit the time line was controversial in the fact that research estimated that more people died from suicide after the conflict than died in battle. But suicide, Whitetail ... why suicide, you ask?

Well, it began a year ago, a cold winter morning. A friend of mine came to me to say that her boyfriend - who was in the military and had returned from being overseas - had shot himself. I was to keep it quiet. I was the only one she told, and I had to go to classes in a haze, wondering what on earth just happened. This was someone I knew - albeit not well, but after this I needed to understand. I needed to see why he did this (and I could to some degree, I'd been bullied badly as a child ... but this was a different sort of war). So I became a soldier in my mind, throwing an imaginary character I knew and cared for into the place I could never go. I explored it. I lived it, I breathed it for months. I dreamt it. I had to see why ...

And even when it was finished I never thought that I could post this story because I feared people would think it was too different ... too absurd to throw together real wars and Harry Potter characters. But like all pieces of art - good or bad - they are never meant to gather dust. They are meant to be seen, critiqued ... explored. I don't promise it to be perfectly accurate factually and historically (in fact I don't mean it to be entirely), but I did my best and tried at the very least to make it feel even a tiny bit like how it might have been to go through something like that. So here it is. Here's For Valour, and I hope it is the story that at least one person needs to read, because it was the one I needed to write.

 I would also like to dedicate this story to all those who have taken their own lives because of war, soldiers and civilians alike.

 - Whitetail

 NAME OF PICTURE

Table of Contents

1. Nobody to Go To by Whitetail [Reviews - 8] starstarstarstarstar (5911 words) Printer

So you guys know, I changed Harry’s birthday for this. In this story he was born sometime in May, 1982. It fit better with the timeline/ events of the story.

2. S.T. Snape by Whitetail [Reviews - 5] starstarstarstarstar (3834 words) Printer

3. Survivor's Blood by Whitetail [Reviews - 5] starstarstarstarstar (5453 words) Printer

This chapter is dedicated to Zachary, the only person whom I've loved like a little brother.
"To the well organized mind, death is but the next great adventure." - Albus Dumbledore

4. Perfectly Responsible by Whitetail [Reviews - 4] starstarstarstarstar (3496 words) Printer

5. Saving Grace by Whitetail [Reviews - 7] starstarstarstarstar (6442 words) Printer

6. Her Eyes by Whitetail [Reviews - 5] starstarstarstarstar (4275 words) Printer

7. For Death by Whitetail [Reviews - 9] starstarstarstarstar (6801 words) Printer

8. Breathless by Whitetail [Reviews - 6] starstarstarstarstar (5922 words) Printer

9. A Family of Secrets by Whitetail [Reviews - 5] starstarstarstarstar (2540 words) Printer

10. The Survivors by Whitetail [Reviews - 5] starstarstarstarstar (3074 words) Printer

11. Of Letters Never Sent by Whitetail [Reviews - 5] starstarstarstarstar (4672 words) Printer

12. For Life by Whitetail [Reviews - 17] starstarstarstarstar (1711 words) Printer

The End.
Whitetail is the author of 13 other stories.
This story is a favorite of 32 members. Members who liked For Valour also liked 1291 other stories.

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