fic rec: "Barmy"

If you're feeling the need for an antidote, Barmy is just the thing.

Schemingreader mixes liberal doses of humour with the occasional startling insight. I love her Snape and Harry, and the ambiguous position they occupy, both with the outside world -- patients to be coddled and healed, yet prisoners to be feared -- and with each other -- tormentor and healer, both wounded and each trying to mend the other.


You have recurrent and unpredictable memory loss, possibly due to spell damage. The only thing you seem to be able to remember is your antipathy for me. Every so often you inform me of it, with bellowed threats."

"Really?" Harry said to himself. "Good for me."

And then there's what I can only call Snape's Midlife Crisis. Fast driving, sunglasses, loud nostalgic music. (And sex! In hotel rooms!) I nearly died laughing, and at the same time was misty-eyed at seeing Snape actually, normally happy.