The Making of: A Matter of Time

[danniperson]

A Matter of Time


In 2021, a new fest was announced: Snarry Adopt-a-Prompt. I was excited! Another opportunity for new Snarries, oh good! More than that, I was tempted to participate myself. I was still fairly new to fests (I'd only taken part in Luna Lovegood Fest and Ron-Draco Fest earlier that year) and it seemed a shame I'd not done a Snarry one yet!

When the prompt list dropped, I ended up with quite the list of potential prompts I wanted. Like....a lot. My muse was running away from me with a thousand and one ideas (per usual), and I'm never good at making decisions. I ran my choices by friends. Got feedback. Brainstormed a bit.

In the end I chose: "#5. Schoolboy!Harry and Snape are secretly involved. Snape is severely injured in a DE meeting, Harry gives away the relationship by his reaction/panic."

Then proceeded to fret and second guess myself. And if you know me you will find this to be 0% surprising.

There was so much potential in that prompt. There was an old idea of mine I thought I could tie into it. A very specific scene of everyone finding out about Snarry when Severus was on the brink of death. The scene I envisioned never saw the light of day, oddly enough. The story transformed the more I considered various aspects.

First: the reaction. Then: well, if I'm writing a reaction, doesn't that make a good opportunity for outsider POV? I love outsider POV! There's not enough of it, in my humble opinion. But: whose POV? There were plenty of options there. I would need someone who could have eyes on the whole story unfolding. Hmm...

Once I figured one part out, the rest clicked into place, piece by piece in quick succession.

I have a chance to write outsider POV. But whose? And would I be missing anything by omitting Harry and Severus' POV? Who could tell the story best?

So while I rarely write multiple POVs in a story (I like to plant myself firmly in one person's head and stay there; I craft my style around that character's voice, and I worry it disrupts the flow to hop between characters), I decided it was my best option. If this was a good opportunity for outsider POV, I needed to take it! Multiple outsiders, plus one part of the ship itself.

What do they see? If Harry's reaction, and the fallout, are the main points, then I can't have Harry himself as the POV character for that scene. I need someone else's eyes on that. And for that scene, Severus would be in no state to witness his devastation.

And...Well, where does the story end?

If this is a Snarry story, and I'm going to include a POV from one of them, that would have to be at the end. That felt most right to me. If we end with happily ever after then either of my boys could be there to see it.

So where do we start?

Start with suspicion. Onlookers and gossipers. Then: the news, a dramatic scene, and end with...

Where do we end again?

Well, we need massive angst. This story is as ripe for angst as anything else. Heartbreak. Shock and judgment. How do we get there, then how do we get out of it?

The answer was: we don't get out of it.

I am quite fond of my open endings, after all. What if we never find out what happens to Severus? Now that is terrible and fascinating at once. Why not sit with the grief a bit? Some of my favorite stories leave you aching after. Why couldn't I do the same?

So that decision is made. Only...I needed to end with Snarry. Perhaps Harry at Severus' bedside, grief-stricken and begging Severus to wake up.

Or...

Or we could start there.

So...where do we end again?

Well, if we start at the end, then...Well. Why not work backwards? I'd never done reverse chronology before. That could be fun. We could start at the end and end at the start. We could have a Snarry POV that way. A glimpse at their love story to make it hit all the harder.

Besides. If one begins with grief, shouldn't one end with hope? And in a story like this, wouldn't hope make it all the worse?

I'm an emotional sadist, okay?

From there I needed only to fill in the gaps. Who would be my outsider POVs? And what roles would they play? What scenes would get me from grief to hope, or hope to grief? What sequence of events from happily in love Snarry to an uncertain future?

You know, AAP gave us 6 months to work on our fics, and I began and finished mine uncomfortably close to the due date. I had all of these plans and put them off, put them off, put them off. I had a ton of other projects to finish, and I had plenty of time. Until...you know...I didn't.

It was the end of NaNoWriMo and the due date was looming. There were a lot of start-and-stops. A lot of panic. How am I supposed to do this again? Oh no, it's not working! Too much hurt. Too many eyes. Too new a concept. An idea I cared too much for.

Have I mentioned that I don't work well under stress? I really, really don't.

What really saved me, and this fic, was a last minute decision to participate in Rare Pair Fest. There was a prompt that called to me, humorous and lighthearted (and full of age gap relationships, hallelujah.) It was an opportunity to indulge a bit. I allowed myself to be silly and have fun. I dabbled in both projects until my Rare Pair piece flowed easier. And once I completed that, I switched back to my Adopt-a-Prompt piece feeling rejuvenated.

I suppose one does, occasionally, need a break from the angst.

It was a wild journey for a story I thought I knew how to tell. And though it changed from its original conception, the heart of it remains the same. An affair. A tragedy. A scandal. A look at the Snarry relationship from both outside and inside. A reminder of how many people care about Harry, and how much they care about him. A show of just how deeply Harry cares for Severus; and a sad look at just how young he is, and how strong he's been. How he's been so alone in keeping his secret. Unable to lean on anyone else in his time of need.

Harry's grief permeates the entire work, though he's the only POV we don't have. At least for me, that was what was most present. He can't hide it from anyone. And even at the start, before anything happens, it's there; lurking in the darkness, waiting to come out. Love in wartime makes one so aware of loss. He was afraid, and already grieving in a way.

It was only a matter of time.

He has all the time in the world.

Honestly, I'm the worst.

And you know what? I'm dang proud of that fic. It had the LilaDiurne stamp of approval. And when it was posted, my dear PinaNaponi jumped into my DMs with "DANNI, WAS THAT YOU?" [Cue evil laughter.] Not everyone was so pleased, or prepared, to have their hearts broken. I felt like an all-powerful demon, or at least a pretty accomplished creator.

It's one of the works I'm proudest of; what I consider to be one of my best. (Alongside Contempt, of course.) It's one of those stories I look back on and think: wow. I did that.