Seeking HP Story

[kerravonsen]

Help me, oh HP friends! There's a Harry Potter story I'm trying to remember the name/author/location of, and I've already gone through my bookmarks and can't find it.
This is an AU First Year story, one of those Snape-mentors-Harry kind of stories. Also a Manipulative Dumbledore story.

Alas, the only thing I can remember is that, rather than Snape just assuming that Harry is pampered and spoiled before he ever lays eyes on him, Snape is given reason to believe that is so because of the things that Albus keeps on saying before school starts; like Albus has this conversation with Minerva which indicates that Harry is on luxurious holiday etc.
There's also a bit -- though possibly it's from a different story -- where Snape has to be the one to fetch Harry, and Dumbledore is reluctant to let Snape do it, and then tries to manipulate Snape again by mentioning James, in order to make sure that Snape is not sympathetic to Harry when they meet. But Snape gets suspicious of this, so he doesn't fall into that trap.

I fear, alas, that (a) that's not enough information for you folk to find it for me and (b) if I can't find it in my bookmarks, it's probably because it turned out to be a crappy story with a promising beginning.

But still, my curiosity is killing me, I want to find it. Help!

ETA: Found it. It was "Petunia's Boys" and I'm not going to give the link because it was, indeed, crap.

Comments

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

How old is it? Post books, or while they were still being written?

[kerravonsen]

No idea. I didn't really get into HP fanfic until after all the books were written.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

it's probably because it turned out to be a crappy story with a promising beginning.

Well, I'm definitely no help. *chuckles* To me, judging from your description, the only promise in the beginning is that it solemnly guarantees being a crappy story!

Edit: Chacun a son gout, I should say, I suppose. But given the premise, I wouldn't have gotten very far into it unless the writing itself was spectacular.

[kerravonsen]

I think I found the premise intriguing because I'm a Snape fan, and I'm willing to have some grey in my Dumbledore.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Grey is fine. Dumbledore's a very flawed character in canon, for a mixture of reasons including both elements of the early style that may not have been meant to be taken very seriously but are still there, and definitely serious developments later in the plotline. Likewise, Snape is interesting, and there's a lot of fic sympathetic to him that I've enjoyed.

But your description of this one sounds pretty much like tearing down one character for the sake of another, which is usually not much fun even when I like the characters the author is favoring.

[kerravonsen]

No, you're right; now that I found which story it was, and I'm reading my notes and my eyes are getting bigger and bigger at the appallingness of the portrayal of this Dumbledore, who is basically power-mad in the name of the Greater Good. I think the reason I did keep on reading this particular story for so long before I gave up was that it did have some interesting ideas sprinkled throughout it, such as "the reason why people were afraid of saying Voldemort's name was because it was Taboo in the first war the same way it was Taboo in the second war" -- which makes sense, though this author then goes on to make Dumbledore evil by giving a sinister reason for why he keeps encouraging Muggleborns to say the name...

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Yikes. You definitely can do a lot with Dumbledore's Greater Good issues, and I will certainly admit that people can make characterization decisions I dislike or outright consider ill-advised and still write a good story, but... eep?

I see what you mean about interesting ideas, though: the Taboo was a clever thing for Voldemort to do in the books to take advantage of his enemies' particular habit of defiance, but it also could certainly make sense as a source of the fear of his name... always assuming you're willing to swallow the implications (whether stupidity or malice) of somebody being aware of this and setting it up to happen again.