Title: And He Shows Me No Smile
Author: je suis l.m
Rating: Mature
Genre: Angst/Romance
Status: Completed (28,580 words)
Library Category: Romance
Pairings: Draco/Severus
Summary: Set during Half-Blood Prince. Draco struggles with feelings for his professor while fighting against his growing hatred for the Death Eaters, Snape being one of them. His frustration may bring forth affection or deeper hatred. Or both.
Link: Fanfiction.net Link

Well-written fanfiction is hard to come by. Well-written, M-rated, slash, Harry Potter fics are even harder to come by. And He Shows Me No Smile is a nice refreshment after searching for a Draco/Severus story that is no fluff and all character development. For angst lovers, Draco's inner thoughts will be quite enjoyable, especially since they are full of beautiful imagery and metaphor. As a whole, this piece is a strange, somehow accurate depiction of where Draco would be mentally during Half-Blood Prince.

What I found most delightful about this fanfiction is that it could have really happened during J.K. Rowling's sixth installment. While Harry was off making accusations and falling for Ginny, Draco could seriously have been divided between a need to please the Dark Lord and a love for Severus that was too strong to ignore. Both Draco and Severus stay in character throughout the entire piece; a definite plus in my department.

The build-up is also perfectly paced. While some slash fics rush into the more slashy side of things, this multi-chaptered story makes sure readers are connected to Draco as a narrator and Severus as a secondary character, making integral moments more palpable.

I'd rate this fanfiction a 4/5, docked that one point if only for a bearably slow first two chapters. But I read the whole thing in one sitting, if that means anything to you.

 

No, no, no.
To somebody living in South California, please rape her!

 

You know, I'm far more offended by what you just said than by the troll above you.

 

See, this is why having a minimal 30 to 50+ post count should be imposed before being allowed to access the review board. Keep idiots like this from trying to slime up the library.

 

See now I'm confused.

In what little experience I've had with trolls they usually have the intelligence and grammar structure of, well, trolls. This post however, was actually well thought out and I almost took it seriously.

Now I'm not against slash as an idea, only the fact that most of the slash stories are clearly ridiculous and don't deserve the light of day, let alone a website page. So when the OP claimed that there were decent slash stories out there my curiosity piqued. As well as wanting to hold true to the rule that you don't rate a story unless you read it. So I clicked it.

And while it wasn't a mashing of the buttons spelling wise, the characterization of Draco is just beyond me. He just seems so weak. And then I got to the end of the first chapter and I saw something that made me hit the big red X.

"And just to inform everyone, I am actually not a Harry Potter fan. See, I've only seen the first movie about ten years ago, ten minutes of the second movie, and watched the Half-Blooded Prince recently. Other than that, wikipedia is my best friend."

SERIOUSLY?

You haven't read the books and not only are you writing fanfiction but SLASH? GTFO of the fandom. NOW. Kill this story with fire.

 

There's no accounting for Polacks.

EDIT: Love, love, love the tags.

 

Credit where it's due, she caught up on them after finishing the story, and apparently loves them.

Anyway. I got to the end of chapter two. The purple prose is stifling - it reads as if she's trying to recreate Victorian Gothic, but hasn't quite managed. Depending on your tolerance for such things though, you might have more patience with that.

Draco is pretty pathetic; as far as I can tell, he's seeking out Snape for solace from the loneliness and hardship of his task within a couple of days of the start of his sixth year, all because his 'friends' just don't understand. Snape is of course stunningly beautiful, but I've seen worse.

Beyond that...the writing isn't awful, I suppose, and while I don't particularly like the characterisation, at least she's had a stab at giving Draco some personality.

2/5, largely for not being quite as bad as I was expecting.

 

The story is nothing worth reading. The grammar and prose is not horrible, but it is basically about Draco lusting after Snape. I stopped reading after the second chapter.

Here's one section: "
I grabbed for the jar, knowing full well that it was not meant for me, for anyone other than my professor. His fingers snaked around my arm, pulling me toward him, robbing these forbidden ingredients from me.
"You aren't to touch that." His words contained a harshness to them.
"And why not?" I struggled against his hold, if only to make him grasp me tighter.
"Because it is not yours."
The struggle continued for sometime—he, trying simply to reprimand me, while I only wanted to keep his touch, although rough, against me. Eventually he let go, and I cradled my arm, for it did hurt, but my fingertips did not press against the skin to soothe, but to savor.
To save whatever dignity I had, I stormed from the room, slamming the door shut behind me. I had glanced at my professor before leaving, but he'd been bent over a table, hidden away from me. Holding my arm, I hoped he wasn't too upset with me. How else would I continue my game the next day?"

 

I decided to give this a try on the basis of the initial review, and now I need a refund for the last ten minutes.

2/5.

 

The OP dared to come into the review- section of DLP and presented us with a Draco/Severus slashfic. I concluded that he/she was either

a) convinced that the story was the best thing in slash since "The Black Heir"

or -rather more probable-

b) a moron of the highest degree.

I decided to take a look for myself and read the first two chapters of "And he shows me no smile". It's awful.

This is pretentious writing, trying to browbeat the reader with artsy- fartsy metaphors but not even able to compose a believable inner monologue. "je suis l.m" writes like a 8th grader with delusions of grandeur.

The authors' brain must've been rotten after years of Harry/Draco slashfic overindulgence, there is no other explanation why he/she felt the need to come up with this shit. The Draco of HBP hates our hero with a passion and would never think of him as "Harry" as if they were on first- name terms. Just plain stupid.

I will spare everyone a quote from the nasty flashbacks Draco goes through, suffice it to say that it's quite disturbing that the author thought it necessary to show a 11 year old Malfoy doing some reverse- paederasty by groping Snape.

One last example of the bad style permeating the story:

It seems as if the author thinks verbosity and nebulous allusions are all he/she needs to fool his/her readers into thinking of him/her as the next Dickens. :facepalm

At least the technical writing is competent.

1/5

 

I'm laughing at how dramatic Draco is in this story.

 

See, the problem is, there does exist good ("good") slash. Copperbadge is a fantastic author, LotW writes amazing epic fantasy, and even Lomonaaeren is Almost Recommendable, most of the time.

Then we have shit like this cluttering up the fandom. If the slash remained at a normative percentage (10-20%), then maybe we wouldn't rag on it so much. Hah.

 

So...'Lamb' to the slaughter?

 

looks like someone's trying out his/her sales skills with the review. Impressive! Story is, well... Gay.
So very pretentious! *sigh* Why u no good?