Prompt: A favorite series @hprecfest
There's little I like more than settling into a good, long series, but I'm picky if I'm going to be spending a lot of time with a story. It needs to have great characterization, a plot and charcters arcs I can invest in, and terrific writing. These have all of those elements and more.
The "Adelaverse" series by @kellychambliss
"My Journal About My Life and Stephen and Miranda” by Adela
2. "Now That I'm Older" by Adela
Characters: Minerva McGonagall, Original Character, Severus Snape
Summary: Severus and Minerva, disguised as Muggles, are observed by their precocious teen neighbor, who enjoys speculating about the mysterious couple next door.
Why You Should Check It Out:
This series, comprising 3 stories, is a wonderful take on the third-person observer. It throws Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape into Muggle America and the sights of precocious twelve-year-old Adela.
Kelly's Minerva/Severus is always rich and complex, and the original characters, especially Adela, are wonderful.
It's wry, and tender, and funny, and exactly what I'd imagine these characters to be like in this situation. It's a lovely read for those who like happy endings without sappiness or doe-eyed visions of happily-ever-after.
The Minerva Quartet by @eldritcher
3. How do you like your blue-eyed boys?
Characters: Alastor Moody, Alice Longbottom, Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter, Lucius Malfoy, Minerva McGonagall, Severus Snape, Voldemort, Charlus Potter
Pairings: Albus/Minerva, Lucius/Minerva, Abraxas/Voldemort
Summary: Thematically related stories about he beautiful and dreadful parts of being humans who love.
Why You Should Check It Out:
Eldritcher's stories cut to the heart of what it is to long for what we know we should not want, and knowing the price, want it just the same.
The main characters are self-aware enough to understand important things about themselves and one another but often helpless to change their course, which is, of course, the most human of failings.
Eldritcher has an excellent sense of the little details that reveal character. The stories have the quality of a particularly lucid dream; they suggest things, but never hit the you over the head with them, allowing the reader to suss out the important bits and the themes that animate them, and there are occasional surprises that shock the reader out of any misplaced complacency regarding what a particular character will and won't do.
Literary and mythological allusions and references are woven deftly through the work, and I adore the way Eldritcher makes Hogwarts castle a character in its own right.
The "Resolving a Misunderstanding" and "Death's Dominion" series by MMADfan
Resolving a Misunderstanding
2. The Unsentimental Arithmancer
4. A Holiday with the Headmaster
5. Malcolm's Tale of Angus Óg
8. A Christmas for Aberforth
12. A Long Vernal Season (incomplete)
Main Characters: Minerva McGonagall, Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape, Poppy Pomfrey, Hermione Granger and a cast of thousands.
Pairings: Multiple, but the main ones are Albus/Minerva and Poppy/Severus, plus multple pairings with OCs.
Rating: Stories range from K+/PG to MA/NC-17.
Summary: The main focus of the first series, which takes place before the events of the 7 Potter books, is the epic romance between Minerva and Albus, with some shorter pieces that focus on some of MMADfan's fabulous original characters. The Death's Dominion series takes place during the 7 Potter books and later, and focuses Severus's life as a spy for Dumbledore and his attempts to come to terms with life after the war.
Why You Should Check It Out:
If you're looking for total immersion in the wizarding world, thess are the series for you.
This is truly an epic arc, with over a million words total, but the length allows MMADfan the scope to create an incredibly vivid wizarding world, populated with a huge cast of canon and original characters. The wordlbuilding is impressive, and the storytelling vivid, but what stands out to me are the characters. Not only does the author breathe fascinating life into canon characters we see only peripherally in the HP series, but she creates some of the best OCs I've ever encountered, in fanfic or original fic. (Her Gertrude Gamp and Gertrude's son Gareth are two of the best I've ever read.)
The Nox Lumina Series by eudaemonia
Characters: Alastor Moody, Albus Dumbledore, Amelia Bones, Cornelius Fudge, Filius Flitwick, Fred Weasley, George Weasley, Harry Potter, Horace Slughorn, Lucius Malfoy, Luna Lovegood, Minerva McGonagall, Pomona Sprout, Severus Snape, Sirius Black
Summary: The love story of Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape, framed by the 2019 album Lux Prima by Karen O and Danger Mouse.
Why You Should Check It Out:
I love stories that show us what characters like Minerva and Severus keep hidden—their foibles, their doubts, and their inconsistencies.
These are not comfortable people, and there are no easy answers here. It’s a guilty pleasure to watch two intelligent characters try, and so often fail, to understand their own motivations and needs. They butt heads, rub up against one another (literally and figuratively), and ultimately provide something that neither of them finds elsewhere.
The comfort they find is matched by the pain they cause one another, as I can only imagine it would be, given these characters and their circumstances.
In addition to the delicious, delicious angst, it includes some moments of lightness and humor, which settle perfectly on these two.
The Ways of Minerva series by margaretrevie
The Way It Should Have Been
2. Die in Thy Lap, Be Buried in Thy Eyes
Characters: Minerva McGonagall, Albus Dumbledore, James Potter, Lily Evans, Poppy Pomfrey, Rolanda Hooch, Tom Riddle, lots of canon and original characters
Pairings: Albus/Minerva, Minerva/OC, James/Lily, Poppy/Rolanda
Rating: From M/R to MA/NC-17
Summary: The story of Minerva McGonagall from the start of her Hogwarts career as a student.
Why You Should Check It Out:
This series is a long-arc story that hits—and artfully subverts—many of the usual tropes and expectations for an Albus/Minerva fic.
The first fic focusses on the development of Minerva and Albus's relationship, from her schooldays to her early days as a teacher.
The second is a brief interlude with Poppy and Rolanda, and the latter's dream of an erotic interlude with their friend, Minerva.
The third continues the Albus/Minerv story, with an additional focus on the James/Lily arc that begins near the end of the first story.
The series wins a place alongside some of my favorites because it delivers what I always want but seldom get from fic about this ship: a deep and unflinching exploration of the complexities of a relationship between two powerful, flawed characters. It digs beyond the obvious issues of power dynamics and age differences to get at fundamental differences between their personalities and worldviews which love may or may not overcome.
This Minerva and Albus are each far from perfect, and far from perfect for one another, and author margaretrevie doesn’t shy away from the less attractive aspects of their personalities: Albus’s enormous ego and his desperate need to be admired, and Minerva’s intolerance of what she sees as frailty or moral imperfection. The length of the fic gives the characters room to change and grow over time, which is part of what makes it such a satisfying read.
The story also features some powerful magic of a kind that one encounters in other fics, but rarely are the practical and emotional ramifications for the characters who practice it so thoughtfully and poignantly explored. I won’t spoil it for you with too much detail, but the author takes a trope particularly beloved of AD/MM shippers and gives it a realistic (in the HP realm) treatment that delivers a punch to the gut.
Added to all that, you’ll find satisfying and surprising backstory for several familiar HP characters as icing on this lovely, richly textured cake.
