But perhaps the most dramatic deviation between the fan fiction and the actual Potter books is the seriousness and lack of humor in the fan fiction. The Harry Potter novels were notable for their magic candy, broomsticks, spells and other forms of levity that lightened some of the serious issues pertaining to death, curses, prophesy, and an emerging adult awareness of the characters. Rowling often used a very ironic tone in the dialogue and in her authorial voice. This Potter fan fiction has a modernist, almost Hemingway-like style as it quickly moves from year to year in somber, spare sentences, talking about Harry's grief regarding his circumstances and the death which magic has caused. Harry is clearly finding himself as a person, and the focus of the fan fiction is more internal than external.

It is difficult to imagine Rowling's books having had such a hold upon the imagination of children if they had taken the same kind of authorial style as "Scars." This, however, is also the nature of fan fiction. The author focuses...

What interested this particular author was the fact that Harry labored under a curse and struggled so mightily as an orphan to craft out his identity (hence the focus on Harry's sexuality and guilt about the events which transpired because of his special status as a wizard). There is less of the quaint British boarding school drama in the actual work that captivated so many children.
The plot of the fan fiction revolves around the development of a potion to remove 'scars' in a manner that has literal and metaphoric significance. Harry works to remove the scars from Severus Snipe, and eventually the two men have a relationship: "Harry is in love with Severus, and Severus is in love with Harry, but they do not acknowledge their feelings. Oddly, each thinks the other is off-limits. Too young, too old, too male. They remain partners of a different sense, heads buried in journals and ingredients and cauldrons" (8). The scar that crafted Harry's destiny is now gone, and the two can put aside the past as a result.

Work Cited

Suitesamba. "Scars." Archiveofourown.org. 2007. [15 Apr 2013]

http://archiveofourown.org/works/751306.