#sshp

To celebrate the six-month anniversary, I revisited and recreated the artwork originally made in celebration of 1,000 hits.

The original artwork was posted on January 12, 2026.

Wanting to recreate the world of Suri’s stories, I’ve spent the past six months not only translating and restoring unpublished works, but also learning how to draw through YouTube tutorials.

Along the way, I’ve learned a great deal about Procreate, different brush techniques, and digital illustration. 

I also purchased the brush set created by the instructor of this course, and the lessons helped me improve my coloring skills tremendously. (The course is in Japanese, but English subtitles are available.)

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Recently, a friend named Shii, who isn’t a member of the project team, told one of her friends that I’ve been learning to draw. After hearing about it, she kindly recommended an art book to me.

I’m excited to keep learning and improving ʘʘ

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You may be wondering, “Was there ever a scene like this in the story?”

Confeito is a mystery story that gradually uncovers what happened between Harry and Snape.

However, Suri often said that the fact that the story carries the Snarry tag is itself the answer. That idea inspired the composition of this illustration.

In any case, once the truth comes to light—the existence of Snape’s child, the fact that the baby is named Harry, and the contents of Louise’s will—the Daily Prophet would almost certainly put a photograph like this on its front page.

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Translation Notes

We are translating ***(three asterisks)’s Snarry fanfiction, originally written in Japanese, into English.

Confeito is the second work in our translation project. At approximately 58,700 words, it is a full-length mystery novel that explores themes of religion, law, and morality.

The story begins on Christmas morning, three and a half years after the Battle of Hogwarts. It is written in the third person from the perspective of Cathy Marlowe, Harry’s secretary and an original character.

Although the original story was carefully researched and incorporates elements of British law, we revisited much of that research during the translation process to ensure accuracy and naturalness in English.

Suri was not the kind of writer who worked from a detailed outline. In fact, from what we’ve heard, Confeito was completed in roughly ten days, including the time spent researching for it.

Because of that, one of our first tasks as translators was to map out the story’s timeline so that we could fully understand how all the events fit together. We also created glossaries to keep the spelling of names, places, and other terms consistent throughout the translation.

Another challenge was maintaining the novel’s point of view. Since the story is told in the third person from Cathy Marlowe’s perspective, we had to be careful not to let the “camera” drift away from Cathy. We also paid close attention to conventions of English-language fiction, including the use of free indirect discourse and narrative distance.

The translation itself took about two months. Our schedule was quite intense because we wanted to post Chapter 1 on December 25th, the same day on which the story begins.

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The Opening Poem

Confeito also opens with a poem in the original Japanese.

It is a beautiful poem, like waves washing onto the shore and then drawing back again. Serving as the story’s epigraph, it captures many of the themes that run throughout the novel.

Suri’s work is often admired for the beauty of its Japanese prose. Whenever we translate one of her stories, we try not only to convey the meaning of the words, but also to recreate the sense of beauty that Japanese readers experience when reading her work.

We hope English-speaking readers can enjoy not only the story itself, but also some of what makes Suri’s writing so special.

This time, too, I faced the challenge of how to bring the poem’s beauty and symbolism into English.

At first, I translated the Japanese text directly. However, the work soon became difficult, as there were places where no English expression could convey exactly what was being expressed in Japanese.

Around that time, one of our team members, Luca, had begun reading The Canterbury Tales for a Harry Potter analysis she was writing. As part of that work, she was also tracing the history of writing systems and the origins of irony.

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer, often called the father of English literature.

To me, it feels like a forerunner of English irony. Rather than criticizing people directly, it criticizes them indirectly, giving readers the intellectual pleasure of recognizing the author’s intent for themselves.

Japan also has a culture similar to English irony in Kyoto, known as Kyoto speech. Kyoto is also where works of Japanese literature such as The Pillow Book and The Tale of Genji were created.

Suri’s works are also often built around techniques such as the unreliable narrator and a style that does not state everything directly, instead allowing readers to discover things for themselves. Because of that, I thought her work might be particularly well suited to Chaucer’s literary style.

The opening of The Canterbury Tales is written in rhyming couplets, with each pair of lines generally sharing the same rhyme. It is also written in iambic pentameter, so the pattern of syllables is generally consistent throughout.

Because it is written in Middle English, I had trouble finding a website that could read it aloud. As a result, it took some time before I was able to experience the beauty of its metrical structure. Even so, I was struck by how beautifully it is constructed.

Japan also has poetic traditions with established rhythmic patterns, such as tanka, as well as literary traditions that make use of rhyme.

For example, in Japan we learn that “Shōnen Jidai (Boyhood)” by Yōsui Inoue, which appears in school music textbooks, uses techniques such as matching vowel sounds to create pleasing phonetic effects.

Yōsui Inoue was also a co-lyricist of “Yellow Moon” by Akeboshi, which was used as an ending theme for Naruto. It seems that Akeboshi, who admired Inoue’s work, asked him to collaborate on the lyrics.

Suri was a fan of Akeboshi, and some of her works were inspired by his music.

All of this led me to the idea of making the poem rhyme, much like “Shōnen Jidai” by Yōsui Inoue or the opening of The Canterbury Tales.

J. K. Rowling has acknowledged that “The Tale of the Three Brothers” in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was influenced by Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Tale, so I thought it might be interesting to include a poem inspired by The Canterbury Tales in a Harry Potter fanfiction.

And this was the result.

There are such days that rise upon you like the tide, You pick your way along the waterside; You think your shoes will somehow still keep dry, Then up the beach a sudden wave runs high.  In moments such as these, most people flee, Yet who has ever outrun all the sea? It hits with all its weight, one heavy blow, Then leaves a softer wash that creeps in slow, And laps the sand, then hesitates and stops A breath away from your still-dripping tops.  Such days come without a whisper of warning. 

Fortunately, I was able to make it rhyme without straying from the meaning of the original Japanese poem. Some choices may be a little forced in order to preserve the rhyme (for example, “waterside”), but I hope they are still acceptable.

I hope you can enjoy the beauty of both the sound and the poem itself ʘʘ

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A Christian Fanatic Mother

Chapter 2 of Confeito introduces Cathy’s mother. A devout Christian, she condemns Cathy for being a witch.

This follows the original Japanese story, but it also presented several challenges during the translation process.

This episode was based on a real incident. The scene in which a child is struck with a pasta spoon came from something Suri witnessed when she was young.

Seeing a baby being hit with a pasta spoon simply because it would not stop crying was, apparently, a great shock to her. She was also struck by the sudden appearance of the pasta spoon from the mother’s handbag.

They were an English-speaking mother and baby.

While translating the story, I told ChatGPT about this episode. It explained that in English-speaking countries, the wooden spoon is often regarded as a symbol of corporal punishment, partly because of expressions such as “I’ll hit you with the wooden spoon,” which parents may use to threaten misbehaving children.

Perhaps the wooden spoon occupies a similar place in English-speaking cultures to the stereotypical image in Japan of a parent waking a child who refuses to get out of bed by banging on a pot with a ladle. You sometimes see that in anime, though I have never actually seen anyone do it in real life.

Suri never learned why it was a pasta spoon. However, after many years, I finally felt that I had found an explanation for the shocking sight of a pasta spoon suddenly appearing from that handbag.

I chose not to change it to a wooden spoon. Just as Suri remembered it specifically as a pasta spoon because the incident was so shocking, I felt that Cathy, who had been abused, would also remember exactly what she had been hit with.

For that reason, I kept it as a pasta spoon in the translation.

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In addition, we also had to rework the scene in which Cathy’s Christian fanatic mother berates her during the translation process.

This was because the original dialogue was based on a Japanese Protestant fanatic, and I had questions about whether a British Protestant would actually speak in the same way.

There are many different Protestant denominations in Japan as well (Suri had the opportunity to visit a number of different churches). Some denominations have an atmosphere closer to the solemnity of Catholicism, but overall, I feel that American Protestant churches have had a stronger influence.

Michael W. Smith’s “Awesome God” was one of Suri’s lullabies when she was a child.

In Japan, many churches sing translated versions of his songs as worship music.

Churches in Japan with active congregations of around 100 to 200 members often feel very similar to these American-style churches. Even among smaller churches with only a few dozen members, many seem to sing worship songs rather than traditional hymns. It is also common for members of the congregation to respond with phrases such as “Amen” during a pastor’s message. I have heard that this is much less common in Britain.

Since the story is set in Britain, I reworked the dialogue after looking into British religious culture and ways of speaking. In the original Japanese version, Cathy’s mother attacks her in deeply personal ways, gradually driving her into a corner, so I tried not to lose that intensity or atmosphere when choosing the wording.

Even so, perhaps because of cultural differences, I feel that Cathy’s mother ended up sounding somewhat gentler than she does in the Japanese original. Readers from American English-speaking backgrounds may find her gentler still. Finding the right balance between the setting and the intensity of the story was not easy.

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The Title: Confeito

Confeito was written after Suri was inspired by the song “Confetti” by Sia.

Suri liked the song and looked into what “confetti” meant. She learned that it refers to the small pieces of paper thrown at celebrations such as weddings, and that the word comes from the Italian confetti, a type of sugared confection.

She also discovered that the word has a connection to Japan. The name of the traditional Japanese sweet konpeitō (金平糖) is derived from “confeito,” which was introduced to Japan by the Christian missionary Luís Fróis as a gift for Oda Nobunaga. The word ultimately comes from the Latin confectu, meaning “prepared.”

金平糖 — konpeitō

At first, we assumed that Suri had simply taken inspiration from the song and chosen a title that would also feel familiar to Japanese readers. However, as we reread the story during the translation process, we began to wonder whether the title might carry other meanings as well.

I redesigned the cover of the Japanese edition during that process because I thought that this shape, which also plays an important role in the story, might be what “Confeito” refers to.

Konpeitō takes a very long time to produce and is also associated with blessings.

Since the title and the premise of the story beginning with a baby being left on a doorstep seem to have been decided from the start, I wonder if my interpretation might be right.

In addition, because the English version was going to be released over three consecutive days and the story contains a mystery element, I felt that the chapter titles should be less revealing. Unlike readers of the original Japanese version, who could read the entire story in one sitting, English-language readers would have time to think about the mystery between updates. For that reason, I chose chapter titles derived from Latin, which shares a related etymology.

Chapter 1: Confligere — to strike against each other; to clash Chapter 2: Confingere — to shape together; to form Chapter 3: Conficere — to carry through to the end; to complete

Suri sometimes uses a technique in which she writes something in English, but the clue only becomes apparent once a Japanese reader translates it. To give English-language readers a similar reading experience, I chose to use Latin for the chapter titles.

At first glance, the titles do not reveal much. My hope was that readers would only begin to understand their significance after finishing the story and looking up the Latin meanings for themselves. In that way, they might arrive at the intention behind the title Confeito through their own interpretation.

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Researching British Culture

Even in the original Japanese version, there is a scene in which baby formula is prepared in advance and later warmed with a bottle warmer. Since it is more common in Japan to prepare formula with hot water each time and then cool it to the proper temperature before feeding, I revisited this detail during the translation process.

From what I found, Britain now seems to follow much the same practice as Japan. However, around the early 2000s, when the story is set, preparing bottles in advance still appears to have been fairly common. It seems to have been a transitional period.

Suri apparently included this detail after reading British parenting blogs.

I also looked into legal terminology and the relevant laws so that everything would remain as consistent as possible. Some terms have changed since then, and new laws have been introduced. It seems that the historical circumstances of the period itself helped make the events of the story possible. Even so, I tried to support the premise that Cathy and Harry had no way out of their situation.

Cathy had been an elite Ministry official before the Battle of Hogwarts. If that was the kind of position she once held, then Emily, who works in the same department, is likely on a similar path. I felt that Emily’s ability to speak fluently about both the developments that might follow and Muggle law helps establish that aspect of her character, so I tried not to lose that impression in the translation.

Unlike Japanese, it is often harder in English to tell who is speaking from the dialogue alone. Even so, I tried to translate the lines in a way that would still allow each character’s personality to come through.

I hope that the strengths of the original characters from the Japanese story have been preserved, and that the image of the characters from the Harry Potter novels has not been lost either.

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The Characters’ Names

It is obvious that Louise Soldi-Frois takes her name from Luís Fróis, who brought confeito to Japan, but I also looked into whether the other characters’ names fit the period in which the story is set.

Geoffrey, Cathy’s nephew, seemed to have a rather old-fashioned name, and I considered changing it. However, Cathy’s family is wealthy on both sides, and there are hints that they are a Christian family that values tradition. Under those circumstances, it did not seem implausible that he might have been named after a grandfather or another older relative, so I decided to leave it as it was.

Besides, I could not help feeling that there was something almost fateful about the fact that he shares a name with Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of The Canterbury Tales.

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our dear

What will become of the Ministry of Magic, the surrogate mother, and the bitter custody battle with the Frois family?

Even in the middle of it all, Cathy will likely do everything she can to ensure that Harry is hurt as little as possible.

In the next article, I will be sharing my thoughts and analysis of the story.

Article by Tano

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Who Could Have Saved Harry?

Who, in White Elephant, could have saved Harry?

While translating the story, we often found ourselves wondering the same thing. If only someone had shown him a little more kindness. If only he had learned what love was in a different order. It was difficult not to dwell on those possibilities.

But what has happened cannot be undone.

Harry has been betrayed by morality itself. He was cast outside its boundaries, forced to survive there for years, and shaped by what he learned in that place. Can the language of morality still reach someone like him? Can the kind of love contained within it still reach him?

After all, it was the world of morality that abandoned him first.

Eventually, Harry comes to understand.

I see.

He understands that such things exist. He understands what other people mean when they speak of love, safety, and care.

But he cannot receive them.

Years of abuse have taken that capacity from him.

Harry never truly regains his sight. The only way he can learn how others see the world is through accumulated knowledge, through observation, and through effort. He must construct an understanding of light without ever being able to see it for himself.

We may imagine that we are healthy enough to guide someone like Harry. We may imagine that we can safely lead the blind.

But when faced with a person like him, can we remain sighted ourselves?

To help him, we must descend into the pit where he fell.

Can we enter that darkness, carry him out, and return safely?

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Could Snape Save Harry?

In this story, Snape is also someone who has been pushed outside the boundaries of morality, though under circumstances very different from Harry’s.

Perhaps it was precisely because he had already fallen into a similar pit that he was able to approach Harry at all.

And yet Snape, too, surely believed that he was not blind.

There is no reason to doubt that he genuinely wanted to help Harry. But for a man who had spent much of his life rejected and denied affection, Harry’s dependence—his insistence that “you are special”—must have been an enormous temptation.

Just as Harry cannot help but long for violence and the violation of his own boundaries in this story, the desires of both men become intertwined in the worst possible way, drawing them into a deeply codependent relationship.

And yet, despite everything, I believe that it was Snape who saved Harry.

It was precisely because Snape was the person Harry loved most that Harry was finally able to confront the distorted nature of his own desires and choose a different path.

Of course, Harry does not regain his sight.

Even at the end of the story, he remains blind.

But Harry comes to understand how deeply his way of living has wounded Snape. He realizes that he cannot remain beside someone he truly loves if he continues to live as he always has.

And so, he acknowledges his blindness.

He takes up a cane.

He learns to ask who is guiding him.

He learns to walk carefully, mindful of the pit before him.

In the end, he chooses that way of living for himself.

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Tano’s Illustration of The Parable of the Blind

Tano created this White Elephant illustration using the painting that inspired the original author.

The church where ***(three asterisks) grew up also had stained-glass windows. Remembering this, Tano thought it might be interesting to reimagine The Parable of the Blind as a stained-glass piece.

Originally posted on May 27, 2026.

This was not her first stained-glass-inspired illustration. She had previously created another White Elephant illustration using stained-glass imagery. While researching ways to make the effect more convincing, she discovered a set of stained-glass brushes for Procreate, the software we use for our illustrations, and decided to purchase them.

The brushes gave the glass a much more convincing texture and greatly enhanced the stained-glass effect.

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What cannot be seen in the finished image is that every hidden area was painted as well. Because Tano adjusts the colors of the entire illustration at the end of the process, each section required multiple layers. For the first time, she reached Procreate’s layer limit. (On her iPad mini, using a square canvas, the limit was a little over two hundred layers.)

The finished piece achieved a much stronger stained-glass appearance than her earlier attempts.

Originally posted on June 1, 2026.

The characters themselves also show that this was an earlier stage in Tano’s process.

At the time, she did not yet know the concept of using a Multiply layer to add shadows. Instead, she painted shadows by adding brown tones directly onto the base skin color on the same layer.

As a result, the skin tones appear somewhat muted.

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Notes and Observations

While working on the stained-glass illustration, Tano became curious about several details in Bruegel’s painting and began researching them. We have included some of those findings below.

When Does This Scene Take Place?

Although the subject comes from the Bible, the figures are not dressed like people from the biblical Middle East. Instead, Bruegel depicted them as people living in sixteenth-century Flanders, where he himself lived.

Why Are They All Dressed So Similarly?

The clothing worn by the blind men was not unique to blind people. It was typical attire for farmers, travelers, and ordinary people of the period.

Layering a hood beneath a hat was common practice. The region was often cold and windy, so people dressed in layers for warmth. The hood helped keep hair in place, protected the outer hat from sweat and oil, and provided additional insulation. Hats also served practical purposes, shielding the wearer from rain and sunlight, but they were also considered proper attire and could indicate social status.

There was no strict rule that a particular hat belonged exclusively to a particular class, but there were general differences:

Nobles and wealthy townspeople often wore expensive felt hats or hats with decorative elements.

Merchants tended to wear higher-quality hats.

Farmers usually wore simple wool or felt hats.

Clergy wore hats appropriate to their rank and position.

At the time, laws known as sumptuary laws sometimes restricted which fabrics, furs, and decorations people of different social classes were allowed to wear.

Taken together, these details suggest that the men in the painting were likely farmers or travelers rather than members of the nobility.

While painting the illustration, Tano initially assumed that the head coverings might have been special protective gear worn by blind people to prevent injury when falling.

After researching the subject, however, she discovered that they were simply part of everyday dress in Bruegel’s time.

The same is true of the garments that look like shin guards.

These were not protective equipment for blind people. They were common items of clothing worn by farmers and travelers, usually referred to as hose or leg wrappings.

Roads in the sixteenth century were not paved as they are today. People needed protection from stones, mud, thorns, and rough ground. Once again, what first appeared unusual turned out to be perfectly ordinary clothing for the period.

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The Gourd- or Guitar-Shaped Bags

One detail that particularly caught Tano’s attention was the strange shape of the bags carried by the blind men.

Even among researchers, there is no complete agreement about exactly what these bags contained. They are generally believed to have been leather bags.

Unlike modern bags, they were not made with rigid internal structures designed to maintain a particular shape. Because leather stretches and softens over time, the bags would naturally bulge according to whatever was inside them.

In other words, those unusual shapes may tell us something about their contents.

This observation led us to another biblical image.

In Matthew 9:17 (NIV), Jesus says:

Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.

Leather is a material that stretches remarkably well.

Keeping that in mind opens the door to another interpretation.

If you look closely, the bag carried by the man who has already fallen into the ditch appears larger and more rigid than the others.

This interpretation is entirely my own, but I cannot help wondering whether that detail carries symbolic meaning.

Perhaps the first man to fall is also the one whose old values and mistaken certainties have hardened his wineskin beyond repair.

And perhaps it is precisely that man who attempts to guide the others.

If so, there is something fitting about the fact that he is the first to fall into the pit.

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The Man Wearing a Cross

If you look closely, one of the figures appears to be wearing a cross around his neck.

Some researchers have suggested that the blind men may be pilgrims on a religious journey.

This possibility adds another layer of meaning to the painting.

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The Buildings in the Distance

The structure that resembles a tent is generally believed to be part of the rural Flemish landscape of Bruegel’s time. It has been variously identified as a barn, a storage building, a thatched structure, or even part of a church.

When viewed in a restored high-resolution version of the painting, it looks less like a tent and more like the front of a building.

For the sake of simplicity, however, Tano chose to depict it as a tent-like structure in her illustration.

The building shown here is often identified as a church.

With that in mind, another interpretation becomes possible.

If the blind men are indeed pilgrims, then the painting may depict a journey from one church to another.

However, the path they are following is clearly not a major road.

Researchers have proposed several possibilities:

A small path on the edge of a village

A road leading toward a church

A walkway built along a dike or embankment

Could the path framed by the trees be the road leading to the church?

There are signs of water in this area of the painting.

Sixteenth-century Flanders was a region shaped by water, filled with canals, drainage systems, and waterways. For that reason, some researchers believe the blind men may be walking along a raised path beside a drainage canal.

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Turning Away, Failing to Notice

If this painting is indeed based on Christ’s criticism of religious leaders who had drifted far from the teachings they claimed to uphold, then perhaps that idea is reflected in the composition itself.

The blind men are moving away from the church.

They have their backs turned to it.

Perhaps they do not even realize that it is there.

After all, their guide is blind as well.

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Returning to White Elephant

This is not a story about complete healing. Harry remains on the road to recovery.

The author’s final work, organ donor: tres(pass)complex, explores a point much further along that journey. At over 500,000 Japanese characters in length, however, the English translation will take some time.

All of ***(three asterisks)’ works were written for the one woman she loved.

But this story was also written for children.

Please do not let it become too late. Please take them somewhere safe. Please tell them that they are safe. Please do not force them to speak. Please do not demand to know the cause. Please do not turn your frustration over their lack of recovery against them.

We know that this is painful for you as well.

But for these children, it is as though they have lost both of their legs. No matter how often you ask, “Why can’t you walk yet?”, there is nothing they can do. Their legs are gone.

“If only you had not gone there, you would not have lost them.”

Yes. But the past cannot be changed.

“Some people still live happy lives without legs.”

Yes. But are those the only wounds they carry? These children may have lost things far more essential to life itself.

In that sense, they may never truly return to the people they once were.

Please do not make light of that.

To acknowledge that one has suffered wounds that may never fully heal is an agonizing thing.

Please seek treatment from qualified professionals.

And if you wish to help children like these, please make sure that you, too, receive professional support.

If someone you loved were trapped beneath rubble, your first instinct would be to pull them out immediately.

Yet it is well known that doing so without proper knowledge can place them in even greater danger, as toxins released into the body may cause further harm.

The same is true for children who have endured prolonged abuse.

If they are rescued recklessly, without proper care or understanding, they too may be placed in danger.

We respect your desire to help them.

But please proceed carefully, and with the guidance of trained professionals.

And when your heart aches for what has happened to someone you love, please allow yourself to receive support as well.

Article by Mitsuboshi Sui

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Read on Ao3 : White Elephant https://archiveofourown.org/works/85192486/chapters/224957146