Very good! Very poignant and touching. I hate to think that Lily and James fought, but I think you're right: that their personalities and the stress they were under would have made it inevitable. Well written!
Very good! Very poignant and touching. I hate to think that Lily and James fought, but I think you're right: that their personalities and the stress they were under would have made it inevitable. Well written!
Author's Response: Thank you very much for the review! I hate to think of Lily and James fighting too, however I have enough of my own experience being married to know that any stress may make you fight with the one you love most. And Lily and James had much more to be getting on with! Anyway, I\'m glad you liked it! Thank you again.
It's as if you just ripped out my heart and stomped all over it. Gosh! How in the world did you manage to write this story? I've written some pretty intense and some pretty sad stuff, but this was... uh, soul-stealing. (Forgive the pun.) I have to apologize for not reviewing before. I had seen the first couple of chapters ages ago, but somehow lost track of it. So today, when I saw this, I remembered it, and thought, "Wait... Is this....?" And it was! Now I'll have to go back and read the other stories that led into this one. Thanks for a fabulous read!
Author's Response: Dear DD, Please take your heart back with my compliments. I have soaked it in some of Ariadne\'s Heart Restorer and it is now clean and unbruised. I don\'t know how I \"managed\" this story. Ariadne just walked into my head stirring her cauldron, and I had to explain how her potion caused her death! I have made quite a lot of post-DH revisions to the earlier stories, so they might not be as you remember. Thank you so much for reviewing. Best wishes, GhV
Very nice tribute! I liked it!
Author's Response: Thanks, I was not sure what some might think and I was anxious to see what happened, so thanks so much for the review!
Nice speech by Snape at the end. And great anger by Remus at the beginning. Good job!
Author's Response: *tackles* Thanks! =)
Author's Response: *tackles* Thanks! =)
Wonderful! It's sad and poignant and incredibly touching. Very well done!
Author's Response: Thank you! =)
Brutal! Poor Sirius! Poor Remus! Can't wait to see how the boys squeeze their secrets out of each other... Nicely done!
Author's Response: You'll see... keep reading!
Another brilliant chapter! I love it. You've done such a great job with Remus. I love how you dig deeper into his character (and your interpretation of it!) so smoothly and so thoroughly using Freddy and flashbacks. The descriptions and the adjectives you use throughout this chapter really are amazing--they set the scene so well, so that anyone can see it exactly the way you do. Great job!
Author's Response: Glad to know you like Freddy. Hope you like the layers that I add to Tonks' character as first, I make her light-hearted without being an immature ditz. Your words of encourgement are most welcome as I really went out on a tangent with the structuring of this story. For my general fic I just used JKR's template, but this baby is all mine. Hope to have the next installment uploaded by the end of the week, am having to retype on new disk (home computer is a dinosaur...)
Gosh, I thought Remus was going to get caught for sure in this chapter! Sorry I haven't been keeping up, and even sorrier that I haven't reviewed--but I got caught up in the last few chapters that I'd missed. This chapter left my palms sweaty! Well done!
Author's Response: Catch up all at once can be fun, too. I was able to update quite a bit over the holidays as the queue time seemed to have shrunk considerably. Guess most people actually had a life. Thats where staying ahead of the curve really helped as I had a lot of things ready to go.
The sweat has now rolled off my palms and is dripping from my fingers, making my fingers slip off the keys. And if my new laptop takes a disliking to the moisture and dies, I will expect a new one from you! You have me on the edge of my seat... Have I said yet that you're a fabulous author? No? Hmm. Silly me. Now, on to the next chapter to find out about these oncoming wolves that it seems Remus is soon to encounter...
Author's Response: Glad to know that you felt the suspense and danger that I was trying to impart. Thanks for the stirring words.
Well, THAT just couldn't have gone any worse! And here I was setting myself up to read a touching, 'you've been an idiot, but you're my idiot--glad you're safe, but you're still an idiot' sort of welcome by Tonks. Guess I was wrong, eh? Still, it was very much in character all the way around, and I know--truly I do--that what you wrote would have been more likely what would have happened. Excellent characterizations! Have I said you're a wonderful writer? (Chuckle)
Author's Response: That's what makes the characters fun, especially when they're both hard-headed in different ways. Keep on reading for more dancing around one another.
Egad! You had me in tears--AGAIN. Sheesh! You're only the second writer who has ever brought me to tears twice in one story. Amazing job! And you've made a point that I've said many times (and actually made in a story I posted on another website): Remus and Severus are very much alike. Their circumstances and their tendencies to mask their true selves from everyone have made them shadows of one another, in a way. If only they would have been able to get past the Whomping Willow incident (and Sirius Black!) and allowed themselves to be friends... Sigh. On to the next chapter!
Author's Response: Good to know my analogy between Snape and Remus holds true for you as well. Where is the story you posted to another website? I'd really like to read it for myself since we arrived at similar conclusions independently of one another.
I love the interactions between Remus and Ginny. That was a great idea you had! (I really had been worried that Molly Weasley would show up...)
And THANK YOU for finally allowing someone to tell Tonks that though, yes, it seems like Remus has been a selfish, self-centered pigheaded prat, he has issues--huge issues--and she needs to be a bit more patient. (I'm sure that the fact that one's friends always seem to DIE might weigh heavily on one's desire to get closer to someone...) Now Remus has to just break out of that vicious cycle...
Author's Response: Don't worry about Molly showing up, she's a necessary character but hardly one of my favorites. Tonks probably wouldn't have accepted those words from anyone other than Dumbledore, but his quiet words of wisdom move her. The fact that people seem to keep dying around you is the basis of Remus' rapport with Harry. Same reasoning that Harry used to break up with Ginny at end of HPB. Don't you just love how the themes interweave?
This is a beautiful and yet difficult chapter, because you can feel the hope and the love, but there is still enough of the trepidation and fear that makes you wonder if these two will ever get it together. (Even if we knkow they do...) You've done an amazing job of walking that tightrope. LOVE it! Love all the clashing (yet still hopeful) emotions, and how you've been able to capture it all. Looking forward to the next chapter!
Author's Response: The tango that these two do around the harsh truth and around one another has been one of the most interesting things about writing these stories. Like real people, they often have radically different takes on the same incidents. Mest chapter is already in queue and will take you through the nerve-wracking night that they patrol the castle while Dumbledore takes Harry to the cave in search of the Horcrux.
Yoi! And this chapter started out so... calm, for lack of a better word. Yes, there was snarkiness with Snape (which is always fun, no matter what) and just a tad bit of romance with Tonks, but as you've proven time and again, we're on a roller coaster ride here. Well done! (By the way--why a giraffe patronus? Any particular reason?)
Author's Response: Snape's dialog is always so empowering! Can you imagine him writing a letter to an elected official who he disagreed with? As for the giraffe patronus: they are tall (too obvious, I know), nonpredatory, non-carnivorous, very pacific creatures yet they can defend themselves and their young very effectively when attacked. I wanted a creature that was imposing without being violdent -- the total opposite of the werewolf incarnation that Remus can never shake off. It represents the basic struggle that he fights within himself. Likewise, in my other story his Animagus form is a non-violent creature as well.
I love that Remus is trying to make sense of Snape's 'betrayal'--it seems to me that if anyone would try to do that, it would be him. With help from Moody, of course. Love Moody's closing line! Another well-written chapter!
Author's Response: Remus inner struggle to make some sense out of the nonsensical is what makes him such a great mentor to Harry. Moody has soem surprises of his oun coming up in the next chapter.
Gosh, the whole last bit of this chapter was incredibly sad. It nearly had me in tears, and I'm not one to get choked up on stories. Nicely done!
Author's Response: I have to admit it choked me up a bit when I wrote it. Glad to know that it moved you as well.
Oh, what a sweet story! I love this! So typical of a small child and a mother's love. Very good!
Author's Response: awe thank you so very much!
Wow! This was extremely powerful, emotional, and has the feeling of desperation all the way through it. Very well-written! I love how you managed to capture Severus Snape--intelligent, worried, snarky ("...never that it was that long a stroll, naturally"), and resignation. Excellent!
Wow! This is a promising start to a story! Kept me hooked right from the beginning--and I can't wait to see what happens next!
Author's Response: Thanks so much for your review! I was worried it wasn't interesting enough at the beginning. =)