Hi Annmarie! :)

I really like the set up for this story. I think Severus is definitely the kind of person who would make a last ditch attempt to mend his relationship with Lily and then completely ruin it.

The opening is good, though is sets a very light-hearted tone, which I not entirely sure fits the rest of the fic. I really like the description of Snape as he is waiting to give Lily the present. Also, I completely believe that Snape would offer to get rid of Lily’s bad memories of him! I think he would be someone, particularly when he is younger, than would prefer to erase certain parts of his life. I found it a bit strange that Lily was asking Snape if he would let her keep her memories – I think Lily would be more someone who put her foot down and told him she wasn’t interested in getting rid of her memories, so he’ll have to put up with that.

At times Lily comes off as a little immature and childish, given that she is eighteen years old and about to leave school. In particular, calling Snape’s gift ‘puke,’ seems childish, and her being worried about being alone with a boy. That sort of attitude doesn’t seem to fit the Lily we see in the books – in the pensive scene she seems mature and grown up, perhaps overly so.

In the books Snape’s childhood social interactions often seem tainted with humiliation and embarrassment – the first time he meets Lily, his worst memory, and so on. I don’t think you need to put that into your story, but looking back, I find it’s a little odd that I don’t get a sense of Snape being embarrassed or humiliated by his conversation with Lily. He seems to be a person who feels those sorts of emotions very strongly, and I think it would make the story stronger we felt his embarrassment. It would also add something extra to his lashing out at the end if he is reacting to feeling embarrassed or humiliated about the situation.

In the second part, I think Snape’s dad, and his relationship with his parents needs more work. Tobias and Severus both talk about how Tobias is neglectful, sleeping around, and so on, but I think you need to show it a little more. Perhaps Snape could find his father lying around drunk while his mother is sick, or he could hear rumours from someone else about what his father has been up to?

I really like the scene between Snape and Lily in the library. I could really feel the awkwardness from both of them. I liked Lily being reluctant to tell Snape, and then telling Snape not to stare!

There are a few details that stand out. Snape’s mother having tuberculosis seems quite off for the time, as mass vaccinations against it had been around for a decade or two. Also, when Snape goes to the library he mentions looking things up on a computer, which wouldn’t have been around in the 70s.

I did find the use of capitals to add emphasis is kind of off putting to read, particularly in the first part. Personally, I’d use bold or italic tags, and maybe just pick one or two words out of a sentence to emphasise. The writing itself gets across the building anger as the character speaks, so I don’t think you need to put it in capitals.

Overall I think your characterisation of Snape is really good, but I think Lily needs a little more work. I like the story so far and I am looking forward to reading more.

Psi x

I love this fic. Your writing is really beautiful with some lovely phrases, and you've created an intriguing plot as well. I haven't read many fics that play so creatively with memory charms and now I am all THINKY about them.  Your backround for Theo was fascinating and well thought out as well. I also completely adore the title of the Niffler book - it's the perfect combination of childish, and yet really quite creepy that fits in well to the HP world. Thank you!

Hi! I like your choice of suject - I think you've translated the story into poetry and it definitely works well. I really like the altering stanza lengths, it serves to emphasise the repeating pattern of the brothers's stories.

You have rearranged sentences away from how they would normally be written, like 'never this man could Death disarm' but I think because the poem feels like an old fairytale it works well, and actually adds to the feeling of the poem as a retelling of an old legend.

I like the change to the final repeated stanza, however I did wish there was a little more to emphasise that the last brother embraced death, unlike his brothers. It's the main point of the story and I think would just make the ending that little bit more final.

I also wonder if a bit of punctuation would help the piece to flow a bit better. Not having any commas at all makes every line break a break in the poem, even though some of them flow into each other. I couple of times I found myself rereading a couple of lines to get the flow back.

I really like it overall though, this really fits the feel of the old story and I think you've used rhyme and rhythm reall effectively.

Fabulous imagery here. You make her feel so very insubstantial without every refered to her as a ghost. I particuarly like the moths wings and the idea of her as a little clump of dust - a very brief sentence that sums up their relationship and Helena's life even before she died. The combination of her wispiness and the heaviness of heart works really well. Poor Helena. :(

I did find the middle sentence (starting 'she passes unremarked' went on a little bit too long for me - I think I didn't take the time to appreciate the images because of it. I don't know if it would be better to drop a few phrases or split it in half, or perhaps I am just being nitpicky! I also found the last phrase, 'because she has never been otherwise' a tiny bit clunky, maybe in need of a little rewording?

I do love the image of a wistful thought, which is a lovely way to describe ghost in general and the grey lady in particular. I've reread it a few times now and I still find it really lovely and full of emotions and images, given it's length.

This poem intrigues me. I keep re-reading it and I'm not sure how to review it, but here we go!

I like that you've made me think about immortality and what that might be like. The mundane nature of your imagery (Flobberworms and lettuce!) sets an idea of how immortality might actually become something that is quite dull and uninteresting. What's more uninspiring than a Flobberworm? The first stanza has this especially. This phrase is particularly interesting: "Heads for tails and tails for heads,
It moves but does not quite." Nothing is quite what it seems, here.

The second stanza is a little confusing for me. Rhythmically it works and the words create some interesting ideas. I think I get the idea of the reflection being deceptive, but I'm not sure how to fit that into the rest of the poem. I might be being a bit daft though. ;)

(But all I really am is this:
Deceitful sixty-five cloaking
Two colossal centuries.)

My favourite lines summing up the whole idea of immortality - its all just a trick. This stanza starts to introduce the idea that the first two were leaning towards, that perhaps this wasn't worth it.

I like that the stanzas get shorter at the end. It feels like an idea gathering pace. The last line confirms this - there has been an epiphany and some sort of decision made. We don't know what, but we know it is just begining.

Overall this is a very quiet feeling poem but with a definitely, unavaoidable flow and rhythm. I think I'll have to keep coming back to it to try and understand it fully, but your wording it so beautiful that will be no hardship. :)

Author's Response: Hello there! :)

This is a really lovely fic. I really like the style of writing here, which completely drew me into the story and then at times was unexpectedly lyrical. The language you've used, particularly in the early scenes, is perfect for the time and place and really helps to set the mood.

Although this fic spanned a long period of time the scenes all flowed into each other. I really liked seeing the growth and change of Minevera's relationships. Her relationship with her father obviously had a big effect on her and you make that clear, but you don't overwhelm the reader. Simillarly her relationship with Albus - the contrast between their relationship earlier in the fic and the last scene says so much about how they have grown closer as friends.

I did get a little confused when they broke up, and I wasn't sure what had happened until I reread. Possibly I did skip a sentence, but I found the paragraph begining 'What happened next was inevitable, she reflected' a little too hard to follow. It's hard to strike a balance between showing the reader what has happened and outright telling them, and while most of this fic works really well and doesn't need to come out and state what exactly has happened - especially in the last scene, which is incredibly well done - in that part it could perhaps have used a little more clarity?

Although I've encountered this pairing before, you have really sold it to me. I really like how you don't delve into exactly what Minevra's sexuality is, she just loves who she loves at the point in her life she is at. This is definitely one of my favourite McGonagall fics. :)

Author's Response: Thank you for the kind words. Sorry for the confusing bit; as you say, it can be difficult to balance how much to show the reader, so it's good to hear from readers where things work and where they don't. Cheers!

This is fantastic and a fantastic response to the prompt, although reading the prompt first did mean I knew where the story was going fairly early on. Nevertheless your writing was powerful enough to keep me going.

The countdown was very effective throughout, especially starting so far away from the event. The writing felt slowly paced and very deliberate so watching the countdown happening and Theo and Hermione stumbling into it made me feel a real sense of inevitable doom. Similliarly Theo and Hermione sort of stumble into their relationship. It felt very natural and I think you really captured their gorwing connection and respect for each other. I like the references to Theo trying to work Hermione out like a puzzle - it give a good insight into his own character.

One thing I really liked was how you fleshed out all of the characters as adults. The various ways most of the Slytherins from Theo's year had moved on, Hermione and Ron's relationship break down as well as Ron/Pansy's relationship made everyone feel a few steps removed from their time at Hogwarts. Having Pansy as a guest at the Burrow (whatever the tension) was a good way of showing they all being adults and Ginny and Hermione's interaction was lovely. Still, you give up a fair amount of darkness in their background which sets the tone for the fic - Goyle's imprisonment was a nice touch - it is stupid and trivial and yet so serious.

One small thing I disliked was how quickly the countdown sped up towards the end. While it does make the story race towards the conclusion it seems a little out of place with the pace of the first part of the fic. Also, the final conclusion is also written quite slowly and deliberately, so I think it might have worked better to have a little bit more going on between their break up and the finally resolution. I don't know what that would have been though- perhaps going back to Theo's POV like in the first section?

I love love love the ending. Very powerfully done. As I said, I had guessed where the fic was going to end up at the begining, but it still worked fantastically well as a conclusion to both the research and the relationship. It's intriguing to have a zombie outbreak fic that works it's way up to the outbreak and then stops. But it's a very complete story for Hermione and Theo and I absolutely enjoyed it. Thank you!

Author's Response: First, I must apologize for responding to this review so late. For whatever reason, this website apparently no longer e-mails me when I receive a new review, and I only checked them manually today on a whim! I'm so very glad you liked this story! It's a personal favorite of mine, as well, but doesn't get much attention because: 1) it's not the pair I usually write (and I feel like Hermione/Theo is a bit of a rare-pair anyway), and 2) it's horror and, even though it's zombies, the horror genre certainly not everyone's cup of tea. I really loved writing Hermione and Theo, and getting to flesh Theo out - making him human and lovable, as opposed to just a name JKR used every once in a while - was a real treat for me. I fell in love with him a bit, if I'm going to be honest, which made how I ended this story (or ended him, more appropriately) feel like the most satisfying kind of sinister. I prefer to read and write slow-burning relationships, and I don't think Hermione and Theo's relationship would've worked any other way. They were too separated in school to have built any kind of foundation, so I had to build from the bottom up, to be cliche. It definitely helped that they were adults. Hermione was always very mature, anyway, and I feel like Theo might have been a pretty serious youth at Hogwarts, but the whole House rivalry and blood prejudice whatnot still might have had its talons in him back then. He's certainly focused on more important things now. I love Ron/Pansy, and I will include them whenever I possibly can. Ginny's great to write, too, so having them as supporting characters just made sense, especially after Hermione's break-up. They're able to see and show more than one side of things, and give Hermione's pain some depth. I understand your criticism of the pace towards the end. I wanted to make it feel like Hermione's life was just zooming along, like she had nothing interesting to report on or think about now that Theo was out of her life. Her focus became her work and she settled back into her pre-Theo routine, though I hope I showed a bit of her healing process. I'm not sure what would've filled out the time, either. I didn't want to go back to Theo until the very end to try and keep the suspense up. On that note, it probably would've been much smarter of me to include the prompt as an end-note, rather than in the beginning. Kind of spoils the fun, doesn't it? Anyway, I'm glad that you loved the ending, even though you knew where it was going. I thought that working up to the outbreak would be a clever twist to the theme. Most of the time, you only see the aftermath, and what caused the plague is a mystery. Like in AMC's The Walking Dead. Gads, I *wish* we knew what caused that!! Hahaha This review was absolutely great, and - again - I'm so sorry I didn't see it until now! Thank you so much for leaving it!!