I am old. Older than Jo. Not quite as old as Voldemort.
In fact, I am exactly Marauder-aged. Which might be why I don't read much Marauder-era. Can't compete with Lily....
I am so happy they're finally together...
*sighs*
Come now, surely, if you try hard enough, you can give Oliver another adventure...
I totally missed the connection to the herb farm until it was pointed out in reviews! Yech, silly me! I really feel for her when she looks in the bed and Frank is like a little boy again. It is so sad that she can't appreciate Neville for what he is. You've made her very real...
Author's Response: Thank you. She was one of those shadowy characters in the books who I always felt deserved more page time. Glad you liked it.
It was worth the wait. You nailed the scene between Ron and Mrs. Weasley.
Author's Response: Thanks! Glad you liked it. It was a tough one to write, but fun too.
Priceless! "food that thinks it's smart enough to do magic..."
I like the way you've made Nagini a hape-shifter. I think I had only ever thought of snakes as male...silly, obviously someone has to lay all those eggs the little copperheads hatch out of...
I assume Snape has more than one reason for wanting to marry Nagini, but I will have to continue reading to find out...
ProfPosky
Severus, I am warning you, DO NOT touch the thread and the loom.
I was waiting for the word "poisonous" along with "Exotic, useful and difficult to grow." I'm also disappointed that she doesn't eat poisonous fish... She seems the type.
It does seem rather odd that a person of Snape's intelligence married a woman he mistakenly thought liked him because she stared at him...but he has never exactly been painted as a ladies man. Maybe the female psyche is one of his weak spots?
Whoa! Excellent. I was sort f expecting another huge scene of teenage dramatics, with Hermione just sorry she had gone and there being no real point to it (As there is frequently no real point to what happens in life, actually...) but you delivered so much more. You establish so convincingly that there WAS a spell, yet that it did draw on something that was actually there in Draco when it mad him irresistable to Hermione. Normally I don't have much interest in Draco and anyone because I am pretty well convince that the damage had been done before he got to Hogwarts and that there will be no one I want to meet developing out othe Draco we all know in canon, but you have managed an exception here. I like the way you have them say goodbye with their proper names. It is the perfect ending touch
Author's Response: I don\'t think in canon that Draco is lost forever and the damage is done. I think there\'s a chance, just a small shot, that he can be saved. I\'m glad you saw that here as well. Thank you!
Ok - I read all your stories here over the past few days, and now I'm reviewing them - odd way to do it, maybe, but it puts me in the position of being able to say that this fits in perfectly with your others, and also that I am PERISHING to read, some day, your Snape's actual thoughts on Harry.
Author's Response: Thanks for the review, and I'm happy to have another one for this story especially -- it's a favourite of mine. Hopefully you are not perishing too quickly; there's a long backlog of chapters before we get anywhere near Severus' "actual" and rather complicated thoughts on Harry -- but you may be able to guess a few by now.
So my last review of this gives me clear idea of just exactly WHEN I started reading here... And I am not sure I have ever EXACTLY gotten to read what Snape thinks of Harry, in so many words, even yet, have I? I think there is more than you ever said, but that may just be me.
Your first. Well, I wish my first were as good. I enjoyed it of course. You have no idea how much I miss reading you!
I thought it was generally good, but I found it a little...abrupt. Granted, we are talking about a short short story, but to me there are two issues at work here with Ron- Ron's inclinations, and Draco being Draco. If Ron has really never dealt with this before, you'd think there would be more - thought? Emotion? Confusion? involved... The Draco being Draco part is a little more convincing to me, except I feel I want a clear turning point there. Maybe noone else does, or maybe others find one - could just be me, I suppose. I also wonder if Draco is really so able to escape his conditioning and have so little trouble with being in love with a blood traitor. He has always struck me as a total coward.
All of this is nitpicking in a sense - it is basically a satisfying story, for something that I think is really canonically unsupportable, you wrote it as a particular sort of exercise rather than from initial conviction, and I can imagine a million ways it could have been done badly, and very little in the way of how to improve this, other than what I already said. So, I suppose my final judgement is that it is my least favorite of your stories - but I REALLY like your stories, so see it in that context.
Author's Response: Funny, I would have called the "Little Ratty Paws" one abrupt, and this one considerably more time-spanning at the least, but I see what you mean. The biggest limitation was point of view -- Ron may indeed be dealing with a great many issues here, but is Draco likely to care? From inside his head, we won't see much of Ron's thoughts on the matter, which probably saved me five chapters on what would have happened if I'd tried to do both views. As for cowardice and loving a Blood-traitor, well, Draco is talking tough a bit, but he's hardly going to take Ron home with him to meet the parents anytime soon. "Really canonically unsupportable" made me laugh -- it really is, isn't it? But I tried to fit them into the little gaps as best I could, which was a fun little game all by itself.
I've said it before; I'll keep saying it. In some ways I am basically evil. Thanks for the review!
Now how did I not notice all of these the first time around? " Is your Head of House a nosy, micromanaging Legilimens?”" The micromanaging ...hand't ever thought of him like that. " “Are you offering to take a Snaping for me?”" Snape as a verb - now why has that not caught on? And “So long as you remember you’re my insensitive fruit bat.” I may have to use that one in RL...
I felt like it was really happening. I can't say anything better than that. You have both of them entirely in character, even while showing a litle more of them than we usually see. I like seeing it from inside his head, so to speak...
You are using just the right amount of detail on things like her clumsiness, what she's wearing, etc. I never thought about his "werewolf reflexes." Does he come to have an appreciation of them at some point in the story? (Well, obviously I am goign to read and find out.)
But how did this happen? How were they so incautious? Well, I suppose these things are inevitable...
What is going through Lupin's mind while he is sharing a room with her? Is it awkward? Homey? I suppose it made sense not to deal with it in this chapter because this is devoted more to action. BTW, how does Tonks get time off from Auror duties for this?
Why would his loving her be something his mind would want to hear if it weren't true?
I like how her eyes go wild when she's really happy.
Author's Response: It was one of those ideas you get in the shower, you know? One of the utterly brilliant ones that you have to jump out and scribble down the instant you get the shampoo out of your hair.
Author's Response: And wow...five reviews? Thanks! You\'re right up with the regulars, like Evik and petiteloupgarou!!
Very interesting. I can see you sometimes take even longer than I sometimes have to update - I hope it won't be years this time!
So, he has no taste for repetition, and yet the constant failure of his continual efforts at planning, as you pointed out once, do look suspiciously like it, which must have made it doubly irksome.
Yes, I'm re-reading. Well, I have to read something...
You know it's been over ten years since I started reading this - it holds up.
I have in some ways changed, but the story is as magnificent as ever.
This seems so real to me.
Oddly enough, I don't find any of this a reason for Snape to hate Harry. Harry didn't do anything. Merely being alive is not an act of malice, especially not when you are a year old. For Snape to feel unbearable rage, and to need a focus for that rage, yes, but that is not the same as having a reason to hate Harry. Let's face it, he is raging at himself. So what is Harry, then, if he is carrying some of Snape's rage at himself?
That Patronus...Why doesn't it find him in the dungeons at Hogwarts - or did it, and he was too out of it to notice? Why can't he read the message? Why does the patronus keep finding him? How? And, of course, what is in the message, besides the identity of hteir secret keeper? I don't expect you to answer these questions, but I am enjoying thinking them.
You have set things up nicely in so many ways here. I find myself wanting to TELL Snape - "Take it back - take back flying, take back anything you loved that you can - if you don't, you idiot, they won - do you really want James to have won?" Obviously he can't bring back Lily, but it is interesting that he allows his hatred for James to ruin any pleasure at all he might have gotten out of Lily's child - well, forgive me for saying it, how very Male of him...
I do feel for him, absolutely.
Nice work. Can't join you in the common room - I'm not a Ravenclaw. I am a Snape Fan - I suppose it is only my maturity being called into question!
ProfPosky
Author's Response: Oooh, lots of questions! I've been thought-provoking -- how fun!!! I've theorized elsewhere that Severus glares at everyone like that, and thus Harry may have been jumping to conclusions. Plus, of course, Harry is "almost exactly like James." You know how disappointed Sirius can be when Harry isn't...
As for the Patronus scene, I'll just prompt things along with a couple of words: vision quest. Happy thinking!
And this reply is getting long, because I love chatting about writing. Pity you're not a Ravenclaw, I think you'd probably enjoy our Snape-lookalike-society of avatars. Ah well. Feel free to quiz on the Advertise page if you want, or PM away -- you have intriguing observations. Thanks for reviewing!