I'm Jan, I live in the North of England with my lovely family. I spend my spare time reading and writing. And then any other spare time I spend online! I was a moderator here at MNFF and have been known to beta read occasionally!. Currently loving the new FB franchise and loving Hamilton!
I have one novel-length fic up (The Daughter of Light) and am currently working on its sequel, The Severed Souls. It wasn't supposed to be about my OC and Snape, but they ended up taking over! I've also got a few one-shots up and copious amounts of poetry.
Alan. You are not lost. You live on in our words.
I'm sorry, but I can't reply to you all individualy because of the log in problems. They are just so bad these past few days that i have managed two responses in the past half an hour and I just don't have the time to fiddle about with MNFF. Grrr! Thank you for your reviews. I am so glad you are enjoying the epilogue. It was a chance for me to have a bit of fun with the characters and give old Snivellus a hard time. But there are some romantic bits coming up and some surprising guests. Hope you like the finale! Thanks again for your support. :-)
Just to let you know that I have been on holiday and am just back today. I have a lot of things to catch up on and am trying to reply to all your reviews but if you haven't recieved a reply I will get to you soon. :-) It has also put back the completion of the epilogue and because of this, and because of the potential length of the epilogue which looks set to run to 2000 words or more, I will submit it in two halves so you all don't have to wait for another week or so to get the next bit of the story.
That should be 20,000 btw...not 2000!
Here I am again, responding to all your wonderful reviews in a totally unsatisfactory way!! Fantasium…I am so glad I surprised you. I had to do something different when they met again and I didn’t want a slanging match, so I got her to propose! Ellidiot…have a Kleenex! Mad4Sirius...thank you for the review, drunk with glee... I like that! Thanks Kerian…as you have probably seen by now, the trip to St Mungo’s had mixed blessings. Susanna…thanks again for your continued support. BlackClaude… glad you liked the humour, I could just imagine Remus patting away at her back as he tried to stop her crying…poor soul! I had to bring him back… sending him away just didn’t work…we all missed him too much. Thanks, Severus… I am so pleased everyone was surprised! Belinda… I’m not going to say who will die... *grins evilly* PoisonIvy…so pleased you like it and it’s always nice to get a review from a new reader, we’re almost at the end of this particular story but there will be more to come. HalfBloodHero… I’m in love too! You have been with this story from the start and it’s just great to have you here as it comes to an end.
Belinda… Yes I had some fun with Harry and Snape…they’re really a match made in heaven! Fantasium… Charlie is interesting me, I think I’d have liked to make him bigger in this story but I think we’ll wait until the sequel comes along, when we can explore his relation ship with Percy in more detail. LF… he he…got you! Hurtmore was always the horrid one but he had strength of character…whereas Goldspur was just a little to nice to resist the curse. And I’m working on Harry and Snape…they have the potential to be a great comedy double-act in my strange imagination! LOL. Azkabanresident… thanks for your review... it’s nice to know I have another fan! I really appreciate you taking the time to review. Kerian… yes, Harry’s heart does make him do things that aren’t always wise but I hope in the end that that will be his saving grace. HalfBloodHero… tell me about those interactions! It’s a nightmare keeping up with who is where! MJ… keep your eye open for SexGodLupin in 34, as he gets a bit over-excited in the dungeon! And that’s all I’m going to say about that! And you got me about Remus/Werewolf… I’m putting off the moment when I give a happy ending or stay realistic! PoisonIvy… the answer to your question is in 34, which hopefully will be validated soon. And it all gets even more complicated! Thank you all for continuing to review… it makes my day every time I read them... you’re all fantastic!
I can honestly say my sides are splitting. I cried when I read the part were Crookshanks shot out of the fire and onto Snape's head...I'm still laughing now whenever I think about it...you do realise that scene will pop into my head at random from now on and will make me laugh and complete strangers with think I am mental. Very, very funny and everybody is so completely in character which is always a major challenge in a humour fic. Can't wait to see what Dumbledore's False Teeth are getting up to!
Author's Response: Haha, fantastic!! I just announced to a room full of strangers that "Someone cried laughing at something *I* wrote! In a good way!!" so I think we're even on the 'strange looks' there. I really really hope for DFT to be done by tonight - definitely by this weekend. I can only hope that it's as pleasing as the last chapter *grin*. Thank for for making my day!
No, I'm sorry, this simply won't do. You have got to update quicker than this. This is perfect comedy. My stomach is hurting again from laughing so much. from Snape reading 'How to skin a cat' to the best line of the whole fic.."The teeth were fast,"..Oh, I can't type that without laughing...fabulous and without a doubt my favourite humour fic on the whole site. There may have been grammar and spelling errors somewhere but, frankly, I was too busy laughing to notice and who cares when a fic is this funny. So, please, for the love of God update soon....at least give us the next chapter title so we can begin to giggle in anticipation.
Author's Response: Wow. I actually read your review a couple of days ago, and I'm still grinning because of it! I'll definitely work on getting the next chapters out more quickly from now on, but I can't promise anything. I'm not ENTIRELY sure about the next chapter, but if the plan stays as it is, it'll be called something like "Ghosts Wear Talcum Powder?" and will most likely a spin off from the cushion that was floo'd to the Hufflepuff common room in the second chapter. Be sure to send me an email if you have any other ideas or things you want to see in future chapters! Thanks so much for making my day/week/month, you've really encouraged me to keep this going! :D
Well, of course this was always going to be wonderful and I should have expected the touches of humour. "Fondling my plugs" made me laugh out loud. It is so like Vernon to say something so ridiculous without realising it. Sirius sending Harry the book was inspired, I thought that was very amusing too. What can I say about your writing. It's grammatically perfect, the vocabulary ensures there isn't a dull moment and your flowing and snappy dialogue is a treat to read. I have no idea where this story is going from here but I'm already intrigued and entranced by your style so I'm going to savour the experience. I wish I could offer some constructive criticism but apart from saying 'keep up the good work' I can't.
Author's Response: Thank you. :) I can't tell you where the "fondling" line came from, but it just seemed to go there. As for the book, you'll see it becomes quite the prima dona!
Beautifully written, as I knew it would be. You manage to take two people and place them so distinctly within the story, everything is going on around them and people are trying to interact with them but for us, the readers, only they matter, everything else seems superfluous. I loved the way Ginny thinks that her own small shoulders are not big enough for Harry's burden and she hopes that Hagrid's broad ones are. This is a great way of showing how physical strength is not enough under such a heavy emotional burden. I decided to begin my experience of your writing with just a taste and now I am ready for the whole banquet so bring on Ginny's Gift!
Author's Response: LOL, you're going to catch me here. A lot of things go into my writing that end up having meanings (that readers see, anyway) that I never thought of myself. The thing about Hagrid's shoulders is one of those. I just thought it made a good comparison. But it's always a bit cool, if I say so myself, when things I put down simply because they occur to me as sounding good, turn out to have a deeper meaning.
OK, I'm hooked! It's nice to come across a story that's obvisouly going somewhere from the start and you have a nice fluid writing style that moves along at a good pace. Don't wory about going over the things we know, you need to set the story up and it's only a paragraph or two...even Jo briefly goes over things when she starts a new book. I like your characterisation, Mrs Figg is perfect and the Dursleys are spot on. It will be interesting to watch how you develop Harry.
I'm looking forward to reading the next few chapters and watching the story unfold. I'm sure you're sick of hearing this but there are a few spelling and grammar mistakes that could do to be ironed out, nothing that distracts from the story, just a few bits and pieces.
Author's Response: Hiya Magical Maeve
Thank you for the review and yes there are a few mistakes, which I do intend to put right.
I don't mind if someone tells me I have made a boo boo, after all, that is what reviews are about.
Thank you again for taking the time and I hope you enjoy the story.
All the best
Wiganlad
Ah, the plot thickens! Interesting that Lily may also have had a wilder side to her nature, I wonder what she did. And don't get me started on 'said is dead'...we had a discussion about this on the forum and the general consensus was that said was fine as long as it was used well... for what it's worth I didn't notice the overuse of said but I am reading Philip Pullman at the moment and he uses nothing but said so perhaps I'm suffering from said blindness now. LOL
Author's Response: Hiya Magical Maeve
I know what you mean about the word "said".
Sometimes when your writing you have to use said, after all Im sure you are allowed to use it once in a while (lol).
I'm glad your enjoying the story so far and again thank you for taking the time to review it.
All the best
Wiganlad.
I’m back! Much later than promised but I’m here for the long haul now! Anyway, onto the story. Loved Hermione’s thwarting of Arthur’s tinkering with cars! Arthur really lit up the opener of this chapter. I’d never considered his glee at having one of the family going out with a Muggle-born but I loved the way you portrayed him. The idea of Arthur watching a football match at Upton Park made me smile, a lot! Yay! A fellow Amelia Bones promoter. I thought she was a natural choice for Minister and was very disappointed to see what happened to her in HBP. (Trying not to give spoilers away for HBP!)
appeared to them suddenly as though he had apparated. That’s either missing a comma or needs re-wording slightly. You also have a lot of spotting and pointing in close succession that could be tidied up a bit. I know… it seems a bit redundant to be pointing out nitpicks when this fic is done and dusted and I know the troubles caused by going back and editing…. You end up doing a re-write! You also did the alright thing. One of my favourite authors does it (Dermot Bolger) and I routinely want to kill him for it.
Seamus saying Howya made me all homesick. J You do something really well that I try and shy away from. You do group scenes. I think you manage to have a fair amount of people in a small area and you keep close track on them all and use them all. I do it and I forget about someone until they mutter something at the end of a scene just to let me know they are there. You don’t do that and it impresses me no end. Loved the confusion around Voldemort/Ron/Hermione. Typical boys! Accept the truth, guys.
You have a very sharp writing style. It moves quickly and drags the reader along in its wake. I think the short chapters contribute to the feel of speed and I’m already wanting to jump to the next one.
I finally get to the mighty Jenna’s fic! LOL You almost had me with the wedding…I’m already sharpening my canon-nazi pen and then…bang! It’s a dream. The wedding scene was nicely done but the biggest- and possibly smallest- line in that first bit was… Percy was missing. That really tells a tale, doesn’t it? Hermione’s veil was a nice touch, not that it’s hard to confuse poor Ron. And Sirius winking…how heartbreaking was that given what we know. They’re all in character, which is always a great start, not that I expected anything else from this great story and I’m looking forward to seeing how you develop this. It was a short opener, but I think I liked that, gets us right into the story without too much preamble. Loved the reference to the Anglia in CoS, details like that makes us feel we are in familiar territory without overloading us with back-story. My only nitpick would be the use of alright over all right, which as I type my computer is having a fit over! Apart from that one, minor insignificance it read perfectly. Great, short and snappy start.
Author's Response: Oh, thank you so much. This is the best review I've gotten for an early chapter in this epic fan-fic. I only wonder if you have what it takes to make it through all 70 chapters... (it gets easier, I promise... just make it to chapter 25 and you should be cruising). Thanks again, hon. You've boosted my confidence :) *toddles of to read DoL*
This is a very well written opening chapter that is complex without overloading the reader. I thought you did a great job in condensing the events of 500 years into the opening few paragraphs and I loved the concept that Earth was in her retirement. It was nice to see that the inhabitants of the planet had found a way to try and redress the environmental balance. Your imagery throughout is excellent and I get the impression that you are seeing quite clearly exactly what your characters are doing and what their immediate location is like. There are a few instances of words either not used in their correct context (proof of security would be better as guarantee of security for instance).or where they are misspelled thus changing their meaning (scrapped/scraped, painstaking/painstakingly). There are also some instances of comma overuse (Ha! This is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black because I get accused of this a lot!) and a few sentences that have a slightly ambiguous meaning. But none of this detracts from the whole, which is very good indeed. I enjoyed the way you connected the past to the present by slipping in mentions of the Dementors and I loved the way you adapted the pensieve. Your dialogue is very good and flows well between the two men, your main character is also very intriguing and has so much potential for development. So in short, it’s a great concept that has plenty of mileage in it, you write very well and have a good grasp of imagery and dialogue and there are just a few small grammatical errors in what is a good, meaty chapter. Looking forward to the rest of this fic. I hesitate to use the word Orwellian but passages of this certainly put me in mind of good old George.
Author's Response: Ha ha! Yes, I'm a bit of a bad typo. Thanks for the review. I'll PM you about furthur developments.
I have often walked away from reviewing a story because I find I have nothing good to say about it. Seldom have I almost not reviewed because I had nothing bad to say. I cannot find fault with this chapter, it is engaging, threatening, imaginative, mysterious...I could go on but I'd run out of superlatives. Your writing is excellent, your grammar (for the most part...still the odd typo there but because the story is so good I'll forgive you :-) ) spot on and you are not a slave to dialogue. It's great to find a story with so much description that doesn't feel laboured. I'm a fussy reader but on the premise of these two chapters if this story were in print I'd buy it. *Sigh* I'm supposed to be writing balanced reviews but this story is going to make me fail and be hopelessly one sided.
That was a good opening chapter. there is enough there to make the reader want to move on to the next chapter and yet you still packed quite a lot of description in there too. Everyone seems to be in character so far which is always a great start. There was plenty of good detail in there too, I liked the fact Harry's Firebolt hadn't turned up and Professor McGonagall's letter was well done. You do need to go over the chapter and pick up the typos and spelling mistakes, it wouldn't take long but would really make the chapter read better. I'm looking forward to chapter two and I'm really intereted in who the new DADA teacher will be.
Great imagery! It's very skillful to cram so much feeling into so few lines. I particularly liked the second two lines...Pain inside my mind does clutch,
To draw back from gentle touch,...because that is exactly how I think Snape feels.
Author's Response: Aww, thank you very much. That's how I see him too.
Great imagery! It's very skillful to cram so much feeling into so few lines. I particularly liked the second two lines...Pain inside my mind does clutch,
To draw back from gentle touch,...because that is exactly how I think Snape feels.
Author's Response: Ah yes, a double submission. I've done that so many times...
Very nicely done. A good, solid introductory chapter that introduces us to the story without either overloading us with information or ignoring the previous five books, it's a difficult balance to achieve and you managed it. You have a smooth writing style which is a pleasure to read and there are some nice ideas...Harry writing swear words with his wand reminded me of kids with sparklers trying to write their names. I like the fact we are reminded that Sirius has only just died, much is made of fics that have Harry all angsty and depressed in the sixth year but I think tht's exactly what he would be like, especially during his time at the Dursleys. You managed to reflect that really well. Hermione sounded in character even in letter form which I think can be really difficult to do. I didn't spot any spelling or punctuation problems but as MJ has already pointed out there are one or two syntax errors but they are very minor. So apart from the American spellings everything looks good. Well done and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of this.
Author's Response: Thank you MM. I look forward to hearing the specifics on Brit-picking soonish. ;)
Oh-My-Word! You have the most amazing style. I haven't read beyond this chapter but I don't care! I have seen from your profile that you are German and therefore English probably isn't your first language (although I'm betting your English is far better than my German!!). With that in mind, if you ever feel you would like help with smoothing out the grammar I would LOVE to help you. This deserves to be recommended because it is so beautiful. Amazing.
Author's Response: I'm glad you like it so far! For the first chapters I didn't have a beta-reader, but now I have one who is really very, very good :) English is my second language, but it is my favourite one.