Oh, the plot thickens! *Rubs hands in anticipation*

Got her accent now! Maybe you're not intending her to have a Scottish accent but this line... “Mr Lupin, are you not wanting to go indoors?"...came across with a delightful Scottish lilt to it. And I think my concerns about her method of speech in the last chapter were unfounded. Nothing sounded wrong here. Ten out of ten for a superbly IC Snape, I like a good cameo from our favourite greasy git, and I'm hoping to see more of him. The assemblage of Pure-Bloods was quite fascinating. the MacDougals seem to be of the milder, not too fussed about the Pureblood status sort. But they seem to enjoy socialising with their relatives and putting on a good show.

Speaking of which...Holy cooking smells batman! I thought I'd stepped into a Joanne Harris novel. the food and drink was so well handled. I felt I was standing in that kitchen surrounded by it all. Nice to see Cullen Skink appear! One little nitpick -- and the fool that moderated this should have mentioned it ;-) -- is that you need more capitalisation on things like Firewhisky. Some food and drinks are also capitalised, especially if they are trade names like Atholl Brose.

William is fast becoming one of my new favourite OCs. He's a truly delightful character and I love the way he interects with Remus and the way Remus understands him. The image of the children and him at the party was a lovely one.

And why indeed was the young lady kept at home for this party? I have a feeling we will find out. *Gives Remus a huge hug* Poor man. You have highlighted beautifully the problems he must have had getting employment and keeping it. When you look at it, this is a good job for him to have with the open space and the possibility of removing himself from the public... But those poor sheep! *worries about the sheep*

Really enjoying this story. It's intelligently written and full of touches of humour and pathos. Great job so far.

Author's Response: Dear MM, It\'s flattering to think that the beta readers become so absorbed that they don\'t notice my spelling mistakes, but of course you are right about the capitalisation. Never mind, the average non-British reader hasn\'t even heard of half the food and drinks that I served at this party. Yes, those poor sheep indeed. Would you set a wolf right in the centre of your flocks? The MacDougals wouldn\'t if they knew what they were doing! William is just a lamb in human clothing, but Remus is a far more complex persoin than that. The relationship between Ariadne and her parents will be developed in later chapters. However, I must warn you not to expect their behaviour to be always logical. Real humans rarely are. The MacDougals are not consciously prejudiced people (they would never want to hurt Muggles) but they do have difficulty in understanding anyone outside their own narrow sector of society. It has more to do with culture than direct racism ... although the two are so easily confused! Of course Ariadne has a Scottish accent. She is right on the banks of Loch Ness, remember? I\'m afraid I find it shamefully easy to write Snape. I just appeal to my own inner Severus. Thank you for continuing to say such nice things about my story, GhV

Ah, my lovely story!

This was just so perfect that I loved every word, so, as you can imagine, this will be a gushy little review! The opening set a lovely tone, relief and the sense of a world getting back to normal. I loved Filius setting aside Fred and George's gift, clever man! I enjoyed the characterisation of Filius, it was so accurate. A quiet, unassuming man with a deep underlying sense of fun, and a mounting sense of excitement at the continued presence of the presents. I love the way he tries to puzzle out who it is, and Irma and Filch! Even they get some Christmas cheer. Irma crying over the poor book made me smile.

And even Maeve made a sneaky appearence. That made me smile even wider as I imagined her protecting Severus from Filius' enthusiasm! Everything was so clever and funny that I just grinned my way through the whole story, incuding Filch belting out carols and Minerva hitting the sherry. This was a fabulous, heart-warming story and I couldn't have asked for more, so thank you again -- it was a real Christmas treat!

Author's Response: I\'ve been meaning to respond to all my reviews for the longest time, but this one especially deserved a comment long ago. I\'m just so glad you liked the story, and I appreciate that you took the time to let me know what affected you the most. Thanks, Maeve!

Wow. Beautifully constructed character piece. This had all the elements of post-HBP angst that I would expect from a final confrontation between Harry and Snape. And both of them so elegantly in character. This is very well written and I look forward to your next piece.

Author's Response: Well, I\'m blushing now. Thank you.

Sometimes you get a fic for the challenge and something about it is so perfectly in tune with the idea behind the challenge that it has to win. There was something about Luna's heartfelt optimism in this that I loved. Luna is underrated, and to capture that slightly whimsical attitude she has in the way that you have here is a treat to read. :-) Thank you!

Author's Response: Thanks! I adore Luna- she\'s so much fun to read and even more fun to write. I hope that with the OotP movie coming out maybe Luna will be a little more appreciated once people see her brought to life on screen. Thanks for reviewing!

I adore this! Everything about it is right. It's very faithful to the original and the rhyme scheme works beautifully - it's as if the original words echo in your head as you read the newer version.



The blending of canon with the original is so well done, and I adore Hagrid as the one doling out advice on girls and dancing. He might be a great big oaf to some, but he's also full of wisdom - some good, some not so good. *giggles* The vision of him sailing above Hogwarts with Harry on Buckbeak is a lovely Christmassy one.

I also loved the nod to the beta forums, that was great fun and well worked in. Apart from those lines, my other favourites would have to be...

Harry returned to the castle with stealth,
Making sure he wasn’t seen, since he valued his health.

Imagines stalking Potions Master waiting to do him some damage... and...

Their robes were all gathered and hanging with care,
In hopes that the house-elves soon would be there.

... because I love the image, the fact that it could only be Hogwarts and the fact that it could also have come straight from the original.

No real concrit apart from maybe one line... As the brooms through a Quidditch match through the air fly, I felt you could have lost the first the and somehow replaced the first through. maybe something as simple as "As brooms in a Quidditch match through the air fly." It alters the metre slightly but doesn't sound quite so clunky. I would need to find the same line in the original to compare the exact metre. Other than that - faultless. As always, a pleasure, and great fun, to read.



Author's Response: *dies* Jan, oh my gosh, thank you SO MUCH for the wonderful review. Wow - my second SPEW review, yay!! I am so glad you enjoyed this piece - and I\'m glad you let me use this poem for the challenge! I\'m so happy a certified poet found it lived up to the original, although mine turned out quite a bit longer. I really enjoyed writing it, thanks for a lovely prompt (as usual). You are absolutely right about that awkward line, I can\'t believe I missed that. I noticed it as soon as you quoted it. Thank you for the suggestion, I will touch it up soon. Thanks for all you do around here and for being such a lovely HoH. And another huge THANK YOU for such a wonderful review, it really made my day to wake up to such kind words. *turnip hug* ~Gina :)

I loved this story. It was so full of that Christmas spark and yet so depressingly tense. You've managed to portray the mental state of a wife suffering beneath her husband's violent temper very well, and I think the reader will have every sympathy with her. We know next to nothing about either of the Snapes, but what you have portrayed is totally convincing, from the gruff, brutish attitude of Tobias, with his determination to get a promotion before the child is born (I wonder why that is - does he want to appear more of a man for his child, or do they need the money?) to his reckless, drunken carolling with no thought for his wife's feelings.

The ornaments you used were well-thought through, right down to the ugly company bauble that Tobias brings home - and with that I think we get more of a sense of the man. He knows it's ugly, what a shame he can't see that his marriage has become ugly too. I also like Eileen's blind faith that her child will make things better. It seems to be something that women really do believe; a child will turn a monstrous husband into a good one. In one way I am glad she has that hope and in another way I wish I could scream at her to get out now while she can.

This was a fabulous challenge entry, filling the criteria perfectly, and it had a great feel to it. You wrote with such honesty and comapssion about your characters that it was a real treat to read. I'd like to offer you some concrit, but I really can't. This was one of those rare, perfect little stories. It will stand out for me for a good while. Thank you!

Author's Response: Wow. I\'m totally flattered, and really have no idea how to respond to such a lovely review. Perhaps later I shall come up with something more intelligent, but for now: thank you! I\'m so glad you liked this, and I really enjoyed writing it, much more than I thought. It was interesting trying to hit the right balance for Tobias -- he may not be the best person in the world, but he is still human. I struggled with his characterization a bit, but surprisingly found Eileen very easy to write. Again, thank you so much, and I hope I didn\'t ramble senselessly too much. :)

What a lovely little story! You have a very good writing style; it flows extremely well and there wasn't a sentence that sounded wrong. That doesn't sound like much, but to have a whole chapter flow without jarring is an achievement. I found James to be completely believeable, exactly how I imagined him. You walked the fine line between making him slightly too arrogant - I thought his thoughts about Remus' gift, though harsh, were probably spot on - and making him vulnerable. There were no hysterics, no loud, in-your-face behaviour from him. It was so nice to see him portrayed in thoughtful mood.

Even though this is a short one-shot, you built a nice amount of plot into it to keep the reader involved yet didn't neglect the characterisation, which I thought was the most important thing. I enjoyed Emmeline's character too, I thought she gave him some solid advice, and the decision to give her the ear rings was very fitting. I think this asked a lot more questions than it answered and would like to have seen maybe one or two more chapers. But then, we always want more of a good thing. ;-)

My only bit of con-crit is that you need to place spaces before and after dashes. If you don't, you read words as being hyphenated. Here's a prime example of where that can get confusing:

honestly–don’t think I haven’t noticed that fan-club of yours–so…why

See how the hyphenated words get lost with the dashes?

So, yes, that's all the concrit I have for you! This was a nice snapshot of a story very well told. :-)

Author's Response: =D THANK YOU, dearest Jan! I can\'t tell you how much I appreciate this! And, hee. Those flowy sentences? Thank Kate. She pwns. And I agree with what you said about the dashes - I do it like so now, but at the time that I wrote this, I used dashes--like so, and I completely see what you mean. Thanks SO much for the brilliant review! *squish*

Your poetry is simply stunning. Word choice is spot on and conveys everything with such precision. There is a good seam of emotion running throughout but it's tempered nicely by your use of imagery. I love seeing such an accomplished poet submit to MNFF and I look forward to seeing more of your work. You are a natural.

Author's Response: Thank you! I\'m glad you liked it...my poetry is a little different than what you usually seem to find here on MNFF, so I wasn\'t sure anyone would go for it.

Goodness, that was powerful. It's raw and dreadful and completely encapsulates the depths of grief. I though the way you switched tenses was a good contrast betweem the present and the past - a nice juxtaposition. And of course I completely understand from your PM how this relates to other things and it makes it all the more poignant and sad. I particularly thought this was very emotive:

She allowed herself to experience fully once again the searing, excruciating torture of loss - loss that left her breathless and shaking, speechless from its intensity.

I think we can all identify with that desperate place that Mrs Diggory finds herself in.




You have a wonderful way with words, Andrea - but, of course, I knew that from Ravenclaw. It's good to see you're filling up your author page.

Author's Response: Jan~ Thank you so much for being the first to review my heart-wrenching story! However did you find it? *laughs* Yes, by switching the tenses I tried to show that Mrs.Diggory didn\'t just go there to remember the day Cedric died, she went there to relive it - which is a far more devastating experience to deliberately open one\'s self up to. Thank you for spotlighting that one particular line. The more I read it, the more amazed I am at how those who can identify with it are able to function in a more-or-less normal manner. It has to be tamped down below the surface, or we couldn\'t do it. Unlike Mrs.Diggory, to deliberately dig it all up again is a strength I\'m not sure I possess at this time, though, like her, I do see my own personal pilgrimages in the future. Say, once a year, about this time? Now it seems too frighteningly large a task to contemplate, but I will at least open myself to the possibility. Yes, I\'m slowly but surely beginning to fill up that author\'s page. I love writing and it was an absolute wrench to push aside the story I had been carefully crafting for my DADA final and submit this instead, but sometimes the story you *want* to write is not the story you *should* write. This story I wrote in several hours is infinitely more dark and angsty than the story I had spent weeks trying to carve into a D/A tale that satisfied me. So thank you again for your kind, encouraging words - both here and in your PMs. I appreciate them so very much. *hugs and squishes* ~Andrea

I'll admit that I am not a fan of disjointed verse. I like it ordered into metre and fluffed up with punctuation, however... I really loved this. I re-read it several times and your word choice and repetition is quite haunting. It made me think of Heroes and the horrid blankness of having your memory wiped that Claire's mother has to endure (blank looks from everyone who hasn@t seen Heroes). You did a great job of conveying that deadness while letting the reader know what it is that has been lost.

Author's Response: Aw, thankees. I have some trouble with \'normal\' poetry (*cough-I\'mprettyterrible-cough*), so I find that free verse fits me. I tried to get those hidden meanings in there little things. Like, how the \'invisible\' war is on T.V.- that was meant as a way of saying that it isn\'t real to her or touching them. Thank you so much! -Stubby