I have felt for a long time that the best part of your work is its conversation with canon; teeth-grinding annoyance with JKR herself aside, you maintain a lot of respect and care for the bricks that you use to build this world. You draw out so many things so beautifully: the split between the wizarding and Muggle world, for example. How did you decide that wizards would continue to think of surgically cutting the body as an Unforgiveable (if you will)? I love how there are drabs of the Muggle world that make their way in, and the wizards interpret them so uniquely. What was the novel that Dean Thomas left at the Weasleys'?
I wonder if you'll ever read Deathly Hallows. I had problems with it, major problems, but there are some parts that prove how right you are about these characters, and I wonder what you'd think of them. The whole Battle of Hogwarts at the end proves both how important Hogwarts was to Voldemort, and how he desperately needed to remake it in his image. (In the book, he somewhat embarrassingly changes all the drapes to Slytherin colors and declares that all will be Slytherin from now on...but the underlying need for the world to be remade in his vision is the same!) I also like that Dumbledore became such a troubled character, not reliable, and almost as much of a hindrance to Harry (if you look at it a certain way) as your Dumbledore is. What the canon book unfortunately shows, though, is that the story is immensely weakened by JKR's insistence that the Malfoys are nothing but cowards. It is just plain weird that Harry's nemeses are ultimately people many times his age, and don't even get me started on the flatness of the Slytherins' storylines. At any rate, the joy of this story is not just the H/D-ness, but the fact that the Malfoys are an actual power to be reckoned with after all the setup of early canon.
Just a couple of other small pleasures - it's actually nice to have come around to November again while reading this story, and way to go on the pensieve smackdown. Objective observations my fat arse.
Thank you again for your commitment to the story and seeing it through.
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I have felt for a long time that the best part of your work is its conversation with canon; teeth-grinding annoyance with JKR herself aside, you maintain a lot of respect and care for the bricks that you use to build this world. You draw out so many things so beautifully: the split between the wizarding and Muggle world, for example. How did you decide that wizards would continue to think of surgically cutting the body as an Unforgiveable (if you will)? I love how there are drabs of the Muggle world that make their way in, and the wizards interpret them so uniquely. What was the novel that Dean Thomas left at the Weasleys'?
I wonder if you'll ever read Deathly Hallows. I had problems with it, major problems, but there are some parts that prove how right you are about these characters, and I wonder what you'd think of them. The whole Battle of Hogwarts at the end proves both how important Hogwarts was to Voldemort, and how he desperately needed to remake it in his image. (In the book, he somewhat embarrassingly changes all the drapes to Slytherin colors and declares that all will be Slytherin from now on...but the underlying need for the world to be remade in his vision is the same!) I also like that Dumbledore became such a troubled character, not reliable, and almost as much of a hindrance to Harry (if you look at it a certain way) as your Dumbledore is. What the canon book unfortunately shows, though, is that the story is immensely weakened by JKR's insistence that the Malfoys are nothing but cowards. It is just plain weird that Harry's nemeses are ultimately people many times his age, and don't even get me started on the flatness of the Slytherins' storylines. At any rate, the joy of this story is not just the H/D-ness, but the fact that the Malfoys are an actual power to be reckoned with after all the setup of early canon.
Just a couple of other small pleasures - it's actually nice to have come around to November again while reading this story, and way to go on the pensieve smackdown. Objective observations my fat arse.
Thank you again for your commitment to the story and seeing it through.