Name: juniper (Signed) · Date: 04/27/12 1:25 · For: Thirty - Two / Harry & Hermione: Collaboration

"Just like a harmless spell can leave you with a sense of accomplishment, the satisfaction one gets from dark magic is equally seductive. "
I really like that line. Also, are your cooking tips accurate? Because that really sounds interesting.
Great writing as usual. It always makes my day when I see writing from L A Moody!

Author's Response: Yes, that little cooking tip will work; just don’t use more than one or two anise seeds or it will totally overpower the flavor of everything. Glad you enjoyed. Dark magic as an addiction certainly seems to fit in with Helena Bonham Carter’s depiction of Bellatrix Lestrange, so I took a page from her book here.

Name: juniper (Signed) · Date: 04/27/12 1:09 · For: Thirty - One / Harry: Culture Shock

You know, George reminds me of Tom Sawyer. :)
I love seeing Hermione as a mother, btw.

Author's Response: I can certainly see the parallel with Tom Sawyer. With perhaps a bit of Harold Hill (from The Music Man)? Selling magical products has to be a bit like selling dreams.

I agree, Hermione will make a great mother – when she’s ready to take that step. Just give her a few years to read all the parenting books first.

Name: nevilleherosnape (Signed) · Date: 03/20/12 3:10 · For: Thirty - One / Harry: Culture Shock

Fantastic as always! Now that she's made the team will we be hearing from Ginny soon?

Author's Response: The chapter with Harry/Ginny that everyone’s clamoring for is just around the next bend, I promise. It’s already written and has turned out to be one of my favorites as it has a nice twist. Ginny is not far from everyone’s thoughts as the next chapter will demonstrate. Hopefully, the delay won’t be too much longer.

Name: juniper (Signed) · Date: 03/19/12 20:31 · For: Thirty - One / Harry: Culture Shock

Cute comparisons.

Author's Response: So happy that you enjoyed my take on wizarding humor. It’s a nice contrast to the next chapter which is much darker.

Name: baby54boomer (Signed) · Date: 03/19/12 0:51 · For: Thirty - One / Harry: Culture Shock

Wonderful!!!! Thank you for the quick-paced dialogue and interwoven references to Muggle and Magical life. This chapter was certainly worth the wait. Keep up the good work! I hope we see a resolution to Harry and Ginny's relationship one way or another.

Author's Response: Glad you enjoyed. The contrasts between us and them and back again have always been fascinating to me.

I promise that we will get back to Harry/Ginny soon. With as many balls as I’ve got in the air right now, I hope you’ll understand that I have to keep the story in chronological order as much as I can.

Name: SnapeLives (Signed) · Date: 03/18/12 20:48 · For: One / Moody: Limbo

You really know how to capture the characters. I wish J.K. Rowling would read your story. It really is well written.

Author's Response: Thank you so much for the heartfelt words. I think every writer on this site secretly dreams of having JKR, or her publishers, read his words. She might not agree with the way in which I’ve allowed her characters to live on, though. (You’ll see what I mean in the next few chapters.)

I have to say that I really enjoy getting into each character’s head, a task made easier by the fabulous actors who have given life to JKR’s creations. When the actor’s voice is delivering the lines in my head, I know that I have finally captured their uniqueness. Only in two instances have I deviated from that formula, i.e. with the characters of Ginny and Tonks. Not that it is any fault of the actresses, mind you, but because the scriptwriters either interpret their character so differently than in the books or because they were not given enough screen time to develop their personalities -- or both!

Name: baby54boomer (Signed) · Date: 03/09/12 20:51 · For: One / Moody: Limbo

Your writing is quite engaging. The dialogues are especially sharp: you have managed to capture the original tone of each canon character! I would have liked more AD/Chocolate Frog moments. Please do not delay the subsequent installments!

Author's Response: Thank you so much! I’ve definitely struggled with some of the characterizations so your words are particularly gratifying. Channeling my inner Snape, as my husband likes to say, has not been a problem, however. The story will definitely be catching up with Dumbledore’s exploits “on the other side” after the next few chapters. It’s always so much fun seeing things from a different perspective, I always find.

Name: juniper (Signed) · Date: 03/09/12 2:26 · For: Thirty / Ron: Pranksters and Prats

Wow. The suspense is building and I feel the story is moving very well.
Loved the idea of a cat with separation anxiety - that was creative.
So what did Snape do? I am curious!

Author's Response: In this instance, Ron is thinking back on all of Snape’s machinations that were not unveiled until the bitter end of DH. Not being particularly self-aware, he cloaks his thoughts in terms of other people; it’s his way of acknowledging that the events of the past year have had a profound influence on his life. Sorry, if I didn’t make that clear. You will be pleased, however, that I intend to build on Snape’s backstory in the near future, though.

Every cat I've known has had a vindictive streak, so Crookshanks is no different.

Name: juniper (Signed) · Date: 03/09/12 2:19 · For: Thirty / Ron: Pranksters and Prats

Great job! glad to see update

Author's Response: Another chapter is already in the pipe.

Name: nevilleherosnape (Signed) · Date: 02/10/12 1:21 · For: Twenty - Nine / Amos: SPEW's to You

As always, FABULOUS!! Love it!

Author's Response: So pleased you enjoyed. Next chapter takes place at the same time, different part of the castle.

Name: Wolfs_Scream (Signed) · Date: 02/09/12 3:14 · For: Twenty - Nine / Amos: SPEW's to You

Asteria's ... interesting. :-}

I rather enjoyed being a "fly on the wall" for the conversation between Amos & Hermione. You do that quite well.

Excellent!

Note re: the combining form "aster" -- it's from Greek, and means "star"; it's the root of such words as "asteroid," "asterisk," and "asterism," and it is the "star-shaped" flower that gave the Aster its name (IIRC).

Author's Response: Thanks for making my case about the name so much better than I did. I promise you upcoming chapters will have this little fly going where no fly has gone before.

Name: juniper (Signed) · Date: 02/07/12 17:19 · For: Twenty - Nine / Amos: SPEW's to You

Highly entertaining conversation! Would you please let us know if you have an updating schedule?

Author's Response: Glad you liked the conversation. There’s always so many details that were never fleshed out in canon and it’s so much fun to spin them out.

Don’t really have an updating schedule as such. My goal is to have the wait between chapters to be at about two weeks; although lately I haven’t been able to adhere to that very well. I do try to stay a number of chapters ahead of the curve, but sometimes putting the finishing touches on a chapter takes longer than expected. This last one that I just finished from Ron’s POV went through a whole slew of tweaks before I felt I’d captured his essence well enough to submit it. I admit Ron and Luna are the two characters that give me the most trouble when I try to get inside their heads. Dialogue is not an issue, but telling the story in their voices is a lot trickier.

Name: nevilleherosnape (Signed) · Date: 01/04/12 4:18 · For: Twenty - Eight / Amos: Champion of the Downtrodden

So very glad you updated!! Fantastic as always!!!

Author's Response: Hopefully, the updates won’t be so far between. So glad you’re sticking with the story.

Name: juniper (Signed) · Date: 01/03/12 2:46 · For: Twenty - Eight / Amos: Champion of the Downtrodden

Just saw your response - I'm relieved to hear that and with such quality writing can happily await the next chapter. Hope you're always busy with good events!

Author's Response: Thanks so much for the words of encouragement. Holidays mixed with a wedding in the family (no matter how far removed) is a recipe for an inevitable time crunch.

Name: juniper (Signed) · Date: 01/03/12 0:56 · For: Twenty - Eight / Amos: Champion of the Downtrodden

Great to see you continuing this story! I really enjoyed the dialogue.

Author's Response: I always worry that some chapters are too “dialog heavy”, so it’s a relief to hear that you’re enjoying it.

Name: Wolfs_Scream (Signed) · Date: 01/03/12 0:19 · For: Twenty - Eight / Amos: Champion of the Downtrodden

Heh. Why might I suspect that once Hermione gets over her initial self-doubt that Amos is going to be singularly impressed...? :-}

Nice note from Harry (to the Diggorys).

Quibble: Cedric wasn't the first victim of (self-styled) "Lord Voldemort." He was one of the earlier victims during the period after the First Wizarding War, though, as well as the first Hogwarts student from said period.

(Yes, laptop is repaired. :-})

Author's Response: There will definitely be more about Hermione and Amos in the next few chapters. You’re completely right about Cedric, of course, but I just couldn’t find the right set of words that didn’t turn into a long string (too long to fit on a medal of bravery). I struggled with that as I also wanted to focus on how his fellow school chums would see it. ‘Resurrection’ was too fraught with religious overtones, ‘first victim of second rampage’ was just plain awkward. In the end, I went back and edited it to: first victim of Voldemort’s return. Not as vivid a word as ‘rampage’ but more accurate, to be sure.

Thanks again for keeping me on my toes!

Name: juniper (Signed) · Date: 10/09/11 23:26 · For: One / Moody: Limbo

Great! But I'm getting worried about their relationship - please take us off the tenterhooks by next chapter!
Good luck with all your real life stuff!

Author's Response: Please don’t be too disappointed with the next few chapters as we’re catching up with Ron and Hermione at Hogwarts. I will promise you that the Harry/Ginny thing won’t drag out to the very end of the story, but right now those two need to cool off. And the story needs to massage some of the other characters towards their eventual fate in JKR’s Epilogue.

Real life stuff is all over, thank goodness. A wedding in the family is a huge uproar, even though I was only on the periphery of it.

Name: Wolfs_Scream (Signed) · Date: 10/05/11 13:40 · For: Twenty - Seven / Harry: London Bridge is Falling Down

[This will be brief, as I'm about to send my laptop off for repair....]

Excellent work! :-)

The interactions between Molly & Andromeda, as well as between Harry and either/both of them, are priceless!

And the type of pressure Harry finds himself under at present is more than just a touch different from what he had become "accustomed" to (as if anyone could become "accustomed" to having a powerful psychopath with a really big snake out to kill him...). I hope he (Harry) has a safety valve -- boiler explosions tend to be nasty. (There was a really big one in 1883, between Java & Sumatra -- nearly destroyed a smallish island & gave the world beautiful sunsets for the next 3 years from the volcanic dust in the atmosphere.)

Author's Response: Hopefully, your computer’s back from the shop by now. Or you’ve laid it to rest and upgraded.

I, too, enjoyed the thought of Harry now finding himself with a surplus of surrogate mothers. Some of my other stories explored surrogate father figures, but DH cut-off some of those avenues. Harry continues to find solace with Ron and Hermione and will find his intellect challenged in new ways in the upcoming chapters. Luckily, some of the thornier aspects of Auror training will allow him to vent his frustrations.

Name: nevilleherosnape (Signed) · Date: 10/03/11 11:28 · For: Twenty - Seven / Harry: London Bridge is Falling Down

Great job!!! Love it!!

Author's Response: So pleased you’re enjoying the story so far. Hope you’ll forgive me for the long delay; life is finally back on track and I have a number of new chapters ready to submit.

Name: juniper (Signed) · Date: 09/04/11 14:23 · For: One / Moody: Limbo

just letting you know i'm still reading!

Author's Response: So glad you haven’t given up on me. I’ve had entirely took much real life invade my private writing time lately. Not to mention the continuity problems that arose at the last minute with this next chapter. I’m beginning to think Peeves has moved into my computer. I hope he’s not jockeying for a chapter from his point of view, cuz this is just not the story for it.