Name: WeasleyMom (Signed) · Date: 10/21/13 20:48 · For: Nobility Lost

Ooh, what a little gem this fic is! You have a great take on Narcissa here. She's very stoic, which is how I always see her, and so methodically watching everything in her world that matters "freeze" while she waits... such a powerful image. I like the use of the color green (and the title, drought or not) to represent growth and health and money and honor and Slytherin... you've wound so much into it, and yet you stopped short of overdoing it. Well done.

She's such a complicated character, especially in HBP and DH, where we begin to see that maybe her family does trump her Slytherin values and her dedication to the Dark Lord. You've communicated that well, and the idea of her walkign around in those old party robes is such a tragic image, but seems like something she might do.

Your language is the real strength. "Honor is just a word." "All of it, dying." Really powerful writing, and I enjoyed reading very much. ~Lori

Author's Response: Thanks.

Name: Oregonian (Signed) · Date: 04/17/13 14:54 · For: Nobility Lost

This is an interesting story about a character who has always seemed ambiguous. Her sisters Bellatrix and Andromeda are presented as bad and good, respectively, but Narcissa is harder to characterize. Is she an actor or a victim? Passive or resolute? Responsible or not responsible? The author captures this ambiguity well as Narcissa waits, alone, pondering her past actions and re-examining her past beliefs and assumptions.

I am impressed by the author's ability to organize Narcissa's jumbled thoughts so coherently and by the way the different topics flow, one after another, so fluidly: her trepidation about her upcoming trial and its probably result, her conclusion that everyone has already written her off as a criminal, her realization that her former values were ignoble and her former friends were merely sycophants.

The author cleverly uses the word "green", the color of Slytherin House, to symbolize everything that Narcissa used to have and has now lost. Even her party gowns are literally green. But now, all that symbolically green world is gone, and by setting the scene in the snowy months of the year, the author lets the disappearance of the green plants in the garden under a blanket of snow represent Narcissa's final loss of everything that constituted her life: her family, her social group, her standing in the wizarding world.

A story with only one character, no dialogue, and almost no action is a challenge to write without becoming bogged down in general emotion and angst or overly flowery description. But this stream-of-consciousness piece works, sentence fragments and all (which don't bother me in the slightest, though some people do object). It represents a seven-month-long turning point for Narcissa, even though she cannot see into her future, which, whatever it turns out to be, will be utterly different from what she has ever known.

Author's Response: Thank you for the lovely review. I'm glad you liked it.

Name: Trucker (Signed) · Date: 08/13/12 0:40 · For: Nobility Lost

Exquisite!

Author's Response: Thank you!