You know, this wasn't anything like I expected, but I really liked it. I love your characterisation of Molly: how she seems all prim like Percy with her rules, but yet clearly there is another side to her completely that came undone at Scorpius' kiss, and the fear of the dark was a very cute little vulnerability.

And as for Scorpius, I utterly adored this charming, manipulative Scorpius who is the consummate Slytherin. Clearly though, seeing Carole's review, she has more sense than me because my first response wasn't to hex him at all - I was too busy joining Molly at going weak at the knees. But then I've always had an unfortunate weakness for caddish charm (kind of one of the reasons I love Gone with the Wind so much).

I may have to bug you until you write more of these two now, Jess.

~Hannah

Author's Response:

Lol, I think Carole's reaction was more because she has a daughter dangerously close to Molly's age. We're more inclined to swoon at his behaviour. There's no way to tell whether he truly is attracted to her or if he was just playing on her insecurity and innocence to get out of being caught by a REAL prefect. One will never know...

I might write this pairing again, but there are so many randomly random couples out there, waiting to have their stories told. For instance, Amelia/Augustus. I might do that one next, actually. :D

~Jess

Well, finally here is some much promised and much belated birthday reviewage for you, Jess. It's only two months late!

I always thought I wrote messed up Ravenclaws but you've really taken it to whole new levels here and made it work so well.

You already know that I adored this story the first time I read it (admittedly that's probably not quite the way to phrase it with a story this dark, but I did find it moving, compelling, stark and so haunting that it stayed with me for a long time afterwards), and now that Hollow Soldiers has filled in the back story for me, it just takes my breath away.

This story did leave me with questions originally, but of course those have all been answered now. What makes it even more powerful for me is that with Hollow Soldiers, you didn't just answer the obvious question of what happened to Lisa, but you answered what was to me the far more compelling question of what happened to Michael, and now that I know that, it makes the state he is in here both more comprehensible and more tragic.

It's a given that we agree that people would be thoroughly messed up after the events of DH, but even set against that backdrop, it intrigued me that Michael seemed so much more of a mess than those around him, and I wanted to know why. In the light of the backstory of Hollow Soldiers though, it now makes perfect sense for him to be in such a state.

The only thing I find myself not entirely sure about though in light of the events of Hollow Soldiers is why Lisa's death doesn't kick him straight back to rock bottom (well apart from  the fact that from a storytelling point of view it wouldn't fit with the theme of healing and second chances that you are working with; I mean from a psychological standpoint though). I know his guilt over Lisa is only half the story and there's what he did to Miles traumatising him too, but as he blames himself for what happened to Lisa, even though her eventual death was pretty much inevitable by this point, I'd have thought her death might have hit him harder than it did. He seems very together by the end and the reconciliation between him and Padma feels far more stable than just a grief-provoked need for intimacy, which is perhaps the response I might have found a little believable. I do understand why you shaped the ending the way you did though, because it achieves the hopeful themes of the fic, which a darker ending wouldn't.

I just love the way that you've made these characters all so flawed and self-loathing so that no one is truly sympathetic. It's a brave choice in a story to have no character whose choices the reader can entirely condone, but you make it work and I find myself caring about the characters even as I'm angry at them. Everyone seems too caught up in their own issues to be there for Lisa, and that is so tragically reflected in the way that they miss the final moments of Lisa's life. Michael has screwed up royally and dealt with things all wrong and is too caught up in his guilt over Lisa to think about her rather than himself; Anthony is so lost in his own self-righteous anger; and Padma even acknowledges that she is more caught up in her issues with Michael than her friend's death. Yet I still feel sorry for them all.

Also with Padma, I find it very sad that it felt to me that she was compromising herself somehow by taking Michael back and that she was aware of that but it was better than losing someone else. Their relationship might help Michael heal but I feel like it might be more damaging for Padma.

On a different note, I have to say that, despite the fact that I'm usually a huge fan of imagery and description (as you well know), I actually think the very stark way you tell this story is really effective. Stripping away all the frills lets the reader get straight to the cold, hard heart of the story. It's effective too that the only time you let imagery creep in is within the flashback because of course that would be burnt in vivid detail on Padma mind.

I love the symbolism of her walking across the broken glass. It's a great image on its own but by describing it as her walking across the strewn vestiges of her plans for their night, you elevate it to something more. I get a feel of her walking across the sharp-edged shards of her broken dreams. It's just tragic and beautiful.

Tragic and beautiful are perfect words to sum up the story in general actually, Jess dear. It's so dark and yet hopeful, and I really hope you write even more one day in this messed up little Ravenclaw universe you've created, because I can promise you that you'd have at least one avid reader.

~Hannah

Author's Response:

Lol, I have a weird relationship with reviews like this. They make me squee, but then I have no idea where to start answering them. Eep!

This fic was originally meant to leave questions unanswered but alluded to in passing. Sort of like how we might meet someone with a lot of problems on a bus or a train, see what we see, hear what we hear, and make assumptions about the rest. I didn't really think anyone would care so very much about why Michael was the way he was or what had happened to Lisa outside of knowing, "Oh, it was in the battle. Gotcha." In a way, though, this fic ends up being more of an addendum to Hollow Soldiers than the latter is a prequel to it (if that makes sense). 

The thing about Michael is that his eighteen-year-old self was a child fighting in a man's world, so sure that what he was doing was right until the real war started. Mentally, he was just so very unequipped to deal with everything that was going on, with the addition to essentially having two murders hanging over his head. It took his emotional development and arrested it. taking away his ability to move on and to properly heal. For him, though, his watershed moment, his moment of clarity, had been when Padma walked in on him with the hooker.  Up until that point, he'd been in a self-pity coma, not realising that in his own destruction, he was taking other people down with him. That was why he had distanced himself from Padma until she sought him out, because he was fairly certain that she was better off without him. It wasn't until Lisa's death, which served as a form of closure for him, that he finally came to terms with what he'd done in the past. He always cared deeply for Padma and found that, in allowing himself to love her, he had nearly wasted what they'd had. He finally saw that he needed to let himself be happy, because steeping himself in misery and self-destruction wasn't going to bring back Lisa or Miles. That's what I was going for in the end. But, as the story was in Padma's POV, these are perimeter concepts that sort of have to be inferred.Yes, he will always be that damaged man-child who killed someone before he truly knew what it meant to do that, but that man-child grew up finally.

I really like that you picked up on the idea that all of the characters were reprehensible in their own way. Sure, it was easy to single out Michael, but the rest of them played a part in his implosion, as well. Padma left him to rot because she took his iniquity as rejecting her rather than a side effect of the battle that she didn't even know about and never asked. Anthony was busy judging him, and Terry was just trying to be friends with everyone, but that didn't help anyone, either.

I really thought that a stark, no-nonsense narrative was more poignant toward what I was going for than prose that would likely have bordered on wangsty. Instead of being an after-school special, it was a raw, heart-felt memoir of a group of people who lost everything because they lost each other.

Hehe, I will admit, I was going for a bit of symbolism with the broken glass. It was meant to show that, despite how badly their relationship was broken, shattered if you will, she would always cross any distance for him and always would've done. As you mentioned, her continued relationship with Michael seems self-destructive, but in the end, he was all she really wanted. She never dated anyone when they were apart.

All in all, I really owe my love of screwed up Claws to you. Before we bumped into each other, I had no idea who Lisa Turpin really was in my head, and Michael was just a guy that I gave a son whose mother didn't matter who she was. Now, I know them like friends, I know their buttons that get pushed, and I know how far they can bend before they break. I'm just happy to be able to share them with you and that you can partake in their richness. 

Thank you for the lovely review. :)

~Jess / Your Rarepair Soulmate!

This will probably be totally incoherent, Jess, because I am just aghast at how amazing this story is. I had a truly shit day and to come home to find this and be lose myself with a glass of wine in such a wonderful story all for me was just the best pick-me-up imaginable.

I wondered when I read Azure not only what had happened to Lisa but also what had happened to Michael, because whilst I know we both agree that people were messed up post-battle, the level of Michael's screwed up-ness was exceptional so I wondered what had happened to him beyond the norm to take him there.

It makes total sense now why he goes on to make such a mess of everything. The combination of blaming himself for Lisa fighting and for killing Miles must have utterly torn him apart.

I'm intrigued by the deal with the curse on Lisa, that it kills her finally so much later. Is she in a coma-like state in the interim or does it just gradually weaken her.

Michael was the perfect viewpoint, and I loved how he had a genuine moral struggle with casting the cruciatus, which I was disappointed in Harry that he never seemed to face. It meant I had totally empathy with what it would do to him when he killed Miles. He wasn't a boy who could kill lightly, even in battle.

Urgh, and Miles was just vile. You did such a good job in making so deeply, unrepentantly unpleasant.

I just ... thank you! This is probably a really gushing, aimless ramble, but there was just so much I loved and I connected with this story so completely.

I totally love it, and you are fab!

*hearts you*

~Hannah

Author's Response:

Well, then, I'm glad the story's late as to afford you the best possible pick-me-up. :D

At first, I wasn't sure what I was going to write you for your birthday, but when I thought of your love of Ravenclaw angst, as well as the loose threads in AitS, it was obvious. I actually started this ficnearly a month ago, and my whining, bitching muse has just now deigned to let me finish it. At any rate, there you are.

The deal with Lisa is a curse that Voldemort himself had concocted for his minions' use, which is why Madam Pomfrey had no idea what it was or how to cure it. Ultimately, it also killed Lisa. She wasn't in a coma the whole time, but she went to St Mungo's after this incident and never left until she died. She had good weeks and bad weeks, ranging from a decent amount of lucidity to having 'relapses', where her vitals tank and they have to try like hell to save her. I should prolly name that curse, but I can't even rightly say what it does, lol. Baaaaaaaaaaaad author! Bad!

Michael, to me, has been one of the ones who, with different influences, could've been just like Miles. In true Claw fashion, he's convinced that he's nearly always right (which didn't help his relationship with Ginny) and likes having an element of control. This is why the DA worked so well for him, because he was less subject to first Umbridge and then the Carrows. But in the heat of battle, he loses that control he craves, and he doesn't like the person it makes him.

Miles was supposed to be a bit vile, but it was mostly him trying to goad Michael into making a mistake so he could capitalise. He never dreamed that his cousin would actually be able to kill him. No one ever said he was all that smart, hehe.

I'm glad you liked the story, and I'm so happy it was able to nurse your bastard day back to some semblance of health. I heart you much, and it's no mistake that we're both Gemini: two of a kind. :D

~Jess 

Why have I never read this before, Ariana? Because I was clearly always going to enjoy it. I'm not sure there's anything more up my street than a messed up, angsty rarepair after all, and you do write these sorts of emotionally heavy stories so well. It's compelling and heart-wrenching, but you keep it all very restrained. This is a couple who have been to hell and back, and the reader with them, but there isn't a hint of melodrama.

I think the opening paragraph is probably one of my favourite parts of the fic. It is so vivid and sensual and raw. It's clear Susan has gone from his life but she still has such a physical presence. It's as if the thought of her isn't haunting him so much as she is still there, even when she's not.

I love the way that you use description in this story to really heighten the emotions. I think that's what allows you to steer clear of melodrama, because you allow the reader to infer the characters emotions from the way you portray them rather than battering the reader around the head with who is feeling what. That opening paragraph shows the connection between the pair of them instantly and how passionately Theo feels, despite his laconic detachment that he shows through most of the story.

Another moment where you really heighten the emotion in such an understated way is the image of Susan spending nights out on the balcony with her hand resting absentmindedly on her stomach. It's so sad but yet beautifully subtle. It shows so well their isolation from each other and the clutching at something that's gone.

Also, I rarely tend to focus on word choice, but I have to just dwell briefly on the reference in that section to her staring out over the 'dirty' city. It's a single adjective that just strikes me as a really inspired addition as it offers so much. It somehow widens things so that the world seems broken in the wake of what's broken between Susan and Theo so that there's nothing of beauty left for them.

Maybe it's just because some sections, like those I've mentioned, had such intensity that anything would feel a little flat by comparison, but I just felt that sometimes the intensity flagged a little in places. It's really hard to keep up such intensity throughout a fic, but I feel like this is the sort of story where it would be possible and I genuinely believe you have the talent to do it, Ariana.

I think perhaps part of it is that, after the fantastic opening, you lapse straight into backstory, which takes away from that lovely immediacy that you created in that first paragraph. Obviously, this is the sort of story that requires backstory, but I wonder if perhaps, rather than giving it all in one go at the start, it might be a little more effective to break it up, weaving it through the present day narrative more and withholding some details until later in the story or even leaving a little more to inference. I just wonder if that might allow the early part of the story to be a little more pacy.

That said though, that section of backstory does give some real insights into Theo as a character. It shows his pragmatic and the defensive detachment that he wraps himself in. Perhaps, as well, that's another factor that allows you to avoid melodrama, because, whilst, as the opening paragraph shows, there is a lot of passion bubbling beneath the surface with him, he has an icy hard shell that he seems to try to prevent anything piercing. I love the line about a small part of his heart deflating a little because it is so very understated and very much the reaction of a man attempting to keep the world at arm's length. Similarly, there is an almost studied callousness to his reference to 'the baby incident'.

I think those elements of his characterisation really feed in to portraying the fragile state of their relationship and why they fall back together but also why Susan still has to leave and they have to heal apart. I did find myself though wondering what brought them together at the start and held them together before things fractured. I assume that is probably explored in your companion piece, but I wonder if perhaps a little allusion at least to that would just make this story stand alone a little better. Whilst it makes sense on it's own and it's easy to connect to the characters, I felt like perhaps the emotions would be even more powerful than they already were if I had a little more idea of what it was that was shattering between them rather than just how.

So fittingly, I'll end with the ending, which I thought suited the story perfectly in its unresolved state. I wasn't frustrated by its ambiguity; it felt right. Hope was what they needed to be left with. It would have been too hard an ending to pile yet more misery on them but they weren't ready for a happy ending yet either. It was the perfect end to a very accomplished story.

~Hannah

Author's Response: Thank you so much for this review! I didn't think this story would be getting any more, to be honest, and I'm incredibly happy that you stopped by. I am also glad you liked the story, overall. This was such a lovely review because everything you said - even, actually, especially the crit - rings so true. I'm thinking about starting a chaptered fic/follow up on Susan and Theo sometime, and so hopefully that will give more insight into their relationship background. I realize now, as I read back, that the beginning moves kind of slowly because of the whole explanation thing, and not reading the companion piece makes this a difficult standalone.

I have to start by saying I really enjoyed this brief little insight into how damaged anyone and everyone could be by the Battle, Carole. I think you've packed a lot into a very short piece, and I love the way your choice of characters shows how everyone could be messed up by what happened from the most central participant in the Battle to someone like Parvati who might sometimes be passed over as peripheral.

I think you've done a great job at giving Parvati depth and negating that silly, feckless image her and Lavender so often get tarred with (and I do love the little aside about Lavender being concerned for her despite her own poor health). Of course they have to have more than just the silly, giggly girls people sometimes dismiss them as to stay and fight.

In fact, the bulk of this review I think is likely to be devoted to Parvati's section of the story because in some ways I found that the richest and most satisfying.

I thought the opening was really effective and it was a clever choice to delay naming Parvati until the second paragraph. There's no mystery of course because we know who the girl is from the summary, but by not naming her, it gave the first paragraph a much more universal feel: the girl is just one more tragic, lost woman walking the streets of London.

It's a good choice of opening setting too because London can sometimes be such a faceless, empty place to be feeling alone, and the feeling of Parvati being alone in a crowd is much more powerful than her being on her own and feeling alone.

I find Parvati's guilt more compelling for its complexity too since you didn't take the obvious route of having her just feeling guilty for not being able to save Padma. Her guilt for not feeling Padma die and for not being a suitable replacement to her sister's friends is so much more subtle and hence, I tend to think, more interesting. Also, it's clearly not healthy that she is spending so much time with the Ravenclaws and trying to replace Padma, but it feels totally understandable.

It's a brave choice not to shy away from the horrors of war and the reference to Padma being trampled is horrific, but the glancing references you make to it are more effective than lingering would have been. You give just enough for it to be distressing without being nauseating.

I think generally actually that balance between giving the key detail that makes the scenes feel real, allowing an emotional connection beyond just reciting the characters' thoughts, and not letting the detail bog the story down or become cloying is very well handled. 

The only area I felt myself craving a little more detail, was Harry's brief scene. I couldn't really connect with him there, even though the isolation he felt made sense. It wasn't the brevity as such that just made it not quite work for me, but more, I think, the lack of physicality in that scene. All we get in Harry's scene is his thoughts and no connection to the world around, which just didn't quite fit with the very real-world-rooted feel of the rest of the fic for me.

Particularly, when in contrast in the final scene, you go onto a description of Parvati's gin and tonic that was sufficiently compelling to really make me fancy a gin and tonic (it's probably a little early in the day though so I probably ought to give it a miss), and I love how the bitterness and sharpness seem to parallel her feelings.

I think my favourite moment though in that final scene, for its raw power, is the brief discussion of how there's always tomorrow, and I love how you pare that little section down to its essentials and really highlight it with the change in pace to short, choppy paragraphs.

I think in someways though, the ending is perhaps the most powerful concept in the story. I think you mentioned in reply to one of the other reviews about this being a 'doomed' ship and I think it becomes totally clear at the end what cross-purposes they are at. Of course it could never be more than it is here, because they need such contrasting things from each other: Parvati needs to feel again and Harry needs not to feel anymore.

Well, this story has certainly got me thinking, Carole, and I'm really glad I read it.

~Hannah

Author's Response: Thank you very much for such a wonderful review. I fear my response will not live up to it. :).

I do get, totally, what you say about the Harry scene. I think his part is far too brief, and I might possibly rewrite this to include some more about him, but, in truth, I wanted this to be more about Parvati beause as you say, she's so often dismissed as a silly giggling girl. Extending Harry's part would have made this much longer and I was kind of on a frenzied mission to just capture a certain moment.

The twin aspect was something I always wanted to explore. They must have been very different girls to be in different houses, so I wanted to show that. And Padma's face - yes - far too often we hear about scars and a slight marring of someone's face, but to be trampled on, or to see the mirror of your face smashed is something I wanted to explore. George loses an ear, but really he's still George who looks like Fred. Parvati's face is still perfect; in death her sister's wasn't.

Thanks again. Much appreciated. ~Carole~

There's something so elegant about this story. I think perhaps it's the simplicity. I want to say the raw simplicity, but it isn't raw; it's measured and retrained and subtle, and it's that very restraint that enthrals me and leaves this story haunting me.

I think a large part of that is the style and specifically the way you've used the present tense. So often, with present tense, everyone always seems to talk about its immediacy and the way it hooks you into the action, but for me, the present tense works best the way you've used it here: with that sort of cold remoteness as if the present moment is all there is because both past and future are too painful or precarious.

There's a sparseness to your prose, and it makes it into something beautiful because the rare moments of imagery and metaphor really shine against the bare backdrop.

The remoteness of the tone beautifully mirrors the relationship between Severus and Remus as if Remus keeps the reader at arm's length the same way Severus does to him.

I have to confess: it's not a pairing that I would normally consider to be believable at all because they are two characters with such differing values and so much to keep them apart, and yet here I never even questioned them being together at all. It felt totally natural for them to be together. They just are and it's undeniable. I think a part of that is that you never seek to justify them as a couple, and so I just accepted them together because that acceptance of them runs through the entire narrative itself. You don't need to pontificate about why Remus loves Severus or how much because it's so painfully clear in his actions, and how he stays despite how hard that is, that he does and ultimately why or how they got together feels meaningless compared to the power of his staying.

I can completely see how the renewed sense of purpose when the students come back in September would refresh Severus and start to thaw him. He doesn't like students much but at the same time, teaching at least keeps him busy and stills the incessant accusatory chatter of his mind. Similarly, I like how you draw out that he withdraws in October and then allows Remus back in once the horror of his recollections of Halloween has passed. It would be very like Severus to push someone who dares to care for him away when he is hurting most, and it would never occur to Severus that Remus too would struggle with the anniversary of the Potters' deaths and that perhaps his lover might need him then or that they could help to support one another to it.

I do find myself wondering though why Severus' mood should dip so drastically into spring in particular. Perhaps I'm missing some subtle point, but it doesn't seem quite so clear cut to me, and whilst mostly I really liked the way this story didn't slow itself down with explanations, that is one point on which I just found myself wishing for a little clarification.

That said though, I do like the contrariness of Severus withering as the world comes back to life.

I want to know more: I want to know why Remus loves him so much that he stays even when at best Severus' response to him is mediocre; I want to know why Severus' year follows the pattern it does; and most of all I want to know if Severus really does love Remus in return. But I don't need to know any of those things, and it's a real testament to your story I think, that it leaves me with more questions than answers, but in the best possible way.

~Hannah

I tend to be most interested by characters who don't get written about very often, so I loved reading about Cormac here, Maple, and I thought the pairing was really original and interesting (which was generally what I loved most about the Cotillion - the variety and originality of the pairings).

Normally, I'm not much of a fan of cross-gen pairings, because I find it hard to comprehend what a couple could have in common when they are in such different points in their lives. I can see the attraction of someone older for the younger half, but I'm rarely persuaded as to why the older party would have any interest in someone so much younger. You make it work here though in the way you characterise Cormac. He strikes me as the sort of man who never grew up and lives off of the back of his past 'glories'. I get the impression that Lily's interest makes him feel young and like he's still 'got it', so it doesn't feel at all out of character when he offers only the briefest resistance to her advances.

I really like the boldness that you give Lily. It very much shows her to be her mother's daughter and makes sense for a girl with two older brothers. She deserves a better man than Cormac though, and I really hope, now that she's obtained the unobtainable, the thrill wears off quickly for her.

Her friendship with Emma is nicely worked and the two balance each other well - Lily's adventurousness against Emma's level-headedness. It's clear that they both bring something to the friendship, which is a clever dynamic on your part to have worked out.

In some ways though, I find myself wishing that the story had focused a little more on the interaction between Lily and Cormac and a little less on Lily and Emma. A lot of the development of the story occurs through Lily's discussions with her friends and as much as I did enjoy that, I found myself craving the immediacy of seeing the interaction between Lily and Cormac rather than having it reported. There is a definite chemistry between them in the final scene in his office, and although I could understand on an intellectual level how that could have built through the time they spent together, I'd have loved to have seen a couple more scenes in which that really built and intensified, so that I could have connected to it on a more emotional level.

There's a very fun feel to some parts of the story; I particularly loved the awkwardness of Lily having had a crush on Neville. It left me torn between laughter and cringing and seemed to sum up so much of the awkwardness of being a teenager.

The opening of the story did feel a tiny touch flat to me though, and I found myself wishing that there was just a little of that later fizz in the first few paragraphs. Your version of Lily has such spark as a character that I'd have loved to have seen that at the outset.

This story was a really fun and different take on the usual next gen romances, Maple, and I'm very glad I read it.

~Hannah

Author's Response: Thanks for the lovely review! I really like the idea of having more Lily/Cormac scenes. I definately want to write a sequel :) And your comments have now made me want to write a Lily/Neville (which was the pairing I wanted in the first place)... Haha, thanks :) Maple