matril

Okay, I'm feeling rather antsy right now, so I'm going to ramble for a bit. (Short story - my husband just took our son to the emergency room, not for anything serious or life threatening, but to see if we can do anything at all for this cough that just won't stop so he can get to sleep and actually get the rest he needs to get over the cough and....okay, not so short. Anyway.)

( Why Neville deserves lots of huggles )

Emerging from my cave at last, having spent the weekend feverishly reading the seventh book aloud with my husband, I will say first of all that I am satisfied. A fitting conclusion to an excellent series. I'm weepy, of course, that there are no more books to wait for and speculate about, and still kind of stunned at all the new information to absorb, but at the bottom of it all I'm satisfied.

Before I go off into a disjointed ramble on my reflections regarding the book, I'll just mention that the midnight bookstore party was a blast. The majority of attendents were kids, but there were still plenty of die-hard adult fans, including a group with fantastic costumes for Umbridge, Trelawny, and Hagrid (complete with a pink umbrella!). They had an arts and crafts thing to make your own wand, a guy performing Muggle magic ;) a costume contest, and of course The Great Snape Debate. I was amused to note that when we went to our respective sides, nearly all the adults ended up on the "friend" side (including a man in a very convincing Snape costume). Honestly I wasn't sure either way; I could see arguments for and against Snape's goodness, but I wanted him to be good, so I went on that side. The adults (including my very enthsiastic husband) had cogent, convincing arguments for Snape's innocence. The kids on the other side mostly argued, "But he's mean to Harry!! He takes points from Gryffindor!" Heh. There's plenty of deeper reasons to suspect his guilt, but for an eight-year-old, a mean teacher is bad and there's just no other way to see it. Anyway, we didn't reserve our copy in time, so we had the purple standby wristbands, but they assured us early on that there was no shortage, that everyone would certainly get a copy. And we did, albeit a little later than most other attendents, whom I watched enviously as they walked away with fat orange books clutched in their hands. At last, at last, we got our copy, and read the first chapter before the drive home. We read two more chapters before going to bed around 2:30 (my husband had work the next morning; otherwise we might not have slept at all). Then I waited restlessly all Saturday morning, my mind full of the first three chapters' contents, until my husband came home and we tore into the book again. We only paused to sleep, eat, and oh, right, pay attention to our children. No, we didn't neglect them....too much. Emma certainly knows the phrase Harry Potter now, though all she knows is it's something that keeps her parents very, very busy. :P We finished last night a little past midnight, and had to restrain ourselves from staying up for another hour or two just discussing it. So much to think about....

( Massive, giganto spoilers ahead )

This is probably my favorite fan video ever (shockingly, it's not Anakin/Padmé!). Unfailingly makes me weepy. And I just love, love that song being used for something other than romantic relationships. Sniffle. I'm probably in an especial mood to be woobly about Harry and his parents after movie five, but whatever the first movie's failings, that scene with the Mirror of Erised just tugs at me. When Harry puts his hand on his shoulder and there's nothing there....sob.

I've been musing about this topic, fandom-wise, ever since 2005 when we were presented with two troubling mother-deaths that bore a number of similarities.

( Padmé and Merope, and hey, let's throw in Lily and Shmi as well )

I'm going to attempt something tricky and try to get into a very evil, twisted mind....

( Cold Comfort )

It's evening, but it feels like the dead of night. Darn global tilt, making days so short in the winter. :P

( Resemblance )

Well, here goes. I haven't ventured much into Harry Potter fanfic, trying to hold out until Book 7 comes out and the canon is officially complete. But....a few drabbles can't hurt, right? :P

( A World Tomorrow )


Sheesh, two posts about pregnant women in a row. I seem to have a one-track mind lately...

Going along with my post from yesterday, I've heard the theory that like Books two and six parallel each other, so do Books 3 and 5, and theoretically Books 1 and 7, with GOF as the unique hinge in the middle. How much of the parallels are deliberate, I don't know, but I came up with a list for 3 and 5...I would be intrigued to do the same with 1 and 7, if it turns out that way.

( Another list )Whew! Well, that's all I can think of for now.

I swore up and down I wouldn't write any Harry Potter fics until after Book Seven came out, because I'm a stickler for canon and I'd hate to write stuff that would all have to be re-worked when the series was finished. But wouldn't you know, after HBP I got the idea for a scene, and it just wouldn't leave my head until I wrote it. I made it ambiguous enough that maybe, just maybe, it might still work at the end. I won't publish it before then, though.

And then this week I got another idea, and I just couldn't rest until I'd gotten it out. Aw, heck, I'll post it. Why? Because there's just not enough fics devoted to long-time, happily married couples. Too many hormone-crazed girls writing poorly disguised vehicles to play out their fantasies, while the "boring" relationships are too often ignored. Mind you, in my mind romantic relationships in general are just one thin slice of a lovely pie full of different kinds of relationships. I could write oodles of fics about my precious Neville and his parents...(back, plot bunnies! back, I say!!) but when I want do want to write something romantic, well, I'm all for the old marrieds. (because I'm talking romantic, and not NC-17 crap. Blech.)

So, with that prolonged intro/disclaimer/rant, here's a little ficlet.

( Mollywobbles )