FanficTalk Archive
Unleash Your Fandom
ah, i love that the eyes had a code in which boring actually meant urgent, it’s nothing fancy or anything but idk, it’s a thing teenagers would definitely say and most people wouldn’t blink an eye at it while at the same time to them it meant a lot.
oh my god this line: ‘school got it when snape offed the old sod’ is just pure gold, you gotta love bulstrode, she’s so…blunt and snarky and ugh! love to see it. but great thinking on using the pensieve to figure out what exactly theo read in that letter while they were questioning him.
but bulstrode keeps getting better and better this is amazing, i love that she’s using bureaucracy and not getting paid and again, bureaucracy, to get rid of madame pince from the restricted section and actually the entire library. it’s brilliant.
okay so someone definitely kidnapped goyle and the mystery thickens and we still don’t know anything but i am excited to find out more!
daphne and her supposed reasons (i don’t particularly trust any of the slytherins and don’t think she would tell neville the whole truth..) are interesting to say the least but they also make sense and i love where you took her character.
and this: ‘we let them go, and we benefitted, and they paid.’ i feel like is also a super interesting look on what happened with regards to the eyes and the slytherins who joined up with the death eaters or else just openly supported them and voldemort and it’s like..kinda mind-blowing
kris / ss voyager
Author's Response:Hi Kris! Back for more!
Yes, with the codes I use in this story, I decided it needed to be pretty simple. A one-word verbal cue for the eyes would have been essential. They could mention how bored they are offhandedly while passing in a crowded hallway, and then meet up somewhere to deal with urgent matters. The letter codes did have to be a bit more complicatd, just so someone casually readiing the letter couldn't pick up on it, but the main thing is that it's strictly self-contained and non-magical.
Yeah, Bulstrode doesn't waste her breath. I love fanficition for being able to reimagine works and see different paths books could have taken. What if in the Prophecy the "power that the Dark Lord knows not" isn't LOVE, but BUREAUCRACY? Imagine the possibilities! Why even now, Bulstrode has taken over the schedule, payroll and complaints. Next on her list is probably budget and hiring. Before you know it, she will be completely unstoppable. Decades later, trembling citizens will whisper to each other "how could we have been so blind" as they carry their yearly smoked-meats tribute to the Troll Queen of Great Britain.
Regarding the Slytherins, this very much ties into my theme of getting below the surface morality of the books/looking at things from another viewpoint. Dumbledore's plan required that Snape really abdicate his responsibility to his own students. (I have him in another story asking McGonagall what she would have done if she knew that one of her students was planning to join Voldemort. Because the plan required him to not oppose it or even encourage it.) He knew that Voldemort was especially cruel and deadly to his own followers, so there was a good chance that these kids who were getting recruited could be tortured or killed. For the benefit of the cause, he let them or encouraged them. And even though that was part of Voldemort's defeat, what is their repayment? Ruined lives. Stacked against that viewpoint, you can pit their free will in joining a death cult, (but its probably good to temper that with how easy it is for a teenager to get sucked into a cult, especially when their family is part of it.) I think you can have a nice meaty debate on this, it's just frustrating to me how the original series doesn't seem to touch it at all.
Thank you so much!
Mottsnave
neville’s grandmother being a bit of a firebug cracks me up honestly. but also your descriptions of how they celebrate yule were really nice, and they brought a certain holiday atmosphere to the first part of the chapter, despite this story definitely not being a holiday story, it was still just nice to read that!
sadly draco was unable to help neville, but i had fun reading their conversation - it’s odd to see them not at each other’s throats and such but great!
the fact that someone apparently wrote a third letter to theo’s father and in theo’s handwriting and using the code that goyle came up with in azkaban with crabbe’s father is definitely suspicious, especially because they haven’t been smart enough to know that theo would probably never write a letter like that, in that tone…bad luck he didn’t manage to get a good look at the letter (or did he?) - it’ll definitely be interesting seeing if he manages to decipher it!
and then…benedict crabbe commits suicide almost right after goyle goes missing after contacting him in azkaban, i suspect this is not a regular suicide and all of these things are connected…i mean…they have to be because so many coincidences just aren’t a thing :o
kris / ss voyager
Author's Response:Hi Kris!
Yes, I had a lot of fun with this chapter. I'm kind of using both the humor and the holiday atmosphere here for the same purpose to contrast with the darker themes of the story. This will come up again later on as we get closer to Yule too. I'm glad you liked the Yule details and the conversation with Draco! Draco is once again letting Neville in to some of the Slytherin 'culture', like Daphne.
Is everything connected and is there a dark underbelly running beneath everything in this story? Well, it is a noir, so...
Thank you so much!
Mottsnave
Hi, Mottsnave. I must apologize for having to admit that it takes a Review Drive to get me back into reviewing your noteworthy stories.
It will be interesting to see how you craft a story using Neville Longbottom as the protagonist instead of Severus Snape. The two men are so different in personality. And you depict Neville as still being rather diffident, even at the age of roughly 23 and after having been in the Auror ranks for a couple of years before returning to Herbology academia. It seems that his only value to the 'eyes' right now is his 'in' with the Auror department.
I ask myself why the other Slytherins are so solicitous of Goyle's well-being, since he never seemed to be particularly talented or useful to any group of which he was a member. I suppose that it is simply because he is a Slytherin, and they protect their own.
I did wonder what the masonry structure was that we saw in the opening of this chapter, and it was not completely clear to me that it was a bridge until the train went over it. Very nice description of that moment, by the way. A vivid scene. You say at the beginning of the chapter that the time of day was twilight as Neville goes to the Hogs Head Inn, and that the term had just ended. Yet the train, the last Hogwarts Express out for the winter holidays, is just now headed for London. Of course the train is not obliged to leave the school in the morning -- I just had always gathered that it had done so. If it is leaving in the evening this time (and evening comes early in northern Scotland in winter), it might arrive in London in the middle of the hours of darkness, very early in the morning. I would be interested to hear your concept of this particular train schedule. :) But I'm glad that you did it this way because it provides drama to an otherwise tightly-composed situation -- the people huddled on discarded funiture around an outdoor fire. I wondered why the discarded furniture had been thrown down the slope under the bridge, and whether that placed this scene close to Hogsmeade.
Well, we have just the beginnings of a mystery story here, so I shall continue on. Your stories are always full of unexpected twists. I enjoy reading them, though I think my favorite will always be The New Skin!
Vicki
Author's Response:Hi Vicki! It's great to hear from you! No worries, I've been buried and haven't been even able to read any stories in ages. I know you've left several reviews, but I'll have to reply over a few days based on my work schedule.
One continuity note, I don't have Neville in this storyline ever having been an auror. I tend to stick to only book canon (I do get a little loose with that at imes, I admit) and I think that was from a JKR interview. I try to avoid her interview content, I think it often feels off from the book characters. I had Harry and Ron take the auror route, which was from an interview as well, but it felt to me like there was a little more basis for it in the books after they had that career assesment thingy. My subjective interpretation of Neville, I don't think he'd go the auror route. I don't really spell this out explicitly in these first couple of chapters though, but it's heavily implied as the story goes on that he has no auror training, he's just been in herbology since the war.
The other timeline thing in this chapter... yes, I think there's probably a Hogwarts express run earlier in the day for most of the students, but there's still all the support staff left wrapping up their paperwork, and any students whose parents or guardians can't pick them up unitl later. They defiinitely need a moody night train full of symbolic signifigance to start off the hols right. The Slytherins are the ones who put the furniture under the bridge of course. It's one of their hobbies, stealing furniture from the other Houses and putting it to disgraceful purposes. The Slytherins' motives with Goyle are going to be examined a couple of times through the story. Hey, it's a noir, you probably shouldn't take anything anyone says at face value.
Thank you so much! I did have a lot of fun with the imagery in this chapter, I'm glad you liked it!
Mottsnave
hmmmm neville suggesting that he should go to snape for help with goyle has to be the most surprising thing i’ve read in this story so far, mostly because i’m so used to neville being scared of and/or hating snape with a passion so it’s refreshing to see him not being like that, which obviously makes sense considering he’s an adult who has been through a war. but the mere idea is kinda iffy. i don’t particularly like snape and don’t think he should ever have been allowed to actually work as a teacher but dumbledore and his plans…he never cared much for how they would affect others.
but omg what a coincidence that neville worked at a research lab where snape is supposedly also hiding out, that’s useful at least :o
i really feel for harry - him desperately wanting for the prophecy to be true, for dumbledore’s plan to have been one hundred percent right, everything playing out as it had to…for him to think otherwise means that a lot of his life was spent in pain and hurt because of something that wasn’t true. and that really fucking sucks for him.
it was morbidly funny when snape was all like ‘grossman get him out’ multiple times up until neville mentioned goyle going missing and then he was like ‘grossman get out’ lololo
kris / ss voyager
Author's Response:Hi Kris! Back to answer some more of your lovely reviews!
Part of the groundwork for Neville's attitude towards Snape here is from a previous story of mine, The Good Friend, where they had a post-war encounter. So it's not totally fair to expect a reader to just accept that. I did try to lay out a little of that groundwork back in the third chapter, but at the same time, I did't want to just reproduce the whole conversation, so it was just Neville alluding to that past meeting. I think the core of it is him telling Harry, that while Snape hadn't completely changed or apologized, he had talked to them honestly and his actions and attitudes weren't really about them. And also that maybe he's just someone who just can't totally change or apologize. This comes up again in a later chapter with Neville talking about how people sometimes can't give you what you need. I think Neville is the perfect character to see a little beyond the surface of people. He is someone who can look past personal dislike of someone if he needs to. Plus, I'm not sure if he could think of anyone else who might care enouugh about Goyle to help.
Yeah, the research lab isn't a total coincidence, it's something that was established in those previous stories. Lets just say that Snape may have had a small role in Neville getting that research position, despite himself.
The cnversation with Harry is the real heart of this chapter for me. More food for the theme of the internal cover-ups that most of the characters have. Harry's cover up has a few things in common with Goyle's.
Thank you so much!
Mottsnave
i have to say how adorable neville is. maybe an awkward word to use to describe a grown man but the fact that he gets anxious when he sees hogwarts only now that he’s an actual teacher when he didn’t get that way even when the carrows were ruling the school and just because of his students and the dangers they somehow end up putting themselves in is,,,there’s not other word for it. he’s adorable and *good* and that’s great, i am so so very glad that the war didn’t manage to damage that wonderful part of neville.
oh my god i once again cackled at bulstrode rearranging history lessons to be in a different classroom so binns just ends up teaching an empty classroom while the actual students get a live professor lololo
also his lil errr idk what to call it…with bulstrode? was funny. i love her character and how she’s just,,,,,nah, i’ll thump you if you speak of my super secret spying business ever again pls go away thnx bye also all your administrative requests from now on are denied, enjoyy
daphne’s thoughts on everything in life being a game is something i loved reading, i know it’s really different to how neville is used to thinking about life so her perspective is super fresh and very,,,reactive? if that makes sense? anyhow i loved it. especially considering the way she came up on how exactly to distract people and get information.
lololo tiresias sounds fun fun funnnnn a+++
daphne in general sounds amazingly fun
and her games
:D
kris / ss voyager
Author's Response:Hi Kris!
Yeah, like I mentioned in the last review reply, Neville's anxiety kicks in when he has a chance to overthink. Back in the days of the Carrows, they were very much up against a wall and had to just act. Now, as a teacher, he has time to think. It's not great for him. Having an outside enemy to fight against is easier in some ways than fighting your own thoughts.
Bulstrode is another Slytherin character who doesn't get a lot of page time in canon, so that left me with a lot of scope to have fun fleshing out her character. One of the only things we get to see her do in canon is put a beatdown on Hermione in duelling club. That might be the kernel that I grew into the unstoppable force that is Bulstrode. Thanks for saying you love her character but definitely don't let her hear that because she'll thump you extra for that.
I've always had this conception of Slytherins as games-players, it's kind of a running theme in a lot of my stories. In this incarnation, Daphne's game also ties into the cover-up theme. After all, it's kind of variation on the game that Theo's Grandpa played. Both of the games give you the ability to separate you from traumatic events, but of course there is a cost.
The tiresias game though? No cost, all benefit. Slytherins have the best parties.
Thank you so much for all your lovely reviews! I'll try to get some more replies in the next couple of days as my work schedule allows!
Mottsnave
i am intrigued by Good Faith - is it just made on word or is it a real magical contract? kinda like an unbreakable vow but obviously not that?
also i think it’s great that some of the slytherins (or lol most of this group of slytherins?) is doing some kinda sketchy stuff because your worldbuilding on that front is great and it’s a different and original take on the magical world i don’t see often in fanfic.
bulstrode is so very no-nonsense type of person and just loving knowing literally what everyone is doing all the time (thinking about that overtime form she instituted at hogwarts!) and i love it?? like i love how all these slytherin characters are a group but they’re all super unique and it makes for an amazing ensemble cast of characters because they’re all so interesting!
(also zabini telling her she actively hates fun made me laugh)
OH MY GOD I CACKLED
THERE WERE TWO OF THEM, I KNOW IT!
GLOFF IS THE BEST ELF OUT THERE I’M DYING AT HIS ATTEMPT AT DESCRIBING THE WOMAN GOYLE WAS WITH IT’S HILARIOUS
okay draco looking for dirt in europe and selling it to theo has me all??? what is happening with that
and neville-as-goyle is a really funny mental image especially when he meets stan shunpike and decides to just kinda…grunt and nod because wtf would goyle do
oh no no no when that dmle officer figured out that neville had drunk polyjuice potion, that was really bad and i have to read further to find out what happened but i had to stop and comment that neville was only worried for, like, other people who helped him, especially theo and that’s just,,,neville is an amazing human being that’s all.
but then neville seems to have become an amazing liar as well lollol that cover story was a++++
kris / ss voyager
Author's Response:Hi Kris!
Most of my other stories are in the same "universe" as this one and are connected in various ways. The Good Faith is something I came up with for some of my Snape-centric stories. After, as a despicable dark wizard, he spends a lot of time in shady dealings on the dark market. I figured that dark makreters probably need some kind of magically binding contract that's a little short of an Unbreakable Vow. These folks are way too self-interested to sign up for sudden death if they need to break a contract, but they need something to be able to get on with business. I know you've already read more details about how they work later in the story.
I had a lot of fun with this chapter, because we really get to see all of our main characters in action and the different ways they operate. Yes, a lot of Slytherins have ended up dark market adjacent. I could see in post-war Britain, it could be pretty hard for some of them to land legit jobs. Especially if they happen to share a last name with a prominent Death Eater.
For this story, I was interpreting Neville is someone who has a bit of a problem with anxiety when he starts overthinking things, but when he's up against it and just has to act immediately, he'll jump in sword swinging. When he needs to lie at short notice, he'll get it done.
I'm so glad you liked Gloff! You might enjoy rereading his description now that you've reached the end of the story ;)
Thank you again!
Mottsnave
omg neville randomly showing up at harry and ginny’s home and then ron and hermione coming over with take-out and basically all of them forcing him to tell them what was wrong and what was going on was kinda hilarious in this admittedly dark-ish story, i like how you write some humour into it, makes for a nice contrast with what else is happening.
especially funny was how worried neville was about approaching just harry and then ending up telling all of them about goyle and all of them jumping in to help. well, ron needed a little persuading but it was nice to see how ginny stood up for the eyes, because she’s right, the golden trio didn’t know what it was like during that terrible year at hogwarts and slytherins who sneak about to help them was as much help as outright resistance! but i love that they all had advice on what to do, hermione made me laugh out loud when she said she always has some polyjuice potion lying around because…lol that’s so her!
the fact that they end up turning to draco for help makes this whole thing even better hah (especially his comment ‘well, i haven’t got him’ because it’s wonderfully snarkily funny)
also love harry’s lil obsession with draco malfoy continuing on from their school days. makes for funny teasing from ginny :P
kris / ss voyager
Author's Response:Hi Kris!
This was a hard chapter for me to write - I almost always stick to the Slytherins, so it was kind of a stretch for me to write all of these Gryffindors! But I ended up having quite a bit of fun putting them in this nice cozy sudden dinner party. And again, I was trying to go back to this theme of looking past the black and white morality and characterization of the books. The trio was almost our only viewpoint in the books, but Ginny is here to remind us that there were things that they never saw. I'm definitely setting up a little contrast between certain characters who may be a little stuck in their viewpoints since the war and those who have changed a bit more.
And yes, thank you for mentioning that about using humor for contrast! I think having humor gives a nice variety to the atmosphere and treats the reader, but importantly it makes the dark parts a little darker too.
Thanks so much for your perceptive reviews!
Mottsnave
i love your characterisation of theodore nott here, he’s super cunning and resourceful, having all his money in muggle banks and a muggle trust fund and living in muggle london, making sure that the ministry wouldn’t keep tabs on him is smart thinking, and the way he looks at every little thing from numerous angles and looking at every possible option is also super impressive - like when he’s thinking how they would put up goyle and what to do with him in general.
it was interesting to see this glimpse into theo’s life with goyle before he disappeared, they were both pretty miserable. knowing that theo’s grandfather fought in the second world war and managed to change for the better for theo which in turn caused theo’s own dad to get jealous of theo is..complicated but also i think kinda understandable?
anyhow goyle is a terrible roommate to have since his fits of anger result in broken records <.< but i liked seeing how theo could understand goyle’s explanation as to why he joined the death eaters. like, it’s not a great explanation or anything, but i thought it added another layer to theo’s character that he was willing to listen.
the coded letter and goyle disappearing two weeks later has me eyeing that whole thing very suspiciously!
kris / ss voyager
Author's Response:Hi Kris!
I had a couple of purposes in this chapter. One main one was to set up the characters of Goyle and Nott. Goyle in canon is really not much more than a cardboard cutout. I wanted him to be more real, and someone who the audience could at least percieve as a human being, even if you can't really sympathize with him since he's still a bigot and a bully. Theo in canon gets hardly any details at all, except that he can see thestrals and tends to lurk around under the radar. I decided to lean into that under the radar trait and give him a backgtound to feed into that.
My other main purpose is to start setting up the main theme of the story. There are some literal cover ups that will happen, but more important are the internal cover ups that most of the main characters are pulling on themselves. You might spot a couple of examples here.
Yes, all of this is very suspicious. Heck, it's a noir story, best not to believe anyone at any time. They've all got cover-ups running.
Thank you so much!
ah you know i loved inconclusive evidence so this sort of sequelish story to that made me all excited when i realised it existed!
i love what you did with the slytherins here, i mean they're the same slytherins from the previous story except older and meaner and tougher if that was even possible, but i feel like you are really doing their characters and their characterisation justice!
the start of this noir-ish story is super interesting with the introduction of neville owing theodore nott/the eyes for what they did during that awful year at hogwarts and how the slytherins are so very reluctant to ask for help from anyone outside of their circle, it's so very fitting with slytherin house. but they have no other choice, do they?
the fact that it's goyle who is missing and they gave him a place to stay and a job despite them not liking him or anything but sort of doing it for the greater good also makes so much sense when you take into account slytherin culture - i love that you really emphasised that here!
this was a great first chapter and i'm excited to see how neville fares with this lil ragtag group of slytherins!
kris / ss voyager
Author's Response:Hi Kris! Thank you so much for the review!
I'm glad the Slytherins' characterization felt consistent to you - there was a gap of several years between the writing of the two stories, so I wasn't sure I pulled it off.
I had a few inspirations in writing this story,but a big one was to present a different take on Slytherin House than the very black and white portrayal we get in canon. Somewhere far below the surface of what we see at Hogwarts, they have their own culture and motivations. Neville is a Gryffindor, but he has I think a little more capacity for picking up on the nuances than some of the other Gryffindor characters, so he makes a good bridge for the audience into this world.
Thank you again for the lovely review! I see that you have left me a bunch more for the rest of the story, but it may take a couple of days for me to get a response up to all of them, based on my work schedule.
Mottsnave
Fantastic so far, I'm really loving this plot and the mystery. The effigy was a surprising twist, and I really like your headcanons about how magic works -- like the whole representing the part and vice versa, and how Crabbe's death allowed Nott the power to escape and animate the effigy.
Thank you so much for entering the challenge, and I look forward to seeing this story continued!
Melanie
Author's Response:Hi Melanie!
I came up with a definition of Dark magic a few years ago, since I kind of needed it for some spell mechanics in my other stories. It's based on how folk magic traditions tend to work in various cultures, and it fits in decently well with the tiny glimpses of dark magic we get in the books. I also wanted to use it to give magic more of a natural evolution and development over time, like other human technologies, so that light magic spells that are taught at Hogwarts are much easier and faster to cast than most dark magic. If you're interested in that sort of thing, I go into more detail in my story A Short History of Magic.
Hey, thank you so much for setting the challenge! Noir is one of my favorite genres ever, and the challenge was the perfect thing to get me in gear and finally start posting this story! The rest of the story is written, I'm just typing/editing/polishing as I go, so I've been posting a chapter roughly every-other week. I'm about a chapter behind here where I am on FFnet and AO3, since it takes a little while for me to get things formatted and through the queue. The whole work will have about 17 - 18 chapters, depending how I split them up.
Thank you again for all the excellent reviews, and happy reading!
Daphne is complex and I am loving her. Also I was thoroughly engrossed in that whole discussion of the debts and balances and dark vs light magic.
Felt so bad for Neville as this took a bad turn at the end, but also sort of for Daphne as well when you could hear her getting angry/offended and then disappointed. I like how a big part of her character is a refusal to be controlled, even if she's going about it in a way we think of as immoral/unethical. I really loved when she made that point about men who gain power who always then start deciding to control and use women and that was the tipping point for her, because she wasn't going to be handed out like a prize by anyone to anyone.
Also I am rolling over how much control Bulstrode has over the school admin and faculty and how totally corrupt her little admin office is -- of course all complaints go through her so she has no reason to care.
Melanie
Author's Response:Hi Melanie!
Yes, things went a bit south for Neville and Daphne, didn't they? A big disappointment from Daphne's point of view. She was very much enjoying playing games with Neville, and he really seemed like he was enjoying it too. He was talking to her like a human being, they were interacting as equals, and then all of a sudden he's acting morally outraged and trotting out the most tired, boring, overused anti-Slytherin insult and accusing her of being a liar when she'd been very upfront with him all along. It's as if they'd been having a very nice game of chess, and then the minute she takes his queen he's crossing his arms and accusing her of cheating. Not a good look. But on Neville's side, it's one thing for Daphne to play mind games with Slytherins, who are always up for that kind of thing, and it's tacitly consented to on a daily basis. But if she's going to go around just using anyone and everyone as her personal playthings, some of them are going to end up feeling betrayed and used. That's something she needs to expect too.
Yes, I definitely wanted Daphne's motivations to join the eyes not be that it was the 'right' thing to do. To her, right and wrong is completely beside the point. Her freedom is most important. For Bulstrode, she's all about power. And she's been singlemindedly consolidating her power in Hogwarts for the past few years. Look at her now: she controls the payroll and the schedule and reports and complaints. She is going to take over, and there's not a thing anyone can do about it. She is an immovable object and an unstoppable force.
Thank you again!
And Gran shouting back that she ought to go haunt a Tesco's for all the good she was at it. Then after another brandy, Gran would get a bit maudlin and promise Neville that she would haunt him properly when she was gone
This is AMAZING. As is the bit about Mandy Brocklehurst sending back Nott's love letter with corrections. I love your wry humor throughout. And I really enjoy your headcanon about Snape's swearing. It's perfect.
I know this story is connected to your others that I haven't read yet so I'm missing some context about what all went on with Snape during and after the war, but the bits I am seeing of your characterization of him I'm enjoy (and obviously I can still understand and enjoy this story on its own without having read any of the other fics!)
Melanie
Author's Response:Hi Melanie!
This detail came from the British tradition of Christmas eve ghost stories (a la M R James), but of course, if you're in the world of Harry Potter and ghosts are a routine part of life, aren't ghost stories just gossip? (Actually, there's definitely a plot bunny floating around in my head about that... I think it totally makes sense that wizard society is so regressive and there's so much anti-muggle sentiment. Imagine growing up in a pureblood household with the ghosts of your ancestors hanging around telling stories about how they were denounced, tortured and executed back in the old witch trial days. A deep ingrained distrust of muggles would be natural in that environment).
The headcanon about Snape swearing has been bouncing around in my head for a while. I just don't think he would have grown up in that neighborhood with that father and not learn how to swear.
Yes, there's definitely details and characters that were first introduced in my other stories, but I tried hard to make this one stand on its own and fill in the backstory by context. I'm glad you're finding it understandable! The main things people need to know for this story is just that Snape survived and he had other people helping him spy, and I think that's easy enough to pick up. Of course if you do ever feel like checking out any of the other stories, they're all connected in various ways (Except The Dark Arts, which is just silliness). The first one I ever wrote, The Clear Cut, is the noirest of the bunch. I specifically wrote it as a way to have Snape as essentially a noir detective, so it has that trademark first-person narration and a darker tone than this story.
Thank you so much!
And ten years later, there you are, Professor Lovebottom, wondering where it all went wrong."
Neville laughed. "Longgood isn't so bad."
Hahaha this is amazing. That whole conversation was stellar; I was so absorbed in the dialogue. Daphne is quite fun. I love how much she loves winding Neville up (and pretty much anyone, I think).
Also loved the detail about how it's an unspoken rule that it's rude to ask people about their alliances.
Melanie
Author's Response:Hi Melanie!
This chapter is Neville first deep dive into Slytherin culture, and there is maybe a little culture shock. But of course, culture shock can be pretty fun too. I always thought that JKR set up really interesting potential for Slytherin characters: if you're really sorting for cunning and ambition, you're going to get BIG personalities. Since she left most of them as blank slates, we get to fill them in, which is great fun. My take is that Slytherins are essentially games-players. Daphne is very much into mind games, and she is having a lot of fun toying with Neville.
Of course, Slytherins did not come out as winners in their big game that was the war. They don't have a lot of allies at the moment, and they need to keep every friend they have. So, it doesn't make sense for them to cast a critical eye at each other for roles they took in the war, they just need to stick together.
Thank you!
Ah, wow, it seems really obvious in retrospect that the parole agents would have a way to check for polyjuice or any other kind of magical concealment! Yikes. Neville maybe made his own life worse coming up with that cover story but what else could he have really done in the moment?
Your writing is so full of character - things like way Gloff describes (or, rather, doesn't describe the woman who was by the loading dock, and the titles of the leaflets in the waiting room ("Hysteria and the Scourge of Wandering Wombs," ha!)
Melanie
Author's Response:Hi Melanie!
This chapter was such a treat to write. It's the first one where we get to see things from all of our main character's different viewpoints and get a little more into their thought processes. So, yes, it gave me a lot of openings to put in some humor.
Harry and Ron are great friends, and they are always ready to have your back, and they're up for anything, but they are terrible at getting the details right. Hermione is great at getting the details right, but unfortunately she didn't know enough about parole checks to catch the problem. Poor Neville paid the price. Luckily, he is good at thinking on his feet. As you noted in a previous chapter, if he has the time to overthink, that's when his anxiety kicks in. But when he's caught in the moment and has no other choice, he'll just get through it.
Thank you again!
I really enjoyed the conversation among Neville, Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione. Everyone seemed pretty well in character, particularly as it related to the concept of secret resistance vs open resistance and what that says about a person's character. It makes a lot of sense to me that Ron would take a hard line position that you're either on one side or another, and a lot of sense that Ginny was inclined to think the same way until she had that conversation with a girl who pointed out that open resistance means repercussions for people you love who are in harm's way, and that there are valid reasons for keeping your loyalties in the shadows and being too afraid to openly oppose something. And in the following scene I thought you captured a post-war Draco very well. I also really liked how your characterization of Neville is that when he overthinks things is when his anxiety kicks back in, and that he's able to recognize that.
Melanie
Author's Response:Hi Melanie!
Thank you so much, I'm glad everyone was coming across as in character. I'm much more unsure of myself writing the trio than the Slytherin characters - my other stories tend to focus on the Slytherins so I'm not as used to coming at things from the Trio's POV. Yeah, I felt that Ron would have the most hardline POV after the war. His and Ginny's losses are the freshest (Hermione's loss of her parents depends on whether you think her memory charms are permanent or not, it's sort of up for interpretation). As you noted, Ginny did have a more hardline viewpoint until she got shaken out of it. I think Ron, being in the hardline atmosphere of the auror dept, would have his views reinforced rather than shaken.
We're going to get a few more glimpses into Draco's post-war life as the story goes on. He's having to walk a pretty careful line at the moment. But he's had practice walking careful lines.
That's one of Neville's huge strength's as a character - his self-awareness.
Thank you so much for the lovely review!
A lot of wonderful backstory in this chapter, woven in in a way that doesn't feel like an awkward information dump. Stuff about the students working as eyes for Snape, as well as Nott's take on Goyle's character and involvement with the Death Eaters -- really helped me to get a sense of who Nott is and this sort of squishy gray area he inhabits, but with definite opinions about someone like Goyle who's just full of hate and eager to kill (but also, that bit about how Nott realized Goyle really just wanted a club -- something to feel important about -- was great). And I really loved the backstory about Nott's grandfather and his involvement in the war and how he came to appreciate Muggle culture and passed that on to Nott, and what his record collection represents (and how completely cruel and delusional Goyle can be by destroying it and tell Nott he's actually done him a favor). The code in the letter is wonderfully clever!
Melanie
Author's Response:Hi Melaine!
I went back and forth for weeks about whether to make The Bridge or The Game the first chapter. I finally decided on putting the Bridge first to drop people into the mystery aspect of the story more quickly and give them that Neville-viewpoint, before going back to Theo here for the heavier backstory. I'm glad it didn't feel too much like an info dump, because of course I was dumping a lot of info here.
My trickiest thing in this chapter was to give the story some stakes by trying to make Goyle a character to care about on some level as a human being, but not to make him 'good' at all. I wanted him to still be a bigoted bullying jerk. Just one that was indoctrinated at a young age and trained to kill, and watched his best friend burn to death, and is deeply mentally scarred. After all, the process of being indoctrinated and trained to kill probably has similar mental effects whether you're being trained as an allied bombing pilot or as a Death Eater.
I came up with this kind of code, because I think that would be a very good way to sneak things past the Ministry. Letters to Azkaban probably go through a battery of testing for magically hidden messages, specially imbued parchments, etc, etc, but they probably don't think about someone just writing in code.
Thank you again for the wonderful reviews! More answers soon!
Hello, I'm here for challenge judging/reviewing (finally!!)
This opening chapter does a great job of setting the dark and mysterious tone, and right away we feel like Neville's going to find himself feeling in over his head with what he's been dragged into. There's a gritty, bleak, unadorned feel to the setting, the character interactions and dialogue, and a lot of moral grayness as we see that some or all of these characters had a hand in helping the resistance during the war but they're certainly no angels.
I like how Neville as your protagonist here is not a detective, not a tough guy -- he's a teacher, and he's very much himself -- I'm sure he's the Neville who really came into his own in DH, but he doesn't seem your prototypical noir hero who's cynical and hardened and knows how to play the game -- it takes him a minute or two to cotton onto things that involve deception. That's going to make for an interesting dynamic. And yep, I figured they were angling for him to lean on his Harry Potter connection to get this done for them.
Melanie
Author's Response:Hi Melanie! Welcome! Noir challenge, I'm so excited!!
Yes, that's exactly the tone I was trying to set in this chapter: the indications that there's a dark underbelly culture running in the trash below the bright shiny Hogwarts Express train tracks above. I'm setting up Neville as our bridge into this world, because I think he really makes the perfect audience stand-in for this story. He doesn't fully understand the Slytherin culture he's being tossed into, so people have to explain things to him and fill in the backstory. He's definitely a very good guy, but he also has a milder manner and I think a larger dose of empathy and understanding than the Trio, for example, so he's good at being able to see other people's sides and he can pick up those moral gray tones you mentioned.
Those moral gray tones are actually the inspiration for all of my stories in one way or another. I obviously love the world of Harry Potter, but the B+W morality of the books always bugged me. The fact that so many of the Slytherin characters are essentially background cardboard cutouts in the books gives me a lot of room to play around and try to flesh them out, give them better motivations and character arcs etc.
Neville will get a character arc of his own here. He has a lot of potential, as the former head of the DA, but he's definitely in over his head with the Slytherins, as you mentioned. Somehow, he's going to have to learn how to swim.
Thank you so much for your excellent review! I saw that you've left several more: I'll be answering them shortly, but it may take me a day or so based on my work schedule.
Thank you!
Any access or use of the FanficTalk Archive is conditioned upon compliance with our Site Guidelines and Terms of Service and the Copyright Policy and Privacy Policy contained therein. Should you have any questions about them, you are very welcome to contact any of our archive validators. For advanced searching, please click here.
Any characters, source code, text, or titles contained herein which are recognizable as copyrighted material are the sole property of their owners.