rate_review Reviews

I've always thought of the night of April 30th as Beltane, and as a Celtic holiday. It was a night for frolic and fun, for dancing round the fire and for leaping over it. A time for both men and women to celebrate and maybe they would conceive a new life during the frolics It was a welcome to the long days and short nights of summer and a celebration of fertility.
Walpurgisnacht here is very dark and reeks of blood and death. I prefer the happy Celtic version.
Why was Voldie/He Who I Find Most Tiresome wandering? He reminded me of Wotan in Wagner's Ring Cycle.
I think that Aurora must dislike her name just as much as Severus does because of the meaning her father gave to it.

After seeing the dark side of Aurora it seems she fits right in with Severus. Why was his father wearing a cassock? He couldn't be an Anglican priest, he worked in the mill. He's married and a father so that lets out being a Catholic priest.One thing is sure, he's a thoroughly unpleasant character. He's someone who should have been thrown to the Death Eaters, he deserved it.
I can place this chapter in the timeline, but I'm having a little trouble with the last one. I can't remember if you said how old she is, or if she's younger than Severus or is the same age. 'HW' hadn't become the Dark Lord yet that Walpurgisnacht. I'm going to have to check the timeline in the Lexicon to see when he first gained power and became a threat.

I love your fic! Beautifully written, amazing characters and Dalziel's death was AMAZING. Please update a.s.a.p, you are fantastic x)

We went to Dover and visited the castle (the most fascinating castle I've ever been to from the very top of the keep to the tunnels underneath that were a WW2 command post) and and then to St Margarets to se the white cliffs the day before 9/11, it's one of my best memories of that trip. Two years later we went back during the heatwave of 2003 and walked the cliffs in 95 degree weather. from the top of the cliffs the channel was so clear and aqua blue that it looked just like the Caribbean. I fully understand his simile about the ants there seemed to be caves and tunnelslike in ant hills all over that part of the southern coast. The White Cliffs have become so fragile, I hope there is something that can be done to preserve them from more deterioration.
I think that somewhere between the viewpoint of the three of them, Severus, Aurora, and Dumbledore lies the truth about her progress. He's lost the comical edge and has an edge of dangerous reality in what she overhears. I don't believe she will back out of it, but she needs something to help her feel more secure when she finally meets the Death Eaters, especially the ones that knew her parents. Could she use a glamour to disguise her resemblance to her mother? She still needs to talk to Dumbledore to express her fears of being recognised and get his advice.
But Severus is right, DD is a puppet master who pulls all their strings and manipulates them but doesn't see the consequenses. He can't see the trees for the forest as the saying goes.

Have you ever thought that the best weapon Snape, DD, and the Order have is that most of the DE's are real idiots? Even Lucius qualifies as an idiot. The really dangerous ones are the ones like Bellatrix who are both idiots and insane; I love your name for her 'the Witch Bitch'. They have great propaganda that makes the rest of the wizarding world fear them and hides the fact that they are idiots. Look at the battle in the Ministry, they out-numbered the teens, but the teens were able to hold them in check until the order got there.
Your Snape is paranoid, he needs to be paranoid to succeed as a spy. His comic edge is back but it's black comedy.
The pargraph about Derek Derrick was wonderful, he fits in with most of the other DE splendidly. I once knew a little girl named Kelly Kelley in a Latch Key Kids program I ran after school in an elementary school. Her mother was pregnant with her second child and I hoped that saner heads came to the fore when she named the new baby. Kelly's father named her, it was his idea of a joke. I only hope she didn't marry a man named Kelly and become Kelly Kelley Kelly.

I skimmed over the violent part very quickly, I didn't want it to become too entrenched in my head because it was one of the most stomach turning deeds that I have read about 'HWIFMT' committing.
In spite of their recent success in recruiting I doubt that the loyal Death Eaters have yet reached a collective IQ of three digits yet.
Now I know how he found out what Draco's task is. That means more arguments with Dumbledore are coming up. In your timeline is school still out for the Summer, or did you adjust it to fit the plot? I'm not a canon stickler so that's OK with me.
I had been thinking you got Dalziel's name from the detective series Dalziel and Pascoe. Instead I learned something I didn't know before.

I find him creepy too. Her thoughts about keeping a close eye on any girls invited to join the Slug Club hit the bullseye, there does seem to be something of a pedophile lurking in him.
I think there's something fishy about her missing little red trunk. I wonder where it's gotten to.
You seem to be emphasizing pineapples. Have you read Highly Improbable, a Snape/OC romantic/screwball comedy? It's on of the funniest stories I've ever read and a pineapple has a prominent role in the story.

I think his posters will get the point across much better than Umbridge's inspirational Bunnies and puppies. They seem so typical of him, just exactly the ones he would choose fo the DADA class. No wonder it was hard for him to tear himself away. Doing this chapter completely from his viewpoint makes it so much fun to read.
You capture his irritability and irascibility very well, he's always in character and it's always comically in character.
I've known a few people like Slughorn in my time, the collectors like him are always such pretentious name droppers. A voice teacher I had years ago was one of the worst, that's who Slughorn reminded me of when I read HBP.
I got a real kick out of the unofficial Slugclub, just like Severus did. I also enjoyed the term 'She Who Would Have Been In The Slugclub Had She Not Been At Beauxbatons', it goes well with my favorite name for Voldy, 'He Who I Find Most Tiresome', for short it's 'HW'.

Molly certainly treats Fleur differently than she treats everyone else, when she is like that I certainly wouldn't want her for a mother-in-law. She reminds me of Ray Barone's mother, Marie. I think Fleur can give as good as she get if she's pushed too far, but it hasn't come to that yet. At least we know that Fleur loves Bill in spite of his mother and even after his good looks are permanently damaged. I've never really figured out why Molly and Ginny disliked and distrusted her, it couldn't all be jealousy over her place in Bill's heart. Anyway all the Weasleys like Aurora.

She's right, as Dorothy said "We're not in Kansas anymore Toto..." and Aurora is certaily not in Switzerland anymore.
When the chapter started I was wondering if they had to buy tickets and if there were conductors on the train, I didn't remember anything about that from the books or the movies. Now you've confirmed it for me.
I love all the small details you put in this, like the double breasted robes and Platform 6 3/8. I would have figured on the platform for trains arriving from the continent would have been in Waterloo Station, but it's magical and can be where ever you want it to be. Besides it's not like Wizards would take the Chunnle.
She sure read Hagrid right, he's a good and very sweet man but you don't tell him anything you wouldn't want the whole wizarding world to know.

I enjoyed her foray into the British Museum. I've been to London maybe a dozen times but I've never been to the British Museum. Now some of those visits were just overnight stops on my way elsewhere, but I've had more than enough time the times I was there just to see London. I've been all through the V&A because our hotel that time was just around the corner. The next trip we take over there I will be sure to put it on my adgenda. The Rosetta Stone is something I've always wanted to see myself.
I'm wondering if the man with the card tricks was Kingsley Shacklebolt in disguise. Whoever he was he gave her the key to learning Mentior Occlumency. I'm heading to the next chapter and I hope Severus makes an appearance, I missed him.