rate_review Reviews

This was a fun chapter to read. Snape came across as Sam Spade or some other hard boiled ' private eye from the 'noir' films of the '40s.
My favorite lines were "Snape knew when he'd been played. He had been working for Dumbledore too long not to recognize the signs." It sounds just like the narration from one of those films and also just like some lines that Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett wrote. Of course, since we're seeing it all from her viewpoint we know she's not underhanded and won't doublecross you like Bridget O'Shaunessy did to Sam Spade, Cairo, and Gutman.
Now it's on to the next chapter.

So she's another Hermione, I find Hermione annoying as hell so I understand how Snape feels. I enjoyed the flashbacks, especially the one with her potions teacher.
It's not just that she's annoying him that angers him, it's the fact that she knows it and uses it to annoy him even further. He's playing right into her hands and he can't find a way to stop.It's going to take a while to get past all this stuff before any attraction can emerge.

She is right, how can she be expected to learn when he hasn't explained what it is that she is learning or how to do it so that she can accomplish her goal. But she should realize that he has to try getting into her mind to help her achieve Mentior Occlumency, well she does realize it, but she doesn't like it and isn't trying to be very cooperative. What I'm trying to say is that she will have to learn to accept it. They have a lot in common, she has as much baggage as he has but she carries it differently. She already knows how to push all his buttons, so it's going to be a bumpy ride for both of them.
In the paragraph that begins "Oh what was she kidding herself?" make it "why was she kidding herself". That was probably a typo anyway. In the same paragraph "He wouldn't be so brazen as to Avada Kedavra her as soon as she opened the door... she didn't think", make it "at least she didn't think so". There are a few other places to fixso read through and I'm sure you will find what I mean. Keep in mind that, unlike so many women that look in the mirror and find that they have become their mother, I look in the mlrror and find that I've become Miss Sinecrope, my high school English teacher, who taught me English my sophmore and junior years.
You asked me to check out the asterisks so I did. I agree that they are confusing. I think conversations in a foreign language should be in italics to show they are not speaking in English. For consistency's sake I think individual foreign words should also be in italics, the asterisks are confusing and don't make a lot of sense to me. If you want to emphasize a word or a phrase in English you should use a bold font. I've seen some people switch to Arial Bold to do this and then go back to the original font,it kept me from being confused about what they meant.

Now that I know Fleur really does love Bill Weasley I find it very easy to overlook her vanity (which is justified) and her other peccadillos and faults. She can't help being part Veela and I think it will be worthwhile for Aurora to get to know her.
I really like your description of Gringotts and it's goblin employees, it is evocative of banks and banking in the Victorian and Edwardian eras.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that they actually employ female goblins and females of other species like Fleur. I thought they were a very male chauvinist organization, so it's nice to see women there even though I'm sure there is a glass ceiling that prevents them from rising too high in the organization.
I reread your email and I'm confused about AFF's formatting system. Don't they allow conversations in a language other than English to be identified by putting the conversaion in italics? My opinion about this that I gave you in my review for the last chapter still stands, but I don't know what the rules are at AFF.

Very good beginning, faultless until the very last paragraph when you used 'seeing as' where the proper term would be 'since'. 'Since'is much more grammatically correct and much simpler to use than 'seeing as'. You must have figured out by now that 'seeing as' is a pet peeve of mine along with 'you know'; 'do you see what I'm saying'; 'like' being used in any other way than as a verb; and 'go' in place of said, such as in I go "yada yada" then she goes "yada yada". That was the only thing I saw that bothered me, and I will keep on reading. I won't continue reading a story if the grammar and spelling are poor, your grammar and spelling are good and so is the quality of your writing. My grammar and spelling aren't perfect, but I know good grammar when I see it and poor spelling should be obvious to all readers.
This is my first review on AFF.net, the quality of the writing and the stories has improved immensely since I first read stories here, your story is one of those that I find raises the standards at AFF.net. I'm glad I checked the archives here the other day for the first time in many months, I found several other stories besides this one that got my interest.
Your OC intrigues me, I want to know more about her and I'm anticipating her first encounter with Snape. I love Snape/OC fan fics and I enjoy Snape/canon stories also. I don't like slash and I absolutely hate the SS/HG relationship, what in the world would he ever see in Hermione anyway?
Please let me know when you update.

Quite a lot in this chapter, she's a wizarding world version of a female Robert Langdon, a brand new 'double naught spy' (as Jethro called them on the Beverly Hillbillies), with a bit of the women of the SOE who, during WW2, were enbeded into cells of the French Resistance after they were trained, thrown in for good measure. There's even a bit of Wagner's Ring Cycle here and I prefer Wagner's version to Tolkien's. A whole lot of things to keep my interest up besides waiting for the first time she meets Snape.
This is a link to a site about the women of the SOE, what you find about the women who were allied spies during WW2 may help you with the aspects of Aurora as a spy.
http://www.64-baker-street.org/main/index.html
Once again though, there is 'seeing as', in fact it's 'seeing as how', where it should be 'since'. Please don't do that to me. Also in the sentence "The path I'm setting before you..." you have him saying "is not dangerous", I'm sure you didn't mean to put 'not' in front of dangerous.
Keep up the good work and get rid of 'seeing as' and you will be equal to any of the best writers in fan fic.

Good grief, this Snape is even more paranoid than Moody is! I love the description of his expectations of 'the woman who came to steal his job', and the reality that he saw when he finally went inside the room. He is about the crabbiest and crankiest Snape I've come across. I like his thought about standing as far on the othe side of the circle at Death Eater meetings and then he found that he would be in her presence night & day.
There'e another 'seeing as' here and Snape says it. Severus Snape would never use 'seeing as', he would say 'since',instead.