Because I'm not gonna be able to sleep...

[rabidsamfan]

I have to give myself something better to dream about.

Hence,

I liked it, mostly. I've been wandering around the net a little, looking at folks' reactions, and being mildly amused, but my complaints are mostly about what didn't get in there. I expected a bezoar, a cauldron with a thin bottom, and an anagram of "Nitwit, Oddment, Blubber, Tweak" that would turn out to be a vital clue.

Ah, well.

Fortunately, I was so exhausted after picking it up (since I'd slept three hours the night before -- nothing to do with Harry Potter, just insomnia) that I slept before I read. Granted, I got into the tub thinking I'd read the first few chapters there and ended up staying until my toes were little pink prunes, but I didn't fall apart, the chocolates were good but not vital, and the box of kleenex didn't get into play until I tried to talk aobut it.

As the author of "Balance" and "Yet Another Snape Meets the Dursleys Story" I have to say that I particularly loved the beginning, where Harry and Dudley found something to say to each other that needed to be said, and the end, where the battle of/for Hogwarts drew in so many creatures and characters. I'd have liked to see more Slytherins fighting on the "good" side, but Slughorn at least stuck around. And as Jinx points out, the Slytherins are water. They're supposed to flow away.

The escape was well done. Losing Hedwig hurt. Losing Mad Eye didn't. He kinda had to go, really, just because he was the one person in the Order who really could have talked Harry into making a different plan than hunting Horcruxes.

The wedding was... er... well. Hmm. If my son was Harry Potter's best friend and the Ministry was under siege by EVIL(tm) and there was a war on the horizon, I'm not sure I'd gather all my eggs in one basket friends and relations in one place and not expect someone to come along and throw stones. Or grenades.

Hermione's little beaded bag was brilliant. Wish I'd remembered to bookmark the website of the pic where someone's labelled it a Tardis... Loved it that they landed in Tottenham Court Road.

Loved Kreacher. (Gawd, I never thought I'd say that!) They finally figured out that Sirius must have been rotten to the house elf even as a kid/teen, too. Can I say it again? It's not a good thing when your family tree doesn't branch... Sirius was more than a little screwed up even before Azkaban. In fact, Grimmauld Place came off a lot better this time. Harry finding Lily's letter was one of the places which really stuck with me. And the dust Dumbledore... I wonder what Snape said when he visited?

The raid on the Ministry of Magic was very cool. I didn't really regret Mad Eye until Harry found the eye in the door to Umbridge's office.

(Incidentally, as Jinx points out, if Dung sold Umbridge the locket as soon as he could, then Umbridge could have been under the influence of a Horcrux the whole time she was at Hogwarts. I'll have to go back and look at descriptions of her.)

I got a little impatient with the "Harry and Hermione go Camping and Nearly Meet a Woozle" section, mostly because on second consideration it feels like an authorly device to allow enough time to pass for Remus and Tonks to leave behind a puppy godchild for Harry. But I suppose waffling around when you're supposed to be saving the world is a very teenager thing to do... But going to the obvious places should have been...er... obvious. Ron's departure felt forced, but I forgave it for his return. I did love the return of the PutOuter, even if it was under a fancier name.

(and of course, Ron's leaving shows us that the Horcrux influences by magnifiying ones worst tendencies...which brings me back to Umbridge and NO! No! Back you plotbunnies back!)

More tomorrow night. I'll need the distraction.

Comments

[lame-pegasus.livejournal.com]

...where Harry and Dudley found something to say to each other that needed to be said.

*laughs* That was fanon, foreshadowing canon, wasn't it? It was one of the (many) things that made me very happy about DH. Plus that Harry has a son named Albus Severus. On the other hand - poor kid! *grins*

And the bits about Draco made me fondly remember Balance, of course.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Thank you, thank you. I'm glad I got YASMDS done before the book came out, actually, because it was a bit of foreshadowing. But I've maintained that Dudley is the Dursley most likely to grow a brain for a while now...

I'll get to Albus Severus tonight.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

And wouldn't it have been a screaming, flaming HOOT to have Dudley's child (son or daughter) turn out to be a wizard/witch? A Dursley at Hogwarts...Grandad Vernon would drop dead the day the owl came.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Oh, feed that plotbunny!

[elycia.livejournal.com]

I wonder what Snape said when he visited?

If his tongue was tied, not much. :-) But I can imagine Alan Rickman drolly declaring, "It was *your* idea, you dimwitted, Muggle-loving dolt. Now stuff it."

To me, the Extended Camping Scenes helped to illustrate just how lost-in-the-dark Harry et al really were. They knew what needed doing, but had no idea HOW to do it, having been left with precious damn little information. So they very literally kept running around in circles. To me, it helped to illustrate their frustration.

Mad-Eye's eye at the Ministry gave me the Raging Heebies. Stick the poor man's head on a pike and mount it on London Bridge, why don't you... ugh. So disgustingly primitive. Pity we didn't get to see Umbridge further violated by the attacking centaurs at the end--or at least stepped on by Gwarp.

Things I would have liked to know in the Epilogue: Who raised Teddy Lupin? Did George stay in the Wizarding Wheezes business, or was it a bust w/o Fred? What did the Potters & R. Weasleys end up doing for careers? And what is James Potter II's middle name?

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can see Rickman playing it up. And you're right about the camping scenes, but I think the "lost in the dark" could have been illustrated with about four fewer months of it...

Umbridge as a little pink stain on the bottom of Grawp's foot. *happy sigh*

I'll get to the epilogue tonight.

[thezzyzx.livejournal.com]

Sure, and Lord of the Rings would be improved if instead of hundreds of pages walking to Mordor, we had a few paragraphs saying that it was a long distance and then they were at Mt. Doom ;)

Sometimes you need to go into the details to have the effect. You have to have the pain if the payoff is going to feel deserved.

[fictualities.livejournal.com]

I love the idea of exploring what the Horcrux was doing to Umbridge's brain. What we see with Ron is really intriguing -- like Tolkien's Ring, the Horcrux uses a pre-existing weakness in its victim's character, and exaggerates that weakness. Looking back to Book II, you have to wonder how Ginny was influenced by that Horcrux: besides being possessed she must have had her natural tendency to pine after Harry get exaggerated.

So months later I finally get around to reading those posts I bookmarked...

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

mostly because on second consideration it feels like an authorly device to allow enough time to pass for Remus and Tonks to leave behind a puppy godchild for Harry.

Mmmn, I hadn't thought of that particular point, but certainly one of the things that irritated me was the way large swatches of time seemed to bumble by needlessly - I put it down to a sloppy way of making the main plot fit the school-year timetable, so that the trio (or duo, depending) could be at certain places during the school holidays, and above all so that the climax took place at Hogwarts towards the end of the school year, as all her climaxes apparently must.