There are certain stories, that, no matter the medium (FF, commercial novel, song, or movie; oral or written; visual or aural), move you, change you, touch the part of you that ignores the paradox of fiction (having a quantifiable emotional/physical response to that which is known to be false) and simply experiences the tale for what it is: a moment of creation; a place where what isn't becomes what is.

Finding a story like that is rare. Thank you for sharing yours.

happy writing,
ks

I thought that Snape's patronus had changed.. but it didn't.. it says it was a jackel?

i loved this story and it touched my heart as it will many. well done for a brilliant story.

Excellent story!! Thank you so much... I dearly hope that there someday might be a sequel. Please...

Wonderfully written. How intricately interwoven all the pieces of this story were to come to such a magnificent conclusion.

I have read it twice through and still need to read it again to be sure that I haven't missed anything. I am very happy that I stumbled upon this story and look forward to reading all that you have written.

Goosebumps.

I adore this story. The way you write keeps me focused, not just on the plot, the characters, but on the words themselves. It's a rare thing to find, especially in fanfiction.
This is a joy to read and I'm looking forward to the rest. :)

Alas, I have nothing at all critically constructive to say, but I do feel like jumping up and down. The allusions and interweaving scenes and story lines were impossible, in an unthinkable type of way. It was simply beautiful to experience, I felt like I was beyond just reading.
I was particularly happy to note the discrete reference to the Vanishing Cabinet piece you previously wrote. It made me smile.
Hope your writing is taking you to wonderful places that delight, astonish, and enrapture you as much as your stories do for your readers.
Thank you.

always,
-Alatus

Nice parallel scene... three couples, two of which were irrelevant...

best lines:
Severus nodded. “He is probably unaware of his own pattern. He’s brilliant, but a little…”
“Unreflective?”
He smirked. “I was going to say ‘megalomaniacal,’ but ‘unreflective’ works just as well.

“Squeep.” Crooning softly, Tayet hopped onto his arm, beat her wings a bit for balance, then folded them. Her talons finding purchase in the thick wool of his sleeve, she worked her way toward his shoulder, and leaned her head into his hair. “Squeep,” she said again, softly. She took his braid in her beak and tugged it gently. “Thqueep,” she lisped through a beakful of braid, eyes glittering at him.

He shook his head, amazed. “And just how did you explain that to Poppy?”
“She was the one I practiced on.”
Severus just looked at her. “Of course she was.”
“She insisted, after the first time – anyway, that doesn’t matter now.”

“Muffliato again? I’m sorry, dear – was I snoring?”
“Loud enough to shake the foundations, as you have every night since I married you.”

best lines:
“Oh!” Frustrated, Mrs. Black sputtered, then threw her reticule at him – a bit of a miscalculation, as it hit the barrier of the canvas – at least Hermione supposed it did – and ricocheted to hit Phineas Nigellus’ shoulder.
“Calm yourself, you sodding bint!” Phineas Nigellus thundered.
She turned to him and, in an astonishing display of vocabulary that left no doubt where Kreacher had learned his limited but offensive lexicon, she let fly with a flourish of opinion that started with her sons and traced a rapid, explosive line backward through the Black family tree.

“Albus,” said Minerva irritably, “is there no way to manage him?”
“I often found that happening upon him outside at regular intervals proved tolerable, acoustically,” Dumbledore offered, then smiled wistfully as he saw Minerva add “Schedule accidental meetings with Hagrid” to her mental calendar.

Minerva finally found her voice. “You gave him House points for killing you?”
“Only the one,” Albus chuckled. “It seemed nicely symbolic.”

(Nice to see Minnie finally worked it out)

“I reversed the Charm so it would work for speaking. Hermione actually gave me the idea,” she said. “I’m thinking of selling the idea to Fred and George. Funny that they haven’t thought of it yet,” she mused

“There is a right way and a wrong way to do things, and you’ve had your way for long enough to know that, unless you get very lucky, your way is the wrong way. Do you understand me?”

“Who do you hate?”
“Snape.” It was a reflex.
“Why?”
“He’s a git.”
“So’s Ron. Try again.”

“You sound a little like Hermione.”
“She’s worth listening to, Harry.”

“Who else do you hate, Harry?” she said, very softly.
“Oh… well, Voldemort, of course.”
Another silence.
Very carefully, her muscles coiled in case she needed to move quickly, Ginny said, “Don’t you think his name should have come first?”
Harry’s mind went very still.

(Nice to see Harry brought to his senses, o at least set on that path)

best lines:
Hermione could have sworn that the headmaster was beginning to beam. Paint cannot beam. It just can’t… She rubbed her hand over her face. Of course it could. It was doing just that, right in front of her.

Dumbledore looked so very pleased with this baffling question that Hermione could have sworn that Severus’ asking that specific question was what the former headmaster had been seeing in the Mirror of Erised for years.

Whatever she was going to say next was interrupted by his laugh. “Please – forgive me, Hermione, but it is so rare to see you flummoxed that you will forgive my indulging my enjoyment.”

“You can divide by zero, you just… don’t. Unless - ”
“ - and the outcome you want is for the answer to be undefined,”

They both smiled.
Definitely not nice.
So far beyond “not nice,” in fact, that - had they but seen it - every Gringotts goblin would instantly have deserted his post and caught the first flying carpet out of the country.

best lines:
He knew without needing to see it that despite her apparent inattention to her handwriting it would be perfectly smooth, perfectly even. He had tried for six years to shake her concentration, disrupt her focus, intimidate her hands into trembling, into tipping too much or too little of an herb or powder into her cauldron.
He had done this to all his students. Only Bill Weasley had resisted his efforts as easily.

She watched as Severus scowled at his own handwriting, and a small laugh escaped her lips. “Really, Severus. To die because of your many psychological buttons would be one thing, but… because you can’t decipher your own handwriting?”

She would never tell anyone that, on some level, Severus Snape was shy. But her mind supplied the list of people who probably knew anyway.

“You can hide what you are thinking, Hermione. But you cannot hide that you are.

He bristled, and she laughed harder. “Severus, if you had feathers…”
“Hermione!”
“I’m sorry, but you so remind me of…”

" it’s how you’ve stayed alive, isn’t it. Recognizing patterns as they’ve shifted.”
He nodded. “Preferably before the shift happens.”

best lines:


“D’you know who had the most trouble learning this?” Tonks said, as she felt Ron’s eyes start to do a sweep of the area.
“Who?” he asked, keeping his eyes moving as she’d told him to.
“Dumbledore. Moody told me. He kept wanting to stop and discuss things.” Tonks shook her head, a small, painful smile crossing her face. “He had a theory about everything.”

“I barely understood what she was on about, with the Arithmancy. I’m used to that,” he said, a brief eye roll punctuating his memories of Hermione’s many explanations of lessons and assignments. “But this was different. It was like – it was like hearing someone else talking, and…” his voice trailed off, and he looked away sharply, blinking.
Lupin considered his words, and nodded compassionately. “She’s doing this for you, Harry.”
“I – I know. I just wish I understood.”
“Harry, I only understood part of it,” Lupin began quietly. “But what I did understand was executed flawlessly. Bill was convinced – and I trust that. His NEWT Arithmancy score was the highest in about two centuries. And Minerva – did you know she used to teach Arithmancy?”

“Then how can I possibly defeat him?”
“Harry, none of us could survive a duel with Voldemort. Only Dumbledore. And, perhaps - ” No. I won’t say his name. Not to Harry. “- perhaps one other.”

bl

Hermione could only stare. “You… but you disappeared.”
Mr. Ollivander regarded her with a kind of benevolent insanity. “Of course I did.”
“Where did you go?” she asked, reaching blindly for some semblance of reason.
His eyes widened – and whether he was mocking her or showing real surprise Hermione had no idea. “Havana, of course.”

“Yes, there is another… oh yes… Ollivander's First Corollary: The core chooses the wandmaker.”

best lines:
“Honestly,” she muttered. “Doesn't she have any sense at all?”
Severus’ mouth twitched uncontrollably, and he couldn’t repress a chuckle.
“What,” Hermione demanded, still watching Tayet.
“She rather reminds me of you.”

“Severus,” she said.
He knew that tone, and his eyes grew more alert. It was the tone in which she had always said “Sir,” right before asking a question that would connect a current assignment with one the curriculum wouldn’t cover for two years.
“Severus, why isn’t Tayet red?”

“Did you spend any time with Fawkes?”
She shook her head. “Not really.”
“His personality was not unlike Dumbledore’s.”
“But she reminds me of you.” Her eyes widened in horror. “Oh, dear.”

Neither Harry nor Ron could have said how or why, but when they saw her smile they knew, somehow, that nothing would ever really be the same again.

Hermione’s eyes had flicked to his scar first, before meeting his eyes. He was used to this from those raised in the wizarding world. Even the Weasleys did it sometimes, when they were tired, or if they were thinking about something else.
But Hermione had never done it before.
Never.

Harry didn’t hear him. “How do we know you’re right? How do we know you’re not being used, by Voldemort? Or one of his spies? "

“Fine, Harry,” she spat. “Who would you rather it be, then?”
She waited, her eyes boring into his. Harry said nothing. Neither of them blinked.
“Mr. Weasley, this time?” she asked in a voice devoid of pity.

Her hair moved about her, furious, as her voice rose. “You choose, Harry, you point, and choose, YOU decide who’s going to die. YOU DECIDE, Harry.”

Hermione held her hand out, and both Lupin and Bill froze. Quietly, even calmly, she said, “You’re not the only one with burdens, Harry.”

(Good for Hermione, putting Pothead in his place)