Oh! So nice of you to stop by, Harry! With a mob, even! I get the feeling everything is about to be a lot less cloak and dagger with him around.

Also, throwback to being in college and having men try to explain art to me. You fully reactivated that indignation! I am ready to ARGUE!

I am very heart eyes. Probably not as much as Draco though.

I’m glad these crazy kids still have fun. It really does make all the horrible evil monstrosities easier to handle.

Did I know that piece of paper would come back to cause problems? Of course. Did I still make a surprised pikachu face when somehow Dolohov had it? Very much yes.

I hope this works out horribly for him and Narcissa has to redesign her rose garden again.

The nuance. The astute assessment of character flaws and moral trade offs and the concept of goodness vs appearance of goodness.

This is why this story holds up so well. Truly you are a queen among authors.

Narcissa Malfoy is not going to let a little murder ruin the aesthetic of her rose garden, and I think that’s very sexy of her.

At least she got the soup with bells on. It’s amazing to me how this chapter feels so much safer even with the torture than early chapters felt because their relationship was so adversarial. Like. This is a relatively costly chapter. What magic have you wrought?

Get the soup ready. :(

I’m very glad they had this conversation already, and I knew it was a Chekhov’s gun situation, but it still hurts my feelings.

I desperately need Narcissa’s cat hair charm. And again I LOVE Percy.

Also, this whole story line feels different in the Year of Our Lord 2021.

Arabella Figg is right about everything, and is proof that cat ladies are excellent people. I will not entertain nuance on this subject, I’ve had too many glasses of wine.

And so it begins...

I have to say again, I absolutely adore Percy. I know he’s barely in this chapter, but I love him so much.

“More ball gowns and less murder” is the line that I remember most vividly from this story, and it’s the one that made me come back and read it.

Also, YAY! The idiot children are in love and get to be at least slightly happy in the middle of evil, bureaucratic hell!

DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD.

Sweet, sweet children. I’m sure nothing will go wrong on this lovely and auspicious occasion.

The Alliance of Actually Doing Stuff grows...

And we get dessert flirting, so really this might be one of my favorite chapters.

They talked! About feelings! To each other!

I really really really appreciate that it takes them this long to feel properly romantic. The payoff is so much better for making sense.

Also, I am all the way here for the Hermione-Percy Alliance of Actually Doing Stuff.