Strictly speaking, that's cheating, but in this case alone... (And I've been a teacher, too!) Awaiting the reaction eagerly - especially if Mister Meee insists that the poems be read aloud.

Re. all those so-appropriate songs, ~I~ remember the oldest ones, but HP is in 1992 here. Even if they listened to oldies stations, I can just imagine the efforts of the Muggleborn and Muggle-raised to explain some of the wilder ones to Pureblood kids. (It boggles the mind to think of the Wizarding World's reaction to some of Dr. Demento's selections.)

Good for both of them!

Well, with TMR gone for good and SS no more good as a spy, maybe pressure from parents can get him the DADA job. (Re. the DADA curse, aren't most spells supposed to fail when the caster dies?) He could continue with his Potions research even if no longer teaching it, though where else would they get a Potions prof with a comparable safety record?

Glad all your faculty women see right through the pompous fraud. Can't wait for SS to administer his brew.

The kids better make sure SS can't hear any of their comments about his love life, or they'll be in detention until they graduate - if they live that long.

~Major~ kudos for explicating the necessarily close relationship between Potions and Herbology! Surprisingly few auths seem to be aware of it. Glad to see HP actually thinking - easier when unstressed, of course. And how telling, and accurate, that SS compares Goldilockhart to James Potter.

Really sorry that Skull didn't bomb Lockhart (~after~ SS's threats, wouldn't want to forgo those). New kid is sullen and thoroughly unsympathetic but doesn't deserve DE torture.

Lovely. May the neighbors have better luck next time.

Real dungbombs on the dung-head, great! AD deflation, ditto.

Re. Dursleys, moot at this point, but... Hit 'em where it hurts most, in the rep. I rather like Mrs. Figg and envision her as having tried unsuccessfully to wake Dumbles up to HP's situation. She could be told the whole truth and of HP's adoption, and encouraged to spread the (accurate!) word in the neighborhood. I don't know British law, but it ought to be so that truthfulness precludes any penalty for slander.

Kudos for mentioning that of all Hogwarts denizens, Irma Pince and especially Poppy Pomfrey knew Snape best and valued him most. IP would notice and appreciate a fellow bookworm; PP saw both his home life and all his subsequent history written on his person (body and soul).

Must admit I'm tiring of the raven's relentless mockery. Such does not help someone like Snape but only worsens his depression. (Inciting anger is an ephemeral "solution" that greatly exacerbates the problem via the rebound into a deeper hole.)

Glad the adoption went through without a hitch.

Best possible way to push the event. Let's hear it for HP!

Of course HP would love for SS to adopt him, and - of course - SS can't believe it. No number of repetitions will convince him otherwise. We can only hope that he'll be able to force himself to do it anyway and come, after a long while, to partial belief.

Good luck to them both. The haters will still plague them afterwards, so they'll need some against those, of which McKinnon was only the first and worst. May they have it.

"...was no more"? I'm wondering about the Horcrux situation. There must be at least one or TMR would have been truly dead before all this started. Have to wonder too what's going to take up all the remaining chapters, and the fic not even finished. Hope it's not abandoned.

Thanks for posting.

At the Raven Society of all places, should not Skullduggery be named as among the Society's guests?

I rather think that McK's death was too swift, but that's just me. Glad that that threat is gone, though the revenant remains. Since it's now out of control and isn't a Gryffindor, maybe Dumbles will get off his duff and do something.

Not that it matters now, but I'd prefer no killing (though more broken bones wouldn't come amiss, and perhaps some gut twisting in memory of Pippin) since SS needs to be free to raise HP: take her to be Kissed. If yours is the canon mutt, he'd eventually be cleared and would probably get her out if she were still fully alive.