elskuligr

Slytherin rules... or not...

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:39:16 GMT

Just two little one-shots that deal with Slytherin and which happen to be great. Completely different styles and different stories, but both interesting in their own ways : these are not the stories you've read zillions of times already, these are truly original little pieces of writing. Definitely worth having a look.

Title: Anything But Slytherin
Author: IP82
Length: One-Shot
My opinion: Good
Genre: Alternate Universe / mildly disturbing
Rating: Restricted
Pairings: None
Spoilers: it’s mostly just based on the first book

Author’s Summary: How could have Harry's sorting ceremony looked like if the first war against Voldemort went down a bit differently. Dark and disturbing.

More detailed summary: A very dark version of the sorting ceremony in a war-obsessed society, or giving a whole new meaning to the phrase “anything but Slytherin.”

Critique: To be honest, the style is not very good, but the idea is genuinely brilliant and the way the narrative is handled, with a very effective building up of tension, is quite good. Not a work of art, but definitely worth a read.

Where to find it: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4269983/1/Anything_but_Slytherin

Title: Grown Ups
Author: Mawaridi
Length: One-Shot
My opinion: Good
Genre: Romance ? A dash of teenage angst liberally sprinkled with humour? Or simply taking the unlikeliest of pairings and making it perfect.
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Harry / Millicent
Spoilers: Up to Order of the Phoenix

Author’s Summary: Growing up is lonely. So is losing someone you love. Two unlikely people find they have more in common than they realised.

More detailed summary: No real need for it really.

Critique: I love this story. The characterisation of Millicent is pretty good, and the “love encounter” is treated with this perfect mix of utter non-fluffiness and yet great sensibility, it’s brillant.

Where to find it: http://mawaridi.livejournal.com/109842.html

Tea with Voldy

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 21:10:20 GMT

Today I have recs for two very original fics that have fairly little in common except the way they characterise Voldemort is fairly interesting, hence the choice of my subject title.

Title: Refraction
Author: Metisket
Status: COMPLETE
Length: 14 chapters
My opinion: Very Good
Genre: epistolary / mildly disturbing / romance
Rating: Restricted
Pairings: eventually H/D
Spoilers: Written between Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince

Author’s Summary: “Hogwarts through the eyes of many of the characters as Harry loses his mind, Draco becomes bitter, Luna gleefully stalks everyone, and Ron and Hermione wonder what's going on. Eventual H/D.”

More detailed summary: Like the genre, the plot itself is not easy to describe as the narration is fairly disjunct (or should I say refracted?): through extracts from letters, diaries and suchlike, the reader is given glimpses of life at Hogwarts. The first few chapters deal with Harry’s first few years in canon, keeping most of the events the same but putting a new darker spin to them through insight into the characters’ thoughts. The story especially focuses on the friendship between Harry and Draco, as well as their eventual friendship with Luna.

Critique: What makes this story original is mostly the way it is told. The fractured mode of narration perfectly fits the fragile (brittle?) nature of the psyches and relationships described, giving the story a certain haunting quality. The author has tried to play the epistolary game honestly, though not strictly: each character is given their own singular voice, but some passages are not actually written down by characters and are merely extracts from their thoughts. One consequence of that method is that some points of view are more convincing than others, but all in all the story is very well told. I admit that this fic appeals to two of my personal favourites: H/D friendship developing into romance and a dark tale exploring the mind of someone slowly pushed to the brink. As such, I may not be completely objective and it seems obvious to me that people who don’t share these tastes (and who enjoy more traditional narrative styles) may not like this story. If you like that kind of things though, Refraction is a remarkable specimen. A very original take on Voldemort and his eventual defeat too.

Where to find it: Available on Fiction Alley http://www.fictionalley.org/authors/metisket/refraction.html

Title: Prince of the Dark Kingdom
Author: Mizuni-Sama
Status: Work In Progress
Length: 74 chapters so far (divided into 4 books, one per year at Hogwarts)
My opinion: Very Good
Genre: Adventure / Alternate Universe
Rating: Restricted / Mature because of references to violence, but there’s nothing graphic about it.
Pairings: none
Spoilers: good question... the story was started the year of Deathly Hallows, so I guess spoilers for all 7 books, but as it’s totally AU, it’s not that easy to say.

Author’s Summary: “Ten years ago, Voldemort created his kingdom. Now a confused young wizard stumbles into it, and carves out a destiny. AU. Nondark Harry. Mentor Voldemort.”

More detailed summary: James and Lily Potter fled England and the wizarding world with their son and Voldemort won the war. After his parents’ death, young Harry Potter is sent to live with his relatives in England. Little does he know that he is actually a wizard and that he is about to stumble into the dictatorship ruled by the most infamous Dark Lord. The story relates his attempt to adapt and survive without losing his humanity in this strange new world.

Critique: This is one of the most original and enjoyable fics I have read in a long time. It is everything an Alternate Universe should be: it chooses an interesting premiss and it tries to draw all its consequences without losing the original spirit of the book and its characters. Prince of the Dark Kingdom is one of the very rare fics that actually try to imagine what a world ruled by Voldemort could be like once the war was truly over. It paints a fascinating portrait of a Dark Lord who is cruel yet capable of restraint when it suits his interests. A lot of attention is given to the workings of magic, society and even religion, which helps giving this invented world credibility. The good characterisation (both of canon and outside canon characters) doesn’t hurt either. If I have to balance my praises with somewhat more negative comments, I’d say the style of writing is not exceptional, particularly at the very beginning. Still, the author can write and this series makes for very enjoyable reading.

Where to find it: It’s available on fanfiction.net: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3766574/1/Prince_of_the_Dark_Kingdom

Fun Fics

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:48:48 GMT

And now for some humour:

Title: Severus Snape and His Letters From the Edge
Author: Sylvie Moonbeam
Status: COMPLETE
Length: One-shot
My opinion: very good
Genre: Absurd humour
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: none
Spoilers: the story takes place during Hogwarts years, no specific spoiler.

Author’s Summary: “Professor S Snape (reclusive genius, envied by his peers, adored by women and feared by Potter, etc) writes a succession of letters to his investors. Will he ever see a wizard-friendly variety of fake tan? Will he rid the world of wasps? Or will he just lose his mind and face yet another disciplinary hearing?”

More detailed summary: Just what it says: the fic is made up of a series of letters written by Snape. No answer or frame narrative is added.

Critique: hilarious one-shot. Not particularly thought-provoking, but very entertaining. The professor is a deeply perturbed man with rather vivid imagination and language oscillating between the lyrical (dare I say epic?) and the incoherent ravings of a psychopath. 100% absurd. 100% enjoyable.

Where to find it: This fanfic is available on fictionalley http://www.fictionalley.org/authors/sylvie_moonbeam/SSAHLFTE01.html

Title: The Basement
Author: Marz1
Status: COMPLETE (with one incomplete sequel)
Length: 27 relatively short chapters
My opinion: good
Genre: humour / adventure
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: none
Spoilers: The story is an AU of third year, reusing many elements of canon up to and including Prisoner of Azkaban.

Author’s Summary: “I must have a sign on my back that says psycho paths please attack me. I would not put it beyond Dudley to affix such a sign to me, but I doubt he could spell it accurately enough for a psycho to understand.”

More detailed summary: Remember that scene when Harry thought he saw the Grim in Magnolia Crescent after he ran away from the Dursleys? Well, this is what might have happened if Harry had tried to befriend the dog... kidnapping and general mayhem ensues!

Critique: The story is especially memorable for the tone in which it’s told. It’s a 1^st person narrative from Harry’s point of view. He’s a rather cynical and blasé thirteen year old, but in a rather cute way, which is rather unusual in fanfiction (in my experience, cynical Harry tends to be incredibly arrogant, angry and super-powerful in most stories). He recounts his misadventures with just the right mix of bewilderment and resignation, which makes him quite an endearing character. The relationship with Sirius, who, fresh from Azkaban, is not at his sanest, is also oddly endearing, precisely because it doesn’t go so smoothly and because it’s shown from the point of view of a character who is obviously at a loss of what to make of that strange man.
The story is very fast-paced, which makes it a quick and enjoyable read, but at the same times not such a polished one. Towards the end especially, events seem to pile up at an impossible speed. To make it a great novel-like story, the author would need to adopt a more leisurely pace in some places, if only to make the hectic moments stand out more clearly.
Still, it’s a pretty good story and the tone really is quite unique.

Where to find it: This fanfic is available on fanfiction.net: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1625069/1/The_Basement

Fanfic reviews

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 16:03:05 GMT

Well, it had been a while so here are two new reviews for Harry Potter fanfics. They're both novel-length, but otherwise quite different.

If you enjoy action / adventure and don't mind a bit of slash, have a look at:

Title: The Shadow of His Wings
Author: Mirabella
Status: NOT COMPLETE
Length: 21 chapters so far, meant to be 25 chapters long when complete
My opinion: very good
Genre: Action / Adventure with a dash of romance.
Rating: R (sex and violence)
Pairings: Harry / Draco
Spoilers: the fic is based on the first five Harry Potter books

Author’s Summary: “In which Evil faces an insurrection, Good faces an unexpected betrayal,
and Harry means to find out which side Draco is on.”

More detailed summary: Harry is in his early twenties and teaching at Hogwarts with his former nemesis Draco Malfoy. The final battle against Voldemort never took place as You-Know-Who apparently preferred to go in hiding to prepare his next move carefully, thereby lulling the Ministry into a false sense of security. As the story starts, Voldemort is getting ready to unleash some pretty scary force on the unsuspecting wizarding world, while Lucius Malfoy has plans of his own to become the next Dark Lord. Dumbledore is gone, the Ministry is useless; needless to say, the situation is not ideal.

Critique:
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this fic is that it is equally good on the adventure and romance fronts. Mirabella came up with many exciting ideas about magic: tricky spells, scary wards, devilish plants, horrific necromancy and disquieting visions fill this tale to the brim and keep the story exciting and surprising at every turn. Fans of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade will appreciate the scenes of exploration into heavily protected territory.
For once, overflowing imagination goes hand in hand with great sensitivity: Compared with stories like the Saving Connor series by Lightning on the Waves for example, which has a lot of exciting ideas about magic but a somewhat looser grasp on the psychology of characters, this tale paints rather believable characters.
One might argue that towards the very beginning, the author is slightly too biased in favour of Draco Malfoy, making Harry looking like a bit of a fool in comparison, but the tendency is rather light and soon enough most characters gain in complexity and credibility. Great stories can often be judged from the quality of secondary characters and this is no exception: Ron may be a tad stereotypical, but Lucius is suitably impressive, Percy is strangely fascinating like a car crash on the highway and oh did Hermione break my heart.
The part played by romance is just as it should be in an adventure story: it helps driving the story forward and keeps things more interesting but without slowing the plot in any way. No pointless sex scenes here, the story comes first.

Where to find it: This fanfic is available on the author’s website: http://theguestroom.houseofhobbits.com/hp/sohw.html Other stories by the same author are somewhat less ambitious, but Harry Potter and the Inconvenient Condition is worth a good laugh (“Harry/Draco, R. Harry comes back from vacation with an inconvenient case of vampirism and must learn to cope with blood, Malfoy, and recalcitrant secretaries. And if that doesn't tell you everything about the plot you need to know, you haven't read enough badfic.”).

If you have a craving for a good time-travel story, try:

Title: Backward with Purpose
Author: Deadwoodpecker aka Ella
Status: COMPLETE (+ one completed sequel and another sequel is just getting started; the initial story can be read on its own though)
Length: 48 chapters
My opinion: good
Genre: Time-Travel fic
Rating: R (a little bit of sex but usually not explicit and a good deal of violence, but without disturbing sadism involved so all in all it’s not too traumatising ;) )
Pairings: Harry / Ginny mostly, also Ron / Hermione
Spoilers: the fic is based on a slightly alternate version of canon up to and including the Deathly Hallows.

Author’s Summary: “Harry, Ron, and Ginny send themselves back in time to avoid the destruction of everything they hold dear, and the deaths of everyone they love.”

More detailed summary: Things turned out just as in canon except Harry, Ron and Ginny are pretty much the only survivors among the characters we have come to know and love. Understandably, they’re pretty desperate, enough so to go on a crazy scheme to send their memories back in time to try and prevent things from going to hell.

Critique:
I must admit I love time travels, but that doesn’t mean I will love any story involving time travel. For that type of story to be any good, I think it needs to outline a convincing method of time-travel, to avoid time paradoxes as much as possible and to avoid the tedium which may come from reliving canon from book one onward. I think this fic deals pretty well with all three aspects. The method of time travel selected is clever and allows the author to avoid most time paradox problems; having three characters back in time keep things more interesting than with just the one and there is enough of a twist to that alternate reality that it doesn’t look like a pale copy of canon. Characterisation is not the best I’ve ever read, but it’s quite good and in particular it captures very well the whole desperate “oh my god I tried so hard and it’s just never enough” feeling that makes so many dark fics about Harry fascinating. At least my sadistic side loves stories where Harry is pushed to his limits and this is one of them.
The sequel is pretty good too but the plot so intricate you might get a headache! Do not attempt reading while tired!

Where to find it: This fanfic is available on fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4101650/1/Backward_With_Purpose

Sad but true...

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 19:41:02 GMT

Source: XKCD.COM, A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language

Poetry

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 08:50:30 GMT

Trying to write a PhD thesis and being in more or less constant self-doubt tend to be synonymous, I'm afraid, not least when the said thesis deals with something as elusive as the style of ancient poetry (Old English in my case).

It is strangely comforting to have one's doubts confirmed and somehow gently mocked by a witty quote, which is what happened to me today.

I share the quote with you because I think it's thought-provoking and because I'm sure that fpb in particular will have much to say about it, given his opinions on the matter differ quite dramatically from Stoppard's if I'm not mistaken.

Poetical feelings are a peril to scholarship. There are always poetical people ready to protest that a corrupt line is exquisite. Exquisite to whom? The Romans were foreigners writing for foreigners two milleniums ago; and for people whose gods we find quaint, whose savagery we abominate, whose private habits we don’t like to talk about, but whose idea of what is exquisite is, we flatter ourselves, mysteriously identical with ours.

(Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love)

Draco in Azkaban: Two Dark H/D Fic Recs

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:24:42 GMT

It's been a while since I last wrote any review, and these days I'm in the mood for darkness...
Both stories have much in common: mood, pairing, style, characterisation, etc.
Neither of them is hugely famous, but they're still relatively well-known so I'm afraid I can't claim I've found hidden gems, but never mind!
Incidentally, the second one inspired me for my fic Better Than Expected, even though the plot is completely different. It certainly gave me a taste for depressing stories showing Harry from Draco's point of view.

Title: Dark Side of Light

Author: Maya

Status: COMPLETE

Length: Very long one-shot (it’s not chaptered, but it’s really quite long)

My opinion: Good

Genre: dark slash

Rating: R (sexual and violent contents)

Pairings: H/D

Spoilers: I guess it was written after Goblet of Fire, but it’s set after the war.

Author’s Summary: Maya's attempt at dialogue-only. Post-war, Draco-in-Azkaban, very dark, may be bad for your mental health.

Critique:

Let’s face it, I love pretty much everything written by Maya. This is one of her earlier works and not necessarily the most ambitious, so if I had to choose which of her fics is the very best, this wouldn’t be it (it would be Drop Dead Gorgeous!). That being said, it is a very good dark short-story. The plot is quite simple. The war is over, Draco is in Azkaban for his crimes and Harry is desperately lonely because pretty much all the people he cared for are dead. He comes to visit Draco several times: out of curiosity, boredom, desperation perhaps: his motivations are not all that clear at first, but we get a better sense of the situation gradually, when more information is revealed about both characters and their involvements in the war.

The fact that most of the story is made of dialogue between these two characters gives it the peculiar atmosphere of a minimalist play: two characters, one room and a lot of nasty things lurking in the background. The writing is not flawless: the handling of emotions in particular is much less subtle than in Maya’s later works. Still, its darkness is oddly compelling. The unstoppable movement from really bad to perhaps not quite so awful and then suddenly to unthinkable horror is rather enjoyable for those with an inclination for tragedy (in the broad sense of the word).

All in all, if you enjoy depressing dark stories and don’t mind slash, you will love it. If it’s not the case, you should probably stay well away from it, and from the other rec below as well.

Where to find it: Lasair and Maya’s old website, http://www.lasairandmaya.com/DSOL.html Maya has planned to take all her fics off the internet in the near future (autumn 2008) so it might not stay there forever, not to mention the site is moribund anyway.

Title: As Time Unfolds Us: A Memoir

Author: Agnes Bean

Status: COMPLETE

Length: 14 parts, all visible on the same very long web page.

My opinion: Very Good

Genre: dark slash

Rating: R (sexual and violent contents)

Pairings: H/D

Spoilers: Written after Half-Blood Prince

Summary: Basically, Snape and Draco Malfoy help Harry Potter escape from Voldemort and Malfoy ends up being a “guest” at the Order’s Headquarters. He has not turned to the side of light, but he has asked for asylum after fleeing from Voldemort. The author provides no summary, but the incipit is quite telling: “If you are reading this, you probably already know about me. You probably think this is a ploy to entice you with some heartbreaking sob story about all the bad things I went through, to make you realise that I‘m just ‘misunderstood’. It’s not.”

Critique:

This is the perfect follow-up from Half-Blood Prince, at least from my admittedly biased point of view. It shows much insight into the characters of Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy, and into where their loyalties lay (indeed, quite a few of the author’s guesses were confirmed by Deathly Hallows). In general, I like the character of Draco Malfoy, but nothing annoys me more than a story trying to pretend he just needs a hug to be nice and happy. The character described here has a part of darkness and is certainly not blameless, but he is not a monster either. You could say the story plays with the distant possibility of redemption before crushing it ruthlessly.

The choice of writing the story as an autobiography proves very successful. The narrator’s hindsight allows him to drop ominous statements here and there about the future, and his restraint let the feelings show without forcing them onto the reader. If there is one thing I’m not too fond of in that story, it’s the slashy passages: they’re not too too long, but they have more explicit details than I usually care to know about. Then again, it’s part of the attraction of the story that you can guess strong and varied emotions behind what could, on the surface, be mistaken as a mere sexual fling.

This story has much in common with the one above and will appeal to the same kind of people: if you love dark stories that leave you gutted, this is for you!

Where to find it: http://bigbang.inkubation.net/memoir.html

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:08:23 GMT

This is an answer to a post by fpb about abortion. I repost it here because it did not fit in one piece in the comments to fpb's post and because he deleted the first part as it did not meet his standards of scholarship.
fpb</lj> 's point is that there is a continuum between conception and adulthood and that full humanity comes at a rather late stage as a child only attains consciousness some time after birth so there is no sense in forbidding infanticide and authorising abortion. This is obviously a rather rough summary, if you want to read his more subtle point, read here.

Edit: I wanted an LJ cut to make this less ugly, but my computer won't obey me so...

First I would like to address once again what I think is a problem of method in the basis of your arguments, that is to say the way in which you tend to base your argumentation on universal statements.

I know I already mentioned that elsewhere, but I would like to do it again, this time with special reference to the body of your message.

“people like Singer are simply regarded as desperate maniacs”

As a matter of fact, I was taught Singer’s theories in philosophy when I was in secondary school and, of course, it does not mean we were actively encouraged to think like him because the whole point of philosophy is to look at authors’ writings critically, but the man was not presented as a raving maniac either. Actually, his ideas on specism left a powerful impression on me and I think he does raise valuable questions about the specificity of humanity.

“There is no legend of exposure that does not involve horror, guilt, and eventual ruin”

There are so many legends, it is rather incautious to make such a claim. I can at least think of one tale in which exposure occurs without any nasty consequence for the child, for the dad who abandoned the mother in the first place, nor for the mother’s father who decided that the child should be exposed. Obviously, the child is rescued and lives on, otherwise there would be no story, but nothing dreadful happens to those responsible for exposure, on the contrary (the tale is that of Thorstein Bull’s Leg, Þorsteins þáttur uxafóts).*

I think the point in these exposure stories, is not so much the fact that exposure is terrible although that’s certainly an element of it. I would rather suggest that it is used because it shows that no matter how drastic the precautions you take are, you can’t guard yourself against the power of a prophecy. And, in occasions where there is no prophecy, it is often a way to create an exceptional origin story for the hero, which sets him / her radically apart from ordinary people, in the same way that many heroes are orphans or unpromising children or, on the contrary, children of aristocrats or exceptional people. The abandoned children plot has the advantage of combining both: usually noble parents but a humble beginning because of their exposure.

I am being awfully long, and I apologise for this: I just wanted to call these points into question because I think they introduce important flaws in an argument which is otherwise interesting. I shall now move to the main point of your discussion, that is, does it make sense to consider that at one point a being is not yet human and can be destroyed without qualms and that at the very next moment it is a human being whose destruction would be murder?

First of all, I completely agree with the idea that humanity understood in its fullest sense is something which is only gained gradually and that there is a continuum between the conception of a cell and adulthood. I find this hard to deny.

At the same time continuity does not mean identity: in a rainbow, there is continuity from one colour to the next, both seeming somewhat blurred where they merge, yet the colours are different.

Now fixing a precise point after which the colour is orange and before which it is yellow is completely arbitrary.

Similarly, fixing such a limit for humanity is completely arbitrary. And yet, isn’t there a point where there is no human life, and one where there is?

I guess most people will agree (and here I’m afraid I’m going to succumb myself to the sin of sweeping generalisations; I shall try not to let it cloud my judgment too much) that refraining from having sex is not destroying a life, even if potentially that act could lead to the creation of life. Tertullian’s view that wasting sperm by masturbation is destroying potential future human beings is certainly not prevalent. The next step is the creation of a cell from an ovule and a spermatozoid. Is that the beginning of life? Obviously it is quite a big step, but is it THE definite step? On the one hand it is the creation of something which, although it lives in the body of another being has a different genetic makeup so I guess it has some independence. On the other hand its properties at this stage are about those of a bacteria. Admittedly, it has greater potential as far as humanity is concerned, but having sex also have greater potential for giving birth to a human being, yet not doing it is not destroying a life.

Basically this part of the argument all depends on whether you think that the creation of a cell from two cells constitutes the creation of a new life or not.

I would say it probably does. After all a bacteria is a life-form too. So this a life form with a potential for humanity, but which is not human yet.

Now I don’t think destroying the potential for the creation of a human being by refraining from having sex is murder.

Is the destroying of a life form which has a potential to develop from cell to human being murder?

This is an incredibly tricky question.

I would say it is not, but many people think otherwise so it would seem we have entered the blurred area where the two colours mingle.

To go back to your point about exposure: is killing a new born child murder? Many civilisations have done it. Even now, in some countries (Benin is one of them), children born prematurely are left to die because the medical means are not there to save them (and I do say ‘left to die’: nurses do not try to save them and fail but they see them, write on the register ‘born alive, non viable’ and throw the body away, which is a bit like exposure).

I know this sounds shocking because it goes against our ideas, but if you want to be thorough with the question of abortion, it is a point worth raising.

I think the fact many civilisations have accepted exposure as normal does not prove it is a good thing, but it does show that it might be close enough to the ‘blurred’ area for people to disagree on this point.

So it would seem to me that we are left with a blurred area between conception and the acquisition of a limited form of consciousness some time before or after the birth (after a few weeks or months, the beginnings of consciousness show in the eyes of a baby I think, and even earlier babies are said to perceive some things when they are still in the womb).

There are several ways of going about it. If you only look at it on principle, every position is possible. You could take it on the safe side and protect the potential child from the moment of conception.

You could decide that as long as a child has no consciousness it’s no more alive than a flower and that destroying it is fine.

Both positions and everything in between have been current in some societies at some point.

All are, I think, arbitrary.

If letting the cell develop into a child had no bad consequences on the mother, the child and potentially other people, I would say let’s be on the safe side and protect it from the first instant.

Now the right of a cell to develop its full potential has to be counterbalanced with the consequences of that decision.

Is it right to potentially bring ruin to a woman’s life just to be on the safe side?

I say potentially because of course in both cases we are dealing with the future which cannot be known. Not all unwanted pregnancies have tragic consequences, thankfully.

That being said, there is a strong risk and giving birth to a child is not a matter to be treated lightly.

As a consequence, I support the opinion that a compromise between those two rights, those of the mother and those of the potential child, should be reached.

According to me, a woman must be given enough time to realise the situation, take a decision and act on it.

On the other hand, a foetus that already moves, perceives some things and is reasonably healthy (I don’t want to go into eugenics but it seems to me carrying on with a pregnancy when the child is going to die a few months after it’s born is just cruel for all parties) should be granted the right to live.

The compromise is necessarily arbitrary, just like most legal decisions when it comes to matters of time. Should rape be punished with 20 years in jail or 19 or 21? That decision is arbitrary even if the decision it should be punished severely is not.

Therefore, some time between 10 and 25 weeks would seem reasonable to me, but the precise time is by necessity going to be arbitrary, and the decision is necessarily going to infringe both on the rights of women and on the rights of foetuses, though in varying proportions. As a consequence, it should be clear that the solution is not perfect, but it seems to me that no perfect solution exists, at least until we can find a foolproof, convenient contraceptive and ensure that all those who need it have access to it, which is far from being the case at present.

I apologise for the ridiculous length of this post, but the topic is rather serious and you seemed to demand your points to be addressed as fully as possible so that’s what I did.

* This point was contested by fpb as he apparently only meant to consider Greek and Roman legends, not those of other cultures. I don't think this affects the general argument all that much though so I did not emend this.

Better Than Expected: fanfiction

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:21:37 GMT

Just a short note to let you know that the second chapter of my darkish Harry Potter fanfic is on Fictionalley now: http://www.fictionalley.org/authors/elskuligr/

I will probably edit it further in the future though. Any comment on how to improve it is welcome.

Apologies, Love, etc.

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:02:26 GMT

I was reading through this book about interaction rituals for work, and it struck me that this passage could apply very well to love relationships in particular.

Obviously, its style would have to modified somewhat before it could find it’s way in a best-selling “Love For Dummies” type of book, but this is the clearest explanation I have ever seen of why apologies matter and of how they should be conducted to be worthwhile.

‘Even though the offender may fail to prove his innocence, he can suggest through these means that he is now a renewed person, a person who has paid for his sin against the expressive order and is once more to be trusted in the judgmental scene. Further, he can show that he does not treat the feelings of the others lightly, and that if their feelings have been injured by him, however innocently, he is prepared to pay a price for his action. Thus he assures others that they can accept his explanations without this acceptance constituting a sign of weakness and a lack of pride on their part. Also, by his treatment of himself, by his self-castigation, he shows that he is clearly aware of the kind of crime he would have committed had the incident been what it first appeared to be, and that he knows the kind of punishment that ought to be accorded to one who would commit such a crime. The suspected person thus shows that he is thoroughly capable of taking the role of the others toward his own capacity, that he can still be used as a responsible participant in the ritual process, and that the rules of conduct which he appears to have broken are still sacred, / real, and unweakened. An offensive act may arouse anxiety about the ritual code; the offender allays this anxiety by showing that both the code and he as an upholder of it are still in working order.’

(Erving Goffman, Interaction Ritual, New York, Anchor Books 1967, pp. 21-22; my emphases)

Replace ‘participant in the ritual process’ by ‘partner in the relationship’, ‘expressive order’ and ‘ritual order’ by ‘relationship of trust and mutual respect’ or something similar, and you have it.

Goffman’s analysis is obviously meant to apply to all kinds of situations, but I think his analysis is particularly useful for love relationships, because too many people tend to think that apologies and such likes are just empty gestures and if they still go through the motions to a certain extent at work or in other social contexts because they feel under pressure to do so, some may feel it is unnecessary to pay attention to such niceties in the private sphere.

However, I think Goffman’s description shows very well that worthwhile apologies (whether verbal or otherwise) go much beyond empty niceties, they may literally save a relationship.

It also shows that, for this reason, the important part in an apology is not the use of certain words or gestures, but the evidence of a certain awareness and willingness to take one’s responsibilities seriously.

Nota Bene: the text says “he” all the time but the pronoun refers to any person in general and not specifically to men. My hypothesis would be that, like so many writers from the 1950s, he tends to forget that a person has about 50% chance of being female ;)

Men / Women

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 07:04:49 GMT

On a somewhat related note to my previous post, here is a page from a web comic I love:

You can find the rest at http://xkcd.com/ "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language"
"Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)."
That's not me saying it, that's the author :)

I am human too

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:08:08 GMT

I would like to say a few words here about feminism, and more particularly about how feminism is often perceived.

Let us start with the facts: there is a great deal of discrimination and violence against women in the world, even in supposedly “advanced” western societies. I shall only give a few examples, because I believe a long list would be tedious to read and because such things are no secrets so the reader will already be familiar with them. Domestic violence, rapes, unequal work opportunities, prejudices against women who take the initiative in a relationship, who are ‘too eager’ for sex, not eager enough to have children, etc. Some of these elements are much more serious than others, but none is quite trivial, I think. The chapter of work opportunities in itself could fill volumes.

Few people would actually deny those facts, so there is no need to insist. It is not superfluous on the other hand to consider how such facts are perceived in our societies. I am not surprised that only a minority of people actively fight against such injustice because I am quite realistic and no matter how just the cause is, it will usually only enlist a minority of people willing to fight for it. The same goes for every cause: whether it be against poverty or racism, you cannot realistically expect everybody to defend it actively. You can, however, expect the majority to support passively the action of the minority, not necessarily its methods but at the very least its goal. Yet, feminism is not widely approved of, and that is a rather mild understatement.

Worse, it is often ridiculed. And when I say ridiculed, I don’t mean only that some feminists or some of their actions are sometimes ridiculed, which is fair enough, but, more radically, that their aim itself — i.e. the idea of fighting violence and discrimination against women — is ridiculed, which is much more serious. A good example of this is the way, if the issue of gender discrimination happens to be raised, men will sometimes joke and say with a pseudo-ironic smile ‘oh well, that’s only to be expected, you women aren’t too clever’ or similar statements. Of course, such sentences are not to be taken literally: the smile which usually accompanies them is clear evidence of that. But it would be quite naïve to believe it is simple irony, i.e. someone saying the exact contrary of what they mean. As a matter of fact, someone who makes such a joke usually doesn’t mean ‘oh my God, I can’t believe such things happen, women really deserve better’. You only need to listen to the rest of their conversation to be persuaded of it. The irony in their comment is actually not directed against the statement itself, but against the people who are shocked by such statements, i.e. basically, women who think they are entitled to human rights. It is quite obvious from the way they expect women to react to such quips so that they can make fun of their disproportionate reaction to what is presented as just a harmless joke.

I do not believe such jokes are harmless and that discrimination is a laughing matter. Or, to be more accurate, I think not every way of laughing about it is commendable. Laughter is a very powerful tool, which can be used to deal with anxieties or to challenge preconceptions, but plainly sexist jokes and ironic dismissals of feminism do not fall into that category. On the contrary they reinforce existing prejudices and inequalities. Now, I am not saying they should be forbidden, far from it. Freedom of speech is precious and should not be encroached upon lightly. On the other hand, I do admit I hoped I wouldn’t have to hear such things from people whose opinions I usually respect, people who are educated and who work on a daily basis with highly competent and intelligent women, people whom I thought were my friends.

I will try to keep bitterness at bay and will proceed to another point, which is well worth raising. Feminists are often charged with wanting to ‘act like men’ or ‘be like men’. Now, I can’t speak for all the feminists in the world, obviously, but personally, I think this is a complete misunderstanding. Feminists want to be part of ‘men’ as in ‘All men are born equal’, which I have the naivety to believe, refers to ‘men’ in the sense of ‘mankind’ or ‘human beings’ and not in that of male individuals of our species. I have no interest in being male, but, strangely enough, I do think I am a human being. Now, I admit the use of ‘men’ or ‘Man’ is quite confusing and one is never quite sure of its exact meaning. This, I believe, is quite revealing of the whole problem. By using the same word to designate male human beings and humanity at large, it would seem our culture has confused the two, so that woman appears to strive after the rightful attributes of men, when she is in fact only claiming what is rightfully hers, the attributes of humanity.

Finally, feminism properly construed is not the war of women against men, on the contrary. Feminism fights against inequality and more widely against the pressures exerted by rigid gender representations. In both cases, its action can benefit all society, not just women. Equality ensures that half the talent of a nation is not wasted away. Challenging gender representations means that we — men and women — do not have to accept the narrow roles that society offers us, but that we can do justice to the richness of human experience and live our lives fully, no matter if our inclinations do not quite fit the consensual representations of what a ‘real man’ or a ‘real woman’ is. This is why, although violence and discrimination are perforce greater emergencies, reflexion on gender is the most exciting and perhaps the most promising aspect of feminism.

Took me longer than expected

Sat, 17 May 2008 09:18:59 GMT

Ooops!
I haven't written here for ages, and I think it's about time I post the second chapter I promised ages ago.
It hasn't been betaed yet, because my faithful partner in crime, r_fluffy, is kind of busy at the moment (as usual). If anyone notices obvious problems with the text as it is, I'll be grateful for their comments.

Part Two

A deathly calm reigned in the Ministry throughout the day. Draco Malfoy had soon got confirmation from a colleague that Harry Potter was indeed being detained somewhere in the building, but he could not find out more for several hours. Around noon, an Enforcer came back from St Mungo and announced that the lives of those who had been injured during the capture were no longer endangered. Apparently, this time they had been willing to take risks to ensure their captive was taken alive. Malfoy also learned that some of these operatives had been on guard duty at Fort Nox. Had Potter tried to break into the most heavily guarded building in wizarding Britain? Surely by now he would have learned to be more cautious than that.

The day dragged on and no further information was released. Draco Malfoy assumed the captive was being interrogated somewhere, but his Department had received no official notice and nobody dared asking questions. The Ministry employees were pretending to go about their daily tasks as per usual, but it was painfully obvious that they were all holding their breath.

At last, shortly before they were due to leave, they received a circular owl from the Minister’s personal secretary herself.

Instantly, all pretence this was just an ordinary day was dropped as they all reached eagerly for the piece of parchment. They need not have bothered.

Gasps of excitement were soon followed by growls of rage and frustration as they all realised the letter had nothing to tell them they did not already know.

Malfoy’s immediate superior, the mild-mannered Tarquinius Cauterby, was a man known to all for his phlegm and composure. Yet, on that occasion he was heard swearing profusely at the outrageous missive.

Dear Colleagues,

It may have come to your attention that a certain wizard, the identity of whom needs not be disclosed, is currently in the care of the Enforcing Department. It is my duty to remind you all that data pertaining to Enforcement Procedures is not to be divulged or otherwise discussed beyond the precincts of the Ministry itself (Wizarding Security Act 4, Clause 27, § 8 and Wizarding Security Act 5, Clause 7, § 2-3). Any infringement of the said stipulation will be met with appropriate action (Wizarding Security Act 4, Clause 27, § 9-13 and Wizarding Security Act 5, Clause 7, § 4-8). To further ensure your security, secrecy spells will be performed on all the wizards, witches and other sentient creatures leaving the building.

Yours Sincerely,

Hydrangea Polydorus.

Personal Secretary to the Minister of Magic Himself in Person.

Malfoys do not swear in public, so Draco did not, but he couldn’t help sympathising with his superior’s reaction. If it was to say that, they should not have written anything.

Nevertheless, the owl seemed to have the desired effect as most employees soon went home, now convinced they would not learn more by staying longer. Some were skittish about having to undergo secrecy spells, but there was no way around it.

Draco Malfoy was tempted to stay, just in case, but he seriously doubted anything new would come up that evening. Instead, he cleared his desk and went home. Not to Malfoy Manor of course. He had not climbed back the social ladder so high yet that he could use his influence to regain the family properties that had been forfeited to the Ministry of Magic during the war. At the moment, he had to be content with a small flat on the outskirts of London’s Wizarding District.

There was no one waiting for him there so even without a secrecy spell he would not have been able to discuss the day’s events with anybody. Secrecy spells cannot prevent thinking however, so that’s just what he did.

*** *** ***

If Enforcement followed the regular procedure, they would have to give notice to the Department of Justice of their capture and of the charges held against the suspect within forty-eight hours of the beginning of detention. By this reckoning, they would know what was coming by Thursday at the latest and they could probably convene the Wizengamot and arrange proceedings to start by the end of the month, perhaps later if — as it was likely given the identity of the suspect — the presence of the full Wizengamot was required.

But that was supposing the Enforcers would play by the rules. If they chose not to, and the circular they had received implied they had the full backing of the Minister himself, then anything could happen.

They could keep the Boy Who Lived in confinement for a whole year or more and nobody would be the wiser. Admittedly, they might not want to take such a risk, but they might very well take as long as necessary to get a full disclosure of Potter’s activities during and after the war.

Could they use such information to blackmail Potter into supporting the Ministry in some way? Would Potter be so easy to control though? He had never been too bright, but he could be rather stubborn and he did not have a great record of submitting meekly to authority.

The more Draco Malfoy thought about it, the more it seemed likely to him that the Potter Affair, as he was already calling it, might take a while before it came to a conclusion, whatever that conclusion might be.

Just in case, he set his alarm clock even earlier than usually to be at the Ministry at the crack of dawn.

*** *** ***

Seven o’clock found a bleary-eyed Draco Malfoy walking up Reg Alley, where the Ministry had relocated after the War.

On the few occasions when he had had to leave his home that early, the streets had been all but deserted. It was almost the case that morning. Almost, but not quite.

There was a flurry of activity by the Daily Prophet headquarters.

Although Draco Malfoy could not hear what those people were saying yet, he could already sense their excitement. Had someone overcome the secrecy spell and informed a journalist about Potter’s capture? With a smirk on his face, he tried to guess who would have to face “appropriate action” from Enforcement as stipulated in Wizarding Security Acts 4 and 5. Perhaps he would get to hear the statement of one of his colleagues today? That would definitely be entertaining.

As Draco Malfoy drew closer, he noticed the posters behind the group of people chatting animatedly. It really was Potter’s picture on them and if Malfoy’s eyes were not so full of sleep still, he would probably be able to read the caption by now.

At last, he was close enough and what he saw cleared his foggy mind more efficiently than any bottle of Wak’e’potion©.

Potter’s bright eyes seemed to be glaring furiously at him and just underneath red capital letters read:

Ministry Captures

N° 1 Public Enemy

Trial Tomorrow

Tomorrow? That could not be right. There was no way they could organize proceedings in such a short time! Now in a great hurry to get to his office, Draco Malfoy sped through the knot of journalists and caught some of their words as he went.

“… four of them in St Mungo. Can you imagine that? My sister says…”

“ … was bound to happen, didn’t I tell you, just the other day…”

“… couldn’t believe it! What do you think they’re going to do now?...”

What indeed? Such a prompt trial would give little time to find the appropriate way to deal with the delicate Potter Affair.

Draco Malfoy walked quickly through the atrium and grabbed a copy of the Daily Prophet from the Main Desk. The employee who weighed his wand was practically bouncing with excitement. The man pointed at the newspaper, “Crazy days we’re living in, isn’t it true, sir?”

He was obviously waiting for some comment, but Malfoy did not give him that satisfaction.

As he climbed the stairs to his office, he mulled over the reactions he had witnessed so far. People seemed excited, curious, uncertain at best about the turn of events, but nobody had seemed shocked that the Saviour of Wizardkind would soon be on trial.

N° 1 Public Enemy. Potter had come a long way since last time they met.

Not for the first time, Draco Malfoy wondered what Harry Potter could possibly have done to deserve that title.

*** *** ***

Draco Malfoy usually tried not to think of the War, but with Potter’s name on everyone’s lips and thoughts, it was hard not to be drawn into a past he would rather forget. The night had been full of nightmares, images of voracious werewolves mingling with the faces of eager Ministry officials, and now those images would not leave him.

It was his own damned fault for obsessing about Potter once again too. What business had he trying to guess what the Ministry was after. If for once he listened to reason and just minded his own business instead of focussing on the Boy Who Lived, it would probably be a good thing.

It would make his life easier at any rate.

Hopefully, the humdrum of daily work would help him keep Potter and the War out of his mind.

He did not have much faith in this plan, but he did not expect it to be so spectacularly thwarted the moment he stepped into his office.

*** *** ***

When Draco Malfoy came in, Tarquinius Cauterby was absent-mindedly twiddling a quill, his deep blue eyes clouded with uncertainty… or was it worry? Cauterby was well over ninety years old and had worked in the Department of Justice most of his life. He had started working there during Grindelwald’s rise to power and had subsequently proceeded to work there quietly and efficiently, unruffled by the many mass trials, ministry overhauls and political crises that had shaken the country. He went about his work with the same understated skill he had shown all his life and wore in all circumstances the polite air blasé of a man who has seen so much that nothing you tell him could possibly surprise him, but who will listen to you patiently all the same because that’s the proper thing to do.

Malfoy appreciated the reliability of the old-fashioned gentleman and would probably have respected his opinions if his boss had been the kind of person who would share them with anybody.

Cauterby sedately placed the quill back on the desk and turned his eyes to the young man. His look was sharp now and when he spoke his voice was just as emotionless and yet comforting as ever.

“Mr Malfoy, how good of you to come so early.” The smile was warm enough but did not touch his eyes. “You may sit down.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Would you be so kind as to cast a glance at that beige file in front of you?”

Malfoy took the file in his hands and opened it, only to be met with the furious glare of Harry Potter once again.

“But, this is Potter’s file!” he stammered awkwardly before regaining his composure and resuming, “I beg your pardon sir, but I’m not quite sure why you would present me with this particular file. Surely there isn’t much that can be done with it if the trial is for tomorrow…”

“And indeed I’m not asking you to do much, Mr Malfoy. Most of the proceedings have been taken care of by Enforcement, as I’m sure you’re aware.” Draco Malfoy thought he could hear a note of disapproval in his superior’s voice. “The only missing element is the signature at the bottom of the defendant’s statement, which must be appended in presence of a member of our department. I have arranged for you to gain access to the defendant’s cell at 5:20 this afternoon. Please, read through this and prepare the necessary paperwork.”

“And if Po’, ahem, if he— if he’s unwilling to sign?”

“This needs not concern you, prosecution will proceed just the same. Any other question?”

“No, sir.”

“I will leave you to your work then.”

*** *** ***

Draco Malfoy could have kicked himself. There he was, waiting in a dark and humid corridor to be granted access to a prisoner cell, and he was as nervous as a teenager waiting for his first date. Not that he had ever been nervous in the slightest with Pansy Parkinson of course. He had always known his own worth and that if anybody had reason to be nervous it was not him.

Yet now he was awfully anxious. Never mind that he was only required to get a stupid signature on a piece of parchment, a signature he would probably not be given, at that. Never mind that he could not care less for what happened to that particular prisoner — well, apart perhaps from a purely intellectual interest in the workings of British wizarding Justice, of course, but that was merely part of his job.

For the first time since he left Hogwarts, he was going to speak with Harry Potter and the thought was paralysing.

Would he remember the part Draco had played in the War? Would Dumbledore’s Golden Boy lord his saintly superiority over Draco, even now that he was the enemy and Draco part of the establishment?

Malfoy knew he had nothing to fear from Potter — not that he had ever been afraid of him — and that nobody valued Potter’s opinions anymore these days. However, he had no wish of getting in yet another confrontation with the other man, as when they were both in school.

Having to face him at all was already bad enough.

With some luck he would still be under the effect of Veritaserum or some such potion and he would be too drugged to even register Malfoy’s presence. He might even have forgotten him.

CLANG

Draco Malfoy started when he heard the noise of the iron grid. The guard was coming back to grant him access to the high-security corridor in which Potter’s cell was located.

Malfoy stepped onto the other side of the grid and submitted himself to yet another search. Honestly, you would think he had nothing better to do than bringing a rope and a file to a prisoner. He sighed.

“Are you okay, sir? You look kind of pale—”

“I’m perfectly fine”, Malfoy answered, rather more loudly than he would have wished. “Now, can we get on with it?” The nerve of that guard! The Ministry really hired anybody these days.

At last he was led into a cell of outstanding dimensions. It was not particularly wide, but extremely long, more like a corridor than a room. It was also incredibly high and the light coming from the few windows near the ceiling barely reached the floor.

At first, Malfoy was surprised not to see the door that would lead him to Potter’s cell itself, but then the guard pointed a shape at the end of the room and Malfoy realised that this was not just another passage, but that he was already in the N° 1 Public Enemy’s cell.

*** *** ***

Another guard was already inside, but he kept close to the door, and the first guard would not go further in either.

Malfoy stared in incomprehension for an instant, then noticed that it was now the guard’s turn to look rather pale. He was obviously afraid of going further in, no matter his instructions to watch the prisoner closely. Both guard studiously watched the empty air, avoiding both Malfoy’s incredulous gaze and the dark shape at the end of the room.

The Slytherin shrugged. He had a job to complete and he would not let himself be intimidated by the superstitions of two dunderheads.

His steps echoed as he walked towards the end of the room. The dark shape he had noticed slowly resolved itself into the silhouette of a man slumped over a desk, his hands and feet bound with heavy chains.

When Draco Malfoy reached the desk, the man sat up and looked straight at him. A flicker of recognition lit the green eyes, instantly turning into a steadier glimmer. Was it hope? Potter must be desperate indeed if he had no better person to place his hope into.

*** *** ***

Draco Malfoy ignored the prisoner’s searching eyes and started on his job. He grabbed a chair, sat at the desk and took out the statement, which he placed in front the other man. All the while, he spoke slowly and clearly, delivering a speech he had given many times before, ‘Good afternoon, sir. My name is Draco Malfoy and I am a representative of the Department of Justice. I am here to ascertain the authenticity and legality of this document, known as the defendant’s statement. The statement is a faithful recording of your words and it will be used in court to present your views to the Wizengamot. Once signed, its content is binding and you may not afterwards...’ Harry Potter made a strange noise, as if clearing his throat, and Malfoy faltered for a moment, before pursuing, ‘you may not afterwards alter in any way or reject, either partially or totally, the...’

‘Cut the crap.’ The voice was deep and ragged; it didn’t sound like anything Malfoy remembered. ‘We both know this is pointless, Malfoy.’

‘Sir, I am a representative of the Department of...’

‘I know who you are’, Potter cut him. ‘I haven’t lost my memory yet, thanks. Now, will you look at me or are you going to stare at nothing like the two idiots over there?’

A wave of embarrassment came over Malfoy. He cursed himself for that weakness and looked up from his folder. Potter’s features were partially obscured by his messy hair and the heavy frame of his glasses. What was visible looked faintly grey, more like a ghost than like a living person. The eyes, however, disproved the impression of death, their murky green the only trace of colour in the tired face. The intensity of that stare unsettled Malfoy. It was not the glare of pure loathing he had been used to receive from Potter when they were in Hogwarts, but it was nothing like the vaguely indifferent looks he received from his co-workers nowadays. The eyes were dark, but within their depths glowed a fierce, raw energy, like blazing bonfires glimpsed from afar in the night. Suddenly, Malfoy felt like he was the ghost and only the man in front of him was truly alive. He repressed a shiver. When Potter spoke again, his voice was still harsh and broken, but it was animated with steely resolve.

‘I need you to save her.’

‘I beg your pardon?’, Malfoy stammered.

‘I need you to save Ginny Weasley.’ The suggestion was so ludicrous that Malfoy would have laughed if he hadn’t felt trapped with a dangerous and obviously insane criminal. Apparently oblivious of his incredulity, Potter went on, ‘Someone needs to go find her by the end of the week. I left her in a former base of the Order of the Phoenix. The access is protected by spells, but I will tell you how to get past them. The location...’

‘Shut up!’ Malfoy realised he had shouted. The guards behind him stirred, but they did not come closer. He lowered his voice and let his words spill fast and frantic. ‘What do you think you’re doing? Who do you think you’re talking to? I despise Weasleys. I hate you. If Ginny Weasley needs company, you can go yourself after your trial or send a friend. Now, I have a statement that requires your...’

‘Don’t you understand? All my friends have left the country or been killed and I’ll be dead myself in two day’s time. I won’t let them kill her too. You’ve got to...’

‘Stop it! Nobody’s going to die. You’re just going to be put on trial by perfectly reasonable people, and so will she once we find her, and then...’ Draco Malfoy hesitated.

‘Then what? Stop hiding your face in the ground, Malfoy. Voldemort might be dead, but my side lost the war alright and the winners have no mercy. You’d be a fool not to see it. Ginny’s the last one. She must leave the country before the ministry finds her.’

‘Well’, Malfoy said angrily, ‘all the more reason for you to shut up. I work for the ministry for Merlin’s sake. What can make you think I’d go out of my way to protect your girlfriend? Are you out of your mind?’

‘I’m desperate’, Harry Potter answered defiantly. ‘She’s dead if no one helps her. She got caught with a Shrivelling Curse three days ago; she can’t walk anymore and if she isn’t given Devil’s Draught fairly soon, she’ll die. I tried to steal some from Fort Nox, but I failed. You’re my only chance.’

Malfoy scoffed.

‘You might think I’m crazy, Malfoy, but I’m not. I know it’s not much of a chance, but it’s all I’ve got and I’m going to use it. The base is located in a cave by...’

‘Will you shut up! I won’t help you. I don’t want to hear anything about it!’

‘What, not even to reveal the information to Enforcement?’, Potter asked with a wry smile. Malfoy was at a loss for words for a moment. Then he said, ‘Look, I want no part in this. Just leave it.’

‘Sorry, I can’t. I am bound to death and free from the world.’ Malfoy turned white as he recognised the words. He wanted to stop Potter from speaking, but just sat mesmerised by the sheer horror of what was happening. He heard the rest of the speech through a sort of stupor, ‘My burden is now yours, an honour for you or a bane for me. I hereby make the Dead Man’s Request: I request that you find Ginny Weasley, give her Devil’s Draught and help her to get out of the country alive.’ Potter fell silent and looked at him.

At last, Malfoy asked, ‘Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?’ His voice sounded hollow to his own ears.

‘I think that was a Dead Man’s Request. Now it’s up to you, Malfoy, your honour or my bane.’

Draco Malfoy had no idea where Potter might have heard of that spell. It was ancient. Some considered it a curse; others said it was not even a real spell, just raw magic let loose. Either way, Potter had pronounced the Request perfectly; there was no way to get around it now. The principle of the Dead Man’s Request was quite simple. It didn’t even require the use of a wand. If someone about to die felt there was something crucial that needed to be done, but that they would not be able to achieve it themselves before they died, they could beg someone to do it for them by uttering the Dead Man’s Request. If the person complied, it would bring them honour and good luck. If they did not, they would be unscathed but the Dead Man’s soul would be trapped between earth and beyond until the act was accomplished. Quite a few souls had been trapped that way, which had earned the spell its bad reputation.

‘You know you’ve just condemned your soul to be an eternal prisoner, then?’

‘Well’, Harry Potter answered, ‘I think it all depends on your decision. Now you’re holding one life and one soul in your hands.’

Malfoy felt tempted to spit in that arrogant face and leave the room. Potter had no right to impose that kind of responsibility on him. Potter ignored his hateful glare and just proceeded to give him all the details about Ginny Weasley’s situation. Malfoy absorbed the information without wanting to, damning Potter to Hell while hating the fact he now had the actual power to inflict a hardly better fate on his soul.

‘Is that it?’ He spat at last. ‘Now you’re expecting me to run along like a good boy and do what I’m told?’

‘I’m not expecting anything’, Potter answered grimly. ‘I just have one chance and I’m making the most of it.’ He paused for a while, then added with a wry smile, ‘and I guess I’ve always wanted to find out whether Draco Malfoy was really a murderer or if he had a conscience after all.’

Malfoy snatched the statement form, furious, and stormed away from the desk. Soon he was out of the cell and as far from Potter as he possibly could, which was not nearly far enough.

Musings on Irony

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 14:09:39 GMT

As a student of Old English literature, I’ve always been struck by the fact there is always at least one scholar to invoke irony for every single piece of poetry that does not make immediate sense to the modern reader.

This reflex, it seems to me, would be fairly reasonable when confronted with a literature that does make a great use of irony (e.g. 18^th c. French literature). On the other hand, it seems a bit off when dealing with a literary tradition which, as a whole, is not very big on irony.

I was recently working on something quite different from Old English, but suspicions of irony crept up again in the most unexpected fashion, which led me to write this note.

I am currently working on a translation of an extract from The Devil’s Advocate, by Morris West and one particular sentence is puzzling me:

“Nerone threw back his head and laughed as heartily as if it were a washerwoman’s joke down by the torrent.”

What puzzles me in this sentence is the expression “washerwoman’s joke.”

The genitive seems to imply a rather strong link between washerwoman and joke, as if that link was already known from the text itself or from common cultural knowledge (e.g. “my neighbour’s cat” suggests the reader already knows about this particular cat vs. “the cat of my neighbour” implies no such thing).

Here, washerwomen as such have nothing to do with the plot.

Clearly it is an image and the substance of the comparison seems to be that washerwomen tell good jokes and Nerone is reacting precisely as if he had just heard one such good joke, whereas we know from the text he just heard a dire warning and shouldn’t be laughing.

The puzzling thing for me is that the text seems to assume it is common knowledge washerwomen tell good jokes, which was new to me.

I asked two friends about it, one native speaker of English and one French girl with an extensive literary culture and both found irony, though not in the same place.

The French found irony in the name Nerone, allusion to the famous emperor who set fire to Rome.

The American found irony in the hearty laugh, assuming Nerone was not really laughing so much and that the allusion to the torrent meant you couldn’t even hear the joke and would thus merely fake a polite laugh and pretend you got it.

Admittedly, neither had the context of the whole passage (let alone the whole book!), so it was easier for them to read irony where there is none.

Still I found that puzzling, that when in doubt about the meaning of a passage, people tend to jump to the conclusion it must be ironic somehow.

I have no hypothesis regarding the source of that puzzling phenomenon, but would welcome

a) knowledge about the image of washerwomen in literature and the arts ;)

b) views or anecdotes about that tendency to assume irony when faced with something not immediately understandable.

Blood of Mud, Wing of Bat

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 17:49:59 GMT

Hey!

As I had promised long ago, here is the review for one of my favourite fanfics, one which has many elements in common with Trouble in Paradise, by AngieJ, although romance plays no important part in it.

Title: Blood of Mud, Wing of Bat

Author: Whippy

Status: NOT COMPLETE, APPARENTLY ABANDONNED

Length: 43 chapters that get longer and longer

My opinion: definitely in my top 10, would be excellent if was complete.

Genre: Our favourite characters, twenty years later, or “When did my life start going so wrong?”

Pairings: Hermione / Ron, but the story revolves around the character of Draco Malfoy as seen from Hermione’s point of view.

Spoilers: the fic is based on the first four Harry Potter books

Author’s Summary: “20 years post-Hogwarts, Hermione is married to Chudley Cannons beater Ron Weasley and employed by successful inventor Sibyll Trelawney. Then she is asked to work with Draco Malfoy. Can her job and marriage survive the test?”

Critique:

This fanfic is one of my all time favourites.

One of the things that make it rare and thus remarkable is that its plot is not based on a romance. At all.

And yet, it is a page-turner, which gives considerable insight into the psyches of many major characters.

This story is for people who, when they read Harry Potter, wonder how much a sickle is worth, how the Minister of Magic gets elected or what the actual size of the wizarding population in Britain is.

It is also a story for people who wonder what the ideals of youth become once you get older and what happens to the characters after “they get married and lived happily ever after.”

The story devotes considerable attention to the workings of Wizarding society and the evolution of individual characters in it, focusing both on their choices and on the instances when they are not really given a choice.

Blood of Mud, Wing of Bat has only two significant flaws, in my view.

First, it not complete.

Second, things go so steadily wrong and out of control for the main characters that it would require great talent to bring the story to some sort of a conclusion, that is to say without killing all the protagonists, which would be a rather lame solution.

That being said, the story is excellent. The representations of Draco and Hermione are rich and fascinating. They have all the complexity of real life and so do those of many minor characters, including Ron and Arthur Weasley.

Trivia: the title is inspired by Macbeth, although it is not a direct quote from Shakespeare’s work. In Act 4, Scene 1, the witches are brewing a potion whose ingredients include “Eye of newt, and toe of frog, / Wool of bat, and tongue of dog”...etc. The title uses that reference to potion both to refer symbolically to its two protagonists and to evoke the importance of potion ingredients in the story.

Where to find it: This fanfic is available on Fictionalley.org and Fanfiction.net, but the most complete and edited version is on Whippy’s own website Blast-Ended.

Also, for the few people who enjoyed the first instalment of Better Than Expected, the second chapter is written at last and will be posted as soon as it is betaed and corrected.

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 21:08:47 GMT

Hey folks,

July has been a very busy month, sorry for not writing more... and I’m not sure August will be any better. Not only have I not finished writing the second chapter of Better Than Expected, I’ve actually barely started reading the Deathly Hallows yet.

I know, I’m a bad person.

Before leaving my homecountry again, this time for the States, I thought I would give you a small Icelandic present.

First of all I bought Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in Icelandic (Harry Potter og viskusteinninn) so I could try to practice a bit (given my command of Icelandic this is way too ambitious, but then again I know the book practically by heart in English so I can probably guess my way through the Icelandic version), so here is the very beginning :

« Dursleyhjónin á Runnaflöt númer fjögur hreyktu sér gjarnan af því að vera sérdeilis og algerlega eðlilegt fólk. Engan hefði grunað að þau væru flækt í eitthvað skrítið eða dularfullt, því svoleiðis vitleysu kærðu þau sig ekki um. »

« Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense. »

I love it in English and I think it’s great in Icelandic too.

Also, and this is a special dedication for r_fluffy, I was perusing old books in Kolaportið, Reykjavík’s flea market, and I saw Hroki og hleypidómar, aka Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen.

I know r_fluffy loves the book and that she particularly loves the very first sentence :

« It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. »

So I just had to copy it down in Icelandic, here it is :

« Það er kunnara en frá þurfi að segja að piparsvein í góðum efnum hlýtur að vanta eiginkonu. »

And that’s all I have to say for now, really.

Cheers,

Elskuligr

Elskuligr? What a strange name!

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 17:01:37 GMT

Hey,

I’m sorry, I haven’t written anything here for a couple of weeks, but for once I have a great excuse, so I’m not feeling guilty at all, yeah! :-D
I’m currently in Iceland, desperately trying to learn Icelandic, which happens to be quite tough, so I don’t have that much time to write: I’m way too busy learning declensions, swimming in naturally hot water and hiking lovely mountains to spend a lot of time on the internet.
Anyway, I thought the time was appropriate for a little explanation about my name here, elskuligr.
Elskuligr is a word in Old Norse (or Old Icelandic, that is the language which was spoken in Scandinavia and parts of Britain during the Middle Ages). Its modern equivalent is elskulegur.
Both elskuligr and elskulegur mean “affectionate”, “loving”, “friendly” or “beloved”, “dear.”
It is an adjective derived from the word elska, which can be either a noun or a verb and means “love”.
Elskuligr is the masculine singular form of the adjective, as in elskuligr maðr, “a loving or lovable person”.

From what I’ve been able to find out in an Icelandic Etymological dictionary, elska as such has no parallel in other Germanic languages and is probably derived by a form such as *aliska-R, meaning to be raised or to grow older with someone.
Some people also relate that word to elja or eljun, meaning "vigour" or "energy", but the connection is doubtful.

I hope you enjoy the clever explanation and I promise I have not abandoned my ficlet Better Than Expected. I’ll work on it some more as soon as I get the time!

xx

elskulega (lovingly)

Me. ;-)

Here is a small picture of Thingvellir, where the Assembly of Iceland (Althing) used to meet to pass judgments and make laws in the medieval and modern periods.
Just to make you jealous ;-)

To Be Opened in the Event of My Death 2

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 20:58:13 GMT

Today, I read a really sweet ficlet on fpb’s livejournal. It’s called To Be Opened In the Event of My Death and it’s a love letter written by Harry to Ginny before he dies.

I quite liked it, but I also found hilarious one of the comments, by dustthouart, saying:

“I like this but it's far too erudite and well-written to be from Harry. ^_^ His would be more likely to be some scribbed notation "I love you and don't be sad too long ok and I'm doing this for you PS DON'T KISS DEAN". Kidding. ^_^”

fpb protested that Harry would probably make a bit more of an effort than that if he thought it was his very last letter and I think he’s right.

So this got me thinking and I tried to imagine a letter that would be halfway between fpb’s romantic love letter and dustthouart’s hasty scribble and that’s what I came up with.

I'd like to think that fpb's letter is probably what Ginny would deserve and that this is the sad sad reality (well apart from the fact it's probably too long to be realistic, but what can I say, I'm a talkative girl...).

Disclaimer: I own nothing, even less than usually. The characters belong to J. K. Rowling and the plot to fpb, and also some bits to dustthouart. I know, I’m a shameless parasite ;-)

Genre: one third tragedy, one third romance and one third comedy

Hey Gin,

Look, I know this must seem kind of weird and if I ever come back I’ll look a bit of an idiot for having written stuff like this, but the thing is I’m not too sure I’ll come back and, just in case, there are things I’d like to tell you. I mean, in case I die. Right, now this sounds really melodramatic. Never mind. I’m going to try to get rid of Old Voldie right now and we’ve come up with a really great plan and all (well Hermione has, but you had probably guessed that) so all things considered I think I’ve got as good a chance to make it in one piece as could be hoped for, but well you know...

Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to write you about, I don’t give a damn about Voldemort, well, I do, but not nearly as much as I care about you. God, that sounded awful! I don’t mean I’m comparing you with Voldemort or anything, you know how I’m not very good with words... ok, make that I’m completely hopeless with words and now stop laughing! Or rather don’t, ‘cause I really love it when you laugh, you look so bright and strong and perhaps a little crazy and you’re so gorgeous and wonderful that just for ten minutes spent with you laughing, it’s all worth it and never mind if I don’t come back ‘cause at least I’ve been happy and damn lucky to spend some time with an amazing girl like you and that’s more than a lot of people can say.

I really hope you’ll get to be happy and laugh an awful lot in the future.
That’s mostly what keeps me going, ‘cause sometimes this whole hero thing seems so hopeless I think I should just stop trying, but then I think if there’s just one chance I succeed and then Riddle can never hurt you again and we can be happy at last, then it’s all worth it, right? And if we can’t be happy together, well I hope that you at least will be happy.

And I really mean it you know, I’m not writing this to make you sad or guilty or whatever, I really hope if I’m gone that you’ll meet someone who can make you happy, as long as it’s not an idiot like Dean. All right, forget that, I didn’t really mean that, it’s just that I’m not dead yet, so I’m not too keen on imagining you with anybody else right now, but honest I hope you’ll be happy, even if it’s with Dean or that stupid Michael Corner, God, even Draco Malfoy provided he really makes you happy. Well, perhaps not Malfoy, but you wouldn’t fall for him, right?

Ok, now I’m sure this letter is going to stay in the annals as evidence that the Boy Who Eventually Died was completely illiterate and I’m sorry about that and about writing this letter on the backs of Which Broomstick? ads ‘cause that’s all the parchment I could find. I would have liked to write something really beautiful, tell you all you mean to me and also tell you how I’m sorry for being such a complete jerk to you after Dumbledore’s funeral. You deserved better than that and you’d deserve a better letter than this, but you know I’m more of a kill-a-basilisk-with-a-big-sword kind of guy, I’m not too good at talking with girls (all right, that was the understatement of the century, now I know you must be laughing like mad, you heartless wench!).

So I guess what I’d like to say is I love you, I really do, and I hope you’ll be happy,

xxxx

Harry

"Better Than Expected" New ficlet by me, myself in person

Sun, 24 Jun 2007 21:32:09 GMT

Dear old r_fluffyhas finally found the time to beta my first chapter for a fic called Better Than Expected, so here it is in exclusivity!

This is a rather darkish story set after the Death Eaters have been defeated by Harry Potter. When it all happened, Draco Malfoy expected he was about to go through rather difficult times, but as it turns out things are not going quite the way he would have thought...

Warning: some characters you might be fond of die in this fic.

Draco Malfoy flooed in to work a few minutes before eight that morning, like every other day. Certainly neither his zeal nor his enthusiasm for the job were responsible for that excessive punctuality. Mr Malfoy did not care much for his work and if truth be told nobody really cared for his presence there. Coming early was just part of the routine he had adopted, ever since he had been offered a position at the Department of Justice, a favour he was duly grateful for. It was only one of the many ways he had of avoiding the hustle and bustle of the Ministry. Perhaps he really was an arrogant bastard like some of his colleagues claimed or perhaps he just couldn't shake off the stealthy habits he had acquired during his short time as a Death Eater Either way, Draco Malfoy felt uneasy in the crowd. There was something soothing in the sight of the succession of empty corridors early in the morning and in the knowledge that he was not likely to cross the path of anyone he knew personally just yet.

Some days his face would even show the ghost of a smile by the time he reached the door to his office. Those days were rare though and today was not likely to be one of them if the rumours he had heard in the atrium were true. Perhaps another man would have hoped for the rumours to be unfounded but Malfoys were not men to hope in vain, they just used their power to turn events to their advantage, or so Lucius had told his son. However, given what the power of the last Malfoy was worth these days, that option was not really available.

Still, things were better than he had first expected.

*** *** ***

When the Dark Lord had fallen, a year and a half before, Draco Malfoy had been unsure what to think. In truth, he had never expected it to happen. Like most people by then, he had heard about the prophecy involving Potter and He Who Must Not Be Named, but given what he had seen of the Gryffindor when they were still schoolmates, he had no doubt about who would be murdered and who would be the murderer. The Dark Lord was simply too powerful, too ruthless for Dumbledore's golden boy to stand a chance. And yet Potter had won and for once Draco had not minded losing to the Boy Who Lived. No, he had welcomed the defeat because it was still much better than the life of pointless servitude he had been leading. A life in the service of the pureblood cause, indeed! The Dark Lord had known how to create chaos and strike terror in the hearts of the Mudbloods, but he had proved completely unable to institute the aristocratic order that old wizarding families were longing for. So Draco Malfoy had felt no regret and no anger at his demise. He was not likely to seek revenge for the death of the half crazed wizard and even if he was not thrilled at the perspective of a magical world ruled by goodie-goodies like Potter and his crowd of Muggle-lovers, it was still better than what the alternative would have been.

No, he had not been angry or sad. He would actually have been relieved if he had not been so afraid for his life. Draco Malfoy had no illusions regarding the fate awaiting the losers of a war. He may not have been a very enthusiastic or very useful Death Eater, but he had been one of them all the same. His role in the First Battle of Hogwarts alone would have been enough to earn him a long sentence in Azkaban, and that had only been the beginning. As it was, getting the Kiss was a distinct possibility if he was caught and Draco Malfoy had no intention of losing his soul or his life so soon after being freed from the clutches of his late master.

He had decided he would lie low in one of the lesser-known family properties for a while, recovering from the loss of his connection through the dark mark and from the various wounds he had accumulated in the last few months. He would observe the new political situation from that safe distance and if it appeared that the Muggle-lovers were feeling particularly merciful towards their former enemies, he might try to beg or bargain for a pardon. He was even willing to serve a few years in Azkaban if it meant he was allowed to be part of wizarding society again afterwards. After all he was young, there would be time to consolidate his position and regain power afterwards. He would not let the Malfoy name down. That is, if he was allowed to live.

In those months following the Dark Lord’s demise, Malfoy was actually not sure if, in all fairness, he deserved to be spared. He was actually quite certain that, had positions been reversed, the Dark Lord would not have granted mercy to any of his defeated enemies. But after all, wasn't fairness vastly overrated? If one was to treat everybody according to what they deserved, Azkaban and the cemeteries would be choking full and that wouldn't do much good to anyone, would it?

No matter how long it took, Malfoy was determined then not only to survive the aftermath of the war, but also to regain the social position that was rightfully his. Perhaps the solidarity between purebloods would help. Now that wizarding England was likely going to be ruled by blood traitors of all kinds, they needed to unite if they did not want to lose what was theirs.

As it turned out, pureblood solidarity had been surprisingly effective. Less than a year after the end of the war, the young fugitive had been officially pardoned and soon after, he had been offered a minor position within the Department of Justice.

Yes, things had gone much more smoothly than he had expected.

*** *** ***

Going back to the magical world after that self-imposed exile had been a disconcerting experience. Much had changed but not in the way he had feared. His irrational fears of seeing every section of the Ministry under the supervision of a red-haired Potter-lover had been quickly dismissed when the Slytherin had recognised several members of prominent traditional wizarding families among the officials. He had also thought his department would be in turmoil over the St Mungo Massacre, whose perpetrators were still at large, but apparently the case was already closed and had been so for quite some time. When he had raised the question, his colleagues had looked at him with puzzled expressions, as if he had suggested reopening the Potion Traffic Case of 1527.

It seemed that even outside the office, nobody cared much about that particular instance of mass murder or if they did, they did not mention it in public. The anniversary date came and went without any commemoration and as far as Draco Malfoy could tell, he was one of the few who had even noticed it had been a year already. He personally had no desire to spend the day pretending to be sad and listening to overemotional speeches from every available senior official, but he had thought the death of many noted war veterans, including one of Potter's closest friends, would have stirred the magical community more than that. Draco Malfoy himself had just gone into hiding when St Mungo's intensive care unit had been raided and nearly all of its patients killed. Most of them had been injured while fighting alongside the Order of the Phoenix and Potter's little band. Of course, there were none of Malfoy's friends or relatives among them. He knew some of the victims' names from his schooldays, but there was nothing there to touch him personally. Still, the news had caught his attention.

During his year among Death Eaters, the young man had often caught sight of Hermione Granger hurling and deflecting deadly curses in the thick of battle so it was a bit of an anticlimax to hear that the brightest witch in Britain had been killed in her coma-induced sleep, powerless to defend herself, not even aware she was under attack. Of course she had apparently been unconscious for several weeks and might never have recovered anyway, but it did not seem proper somehow. Yet another example, if it were necessary, that life as a rule is not fair.

Still, better she than him; Draco Malfoy was not about to complain.

*** *** ***

From his first day at the Ministry, the majority of the cases handled by the Department of Justice had been Unsuitables. That category was part of the central security policy introduced by the new Minister of Magic, Eusebius Baldermash. When old Baldermash had taken up the job, a few weeks only before the Fall of the Dark Lord, the Ministry had been utterly powerless and disorganized. Unforgivables were routinely performed throughout the country and yet Ministry employees were still wasting their time tracking down underage uses magic, which, in their immense majority, were perfectly harmless. One of Baldermash's key measures had been the reorganization of the Department of Justice and the creation of a new classification of spells. The three Unforgivables remained, but a number of Dark and otherwise harmful spells had been reclassified as Unsuitables, and could only be used by licensed Ministry officials, including but not limited to Aurors. There were several levels of gravity with corresponding security protocols, supposedly ensuring the Ministry focused on the highest priorities.

The other major security measure undertaken by the new Ministry had been the restriction of Potions and Potion ingredients to one Ministry-approved reserve, Fort Nox. The fort was heavily guarded and only delivered its goods to people and institutions endorsed by the Ministry. While it put a cramp on self-medication and other everyday uses of harmless potions, it also ensured it was much harder to brew or use Unsuitable potions than it had previously been. Those measures had proved relatively efficient and barely a year after the end of the war, the security situation seemed much better than what could have been expected.

The Department of Justice had a book in which were listed the names of all the people suspected of having used Unsuitables. The first time Draco Malfoy had looked at the list, he had almost burst out laughing. Many of the people on the list were actually members of the Order of the Phoenix or sympathizers who had fought the hardest against the Dark Lord. The ex-Death Eater had not been sure if that was pure tragic irony of simply another proof that it was in the nature of a ministry to be utterly incompetent, but the whole thing had certainly seemed rather ridiculous. Why, Potter's name was actually one of the highest on the list, as if the ministry was going to haul him off to jail for killing the Dark Lord! The Ministry had closed their eyes on everything the stupid Gryffindor had committed for years, when the boy had done nothing to deserve such leniency, except wearing a stupid scar, and now that Harry Potter had actually done something useful and saved the magical world from a murderous tyrant, they were going to prosecute him for improper use of magic. That was simply ludicrous, or so it had seemed at the time.

Later, Draco Malfoy had realised that Harry Potter and his crowd were nowhere to be seen. They were not merely staying out of the limelight to enjoy some peace, as he had first assumed, but from what he had gathered, they had gone underground soon after the end of the war and had had no dealing with the Ministry or regular society since then. Draco Malfoy had also been surprised to discover that his department was taking the affair very seriously, actively searching for the Boy Who Lived and even using a great deal of its resources to that end. What purpose finding Potter might serve was not obvious to Malfoy, but then the wizarding world had always been obsessed with the boy so they were bound to be frustrated by his prolonged absence. The reasons why Potter had not surfaced yet were a matter of speculation. Several eyewitnesses had confirmed he had survived the Final Battle, but the extent of the injuries he had sustained was unknown. He had not gone to any known healing establishment in wizarding Britain, which admittedly, considering what had happened to the patients of St Mungo, was perhaps a wise choice on his part.

*** *** ***

When Draco Malfoy had entered the Ministry, the most popular rumour was that Potter and some of his followers had joined forces with the centaurs to create an alternative magical state, opposing the central government of Eusebius Baldermash. Malfoy couldn't help raising an eyebrow when he heard that one, but, like others before, that rumour had soon been forgotten to be replaced by something sillier still. The young man did not know how much store his superiors set by those rumours, but clearly they seemed determined to hear what Potter had to say on the subject of his misuses of magic. More likely it was mainly a pretext to get Potter to publicly endorse the new Ministry. Either way, the irritating Boy Who Lived had eluded all his pursuers.

Why Potter insisted on remaining hidden was beyond Draco Malfoy. Surely, if it was safe for a former Death Eater to come back in the wizarding world, then the hero of their war could do it too? Admittedly, a few war heroes had met an untimely death since the end of the hostilities, but apart from the St Mungo victims, those deaths had mostly been suicides. Probably of people who had not recovered from what they had seen and done during the war. It was regrettable, but it happened; of course no Malfoy worth his salt would have let go of life that easily, but not everybody could be held to the same standard. As for the other deaths, his colleagues from the Department of Justice did not seem particularly worried so obviously there was no significant threat for those who had fought the Dark Lord.

Besides, Potter was many things, but he had never been a coward so fear for his life could not be the explanation. He had been spotted by Ministry operatives on few occasions, so they knew that he was not dead and that he had not left the country either, unlike so many witches and wizards who had chosen to emigrate recently. Clearly, Potter was refusing to dialogue with the authorities and, from what Draco had heard in his first weeks at work, he would even occasionally resort to violence rather than letting himself be taken to the Ministry for judgment. It would probably have saved much time and money if Potter had just accepted to make a statement in court so that his cased could be cleared once and for all. As it was, his obstinacy was only making his life more difficult, but then the Gryffindor Wonder Boy had always been too proud and stubborn for his own good.

*** *** ***

Draco Malfoy had only started to realise the seriousness of the situation about two months after his return, when he had seen two Enforcers carry the body of a familiar redhead to the morgue. Enforcers had replaced Aurors and Unspeakables in the new centralized security system introduced by the Ministry. Malfoy knew a few of them by name, so he got to ask one what had happened. He was told Ron Weasley had resisted arrest and had had to be killed in the fight that ensued.

It’s not that he was surprised that Weasley had gotten in some trouble. He had known that his name was close to the top of the Unsuitables List, together with Potter's, and you could always rely on a Weasley to make a mess of things with uncalled-for bravery. He was not sad either obviously, given he had never got along very well with that particular Gryffindor, but he could not shake off a feeling of unease and anger. Why couldn't Weasley just have followed the Enforcers quietly? What did he think he had achieved by dying that way? In all likelihood, he would have been free to go the next day. It was not like the Weasley family could afford to lose still another one of its members. If Malfoy's reckonings were correct, Ron had been the last male of the line so that now the name was bound to be lost. Of course Weasleys had never been one of the most respected families, but they were old blood all the same. It was such a waste.

Malfoy half-suspected the Enforcers of having been overzealous: as far as he had heard, none of the operatives had been seriously injured so the use of an Unforgivable could perhaps have been avoided. However, he was not paid to investigate into the proper conduct of colleagues from another department so he soon dismissed the matter from his mind to focus on the extensive archives he had to classify.

At least he had tried to dismiss it, but it was not always easy. It was the first time he had seen Ron Weasley up close since their days at Hogwarts and even though it had been barely more than two years ago, Weasley had looked at least ten years older. Fate had obviously not been as kind to him as it had been to others. Every time the image of that wasted body came back to his mind, Draco Malfoy remembered how lucky he himself had been to get a place back in wizarding society after the war.

Things were going better for him than he could ever had expected when the Dark Lord had fallen and whenever the young man felt an uneasiness creeping on him, he held onto that thought for reassurance.

*** *** ***

The thought of his own luck soon ceased to be a source of comfort however. A few weeks after Weasley's death, Draco Malfoy had been promoted. He no longer worked in the basement with the other underlings managing the archives, but now had an office in the Department of Justice itself, from which he supervised the court processes. His first reaction had been to congratulate himself on that swift progression towards the spheres of influence where he belonged. He had never been modest and had no doubt that he would do well in his new position. However, even he could see it was strange that he should be offered such a job only fourteen months after he had stopped serving the worst enemy wizarding Britain had known since Grindelwald. It was not as if he had joined the winning side shortly before the end. If he had done so, he would have understood why the new Ministry did not shun him and he would have ascribed his recent social ascension to his own political cleverness. But the truth of the matter was he had not deserted the Dark Lord before the end and everybody knew it. At least his boss certainly did. So how come he was doing so well when those who had supposedly been on the winning side were dropping like flies?

The comparison of his fate with that of Weasley — or of Granger for that matter — had ceased to be a source of comfort to become one of further unease. Now that he was working in the core of the Department of Justice, he could see that nearly all of the senior positions were occupied by purebloods, often Slytherins, and that he was not the only former Death Eater working there. Those were ambitious people and Draco was not surprised that they had come back in politics, but they had succeeded more quickly and more completely than would have seemed possible only a year before. More unsettling still was the job itself. Draco Malfoy had acquainted himself with recent affairs so he could do his work in the best conditions and what he had learned had raised many questions that he was far too prudent to voice aloud.

By far, most of the trials held by the Wizengamot since the end of the war had dealt with former Death Eaters like himself. Those trials had all been brief and almost all of the defendants had obtained a pardon. The few trials which had taken more than a day and required the presence of the full Wizengamot had concerned people of dubious loyalties. Most of them had been sent for long sentences in Azkaban, although a handful had obtained a pardon and a few others had been publicly executed. There was no trace of a trial of a former member of the Order of the Phoenix or of any witch or wizard who had fought on the winning side during the war. Yet Malfoy knew that those had constituted the bulk of the Unsuitables List and he also knew that the list had become considerably shorter as time went by. He had assumed that the individuals concerned had received a proper judgment before being either freed or sent to Azkaban, but this did not seem to be the case. If they had not been pardoned and had not been sent to prison, then what had happened to those people whose cases had been closed? Whenever that question came to his mind, the image of Ron Weasley followed it closely and Draco Malfoy did not like that one bit.

This is why when he heard the rumours that Harry Potter had finally been caught that morning, he was not as certain as he once had been that charges would be instantly dropped and that the Boy Who Lived would be hailed as a hero.

I hope you enjoy this fic, I would be very glad to read your comments or reviews :-)

Doodles

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 13:44:51 GMT

There are many things that I should be doing right now, including writing a paper and learning Icelandic, but strangely enough, once again I'm just feeling too lazy to do anything remotely useful.
I haven't even written new reviews, nor have I finished my ficlet (then again it's partly

r_fluffy's fault: she should be betaing the first part, but instead just wastes her time on inconsequential stuff like exams, I wonder why...).
Instead I have just written a silly love quatrain that I will now generously deliver to the world which has presumably better things to do than reading it, but there you go:

Shall I compare thee to a chocolate cake?
Thou art perhaps as sweet, but not as rich
As the delicious cakes good bakers make.
Are these lines sweet or just a trifle kitsch?

I apologise profusely to good old Will for shamelessly plagiarising his beautiful sonnet ("Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?").

On a completely unrelated note, I stumbled on an article praising fanfiction the other day, I thought people taking an interest in this livejournal might enjoy reading it too:
Cory Doctorow: In Praise of Fanfic

That's all folks!

Harry Potter Fanfiction Reviews: Metafiction

Mon, 28 May 2007 21:19:09 GMT

Today is a day for metafiction, dont ask me why, that’s just the way it is. For those of you who haven’t had the privilege of spending way too many years on the benches of various universities, metafiction is simply fiction about fiction. Like, if I write a story about a guy writing a story, it’s metafiction, simple as that, but it does sound more impressive with the technical word. Then again perhaps I’m just easily impressed, whatever.

Today’s fics are probably not in the Top Ten of the best Harry Potter fanfictions ever, but they’re both good easy reads with a lot of fun. Moreover they’re not long epics like AngieJ’s stories, so you can start reading them without taking the risk of putting the rest of your life on hold for a week, which is always a good thing.

Title: Harry Potter and the Attack of UST

Author: Opalish

Status: COMPLETE

Length: one-shot

My opinion: good fic: it won’t change your world but it will definitely get a laugh from every fanfic fan, especially those who read snarries and other slash fics.

Genre: humour/parody

Rating: 12A

Pairings: SS/HP

Era: undetermined

Author’s Summary: “Harry’s feet continued to carry him towards Snape’s office, while his mind was battered relentlessly by comments such as, ‘I’m sure kissing Snape would be wonderful, even if he doesn’t brush his teeth’ and ‘you know what they say about men with big noses’”

Critique:

This story is perfect for a quick laugh: it’s short, simple, witty and original. Parodies of fanfictions — especially slash — are quite common, but they are rarely well-written and often their authors seem to feel they can get away with having no plot whatsoever, just because they’re writing a parody. Call me conservative, but I do appreciate when there is a plot, even for a parody. Here, there’s not only a simple but effective plot, there’s also a nice twist, which is even better. A very clever use of metafiction.

Where to find it: On fanfiction.net with the rest of Opalish’s stories, (here) NB: Opalish has written many many fics, mostly one-shots, of variable quality. A great favourite of mine is Harry Potter’s Guide to the Dark Arts

Title: Hogwarts Staff Meeting

Author: Inkwolf

Status: Work in progress

Length: 18 chapters so far

My opinion: good fic, very light-hearted

Genre: humour

Rating: PG

Pairings: none

Spoilers: Half-Blood Prince and all the books before.

Extract from the fic’s “trailer”: “With the Hogwarts budget in the red and the school approaching bankruptcy, Headmaster Albus Dumbledore had a simple plan...he ordered Ancient Runes teacher J.K. Rowling to write a series of books about an imaginary student, for sale to Muggles.
Little did they realize that he was triggering a series of events which would lead to lawsuits, death, donut shortages, war, alien invasion, nude veela yacht parties, global warming, world economic collapse, nuclear holocaust and alien invasion!”

Critique:

The story is simply hilarious, frankly over the top, but a nice easy read with a fast pace. It is all dialogues, with a few stage directions, a bit like a play or a film script. It is supposed to be the exact record of the staff meetings going on in the “real” Hogwarts from the moment they convince Ancient Runes Teacher Rowling to write a book about Hogwarts to the publication of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. What makes it priceless in my opinion is the insight it gives into the reasons why Rowling’s books are the way they are. Do you want to know why the fifth book is not as good as those before? why Harry Potter wears glasses? Then have a look at that fic and all will become clear.

Where to find it: Chamber of Secret, a forum of MuggleNet.com (here). It’s also worth having a look at the author’s homepage : he’s a talented cartoonist so if you like fanart, you’re bound to find something to your liking there.

On a related note, I have started writing a fanfiction on my own (

r_fluffypromised she would beta for me though). It was meant to be a darkish post-war one-shot, but some 3,000 words later, I’m still stuck right in the middle so I might make it two chapters, we’ll see.

Harry Potter Fanfic Reviews: stories by AngieJ

Tue, 22 May 2007 20:44:46 GMT

Hi people,

Obviously this is a brand new livejournal. I will mainly use it to leave reviews and today is no exception. I read a lot of Harry Potter fanfiction and by now I have hoarded quite a few gems so I thought I should be generous and share them. Some of these stories are well-known in fandom, but I know how difficult it can be to find genuinely good fics in the sheer immensity of the fanfiction realm, so I hope my livejournal help people discover what the very best harry potter fanfictions are.

The two fanfictions I discuss today are Trouble in Paradise and Paradise Lost, by AngieJ. Like Blood of Mud, Wing of Bat, by Whippy (a fic I will probably review in the near future), it takes place many years after Harry Potter and his friends have left Hogwarts.

Title: Trouble in Paradise

Author: AngieJ, aka Ebony Elizabeth

Status: COMPLETE

Length: 12 very long chapters

My opinion: very good fic

Genre: the other side of romance or how good kids have become adults capable of hurting each other despite their best intentions; there’s also a good deal of mystery and adventure.

Rating: I’d say PG, but I’m probably a bit lenient so let’s make it 12A. The author warns that the story is about adults and thus contains adult themes, but there are no shocking scenes as such.

Pairings: wouldn’t you like to know? ;-) It starts as R/Hr.

Spoilers: the fic is based on the first four Harry Potter books

Author’s Summary: “Ron and Hermione have loved each other since their Hogwarts days. Now that they are married, mistakes and misunderstandings threaten to tear the very foundation of what they've built together apart. Can their love survive the ultimate test? 31-year old Daily Prophet reporter Angelina Johnson-Weasley narrates.”

Critique:

This fanfiction has a lot of things going for it.

Its characters have become adults, facing real problems in a real world and the author has managed to give her Potterverse all the complexity one can expect from an adult universe. Her world has a history, legends, politics, fashions, customs...etc As a result, it is highly convincing and one is soon engrossed in the turmoil of that magical society.

The choice of point of view is also very clever. The story is mainly concerned with the Golden Trio, but is seen from the vantage point of Angelina Johnson, who is now married to Fred Weasley. As a result, we have access to a lot of information from a member of the extended Weasley family (who also happens to be an extremely inquisitive journalist), but we don’t know everything. A lot of what is actually going on between Harry, Ron and Hermione is not clear to us for a long while so the suspense is truly intense and the reader is simply dying to uncover the clue that will enable him/her to make sense of it all. Fortunately, the author knows very well what is going on and in due time all the threads combine and make perfect sense.

I have relatively little to criticize. Regarding style, she tends to use the expression “a case in point” too much, but that’s hardly a crime and other than that the story is very well written. Perhaps the passages of action/adventure are not quite as convincing as those dealing with the characters’ struggles in their daily lives, but they are still vastly superior to the average fanfiction.

Where to find it: AngieJ has unfortunately decided to stop writing fanfiction, because she felt it was not compatible with her new role in leading children in her church (she explains the reasons for her decision in a letter to her fans dated from October 2006, I haven’t found its original location however). She has also removed her works from the net, but has allowed her fans to continue sharing them. As a result, they can still be found on some independent archives, including Remember Us? which is and I quote “The long, long, *long* overdue central archive for fiction, art, and links featuring characters of color.”

Title: Paradise Lost

Author: AngieJ, aka Ebony Elizabeth

My opinion: good fic

Status: sort of complete, but one feels the need for a sequel (that will not come)

Length: 9 very long chapters

Genre: romance and adventure

Rating: 12A (some violence and allusions to sexual relationships, including homosexual relationships, but nothing too racy)

Pairings: H/Hr

Spoilers: the fic is based on the first four Harry Potter books and is a sequel to Trouble in Paradise

Author’s Summary: “Political upheaval and plagues and passion… oh my! In the year 2012, the wizarding world faces the threat of genocide amidst a time of turbulence and terrible prejudice towards Muggles and their magical progeny. The only one who might be able to erase this threat is the most famous Muggle-born witch of all, Dr. Hermione Granger… that is, if sheand her friends can figure out this most diabolical of puzzles before she is erased..”

Critique:

Like its prequel, Paradise Lost describes a very convincing magical world, whose legends and customs will fascinate the reader. The intrigues of the first part have now developed into fully-fledged evil plans for world domination and if that was not enough to catch your attention, the author has another trick coming for you. By dispossessing her heroine from her magical powers for most of the story, she creates a sense of unease and insecurity that will keep you dying to know what is coming next. It is actually quite amazing to see how the incredibly stubborn, proud and self-reliant Hermione deals with the situation.

I know that some readers like this story better than the previous one, but I disagree. Romance is taking a much larger part so that the intrigue gradually fades into the background and I think the story loses some of its edge because of it. Moreover the point of view is now that of an omniscient narrator focusing on Hermione so that now all the doubts, emotions and questioning of the main characters are stated explicitly. What made the charm of Trouble in Paradise for me was precisely its sense of mystery which encouraged the reader to look for any available clue, as in crime story. Here everything is spelled out so it probably makes for an easier read, but it certainly is less intriguing.

Another flaw in this otherwise very well-written fic is the number of new characters and places: as a great deal of the action takes place in Brazil, new characters appear and they are not all equally convincing.

To conclude I would say that this story leans much more into the romance genre than the previous one, and while it does so with undeniable talent, it doesn’t have the originality which makes Trouble in Paradise one of the fics you simply Must Read.

If you feel I'm being unfair or if you would like to give your opinion on those fics, please feel free to comment. Also if you want to seek revenge, you can review the fic I'm cowriting with my friend r_fluffyIt's a work in slow progress called Harry Potter and the Great Deception and the first four chapters are available on her livejournal.