"What on earth is an arboreal ape doing in the library?" The girl with frizzy hair asked. "And why is it chasing that butterfly?"

"Hey, Potter! When did you turn Weasley into a monkey?"

The sound of the ensuing chaos echoed down the halls and penetrated the large, nail-studded door which protected a certain small room. The figures slumped in the battered chairs there didn't move. Chaos was a normal state of affairs for any large building stuffed with adolescents. It wasn't until the poltergeist squeezed frantically through the keyhole and took refuge in the chandelier that the tall man in black reached for the pile of straws on the table.

"No fair transfiguring mine to be the longest straw this time, Minerva," he warned. "You'll take your chances with the rest of us."

"Or what?"

"Or I'll stop dosing the Weasley twins' pumpkin juice of a morning. Now draw."

If you're wondering why this happened, it's in response to the challenge I mentioned here

One of the reasons I'm still on livejournal is because of crack_van. I've found so many good stories there I've lost track. They're taking a vacation for the next month, but in the mean time there are all the old entries to wander through, and piles of things in the memories.

http://community.livejournal.com/crack_van/2768122.html?style=mine is a great example (especially for the Harry Potter fans among you.) If you follow the link, don't forget to check out the sequels too.

ETA Somehow the link changed. Try this one: http://community.livejournal.com/crack_van/2772990.html?mode=reply

It's funny, isn't it? I was perfectly happy with what JKR did in the Deathly Hallows, and my friend Jinx was sad (although accepting.) But I'm the one who wrote this, and she wrote the story that goes along with canon.

( Asphodel and Wormwood )

I should really be working on an essay for work. Ah, well.

As I venture out into the net I'm finding a number of indignant essays about how JKR handled Snape in the Deathly Hallows, but I have to admit, my first reaction to what was done in the book was positive. And it still is. I don't think he's been turned to cardboard, or done an injustice, and even if JKR herself doesn't understand what she's done, it doesn't matter... since when has literary analysis ever depended entirely on an author's intentions?

( spoilers, of course... )

I have to give myself something better to dream about.

Hence, ( My reaction to the Deathly Hallows -- spoilers spoilers, and did I mention SPOILERS below the cut. )

I've read it.

You may now talk to me about the Deathly Hallows.

I am, however, far too tired and wired to read my flist...

( Spoiler warning for comments, of course. )

Drat the mainstream media. Can't they keep a secret for a few days?

I'm really mad at the NY Times. I hope Scholastic doesn't send them any book for review until the publication date for like the next four years.

Ah well.

While I've been hiding I have also been typing frantically at a final chapter for a Harry Potter story I left as a WIP four years ago. *removes mask to reveal rabbit*

Yes. It's done. And it's all my fault.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/601118/1/Yet_Another_Snape_meets_the_Dursleys_story

Now, doesn't that give you some hope that I'll get back to my LotR WIPS too?

*grin*

(I'll check my flist tomorrow night.)

I'm already seeing rumbles about Deathly Hallows spoilers in my flist, so I'm going to kind of hideaway and not check it until after I've read the book. It's not that I'm ignoring y'all, I just really want to read the story as it opens up in front of me...

My Harry Potter Spoiler of Doom is: Severus Snape is turned into an ice cream cone by Voldemort with help from the Nose-Biting Teacup Get your Harry Potter Spoiler of Doom

Okay, I cheated a little... my first spoiler said that a man with an orange on his head was going to found a fiendish religion in the Forbidden Forest... And one of them said that Ron gets pregnant by Harry with a cackle... Or that Hermione kills Hermione with Mooncalf Dung...

But this one I liked.

gacked from surgicalsteel among others.

You scored as Professor Dumbledore, </td> Professor Dumbledore 90% Professor Lupin 70% Hagrid 70% Professor Trelawny 65% Professor McGonagall 55% Professor Snape 25% What HP Professor Is Your Teaching Style? created with QuizFarm.com

*waggles eyebrows*

( interestingly enough... )

When the letter had come, she had been sure it would be the end of days like this. The end of being strange, and different, and standing on the outside wondering how it was that people who were stupid in every way that counted were smarter than she was when it came to making friends. The end of being alone, and crying, and not knowing how to accept the half-hearted offers of help made through the thin wooden walls of the stall.

What good was being a witch when magic didn’t make anything any better anyway?

Wait…

What was that?



elanor1013 wanted Hermione

Saw Goblet of Fire tonight.

Wow........

Lovely essay on Snape over at MSNBC. Spoilery for book six, but still funny.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9959467/

http://www.filmfocus.co.uk/mediadetail.asp?FilmbaseID=46&MediaID=857

From the gallery here:

http://www.filmfocus.co.uk/media.asp?FilmbaseID=46

Which also has some nice pics of Neville, Seamus and Dean.

And they've got one of Lucius...

http://www.filmfocus.co.uk/mediadetail.asp?FilmbaseID=46&MediaID=864

So when did Draco Malfoy start getting fashion advice from Illya Kuryakin?

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/images/image.php?image=2005/10/gofpromo4.jpg

Warning to dialup folks, the image is huge.

I thought the new US trailer for Goblet of Fire was cool, until I saw the international trailer...

http://www.veritaserum.com/ has it, go down a ways and you'll see the links.

ETA: If I typed it right you can download the trailer (right click save as) at

http://libsyn.com/media/pottercast/gof_trailer_3_HD.wmv

gacked from the Leaky Cauldron. (www.the-leaky-cauldron.org)

Graffiti from Pompeii: (taken from : http://www.personal.kent.edu/~bkharvey/roman/classes/graffiti.htm )

I.10.2-3 (Bar of Prima); 8258, 8259: The story of Successus, Severus and Iris is played out on the walls of a bar: [Severus]: “Successus, a weaver, loves the innkeeper’s slave girl named Iris. She, however, does not love him. Still, he begs her to have pity on him. His rival wrote this. Goodbye.”. [Answer by Successus]: “Envious one, why do you get in the way. Submit to a handsomer man and one who is being treated very wrongly and good looking.” [Answer by Severus]: “I have spoken. I have written all there is to say. You love Iris, but she does not love you.”

He'd wanted Slytherin, just to prove to his mother that it didn't matter who she'd chosen for his father after all, and the Sorting Hat had obliged him. And he got along, really, though there were times when he watched the boys in the other houses and wondered what might have been instead.

Ravenclaw would have been all right, at least no one would have copied his homework there; and the Hufflepuffs were quietly happy with each other. But if the hat had said Gryffindor he knew that would have made everything different.

Pettigrew didn't know how lucky he was.

So when does book seven come out?


.......


I'm waiting....




.....


still waiting....



(please, no spoilers in the comments on this entry. I'll do another more complete review with an lj-cut and you can spoiler that to your hearts content.)

http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/harry_potter/thegobletoffire/

http://harrypotter.warnerbros.com/gobletoffire/index.html

http://harrypotter.warnerbros.com/gobletoffire/images/gof_poster.jpg

I could see a little on the screen, and I'm all excited. But the trailer, even though it's teeny, was a lot clearer.

Funny how fulsome Gilderoy Lockhart sounds even when you aren't watching him.

ETA: http://www.livejournal.com/community/insurrections/2221.html to trailer caps

Gacked from several people:

If you happen to be working on some creative writing project, fanfiction or NaNoWriMo or what have you, post exactly one sentence from each of your current work(s) in progress in your journal. It should probably be your favourite or most intriguing sentence so far, but what you choose is entirely your discretion. Mention the title (and genre) if you like, but don't mention anything else -- this is merely to wet the general appetite for your forthcoming work(s).

(some sentences, some passages)

( From stories that may never see the light of day: )