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Reviews For Upon the Silver Wind
A really great tale to read. Still sad moments, which pulled tears from my eyes, but some triumphant ones too. I think this is a lovely fantasy, that Lily did forgive him and offer a second chance, but really I think he was on to his tenth by the time Lily gave up on him. Of course none of his others were as bad as the "Mudblood" incident, but still, Lily had been warning him for years. Not that I'm a fan of Lily, I think that she should have stuck by Severus, his drifting away was a sign of needing positive guidance/influences, not to be cut off, so to me it was a flaw in Lily's character as a teen, some see her as 'perfect' but I'm not one of those. Anyway, great job - I enjoyed it very much! misundersnape... Author's Response: Hey, thank you very much! Wow! It was terrific to see a new review after I posted this-- my very first fanfic!-- over a year ago! I agree that Severus needed friendship/guidance at that time in his life, but then again, Lily assumed he had rejected her offer when he failed to rendezvous with her. As for Lily herself, nobody's perfect, especially when they're teens! (Besides, if I ever saw a "perfect" teen, I think I'd be highly suspicious of what that person might be hiding!) So glad you enjoyed the story, and thanks for reviewing!!
Author's Response: Yep-- Draco's definitely in for it! And now Snape KNOWS Lily is watching him from the Beyond. Hopefully, he and Harry will do better the second time around! Thanks for reading and reviewing!
Author's Response: Hee! Nope-- still strictly amateur, tho' becoming a professional writer is still my aspiration. Thanks for your compliments and the vote of confidence! And thanks for being my Fiction Writing professor at RU-- wherever I end up, you were there at the start, and I appreciate all of your encouragement! :-)
Author's Response: And thank you VERY MUCH for taking the time to tell me you enjoyed it! I really appreciate it! :-D
The part where Harry's spirit-self dissappeared on the back of the Patronus really fooled me; I thought he had died- which is obviously what you'd intended lol- and it was a wonderful suprise to discover that Dumbledore and Severus weren't too late. I absolutely loved the idea that Lily left Severus a last letter and that part of the plot was beautifully arranged and described; my heart ached for all the 'might have beens' that must have run through his mind. Tragic but beautifully so. I also loved the ending paragraph; a very potent and visual image. Great one-shot. Well done ^^ Author's Response: I'm not sure quite where the "buried alive" plot came from, but since I hadn't seen a Potter fanfic with that plot, I decided to go with it. I was hoping it would be original; apparently, I was a tad late on that score! Then I let my imagination run wild, and I think I succeeded so well that it carried into real life: In the past month, I've had two quite similar dreams of feeling as if I were suffocating in what looked like a very upper-end bookstore, with highly-polished wooden shelves crammed full of gorgeous books, but in reality I was trapped in an underground Egyptian tomb that was disguised as a bookstore. Weird, huh?! In real life, I've never even been the slightest bit claustrophobic. I'm hoping now that the story is finally posted, I won't have those nightmares again. I hate waking up gasping for breath! Hee! You might not believe this (although I can see from my description how you might think Harry had died), but I never intended for the Patronus rising from the coffin to represent Harry's death! (I would have had to put "character death" warning on the title page!) I just wanted to describe the Patronus leaving the coffin; since a Patronus can go through walls and stuff, I figured it could also travel through earth, and that was what I was focusing on. But I'm glad you got even more out of the story than I had deliberately put into it! In my fiction-writing classes in college, I and my fellow students all had that same experience, and it was great! The subconscious mind at work! (Whether the writer's or the reader's was left up for debate...) And yes, I just had to get a message to Sev from Lily. Better late than never! I'm glad that worked out as well as it did-- originally, I was just going to have Severus talking to Harry in the hospital wing, but I felt the story needed a bit more drama, so I worked out the message left in the Owlery. (I've been wanting to create that hidden room for the LONGEST time! ;-)) Thank you SO MUCH for taking the time to review! I really appreciate that!
Author's Response: Hi, HeartStar! I'm sorry I didn't respond sooner (I did find your email), but I don't have my own computer, and I had to get to the library to post a response. :-) Actually, there's no DEEP symbolism with the holly sprig in the coffin. It simply represents Harry (where he used to be), and the holly tree at the head of the grave represents Harry's wand, where Draco had planted it originally before leaving to tell Voldemort that he'd captured Harry. Mr. Olivander stated that "the wand chooses the wizard", and while in canon it would seem that the key to that wand choosing Harry is the phoenix feather core, a twin to the feather in Voldemort's wand, I'm going a step further and suggesting that holly itself has an affinity to Harry, thus Dumbledore's decision to leave the holly sprig and holly tree after Harry has been rescued. Dumbledore's actions are not a joke upon Draco; Dumbledore would never be that cruel. The Headmaster's message via the holly is meant for Voldemort himself: First, that Harry belongs to Dumbledore's side, and Voldemort can't have him. Second, that Voldemort shouldn't send a boy to do a man's job-- Draco has made a bunch of mistakes. In a desperate attempt to avenge his father and restore the Malfoy name to its former glory, Draco has insisted on capturing Harry by himself, without any help or input from more experienced Death Eaters. An older, more mature servant of the Dark Lord wouldn't want to take any chances, and would have posted at least one guard, maybe two, by the grave site. If a Patronus unexpectedly burst out of the ground, they might decide to unearth Harry and take him elsewhere. At the very least, they'd be aware that trouble was on the way, and they'd be prepared for combat when the Patronus returned with a rescue team. When Dumbledore and Snape Apparated into the clearing, they were prepared for battle, but nobody was waiting for them-- Harry had been left unguarded. Big mistake! Another huge mistake Draco made was planting the holly wand at the head of Harry's grave. He SHOULD have taken the wand immediately to Voldemort, since the wand was something that Voldemort wanted as much as he wanted to kill Harry. The twin cores rendered Voldemort's wand nearly useless in a face-to-face battle. But instead of taking the wand away, Draco rather stupidly planted it at the grave, in a "Take THAT, Potter!" moment. Duh! The final scene of the story reflects back to Harry's visualization (while he was in the grave) of Draco suffering Voldemort's wrath when Harry is found lying dead in the coffin. Instead, Draco will obviously suffer when the coffin is found empty, except for the sprig of holly, and the holly tree is discovered standing in lieu of Harry's wand. I hope that helps! And THANK YOU VERY MUCH for not only reading my story, but also taking the time to review! I really appreciate it! :-D
Author's Response: The way I started my story was pretty far removed from my normal writing style, but it seemed to feed into and augment the story, so I didn't try to change it (although I wondered at times whether I should!). I'm still pretty new to fiction writing, but I've learned to trust my instincts, and if a story (or part of one) cries out for a different style, if that's what drives the action, etc., I'll just go with it, and the stream of consciousness seemed to be on target for this one. (If I were buried alive, gasping for breath, I'm not sure I could even think in complete sentences!) I thought the scene with Snape rushing off to find the letter was quite dramatic. I'd wondered how to get him into an action sequence-- instead of just talking with Harry in the hospital wing-- and the message from Lily helped to round out the story as a whole!
Author's Response: Wow! Thanks for saying so! When I posted the story, I had my fingers crossed that readers would like it! I appreciate your taking the time to review it after reading! :-D
I feel kinda bad for Snape going all those years without knowing that Lily forgave him. All the missed oppurtunites... I'm hoping for a sequel to this little story. I'd like to know what Voldemort does to Draco for dragging him out into the middle of nowhere to see a tree. hehehe... I'd also like to know what will happen between Snape and Harry. How exactly does one start over with all the history between them. Its sure to be a bumpy ride. :) Anyway excellent story and thanks for sharing! Author's Response: Believe it or not, I actually wrote this including Lily's forgiveness, then had to go check "Deathly Hallows" again, just to make sure she hadn't forgiven Sev outside of Gryffindor Tower and I'd simply forgotten about it. I've read so many different fanfic situations, I honestly couldn't remember that bit of canon! ARG! But my instinct was right on, and I'm glad I could work this into the "buried alive" story, with Harry seeing and receiving the messages from Lily while he was still in the coffin. (Check out my response to Jan_AQ below for a further bit of info!) Oh dear! The other "S" word appears: "sequel"! I really wrote this to be a self-contained story without a specific sequel planned (sorry!), since my focus (now that I'm FINALLY able to get stories posted!) is to explore different stories, rather than go immediately into a sequel following my first story. However, I won't say "NEVER"-- if I'm ever totally stuck for an idea to write about, I may revisit this one! :-) As for Draco-- I'm not really into writing TORTURE yet! I'll leave that up to your imagination. Let's just say, I'm sure Voldemort won't just hand him a Tuesday-night detention! Thanks for reading, and especially for reviewing! All of the reviews have been very positive so far, so I'm hoping the other readers (the 99% who don't post reviews) also enjoyed it!
I almost forgot about Draco. Poor kid, I bet his night it not going to be fun. Awesome job. Author's Response: Thank you so much! I didn't know how well the "buried alive" concept would go over with readers: on the one hand, it's almost cliche, while on the other, I'd never seen a Harry Potter fanfic with that scenario. Given that it's getting harder to do something original with Harry, what with all the other fanfics out there (and I've read only a tiny fraction of what's available), I decided to throw all of my imagination into it. Glad you liked it! I also wanted to let Lily communicate with Severus, and the letter was sort of a two-fold forgiveness: by giving Harry the "code" that Lily and Sev had always used (i.e. "I'll meet you in the usual place", etc., meaning the secret room), Sev knew the message HAD to be from Lily, and if she's hoping that Harry and Sev can start over, then obviously she also knows how Sev must feel about his role in her death. Therefore, her letter of forgiveness works not only for the lake incident, but also for the night she died. (I hope readers can pick up on that-- I may have done subtle a bit too well... !) Yes, indeed! Poor Draco! Well, he makes some unwise decisions, to say the least.
Author's Response: Thanks for saying that I'd managed to keep everyone in character! I worry about that sometimes, and I want to handle the characters respectfully without stretching their believability too far! |
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