Loved it; every line.

To start with, I do most of the cooking and plan most of the meals in my household, and I recognize Molly's thought processes -- especially the notion that your whole life consists of planning, preparing or cleaning up for/from meals, and the cooincidence between the meal planning the the life around you, as if one is the metaphor for the other.

For another thing, I may have said this before, but I am so grateful for the way you paint Molly. Too often in fanfic, especially among H/G shippers, Molly is just an inconvenient barrier to H & G's togetherness; she's shrill, she's mindlessly obstinate, she's sexless, she's illogical, she's about as three-dimensional as a piece of carbon paper. But that's not the way JKR writes her, and bless you, it's not the way you write her either. I first noticed it in "Monster" (where you went really off the Deep End, making her head of the Order), but here it's lovely. She has the sort of emotional instincts for the moods of her children that a good mother (or father) would have. She has the desire to interfere but the wisdom (usually) not to. And her sense of the wrongness of Ginny hugging Dean to get at Harry was exquisite -- and that, after holding her tongue for the whole day, she should finally let Ginny have it because of what Ginny did with Dean, was great -- and especially that Molly included both Dean and Ginny on the list of people Ginny hurt, bespeaks so much wisdom that I've completely lost track of the grammar of this sentence. Sorry.

There is a great richness to this text, largely because of nearly-parenthetical references that increase the depth and breadth of Molly's concerns and backstory. For example, for Molly to compare F&G to F&G in such an offhand way speaks volumes.

My discomfort with the LJ version of the story has now reached a fever pitch, because the scene with Ron & Molly doesn't make sense without it. Ron can't picture having a real relationship with Hermione unless he is honest with her, and he can't imagine she'll want to be with him if he tells her the truth. So sad. The core evil of infidelity is that it turns people who should trust each other implicitly into liars; the lies eat away at the trust until there is no heart left.

I can't stand the way you're teasing us about H & G. I want to kick both of them. Yes, they're real teenagers, but I now remember why I don't like real teenagers... Life is just too short for nonsense like this. Either one of them could be killed tomorrow!

Oh, and before I forget, about Viridian. I think a reread of Ch. 1 of NoFP will show you that Harry in that story kills Voldemort using exactly the device you seem to have in mind, namely using Legillimancy to force LV to experience Harry's love and grief.

Wonderful, wonderful work, as always.

~Ken



Author's Response:

Glad you liked!

With regards to Harry and Ginny—don\'t kick them yet. I promise, they\'ll see the light soon. Very soon.

I loved writing this Molly; she feels like a somewhat more conventional and much more linear Molly Bloom, her mind all over the place. Too often, I think, she\'s simply there as a plot device. (BTW, by the time I got to the main Molly section of \"Monster,\" I was playing around to see just how much fun I could have with plot theories—think how often post-HBP fics simply have the leadership of the Order devolve onto McGonagall along with the school. Otherwise it usually goes to Remus, Arthur or Moody, for each of whom there are rather huge reasons against their serving in that post. So why not Molly?)

I\'m sorry to be torturing you over in the triangular version of the story; that is rather my intent, I\'m afraid. Well, to be honest, I\'m trying to torture the characters, but the readers will do. Harry and Ginny\'s discomforture will be lessened soon; Ron and Hermione\'s will continue for a while yet. ;-)

The hugging of Dean was a real leap for me—it came very close to making Ginny the kind of scheming slattern that some of her detractors in fandom have made her out to be. But it seemed like a very fifteen-year-old, Ginny thing to do (Ginny\'s birth date having come twelve months and twelve days behind Harry\'s), and I\'m glad that the whole thing worked—her hug, and Molly\'s reaction, as well as Ginny\'s response to that reaction.

It probably won\'t shock you to hear that I too cook the lion\'s share of my family\'s meals. (Thai sausage soup tonight!) But I\'m a total non-multitasker, so people like Molly impress the hell out of me.

As for Nightmare of Futures Past... well, I\'m pleased and honored that we\'re thinking along the same lines. Great minds and all of that. ;-)