In the Aftermath

[gilpins_tales]

Title: In the Aftermath
Genre: Angst/Romance
Word Count: 7395 words
Rating & warnings: Pg-13 Mild swearing, but the narrator's stressed. ;)
Summary: There are some things, some looks, so private you shouldn’t ever see them. After the shock of Dumbledore’s death, it’s a night of many revelations for Ron. The events that take place in and after

Comments

[gilpin25]

Thank you SO much for the blush-making comments. ♥ I have to say this fic was posted long ago at all the R/T comms before it ended up here, so I think most people who'd be interested in reading are probably fed up with seeing it around. (At least that's my hopeful theory...;)) But that makes it even better when it gets newly discovered again as it is one of my own faves. And I only wrote it as a birthday request - it's a good job the requesters had more sense than I did as I thought yet another version of After The Hospital Wing Scene might bring on much eye-rolling.

Anyway, yes, it's our friend Ron again doing all the talking, and I can remember I wasn't sure how to start but then thought about Bill, and the obvious link through him to Remus, and it all went from there. As I've said before, Ron is brilliant to have as your voice as he can do a comedy of errors, be intensely vulnerable in his honesty one minute and basically thick as a plank the next, and yet I wanted him to also kind of grow up a bit here. Seeing his brother like that, having to face the possibility of him being a werewolf, observing what was happening with Harry, his parents and everyone else - he goes through a lot in a short time.

Best of all, he dug me out of a big plot hole when I needed a very reasonable reason why he'd be spying on Remus and Tonks for the crucial ending. Thank goodness he's always hungry, and thanks even more to JKR for putting the Hufflepuff common room by the kitchen. She must have thought of me at the time.

I'm very glad you liked Tonks in this. She seems to get a lot of stick for showing her feelings (because people in RL never do that of course) and losing some of her magic, but it doesn't seem to stop her doing her job and duelling Death Eaters. Mental anguish and worry always takes its toll somewhere, and some people show it on the outside and others don't, but it would have been odd if she'd been all pink and cheery with people dying at regular intervals in HBP. Besides that, Remus would probably have eventually driven anyone to shaking him with his 'We can't be together, but everyone knows I really want to' line.

All that to say I can't tell you how much I appreciate you writing all this. It's just as grin-inducing reading it through for the second time now. Thank you.:D

[kuri333]

Having already replied to your other two messages, I'm starting to fear - again - you will think I'm a stalker. I'm not, honest!

The first HP fic I've ever wrote was an After The Hospital Wing Scene, I must confess. It wasn't great, or original, or even good... but it was my first attempt on writing Tonks and it was fun. I'll stand by what I've said: yours is the finest one I've ever read! I love how you write about some scene we all know about and yet you do it with angles so unexpected it actually keeps me on edge, wondering what will happen next.

Tonks is such a great character (meaning I'll never forgive JKR for killing her and I'll stay in Land of Denial for as long as possible), so complex and rich, strong and yet you could almost see the potential... I don't know... tenderness on her. I love to imagine her that way. No matter how terrible things are, no matter how terrible she feels, she just summons energy out of nowhere to do what she has to do when she has to do it.

What you say about showing feelings and being affected by them is so true. It wouldn't have been believable - or she would have been a very shallow character - if she would have stayed all cheery through HBP and later on and if she would not eventually lose her nerves the way she does. I like to think that shaking thing is something she had done to him before... only we don't know when. So, of course it's a shock for everybody back then, but that's just only because we didn't see that coming. (When I read the book for the first time I was flabbergasted and yet it all made so much sense)

I'm rambling again, sorry about that.

The point is, thank you very very much for your reply and I'm glad the comment made you grin, that was one of the ideas behind it. The other idea was just to put on writing how amazed I was by your story.

Thanks a lot for sharing it.

Cheers!