Comments | shimotsuki: [Fic] Letting It Matter

shimotsuki

[Fic] Letting It Matter

Jul 31, 2007 23:35

Back in the saddle again: Here's my first attempt at a DH-compliant fic -- although it's actually set Marauder-era. It's a last-minute entry for the Tales of Whiskey and Regret challenge at redandthewolf.

Title: Letting It Matter
Author: shimotsuki
Summary: Remus decides to give up wanting things, but Lily won't let him go through with it.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mild ( Read more... )

ratw, genfic, stories

Comments 18

annuscka August 1 2007, 10:36:19 UTC

As a big fan of the infamous chapter 11, I really liked this! And it makes me so sad that, pre chapter 11, everyone who would have kicked this sense was dead.

shimotsuki August 1 2007, 14:38:27 UTC

Thank you!

it makes me so sad that, pre chapter 11, everyone who would have kicked this sense was dead -- That was what I was thinking as I wrote this. But if Lily's combination of shock and sympathy was the right answer, then Harry and Hermione between them may have done a pretty good job...

(The comment has been removed)

shimotsuki August 1 2007, 18:39:04 UTC

Thank you for the comment -- I'm glad you liked Lily here. (I wanted this scene to foreshadow another case where someone has to step in and fill Marauder shoes.)

bratanimus August 1 2007, 22:39:00 UTC

Oh, I love this. This fic is so full of fun little details (Tadfoal, ha ha! and the hiccoughing plant, hee!), nice moments of levity within a darker work.

You've got a great Lily voice (loved Good, dammit), and I love that she's just as much a Marauder as her husband, i.e., knocking some sense into her friend when he needs it. And Remus is fantastic, taking his Firewhiskey shots like medicine, poor guy. :(

I adore the job you gave him, and it's a great precursor to his work with Dark creatures in DADA. I also love that you have him submitting research papers and getting published; that strikes me as VERY Remus. Loved this: Remus had a lucid, engaging voice and a knack for explaining difficult information simply. Of course. ;)

For some reason this bit really stuck out for me: "I was out ill just a bit too often." He dropped his voice to a near whisper. "And just a bit too regularly." His lips tightened. "Llewellyn told me that if I resigned of my own accord, he'd let the matter drop without going and having a look at the ( ... )

shimotsuki August 5 2007, 21:05:18 UTC

Thanks for the thoughtful comments! I'm glad I got this posted in time, too. :P I'm glad you liked Lily here. We've seen so little of her in canon that it feels like a challenge to write her. (Although I guess there's a bit more Lily canon now, heh.)

I'm afraid the Tadfoal is JKR's, from Fantastic Beasts (they hatch into a Hippocampus). But I enjoyed coming up with tie-ins to Remus's creature-heavy curriculum in PoA, and there's actually going to be a small plot point regarding Annals of Magizoology in my OotP-era WIP.

bloodrebel333 August 2 2007, 00:32:21 UTC

"Don't be daft. If you stop wanting things, then you won't have them, but it'll be your own fault."

:)

shimotsuki August 5 2007, 21:05:38 UTC

Thanks. ;)

gilpin25 August 3 2007, 14:55:25 UTC

*Definitely spoilery comments ahead*

This is such a good foreshadowing scene; I love Lily revelling in her Happy World, thinking of herself as a career woman, and spending so much on Christmas presents, then being brought up short by the sight of how it isn't always such a kind place to everyone else. Not only does it show a possible beginning to the spiral of hope and disappointment that Remus will face over the years, but it seemed to me to pre-empt PoA a bit as well - Llewellyn told me that if I resigned of my own accord, he'd let the matter drop - because isn't that what he insists on doing there...

I also liked how you managed to incorporate both Hermione's sympathy for his plight, and Harry's fury at him, into Lily's reaction; as well as Remus seeming cold and retreating into himself to try and stop caring as a kind of coping mechanism. I have to say that years of facing this kind of fear and rejection (and on his own, when the others have gone) would grind anyone down, and certainly leave you feeling that: "it's so easy to ( ... )

shimotsuki August 5 2007, 21:31:39 UTC

I'm glad to hear you enjoyed this, and I'm grateful for your thoughtful comments.

a possible beginning to the spiral of hope and disappointment -- I wanted to play with the idea that the prejudice and hard times wouldn't start the instant he stepped out of Hogwarts, because surely he'd have had excellent credentials to begin with. But he knows that every time he has to leave a job it's going to be that much harder to find the next one, since he can't explain why he's had to leave.

Remus seeming cold and retreating into himself to try and stop caring as a kind of coping mechanism -- I really wanted to write something to try to put Remus's DH Ch 11 behavior into some kind of context. We know his usual response to stress or emotion is to go mild and bland; I think it makes sense to see the apparent coldness as a more extreme version of that withdrawal, when there's more at stake and it's harder for Remus to handle. But then, is simply losing a job worth this reaction, if it's Remus's most extreme response and we never see it from ( ... )