February 13, 2007 – This is episode one of Potter Fic Weekly.  Welcome to the place where the story never ends.

Harry and the Potters song, “We Save Ron’s Life, Part 8”  

Rinna:  Welcome everybody, Thank you for listening.  This is Potter Fic Weekly.  I am Rinna, and here with co-hosts, Ryan and Kim.  

Ryan:   Hey everybody.

Kim:  Hello.

Rinna:  and uh…we’re going to introduce ourselves a little bit first…tell a little bit about ourselves and our background and we’ll get into our discussion of our first fic.  So, uh, a little background on myself.  Uh, like I said before, my name is Rinna.  I came to fanfiction through PhoenixSong website.  I’m a Beta there, and I’ve been reading, ah, Harry Potter fanfic for about three years…which I’d never really done that with a story before, so I can say that it was really odd after the new canon would come out, I would have to remind myself that this wasn’t just another story I was reading, that this was the real deal stuff that was going on.

Ryan:  I haven’t had that happen to me yet.  I came to fanfiction right after Half-Blood Prince.  I had decided to read all the books right before Half-Blood Prince came out, and I read them too fast, so I had about three weeks left, so I started reading through them again…and then Half-Blood Prince came out, and I read it twice in the weekend it came out, and I was just feeling like I was getting started with Harry Potter, and we’d have nothing left to read.  

Rinna:  Right.

Ryan:  So, I…I think I went to, uh, Sink into your Eyes. I went to their…

Rinna:  Yes…

Ryan:  Into their Library, and I started reading one-shots…and they kind of helped me get over, you know…the week after, you know, there was no new, uh, canon to read, and the more I read, the more I wanted to read…and it, it just went downhill from there.

Amy:  And um…I started reading fanfics while we were all still anticipating the third book to come out.  So that would have been about seven years ago.  

Ryan:  Wow.

Kim:  Um, I came into the fanfiction world through fanfiction.net, that’s still my favorite site – the one I use the most, and I read a lot of one-shots, and an occasional chaptered fic here and there.

Rinna:  This particular podcast in it’s current incantation, is a combination of several ideas…I had an idea, about a year ago, actually, to do a podcast that focused on fanfiction, not necessarily reading it, and characterizing it…to publish, but, to just discuss, you know, what makes fanfiction good.  What makes it bad.  You know, different…good stories that needed to be highlighted, and then Ryan had a similar idea a few weeks ago, and we started talking about it, and decided to put this thing in motion.

Ryan:  And then we decided we needed a director of technical support.

(Kim laughs)

Ryan:  And Kim volunteered to do that, so this is how we’ve all, uh, come together here.

Kim:  Yeah, cause I must say I didn’t even know what a podcast was until you mentioned podcasts on that thread, and I went and saw what they were.

Ryan:  You went and had to google podcasts to see what they were?

Kim:  Yes I did.

Ryan:  Okay.  

Rinna:  That’s awesome.

Ryan:  And that’s how we got our director of technical support.  One of the reasons I wanted to uh, work on this project was…I am addicted to my Ipod - I bring it with me everywhere.  I’m constantly listening to podcasts on…any subject that interests me.  I really have gotten into fanfics so much over the last year and a half, that I really want to discuss it with everybody.  And I’m one of those people that the minute I read a book, I make someone else read it…and every time they turn a page, I say, “What do you think? What do you think?  What do you think?  What do you think’s gonna happen?”  And I tend to…harass people quite a lot and then, you know, they file restraining orders against me…(Rinna laughs)  So, I really wanted to enjoy fanfic with other people, who have read the same fanfics or were interested in the same ideas that I was.  And, if you just look at the way the world has changed over the past fifty years, we used to have three television channels, and now we have five hundred.  And there’s a way to break things down and find people in the world that like the same things that you do, and who you can share all that with, so I really want…I started looking for podcasts, or communities, that really got down and analyzed fanfiction.  The best fanfiction, from every different level.  And, I found absolutely none that did that.  Like Rinna said, many podcasts out there will read stories to you, they will act them out, they will pick, you know, one-shot of the week, and say if it’s good or bad, and I tended to disagree with a lot of their opinions, and I think...

(Rinna laughs)

Ryan:  I disagreed quite strongly with their opinions, so I figured if no one else is doing it, lets do it ourselves.  

Rinna:  Yeah.  Which, you know, hey…that’s how this world got to where it is right now.  

Ryan:  This is true.  Um, before we go any further, there’s many people we would like to thank for helping us, uh, pull together and helping getting this podcast, started.  

Kim:  Well, I want to thank Harry and the Potters…for ever so wonderfully letting us use their music in our podcast.

Ryan:  I think it’s safe to say that you are one of their biggest fans.

Kim:  Oh, I’m not one of their biggest fans.  I wasn’t one of the six grade groupies who stand in the front and knew every word to their songs, but I do like their music.  

Ryan:  You do like their music.

(Kim laughs)

Rinna:  And of course we want to give a very large thank you to the wonderful Arabella and uh, Zsenya for allowing us to use these particular stories of theirs, in our little adventure here, because without the story, this would not…uh, be…a podcast.  

Ryan:  I was so nervous…

Rinna:  So we need to give a big…thanks to them.  

Ryan:  Oh, we definitely would.  We definitely do.  I was even nervous to contact them, I felt like, and this is not an exaggeration, I felt like I was actually writing an email to Jo Rowling saying, “Do you mind if we talked about your work?”

Rinna:  Your such a fanboy.

Ryan:  I am not a fanboy!

(Rinna and Amy laugh)

Ryan:  I am telling you that there…

Rinna:  That’s okay!

Ryan:  There are people, you know, who write stories who I will, you know, just send emails to, “Hey, I really liked your, your one-shot.  Thanks for writing it…These two people have written such an amazing fic, there was no question this would be the first fic I wanted to discuss and just talk about with other people who’ve read it, and just break it down and really examine it.  But they’ve just written such…they are just...they have done what so few people I have found, have done.  I’m still somewhat new here, so maybe I’ll be, you know, very impressed by others I’m not familiar with now, but they have done such a great job with this fic that I’m just, I was very excited to, uh, speak with them, and I just want to echo that and thank them very much, too.  I’d also really like to thank a fan artist, her name is Leela Starsky.  Her website is maythemusebewithyou.com.  Uh, M-U-S-E.com, uh, for allowing us to use some of her Fan Art on our website, PotterFicWeekly.com.  Uh, I urge everyone listening, to uh, check out her Fan Art, she does a tremendous job.  She really brings these characters to life, and I enjoyed looking at…pretty much everything on her website.  I think I spent a night doing that.  So I just wanted to thank her for her generosity in letting us use some of her artwork, on the show as well.  And I would also like to uh, thank, very briefly, I would like to thank Jen on our forums.  Now, we’re obviously recording our first episode now, and it hasn’t obviously been released yet…Jen has been posting on our forums for the past week, and she has, I believe…what did we figure out?  Twenty times the amount of posts that both yourself and uh, Kim do?  Is that right?

Rinna:  Yes, that’d be right.  

Ryan:  So we just wanted to thank her for her enthusiasm.  We said in the beginning that we hope to get at least one fan who appreciates the show, and the show’s not out yet, and we already have a fan girl.  So…

Rinna:  Exactly.

Ryan:  We’d just like to thank her very much.

Rinna:  And before we get into any discussion…here’s a lovely disclaimer to add to everything.  The opinions of the hosts of the show do not reflect, uh, Warner Brothers, Raincost books, Scholastic, Bloomsbury, or J.K. Rowling.  We are not intending to make any copyright infringements and we apologize if anyone, uh, takes it as that way.  All of the stories that we discuss are based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling, and her various publishing companies…No money is being made, and no copyright or trademark infringement is ever intended.  

Ryan:  Yeah, what she said.

Kim:  Sounds like you’ve done this before.

Rinna:  I just want, uh, to cover the, uh, legal basis…things like that.

Ryan:  She doesn’t want anyone to sue her, and take her cell phone away from her.     

Rinna:  Yeah.  Because that’s about all of value that I have.

Ryan:  Oh, oh I’ve used that line many times.  Come after me, take my cell phone.

Rinna:  Yeah, really.

Ryan:  So, in tonight’s episode we’ll be discussing, “After the End” by Arabella and Zsenya.  You can find it on the SugarQuill.net, and we will be discussing the prologue through Chapter three in tonight’s episode.  Someone like us, and you’re busy and you have kids and you have school and you don’t have a lot of free time, and you’re looking for a good fic to read, read it along with us.  We’re going to be discussing certain chapters each week, and, uh, analyzing them.  We’re not going to spoil what’s to come, in fact, Kim – you’re up to, what, chapter ten in this fic?

Kim:  Yep.  That I am.  

Ryan:  Okay, so we’re not going to spoil it for Kim either, so uh... read it with us.  If you’re listening to a fanfiction podcast, I’m assuming you maybe have read this fanfic already, and you like it as much as, uh, we do, read it again with us.  Pick up things you didn’t pick up before and just enjoy it with us.  So if you haven’t read the prologue through chapter three, we urge you to, uh, go do that now.  And we’ll be moving on to the, uh, the discussion section of the show now.  

Rinna:  This story uh, is, available it SugarQuill.  It’s also available on FanFiction.net.  Um, it’s also available…there’s a yahoo group that’s dedicated to this particular story, that was created at the time when this story was written.  Which, um, it was written after the publication of, uh, Goblet of Fire.  So, um, it’s been around for a while, and uh, if you go to the yahoo group, it actually has an option if you want to read it in more book-like format.  Pages are set up and…everything.  And uh, they also, they’ve…since they’ve finished the story, various, uh, Arabella and Zsenya, and various others have written outtakes and little pieces that they’ve added in, to the story since it’s completion.  And those are also available at their yahoo group.

Ryan:  They are actually are available on SugarQuill too, and we’re going to put the links to all of that on our website, PotterFicWeekly.com, (Rinna:  Right.) so you just go there, and we’ll have links to go to everything you need to read this fic with us.  

Rinna:  Just a reminder, this story is rated ‘R’.  So, we hope you enjoy the discussion.  We certainly enjoyed reading the story.  So, let’s talk about the prologue.  

Ryan:  The prologue…I have read it three times over again, and just to back up, I’ve read the story once a year and a half ago, and it’s always stuck in my head.  This is my first read through of it, and I think like so many others, when I read a story, I tend to read it very, in a very relaxed way.  I don’t…obsess over reading every last word, I don’t study it, I just enjoy it, but going back over it for the podcast, I really…examined every word, I really thought about it.  I really tried to do my homework on it.  And it’s so much better than I remember it being before.  And I really liked it before.  Um, it starts in...this is one thing that Arabella and Zsenya do so well, and they’re so much like J.K. Rowling in their writing style when they do this…They drop you into the middle of a story.  They give you no indication of what’s happening, they give you no indication of whose talking, what they’re referring to…It’s as though…you are literary…you’re eavesdropping on a conversation, and you don’t know where it started.  And this prologue, I think, just expresses that so well.  Just the way the story starts…with the words, “I swear to die for you, Harry.  I love you”.  You’re right at the climax of the story.  So many fanfics, which I’ve read, have started you off, just like J.K. Rowling did, you’re at the beginning of the story, you go through the middle.  You hit the end.  There’s a big climax.  There’s a big battle.  That’s the story.  Arabella and Zsenya start at the moment the climax is upon you.  Is upon the characters.  And they walk you through.  Arabella and Zsenya.  Each of the people who mean the most to Harry, essentially saying goodbye to him, essentially summing up their entire relationship with him, in just a…a…few words, at what they believe is the last time they may ever see each other.

One of the reason’s I love this fic so much is that in most stories that you see, you have the beginning of the story, you have the setup, you have the bad guys, you have the conflict, you have the problem that the hero must go through, and they grow, the people around them grow.  People are lost, and, at the end, there’s a large climax to the story.  Some people die…Some people live.  The story ends.  You learn a lesson.  And then you usually have, if it’s a novel, maybe a chapter or two of cleanup, you have an epilogue, saying how everyone went on with their lives, and the story ends.

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  And it sounds very much like, from what we know from Jo Rowling, that it’s going to be how Deathly Hallows will end.  It’s…

Rinna:  Right.

Ryan: …going to be a huge book, there is so much left to do, we’re not going to get everything in.  We’re going to be debating this for years.  

(Rinna laughs)

Ryan:  But that’s the end of that story.  You know we are.

Rinna:   Yeah.

Ryan:  You know we’re going to be doing this…you know, our grandkids are going to be, you know, the hosts of this show someday, and we’re going to be the guest stars.  And Kim still won’t know what her sound preferences are, but…you just know that that’s something that’s, that’s going to happen, there’s going to be so much left to talk about.  What I love so much about this fic is… it is all clean-up.  There is so little actual action to this story, and when it comes in, it’s written in such a curious way, that they make you work for it.  You have to work in this story to understand what’s happening, to piece it all together, and it’s just so much fun to read.  But…it’s the trauma.  Okay, Harry defeats Voldemort.  Many people live, some people die.  What do you do the next week?  What do you do the month after?  What do you do when for eleven years no one has cared what happened to you, and then for seven years you’re the most wanted man in the world, and every day you think you’re going to die and take everyone you care about with you.  And then, it’s all over.  He has never been anyone else.  

Rinna:  Mmm-Hmm.

Ryan:  And…

Kim:  And well, see, another, another good thing about this story is it’s almost like it’s, well J.K Rowling’s books are almost going to end up where Harry’s life is really going to start.         

Rinna:  Right.

Kim:  This series is almost starting up…at that point. 

Ryan:  Right.  I mean, Right.  And the first chapter takes place, I believe…I just finished chapter three today, which is as far as we’re going to talk about in this podcast.  We’re only a week after the battle.

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  And there is so much clean-up that has started, and the characters are just coming to grips with that.  And it’s…this entire story is the characters trying to live after.  And I, I don’t want to make a lot of political comparisons, but compare it to the war in Iraq.  We had a six week war and now we’ve had four years of clean-up.  

Rinna:  Mmm-Hmm.

Ryan:  And the war, and the clean-up are so entirely different.  And, you can’t…in terms of messiness, it’s always going to be the clean-up.  It’s very easy to break things, it’s very hard to put them back together. And it’s just…One of the reasons I love fanfic, is that there is only so much Jo Rowling can write.  If she wrote a twenty part series, she could get this all in.  She’s writing a seven part series.  So, there is so any layers of these characters that we are only going to get through fanfic.  And that’s…I’ll be a fanboy again…Arabella and Zsenya, I’m naming a child after each of you.

Rinna:  Wow!  That’s impressive.

(Kim laughs)

Ryan:  I’m going right out there…I’m announcing it here.

Kim:  You’d better check with Danielle on that one…

Rinna:  Yeah…

Ryan:  No, I’m sure she’ll be fine…I’m sure she’ll be fine.  You know why?  She can name, you know, the next two, and then I’ll name the two after that.  How’s that?  

Rinna:  Well hey, there you go.

Kim:  As long as she wants six kids…

Ryan:  Exactly.  We’ll have a Quidditch team.  

(Girls laugh)

Ryan:  We’ll have a Quidditch team.

Rinna:  Nice.  You know you need seven for a Quidditch team.  

Ryan:  I can help!  I can...I can be there.

(Rinna laughs)

Kim:  Doesn’t everyone want to be the Weasley’s?

Ryan:  I want to…

Kim:  Of course!

Ryan:   Who doesn’t love the Weasley’s? Who wants to be Percy?  

Kim:  Of course!

Rinna:  And I think… Yeah, Exactly.               

Ryan:  Rest in Peace.

Rinna:  I think that the Expecto Sacrificum prologue, um, there’s the whole…you see them going through and building the spell. That, you know, when you start the story, you don’t know anything about this spell.  And, it’s not like there’s any kind of exposition that explains anything about the spell, it’s just all of a sudden, BAM, here we are right in the middle of it.

Ryan:  That’s interesting, just to add…you don’t even need to know why the spell is there.  You don’t even need to know the background plot.  It’s just very interesting to see how each character repeats the same words to Harry, “I swear to die for you, Harry.  I love you”.  And it means something different to each of them.

Rinna:  Right.

Ryan:  For Hermione, she is hopeful, she is determined.  For Ron, he’s grave, his voice is raspy, and he…you know, he’s holding it all together.  Remus is the mentor; he feels the responsibility to look after Harry.  And he’s swearing to die for Harry, and he knows that Harry could very well die in the next few minutes and he just has tears in his eyes.  Sirius is raw with emotion.  He will never again lose another friend.  And he is the Godfather, but he has such difficulty with that role. And he sees Harry as a friend. And especially Ginny.  She will not take no for an answer.  She is no-nonsense.  She has a necessary element, is what the story calls it, and you know that means love.  And it’s just so…it’s interesting.  You don’t know why they’re saying this, but you know they all mean what they are saying it.  And they all mean it in such a different way.   

Rinna:  Right.  

Kim:  And even to the point of like, chapter three, we still actually don’t know what this is leading up into.  

Rinna:  Right.

Kim:  We just see that chapter, and then they jump straight to the summer.  It’s only later that you learn that was right before the final batter.  The author’s keep you reading by keeping you guessing.  

Ryan:  And it’s interesting because I’ve read the story once through, and I’m starting to read it through it again, and maybe I’ll understand this better when I get near the end of the story.  I can’t tell you exactly where this takes place in the story.  It’s…It’s…I can’t…I know it’s…there’s reference to the end of the prologue that in the next few minutes they could all be dead and this could be either the beginning of their new lives, or this could be the end of the lives that they have now, and the end of their world.  But I really…It’s interesting because I can’t even place where they are standing or where they are.  All that they give you is how the characters are responding to what their saying. So it just…It just grabs them from the beginning of the story.  

Rinna:  And I think that’s one of the things that makes this particular story, and makes the authors so good.  Is that, in this setting, in the prologue, when they are describing the ceremony that’s happening when they are laying the spell.  It doesn’t matter that you don’t know where they are.  It doesn’t matter that you don’t know ‘when’ you are.  It, all that matters is what they have written here.  And that is what makes this a truly great story.  You don’t notice, and you don’t really care, that you don’t have all the information.  Because the information that you have is enough for you to go on.

Ryan:  And that’s all they give you. And it’s exactly what you said.  They are only going to tell you what you need to know.

Rinna:  Right.

Ryan:  And one thing I just want to point out.  In any Harry Potter fic, Harry deals with his hero complex.  And he takes it in one of several different ways.  He does not believe that anyone else should be near him because they could be injured.  He doesn’t understand that maybe they want to be there.  Maybe he realizes just that enormous weight he has on his shoulders, because maybe he does want them around…he does recognize that he needs them.  Each author takes it in a little bit of a different direction, and that’s why I love reading…different fics so much, just to see how different people interpret the many faces of Harry.  

Kim:  But I mean…Even, even J.K. Rowling did that herself with Harry and Ginny in the book.  I mean, Harry, Harry pushes Ginny away because he doesn’t want anyone near him, because he feel like he’s a walking time-bomb.  

Ryan:  Same with Tonks and Remus, in Half-Blood Prince.  He pushes her away for most of the book, and you just see the effect it has on her.  She is just a shadow of her former self.   And it’s so interesting, because Jo has so many different devices in the books that she uses to let us see inside the characters.  You know, the Mirror of Erisad, the boggart, the dementors…it’s so many plot devices that let you get inside these characters and devise what makes them up.  For the sake of the audience, in this chapter, we have a spell, that if someone means it, if someone loves Harry, someone is willing to die for Harry, Harry will feel, apparently, a burst of magic.  He will be able to augment his magic with theirs.  It’s a sacrifice they’re giving him.  So it’s one thing for Hermione and Ginny and Ron and Sirius and Remus to say, “I love you, Harry…I’d do anything for you,” and, you know Harry…He won’t believe it, because they’re more important than he is.  It’s one thing for them to say it, and to feel it, and to get absolute proof of it.  

Rinna:  Right.

Ryan:  And I think that’s just one of the strengths of this chapter.  It’s one of the few times that Harry cannot doubt it.  He may doubt if he is worthy of what they feel, but he knows exactly what they feel.  Each and every one of them.  

Rinna:  Yeah.

Kim:  Well that, and it gives us scenario for a scene that we’ve all wondered what actually happened in the books.  I mean, everyone…I mean, we don’t have much information at all about the night Harry’s parents died.  And this, I mean this gives us an idea of what may have happened.  

Ryan:  Yeah, exactly.  It’s the love that people feel for each other, and it’s…it’s one thing to hear it, and it’s another thing to see the character accept it.  Harry was too young to know what his mother was doing.  We don’t know what Lily did.  We don’t know who was there.  We…we get fragments of dialogue from his darkest memories.  We don’t know what happened at Godric’s Hollow that night, but we do know what happens right before this final battle.  We do know the choices that people make, and each of them makes it, and each of them makes it for a different reason.  

Rinna:  Right.

Ryan:  And it just…It was so moving too, just to…When they all gather together, and they all hug, and someone knocks over the light…and nobody cares, and they just hold each other, because…this is it.  This is either the end of everything, or this is the beginning.  

Rinna:  Right.

Ryan:  And it’s so interesting, because in terms of what’s hard…beginning again is hard, if it ended there that night…they would have done everything they could, and it’s so hard for these characters to actually win that night, and then have to put their world back together that was destroyed.  

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  It just blows me away.  I…I can’t recall reading another…I’ve enjoyed many fics and we’re going to read them here and pull them apart and analyze them…I, I never have enjoyed…just jumping into a fic as much as I’ve enjoyed…this chapter.  

Rinna:  And then we have this…this great, dramatic, scene…and then, it slips.  And all of a sudden it’s…”we’re outside and it’s bright and it’s sunny and…everything’s over”…and there’s just this kind of…the sense of like…

Kim:  A sigh of relief.

Rinna:  What?  Yeah…It’s kind of like…

Ryan:  Something worked.  Something worked.  We don’t know what…

Rinna:  Right.

Ryan:  But something must have worked.

Rinna:  Something worked.   And we don’t know what.  And it draws the readers in and it kind of says, “Okay.  Now what?”  Because obviously, the story lasted longer than the prologue, so there had to be something for people to come back and read.  

Ryan:  Wouldn’t that be awful if…Wouldn’t that be awful if…

Kim:  Yeah, I know.  

Ryan:  If it ended in chapter one they all died?  

Kim:  Exactly.

Ryan:  That just occurred to me.

Rinna:  So we have this prologue, and it’s just kind of…you know it really doesn’t give you anymore information.  It leaves you guessing.  It’s kind of like, “Okay, what ha..happened?  How did we get here?  How does this happen?”

Ryan:  And I’m just so happy you said that with the…the part about…flips…the story just flips.  Okay.  Everyone gets together.  They hug, this is it.  Group hug.  We’re either going to make it or we’re not.  You would expect if they make it, that you’re having parties, and that everyone is jumping for joy…”we made it, we beat the odds!”…and everyone’s quiet.  They even remark that it’s never been this quiet before.  And they just sit.  And all you can think of is something went wrong, somebody died.  

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  All you can think…and that’s what you are supposed to think because you’re conditioned when you read these things to think that either you’re going to lose or you’re going to die, or you’re going to win and you’re going to party.  And one of the strengths of this fic is that you win, but you lose.  And you just have to deal with that.  You just have to go on.  So it’s so…you never expected that.  You never expect to just be quietly around the lake, and maybe everyone made it…but it…it’s just a sad time.  

Kim:  Yeah.  It gives a really very realistic outlook on how people behave after a war…not just what children think around and think, “Hey yeah, let’s party.”  We’ve won, but it tells the truth about actually goes on.  

Ryan:  And it’s so interesting in the way it’s written, too.  It reminds me very much of…um, the end of Half-Blood Prince, during the battle of Hogwarts.  The way Jo Rowling writes, is that you don’t know who she’s talking about, and she plays on your expectations…she plays on your conditioning...and, if you read that chapter…if you read that battle, you don’t know whose there.  There is a blonde wizard.  There’s a large wizard.  You don’t know whose talking to whom.  You don’t know where people are standing.  You don’t know which direction they are running in.  You just don’t get it.  And it really just jumped out at me, reading this first chapter, how you don’t know whose speaking.  Har…It begins with Harry sitting on the steps of the castle, looking out at the lake.  And somebody’s there with him, but you don’t know who.  And you…first you begin to question.  Something must have happened.  Who died?  Ginny’s up in her room.  The person speaking is hungry.  That must be Ron.  There’s somebody else there.

Rinna:  Right. 

Ryan:  That must be Hermione.  No, I did this!

(Kim and Rinna are laughing)

Ryan:  I had to read this over three times just to see who is who and who is talking to who.  And it’s not Hermione said this, Ron said this…It really makes you work for it, because…So…How many authors say, “the lake was off to the left”…”you know, the leaves were falling from the trees”…”and this person”…You don’t know whose in this room.  We don’t even know where you were in the prologue!  You were just, you know, around a blue light, hugging each other, and sacrificing everything.  You really have to pull at the details.  They don’t give you anything.  

Rinna:  But yeah…I just think it’s, it’s interesting the way…um, like you were saying…they kind of fell into the stereotypical descriptions of some of these characters, you know.  How do they let you know Ron was there?  ‘Cause he’s hungry.  

Ryan:  Exactly.  I’m like, okay good – Ron made it!

Rinna:  And Ron is always hungry.

Kim:  But..but couldn’t they have done it a better way?  I mean, that’s, that’s the way everyone’s going to automatically recognize is…is a stereotype, sadly enough.

Rinna:  Yeah.

Kim:  Right.

Ryan:  Well, I, I thought it was great!  I don’t think they could have done that any better.  And you know what, he just saved the world.  Give the man a sandwich.  

Rinna:  Right.  And so…so you got…so okay…Someone’s hungry – gotta be Ron.  And then you’ve got somebody chastising him for it – gotta be Hermione.  And then they mention Ginny specifically by name.  So…

Ryan:  So you know…Here is my…Here is one of…This is when I knew this fic was something I was going to read in one sitting, and worry about drinking later.  

(Girls laugh)

Ryan:  Okay.  I love this fic! (slurred)

Rinna:  Everybody get liquored up!

Ryan:  Oh, God.  Except Kim!  

Rinna:  What, she’s underaged…

(Kim laughs)

Ryan:  This is the one line I loved.  When Harry hears the animal at the edge of the forest, he says, “Hagrid would have known what it was.”  

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  All he says.  Hagrid’s dead.  That’s how they tell you Hagrid’s dead.  In passing.  If you read that too quickly, it says, Hagrid would know what it is.  That’s how they let you know that the first major character is not going to be in this fic…this person is dead.  You don’t know how, you don’t know why…Hagrid is gone.  And it’s just dropped into a sentence.

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  “His eyes fell on the tower that had once been Dumbledore’s.  The Headmaster’s empty window glared brilliantly in the sun.”  Dumbledore’s dead.  That’s how you find out.  Just a reference to him looking up at the castle.  In so many other fics, I really do think he would just hear Harry there saying, “I wish Dumbledore was here.  I wish Hagrid was here.”  Just you…you could actually just feel them duck taping the exposition onto the story…It’s just dropped in, and if you catch it, you catch it, and you read on to find out more.  If you don’t catch it, you’re lost.  

Rinna:  Right.

Ryan:  What do you think of the writing style in this chapter?  Did either of you take note in just the way it’s written?  Just the sentence structure?

Rinna:  Well, I think one of the things that jumped out at me, and I will prefer ace this by saying I am a bit of a grammar Nazi…and I…which is why I think that makes me a good Beta…It does not always make me a good reader, because things that are not written correctly tend to just jump out at me, and I think that’s one way a lot of authors show their age.  And their maturity level.  Because sometimes, um, and this is not always, but more inexperienced authors, a lot of times younger authors, are in more of a hurry to get things done, and they’re not as careful about keeping things clean…About keeping their style consistent.  And I think one of the things that I really, really liked about this entire story, and one of the things that kept me interested in the story, is the fact that the style is so consistent.  It’s the fact that the writing is, is really, really good.  

Ryan:  Especially since two people were working on this, and then some even more authors, you know, guest write chapters later on, like later on.  This isn’t like one person sitting down in their kitchen at the end of a hard workday and writing a story.  This is a collaborative.

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  And that’s so much harder.  Anyone whose ever written a group project, or..er…a group paper with someone else knows…that doesn’t work well.  

Kim:  It’s hard to get something to flow when you’ve got two different people trying to push ideas out at once.  I mean, one person could be going one direction, and one another.  And they…they…It seems like one person is writing the story.  One person is…it’s going from one point of view.  

Ryan:  One thing I was thinking, was just…you know, when they ask the question.  Sometimes…and I write…and anyone who reads anything I write, knows I have seventeen commas in every sentence.  I usually have one sentence per page.  I just write and write and write, and I don’t like periods.  

(Rinna laughs)

Ryan:  I don’t…I don’t…My father was an English teacher…I inherited the thing…I don’t know.  Where we start the story, the battle is over.  Everyone is just catching their breath.  And the writing reflects that.  He…Harry is holding the note from Sirius, and he thinks to himself, “This is a good letter.  It is a good letter.”  Just very simple sentences.  It was a good letter.  That’s all you need to know.  Harry is not, you know…he doesn’t speak much.  He is very…invertive.  It was a good letter.  That’s all you’re gonna get.  That’s all you need to know.  

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  He was just so touched that, with everything that’s happened, he made it…Sirius made it…He gets the life he’s always wanted.  It’s the life he never gets in Jo Rowling’s books.  This story takes a different route, and actually, gives Harry something he wants, to prove that even though you get everything you want, it’s still really hard.  Getting what you want doesn’t solve every problem.  And I just appreciated that.  There was so many different ways he could have gone on…about how his life had come together, about how despite all of the chaos and all of the sacrifice, he was able to…It was a good letter.  That’s all you need to know.  

Rinna:  Yeah.

Kim:  It’s realistic, but it still has the happy ending that everyone wants.  

Ryan:  And that’s exactly it.  And you could so easily write the story, Harry goes to live with Sirius and everything works out.

Kim:  Everyone lives.  No one died…Yada yada yada…No, people died.  Things were lost.  Everything’s not perfect, but there is still a chance that everything might work out in the end.  

Ryan:  Yeah!  And think of this:  Harry lives, Ginny lives, Hermione lives, Ron lives.  Sirius lives.  Sirius didn’t even live in the book!  Seriously!  

(Rinna laughs)

Ryan:  Let me ask you this.  When you read this story and then went back into canon, did you have to really think, “Sirius is dead.  Sirius is dead.  Sirius is dead?”

Kim:  I have to think that anyway.  

Rinna:  Yeah.  Because of reading fanfiction before…and I swear that’s going to happen to you when Deathly Hallows comes out.  You will sit there and read that book, and you will get confused, because you will think, “Wait a second!  This isn’t what happens!”

Ryan:  No, I did that…No, I did that.

Rinna:  Because all you will be thinking about is a fanfic, not a canon thing.  

Ryan:  No, I did that.  I did that.  

(Girls laugh)

Ryan:  I read Half-Blood Prince and I’m in that mindset and I’m reading fanfics, and I went to the movie theatre and I saw Goblet of Fire, and Hermione says, “You should write the letter to Sirius.”  She’s on the train.  “You should write to Sirius.  Sirius would want to know about your scar hurting.”  Everyone in the theatre gasped!  They all forgot he was alive!  

Rinna:  In that…Yeah…yeah…

Ryan:  And it was like, (makes gasping noise), like it was…it was hilarious.  I had to chuckle.  It was…Everyone was in that mindset.  Which is why I am so glad that, you know, the book is at least coming out after, you know, Order of the Phoenix, because people would get so confused.  

Rinna:  Yes.

Ryan:  Can you imagine if Harry dies in this book?  And then they go to the theatre and he’s still alive?  Like, it would be chaos in the streets!

(Rinna laughs)

Rinna:  Well, we’ll get into our predictions about what will happen in Deathly Hallows in another episode.  So we’re starting with the first chapter now…and the thing that I find really, really funny is that it starts off as you’ve got Sirius and Remus, and they’re at the the house, and you’ve got Sirius who is just bouncing off the walls.  He’s so excited, and then you’ve got Remus, who’s half asleep.  And…  

Ryan:  I just have to say, I drink nineteen cups of coffee a day.  Remus is my man.  

Rinna:  Well, I just…

Ryan:  If anyone did that to me in the morning…

(laughs)

Rinna:  It just seemed like from my experience, and from canon, from everything that I can think about from canon, I would flip those two.  

Kim:  Yeah.

Ryan:  Really?  I would…

Rinna:  I can see Remus is the one who was up and awake and alert, and Sirius as the one who’s just like, “Don’t talk to me until I’ve had my coffee…”

(Kim laughs)

Kim:  Yeah.

Rinna:  That is just the… 

Ryan:  That…

Rinna: …impression that I got from canon.  

Ryan:  I can…

Rinna:  And to see this in the story and to have that flipped over to where Sirius is the one who’s all excited and bouncing off the walls, and Remus is the one who’s kind of dragging…to me, that was really funny.  

Ryan:  So let me ask you this…So is…so to you, Sirius is…is the everyday college freshman who doesn’t want to take any class before ten, and…

Kim:  It’s not that Sirius has always been like that…it’s due to his years in Azkaban.  I think, like, fixed written back like…post Harry and everything, that would be how Sirius and Remus were…Sirius would be the one that’s more outgoing and ready for that, and Remus would be the more like back, but given their experience and…

Rinna:  Exactly.

Kim: …Sirius’ years in Azkaban…He’s going to be the one who is more mellow and more…just…

Ryan:  ‘Cause that’s interesting…

Rinna:  He’s gonna have a hard time getting going in the morning.  

Ryan:  That’s interesting.  I can actually see now that you say that.  I can see Remus is the guy who wakes up every morning at four o’clock and goes to bed and goes to bed every night by eight thirty.  I can see that side of him, although I’ll given it…I’ll… argue with the other way too.  When you go through a tragedy, you do weird things.  In the last week, Sirius almost lost his godson, he almost lost his life, he’s almost lost the war…and now, everything is happening at once.  He doesn’t know how to deal with it.  He doesn’t know how to be a Godfather.  He never thought he’d live to ‘be’ a Godfather.  This is something that was never supposed to happen.  It’s almost a gift that’s almost a curse.  And, he doesn’t know how to deal with this.  And…

Rinna:  Right.

Ryan: …He is almost hyper out of his mind.  And I think Remus is much more of an excepting of the situation…This is going to be hard.  I just need a cup of coffee.  Everything ‘s going to be fine.  Pass me the paper, kind of guy.  So I can see it both ways, but I think you can look at the story, and you can make that work for you.  

Rinna:  Yeah.  And then it gets into…you have…um, and this is something that I think is very much in line with the way these two people were characterized in a canon.  You’ve got…um, Re…um, Sirius who’s…er - Remus who’s saying, “We’ve got to get prepared,” and Sirius, who’s like, “What are you talkin’ about?  I’ve been ready for this all my life!  We are good to go.”  And Remus is like, ‘You need bedding.  You need food.  You need towels.”

Ryan:  You need food for Ron alone.  You need to try to…

(Girls laugh)

Kim:  Is that, Is that in that scene?  Remus…Remus makes me think of Hermione and…

Rinna:  Yes!

Kim: …And Sirius is Ron!

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  They are the odd couple.  

Kim:  Yeah.

Ryan:  I have to tell you, when I first read this fic, I was about halfway through it, and I was thinking of it as Love Actually starring Harry Potter and company.  It just seemed the type of thing where you had fifteen different relationships going…I didn’t know if there was going to be a romantic ship involving Remus and Sirius, and I didn’t really make a decision on that until many chapters later, but they are every married couple I have ever met in this scene.  

Kim:  Yeah.

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  “I’m so excited!”  “Shut-up and pass the coffee.”  It’s just, that’s it.  I mean, you can’t…

Rinna:  Right…

Ryan: …get better that that.  That is…it was just so much fun listening to them, and it was really interesting too, just to watch the way, and um, I believe we have, um, some feedback from Jen in the forums on this.  I’m not sure we have it for this particular chapter…But, just the way everyone in this universe is on such a short fuse…

Rinna:  Yeah.  

Ryan: …because of everything that’s just happened.  

Kim:  Yeah.

Ryan:  And how they don’t really know…These are people they’ve known all their lives.  They don’t really know how to talk to each other.  They don’t really know what to say, because they’re traumatized and the other person’s traumatized, and it’s just kind of feeling your way around.  There were a few references to Remus, just trying to put up his hand and hold Sirius and Sirius pulling back…um…Jen in the forums pointed out that the scene, the moment, where Arthur calls in to floo and they dive and pull out their wands like they’re under attack…Because it’s a sudden noise and it startled them.  It’s like a car backfiring if you’ve just been shot at.  It just…It scares the hell out of you.  And it’s just…

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  It’s so interesting, especially…and it really troubles me to try and shift back into canon after I read, after I’ve read “After the End”, because Sirius is so perfectly channeled in…this is how Sirius would be if he survived the story.  He’s so excited, he’s so happy, but you poke him just a little bit and he unravels.  He has no idea what to do.  He has no idea how to take care of Harry.  He has no idea how to assimilate back into the world.  He’s been pardoned for nine months, and the neighbor across the street is scared of him.  

Rinna:  Right.

Ryan:  And it, you know, really hurts him.  He just wants…He just wants to live this life.  He just wants so little.  And it hurts him more than he will ever admit, that the person across the street that he doesn’t even know, won’t give him that chance.  

Rinna:  And I think that’s why he’s so eager to volunteer, um, when Arthur asks about the Azkaban project.  First of all because of his personal experience with the, um, dementors, and with being in Azkaban…But I think part of it, his drive, he’s still trying to exonerate himself in the public eye.  He is constantly, in the case of this fic…constantly trying to protect people.  To better the public.  And yes, part of it is based on his experience, but I think a big factor in his motivation is the fact that he is trying to get people to forgive him.  

Ryan:  And how much of it, because that is so interesting, because then you would have to ask the question, forgive him for what?...

Rinna:  Right.  And it’s…it’s the same thing.  You see people in real life that similar stuff has happened to.  I…I mean, I can think of a specific example in a…local news around where I’m from.  There was a man who was listed as a sex offender, actually.  For a couple of years…three or four years…And it was found out, after the fact, that his accuser was, in fact, not telling the truth about the particular incident that happened.  And so the man was exonerated.  He was…all the charges were dropped.  His name was cleared, but he still had that stigma attached to him.  

Ryan:  And that is so interesting…

Rinna:  And it didn’t matter that he didn’t do what it was said that he did.  It was the stigma that was attached to his having been accused.  And I think that’s a similar situation to what Sirius is going through.  He has been exonerated, but in the public eye, it doesn’t matter, because in the public eye it doesn’t matter, he was still accused of having done that at one point.  

Kim:  People don’t automatically, like, change their minds over night…

Rinna:  Right.

Kim:  People have been hearing for years and years that Sirius is a mass murderer.  He’s on the loose…hide, run!  And now that he’s like, supposed to be an ordinary citizen, people…people automatically go on with what’s natural for them.  And you…they don’t always think with a rational mind first.  They think with what’s been drilled into them.  

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  And think of that, too.  Say you’re a judge, and the defender comes before you, and you find the person not guilty.  There’s an allegation after that, that the person paid you ten thousand dollars in cash.  No one will ever look at you and know with one hundred percent assuridy that you were not bribed.  All you need is one person to accuse you of something, and there’s always the smallest doubt in everyone’s mind because people are so cynical, because people are so used to people being bribed, that all you need is one allegation and no one would ever know.  He sat in jail for thirteen years, and then the ministry of magic, the same ministry of magic that was led by Cornelius Fudge, who tried to negotiate with death eaters, comes out and says he’s innocent.  We made a mistake, our bad.  People don’t care.  People aren’t going to trust him anyway.  And it just hurts him so much, and you know it hurts him so much, but he needs to be strong for Harry.  He needs to move on with his life.  Every time he’s bounding around that house…and I love the word they use, “bounding around the house”, you know…just as, Padfoot, he’s trying so hard to escape from that.  He does not know how to deal with that.

Rinna:  Right.  I agree with that.

Kim:  And it seems to me, like he’s trying to keep busy to avoid, like, in those moments when he does fall back and remember the past.  He’s trying to keep from dwelling on it because, I mean, a lot of people are in this mindset that, “if you dwell on it, well, then everyone else is going to think about it too.”  So if he forgets about it, then maybe everyone else will as well.  

Rinna:  Right.  And in a way he…he’s grieving.  He’s grieving for his friends that he’s lost.  He’s grieving for the life he never had.  And, you know, you don’t automatically get to acceptance on the first day or week or month or year.  He is…he is grieving for the life that he didn’t have.  He’s grieving for the friends that he’s lost, and for the time that he’s lost.  And that’s just not something that you can get over.  He is still…and a lot of people when they deal with grief; they deal with it by distracting themselves.  And I think that’s a good example of what he’s doing here.  He, he focuses on these little things.  He focuses on Harry coming.  He focuses on, uh, the Azkaban project.  And it’s to keep him from dwelling on all the things that he has lost.  

Ryan:  Isn’t it so interesting, too, that he asks Remus, “Why does it feel like there’s still a war on?”

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  And it’s interesting too, and there are references to Harry doesn’t want the war to be over.  He doesn’t know how to live in a time during peace.  He’s never done it.

Rinna:  Right.

Ryan:  It’s scary.  And every character, every single character in this fic is broken.  

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  All of them.  And it’s just so interesting to watch.  How do you heal yourself when you are trying to heal the person sitting right next to you that you care so much about?  Or how do you heal yourself when the person that you need is no longer there.  It’s just…there’s….every single character down the line.  No exceptions.

Rinna:  Right.

Ryan:  It’s so interesting to watch these characters that Jo Rowling created, or most of them are characters Jo Rowling created, pushed in directions they’ve never been pushed in before.  And it’s like bumper cars.  You just watch them bounce off each other, and your just watching what happens, and how Arabella and Zsenya think they would respond, and they are dead on.  They channel her so perfectly.  

Rinna:  Yeah.  And I think…Another thing I think they’ve done really well with the characterization of Sirius is the image that I got of him was almost being like, manic.  He…he goes…I mean…He’s bouncin’ off the walls because the kids are coming, and he’s upset because of Martin Lewis and his reaction.  And then he’s talking to Arthur, and then sad again.  And then he’s excited because he’s going to go prepare, and then the kids are two minutes late showing up, and he’s freakin’ out.  You know, they kind of captured that.  

Kim:  They…They’re letting us know that he still hasn’t come to terms with what’s going on, just like everyone else.

Rinna:  Exactly.

Ryan:  And it’s so interesting to think about, he’s taking care of Harry…and Harry’s probably the only character in this fic who is more screwed up than Sirius is.  

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  And it’s…it’s…they need each other so much.  And I love how he says it.  James shouldn’t have left him with me.  How can I help him get through all of this.  How can I explain it to him?  Harry defeated Voldemort.  How do I explain to Harry what’s happened like he’s a four year old child who doesn’t understand death.  It’s just so interesting, his perspective, so interesting how Remus adjusts his perspective just to slide in with what Sirius needs.  How each of these characters pair off and helps someone else, and they kind of…it’s like the game where you back up into someone else and help each other…you help each other stand.  It’s just so interesting to watch.  Why don’t we move on a little bit to chapter two.  And um…

Rinna:  Okay. 

Ryan:  Starting with Bill Weasley, um…in much of the same situation.  He is alone, he is lost, he is scared.  Literally, he does not know where he is, attempting to find Charlie.  Uh…how did we think of how this chapter started?  

Rinna:  I think it’s really interesting, because you’ve got these two juxtaposed characters.  Bill, who’s coming in, who knows he’s the bearer of bad news.  And then you’ve got Charlie, who’s just exuberant and he’s happy, and he’s excited, um, to see his brother.  And it’s just…I think it’s really interesting that they’ve opposed those two characters.  

Ryan:  It was interesting, to, I was a little thrown off by how this chapter began.  It was one of the first times I’ve, uh, had that reaction to it.  And I think it’s just because they were just starting out, and it’s so early in the story.  It just, it came across almost…not poor writing, but it just came across as awkward.  You have Bill, ducking for days, the dark curse shields, trying to find his brother, and all of a sudden, it’s literally like he trips over Charlie.  And it was one of the few times in the story where they actually tell us what to think instead of show us, and I think they could have done a better job to show us how lost he was, and to contrast with what we just saw of, um, the Lupin Lodge, and how lost those characters were.  It brought me out of the story a little bit…but it brings you right back in.  I just wanted to comment on that.  It was a little weird.  It was like, “I’m lost, I’m lost, I’m lost”, and then you trip over the person you were looking for in the middle of a shrub.  It just came across as a little…

(Rinna laughs)

Ryan: …interesting there.  Now, um, I just wanted to bring this up too, um…’cause Kim just came here.  The newest reader of this fic, so you’re…this is most fresh for you.  What did you think of this chapter, when we got into it?

Kim:  I don’t know.  There was, there was a lot of things in this chapter that I, eh, either didn’t like or really just didn’t expect.  I mean, Bill coming in, and everyone’s surrounded by war, and then Charlie just being completely…it’s like…it’s like you kinda said…it’s kind of awkward to me.  Especially considering all that’s going on.  And then, at the time, like, I mean that I know as a first reader, the first three chapters, you just keep jumping place to place.  I do…I mean…Once you get to the end of a chapter, you’ve figured everything out, so you’re starting to put everything together.  But I mean, too, as a first time reader, at times, it can get really confusing because you’re like, “well where did that come from?”  

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  Yeah, well one of the…just to give an example too…Bill travels for days through dark curse shields…He’s walking right underneath dragons he can’t see…He trips over Charlie in the shrub, and…and they go underground, into the giant hollow mountain, and…It’s so evident.  Bill had to come for a reason.  Something has happened.  Something terrible has happened.  He implies something terrible has happened.  And, I know what they were trying to convey.  They were trying to convey that Charlie understood that, and didn’t want to deal with it, and didn’t want to process it.  But it came across almost as though Charlie was slow…(Ryan laughs)…and was avoiding it.  He was smiling, he was joking, he was cracking jokes, and I just…It seemed that it was just a little bit too heavy handed, and I don’t really think it channeled the character of Charlie too well at that point.  He just seemed like he didn’t…not that he didn’t care that something had happened, but…just that he was slow.

Rinna:  Charlie was a Mary-Jane in this chapter.  Like all the…most of the characters so far have been very dynamic and very different, but Charlie…Charlie just kind of…fit into a mold.  He really didn’t come across as a person.  He just came across as a stereotype.  

Ryan:  Yeah.  And I had difficulty even channeling the stereotype.  ‘Cause it seemed like…like…it seemed like you’re either going to…you’re going to want to grab Bill by the collar and holler and say, “What happened? What happened?  Was it dad?”  Were you going to pretend like you didn’t hear something.  It just seemed…it was…it was very odd, uh, one dimensional characterization, and he snaps out of it, and he gets better.  It just…It just grated me the wrong way.  And it was just such a contrast to chapter one, that it was very difficult as a reader, for me to read one and then jump into two and follow, or to not be pulled out of the story.  I just thought that.  What did we all think of Fleur?  Fleur’s introduction to the story?  

Rinna:  You know, that was something that I really, uh, really thought was quite perceptive of Arabella and Zsenya when they wrote this, because…you know, keeping in mind that this story was written after the completion of Goblet of Fire…

Ryan:  Goblet of Fire.

Rinna: …which was the first introduction of Fleur Delacore.  

Ryan:  Absolutely.

Rinna:  We had never met her before.  We had no idea that she was going to come back and play any kind of role in the story.  

Ryan:  And she was seventeen years old.  You don’t think, oh yeah, Bill Weasley.  They’re was…

Rinna:  Right. Exactly.  Because there’s a ‘huge’ age difference.  

Ryan:  Do they even speak in the book?  

Rinna:  They didn’t!  There was one mention of Fleur eyeing Bill appreciatively over her mother’s shoulder.  And I believe that that is the exact line in the book.

(Ryan laughs)

Rinna:  And it just said that basically, that she was ‘checking him out’.  And that’s all that they say about it.  

Kim:  But the thing is…Is it in fanfiction?  That seems to be the most popular person to pair Bill with, though.  I mean…

Rinna:  That’s true.

Kim:  Most fanfics I’ve read have Bill and/or Fleur in them, have those two together.  Most people don’t put Bill with an OC.  Bill is with Fleur.  Even if they…

Ryan:  Well, they all read After the End.

Rinna:  Or, or another concept is in Order of the Phoenix, they make a reference to Bill tutoring Fleur in English.  

Ryan:  But they didn’t have that.  

Rinna:  But you have to stop.  Not in this particular story.  But in a lot of other stories that were written after the completion of Order of the Phoenix.  And that’s when the whole Bill and Fleur ship really kind of took off.  

Kim:  Well…

Rinna:  There were a couple of Bill and Fleur pieces written before that.  They kind of clued in…in on that little reference there of her checking him out.  But there weren’t really that many until after Order of the Phoenix.  

Kim:  Well…

Rinna:  And I think it’s really interesting, um, the way that it specifically says in the story, that she recognizes him from the TriWizard Tournament.  

Ryan:  Good memory, too.

Rinna:  And…that, uh…Yeah!  It’s that…and I know I’ve done it.  You know that you see someone you knew a long time ago, and maybe it was someone you had a crush on, and they come up to you and they say, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”  And sometimes, you don’t want to really indicate, maybe, that you were as aware of them as you were.  She’s like, “yeah, I think me might have gone to school together or something?”  

Ryan:  You were the guy who was checking out at the Yule Ball, right?

(They laugh)

Rinna:  Right.  It really feels like she kinda says…you know, she just kinda says, “Yeah.  I know you from the TriWizard tournament.”  And I just think it’s really interesting that even in this situation where obviously this is a very traumatic thing that’s just happened…to this family, you know.  She still is just kind of like, “Yeah.  ‘Cause I know you ‘cause I saw you back then, and I thought you were hot.”  You know?  It’s that kind of image, or at least, that’s the image that I got.

Ryan:  I gather that he must have been really hot at the Yule Ball for her to remember him in a cave in Romania three years later.                    

(Rinna laughs)

Rinna:  Right.

Ryan:  Maybe it’ll…it’s…it’ll be the red hair.  It’s the red hair and the ponytail.  Who else says that?  

Rinna:  Exactly.

Ryan:  But I want to say one thing, too, about the character of Fleur.  Reading her in the book, you think one of two things.  She can achieve…She is the champion of Beauxbeton.  Does she win anything?  Does she come in…Does she beat anyone in the TriWizard tournament?  I can’t remember.  She comes in last in every contest, doesn’t she?

Rinna:  Yes…yes.

Kim:  Yes, she does.

Ryan:  So, she’s not what we call an overachiever, and every time she speaks, you can feel the characters rolling their eyes.  So this is not a sympathetic character to the reader.  It’s a filler character.

Rinna:  Right.  

Ryan:  And Arabella and Zsenya make her into someone that you enjoy reading.  This is someone you care about.  And…it’s just…You know, kudos to them for creating a character that you like so much more than the character you read in Jo Rowling’s novels.  That’s not automatic kudos to Arabella and Zsenya, and automatically bashing Jo.  I mean, some fanfic authors write Draco Malfoy to be a perfect gentleman, and that characterization is flawed…But, in this case, they take the character, and they age her three years.  She’s lost a sister. She’s obviously tremendously talented.  She’s working for, you know, the good side.  She too is broken, and they make her, like so many people you meet after you graduate college…the person who used to be…

Rinna:  They humanize her.  

Ryan:  Yeah!  You used to be a jerk in college, but I like you so much better now.  It’s…it’s…

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  You give the credit for finding that and more.  It’s just…she’s really fun to read in this.

Rinna:  Yeah.  And I mean…Another thing, I think that another interesting thing about this chapter, is that you start off, in Romania, at the dragon camp.  And then it picks up after the war and we’re still at the same place.  And it’s obvious that things have…have gone on.  Maybe they…Bill has obviously moved on and come back to this location.  I just think it’s really interesting, that, you know, it brings you back to these same two characters.  And you get to see their interaction, in…in a non-war time environment.   

Ryan:  Now, how far…It was four months apart.  Is that right?

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  Is that right?

Rinna:  These two parts of the chapter are four months apart.  

Ryan:  Now, does it mention where Bill was that time?  Because it references he was sleeping on Charlie’s couch for a week.  So, he left and then he came back. And if it was a week, that coincides with the end of the war.  So he came back when the war was over, presumably to go find Charlie, or to check on Charlie, or for whatever reason.  We can assume then that Bill leaves the camp and then returns when the war is over.  

Rinna:  Right.  And we get into Bill…and it’s possible that Bill was in Lon…England…was at Hogwarts…at the final battle.  And maybe, he’s on his way back to Egypt, and decided to stop in in Romania, and see his brother.  And you see…okay, he’s giving this  opportunity to transfer to the London branch of Gringotts, to help with the rebuilding effort.  And then you get this whole…It goes back into the issue with the dementors, and with the public’s response to Arthur Weasley, who is now the Minister of Magic, and how they’re reacting to what’s going on…and, um, the issue with the dementors being loose, and that’s how we get the older Weasley boys coming back to…um…coming back to London to help out with the situation.  And we…we also get introduced to Penelope.  You know, Penelope Clearwater, is mentioned in canon as being Percy Weasley’s girlfriend.  And we know from the beginning of this chapter that Percy is dead.  And then we bring in Penelope and I think that adds another aspect to this family dynamic.  Is that…the Weasley’s have taken on their son’s widow, as a member of the family.  And…

Ryan:  Just to back up to canon, there’s an earlier reference to Penelope in the earlier books, I believe it’s Chamber of Secrets.  I believe she was actually petrified by the Basilisk.

Rinna:  Yes.

Ryan:  Is that correct?  

Rinna:  Yes, that’s correct.

Ryan:  Then that was her claim to fame.  I don’t know if we hear from her…you know, I can’t recall in the canon.  Um, do you remember Kim?  Does she pop up in canon at all after Chamber of Secrets?

Kim:  I believe there is more than one mention of her.  But that is…but that is the moment that is…really, that most people would remember.  

Ryan:  Isn’t that sad that your one claim to fame is that you got petrified by a Basilisk?  

Rinna:  Yeah.

Kim:  But another thing, like, just sitting here talking about it.  And you’re sitting here talking about the older Weasley’s…It makes me realize that to the readers that are reading when I am, with me, who haven’t finished the story yet…We still don’t know anything about the twins.  

Ryan:  We don’t know anything about the twins.

Rinna:  Right.

Ryan:  And let’s just…’cause we’ve kind of just danced around it, let’s talk about this.  Percy Weasley dies.  How many fics do you read that Percy Weasley always dies because nobody likes Percy, and nobody cares if he lives or dies.

(Rinna laughs)

Ryan:  And you don’t want to lose the twins because they’re your comic relief.  Well, maybe you’ll lose Charlie or you’ll lose Bill, but nobody cares if Percy lives because he’s a pain in the ass.  

Rinna:  Well, I think it’s more you get into the, the law of averages and things like that, you know.  The fact of the matter is, there are nine Weasley’s, and this is a war.  And, you know, probability clearly states that in all likelihood, not all of the Weasley’s are going to make it through this fight.  And…

Ryan:  But if this is the Brady Bunch, Percy is cousin Oliver.  He is the red shirt from Star Trek. 

Rinna:  Right.

Ryan:  You know…He is the one that the readers are…

Rinna:  He’s Ensen Ricky!

Ryan:  He is Ensen Ricky. 

(Rinna laughs)

Ryan:  And they don’t care about him.  But what the story does is…and I love that the story does this…They kill Percy, and they factor that into the story.  The first thought that they had and they all dance around it and no one wants to admit it, but they all had this thought that if it had to be someone, maybe it would be Percy.  Or maybe I don’t feel so bad because it’s Percy.  

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  And that just kills you, that you’re so…Your brother has just died, but thank God it wasn’t my father.  

Rinna:  Right.

Ryan:  And you know Charlie thought that.  

Rinna:  Well, what I was gonna say is…in the family dynamic you hear about…okay…There’s Bill and Charlie, and they do stuff together.  And the obviously the twins are the matched set.  And then you hear about Ron and Ginny.  And then, who’s the odd man out?  It’s Percy.  And I think that is why one of the reasons people tend to kill him off.  Is…because he really doesn’t have a counterpart.  He’s…

Ryan:  Well, he’s an ass too.

Kim:  He’s…he’s the one Weasley that…if he dies, the Weasley family could still pull back together and live…go on with life.  While, say, if Arthur died, the Weasley’s…I don’t think the Weasley’s would ever recover from that.  While Percy’s death is one…everyone could get it over in time.  

Ryan:  And you have to love how they do it.  They don’t have him die, you know, defending Cornelius Fudge.  They don’t have him die and just…They don’t even have him die to make all of the other characters feel bad because they’re not as sad that he died.  And they’re grateful it wasn’t their father, or their favorite sibling, or their mother.  

Kim:  Right.

Ryan:  They have him die realizing he was wrong, he admits that he was wrong.  He’s coming back to his family, and when the Death Eaters capture him, unlike so many other characters in the fandom and in the canon, he is tortured and he will not give up his family.  

Rinna:  Right.

Ryan:  And so many of them…Ron, the twins, Bill, Charlie, so many of them are so furious at him likely, for his just steadfast obedience to the ministry.  And how many of them wrote him off.  And look how many…these are characters who admit to themselves that they are sorry that they lost a brother, but they feel terrible because, at least it was Percy.  And they feel terrible about that.  But these are siblings who treat…who have that that low on their priority list…He dies defending them.  

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  And no one would have ever thunk it.  And he’s left behind a grief-stricken widow, and it’s…

Rinna:  A grief-stricken pregnant woman widow…

Ryan:  Oh, and that can’t make it better.  And…

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  It’s…And then you can tell that Arabella and Zsenya are looking right at the readers saying, “When you found out it was Percy, your first thought was huh, good for us, huh?  No Percy in this story.”  And she’s talking to the reader.  She’s looking at them and she’s saying, “This is what you expected us to do.  You expected us to kill Percy.  You had these preconceptions.  Now imagine this.  Don’t you feel like crap.  Because that’s how all of his siblings, and maybe even his parents feel.”

Rinna:  Yeah.  And one of the things that I think is really interesting about this um, the way these chapters are structured.  Is that, for this beginning part of the story, you know, we start off with the prologue where it’s just kind of an overview.  It’s not really, specifically, the Expecto Sacrificum, and the first three, it’s not really from anyone’s perspective.  It’s just kind of a…It mentions people in passing.  And then we get into the first chapter which is specifically characterizing Sirius and Remus above anything else.  And then we go on to the second chapter, and it’s basically…it’s Bill and Charlie Weasley.  And then we get into the third chapter, which is where we really see Harry and Ron and Hermione and Ginny for the first time.  And that’s when we actually learn a little more back-story on what they have personally been through.  And we get into the third chapter, and it’s starting with Ron and he’s talking about how…he can think about Quidditch.  You know…that can be a big worry for him now, and it couldn’t be like that before for him.  And then we find Hermione in the kitchen and she’s trying to make a pot of coffee.  And this is probably one of my favorite scenes in the entire story.  Because it’s something that she can not do.  

(Rinna laughs)

Ryan:  She is not a supermodel.  She is not glamorous.  She is not someone who can do everything in the world and knows everything about everything, even if she can’t make coffee.  

Rinna:  Right.  Right!  You know, this…this is Hermione.  They ask about everything.  You think…if you don’t know how to do something, Hermione knows how to do it.  And here she is and she can’t make a pot of coffee.  And it makes me want to laugh.  And then you get into the reason why she wants to get a pot of coffee and it’s because of her parents.  And this is the first time that we learn that something has happened to her parents.  And that they are in the same kind of state as the Longbottoms, having been tortured into insanity by Lucius Malfoy.  And she wants to have that coffee because when she was growing up, her mother made coffee…and it’s the smell.  And I think that touches on something that a lot of people don’t really realize…Is the connection between smell and memory.  And I think that’s something that Arabella and Zsenya are really good about pulling in aspects of real life.  They’re not just making a bunch of stuff up for the fact of the story.  They touch on a lot of things that, you know, people don’t really think about sometimes.  But they’re true, as well.

Ryan:  And I just want to quote now, this is from Jen in the forums, actually references that exact bit of dialogue about the coffee.  Jen writes, “I just want to say how much I love this bit of dialogue.  I’m one of those people who needs the smell of coffee in the morning to really feel like home.  I can make it for a week without it, but come Saturday or Sunday, I have to make a pot just to have the smell.  After getting married, you realize there isn’t anyone there to make it feel like home anymore so I have to do it myself.  Hermione has lost her parents.  These are the people who, for presumably the first eleven years of her life gave her direction.  When she went off to Hogwarts, she gave up that direction and her parents didn’t really understand where she was going, but they gave her permission to go, and she started doing things for herself, feeling her way around and bonding with Ron and Harry.  And all of a sudden, she’s eighteen years old, she’s graduated from Hogwarts, she’s saved the world and she is now the caretaker.  She is now the guardian of her parents, who are in this position, because, indirectly of her choice to join the Wizarding world.  And talk about being broken.  She is feeling somewhat responsible on some level for what happened to her parents, and all she wants is for the house to smell like it did when she was at home.  

Rinna:  And on top of the fact that she feels responsible about this and the whole situation.  You have to also take into consideration, you know. She has now graduated from school and moved on.  Once you are grown up and on your own, there’s no one to make it feel like home for you.  So I, I really think this scene would have been similar with her making coffee, whether or not her parents had been tortured to insanity.  Because it’s that little way, you know, they have not had normal in their lives for so long here.  And this is one little thing that she’s trying to do, to get normality back.  

Ryan:  Take it in a slightly different way.  One of the strengths, of…of Arabella and Zsenya’s writing in this chapter is that everything has a reason.  This isn’t comic relief that Hermione doesn’t know how to make coffee.  The question is why does she want to make coffee?  She doesn’t drink it.  She needs the smell of the coffee.

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  And I just love that.  You think you know why this scene is here, and there’s just a completely other reason that slams you with.  And I just wanted to um, take this moment to say just one thing.  I had a little bit of trouble with the way they introduced what happened to Hermione’s parents in the story.  And I just want to preface my criticism on that by saying, “if you are judging an essay, and you know that Tim Russard of NBC news wrote it, and you are judging another essay, and you know that a journalism student in college wrote it, you are going to judge it differently.  I am judging this chapter against Arabella and Zysena’s collective works.  So I’m going to judge it very harshly, because they are just that good.  So I don’t want to come across like I’m just bashing them…

Rinna:  Right.

Ryan:  It’s just so good.  What we were saying in chapter one, and through some parts of chapter two, how they just drop into the story, you know, little tidbits.  Hagrid would have known what the animal was.  Dumbledore’s vacant office.  Arthur Weasley, he’s lost a son.  You know, not knowing who’s talking a scene, or where they are, or why they’re there.  It seemed like there were so many opportunities in this scene to reference the fact that something happened to Hermione’s parents, and I feel as if they went the clichéd route, and they sat down and had a talk with the reader.  “Well you see, Hermione’s parents were attacked by Lucius Malfoy and the Death Eaters, and they are in St. Mungo’s.  And it just seems like it was…we got used to them, you know, dangling the carrot over us when we’re trying to jump for it, and all of the sudden, they are throwing it at us.  I just thought, maybe with that one little revelation, they could have slowly strung it out and made us wonder, “What happened to Hermione’s parents?” You know, “Why aren’t they there?”  And maybe I’m making too much of that.  Maybe there was only so many different ways they could have explained that to the audience.  I just felt like it was too easy.  

Rinna:  The reason that they did it that way, is because, you know, with some things like mentioning of death and passing…You can do that and it doesn’t really affect the outcome of the story.  But with the condition that they’re in, and the fact that they’re put there specifically for a reason.  I think if they…tried to like, drop the hints and try to draw it out in the way that they’ve done in the past; it would take way to long to try and drop the hints that you get all of the back-story that’s involved there.  

Ryan:  And that’s…

Rinna:  I really think that they did that, the only way that they could get it done, in a time efficient way…

Ryan:  And that’s fair too.  Yeah, that’s fair too, because then, if you drag it out more slowly, you lose some of the impact of knowing exactly what it is and understanding why she needs the coffee smell and why Ron, you know, is being so good to her.  Yeah.  Maybe that’s fair too; maybe I’m just looking for criticism where there should be none.  It just seemed like maybe even if there was a sentence little different. I wasn’t looking for that much.  

Kim:  It’s actually more practical on that part, because people…people are only going to want to hear so much of having like, this…everything just kind of hinted at him, you know.  Every once in a while, you just want to be told something straight forward.  

Rinna:  Yeah.

Kim:  And I think they did that, partly in interest of keeping their readers, because I know as a reader if they keep me having to sit there and guess every little thing that’s going on, I’m going to stop reading. Just as the same way if they sit there and spell everything out like I’m a three year old.  

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  So what did you think of that scene with the coffee?  Did you think that was just…that was a very good way of getting it out there, of what was happening.  Or was…

Kim:  I, I think they did it a good way because, I mean, after…I mean, like I said, sometime’s it’s good to sit there and drag it out and keep you guessing, but after a while, the same thing all throughout the story is going to get old.  You have to mix it up a little bit. 

Rinna:  Yeah.  I think one of the good things about this particular story is that, you know, yes, there are bad things; there are sad parts of the story.  But they always manage to bookend it with something funny.  It’s, you know…you first see Hermione and she cannot make coffee, and then it explains why, and it’s a little more somber.  And then you see Ron do it, and it’s just second nature for him to do it.  And I think that, that’s something that I think a lot of fanfic authors take for granted.  And some of them have done stuff like inserted some kind of Wizarding life-skills class that they have to take.  That it basically…it accounts for all of the magic that you learn from your families if you are from a Wizarding household.  I love how the example that they use of making coffee…It’s…you know, you can almost look at that similarly to someone maybe, who grew up in a house where they didn’t know.  Where their parents took care of everything and they go off on their own for the first time.  And they want to make a pot of coffee, but they can’t because they can’t figure out how to turn on the coffee pot, because they’ve never had to do it for themselves.  And I just think that that scene is so funny because of that image that I get.  

Ryan:  I was just so grateful that Ron didn’t hold it over Hermione’s head that he could do something that she couldn’t.  I thought that was very big of him.  

Rinna:  Yes.

Ryan:  And I just respect that he is very nice, and he gave her her space, and didn’t want to in any way make her feel like less than a perfect witch, so…I just want to slap Ron on the back for that.  Job well done.  

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  And I’m always like that when I’m out with Danielle, and you know, I do something better.  I never hold it over her.  So I just, I feel some kinmanship with Ron right there.

Rinna:  Yes, I agree.  They did something well there.  Um, one thing that I think is interesting, the way that they bring it up in this particular story is, Hermione referrs to this as being the first summer really together, and honestly, it’s probably our last one.  And Ron’s like, “C’mon.  What are you talking about?” And she just kind of backs away from it.  And says, you know…we, we’re going to have jobs and things like that, and you kind of get the impression that from that that perhaps she’s got something up her sleeve that she’s not talking about.  

Ryan:  And it’s so interesting because Ron’s first reaction is, you’re not going anywhere, we all need to stay together.  You just…you just have to stop and think about that.  It’s one of the arguments that Hermione also makes.  We can’t get rid of Ginny, Ginny needs to stay with us, we all need to stay together, and within moments, Ron is advocating for Hermione to become the assistant to the ambassador of magic, and, which would cause her to leave for weeks at a time.  You have to love the moment where he mentally slaps himself…”what are you doing, you’re getting rid of her already!”  And when you’ve gone through trauma, you grab onto everyone else in the room…don’t let them go.  

Rinna:  Yeah.  Exactly.  I don’t mean to say, something that I thought was really funny, that they bring in in this scene, is that Hermione tries to do the coffee spell and nothing happens.  And Ron says, “Are you sure that’s a real spell?” which is a direct line out of Philosophers Stone.  

Ryan:  It’s one of the first things…

Rinna:  It’s the first thing that she says to him, pretty much.  So here he is, he repeats it back to her and I think that’s just so funny when they did that.

(Ryan laughs)

Ryan:  And think about it, too, it’s…you’re Ron Weasley, in you’re great Godfather’s robes most likely, you going off to school…it’s a time of peace, everything’s’ fine.  This nose up in the air, snob, who knows everything with bushy hair who just starts going after you from the moment she meets you.  “Is that a real spell?  You have dirt on your nose.”  Not a likeable person by any stretch.  And now jump ahead eight years.  You’re completely in love with this person.  She’s lost everything.  She has you.  You are so dependent on them, and, you know, you would almost be expecting these characters to be walking around on eggshells around each other…they’ve just grown together so much, that he completely goes after her for not being able to make coffee.  (laughs)  He gets his just reward.  And I just think that’s awesome.  

Rinna:  Yeah.  And um, another thing that I thought was funny is that way that they characterize Ginny in this story, is, so much more in line with the way that canon Ginny has turned out.  Then she…

Ryan:  She doesn’t exist at this point.  She was rented.  She doesn’t exist.    

Rinna:  Right.  She was a background, blip on the radar kind of character.  And you know, they picked up that she was going to be important, and they made her into a very dynamic character.  And I really think that is really interesting.  To step a little further into the chapter, they get into, specifically on the topic of the characterization of Ginny.  They get into her reaction to the news about their father.  They call Arthur Weasley the unofficial and apparently incompetent Minister of Magic, and you see her kind of stand up and she’s like, “Wait a second!  No, they can’t say that!”  And then you get into the scene where Arthur actually calls them on the floo, telling them a little more about what’s going on.  He was hoping to catch them before the news broke, and um…

Ryan:  It occurs to me that this is all happening at the same time.  

Rinna:  Right.

Ryan:  This scene with Bill and Charlie in Romania is happening at the same time that they’re having breakfast in England.  As it’s…it’s just so interesting.  You get used to jumping weeks and months, but…this is all happening at the same time.  

Rinna:  And so, you know, we start at the beginning of chapter three.  We start with Ron and Hermione and we see that their characterizations are so well, and we see at the end of the chapter why Ginny was even involved in the Expecto Sacrificum spell.  And it gives a little more characterization of Ginny, and I think that’s really interesting in the way that they do that.  ‘Cause they give every character almost an entire chapter to develop, to give a little more background on where they’re coming from and what they’re doing.  And I think that’s…that’s something that they’ve done really well.  

Ryan:  Exactly.   I just want to quote…sorry.  I just want to quote from Jen in the forums, “I really love Ginny in this story, she’s my favorite character, because, well, I can see a bit of myself in her.  She gets over her absolute infatuation with Harry, moving into a deep love.  The kind that you just feel for a family member or husband, it just stays there.  I love how she stays very silent and supportive.  I’m standing here to be here.  But I’m standing away from you to give you the space you need.  But I’m still here because it’s important for you to know that I am here, and that’s enough for me at the moment kind of way.  I love how she’s extremely insightful.  I know that in later chapters…”  And I’m going to stop there because it gives away some other stuff.  You are so right.  This is canon Ginny in a fanfic before she even became canon Ginny.  Ron can handle Hermione.  Ron doesn’t know how to handle Harry anymore.  He doesn’t know how to fix him.  He doesn’t know what to do.  He defers to Remus when Remus says, “give him space”.  Ginny cannot be told what to do.  She is going to go, she is going to sit at the lake, or she is going to sit at the lake, and she is going to let Harry ride his broom until he is physically exhausted …She is going to walk right back with him to the lodge.  And she doesn’t care if her skin burns off.  She is going to sit there, and…that is it.  Such a great character.  So well written.  There’s foreshadowing what’s to come…Kim’s gone and I’m going to leave it there, but just a strong character.  Really love her in this chapter.  She handles Harry so well, where no one else wants to touch him – he’s a hot potato, but she does it so well.  

Kim:  Oh, oh, I definitely agree.  Ginny…like, everyone else just sort of skirts around Harry…just lets Harry be, while Ginny is like, “Well, someone’s got to bring Harry out of this.  Someone’s got to help him out.  They can’t just let him be and it’ll all work out in the end.  

Rinna:  And it’s interesting because canon Ginny did become like that.  She was the one who always got up in his face when he was being a butthead. 

Ryan:  Well, the thing is…it’s the best scene.  It’s the scene on the train where Harry is going to leave everyone behind.  He’s going to save his friends by getting away from them because he’s possessed by Voldemort.  Because he was the snake in the Ministry of Magic.  And Ginny walks up to him, metaphorically smashes him in the back of the head, and says, “I was possessed by Tom Riddle.  Do you want to ask me what it feels like?”  

Rinna:  Yeah.

Ryan:  And makes him feel like two cents, and good for her.  She’s always in that character, and for someone like me, and Kim, whose reading this after we know canon Ginny, go yeah, yeah yeah…This is canon Ginny.  We have to stop and remember, this is was before canon Ginny.  

Rinna:  So we’ve come to the end of chapter three, which is our stopping point for our first show.  We hope that everyone has enjoyed our discussion.  

Ryan:  

Rinna:  We certainly have.  

Ryan:  We’re going to read chapters four, five, six, and seven.

Rinna:  And we will get into discussion on those chapters for our next episode.  

Ryan:  Pull a couple of comments off the forum for tonight’s episode.  We really want to know what you think.  It’ll get boring after a while if it’s just the three of us giving our perceptions of the chapters.  We want to know what you think.  We want you to enlighten us and help hold the discussions.  There are many different ways you can participate in the podcast.  You can visit our forums at PotterFicWeekly.com, post to the forums and we will scroll through those and pull out interesting directions and interesting comments and read them aloud on the podcast.  You can also email us at staff@potterficweekly.com, or you can email each of us individually, Ryan, Kim, or Rinna, at our names at potterficweekly.com, or you can leave us a voicemail using a program called Gizmo Project.  So, long story short, go to the PotterFicWeekly.com, click on “contact us” and all the instructions are right there.

Rinna:  Again, we want to thank Harry and the Potters, and we want to thank Arabella and Zsenya for letting us discuss this story, and we hope that you’ll tune in again next week!  

Ryan:  Talk to you soon.

Kim:  And Goodnight.  

Ends with Harry and the Potters song, “We Save Ron’s Life, Part 8”  

Small blooper reel.