Brilliant job! Hem hem. Nightmares, I tell you, weeks' worth of nightmares. :D The action blew me away, the suspense over Confidential (and otherwise general lack of important information mixed in with subtle hints) kept me wondering, and I was super-glued to every sentence. The one thing I'm a little confused over is when Rodolphus was captured. All I remember is his blowing up the Shack-turned-pub and then turning tail for the...woods? I'll have to reread sometime when I don't have a midterm looming in four hours' time.
I love this Harry. This trained, observant, ex-Auror Harry who not only doesn't have his life in hand but also possesses every complex from Moody-surpassing paranoia to long-term escapism to partially psychopathic vigilante tendencies, all while retaining his canonically bumbling, heart-on-his-sleeve persona. After it all, he still can't speak in full sentences without stutters peppering his speech, and yet what he has learned from all the years on the chase is to notice and, moreover, appreciate individual scents. Isn't that just like our Harry? He's a little nutty, nuttier than usual I mean, with his random existential babble and passive, almost artistic musings. I love how he tries in his chats with the portrait to justify it and reason it out, painfully honest and awkwardly vulnerable as always. He so carefully lays all moral struggle and entanglements aside, yet can't prevent the barrage of clashes between his supposed conscience and his supposed practicality. This is our Harry, yes, he vibrates off the page, but this is our Harry taken a step further in maturity, made to struggle, made to face the world as it is and himself as he is, made to kill for money, made to run away from love, made to grow up and change in completely unexpected ways. This is a Harry I can see coming to the gloriously complex Snape as an equal.
A good Snape, says my current opinion, is not as difficult to do as a good Harry. :D You've captured both (and a super cool Ron!) with fantastic heapings of plot and action and mystery and magical-Muggle innovation as well. Oh, and the humor! How could I forget the crack? I haven't seen "Grosse Pointe Blank" or "Shawn of the Dead" and don't remember much of "Monty Python," so I missed out on most of - er, all - the parody, but in the face of Harry's paranoia, death by fork, Harry's crazy pingpong thoughts, and the Angelina with the twins, I don't think I could have laughed much harder anyway. I'm beginning to think brilliance is only par for the course with you. Thanks for an awesome romp!