Kelly Flail, Part I
Dear Mystery Author, I should warn you (and all the rest of you long-suffering comment readers) that I'm going to take up more than one comment slot with my effusions about this wonderful story. I won't be able to restrain myself, and really, why should I? A story this good demands a lengthy fangirl flail.
This amazing gift is really three presents in one: each excellent section could stand as its own story; together, they offer a full and complex record of a lifetime of love and pain and learning. Certain parts rendered me breathless, like that utterly heartbreaking final scene with Moody. It just felt so real; I feel genuinely shaken by it.
There's so much of what I love here. First of all, you've given me my very favorite canon characters, treated them so compassionately and perceptively, and kept them perfectly IC. (And there's even a cameo from Wilhelmina, my other favorite HP dyke!!) Next, the literary references (I love literary references) inform the text so well. Then there's triptych structure that so suits the content and the quotations. (And within that structure, I love the past-and-present parallels and contrasts.) Then there's your literate style, so beautifully fitted to Minerva's pov and character -- formal, and a touch archaic; it just sounds so 'Minerva' to me.
Speaking of Minerva! ♥ ♥ I just adore your version of her; You show all the elements I love about this character: she's honest, caring, sharp, ordered, practical, honorable, passionate, and yet not unflawed. And so strong.
All three of the other main characters are also perceptively-imagined. Rarely have I seen Hooch's yellow eyes used to such good effect; she's tough and fierce and vulnerable. Moody -- such a believable explanation of how his paranoia and isolation grew, and it's made so much more painful because you show how much he (and others) lose by it. And Severus -- ah. So complex and IC. Another commentator mentioned his "dignity," and that's exactly it: such believable dignity here.
I know I risk quoting the whole story, but I can't resist including just a few of the lines and touches I love:
--the fact that Minerva is not really breaking the rules in having first-year Harry play Quidditch. That was always something I found incongruous in canon, and I like your version better /g/
--the logical and believable way you deal with the age issue. It's the elephant under the carpet as far as the McGonagall/Snape pairing goes, and I'm impressed by your explanation.
--It was moist and musk and satin stretched taut over sturdy bones. The taste of damp salt kissed off of tear drenched cheeks was very different from the taste of the damp salt gleaned from between powerful thighs. The scent was unforgettable, different from her own aroma and captivating. Such gorgeous, sensual writing.
And this line, too -- Rolanda did not cry out nor scream as Minerva was wont to do in proper abandon. So revealing of both of them, and the word "proper" is just the perfect choice -- so Minerva, so just the way she would see it.
Minerva marvelled at the heavy tracery of veins the years had wrought. Her own hands were not so work-thickened, but looked like wrinkled parchment, dry and creased I imagine that this is just how age feels -- the physical evidence so undeniable, yet how incongruous it must appear compared with how un-old one must still feel. . .
Alastor had a way of making every encounter new and thrilling, a way of making her feel cherished and charmed, even as Auror training coarsened his already salty tongue and war reshaped his body. Her own tongue could be sharp and her body was scarcely the subject of most men's fantasies, but her words and body were strong and unyielding and it was strength they both valued above all. THIS is exactly why I imagine them together, and it's the loss of this that makes their later parting so difficult. Beautiful description, and the contrast between this "tawny-haired, blue-eyed, kilt-wearing Alastor Moody" and the guilt-ridden, maimed man he becomes...the notion that it's their very strengths that fail them both...argh. Just heart-rending.