Flail, Part I
I'm addicted to Beholder, and stories like this one are exactly why. It's so wildly good on so many levels that I don't even know where to start my response. True, it features two of my favorite characters, but that's only a small part of the reason I'm so taken with this fic.
A very large part is the gorgeous writing. You'll forgive the conceit, I hope, if I say that your prose swishes and flicks with the precision and flourish of a European duelling champion. The language is just so perfectly Flitwickian -- there's no other word for it. It's so well-controlled and yet effusive in just the right places; every word is le mot juste.
Here's one example: In retrospect, perhaps the Carbunculus Curse had been a bit of an overreaction, but at fifteen he'd been ruled by intemperate impulses. "Intemperate impulses" is just so exactly Filius -- moderate and rational in his maturity, yet the delicate humor of that carefully-punctuated "perhaps" shows just how much of that brainy, impulsive 15-year-old might remain.
his stomach lurched and threatened to discharge the liquid remains of his digesting lunch. Only a Flitwick and a Ravenclaw could so describe puke. And that it happens in the context of a kiss that only Pomona could give. . .well, as I say, your writing is inspired.
Here's another great example: Judicious application had slid into imprudent daily use and then dependency, and that had been a dark hole to crawl out of. The precision of the vocabulary, the carefully-chosen passives and nominalizations, the distanced abstractions, the rational language and deliberate understatement to cover his very real pain: just the essence of Flitwick.