Bwah! With a side order of Bwah!

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Heh. I never think something is going to be as funny as I hope.

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Well my last attempt at a decent-length fic kind of stalled. But now I've discovered a new fandom, and a pairing I really like, and I think I may get something out of it. I hope.

What I have right now is about 1200 words of a Harry Potter story, from Hermione's POV. It's intended to be a Hermione/Ginny work, eventually. I'm not sure exactly where it's going, though I have snippets of future scenes playing out in my head.

I'm hoping somebody out there will be willing to give what I've got a looksy, give me some feedback. Am I consistent? Do I feel like I'm going somewhere? Where? What do YOU want to happen next? Do the characters seem realistic to you? Do you want to shoot me for using too many commas? These are the questions that pain me.

Anyway, check it out here: Untitled HP Fic

Oh, yes, it's untitled. I shall rectify that eventually.

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Ooh! Nice characterisation, and it's a very promising beginning - I'd like to see what happens next! If you'll forgive me, though, I'm going to Britpick:

"I am getting better, I guess!"

Lose 'I guess' or replace with something more neutral, like 'aren't I?' - Ginny Weasley's speech patterns, unlike those of Muggles her age, haven't been influenced by American television.

"we're gonna be okay."

'going to' instead of 'gonna'. 'Gonna' really reads as American.

When Hermione walked into the restroom to brush her teeth,

We say toilet or bathroom (but you only say bathroom if you mean room containing bath or shower), never restroom.

"Oh, it's no big deal. Bit of a headache is all."

This construction is American too. 'No big deal' you could maybe get away with, but the second sentence compounds it into implausability - perhaps something like 'I just have a bit of a headache', or 'I've just got a bit of a headache', or 'Just a headache'.

"Yeah."

This is terribly sexist of me, but - I'd buy this from Ron, but it seems jarring from Ginny. 'Yes' would be less jarring.

And finally a logistical problem, which has the potential to make for more sexiness:

She reached out a hand, and clasped Ginny's shoulder...She closed her own eyes, and slowly drifted off to sleep herself, her hand, forgotten, still on Ginny's shoulder.

Leaving aside the fact that the indication so far has been that kids are in dormitories with others in their own year group, I can't see this physically happening. The bedrooms are fairly spacious and the beds themselves are four-posters. For this to work, Ginny's bed would have to be very very very close indeed - so close that Hermione would practically fall into it every time she got out of her own bed.

BUT, you could have the two of them getting into bed together, in a non-overtly-sexy way, just to talk, or have a friendly cuddle, and falling asleep spooning. Which would be nice.

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Ooh! Brit-picking! Terribly useful, thank you! I have such a hard time separating what's really British and what's all faux-British and where I'm crossing the lines and where I'm not going far enough and all those things.

Hmm. Damn, on the logistical issue. You're very much right there. I'll give some thought on how to change it so that it works. I'm not sure if I want them getting in bed together yet - maybe it's just me, but I read that kind of thing as pretty false. How often would schoolchildren, even girls, be willing to do that? I might try it anyway, just to see if I can get it plausible. We'll see.

Do Prefects have their own dorms? Or is that ever mentioned one way or another? Could I make it so? That could explain away the only-our-year problem. Hmm. I guess the best way to test that would be to see if Harry and Ron still lived in the same room in OOtP. I'm leaning towards yes they did, killing that plan. Hmm. Maybe Ginny traded with a seventh-year who wanted to get away for some reason. Lavender and Parvati had a falling-out over Seamus, maybe, and are trying to avoid each other's company.

t /shameless thinking aloud

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How often would schoolchildren, even girls, be willing to do that?

Well, they're not children, for one thing - but for another, the bed is the main bit of furniture in one's bedroom. When you've got friends in your room, you generally DO sit on the bed, don't you? Talking, or whatever. And if you've got a four poster bed with curtains, it's like its own little world, its own little mini-bedroom of private space in a dormitory. So for me it isn't overtly an erotic space, even though it's got an erotic charge. Um.

'course, I could be on crack.

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Well, they're not children, for one thing.

(shrug) I guess that depends on your definition. They're still very young and inexperienced, and pretty durned immature. I consider myself to still be pretty much a child in a lot of ways, and I'm five years older than Ginny in this story. It's not an insult, I swear, but they're definitely still adolescents at least.

Anyway, I did get something that actually works, I think. As long as the vulnerability is played up, Ginny asking Hermione to sleep with her doesn't seem too wrong. It may need more buildup to work - I might have to add more to the scene, or throw in a small scene in the middle maybe. I'll have to think about it. If you want to see the changes I've made, they're up in the same place ( [link] ) with all the Brit-crit changes and the rewritten third section. No new material, yet.

Thanks again for reading!

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I had to fix a canon issue, so I did, but then I had too much exposition. So I had to show some of it, as we all know that showing is better than telling. So I had to write a new scene, but that made a later scene make less sense. So I had to modify THAT scene, extensively, in order to make everything work.

This writing thing is complicated.

Anyway, I think it works. I still haven't added anything to the central storyline, really, but there is a whole lot of new stuff in there for such a small story. It's about 1600 words, now, and I hope I can get somebody out there to read it and comment (I know Fay is all busy now that the weekend is ending/over.)

Still Harry Potter, still Hermione/Ginny from Hermione POV, still rated PG or so. I intend for it to be what I call a hopeless-romantic-piece, meaning Curtains Close on a Kiss (God knows) so it probably won't ever get any more explicit than the sweetness and light level it's at now.

[link]

ETA: I hope nobody tried to read it before this edit (3:10 Pacific) as I only just actually changed the link to the right thing. Oops.

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This week's Open on Sunday challenge is transportation.

Shmoop warning.

When I Was On Horseback

She sang, and the wind sang with her, lifting her hair off her neck, warming her, cooling her. Beneath her, the big gelding felt her ease up on the reins, and jumped from canter to thundering gallop, his lethal hooves sending up dark clumps of the loamy Devon soil.

When she returned, Giles saw the horse was sweating. He said nothing, but Willow caught his look.

"Sorry," she said. "I'll rub him down. He's such an amazing way to get from point A to point B."

"Willow, is there something wrong?"

"Yes." Her voice fractured. "Tara would have loved this."

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t loves the schmoop

t sniffles. Or would if weren't still giggling from silly movie.

Awww. Tara WOULD have loved that.

Maybe I'll join Open on Sunday.

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