Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Readalong: Better Late Than Pregnant

Okay, so I've been lurking for these last four weeks 'cause work has been busy and I've had to travel to Kansas City and interview candidates for a job opening at my store. Oh, and also my computer died, which means it's hard to budge my husband off of his computer, which he uses for work, just because I want to look up Snape gifs.

All of which basically adds up to my sadness at being unable to participate in Alice's HP Readalong. But because I don't want to be the only kid not playing in the sandbox this week, I'm joining in for a belated post covering both GoF and some of the greatest HP fanfiction you've never read.

If we're going to get technical about it, I haven't read GoF for this post. I last read it a few years ago and last listened to it about two years ago, so the finer points aren't exactly fresh in my mind. Thus I will just say two things:

(1) I cried buckets the first time I read about Harry & Voldemort's duel and then I was emotionally wrung out to the point where I couldn't enjoy my visit with my then-partner.  Too bad, as he was living in Louisville for the semester and I only got to see him once every 4-5 weeks.  

(2) I read a first printing of the book, where there is a tremendous editing gaffe in the end, where James emerges from the end of Harry's wand before Lily does.  I was torn between indignation for such a terrible gaffe and wanting to believe that it held important textual significance. 

What about y'all?  Any of you read a first printing, either US or UK or Canadian or Australian? And did it totally mess you up to see Lily and James emerge in the wrong order?

Oh, wait, I have to say a third thing.

(3) Snape. Can you imagine the kind of bravery it must have taken him to go back to Voldemort two hours later, and what kind of torture he must have endured to prove to Voldemort that he wasn't the Death Eaters who had left him forever?  It makes me shiver just thinking about it, and not just because I read fan fiction. He had to have known he was facing death and that only tremendous luck and occlumency could save him. And poor Dumbledore, to know that he was asking that of Snape. I like to think that when Snape returned from his meeting with the newly-recreated Voldemort that Dumbledore did some extra dumblin'. I know I sure would have. 

Anyway...on to the fanfiction discussion.  Harry Potter fanfiction has existed almost as long as Harry Potter, but it really exploded between the releases of books four and five, a period of time known as the "three year summer." That's when I discovered fanfiction for the first time, and may I just say that in my world there has never been a better procrastination tool than reading HP fanfiction.

My very favorite pairing is Hermione/Snape.  Now, don't get all ewwwww on me. Fanfiction is about being open to the unexpected. The very best Hermione/Snape stories, IMO, are the ones penned by Anna on Witchfics: She has written a trilogy that surpasses all other fanfic I've read, with really good writing (much better writing than JKR's, actually), great plotting, and some pretty fabulous lemony bits. ("Lemony bits" is fanfiction speak for smut. Don't ask me why. Google it for yourself.)

There's also the great site dedicated solely to Snape/Hermione fic called Ashwinder.  The site ranges in quality from the terrible to the sublime, but one really fun one is called His Draught of Delicate Poison, written by Subversa, playing off the Marriage Law meme and loosely based on the wonderful Georgette Heyer novel, The Grand Sophy. It's funny and plot-filled and with some fun original characters, but not especially lemony. More like lemon-scented.

My second favorite pairing is Harry/Draco. Yeah, I've got a Slytherin thing, for sure. The very best Draco/Harry fics are no longer available on the internet.  They were penned by a woman named Maya, who is actually Sarah Rees Brennan, and once Rees Brennan published her first real book, she pulled  all of her fanfic from the interwebs. She made it available for a one time download, which I availed myself of, but my computer has since died and those stories are now irretrievable.  I would pay good money to get my hands on them again.  Seriously.  Contact me if you have these stories and I will make it worth your while.

Then there are those stories that, overall, are too wordy or meandering to be good in their entirety, but which have wholly interesting bits that I go back and read occasionally.  One of them features Harry/Snape and it's called The Mirror of Maybe by Midnight Blue--this writer created the concept of wizarding tattoos and Life Ink, and the scenes where Harry is getting inked, and later when he shares  his tattoos with Snape, are great.  Harry is also a tremendously good DADA teacher in this story.

Guess that's about it for now.  So, yeah, back to GoF:

Just kidding.  I meant back to Snape. And by that, I mean I'm finished here.  My husband needs his computer back.