Thank you for your amazing, heartwarming comment! I’ll treasure all your thoughtful words. I’m thrilled you appreciate my subtle ways of showing Remus’s despair and that you recognized his strength, too. It’s so good to know that you cared to go back, as I’ve been aware all the time that this piece in particular can benefit from re-reading, in addition to benefiting from careful, slow reading (as I assume most of my fic does, because I write so slowly, choosing each word to serve its purpose).
I’m so happy that the line about keeping his head up (while I’m still not sure if it would have been better as holding his head up, or keeping it above the water) worked for you, because it flowed so naturally – from the repeated forgetting and from the reasonable act of taking a bath – to express perhaps in an adequately understated way how close to not resisting death Remus is here. It startled me, too, to finally see how depressed my Remus was as early as in 1979. I’ve often chosen to write about some of the hardest times in his life (still avoiding Halloween 1981 and immediate aftermath, though), but I was not sure at all it was wise to take up his parents’ deaths in this gift fic, because it could have been regarded as unnecessary added tragedy. However, when writing my post-OotP chaptered story, I had as early as 2003 decided that Remus’s parents were murdered by Death Eaters in December 1979, and it seems this was, in Remus’s view, the moment worth showing in a story set in this period.
Thank you for the reassurance that it could serve well the story (this little story, and perhaps my whole story of Remus’s life as well as any version of the Marauders’ story as extrapolated by a reader) to let Remus make his home with Sirius at this point. It seems I managed to portray Sirius, too, somehow vividly enough even before he appeared on the scene – through such a detail as his moon.
Oh – my Sirius! In some of my first-person stories the viewpoint character refrains from thinking about his loved one’s name. Perhaps it’s partly defiance against the (more popular) third-person narrative, in which the writer is forced to repeat the names. Besides, it often feels natural like this, because there can possibly be only one he who deserves the character’s interest. On the other hand, sometimes thinking about the man who’s betrayed or been lost is almost too painful. Here one interpretation could be that Remus is first almost detached from his love for Sirius, but when he sees Sirius he realises that Sirius is actually his, the only true loved-one he has left. I’m making this up now, inspired by your comment. Thank you!
You are also more aware than I’ve been until now of why Sirius wanted Remus to believe that he was not coming home yet – and also why he only a moment later happily accepted the situation and the care offered by Remus. I’m so glad all that worked for you better than I could possibly expect. Even after adding some more information on the contents of the letter, I was afraid it would all be somehow disconcerting.
I’m thrilled that my writing can remind you of what is so extraordinary about Remus and Sirius’s relationship. The point in my post-PoA stories has been that the two damaged men can still support each other – be strong because of each other and for each other. Thank you for confirming to me that in the same way I’ve succeeded in turning these images of almost miserably weak young Remus and Sirius, too, into a hopeful story.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2008-01-13 08:45 pm (UTC)I’m so happy that the line about keeping his head up (while I’m still not sure if it would have been better as holding his head up, or keeping it above the water) worked for you, because it flowed so naturally – from the repeated forgetting and from the reasonable act of taking a bath – to express perhaps in an adequately understated way how close to not resisting death Remus is here. It startled me, too, to finally see how depressed my Remus was as early as in 1979. I’ve often chosen to write about some of the hardest times in his life (still avoiding Halloween 1981 and immediate aftermath, though), but I was not sure at all it was wise to take up his parents’ deaths in this gift fic, because it could have been regarded as unnecessary added tragedy. However, when writing my post-OotP chaptered story, I had as early as 2003 decided that Remus’s parents were murdered by Death Eaters in December 1979, and it seems this was, in Remus’s view, the moment worth showing in a story set in this period.
Thank you for the reassurance that it could serve well the story (this little story, and perhaps my whole story of Remus’s life as well as any version of the Marauders’ story as extrapolated by a reader) to let Remus make his home with Sirius at this point. It seems I managed to portray Sirius, too, somehow vividly enough even before he appeared on the scene – through such a detail as his moon.
Oh – my Sirius! In some of my first-person stories the viewpoint character refrains from thinking about his loved one’s name. Perhaps it’s partly defiance against the (more popular) third-person narrative, in which the writer is forced to repeat the names. Besides, it often feels natural like this, because there can possibly be only one he who deserves the character’s interest. On the other hand, sometimes thinking about the man who’s betrayed or been lost is almost too painful. Here one interpretation could be that Remus is first almost detached from his love for Sirius, but when he sees Sirius he realises that Sirius is actually his, the only true loved-one he has left. I’m making this up now, inspired by your comment. Thank you!
You are also more aware than I’ve been until now of why Sirius wanted Remus to believe that he was not coming home yet – and also why he only a moment later happily accepted the situation and the care offered by Remus. I’m so glad all that worked for you better than I could possibly expect. Even after adding some more information on the contents of the letter, I was afraid it would all be somehow disconcerting.
I’m thrilled that my writing can remind you of what is so extraordinary about Remus and Sirius’s relationship. The point in my post-PoA stories has been that the two damaged men can still support each other – be strong because of each other and for each other. Thank you for confirming to me that in the same way I’ve succeeded in turning these images of almost miserably weak young Remus and Sirius, too, into a hopeful story.