Order Only: Anyone in the Reading

[alt_hermione]

Where are you lot in the story?

Do you think you'll finish in time? You've only got three hours until Astronomy. Harry showed me the place where you stopped last time; I think you've got a ways to go, still.

But I don't want to guess where you are and spoil something.


It's too bad I can't be there with you but I suppose it's useful to be on guard duty.

It's just rather boring.

Comments

[alt_sally_anne]

Charybdis just threw herself in front of a killing curse and now Amaranth is thinking about how she didn't appreciate her enough while she was alive. (I kind of think good riddance, which is why I was checking the journals.)

You really don't think we'll be able to get through the rest? We HAVE to finish before we go home for hols. Maybe I can get Daphne to speed up and read a bit faster.

[alt_evelyn]

She's doing such a good job. Her voice just broke a bit during Amaranth's inner monologue, and I swear half of the room was sniffling.

[alt_sally_anne]

They are! They're all pretending they just need to wipe their faces a bit because it's warm or dusty or something.

It's not warm and the elves do a fine job dusting.

I don't get it, most of them didn't even like Charybdis! (Because she's a snot!)

[alt_evelyn]

Oh! Phoebus! He's being so brave.

And they can't all die in there. The book still has a ways to go. But things don't look very good for Agrona at all.

[alt_hermione]

OH.

So, they are in the cave-in now?

[alt_draco]

You won't get Daphne to read faster. She considers this a performance.

[alt_hermione]

Oh, but I liked her! Sort of.

I mean, I didn't cry or anything but it just came as such a surprise that she would do that. It made me think I want to go back and re-read the second one because some of her actions might seem less antagonistic in retrospect. I do think she loved Phoebus but she was too proud to let him think it bothered her that he was so fixated on Amaranth.

But you're right--you've got loads to go yet.

[alt_draco]

Can't you just tell us what happens? This is taking too long.

Also, I've got several theories and I want to know if I'm right.

[alt_sally_anne]

Speak for yourself, Draco, she can put it in a PM to you if you really want but I want to find out from the reading!

[alt_hydra]

NO, she can't!

[alt_hermione]

No! It's so much better to hear it the way she wrote it!

[alt_sally_anne]

You liked her?!? But she's a complete ass to Efrain! I mean, she died very heroically but mainly I thought, 'well, if ONE of those two had to die, she'd have been my pick.'

I think she'd have been Amaranth's pick too which is why she had to spend two pages feeling guilty after (I always skimmed those bits when I was reading by myself).

[alt_hermione]

Well.

She sort of reminded me of you, sometimes.

[alt_sally_anne]

What? She's NOTHING like me! When have I ever been as nasty to anyone as Charybdis is to Efrain? Who didn't COMPLETELY deserve it

Well, maybe a little.

[alt_hermione]

I mean, in the way she always thinks she knows the answer, and she's not afraid of speaking her mind, and she comes up with clever ideas but sometimes she doesn't say them in a way that makes people listen.

But at heart she was a good person, and she was only trying to help. That's what I mean when I say I want to go back and examine her actions in Pure Power.

Have they--Where are they now?

[alt_evelyn]

The cave. It's awful.

[alt_hermione]

Yes, it's really, really suspenseful.

You're going to be there for a while, though.

(That's one of the times I did wish she would speed things up, but you can't skip ahead because that's what makes that sequence so effective. I'm not going to tell you what happens next but just wait!)

[alt_evelyn]

Oh, Hermione.

There's got to be a trick. There just has to be. He's so clever, and he's fooled everyone before, he's just got to be all right.

[alt_hermione]

You're on page 711?

It's not a trick. I'm sorry.

I had to put the book down and cry for a bit

[alt_sally_anne]

WHAT? NO!!

I don't care if he died heroically and 'wouldn't have wanted us to waste this' and all that rot CUCULLAIN WAS MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER!

[alt_neville]

The story is exciting.

The one thing I find I'm really wondering about the most, though, is how in Merlin's name Morgansen ever thought she would get away with openly publishing it.

[alt_neville]

Maybe a bit too much of the soppy stuff, too. Occasionally.

Or maybe that's just me.

[alt_sally_anne]

Yeah. I mean Cucullain is basically Sirius Black, with the messages he writes. Even the way he writes is similar.

[alt_pansy]

Did you see what Moon wrote?

They're storming the capitol and we still don't know whether Phoebus is dead or alive.

[alt_hermione]

Well, Moon's talking about the revising he offered.

But if you're still in the capitol...I don't think you'll finish tonight.

You might want to tell Harry to stop at the end of this chapter. There's a place where things calm down a bit. And then come back on Friday when exams are over.

[alt_justin]

Hermione,

I say, how much is left? Because most people seem to want to keep going until the last possible second, what, and hang the revision.

If there's even a chance we could finish, I bally well think they want to give it a go. (Personally, I'd as soon stop now, myself, so we're not all thinking about the book when we're meant to be using locational arithmancy.)

-Justin

[alt_hermione]

If you go right up to the exam time, you might get as far as the final full chapter. And there's an epilogue.

I really do think you should stop two chapters from the end (that's Chapter 36) but then, I think I stayed up most of the night when I was reading it for the first time, because once you get that far it's just so hard to stop!

[alt_sally_anne]

Argh. I really thought we'd be able to FINISH tonight.

[alt_justin]

Sally-Anne,

This might all be for the best, what? I mean to say, if we were to finish tonight people might not come back for A Christmas Carol, whereas this way we'll have a captive audience for it!

-J

[alt_sally_anne]

Brilliant.

Totally worth living in suspense for another two days.

[alt_sally_anne]

Well, at least we found out Phoebus survived. (And Agrona, though who cares about her? Well, PHOEBUS now, apparently, at least that's what I got from the bits about the way he was looking at her.)

I hope you lot who needed to take the Astronomy exam made it in time. And didn't kill yourselves with exertion, running up all those stairs!