fredericks

This thing only came out last Friday, right? Jesus, it feels like it's been around forever, what with all the chatter that's been going on about it on my FL. But finally FINALLY I finished. I zoomed through 150 pages or so on my way into work, and savored the last 50 while waiting for the homebound bus this morning. And, you know, I was okay. I enjoyed what I read tons, but I wasn't all sappy or emotional or anything. UNTIL the second to last page, where one little line of dialogue* had me tearing up like crazy. Embarrasing to the extreme, seeing as I was on the side of a busy street in front of the hospital. I tried to play it off and make it seem like I'd gotten dust in my eyes and then texted

1x2foralways. My message paraphrased: OMG, I finished. SNAPE RULEZ!!!!1. And, like, two minutes later she called and we basically fangirled over the phone. Then I started crying again (this time on the bus), and told her I'd have to call her after I'd gotten some rest. Surely the waterworks could be blamed on fatigue, right?

I'm not going to go all hardcore reviewer on the book, but, yes, I liked what she did with Snape. Rowling's comments from the Radio City event last year had me thinking she really was going to do Snape dirty, and I left Deathly Hallows feeling she'd listened to all the cheering fangirls and -boys that liked Snaped and wanted him to be "good". So I sucked up my eyebrow raise in regards to the somewhat out-of-the-blue contents from the chapter "The Prince's Tale" and said a quiet thank you.

I also enjoyed (among other things) the part of the book where Harry and Co. were on the run/hiding while trying to figure out what the heck they were going to DO. The touch of realism was appreciated.

What I'm trying to figure out: is fandom, like, this massive room of monkeys pecking away at typewriters? Because I SWEAR I've read fic and/or come across comments where people say that Snape killed Dumbledore on Dumbledore's orders and Dumbledore was more or less a manipulative bastard. It was practically canon for me even before I got my hands on Deathly Hallows. I actually found myself wishing Rowlings had painted Dumbledore as much less benign than she did at the end of things. But mine is not to quibble (I'm tired, dammit) but to love and to search out reviews/comments on my FL and then go to sleep and then to call

1x2foralways and fangirl squee some more. There.

ETA: You know what part really gets me? And not in the teary way, but in a...yeah, okay, let me just share it:

They had descended two more floors when another set of quiet footsteps joined theirs. Harry, whose scar was still prickling, heard them first: He felt in the pouch around his neck for the Marauder's Map, but before he could take it out, McGonagall twoo seemed to become aware of their company. She halted, raised her wand ready to duel, and said, "Who's there?"

"It is I," said a low voice.

"Hello there!," said

fredericks's womanly parts.

...

'k, I'm SO going to sleep soon.

*"'Albus Severus,'[at which point my eyes well up and I quiver a bit on the inside]Harry said quietly, so that nobody but Ginny could hear, and she was tactful enough to pretend to be waving to Rose, who was now on the train, "you were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew." [At which point - break out the bloody umbrellas, because

fredericks starts gushing water from the eyes like a goddamn fountain with a nitrous oxide button.]