HSU IT Department

...you will soon be able to sell it! Also some Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers (!), William Carlos Williams, Charlie Chaplin, Aldous Huxley, and Marcel Proust, thanks to copyright law. Wikipedia has a fairly complete list of titles.

So there you go. Get busy :)

Reveals are up at hoggywartyxmas, so I can now own up to this:

Title: Love Hides in Familiar Faces (on LJ) (on AO3)
Rating: G
Word Count: ~4300
Summary: Even in the darkest of times, there are still glimpses of light. Fortunately for the few who are still awake within the walls of Hogwarts at half-past eleven on this Longest Night, one need not know a tale in order to be part of it.

I was extremely honored to have my fic chosen to open the fest. Many thanks to all the readers for their lovely comments, and to therealsnape for hosting another fabulous Hoggy Warty Christmas!

Reveals are up over at hoggywartyxmas so I can now own up to being the author of The Spoof is in the Pudding, a wizardy riff on "The Night Before Christmas, in which Hagrid and Flitwick eat too much fruitcake with surprising results while Severus and Minerva exeunt, pursued by a waltz.

I was thrilled that my poem was one of the opening day posts for the fest, and I have been truly overwhelmed by the number of positive comments that my little rhyme received. In particular, my recipient mmadfan said that the poem brightened her day twice when she was feeling under the weather. I cannot imagine a higher compliment :)

hoggywartyxmas always has superlative offerings, and the writers and artists this year really outdid themselves. Thanks to the mods for running it yet again, and I am already looking forward to next year!

The reveals are up at minerva_fest so I can now admit to being the author of "Memento Vitae," which I very much enjoyed writing and which a lot of people apparently enjoyed reading -- yay! As always, this was an excellent fest with many top-notch stories; if you haven't yet checked them out, take time to do so. You will not be disappointed!

Title: Memento Vitae (on LJ) (on AO3)
Prompt #70: Retirement approaches, and Minerva clears out her office at Hogwarts. There are a few objects ('five' is such a traditional fanfic number, but have less or more if you prefer) that hold very, very special memories. While she packs, she remembers those times.
Rating: G
Word Count: 3700
Characters and/or Pairings: Minerva, with memories of many others
Summary: There are things we carry in our hearts that no one else can fully understand. On her last afternoon as Headmistress, Minerva remembers some of hers.
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: I very much enjoyed this stroll down Minerva's memory lane; I hope you do too.

...are up, so I can now cop to being the author of Untidy Beginnings! I was immensely pleased to get this prompt, partly because Minerva as headmistress is an area I like to see explored, and partly for the double challenge: how to make Dudley a sympathetic character without taking him completely out of character, and how to make Minerva, who obviously cared very much for Harry, feel any sort of warmth for one of the people who was cruelest to him?

I thoroughly enjoyed exploring this odd, rather fraught, relationship between Minerva and Dudley, and in working through it I discovered more than one point of connection.

This year's fest was an excellent one with many top-notch stories, and I'm proud to be in such fine company. Unfortunately I was insanely busy the past few weeks and have had almost no time to read the other Minerva Fest entries; I'll be on a train for a good chunk of next week and hope to catch up then.

Title: Untidy Beginnings (on LJ) (on AO3)
Original Prompt: #47. I would like to see how Headmistress McGonagall informs Dudley Dursley and his wife that their child has been accepted to Hogwarts, and what that means. How do each of the family members react? Do they have any contact with the Potters? Bonus if we see the shopping trip to Diagon Alley and the Sorting.
Rating: G
Characters and/or Pairings: Minerva, Dudley Dursley and family, cameos by Severus Snape and Hannah Abbot, two original characters
Description: When Minerva finds the name of Dursley written in the Book of Admittance, surprises ensue for everyone.

Reveals went up a little while ago at hp_friendship so I can now cop to being the author of "To Understand and To Be Understood," which explores the friendship between Molly Weasley and Tonks. squibstress (thank you!) wrote the most wonderful prompt which allowed me to incorporate different aspects of friendship, bits of canon, wolves in fairy tales, and some pet theories about magic, power, gender and Muggle-borns. It was great fun to write and I got some lovely thoughtful comments, which is always a joy for a writer :)

Title: To Understand and To Be Understood (on LJ) (on AO3)
Characters: Molly Weasley, Nymphadora Tonks; cameos by Mad-Eye Moody, Fred and George, Dumbledore and one or two others.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Character death (canon)
Word Count: ~8800
Summary: "One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood." -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Original prompt, from squibstress: "They appear to be close-ish in canon. What kind of friendship is it? A few ideas: Maybe Molly sees Tonks as the woman she might have been if she'd made different choices. Does she urge Tonks to pursue Lupin, and maybe get pregnant, out of supportive friendship, or is it something else? Or take the opposite approach: Molly sees Tonks making the same choices she did, and tries to talk her out of it. Or maybe Molly wants to convince Tonks that she doesn't have to choose one or the other--maybe Tonks has choices that weren't open to Molly."
Author's Notes: Thanks to my speedy and eagle-eyed beta, nursedarry, for her Britpicks and excellent suggestions. Text in bold was taken directly from Rowling's books. Molly's line about having children being "to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body" is from author Elizabeth Stone. The information about what happens when two werewolves mate under the full moon comes from pottermore.com.

An infamously bad HP fanfic has been adapted as a very tongue-in-cheek web series. I hate to say it, but this actually makes me want to go read it. (Although perhaps it was meant from the start as a spoof? Surely no one would come up with the name "Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way" and expect to be taken seriously...) Regardless, this is very funny indeed:


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The snapecase reveal went up a while ago -- so many great stories this year!! -- and I can therefore cop to being the author of "Wormwood and Gall." Thanks to all who were kind enough to leave comments!

Title: Wormwood and Gall (on LJ) (on AO3)
Age-Range Category: Three
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Severus Snape; Albus Dumbledore; cameo by Lucius Malfoy
Rating: G
Warning(s): Angst.
Note: No specific date is given for when Dumbledore hires Snape, other than sometime in 1981. It's unlikely Dumbledore would have hired him prior to Lily's death, since Snape would have been busy with his espionage work up until then, so I've placed it in late November of 1981, immediately after Dumbledore testifies on Snape's behalf. Also, no date is given for Lucius' appointment to the Board of Governors at Hogwarts, so I have (rather arbitrarily) placed that in the fall of 1982.
Summary: When Severus is offered the job of Potions Master at Hogwarts, he thinks that perhaps life might not be as desolate as it looked. Whether or not this is correct remains to be seen.

Finally getting around to posting re: the fic I wrote for lm_hgficxchange back in April (!!). laurielover1912 gave me a fabulous prompt and I had great fun with it though if I'd had time I'd have made a little more explicit. But that's planning for you, innit?

Title: That Is Not Dead Which Can Eternal Lie (read on LJ) (read on AO3)
Recipient: laurielover1912
Rating: PG (although there's plenty of implication, so let your imagination go crazy; mine certainly did)
Warnings: A dollop of angst, a soupcon of UST, a generous handful of snarky banter, and a mystery involving goats and Ultimate Darkness -- oh wait, those aren't warnings, those are enticements, aren't they?
Summary: Five years after the end of the war, Malfoy Manor is suffering from a peculiar infestation and Unspeakable Granger is assigned to the case. Much has changed at the Manor, but thousands of years of Malfoy heritage cannot be lightly disregarded.