For those rare people on my f-list who don't have mctabby friended, she's got a retrospective of the 300 best (?) Summary Executions of all time. Bow-chicka-bow-bow... cruisty kills the cat, Señor Draco! (Warning added because I keep a PG journal myself: Most are a bit bawdy, in case you're unaware of that.)
I've been writing in Remus's PoV for so long that I thought it would be a good idea to remember how he appears from outside his own head. So I'm re-reading Prisoner of Azkaban, which truly is an excellent book, if it's a little odd to remember Harry as the entirely Quidditch-crazed third year he was back then!
Anyway, two things have struck me. The first is that I've described Remus as "shy," and that's definitely not the case. (I don't think I've written him shy, but I have most definitely described him as such.) He's very much at ease in a room full of strange teenagers, and is very friendly to his colleagues, including the one who hates him. Not a shy trait. I know better than to use that word, and I can't believe I did. Bad wording, no cookie. He's a man who plays things close to the vest emotionally--he'll be friendly and collegial, and listen, and actually care about the people he's talking to, but he and he alone decides how close a person gets, at least in his approach when he's not being pushed. (I imagine that neither the other Marauders nor Tonks would put up with the kind of approach he took with Harry.)
The other thing that just kept drawing my attention, non-Remus-related, was Ron's caring about Scabbers. I've noticed it before, but on this read-through, for some reason it's striking me as really, really prominent. I have a feeling that when I get to Peter's betrayal, I'm going to feel it more for Ron's sake. I mean, you love a pet pretty unconditionally, and Ron has spent a year first worrying about him and taking care of him, and later mourning him when he thought he'd lost him... and all the sudden it turns out that Scabbers has just been using the family's generosity, is really a dark wizard, and is in generally a nasty brand of liar. When Ron says that he let Scabbers sleep in his bed, it's this statement of total trust, which has been really betrayed. (It's also extremely icky, but I don't think that's what Ron was talking about.)
mctabby friended, she's got a retrospective of the 300 best (?) Summary Executions of all time. Bow-chicka-bow-bow... cruisty kills the cat, Señor Draco! (Warning added because I keep a PG journal myself: Most are a bit bawdy, in case you're unaware of that.)