Full Story Description:
Non-canon compliant, sort-of retelling, of Half-Blood Prince. But with Hermione Granger as the main character.
Hermione Granger seeks to navigate her 6th year after sending her parents to Australia with new memories. Minerva McGonagall is finding recovering from "the stunner incident" a difficult and long-winded task. Hermione helps her heal and finds a new book, filled with comments about Transfiguration and after one too many nasty remarks nearly kills another student with one of the spells within. With Professor McGonagall in charge of her punishment, will things sour? Or will they discover that family is what you make of it and perhaps they just might come through this war in one piece. Together.
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G'day.
How good are new stories! Spin and I have been working on this for about ten years! And by working on it, I mean that we had a really great idea that we hashed out in MSN messenger (you young'ns won't understand) and then EmPoweredBeing forgot about it until the writing bug hit again quite recently and she was avoiding making any headway on the next Births and Deaths saga. (I've been promising more of that as soon as possible and I will get to it, I've already got a new chapter nearly done but this kinda possessed me for a while. )
For this fic, we're going to try for a chapter a day, like in the old-days. Aside from today - Day 1, I'll try to post around the same time - 3pm CST (4 pm EST, 1 pm PST, 8 pm GMT, 6 am AEST - sorry Aussies)
I wrote this before the whole 'end-of-the-world-thing' but it all still applies. If we're going to be sitting around at home, do something fun, learn a new language, learn a new skill, don't panic and keep being calm and rational. We'll all get through this together. Social distance does not mean emotional distance. Reach out to people. I will always answer emails - FF never tells me I have a PM but I'll check a bit more regularly while this is going on.
Word of warning. Re: this fic:
Squiffy is the name of the game here. Throw away most of what is Canon. We're going to loosely (emphasis on this word) follow the bones of the story of Half-Blood Prince, but there are super squiffy bits too. Mostly cos Em has the memory of a small duck and she gets things wrong a lot. Poor Spin tries her hardest but sometimes things just fit, whether they're exactly in the book that way or not. But also, cos obviously, none of this actually happens in the books.
You all know by now, I have a thing for Gaelic, or Gàidhlig, as it's also known (mostly in Scotland). There isn't as much of it in this story as I would like. Coincidentally, if anyone else is interested you can do a whole course on it using Duolingo (free) on any decent app store - My vocab is up to 411 words rn.
To make myself feel better, I've made the chapter titles as Gàidhlig as I can get them. The language interests me and I 100% maintain that Minerva McGonagall as a pure Scottish lass would have spoken at least some of it, at some point. Anyone who's read the Births and Deaths saga knows this to be true and honestly, that's who she is to me. So, if nothing else, I enjoy adding it. I hope you all enjoy reading it too. One day I might even add a glossary or something with all the phrases in. If anyone is bothered.
10^100 times beta appreciation moment:
I am honestly sure that there is no beta that is better than Spin. I wish I could accurately describe the sense of security she gives me, knowing I can write this drivel and then smile nicely at her and she'll throw herself into it and make it sound amazing! She's also the most amazing Harry Potter encyclopedia I've ever had the privilege of knowing. And I put her through hell cos I'm just vibing away and she's like 'ahem, that doesn't happen in this book' or 'um, that wasn't who did that, that was this person'. I love you Spin. I'm not sure what I'd do without you. Thank you for always reeling me back in off the ledge and setting me back on the right road again. I don't think I'd be as good a writer as I am without you.
Also, never leave me.
Beta's Note: Don't listen to her - this awesomeness is all her's and I just feel lucky to be able to hang onto her coat tails. Hope you all enjoy, the world could do with more EmPoweredBeing right about now!