Teh obligatory dramatick A/N:
AmZ suggests that Lovegood is v. Sue, and that he would be less Sue, or at least marginally less Sue, if there was a scene where the shit gets kicked out of him. Apparently the bit where Snape hexes him clean out of his chair a couple of chapters ago is not equivalent to the shit getting kicked out of him; not in AmZ's understanding of things.
"Lovegood let him do that!" said AmZ. "That's not equivalent to the shit getting kicked out of him!"
"No," said I. "Lovegood did not let him do that. Snape just got pissed."
"You know… your Snape…" said AmZ.
"?" said I.
"He's the least Sue-y Snape I've ever read. I know this because I don't like him. He doesn't seem to be very bright. I'll have to think about why."
As I started to say, the bit where Snape hexes Lovegood clean out of his chair a couple of chapters ago is not equivalent to Lovegood getting the shit kicked out of him, so here's a scene at Hogwarts where the shit does get kicked out of him.
…when I told AmZ about it, there was much rolling of eyes.
"At Hogwarts? Before Snape arrives? Come on. Everyone's weak as a little kid. It means nothing if he gets the shit kicked out of him when he's little."
I suppose this means that there will have to be another chapter where the shit gets kicked out of Lovegood where he's not little, possibly by Snape, who can be bright for a change. Next thing I know AmZ will be complaining that there are too many scenes where the shit gets kicked out of Lovegood, little or not, and that Snape has gone totally Sue. There is just no pleasing some people. Tsk!
Actually this is the sort of concrit I like, need, and will be your bitch for. Particularly if it comes with specific suggestions.
And while AmZ is figuring out what's wrong with my Snape, check out her Les Miserables fanfic. There's much historical detail and an excellent Javert who can be appreciated even if you know squat about the fandom.
On to the out-of-place, unfinished, gratuitously silly chapter in which logic more than ever go boom.
At school Simon Lovegood's potionmaking skills had been, in a word, frightening.
It wasn't that he didn't get Potions. It wasn't that he didn't like Slughorn, or that he didn't do the readings. And he understood as well as his average classmate what was meant to happen in the cauldron. What was meant to happen in the cauldron, however, never happened.
"Erm, yes," was Slughorn's stock response to the flasks Simon brought him at the end of every lesson. "Erm, Mr. Lovegood – look, my boy – it's… well, it's... you've done it again."
Perhaps we've overstated our point. Simon Lovegood could brew beautiful potions. His version of the Red Eye Elixir, for instance, had been held up as an example to the class. His Everything Goes Draught had won him extra marks. His Fruit-Finder Quafflet had revealed some interesting secrets about his pet tortoise Havelock. But most of his creations caused Slughorn to pull out his hair.
The boy had been tolerably intelligent and as hardworking as Hufflepuffs usually were, always polite, and unabashed in asking for help. Everything he did to his ingredients was correct. He stirred the proper number of stirs. He set the heat to the correct hotness and chilled his spoon to the correct chill. He waited the proper number of minutes. He never forgot to lick the spoon before dipping it in, like most of the students, when this move was required. Yet he always had the same problem. Slughorn just couldn't understand it.
Lovegood was incapable of producing a potion that was not orange.
The Cud-Chewing Potion was green. Lovegood's attempt had been orange.
The Pickpimple Potion was the approximate colour of pus. Lovegood's attempt had been orange.
The Corpse-Suture Balm was supposed to be a nasty shade of brown with purplish foam and some maggots floating on top. Lovegood's maggots had been so dismayed at finding themselves in an orange potion that they'd leapt from the cauldron and expired, orange, on the floor.
"Erm, yes," Slughorn would grimace. "Perhaps some more cat-whiskers. Or chestnuts. Or a banana…"
Lovegood would dutifully comply. Nothing helped.
There was only so much orange a body could take, and Slughorn had stopped finding it funny after the first week. "Perhaps it's the cauldron?" he'd tried. (It had not been the cauldron.) "Or the fire? The spoon?"
It had not been the fire or the spoon.
"How are you doing this, boy!" he'd once lost control and hollered at Simon. "It is impossible for every potion you brew to be orange. Stop playing these games – Potions is a required subject for almost every respectable job! You can't master only orange ones – it's like knowing only the comma!"
On most days Lovegood had Potions he'd also have orange hair (or eyes, or robes, or underpants, or teeth). His classmates didn't even think it amusing to hex him orange anymore; it had become a matter of routine. After Slughorn's outburst, however, which had occurred during double Potions with Slytherin, Lucius Malfoy had been inspired enough to erase all the writing from all of Lovegood's books, essays and notes, reducing them to the blankest of blank parchments except for the occasional comma. It had taken three days for the charm to wear off.
Dora's opinion had been that commas were terribly bourgeois. "Because there's nothing more kitschy than several pauses per sentence, don't you think?" Lovegood, of course, hadn't even thought about thinking about it, so she'd succeeded in talking him out of using commas altogether --except when absolutely totally inquisitionably roll-over-deadly necessary. This had been a mouthful, and it had rhymed, and it had made the effects of Malfoy's curse all the more devastating.
McGonagall had been unamused. "I know that the comma is not the only part of our writing system familiar to you, Lovegood. What is this you're giving me?"
His essay had been a highly speculative bit of drivel in which he'd fantasised about Transfiguring things (like himself) into empty space. Or it would have been -- he'd explained -- except that Malfoy's intervention had caused most of it to become invisible.
"Malfoy ate your essay and spit out the commas? I'd have expected a better excuse."
"But Professor --"
"You're to write your essay for tomorrow. There will have to be a penalty, of course. And in future we'll have none of these games."
"They're not games, Professor," Lovegood had mumbled, blushing scarlet. This was also becoming routine. Like the hexes. And like his potions, which liked to be orange.
Their effectiveness turned out to fit a simple Arithmantic function of the difference in wavelength between orange and the colour of the target potion. Given that the class had received a syllabus with a time-schedule from Slughorn at the beginning of the year, Lovegood had been able to calculate his final grade for the class after an afternoon in the library. His prospects had been grim.
"That one's green," Dora had been eager to help him.
"This sort of green?"
She pointed. "Like that."
They had, between them, managed to conjure a spectrum with the exact wavelength of any colour appearing at the touch of a wand. It had taken them several hours, but it worked pretty well -- provided one didn't care too much about purple.
"Oh. I was hoping it was more like that."
"No, no… or maybe I'm forgetting," she amended. "But I'm pretty sure it was less orange than that."
"It must be you," Slughorn had finally said to him. The boy had seemed very small behind Slughorn's endless trophy-covered desk, especially with the monstrous chair he was in. "For the life of me I can't think of anything else it could be – the headmaster is convinced you're quite honest. But there must be something wrong with…"
Lovegood's potions were as orange as his eyes were blue. This had been disconcerting.
"Don't take it, erm… well, don't feel bad, my boy; I've seen students with all sorts of problems when it comes to potionmaking," Slughorn had carried on in as jovial a tone as he could muster. "They try, of course. But not everyone is adeq – erm, has the right touch; far from it. What can you do? Quite a rare thing, actually, when someone has the touch; comes along once in a generation, if that. No, you're certainly not to feel bad, my boy. Several years ago there was Innocent Benedict, for instance. He always made solid potions. And Maggie Silverstein's ones always end up kosher and totally useless…" He'd faltered. "Not that… I mean, it's not that I have anything against kosher as a philosophy, you understand; it's just difficult… well, there's just not that many potions you can make without some sort of blood!"
"Or reptiles, Professor," Lovegood had supplied evenly. "I understand. It's not your fault."
"That's just the trouble!" Slughorn had wrung his hands and changed the subject with some relief. "You do understand! At least, I think you do. Your essays are, well, quite respectable efforts. You understand how to make these potions – what are you doing wrong?"
"It must be me, Professor," Lovegood had parroted, even and helpful as ever. "They must be allergic to me."
Dora had made all the potions before and occasionally wrote Simon's essays; but even she'd had to shrug in sympathy whenever he brought up his little problem. "Maybe you're making them kosher too, like Mags, only a bit more passive-aggressively? Subconsciously? Without noticing?"
"No. Her potions aren't all orange."
"You can tell me, you know. Is it some sort of political statement?"
He'd shaken his head in frustration. "I don't know. I'm honestly trying to get them right. They just want to be orange. Do potions even have politics?"
The resulting conversation had been productive in all sorts of ways except the relevant one. "I guess it really must be you, then," it had concluded. "Unless the Slytherins…"
"It can't be the Slytherins. They don't have class with us every time. My potions are always orange, Dora. Always."
"So what are you going to do?" Dora had asked.
"Can't you think of anything else it could be?"
Though she'd tried – frequently, often, and at great length – she had been unable to explain the consistent orangeness of his potions for the rest of her life. It was Simon's problem and his alone; peculiar to some aspect of himself that remained unexplainable. This was why Slughorn had sent him to counselling.
I'll add more to this chapter when more is written. There will be a statue. It will be of a urinating faun.
Notice how he didn't get the shit kicked out of him yet? And of course AmZ (and others?) might point out that it's even more Sue to give him a gratuitous "flaw" that he can't control or do anything about. On the other hand, when I cook it somehow always turns into scrambled eggs. Always. Even if I was aiming for pepperjack spinach lasagna. (Don't we all love writing Sues?)
I promise, I promise he'll get the shit properly kicked out of him one of these days.