FeNo posted a comment on Sunday 30th November 2014 3:47pm for The Ides of March, 1997

You can't be serious with Mr Malaprop, can you?

I like this little mystery about who kills the people all over the place... Funny that they bear down so hard on Hogwarts... and nobody seems to investigate the old-old crowd although there certainly are some highly qualified and motivated killers in that group. Weird, isn't it? that a lot of people like Maupassant, de Flandres, Dedderidge or Covelli appears in England and mysterious deaths start to happen out of the blue sky? Especially since it seems to get closer and closer to the well known Death Eaters.

Don't like Dumbledore though. Despite anything he still holds "but that would devastate/decimate the bloodlines of old families because they are the ones fighting with Voldemort" as a valid argument why to be lenient in the rules of engagement? And then sees no way to prevent another Dark Lord from rising before it's too late? Well there you have your problem... if the old families get protected from the consequences of their vile deeds every time a civil war breaks out they will think nothing about taking part in the next one and the one after that again!

If they leave bloodlines bled out? So be it, they do not seem to be overly concerned with letting the Potter or Longbottom or Bones lines continue, do they? So the only answer can be "rather them than us" and Fudge will have no more friends oiling his pockets with gold and small pleasant gifts to sway his mind towards kowtowing before the idiotic bloodpurity ideas! That people like Dawlish are allowed to work in Law Enforcement shows how right Hermione is when she calls that society rotten and unsalvageable... A pity that they would not just extinct each other if you'd draw a wall around Britain and put a lid on top of it, the muggles deserve some protection against this lunacy.

Sooo ... that's the end. And nothing really got resolved, Harry still has his anger problems, still has most of the effects of Snape's vile mindraping and Heather didn't get real help either.

There are some Hermione mentions and moments in the last three incomplete chapter drafts, but their romance never really had place to breathe and work in a way your readers could follow it and see the steps it advanced in... Closest to it was the time between him finding out about the mcIlvaine contract and the meeting with Madam McIlvaine... still i mor eor less see that as another lost chance as Harry could have confided with that in Hermione far sooner and it would have strengthened their bond far better than any public display. Yeah he has got trust issues and Hermoine wasn#t the best to lend an open ear over much of the year, but if he is serious about advancing his relationship with Ms Granger and if he WAS serious about ending everything with Heather before Lockemort stepped in and blanked her mind out, he should understand that he has to do a lot of trusting until she'll get over her own issues and i can really not see why Hermione should not be deserving of his trust, so why not invest in the relationship that way?

In the end i think a lot of the reason why this story ended the way it did is that it frayed out widely at the rims... you've got a giant cast of characters we would need to see regularly to get the feeling of the story going along fine, there are so many secrets, so many issues, so many agendas and nothing ever really got resolved and thus made it easier to follow up on it. Taken as a total that means the once simple story now tries to follow twenty five or so vectors that all would demand a lot of time, attention and detail and after almost half a million words it seems not as if it is possible to come up with a smooth way to do this any time soon and without throwing another half a shelf of books into the mix.

I do appreciate a lot of what you've done, there were some truly inspired moments and it is obvious that nobody would bother to follow a story to the bitter(-sweet) end if it was not worth the time spent reading it. There were some great chapters and i more or less fevered along with Harry and Hermione all the time... but i think i have shown some points where it also was less than absolutely enjoyable and sometimes it was hard to not just shut the window on my browser and be done with it. Teenage angst and anxiety is a real thing and stories dealing with the years between GOF and HBP surely have to include a healthy dose of it, but that's just it... the dose it took on in this story at times was overly high and neared the state of poison. Which is sad to think of.

But i also hope you'll one day think about returning to fanfiction and add some more of these wonderful ideas, scenes and characters to the plenitude found on the internets as every writer with your style and maturity is a big loss to the community which so easily gets flooded with the young and enthusiastic but not overly talented masses.

shannonwarren1 posted a comment on Sunday 25th March 2012 1:11pm for The Ides of March, 1997

Just found this story and I really love it. I know it has been a long time since you have updated, but I hope you plan to continue.

cdunphy posted a comment on Thursday 26th May 2011 5:22pm for The Ides of March, 1997

I dont know if your still writing this story or not but I hope so.I have read it before er I think the first version this one seems a bit different,anywayI quite like it and as I have read all the good harry and hermoine stuff this is almost like reading a brand new story thank you for your effort its quite ambitious and very good fun reading it.
thanks
cd

Professor Complexity posted a comment on Saturday 30th October 2010 1:30pm for The Ides of March, 1997

I've incredibly enjoyed reading this thus far. One problem is that none of the images which appear as a box in the story actually load up.

Looking forward to hear when the scenes listed above in note form have been completed.


KoV

renfro92w posted a comment on Tuesday 31st August 2010 12:07am for The Ides of March, 1997

This is brilliant. This whole story is frankly brilliant. I don't know what illness caused Mike to stop writing, and I hope he is recovering. He did say he was leaving off fan fiction writing, but if nothing more is to come of the story, I would dearly love to know what he planned to be the outcome. I'm deeply saddened that such a ripping good story must stop, though I do understand why. Mike, if you are in any position to read this, I want to thank you for YoR. You have brought me hours of fantastic entertainment. JKR couldn't have told it better.

FreyaRose posted a comment on Friday 6th August 2010 7:27am for The Ides of March, 1997

I absolutely love this story and have thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I hope that it will be continued soon, although that doesn't seem likely given the last date that a chapter was uploaded.

I think that the characterisation in this story is very interesting, challenging even. The idea that Harry has been picking up other people's emotions and acting on them is a great one and is a different take on his emotional state in Book 5.

Please write more!

Reza posted a comment on Wednesday 4th November 2009 12:42am for The Ides of March, 1997

Finally managed to re-read the whole! I was a fan since 2004, and It was deleted after that!

I was surprised to find it here:) So glad that you are coninuing it!

when is the next chap going to come?:D

rbird posted a comment on Tuesday 15th September 2009 9:28pm for The Ides of March, 1997

These "drafts & notes" are still better than 95% of fanfiction. Best wishes to Mike & family.