Subject: Building a concrit wall.
Author:
Posted on: 2015-03-03 14:16:00 UTC

Well. The premise of this... really doesn't work, as I'm sure you know. Hermione has been trapped in a tower for seven years. That means she hasn't eaten in seven years - that no-one has bothered to look for her in seven years - and that Hermione Granger couldn't figure out a way to escape. In seven years. Merlin's eyebrows, she even says the word 'rope'! She's had long enough that she could've Rapunzel'd her way out.

And then she agrees to marry Ron, who she hasn't seen for seven years, and who didn't come looking for her until she wrote a note. She really should be insane, of course, but that's a bit crazy even for her.

But setting aside the impossibility of the plot, I kind of like the characters. Dean and Brian have the right kind of... well, not chemistry, but you know what I mean. I got a feel for their relationship, even though they're only minor characters. Ron comes across as someone who lost someone a long time ago, and suddenly finds out she might - might - not be dead. Harry... uh, yeah, Harry and the rest are a bit, um, blase about it all. But Ron, at least, I believe.

So: how could it be redeemed? I'd focus on the strengths - those three characters - and drop everything else. Actually, number one suggestion: don't give us Hermione's POV at all. I'd be tempted to stick with just Dean and Brian, and have them watch events. Just as a rough hashing-out, here's how I'd write it:

Show us them finding the note, and taking it to Ron; show us Ron's reaction to reading it, through their eyes, and the way he runs off to find Harry; show us Professor Harry Potter coming to find the boys - Brian would be in awe, since he knows who Harry is, and have to explain it to Dean - and interrogate them about the note. He wouldn't believe it, he'd think it was a cruel prank - but he'd be cautiously convinced.

Then show us the staff meeting where McGonagall also questions the boys, but then is forced to say that no, they can't go and check: even after seven years, the spellstorm in that tower is still incredibly dangerous. Bring out the idea that so many spells hit it - and Hermione - that they don't know what happened. 'Perhaps in another seven years,' McGonagall says. 'If she's really there - if she's survived this long - then she can last another seven years.'

But obviously, Ron won't put up with that - and neither will Dean and Brian, and show us them sneaking out at the same time as Ron does, and running into him on the grounds. Then show us the broomstick flight into the spellstorm - mostly invisible from a distance, but a reality-warping madness up close. Borrow the sacrifice theme from the ending of Philosopher's Stone and force the boys to stay back (fighting temporally-displayed Dementors? Something even worse?) while Ron dives for the window.

And... I don't know. I'd be really, really tempted to kill the viewpoint character - whichever one of the boys it is - but give him one last view of Ron's broomstick shooting skywards, with Ron holding an incredibly-long-haired figure tightly. Sacrifice, again. Alternately, let them all make it out (with Hermione), but end on a conversation in the Hospital Wing. She's weak, she's slightly crazy - shades of Bellatrix here - but she's glad to be free... and she'd love to get to know Ron again. In a homage to the original ending, when Madam Pomfrey tells them all they have to leave, show Ron slipping a small black box back into his pocket; the idea that he's actually got the ring, but 'this isn't the time', makes a nice bittersweet end.

Like I say, that's what I'd do. It keeps the main points of the story in place, but makes them more realistic and suspenseful. I think the idea of Hermione being trapped - and the spellstorm is my way of justifying that without providing an actual explanation - has some promise, but... yeah, not like this.

hS

(PS: The 'spellstorm' is my own invention, with no grounding that I know of in Harry Potter. If there's an actual canonical example of spells lingering, or mixing, or anything like that, you'd obviously use that instead.)

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