14%It's about time, Hope! Very nice! I was sitting there going "where does Hope all of a sudden agree with this slow thing, let alone have the self-control?" And I love the movie dialogue, that's great. I love everything about the movie- the chairs, the decor, the magic-that's-not-really-magic. I like Matthew's reaction, and Hope's going along with it. Really well done, I can see why you like the chapter so much!
Author's Response: There's a very particular cinema type here I was thinking of - the 1920/30s, well-past-its-best, ArtDeco-style type. I couldn't really imagine them at a multi-plex somehow, although Hope wandering from film to film could be absolutely hilarious!
Glad you liked it as well. And no, she's not got an ounce of self-control as far as Matthew's concerned!
I'd hoped to see the most important cliff hanger resolved from the last chapter, but... nothing! You had completely skipped over the crucial bit I wanted to see. So, reluctantly, I looked up "bacon sarnie" using Google. Yes! They found it. It sounds wonderful! Now, what is this "brown sauce" that is an alternative to ketchup?
Oh. Mmm. Yes. The review.
This is a delightful, hilarious, heart warming chapter. Hope certainly has had a sheltered life, with so little exposure to the best of Muggle entertainment and technology. "...the two little hairy people who couldn't afford shoes." <snicker> Such a wonderful sendup of Lord of the Rings. No wonder this is your favourite chapter. I do love your sense of humour, and suspect there will be more in the remaining chapters.
Author's Response: Brown sauce is yummy, but utterly indescribable. Kind of a spicy warmth - gorgeous with bacon.
Glad you liked this chapter and the entertainment with letting Hope loose in Muggle society! Hopefully next chapter will be nearly as much fun as this... especially with Harry...
That was terrific!!!!!! I loved the bit about Hope and the cinema. Her problems with the chair were adorable. I also love how you ended it. She told Matthew that she loved him and then got even with him for St. Mungos! Too cute!
I enjoyed that bit with The Lord of the Rings as well. It's funny imagining how a wizard would react to our cinema. Such divergent culture and technology (or lack thereof). It made for a great spoof. I almost feel sorry for the poor sods who were in front of them! But then again, I'm not a great fan of Tolkien anyway...
Wonderful job - thanks for updating so soon!
Author's Response: She had to get her own back on him somehow for the St Mungo's thing! I think the opportunity was too good to pass up...
How can you not like Tolkien? *horror* Still, you like Matthew and Hope and the cinema, so I won't be too harsh on you ;) Glad you liked the fun!
awwwwwww YAY!!!! It's such a good chapter! I can't wait for more, please update soon :)
Author's Response: Next update should be along in a month. I'd love to update sooner, but I can't because of an increase in workload until 26th July.
That was great! I loved the movie experience for Hope and discovering the folding seats. And when Matthew runs out and screams that She loves him.....I love it!
Author's Response: LOL I think he does too! He wasn't joking when he said he'd waited 11 years to hear it. It was bad enough waiting for 25 chapters!
Thanks for letting me know you enjoyed it.
Hope was so hilarious in the movie! The whole situation with the seat had me laughing. Hope is right--Legolas is worth drooling over. ;-) And it was so typically Hope that she ends up telling Matthew that she loves him where and when she did. I loved Matthew's response to the man in front of them about it being 11 years and his other responses outside the movie theater. The outtake should be very interesting to read, as well as when the two of them "meet" Harry the next time.
Author's Response: I just couldn't resist doing that to Hope. I thought of the most 'normal' Muggle date I could and then had fun with what she'd make of it all. Definitely a nice change to Flint and a droolworthy fake-elf to boot!
You'll get Harry next chapter, and I think Alphie's outtake will be up any day now. Glad you enjoyed it!
Oh, Matthew! He's so loveable.
Wasn't expecting the admission here, but it worked really well and the thing with the movie and the seats was hilarious.
Can't wait to see how their meeting with Harry goes. And the Flint party. Thanks!
Author's Response: Harry's definitely up next chapter, and Flint's party is the chapter after (unless something hideously goes wrong!), so you'll get to see both. Glad you liked the admission just slipping out there - typical Hope!
I'm going to be little more coherent in this review. I really love this. The popcorn, the irritating (and funny!) old bloke, Hope's confession - my, I never expected it to be like that! I loved it - especially the contrast between Flint and Matt: the sheer simplicity of being with Matt just ROCKED. I seriously need Matthew Belford's Indian equivalent! ;)
I seriously wouldn't mind waiting for the next two...and the outtakes! Way to go, Imogen!
Author's Response: Glad you enjoyed it. I've been dying to post this chapter forever! I think Hope's confession would only ever work like this, because it's so understated. It's just *there* and it's typically her to just blurt it out when she's not thinking!
Now we've just got to see what Harry makes of him ;)
WOW!
I don't think I'll get over this for a *very* long time!
*whoop*
Author's Response: LOL We've all waited long enough for it!
This chapter was very sweet! Hope commenting on the movie was hilarious. (Personally, I prefer Aragorn, though). I'm looking forward to the next chapter:).
Has your cold passed yet? If not, get well soon!
Author's Response: I'm an Aragorn woman myself, but thought Hope might enjoy the Legolas change of scenery! He's less 'Auror' than Aragorn is!
Still feeling slightly under the weather - got a doctor's appointment tomorrow, but I'll be fine :)
"You... love me?" his voice shook. "You can't just blurt that out in the middle of a film. It should be a momentous occasion, with birds singing in the trees or some such rubbish."
Well, at least we know which of these two reads the romance novels ;) I was about to go to bed so I can get up early tomorrow and get on a plane, but when I saw this I had to put off sleep. Thank you for another lovely chapter. Mathew's exuberance made me smile. Took Hope long enough. This really is becoming unabashedly fluffy, and I love it for that reason. Seems like everything else I was reading turned into an angst marathon, and while I appreciate good angst, it was really getting kind of depressing. So thank you for the fluff. I do hope you include Mathew's next meeting with Harry, that seems too good to pass up.
Author's Response: ROFL - just for you, this is a little snippet of something that's going to be posted as an outtake for people who've been kind enough to review...
Nudging the door open with her elbow, she slipped inside his bedroom. It was subtly different to how it had been at Christmas, somewhat tidier with some distinctively female encroachment on his masculine domain. A bottle of clear nail polish sat innocently on the bedside table, along with a tangle of hairgrips and a half-read novel.
A smile tugged at her lips. Matthew had been quite perturbed at her choice of bedtime reading material. At first he’d watched the scantily clad witch on the cover with some concern, watching her heaving bosom and voicing out loud his suspicions that she’d pass out if she kept up the hyperventilating for much longer. Finally, he’d admitted to Hope that he was much more interested in seeing how long it was going to take for the witch to fall out of the aforementioned bodice.
And where would we be without fluff? It makes the world go round :) Harry is next chapter!
And here I was about to go to BED! Thank the lord I didn't!
And thank you, Imogen, for that lovely piece of deliciousness.
It's about time we got to see some good ole' Hope and Matthew banter. and AHHH, she said it!! she really said it! Oh I am so excited now. It is about time she realized she was head over heels in love with the boy...who WOULDN'T be, Matthew's amazing. :)
Their trip to the cinema was classic. It's so like her to get absorbed in a film like Lord of the Rings and think it's real and she has to "do something." I also love how she's become that person we all love to hate while going to the movies. I was just talking about that too when I saw you updated, how appropriate :)
I have to say that it's almost like cruel and unusual punishment to leave us where you did, but I will be a good and patient reader and *gulp* wait until July 26th. Good to know that Alphie's got us covered with what happens right after this cruel cliffie, but I will definitely be having withdrawal by the end of July.
I know I should know, and probably do know in the back of my mind why it is you can't update for so long, but I can't think of it right now, so have fun doing whatever it is you have to do...and if it's something unpleasant, try real hard to have any fun possible :) I will now go to bed with lovely dreams thanks to this.
Author's Response: It's only taken her 25 chapters to come to the conclusion she loves him - I don't think she's rushing into things somehow! The cinema bit came out of a what if you put a wizard into a really ordinary everyday Muggle situation ~ I wondered how Hope would react. It also gave me a great excuse for a contrast with how life would have been with Julius!
It's work causing the hold up. I'm a sixth of the way through what I've got to do, and plodding slowly.
Not feeling too well myself, so I won't try to go all rhetorical on you--suffice it to YAY! UPDATE! Loved Matthew, loved Kingsley, even loved Quimby (I thought he was amusing rather than offensive, I guess since she'd known him for such a long time)... Also, I vote for the "soon" update! Glad you're feeling better!
Author's Response: Hope you're feeling better now! The soon update is with you - hope you enjoy that too.
Did I tell you how much I love fluff?
Matthew panicking when Hope left was a beautiful touch. Having been left alone twice, it's hard for him to believe that she'd stay. Fortunately for him (and us), Hope cottoned on.
About the Quidditch fascination, is Matthew just a fan, or can he decently play? If he's just a fan, that would be really refreshing. Most of the time, the people who are shown to explicitly love Quidditch are the players themselves.
Author's Response: Matthew doesn't play. There's a funny sequence coming up in Nil where Hope tries to teach him to fly. As an adult, he can fly a broom, but doesn't tend to play Quidditch. It's a tough call about whether he's an enthusiastic spectator of the sport, or whether he goes to games to see Hope ;)
The Aurors are adorable! I love the betting. I wonder whether it was just the UST from the Christmas party that alerted them, or had they seen Matthew and Hope before? Gotta love this story, really. It's a treasure.
Author's Response: I think the UST must have been really evident at the party - I mean, look what happened afterwards!! Some of them will have met him before, but I suspect it's something that's been getting increasingly obvious until things exploded.
What can I say...those two are wonderful! I love how Hope still seems so out-of-place in the Muggle world, still goofing up and making mistakes even without the random-magic-problem. It probably shows a lot more about Harry than about her in this case - how Harry hasn't (probably) given his daughter much opportuinity to experience the Muggle world, mostly because the Muggle world is the one that gave him grief and very little else. Hope's almost like Ron (except better, because she has to keep her cover) in this respect. I wonder if she had the same fascination for the Muggle world as a child.
Progress in the workfield! Yay!
Author's Response: If you liked that, you'll like chapter 24. Winging its way to you on Monday next week. ;)
She was his. Finally his.
I love how this is an inversion both of the opposite statement in this chapter, but also in chapter 12. In the love scene there, as beautiful as it is, it is - to an extent - all about her and very little about Matt. This exchange, even though they're doing nothing but sleeping, is about them as a unit.
Matt's smart! The takeaway menu and books, lol! I really like how it's so evident he loves her, but how he really keeps that admission for the last, when she's ready to take it. If there's any hard-to-put-down evidence that she's in love with him, this is it. Just that one word - girlfriend - and she acts like a girl getting her first kiss!
Author's Response: It was such a fun chapter to write, especially with all the verbal fencing and walls crumbling. You've got elements of him and the relationship starting to creep out in chapter 12, but you've got to look for them. They're very subconscious, and literally just mentioned in passing. It's much clearer in this chapter
Once Hope's given in, ironically it's much easier for her to cope with the decision than it is for Matthew.
This chapter is all it takes to show Hope going downhill. You didn't even need to add another chapter before Matt's arrival - this one said it all. The Edward/Bella interaction was lovely, as was Hope's reaction to that. It's sort of balanced between them two - if one's out-of-control, so's the other! But in some sense, this is good for Hope. I'm not entirely sure which way she'd go if Matt was all nice and accomodating with her even after all her 'nothing's. She'd probably just go on having a physical relationship with him, and very little else. It might have taken them forever for her to realise how much she really needs him!
Author's Response: You're right. If Matthew had just forgiven her, she'd never have worked it out. Yes, he is mad and upset, but part of this is also calculated (spot the Slytherin!). Without being at serious risk of losing everything, she'd never have stopped and thought about it.
Sorry for not reviewing the chapters in between 15 and 22...let's just put it down to me being lazy, and then over excited over having 22 when it came!
I like how you bring up the 'nothing' theme without making it repetitive, or how you didn't make Matthew the innocent victim here. Though...Matt's 'nothing' was to make her comfortable, and Hope's was out of sheer..cluelessness!I like how Matt loses control so completely here that even a little thing like a kiss on the cheek makes him erupt. I totally love this side of Matt.
Julius is a darling here (a very cynical one at that!) I love how he distances himself away from his dislike of Matthew for a moment, and figures that Matt would be good for her. The fact that he can understand that what Hope is feeling for Matt is stronger than mere passion (more than Hope herself) leaves me inclined to think that he's not as closed to the concept of love as he thinks. I think he believes in it somewhere deep inside, but doesn't want to give it much importance because of various reasons - the fact that he's rich, the knowledge that most of the women are gold-diggers....maybe even the failure of his relationship with Hope (though it seems he didn't love her much then either, anyway. Did the terrible incident that brought the death-knell to their relationship hurt him as much as it did Hope?
"Just you wait," she said mischievously. "Some day someone will change you." - Amen to that!
Author's Response: Now that's what I call a dedicated reviewer ;) Thank you!
Julius is fab, but the incident in their past didn't have nearly as much impact on him as it did on Hope. By the time he's with Hope, he's pretty much decided how he wants his future to be. His parents are partly to blame for it, but you also need to look at his reputation before Hope. Something would ahve triggered it somewhere. Now there's a plot bunny!
Wait, what happened 11 years ago? Oh dear, I'll have to go back and reread to make sure I haven't forgotten something.
Another great update! I really liked the banter with Quimby and the scene where Kingsley walks in and it takes him a moment to realize she's a woman...topless. It was really revelling about the way they work together...fellow soldiers, typically male, yes, but partners/teammates more. Anyway, I enjoyed it. I can't wait to see what happens next. If you're writing an outtake, I'm really curious as to how Harry deals with his daughter's career. I'd like to see an outtake between father and daughter over the trials of fighting dark wizards. Cause you see that a lot with father/son stories but you've done a nice role reversal here (including with Matthew as the Healer) and I think that conversation, in this plot, would be interesting. I babbling now... Thanks.
Author's Response: The 11 years ago bit is a (currently) unwritten part of 'Nil'. Glad you liked the Kingsley bit. It was fun to do, and I like your idea of an outtake as well. Not thought about doing that in the past. I *might* be able to slot part of that into chapter 25. I'll see what I can do.
