There was a bit more going on in her life than just school work at the time of her time turner use as well.

What with the mass murderer that escaped is apparently trying to kill her best friend, and is such a threat that the school is surrounded by soul sucking monsters that make the grim reaper look like a fluffy bunny. And THE Albus Dumbledore apparently can't do anything about that.

Researching laws to try and save an innocent animal's life.

Being afraid for said best friend, with the aforementioned mass murderer after him.

Malfoy continuing being an annoying shit, and provoking her and her friends.

Mass murderer gets into the fucking school, and rips up her house's common room entrance. ... Where she sleeps. Where the guy's target, her bestest friend ever, sleeps.

Finding out your teacher's a Werewolf, but surely Dumbledore made sure he was safe... OMFG I ALMOST JUST GOT EATEN BY A GODDAMN WEREWOLF.

Finding out that the mass murderer was in fact actually not guilty, but, apparently he still wanted to murder the asshole who framed him. Oh, and the guy that framed him has been up in the dorms. sleeping there. In the room with her bestest friends ever. For years.

On top of the stress of scheduling, hiding, and operating a Time Turner, to attend twelve classes. At the age of 13/14, which isn't the most zen age to be in the first place.

That said, didn't she end up with 11 OWLs anyway? Only missing out on twelve because of her feelings on Divination.

 

Anyways.

I cannot for the life of me stand the use of anyways in lieu of anyway, especially in dialogue involving a person such as Albus Dumbledore. This seems to be an American thing. Although I am no native speaker myself, the word just sounds annoying, ugly, and wrong, like mutilation of the English language.

I have stopped reading fics because of this, and I have sometimes found myself copying each chapter of a fic into Word and manually replacing all instances of the word with its normal counterpart. This is a fairly prevalent phenomenon, and I am mildly surprised that it does not seem to have been mentioned before.

 

Authors who before including the latest instalment of their fic' also include a page and a half replies to a bunch of reviews that I don't want to see. I mean if an anon reviews and it's something seemingly important put it in. Briefly. But if it's a regular member just send them a PM. I mean my day was made that one time I got a PM from Shezza about a review I left.

 

Ship Railroading. I'm sick of the second girl not getting a chance because the author doesn't want to change their plans.

I do not much care for a Harry/Daphne fic if the author wrote Harry/Katie interaction in said fic a million times better.

 

Reminds me of Letters by Endless7. The Daphne/Harry interaction was better than the Fleur/Harry one IMO, but since it's a F/H story...

 

Hehe. This (and the rest of your post) made me smile.

That reminds me of that Smallville crossover, Harry Potter and the Ascension of Ra by Apocalypse Thou.

The pairing was listed as Harry/Lana, but the story started out with her involved with whoever she was with in the show. On top of that, she was almost completely absent from the story. She certainly wasn't around Harry, on or off screen.

On the other hand, he was always talking with Lois and the author had given them such natural chemistry together that people started wondering why Harry shouldn't be with Lois instead.

Of course, in this instance, the author did change their plans: The pairing is now listed as Harry/Lois.

 

Wizards being able to block unforgivables using protego and other spells. I just saw this in a story and it completely ruined it for me.

UNFORGIVABLES ARE UNBLOCKABLE BY MAGICAL MEANS, YOU IDIOTS!

 

Actually, only the killing curse is directly unblockable by magic.

 

The truth, he speaks it.

 

I might be willing to make an exception for extremely powerful wards or something. It makes sense that no shield conjured by a lone wizard could block it, but maybe an extremely powerful shielding ward could... or maybe better safe than sorry.

 

Didn't Dumbledore block them with summoned shards of the statues from the destroyed fountain in book 5?

Edit: Nvermnd. Magical means, Hurr Durr.

 

I think this is very simple: the Imperius and Cruciatus can, as far as we know, be blocked the same way as other curses. Snape deflects/blocks Harry's attempt at the Cruciatus in book 6. Avada Kedavra can only be blocked by physical objects (which are not clothing, hurr).

 

I'd like to see someone block the Imperius Curse, because as far as we know, the spell has no visible spellflare. It would be like trying to block a summoning or banishing spell.

 

It seems that way in canon, yes, but does that make it the only curse that's not "visible" as it hits another wizard? In that case, it's a lot more effective as a killing tool than the killing curse, since there's no way to block it at all. From what we know in canon, powerful wizards can throw it off, but if the curse hits you, you still have to go through the process. In the meanwhile, somebody stabs you.

That just doesn't sit right.

 

As I understand it, at least from what I remember in the books, the Unforgivables have a huge weakness in that they need to be spoken aloud to work, and both the Imperius and Killing Curse have long incantations.

Then we could also theorize that the Imperius curse has a very short active range, as if I recall correctly, every time we saw it cast, the caster was only a few meters away from the target, at most.

 

Bellatrix throws Harry's Cruciatius back at him in the 5th book

So not only blockable but you can actually send them back.

 

Imperio is four syllables, hardly long, and we have no evidence for limited range of casting.

 

Did we read the same book?

Bellatrix screamed. The spell had knocked her off her feet, but she did not writhe and shriek with pain as Neville had — she was already on her feet again, breathless, no longer laughing. Harry dodged behind the golden fountain again — her counterspell hit the head of the handsome wizard, which was blown off and landed twenty feet away, gouging long scratches into the wooden floor.

“Never used an Unforgivable Curse before, have you, boy?” she yelled. She had abandoned her baby voice now. “You need to mean them, Potter! You need to really want to cause pain — to enjoy it — righteous anger won’t hurt me for long — I’ll show you how it is done, shall I? I’ll give you a lesson —”

Harry had been edging around the fountain on the other side. She screamed, “Crucio!” and he was forced to duck down again as the centaur’s arm, holding its bow, spun off and landed with a crash on the floor a short distance from the golden wizard’s head.


And yeah, I don't consider the incantations "Crucio" and "Imperio" long either. Also, I'm sure there are more 'invisible' spells than just the three I mentioned. Memory charms are another, and vanishing charms, and I'm sure there are many others.

 

Memory charms are not strictly combat spells, which all seem to be high-speed bursts of light, but I guess you could use them for a rather permanent solution... still, it seems unlikely that it's impossible to block a Memory Charm because it's instant and invisible. A rather more effective combat tactic than the killing curse...

 

Some might consider that petty, but not me, fellow traveler. When I was an undergrad, we kicked a guy out of our house because he wouldn't fill the ice tray. Motherfucker. Oh, he went all weepy on us, like we were some sort of irrational hardasses or something, got all our mutual friends to pronounce us unrepentant dicks, but Jesus Anusfucking Christ, I'd do a fucking 3 hour track workout, including interval training and physical therapy to keep my joints from turning to mush, all the while holding down a crazy course schedule, then come home looking forward to nothing but real analysis homework while hydrating with a half gallon of ice water and the goddamned tray would be empty--when I just filled it just that morning. Worse, the dipshit who did it would put the empty tray in the freezer, as if to say, "Golly gee, I don't know how it got empty like that."

Prick. I hope he gets foreskin cancer.

Back on topic: pet peeve. What's the deal with Fleur wanting to munch Hermione's snatch? I swear, if there's going to be a Harry/Fleur/X combo, X absolutely must be Gabriel or Hermione. Or both. Without fail.