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Reviews for A Matter of Black and White

By : greatwhiteholda

From ANON - Trickie Woo on August 02, 2006
I find him creepy too. Her thoughts about keeping a close eye on any girls invited to join the Slug Club hit the bullseye, there does seem to be something of a pedophile lurking in him.
I think there's something fishy about her missing little red trunk. I wonder where it's gotten to.
You seem to be emphasizing pineapples. Have you read Highly Improbable, a Snape/OC romantic/screwball comedy? It's on of the funniest stories I've ever read and a pineapple has a prominent role in the story.
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From ANON - Trickie Woo on August 01, 2006
I think his posters will get the point across much better than Umbridge's inspirational Bunnies and puppies. They seem so typical of him, just exactly the ones he would choose fo the DADA class. No wonder it was hard for him to tear himself away. Doing this chapter completely from his viewpoint makes it so much fun to read.
You capture his irritability and irascibility very well, he's always in character and it's always comically in character.
I've known a few people like Slughorn in my time, the collectors like him are always such pretentious name droppers. A voice teacher I had years ago was one of the worst, that's who Slughorn reminded me of when I read HBP.
I got a real kick out of the unofficial Slugclub, just like Severus did. I also enjoyed the term 'She Who Would Have Been In The Slugclub Had She Not Been At Beauxbatons', it goes well with my favorite name for Voldy, 'He Who I Find Most Tiresome', for short it's 'HW'.

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From ANON - Trickie Woo on July 30, 2006
She's right, as Dorothy said "We're not in Kansas anymore Toto..." and Aurora is certaily not in Switzerland anymore.
When the chapter started I was wondering if they had to buy tickets and if there were conductors on the train, I didn't remember anything about that from the books or the movies. Now you've confirmed it for me.
I love all the small details you put in this, like the double breasted robes and Platform 6 3/8. I would have figured on the platform for trains arriving from the continent would have been in Waterloo Station, but it's magical and can be where ever you want it to be. Besides it's not like Wizards would take the Chunnle.
She sure read Hagrid right, he's a good and very sweet man but you don't tell him anything you wouldn't want the whole wizarding world to know.
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From ANON - Trickie Woo on July 30, 2006
Molly certainly treats Fleur differently than she treats everyone else, when she is like that I certainly wouldn't want her for a mother-in-law. She reminds me of Ray Barone's mother, Marie. I think Fleur can give as good as she get if she's pushed too far, but it hasn't come to that yet. At least we know that Fleur loves Bill in spite of his mother and even after his good looks are permanently damaged. I've never really figured out why Molly and Ginny disliked and distrusted her, it couldn't all be jealousy over her place in Bill's heart. Anyway all the Weasleys like Aurora.
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From ANON - Trickie Woo on July 28, 2006
This was a fun chapter to read. Snape came across as Sam Spade or some other hard boiled ' private eye from the 'noir' films of the '40s.
My favorite lines were "Snape knew when he'd been played. He had been working for Dumbledore too long not to recognize the signs." It sounds just like the narration from one of those films and also just like some lines that Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett wrote. Of course, since we're seeing it all from her viewpoint we know she's not underhanded and won't doublecross you like Bridget O'Shaunessy did to Sam Spade, Cairo, and Gutman.
Now it's on to the next chapter.
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From ANON - Trickie Woo on July 28, 2006
I enjoyed her foray into the British Museum. I've been to London maybe a dozen times but I've never been to the British Museum. Now some of those visits were just overnight stops on my way elsewhere, but I've had more than enough time the times I was there just to see London. I've been all through the V&A because our hotel that time was just around the corner. The next trip we take over there I will be sure to put it on my adgenda. The Rosetta Stone is something I've always wanted to see myself.
I'm wondering if the man with the card tricks was Kingsley Shacklebolt in disguise. Whoever he was he gave her the key to learning Mentior Occlumency. I'm heading to the next chapter and I hope Severus makes an appearance, I missed him.
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From ANON - Trickie Woo on July 27, 2006
So she's another Hermione, I find Hermione annoying as hell so I understand how Snape feels. I enjoyed the flashbacks, especially the one with her potions teacher.
It's not just that she's annoying him that angers him, it's the fact that she knows it and uses it to annoy him even further. He's playing right into her hands and he can't find a way to stop.It's going to take a while to get past all this stuff before any attraction can emerge.
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From ANON - Trickie Woo on July 25, 2006
Now that I know Fleur really does love Bill Weasley I find it very easy to overlook her vanity (which is justified) and her other peccadillos and faults. She can't help being part Veela and I think it will be worthwhile for Aurora to get to know her.
I really like your description of Gringotts and it's goblin employees, it is evocative of banks and banking in the Victorian and Edwardian eras.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that they actually employ female goblins and females of other species like Fleur. I thought they were a very male chauvinist organization, so it's nice to see women there even though I'm sure there is a glass ceiling that prevents them from rising too high in the organization.
I reread your email and I'm confused about AFF's formatting system. Don't they allow conversations in a language other than English to be identified by putting the conversaion in italics? My opinion about this that I gave you in my review for the last chapter still stands, but I don't know what the rules are at AFF.
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From ANON - Trickie Woo on July 25, 2006
She is right, how can she be expected to learn when he hasn't explained what it is that she is learning or how to do it so that she can accomplish her goal. But she should realize that he has to try getting into her mind to help her achieve Mentior Occlumency, well she does realize it, but she doesn't like it and isn't trying to be very cooperative. What I'm trying to say is that she will have to learn to accept it. They have a lot in common, she has as much baggage as he has but she carries it differently. She already knows how to push all his buttons, so it's going to be a bumpy ride for both of them.
In the paragraph that begins "Oh what was she kidding herself?" make it "why was she kidding herself". That was probably a typo anyway. In the same paragraph "He wouldn't be so brazen as to Avada Kedavra her as soon as she opened the door... she didn't think", make it "at least she didn't think so". There are a few other places to fixso read through and I'm sure you will find what I mean. Keep in mind that, unlike so many women that look in the mirror and find that they have become their mother, I look in the mlrror and find that I've become Miss Sinecrope, my high school English teacher, who taught me English my sophmore and junior years.
You asked me to check out the asterisks so I did. I agree that they are confusing. I think conversations in a foreign language should be in italics to show they are not speaking in English. For consistency's sake I think individual foreign words should also be in italics, the asterisks are confusing and don't make a lot of sense to me. If you want to emphasize a word or a phrase in English you should use a bold font. I've seen some people switch to Arial Bold to do this and then go back to the original font,it kept me from being confused about what they meant.
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From ANON - Trickie Woo on July 23, 2006
Good grief, this Snape is even more paranoid than Moody is! I love the description of his expectations of 'the woman who came to steal his job', and the reality that he saw when he finally went inside the room. He is about the crabbiest and crankiest Snape I've come across. I like his thought about standing as far on the othe side of the circle at Death Eater meetings and then he found that he would be in her presence night & day.
There'e another 'seeing as' here and Snape says it. Severus Snape would never use 'seeing as', he would say 'since',instead.
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From ANON - Trickie Woo on July 23, 2006
Quite a lot in this chapter, she's a wizarding world version of a female Robert Langdon, a brand new 'double naught spy' (as Jethro called them on the Beverly Hillbillies), with a bit of the women of the SOE who, during WW2, were enbeded into cells of the French Resistance after they were trained, thrown in for good measure. There's even a bit of Wagner's Ring Cycle here and I prefer Wagner's version to Tolkien's. A whole lot of things to keep my interest up besides waiting for the first time she meets Snape.
This is a link to a site about the women of the SOE, what you find about the women who were allied spies during WW2 may help you with the aspects of Aurora as a spy.
http://www.64-baker-street.org/main/index.html
Once again though, there is 'seeing as', in fact it's 'seeing as how', where it should be 'since'. Please don't do that to me. Also in the sentence "The path I'm setting before you..." you have him saying "is not dangerous", I'm sure you didn't mean to put 'not' in front of dangerous.
Keep up the good work and get rid of 'seeing as' and you will be equal to any of the best writers in fan fic.
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From ANON - Trickie Woo on July 23, 2006
Very good beginning, faultless until the very last paragraph when you used 'seeing as' where the proper term would be 'since'. 'Since'is much more grammatically correct and much simpler to use than 'seeing as'. You must have figured out by now that 'seeing as' is a pet peeve of mine along with 'you know'; 'do you see what I'm saying'; 'like' being used in any other way than as a verb; and 'go' in place of said, such as in I go "yada yada" then she goes "yada yada". That was the only thing I saw that bothered me, and I will keep on reading. I won't continue reading a story if the grammar and spelling are poor, your grammar and spelling are good and so is the quality of your writing. My grammar and spelling aren't perfect, but I know good grammar when I see it and poor spelling should be obvious to all readers.
This is my first review on AFF.net, the quality of the writing and the stories has improved immensely since I first read stories here, your story is one of those that I find raises the standards at AFF.net. I'm glad I checked the archives here the other day for the first time in many months, I found several other stories besides this one that got my interest.
Your OC intrigues me, I want to know more about her and I'm anticipating her first encounter with Snape. I love Snape/OC fan fics and I enjoy Snape/canon stories also. I don't like slash and I absolutely hate the SS/HG relationship, what in the world would he ever see in Hermione anyway?
Please let me know when you update.

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