Thank you so much for this wonderful review. I'm sorry it took me so long to respond.  I don't check Gluttony as often as HPFF (mea culpa), and, then, my laptop at home was misbehaving and not processing my last two attempts. 

JKR's characters are so wonderful to play with, aren't they?   I thought that, during the Marauder years, the role of class Brainiac would be divided.  James is obviously very gifted in Transfiguration (he's got the wand), whereas Lily blows everybody out of the water in Charms (a charm-favoring wand chose her, after all).  Severus excels in DADA, while he and Lily battle it out for supremacy in Potions.  Sirius is as talented as James but he's far less stable  (Like Snape, he had a looney-tune for a mother.)  Lupin is all-around competent and can give anyone a run for their money.  Peter is not quite as gifted as his friends, and is perhaps a bit slow to catch on, but he will get there. (I see him eventually being of about the same level of ability as other Slytherin boys, like Avery and Mulciber.  After all, being able to master self-transfiguration, without the benefit of an instructor, is quite an accomplishment.)   

Thank you again.  I will try to update after NANO is over.

This is the first review I have received on this chapter.  It means a lot.  (It was up at HPFF for a while, but I had to wait to post at Gluttony, as it was down until recently.)  I can't tell you how much I appreciate your encouragement.  The next chapter should be up relatively soon. (And I hope I'm not jinxing it by making that prediction!)   Best regards, Bella.

I so appreciate your comments.  I wanted to get these chapters up, so I didn't have another pair of eyes proofread them.  As a result, I'm still correcting mistakes and making minor rewrites (with the result that the chapters in Gluttony and HPFF won't be absolutely identical -- can't be helped.)  

Once I got into it, it was kind of fun inserting younger versions of canon characters into the story.  Artemis, of course, is her Luna daughter one generation removed.  (In my student chart, I have Xenophilius also in Ravenclaw, a couple of years ahead of her.  I'm thinking of making him the editor of a student paper.)  I named Artemis after the hyper-intelligent barmaid, Diane Chambers, in the TV show "Cheers." 

All we really know about the Lestrange brothers is that they were at school the same time as Snape, they hung with him, and Rodolphus married Bella.  Bellatrix was about 10 years older than Snape, so she must have been 5 to 10 years older than her husband.  It would've been a marriage of convenience, since she was in love with somebody else.  I thought it would be interesting to write Rodolphus as kind of a victim, a young and rather passive individual who never had a chance at a life.   I thought I'd have him being friends with Snape and Lucy, and even with Lily and Mary, because they're nice to him and because he feels so inferior that he's intimidated by members of his own class, even underachievers like Elvira and Vanessa.

Best regards, Bella.

I just posted it.  Thank you so much.  I'm really sorry it took me so long to get it up. I have a little vacation from work, so I'm trying, among other things, to get some "update" material edited and posted. 

I have tried repeatedly to answer your review at HPFF, which I so much appreciate, but for some reason the website won't let me input.  Please know how much I appreciate your kind words and your encouragement.

Bella

Thank you so much.  (At least, I am only responding 3 months after the fact.)  I had written a lot of material in the intervening months, but I had not had a chance to edit it into chapters.  When you read this, more chapters will have been posted.

Thanks again for your comments and your interest.

Bella.

My goodness, have I had this chapter up since November?  It is now April 2011; two new chapters are up with (I hope) at least one more coming shortly.  Thank you again for your wonderful encouragement.  Bella

I do have plans for his father, down the road.  Thank you, thank you for your kind comments.  Bella.

I figured JKR dropped clues that poor Snape came from a pretty unhappy home.   His background created a pretty mean adult, but one who was, nonetheless, morally intact.    Again, I am so sorry I took so long to respond.  Bella.

Thank you so much.  I am so sorry it took me so long to respond.  I had not updated in so long, I didn't realize anyone was reading the story.  I really appreciate your comments.  I  have updated (finally, after about 18 months), as of this writing.  Thank you again.  Bella.

I hope the Beatles diversion was not too distracting.  As I mentioned, I was thinking of abandoning musical references altogether and calling the chapter "Lucy Miller," after the OC, but then I thought of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."  I wanted a counterpoint to all the snooty purebloods, so I made a plebian Slytherin who couldn't care less about being in Slytherin or about what the other Slytherins think.

It's a challenge to get back into the groove, but I'm trying.  Thank you SO much for reviewing and for your kind remarks. 

I bought the boxed set of Sabbath with Ozzy a while back, so I have a whole collection of songs, including some very obscure ones, to choose from.

Marcella Longbottom was actually an original character.  I noticed there was at least one Longbottom on the Black family tree, so I figured there were a variety of temperments within the pureblood Longbottom family.  I actually figured Gran would have been a Gryffindor and a generation before, and I though Neville's parents might be here but a couple to several years ahead and in Gryffindor.  Marcella is the smartass Longbottom with a rather nasty disposition, hence, Slytherin.

I was actually going to include a bit about a Muggle friend of Petunia's with whom Petunia was inseparable until this girl committed the unforgivable crime of getting accepted (like Billy Elliott) to the Royal Ballet School, after which Petunia treated her like she died. I cut this bit, mainly for length.  However, it would have driving home the point that if you aren't mediocre, you cannot exist in Petuniaworld.   

Thanks so much.

Yes, I love this sone and those chords.  Actually, I'm quite sure it's from the original Sabbath, so thanks are probably to Tony Iommi, Ozzy, and perhaps, Geezer Butler.    Though I'm sure Dickinson must have covered it. 

I could have sworn you reviewed this on HPFF a year or more ago when I posted it, but that in no way diminishes my appreciation for this review. Thank you and thank you. 

Thank you so much.   I had an idea of Rodolphus Lestrange as kind of a weak, rather shy kid who was prone to be bullied and dominated by others and, ultimately, by a much older, much more aggressive wife.  I'll see how that works out.   Thanks again for your comments.

I can't tell you how grateful I am for the review.  After all this time, I wasn't sure if anyone remembered the story.  I wrote first drafts of the first few segments, in which I introduced a few new characters, close to a year ago.  However, with the intensity of real life (aka work), I never got around to finalizing them. 

I wanted to do a "take" on Snape's contemporaries at that time in their lives.  Thank you so much for your kind comments. 

Bella

As I so often do, I accidentally posted this reply as a new review instead of as a reply.  Oops. 

You will see the neighbor boy again.  I put him in this chapter because he will be important later, and I wanted to introduce him fairly early. 

I meant the "killing curse" to be sort of an analog to a kid grabbing a gun and pointing it at his father under similar circumstances, the difference being that his father neither saw it coming nor recognized, after the fact, what just almost happened.  Severus didn't really miss.  The curse too a second to emerge, which it did slowly because he'd never done it before and because he was a child.  The extra second gave Eileen time to push her husband out of the way.  If she hadn't done so, the curse would have killed him.  (Like he intended to pull the trigger but he had a lot of trouble squeezing it, due to being young and lacking strength; but his aim was true.) 

Thank you so much for your review. 

Thanks so much.  Sorry it was so long in coming.  I thought Lily must have occupied Snape's fantasy life, so I wanted to show some of that.  As for Petunia, I thought she was one of those little girls who grew up thinking she got life's short stick. 

As to your suggestion about the closed Chemist's Shoppe -- you know, I was imagining the place being like a drugstore, selling sundries and magazines as well as operating a pharmacy.  So I didn't think it would be closed.  I figured shop assistants would keep the place open to sell over-the-counter items even though the boss was on vacation.  They just wouldn't be able to fill prescriptions.

That said, the scene you suggest probably would have been a better choice from the standpoint of creating tension and character development.

Reading your second review of this chapter reminded me to check and see whether I'd fixed that sentence fragment in the Gluttony posting.  I hadn't.  I have now. It now reads, "When a weekend had passed and the family had still not returned,  Severus felt the beginning of panic."  If this is one of your three favorite fanfic, I am completely thrilled, because I have great respect for your writing.  Best regards, Bella.

I think that's a common fantasy of children in dismal straits, to dream of the day when they'll be powerful enough to change it and make the responsible people pay.  I figure he must have been a really smart kid -- he was annotating his textbook with his own improvements and spells.  But we know he had a dark imagination, also.  Poor Severus, indeed.  Since he did manage to grow up pretty much intact -- basically empathetic and moral, with a conscience -- I thought he needed a supportive adult in his life.  Hence, the librarian.  

Thank you very much for reviewing. 

I figured he first saw Lily being a witch in very ordinary circumstances that would have gone unnoticed by everyone else.  He finally sees someone like himself, who can be his friend.  He's never seen a child like himself before.  This chapter went through several rewrites, one of the reasons being that I did not know what to do with Bronwen.   Thank you so very much for your wonderful reviews. 

I look forward to your reviews.  I'm sorry it took so long to get this chapter posted here at Gluttony.  As to the law enforcement stuff -- being an American, I had to do some research on the British titles and police-station arrangments. 

Thank you so much for your comments.

What a wonderful review!   I drew from my own memories of being a child coming to worship at the blessed shrine of the library -- the huge peculiar checkout desk, the walls of card catalogues, and the many stacks of books.  When I was a kid, a library was my favorite place to be. 

I appreciate your comment on the chapter image.  I thought it was great, and I will pass it on.  Unfortunately, my relative unfamiliarity with Gluttony caused me to leave out the title, which is "Children Start to March."

No, there is no parricide in Severus's future, although he will have a very close call.  I have a different fate in mind for Tobias, one that will give him ample time to reflect on his sins.

Thank you again, so much, for your review.