A Happy Birthday & A Fic...

[gilpin25]

I'm slightly early for a Saturday birthday, but as I may not be around till very late on tomorrow - Many Happy Returns of the Day to the awesome hrymfaxe! I hope you have a great day, Marie, and I've really enjoyed getting to know you and the lovely art you draw this year.:D

I've posted a fic at gilpins_tales as a birthday gift. I seemed to have the Beatles stuck in my head, for some reason, when it came to chosing a title! ;) Hope you enjoy it.

Title: With a Little Help from My Friends
Genre: Humour; drama; a dash of romance
Ratings & Warnings: PG-13 (Mild swearing)
Word Count: 6985
Summary: There’s something the Marauders wouldn’t be caught dead reading in public, but in private it’s a very different matter. After all, it’s the only way to try and come to terms with the complex mysteries of the opposite sex. (Remus, Sirius, James, Peter and … R/T)
Author’s Note: This is a sort of prequel/outtake to a fic called The Measure of a Man, but should make sense on its own. It’s set in the sixth year. In it a reference was made to the above guilty secret of the Marauders; hrymfaxe and a couple of others rashly expressed a wish to read it and, as I rather fancied writing it, it’s now dedicated to her for her birthday with my best wishes.:D

Comments

[hrymfaxe.livejournal.com]

*squeeeeee* Thank you so much! I have loved getting to know you as well, and spending time reading your amazing stories! As it turned out I fell asleep the moment I sat on the couch last night to see if you had put up the story... Not because I was bored(!) but because I had just spent several hours riding in the forest!! YAY!! So this story was actually the first thing I saw this morning - and now I'll go and leave a properly enthousiastic review, when or if I can get over the squeeeeeing! :D

[gilpin25.livejournal.com]

LOL. I'm glad I couldn't see through the computer and that you'd fallen asleep!

I am VERY glad (and very relieved;)) you enjoyed it; I will thank you properly tomorrow over on the review page. :) As you can see, it's a good job I didn't try and post it tonight as I am running slightly late as I feared I would. But it really has been lovely getting to know you, being in awe of your drawings, and seeing your wonderful enthusiasm and humour for so many things. Here's to the next year and perhaps your world tour will take in England one day!:D

And I hope you had a lovely dinner with the family and day out.

[drumher.livejournal.com]

I love it when it's people's birthdays around here cause we all get to share the gifts!

I can't say enough lovely things about this piece. You write the Marauders so well and this glimpse into their group dynamic makes it a little easier to see how Peter got lost. The way they alternate from teenage boys with their silly jokes to young men who care deeply about their friends, really adds a poignancy to what is mostly a light-hearted story.

We can't resist our Remus and his cardi, can we? Or rather, we can't resist getting him out of his cardi! ;)

[gilpin25.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to perfect the art of these gifts for any birthdays that might be coming along in the future, lol. I don't know if you can think of any... ;)

Siriusly, I'm very pleased you enjoyed it. It was originally intended to be fairly light-hearted throughout, but these slightly darker undercurrents kept creeping in which I hoped would make the story and dynamics a lot more interesting. As well as giving me an excuse I didn't need to fit the final scene in, of course. I'm sure Remus must have taken careful note of all the tips in Witch Weekly and finally put them to very good use. And I like to think there must have been a special Cardigan Wearers Issue just for him, along with Maintaining the Dishevelled Hair Look for Fangirls... ;)

Thank you for the lovely comment.:D

[riveroad.livejournal.com]

I'm SO guilty of not commenting on this awesome fic for ages and ages. Seeing your 'return from holiday' post reminded me that I had to get my butt in gear and get over here! (Oh and I'm so glad you had a lovely holiday! Pictures? haha).

This fic is AWESOME. I think what I love best is that you keep things light-hearted (the cardigan part in particular made me snicker) but at the same time, there's so much going on between the four of them that can't be ignored. Remus is wonderfully characterized (as always) - I really felt his frustration and annoyance and just general irritation. And good friends (although so hard to come by) can always make things seem a little bit less worse.

Oh and the END. There's really not enough I could say about it! Before Sirius in his very Sirius-esque manner goes and has the last word ;) which I just loved. I think I'm so behind in commenting on this that all the wonderful things I want to say have already been done! You've got such a wonderful handle on a teenaged Sirius and I really liked the interactions between James and Remus too. The description we get of Tonks at the end is gorgeous and I was so pleased to see a look at her and Remus in there at the end. And of course, Sirius is my favourite and I love how he's so very complex here...it really does add to your already-great fic.

[gilpin25.livejournal.com]

Apologies for being so slow to reply to this - I can only plead Meta fic-writing madness. Or just my madness. ;)

Anyway thank you SO much for such great comments. I'm thrilled you enjoyed it and got so much out of it. It was supposed to be a very light-hearted fic, but it got a bit deeper than I intended and then, of course, I couldn't resist doing a bit of R/T right at the end. The friendship between the Marauders is so fascinating and I liked writing the James and Remus side of things, having done so much Remus and Sirius friendship over the course of various fics.

I think I just fell in love with the idea of the ultra-cool Marauders guiltily skipping off every Friday to read a problem page in a girly magazine, complete with tea and cakes. Somehow it seemed very Sirius-like that he would be the instigator of it all, while totally insensitive to what was going on with Peter, yet very aware, in his tactless way, of exactly how to help Remus. And he's got to have been pleased for Remus and Tonks, hasn't he? ;)

Many, many thanks again. You made my day.:D