Thank you! Minerva was certainly vehement in her protest that she didn't know what Poppy was talking about, wasn't she? *grin*

Yes, the poor Silent Knight!

I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter so much -- and that yes, Albus is staying the night -- and he was so looking forward to their holiday, he packed early. He can be a sweetie when he finally comes around!

I'm glad you were able to catch up -- it will be a while before the next chapter of RaM, as I'm writing the holiday as a separate story (for many and varied reasons), but the first chapter of that is up, and it will likely have a chapter posted every other day. The chapters are normal-length, and the story is short, so it will be finished up soon enough, and we'll be back to RaM again.

Have a great week!

Hey, that's fine! I'm glad you enjoyed them both!

Isn't it annoying when you don't have access to the internet? It's hard to imagine life without it anymore! I'm glad you're back!

Glad you think Malcolm is kinda hot! Gertrude thinks so, too. (I don't know why this suddenly turned blue.) And, of course, the dragon-riding! Albus can be a little bit of a show-off, can't he? Siofre will turn up again in the next chapter for a bit, as well.

I hope you enjoy the next couple of chapters. When you've caught up, you can read all about Albus & Minerva's holiday in "A Holiday with the Headmaster," which I've posted here on TPP.

Thanks for reviewing!

Thank you. I'm glad you liked them!

Yes, RaM does have a carefully constructed plot, with details building on each other and continuing to be relevent as the story continues, and there's an overall story arc from the beginning to the end, which is one reason I made it one long fic rather than a series of sequels, since no part really would be a stand-alone story. So I'm glad that you've found the story so intriguing and gripping and are going back and rereading! :-)One of my favorite parts still is Part 8, the Gamp house party chapters, and although the ADMM romance still continues (through letters, introspection, etc.), the two aren't together for most of that section. But it was great fun to write and has a lot of important detail that we learn along with Minerva while she's there. It was also fun to write her interactions with the various guests -- it's neat to explore different facets of a character by the way they interact with different sorts of people, I think.I am very glad that you've enjoyed it so well! I think you'll also enjoy Death's Dominion when you read that (I'm hopeful that you will read it, anyway!), and perhaps even more, or in a different way, than you enjoyed RaM. (BTW, tiny bit of a mini "spoiler," don't be alarmed by the prologue! As Malcolm said after his "spree" with Albus, appearances can be deceiving! )Thanks again for all your reviews! They've cheered me up and also helped encourage me to pick up my writing again! I am very glad that my fic has given you so much pleasure!

Part 8 was highly enjoyable indeed, and I read it very attentively. As I said before, I am a very slow reader, concentration difficulties, so I tend to skip to speed it up, but in your book that is not working out (in so many other things I read, it is easy enough to follow the whole story, in spite of not having read it all, as so many things are cliché and you can quite well guess what has been written).  Reading your book, there is no use to try and guess, you must be informed to get it all :-) I'm very happy to know that you are writing again! Thank you!

Thanks!I'm glad that you do agree that it's "more than a romance," and in a positive sense. I think sometimes people who are looking for a simple ADMM romance are disappointed, or even frustrated, because the romance is just kind of the background for the story, and a unifying thread, but it's not the full substance of it. (I don't know if I could write pure romance for over 800 thousand words! What a frightening thought! Eeep! lol)I actually wrote quite a bit of a chapter last night, so I'm feeling good about that.Thanks again!

Ah, difficult, i would love to just now start reading your new things too, and the lemon stuff and about the holiday and Death's Dominion, like you mentioned above, but I have to tell to myself "Patience, my dear, patience"  Sigh, so frustrating. But let me tell you at least how absolutely breathtaking I found the scenes in Hogwart's Heart...the floating magic, the colours, the careful sharing of the magic, the blood, Minerva's vow, the congratulations not to forget of course...so I've reread it several times, to absorb it all. Made me happy! Take care!

I know that mantra of "patience, patience!" myself! :-) It'll be there when you get to it -- and RL does require some care, too! LOL!

Hey there! I'm very glad that you enjoyed it! It was a chapter I really sweated over, as you can imagine, getting the pacing and such right, and it turned out to be one of my favorite chapters of the fic. Having you take a minute to review it makes me smile! Thanks very much!

If you see a typo, I'd love to know, but not in a review -- you can just contact me via my author's page on TPP and I can go in and correct it. It's always amazing to me that no matter how many times my beta & I read a chapter, I still find typos months or years later if I go back and read part of the story to refresh my memory for something I'm currently writing. Sometimes I go in and fix it on TPP, sometimes I don't, depending on what sort of typo it is. :-)I'm very glad that you're enjoying the lemons. There are a range of lemons in this fic, and others that I write, so not all of them may be to your taste, but that's why I always mark a chapter if there explicit sexual content -- that way people can skim over any bits they don't find enjoyable. I do try to make all of my lemons about the two characters involved; I see love-making as a kind of communication between the characters and also as expressions of their personalities. I think that some of them work better than others, of course.Thanks very much for your review!

I'm very glad that you're enjoying it so well. Hope you're not missing important plot elements, but I'm glad you're enjoying the read so well! The poem was a bit repetitive, putting it here, too, I'm afraid, but since I was posting it serially, and a lot of readers were reading it over a long period of time and days and weeks in between updates, I thought it was okay to put it in twice. Thanks again for your review and letting me know how much the story means to you. I really appreciate it!

I know that it was a repetition, when it was first mentioned I had also attentively read it and found it so very touching, but imagining him reading it out loud there on the cliffs, making his words (your words :-)  ) so much more intense and a wonderful declaration of love...so no, in this particular case, it did not feel as repetitivePlease, i hope you can allow me to ask? There are quite a few references to Germany, Switzerland, German words etc, could you be from either of the two countries? And if so, are you also not a native speaker of English? I find myself still struggling with the language (as well as enjoying it!), living in London and speaking it over 20 years in our marriage does not change it.Do you also experience such frustration and how do you manage to write at this level? (IF you are not a native of course:-)) I know, hard to answer: a few words should suffice, if you even wish to say anything...

Nope, not from there, though I lived in Germany for a few years and am rather fond of the country. :-) However, I did have to read, write, and converse in German, including about such subjects as Kant's categorical imperative (!), so I'm well acquainted with the joys and frustrations of communicating in a second language. What was particularly weird for me was when I was learning German intensively, speaking only German with native German speakers, and found myself incapable of speaking English on the phone with my mother! LOL! That was also the stage at which I'd find myself with thoughts that I could not express in German, but I couldn't come up with them in English in order to try to translate them (rather than just automatically speaking them in German). That was very frustrating -- and enlightening! Although perhaps it may be true that without language to express an idea, the idea is ineffectual, ephemeral, and without substance, it is possible to have an idea with no words to express it!I'm glad you didn't find the repetition at all irksome. I worried about it at the time a bit, I remember, but decided that it suited the setting and that it was more effective to repeat it than merely to report that Albus read it to her.Thanks again for all your reviews!

I'm glad! I must warn you, however, that being a MMADfan can convolute your thinking and warp your sense of humor! *grin* I'm *very* glad you liked the chapter and his introduction to Minerva, though. The next chapter is in the queue; hopefully, it will be up in a day or two. (If you liked this chapter, you should *really* like Parts VI & VII -- I hope!) Thank you very much for your review!!!

Thanks so much! I do think that they have conversations about things other than radishes and rutabagas! (Just to recall the conversation that Albus and Merwyn had on their first meeting.)Schwyzerdütsch is very amusing and musical to listen to, and quite different from Hochdeutsch, certainly. I thought that Johannes would find that amusing. I write a lot of Serious Stuff in RL. Since RaM was the first fiction I wrote, I was rather surprised to see that I could do anything other than Serious Stuff. In fact, I still am! Thanks very much, Maria!

*grin* Minerva requests that you ask Sir Cadogan to mind his own business -- but if he can't do that, he should keep his eyes peeled and grill the house-elves, as well (they see all kinds of interesting things)! LOL

It will take them both a while to figure it all out. But if it didn't, there wouldn't be a story! 

I'm blushing here! And smiling!Thank you so much for your review! I'm very happy you're still enjoying it and finding the romance excruciating! lol! The longing does build!Thanks again!

Oh, one other thing I have to mention...from M's chat w/ Johannes and Siofre at lunch, the flame poem....I wouldn't have pictured M as having read obscure bits of Nietzsche (!!!), but it just shows what a well-rounded witch she is intellectually. Clearly her father's daughter. That's something that's conspicuously absent in HP canon--any sense that wizards spend any time learning about Muggle culture, the sorts of things most of us get in our liberal arts BAs. Aside from Arthur's interest in plugs, one gets the sense that the two worlds really are radically segregated. Much less so in RaM, and I like your take on it much better! Since wizards presumably have much more free time (no cooking, cleaning, etc. to do :-) I should hope they'd spend it in edifying pursuits, not just Quidditch matches!

I think that is probably one of the less obscure bits of Nietzsche, and certainly one of the easiest to remember (heck, my ability to quote sucks, but I remember it and only had to correct one word, lol). I actually do think that the two worlds are radically segregated in Britain and elsewhere (as is mentioned at times), and that Minerva and her family are quite unusual (Well, some members of her family. Morgan is thoroughly entrenched in his own little world, and although Merwyn is well-read, he is a complete fish-out-of-water in the Muggle world.) I see people who are bright and curious about things as being also curious about the Muggle world, and their interest expressing itself according to their temperaments. I think that Quin's observations are right on -- and btw, remember that it is his connections in the Muggle world that make him the target of the Ministry investigation. It just ain't normal! lol As for what they learn formally, most of it is nonsense -- remember Minerva's thoughts on her own Muggle Studies teacher when she was reflecting on James not being quite as much of a fool? And how many ordinary "Muggles" do you know -- and I don't mean academics, who are a peculiar bunch -- who spend much time in "edifying pursuits"? Magic folk are like the rest of the human race -- quite varied, and most of them not particularly interested in edification. It makes Hogwarts a kind of haven for those who may be more interested in such things.

Minerva is younger and has had an active sex life in the more recent past, though they are somewhat temperamentally different. But Albus has his own dominant side, for lack of a better way of putting it. He intentionally has allowed Minerva to take the lead on most occasions, which have been few so far, because he wants her to feel secure. Kind, but a bit misguided on his part . . .

I am glad you appreciate the symbolism and such in the Hogwarts Heart. If I didn't absolutely NEED my cup of coffee, I'd say more, but . . . my caffeine addiction is going at full-throttle right now, and the aroma is tantalizing me.

As for the ivy motif, that was just a case of the universe creating coincidences in Albus's life, little reminders at intervals that the other wand exists, nothing to do with Gertrude specifically. Besides, ivy is a common decorative motif, and when something has significance to you, you begin to see it everywhere. It is in the identical places for everyone else in the world, but without bearing the same meaning for them, and goes unnoticed by them.

And now I MUST have my COFFFEEEEEE! (Hey, I can drag & drop the emoticons, since they don't seem to want to respond to my mouse clicks anymore!)

Hope you got to your coffee in time! Far be it from me to stand between a woman and her caffeine fix! Merlin forbid! Not even expounding on the metaphysical meaning of Hogwarts Heart could justify that!

All points well taken, esp. about "intellectual curiousity, comma, lack thereof in most of world." I've been blessed to always move in circles where intellectual curiousity was prized, and its absence is a total deal-killer for me, especially in any kind of friendship or romantic relationship. I could give Merwyn and Albus a run for their money in books-per-cubic-inch-of-living-space....oh for some good shrinking charms!

Once Minerva takes the initiative to start a sexual encounter Albus does let his more dominant side show, you're right--he can be very physical sometimes, if always considerate. Hopefully he'll soon get over his whole "I want her to feel secure so I'd best always let her take the lead" thing!

I'm glad you enjoyed the knight's tale! And the entire story! Thank you!

I'm glad you're enjoying the ride! :-)The Gamp house party chapters were fun to write, and they have lots of stuff in them that becomes really important later on in chapters that are more directly ADMM-ish. But I'm glad you're having fun spending this time with Minerva, following her around as she navigates pureblood society. lol!I hope your family doesn't entire waste away while you're reading, though! Thanks for the review! Very happy to hear you're still enjoying the story!

Thanks! I'm glad you liked the Knight's tale, and Albus's reward to Minerva!

I am glad that you enjoyed it! His story is, as you say, circular, and helps to bring RaM full-circle, as well!

And as to their identities . . . you will need to continue wondering! ;-) (For some reason, I can't get the emoticons to insert lately. Must be firefox acting up.)

Thanks!

Yes, he's generally fairly circumspect about how much he shows and when, but this was a good opportunity for him to exercise a bit.

As far as the other exercise from the previous day, fortunately he is feeling quite well now, with no lasting difficulties! ;)

Glad you liked it!

He would never even dream of not being traditional when wearing a kilt. He's no sissy. He was a bit . . . sore, but he would have been anyway. No real man wears anything under his kilt! Especially if it's not below freezing! LOL (And he wouldn't have a clue what "commando" referred to -- he'd think it had something to do with some peculiar Muggle orders. haha!)

I'm glad you enjoyed the duel! ;-) I found it more difficult to write than the lemons. I suppose because I've never been in a magical duel . . .

Thanks very much!

Very handy, that -- and reassuring to know he's not likely to blunder it! ;)

Very handy, that -- and reassuring to know he's not likely to blunder it! ;)

Thank you,

!

Thanks!

There are a few more chapters to come.

I'm glad you enjoyed Malcolm & Gertrude together!

I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter -- and Malcolm! I'm especially pleased that the duel scene worked.

Thanks for reviewing!