Lara I.

Is a wand used to apparate?

12 Grimauld place is under the Fidelus Charm... does this mean that only a wizard who has been told it's location by the spell's caster can find it? (I think it does) If so, does that mean that, since Dumbledor is dead, no one new can ever find the place?

Avada Kedavra doesn't work on Harry at all, ever, or it just doesn't work if it's cast by Voldemort, or it just didn't work that one time when his mother protected him?

Harry wants to be an Auror when he grows up. What do Ron and Hermione want to be?

If Harry's mother is muggle-born, does that make Harry a half-blood, or is a half-blood only when one parent is a muggle and one is a wizard?

I bet you Dumbledor can see through a glamour just like he can see through an invisibility cloak. Mad Eye Moody probably can too. Can Voldemort?

How the hell does one make a Portkey, anyway? And can a Portkey circumvent the Fidelus Charm? Like, can someone who hasn't been told the location by Dumbledor be Portkeyed into 12 Grimauld Place, or should I just give up on this?

Did Sirius die because he fell into the Veil, or did he die and then fall into the Veil?

I did. I really did. I spent all day writing away at a piece of Harry Potter fanfiction... what is the world coming to?

Well, whatever, at least I'm doing something I like, right, even if it isn't worthwhile.

I miss my other house. I don't feel very attached to this one.

Right right right right right.

So. I was cruising Amazon looking for books I want to read. Came across City of Bones. Thought, yeah, that's something I'd like! My opinion of it, from the description, was that it was probably better than Twilight (which I didn't like and couldn't finish - I prefer my vampires a little more Anne Rice, thanks). I like YA fiction and I like modern fantasy, and it seemed to have a lot of elements I'm drawn to.

Then, of course, I noticed who wrote it. Cassandra Clare, who is Cassandra Claire on the internet. Now, I know who she is cause I follow internet drama like it's my job or something. I love Harry Potter but I loved Harry Potter more several years ago, before the series ended. I didn't read much Harry Potter fanfiction, just a lot of fan-made theories about how the series was going to end. But I still knew who Cassie Claire was and that there was a huge drama about her plagiarizing her work from other novels and TV series. So I was disgusted with her, and never read her fics, and probably wouldn't have read them anyway.

Well then, I got really curious. So, it took me several nights of reading, but I did read through her massive trilogy of novel-length fics. AndIreallylikedthem.

I did. I'll admit it. And... I get that she might not have been everyone's favorite person (although she had a lot of fans) but... I don't really see her work as plagiarized. She used quotes from TV shows a lot, which I've read in other fanfics before and thought was funny, like a friendly little wave to other fandoms, or whatever. Sometimes I think she over-quoted, as in, the quotes were so over done it took her characters a little... out of character. But I don't really see that as plagiarism. Maybe lazy, or maybe just resourceful. She probably wanted to have a witty character and isn't that creative, and so threw in a bunch of quotes.

Other than that, though, her writing is really good. All the twists and all the characters and all the fantasy elements and everything went together really well and it really was like reading a real novel. I enjoyed it. It was a really good read and a really, really interesting look at how the actual series didn't go. CC doesn't really write like JK, but she included enough elements of the original series that it wasn't glaring. Ok, so, she wrote much more purple than JK, but it's fanfic, and that's what fanfic writers do, pretty much. Goblet of Fire is my favorite HP book and the end of GOF is where CC started her fic.

And I have to say... I didn't like the way Deathly Hallows ended. I thought the epilogue was total crap and I was disgusted by it... to nice and neat and perfect and I was like whyyyyyyyyy would anyone do that to a perfectly wonderful series? In CC's universe... in the end, after evil was destroyed, the characters all went off to discover their own lives without a villian to fight. It was really quite poetic. I'm not saying CC is better than JK. I'm just saying that perhaps she made one better choice in writing. That's all. And that I enjoyed her three "alternate" books.

But now... I still don't know if I want to read City of Bones. I hear she lifted entire parts of her HP fic and incorporated them in her novel. I dunno... I can even see why she would do that, I mean, if it was really good writing, why not use it where it can actually be shared beyond the internet? But then again, why not just write something new? On one hand, I don't really understand why she used her HP pen name to publish her book. Why, if she's really serious about being a fantasy writer, would she be okay with associating herself with a fanfic writer? I'm pretty sure other published authors write fanfic, under a different name, and the two identities are never connected and no one is the wiser. After all, fanfic is just for fun, isn't it? But I guess it's because she caused such a stir with all her plagiarism drama that her name became well known, and that's how she got published in the first place - cause she already had a fan base.

I dunno. They say Picasso's friends never let him in their studios, cause he would see what they were doing and then do it better. Is that plagiarism?

I wanna read City of Bones kinda like how you see something really awful, like roadkill or something, and you know it's gonna be disgusting, but you check it out anyway... I LIKED her fanfic. But I'm afraid her published novel is gonna be like her fanfic re-written as something original. That's kinda like roadkill... right?