A most excellent final chapter and a most honest one (it's not all fluff, there's considerable honest pain but it's honestly dealt with - methinks Hermione will be comforting Harry for a while as he comes to terms with all that's happened).
I'm glad you were able to finally post this (I'd wondered what happened to you) and the struggle over getting internet access at the library sounds rather familiar from other locales). My sympathies regarding the job (I lost mine in February but managed to find another, back home in Texas, by mid-April) and I quite understand your very proper sense of priorities (I've been laid off way too many times in my career). If you've got web access and your resume on a disk, I know my present employer, Bell Helicopter, is in a hiring mode of sorts and their jobs website can be accessed on line, though it's not the easiest (or at least wasn't earlier this year) to navigate through. If there's anything I can do to help with job search or as a reference, I'd be glad to help.
Enough others have already commented on "Can't Have it Both Ways" that I shan't, save to say that I can understand your confusion, both are excellent writers.
Thank you for a most enjoyable story and I look forward to your next one.
Author's response
Heya Cat!
A great deal of the feeling comes from experience. As I told Zamia, I’ve had to bury far too many friends. There will be a revisiting of a sort , of the feelings involved, especially as it concerns one Susan Bones. There are others in her situation, but since I chose to highlight her response to killing in chapter 31, I should finish her part of the story.
Library and stupidity. (Le Sigh!) I always thought libraries where one went to gain knowledge, not hide from it. It took seven years of politics and infighting to get the new library build and the single most vocal opposition was the religious groups claiming ‘Internet Porn!’
While I appreciate the tip, I cannot move from here. I have my family’s home to look after. If we leave, the state would be more than happy to glom onto it. With nobody to maintain it, they could claim it abandoned and condemn it…a house that has stood here for more than ninety years, and has seen six generations of my family.
Also, while my experiences as an aircraft electrician and helicopter simulator operator/maintenance tech, might be a good in, I don’t have an A&P license.
Don’t worry. I’ll work it out.
‘Can’t have it both ways’. Yeah, got it.
Alorkin