A Young Wizard's Journey - Rising Phoenix

Afterword

And here we are... the end

7 books, 127 chapters. (one more coming up) and 1,066,700 words. Dear lord. I can't even think about what I should say.

This story feels like it's been so much of my life, when I began uploading it I had minimal confidence in my writing, I simply wanted to share my own twist on this. The other fanfics I've read did things I didn't like or did things that confused me. I felt like I could make a nice funny story that had its serious moments and had a few nice scenes planned out in my head

And now... I can't even speak. My confidence in my writing has increased, I'm still not confident in it, but I'm at least proud of it. The warmth and love you've all shown this story has and will continue to mean so much to me. And I'm glad you all enjoyed my twist and my changes to this story.

I really don't have words apart from thank you. Thank you for sharing this story with me, for encouraging me and sharing your opinions on it, for appreciating what I do and being here for it, especially some of you who have been here longer than I can remember.

There are so many usernames I see commenting or appearing and I genuinely get excited to see your names, to know that you're back and here for the next part! I really cannot believe what has happened to all of this.

But I do need to address the elephant, and it might be quite bitter-sweet. I've had lots of questions asking what's next, where am I going next and so on. The answer is, at least for now, I'm not.

I have two other major stories one my radar that I want to work on. One is a completely original world of my own with unique characters based around a Zombie Apocalypse with a twist
The other, is a Star Wars based story with a gender-neutral reader character based on the Clone Wars period

They have 4 chapters and 6 chapters written respectively; they are not ready. I don't want to start uploading and immediately have to stop. Especially if I lose my inspiration and need to put them on hiatus. I'm not prepared to bring you all half-finished or half-baked stories. That's not who I am. If something gets uploaded, I want it to be completed.

So, whilst this is goodbye for now, it's probably not forever, and it's definitely not yet.

Next week, shall bring you the AU chapter for Malfoy Manor

The week after shall bring the intro and first book chapters for the retrospective. But the retrospective probably won't be weekly. I'll try and do every two weeks or once a month, but it won't be weekly again I'm afraid. They take a long time to write because I want to talk about so much.

And for those of you asking if I can do a Percy Jackson story, I'm sorry, the answer is no. I'm not a fan of the world myself and I'm not prepared to watch films and read books just to write a story, I don't like it. I wouldn't have the passion for it the same way I did with this story when it began. It wouldn't feel like me, it would just feel like pandering to me, I wouldn't have my heart in it, and it wouldn't be what you wanted.

Pretty sure I'm done with Harry Potter though now, I've done my part, JKR's writing upset me. Not touching these stories again bar to tidy and clean them up a bit.

But all that aside, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. For letting my story be your comfort story, for letting it help and shape you, be a consistent friend on a Friday evening (when I uploaded) and for just losing yourself into the world I've created. It means so so much and I can't get over how many of you arrived, read, enjoyed and shared in this story.

Not gonna properly say goodbye yet, for those of you who stick around, you'll see me again in the retrospective. And I'll still be in the comments, answering emails, responding to you all as much as I can. But for Y/N, and his story. It is goodbye.

Thank you all, love yourselves, be kind to yourselves, keep your head up, and be the best damn wizard/witch/magical folk you can be!

-ArcanicScrolls