Hi Lovisa,

I've been meaning to read this for a while... both because I enjoyed your Snape one-shot (was it called "Education"?) and because Alex nominated this for the Dark/Angsty QSQ.

It's a great start to a story and very unique - I don't think I've read a teenage Barty Crouch before. I loved how you created the family dynamics between him and his parents as well as all the extended family/aquaintances. It's interesting because Barty Crouch Sr is so anit-dark arts, and yet seems to be pro-pureblood, whilst we usually assosciate the two. I loved the line They say shy people make great actors. I would know. because it just highlights what you'd already shown. There's great contrast in this fic between what Barty thinks and what he does/says. I think first person is ideal for this story, as you can really highlight that contrast.

I liked the idea that Barty isn't in Slytherin as well. It really suits your characterisation of him. He also struck me as an observer, so it made perfect sense that he sat in the library watching people. Interesting that he's fascinated by seeing the difference between how people act publicly and privately. Also, it's a great narrative tool to have an observant narrator, because you showed a lot of Avery, Mulciber, Severus and Regulus' characters in this, which was interesting too.

I'm quite interested in Miranda and I hope she has future appearances. This line - It was not suitable. just perfectly shows how Barty's been brought up.

Anyway, I'll leave this review here. This is a great start, and I have to say it's incredibly impressive that English isn't your first language as well... I certainly wouldn't be able to tell from your writing.

~Katrina

Author's Response: Hello :) A huge thank you for this review; that you actually took the time to write this long review makes me so happy, so thank you, really. Yes, the Snape one-shot is called Education, glad you remember it! When I read GOF the first time all those years ago I was really touched by the Crouch family. It was all so tragic and since then I've had this backstory in my head about them... Then I realised that Barty and Regulus must have known each other as they're both roughly the same age and turned out to be DEs. Regulus from the very pro-Voldemort family who eventually changed his mind and Barty, whose father seemed to be sort of the leader for the Ministry's resistance who turned out to be a devoted follower of Voldemort's... I'm glad you liked my characterization of Barty. I thought perhaps he's too likable or at least too weak but I really think he would have been an observer. How else could he impersonate Moody so well that he even fooled Dumbledore? Anyway, don't know what to write other than THANK YOU, because it's so amazing to get this kind of a review. I hope you'll keep reading.

Initially when I was reading this fic, I thought your Barty was a more interesting character than your Regulus... but I think I'm beginning to change my mind. Often in fanfiction, Regulus is written as a bit of a wimp - the opposite of Sirius - who takes ages to realise what Voldemort is really upto, and I think your Regulus is so much more believable. He's extremely intelligent and knows how to manipulate people - except Bella, who's probably the queen of manipulators - and good at hiding his feelings, and yet there's a side of him which is clearly fed up with the superficiality of Pureblood society and which longs to be a rebel like Sirius.

The idea of Regulus tasting Bellatrix's blood in his mouth and remembering it was a very powerful image which really stuck in my head, as was the way you used fire in this chapter.

I felt like he replaced something I had lost, but I couldn’t really put the finger on what. I loved this line, because it connected back to the end of the last chapter, when Reg describes to Barty what having a brother is like, and Barty sees Reg as a sort of brother.

I'm not sure if you've realised... this comes up as chapter 9, but there's no chapter 8, which confused me initially... I'm not sure why that's happened. Also, I was wondering, how long is this fic going to be?

I think it's very interesting the way you alternate between the two boys' perspectives and show us how they both see the world and each other. This is a great fic and I can't wait til you update!

~Katrina

Author's Response: That's interesting, because my original idea was to tell Barty's story "with help" from Regulus but the more I wrote the more I started to like Regulus. Sometimes I think I've made Barty too much of a wimp but he will toughen up... Thank you for the compliments about Regulus! I do think he understands SOME things better than Sirius like Barty said but he's not as smart as he thinks. I'm really glad you "got" the brotherhood relationship between them because I was really not sure whether that was really vague or too obvious. The story will be about 25 chapters (but I', constantly expanding so I'm not sure... This was originally meant to be a one-shot..) Thank you so much for reading and reviewing! I'll try to update as soon as possible.

I really liked this fic - you did such a good job of getting inside Ron's head. I think what made this fic great was how you explored what Harry meant to Ron specifically - not who he meant to the wizarding world, or to Ginny or Hermione or his children, but to Ron, his first friend.

I’ve never really thought he was a hero, not after I met him. - I loved this line, because I think it's so true. It would be so easy to think Harry - saviour of the wizarding world, but Ron thinks Harry - my best friend. I liked how Ron went through the process of finding something - moving from Harry's achievements, to what Harry enjoyed, to what Harry really meant. (I almost cried at "An Honorary Weasley".)

You really showed Ron's devastation about losing Harry through simple things, like the lines Who will I beat at Wizard’s chess? Who’ll play Quidditch with me and all of the kids on weekends?.

Your story showed grief and loss, and yet the celebration of someone's life so effectively.

Just one thing - you may (or may not) have made a canon error - you refer to James and Lily and "young Albus" - Albus is actually two years older than Lily.

Anyway, I apologise for rambling so much here.

~Katrina

Author's Response: I'm so glad you enjoyed reading this, the plot bunny appeared whilst I was in bed one night, and forced me up at gunpoint to write it. Long story short, I spent the early hours of the morn googling epitaphs and writing this. Thanks for pointing out the canon error regarding Lily and Albus, it's now been changed around. I suppose that James and Lily, and Albus seems to work better in my mind due to reading copious amounts of Marauder-Era fics. Thanks for reviewing this, it means a lot to feel appreciated :)

Hi Natalie,

Well I was expecting something morbid/mildly disturbing (after all, what about Tom Riddle isn't disturbing?) but this was a whole new level of disturbing... in a good way (haha, is that even possible?) Your characterisation of Tom is just perfect. The idea that he tried to be friends with some of the children is fascinating, and you showed those instances really well. It shows that at some point, there was at least a little bit of humanity in Tom Riddle.

They couldn’t, for instance, raise their fingers, touch the cold, merciless mirror in their room, and make it melt. But he could – and he was doing the exact thing. The fingers of his left hand were pressed upon the screen, creating a small ripple that disturbed the smooth glass so that his own reflection blurred. It lasted only for a few seconds, but that wasn’t important. What mattered was the fact that he could do something, which no one else would ever imagine of trying.

He smiled – and somewhere in the disturbed outline of flesh and clothes, he could detect the same smile forming. (Sorry for quoting all that back at you...) I think this part is fabulous. The idea of using a mirror works really well, and I loved the bit about him looking in the "disturbed" mirror and seeing his smile - it was a beautiful metaphor for the madness in his own mind.

Your writing is perfect here - very chilling. Tom's voice (as in the tone you used when writing) was perfectly detached and unemotional when he killed the rabbit.

One little nitpick - which no one else would ever imagine of trying. - the "of" is unnecessary here.

Anyway, as usual, beautiful writing, though this one was definitely on the chilling/creepy/disturbing side of things.

~Katrina

Author's Response: First of all, thank you for pointing out that error. I have edited the story accordingly. Secondly, thank you for reading and reviewing! It's nice to know that you found the tone of the writing suitable for Tom Riddle. The mirror also seemed a good choice because he is already changing, yet his true nature is coming out. The blurring reflection was a vivid image in my mind, and I actually pictured the whole thing happening as I wrote it.

Firstly, I loved the AVPS song! As I was reading the chapter it reminded me of that song so I smiled when I saw you actually based it on that. (I've also written a story based on one of those songs - "Not Alone" from AVPM. They're good writing material. Anyway... back to the review.)

I like the way you've set up the characters here, particularly the friendship between Lily, Marlene and Marauders. I liked Lily's friendship with Sirius, because a lot of people seem to write them hating each other because Sirius has some sort of complex about James or something... and I think the way you've written it is more likely.

I quite liked your Severus. He seemed a tad dramatic at times, but then that's not entirely unbelievable, because the man we see in canon is obviously a long way from the teenager he was. You've set up this interesting contradiction in his character - he doesn't want Lily to be ruined, and yet essentially he is ruining his own life (in moral terms anyway).

I don't want you to take this the wrong way, because this is certainly an enjoyable story, but there are a few James/Lily cliches in it. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, anyway. I noticed it particularly with Spencer - he seems like the perfect boyfriend, but I suspect he has a secret or something to that effect. Anyway, as I said, cliches don't necessarily worsen a story - and with James/Lily it must be hard to write something original because there's so much of it.

I like how you include Peter and how you don't make him out to be the stupid tagalong, because that really annoys me. Obviously the Marauders trusted him implicitly.

I also think you integrate the war quite well without it becoming their lives as it presumably will when they leave school. You've written it so it's never far from the reader's mind, but it doesn't take over the story. Which really suits this.

Anyway, I have very much enjoyed reading this, I hope you don't think my review is negative, because that's not my intention.

~Katrina

Author's Response: Yay! Another AVPM/S Fan! Haha. "Guys Like Potter" saved the chapter because I was having a hard time trying to figure out how to write in Snape here but the song played on my itunes and it was like a light bulb was switched on. Is you story called "Not Alone"? I love that song! And I'm glad you like the friendships, and I agree, I hate it when people make Sirius and Lily hate each other. In Deathly Hallows it seems Lily it was Lily who would write all the letters fer her and James and it was not just James who trusted Sirius enough to want him as Secret-Keeper. If Lily didn't like Sirius, I doubt she and James would have wanted him in the first place. I'm SO glad you caught my contradiction! I love you for that. That chapter was the turning point for Severus. Without Lily he could care less about his own life, Lily was the only person at Hogwarts who was a true friend to him, so he joins the Death Eaters to try to feel like he belongs somewhere, and if he's on the inside Severus feels like maybe he can protect Lily, which is something he did in fact take to his advantage and try to do. And, I don't mind any sort of criticism! Alas, some cliches are hard to avoid, but the thing with Spencer was very much intentional. Spencer is one of the few people in this that I wrote with a specific person in mind (he is based of an ex-boyfriend of my friend's.) One other character that I created with a very specific person in mind is Pippa, who will pop up later. I love that you love Peter, thank you! I always pictured Peter as sort of a Neville type, probably because that is how Harry pictured him in PoA, only Peter is not even half the man Neville turns out being. I think this is my favorite review! Thank you so much for reading!

This was a really interesting story. I really loved how you explored the relationships between the Marauders without explicitly saying that they were falling apart.

I thought your characterisations were great. Firstly, James: I thought it was typical of him to put Galleons in Remus' account. I think this fic is an interesting exploration of him coming to distrust Remus, despite not wanting to, and that works really well, as he is someone who really values loyalty and friendship. Sirius was depicted well, too. To me it seemed like he was trying to hold everyone together in this fic, which is in character as his friends are his family. The dialogue between James and Sirius near the beginning worked well; it showed that they were comfortable together, yet also gave the indication that they bicker more and have less fun than before. (I hope that makes sense.)

I was a tiny bit confused - when James is looking at Lily's initials and talks to Peter, is that in his imagination? As in, he's remembering Remus and Lily at the tree and then he imagines a conversation with Peter? That's what I understood, anyway, and it seems that James is suffering from fever and hallucinations... is it to do with blood loss?

Your writing was excellent. I loved the imagery and you use dialogue very effectively, and particularly when Sirius and James are talking near the beginning, the dialogue also tells the action, as in what the characters are doing, which is really hard to do and works really well.

So I really loved this story, your writing is just so wonderful and you've really mastered the art of showing, not telling. Fantastic :)

~Katrina

Author's Response:
All the reviews you leave for the stories on MNFF are so very encouraging and lovely. So thank you for this one. What makes this special is that I was expecting at least two highly confused reviewers before someone who really understood the story for what I'd tried to do with it. You saved me, my friend.

You got that right about James and Remus. I think this was a very tough time for James. This is August of 1981 and incidentally after the event of this full moon I see this as becoming the last time James accompanies Remus for the transformation. James values loyalty and that's why for him to come to that conclusion, to withdraw from his friends especially Remus was so hard and breaking. Your comment about Sirius and James bickering more often makes perfect sense. In my imagination I see that when they'd have first found out about Remus, it would be James who took it without fear and Sirius would somehow take a quiet debate with himself to overcome the prejudice that were harboured in his family. But as it happens later in the years, James cracks first. His fear that Remus might be betraying him translates to Moony also, so that James vaguely, reluctantly thinks that Remus is dangerous when he'd transformed.

What you mention about your confusion is actually exactly the way I meant it to be. I couldn't have put my whole idea in words better than you did. In addition to the fever and hallucinations, he's also claustrophobic which is why he's struggling with breathing throughout.

I wrote the setting after having staring for long minutes at photographs of forests in order to transport myself and James there so we could get a feel of it. That seems to have paid off. Dialogue is usually never my forte, but I was experimenting here and for that reason, I eliminated most dialogue tags in order to focus on the content of the speech and let it do most of the talking.

I'm very glad you liked this, Katrina
Akay

Hi Jess,

Firstly, congrats on your 50th fic!! That's pretty impressive for something like two years of writing.

Anyway, great fic. This was really well written and very realistic. I thought your characterisations of everyone were great, particularly Padma and Michael. I guess this story has things in it that we'd rather no think about, but happen anyway.

Your writing really impressed me, you have such an ability to show human emotions, particularly pain, and yet somehow show hope as well. Lisa's death worked really well as a backdrop, and it made me curious too about why she was in a coma.

The scene outside her hospital room, with Anthony, Michael, Padma and Terry at the end was perfectly tense and it really showed how friendships can be torn apart (after all, in canon, Michael, Terry and Anthony seem fairly close). I especially loved that part.

Although I have to admit, I thought the idea of Ron being at Lisa's deathbed was a little unlikely... surely there were a lot of people who knew Lisa better than him?

Anyway, loved the story. Oh yeah, one more thing, I loved references to the Battle, like "his battle-scarred face austere". I imagine for these people that the Battle remains a constant backdrop to their lives, and I think that worked really well.

~Katrina

Author's Response:

What I wanted from this story was to tell a tale of people who might not have had the picture perfect Epilogue that the series' main characters did. I know Harry and friends had their fair share of trials, and I've written about them quite a bit, but our Ravenclaw friends go ignored so often. Also, not everyone has the strong moral compass that the usual protagonists have. For instance, Michael was overwrought by job stress and just being damaged by what he'd seen in the Battle and even a few of the things he'd done. How all that happened will end up being another story altogether, but the short of it was that Lisa was cursed in the Battle. She hadn't wanted to stay behind for the fight, but her friends who had been in the DA told her that it was the right thing to do. In the end, she was the one who had died for it. That's why they were all so screwed up.

And about Ron... I need to fix that part. Originally, I had more DA members there, but the paragraph got long and rambly, so I cut it. He is there with Hermione, who would've felt obligated to come, and Ron would've come with her. However, Padma would've noticed Ron's presence before Hermione's due to the date disaster. I need to add a couple more sentences explaining that, so thanks for pointing that out.

So, I'm glad you enjoyed the story, and thank you as always for reviewing. :D

~Jess

Generally I think this was a good story. Your characterisation of Hermione was good - I think she would be ashamed of her scars and it would be hard for her to move past them. I wonder if perhaps you could have included a bit of how mentally she was coping? As in, something like mentioning how it's painful to remember or something like that. Anyway, that's not important. You pick up on a good point that we often forget what the rest of the characters went through while the trio were off Horcrux hunting. Personally I suspect that Ginny would have a fair few scars too from her 6th year at Hogwarts.

I liked the interaction between Hermione and Luna. I think in canon they're sort of opposites, in the way that Hermione requires everything to be logical and to be proved and Luna will accept anything, so I thought it was nice to tie them in together. I really liked your perspective, that people being tortured was a distraction from killing other people. I think that's very fitting, especially for these characters, as they both sacrificed so much for others.

To me this line Hermione, in her self-centered greif, didn't remember that she was not the only one ever to suffer. didn't quite fir the tone of this piece, as mostly you were writing from inside Hermione's head, and this is very definitely a comment from an omniscient narrator. I also think it's self-evident from your previous sentences. (Also, it's grief not greif.)

Another nitpick - when writing dialogue, if you start a new paragraph you should put a quotation mark at the start of it, even if it's a continuation from the previous paragraph.

I wondered about how Luna laughs at Hermione's outburst - I can't really see that. I think it would be more in character if she were to smile serenely in her sort of way... but laughing didn't seem right.

The door clicked, and Hermione turned away from Ginny’s mirror. She didn’t need to see her face. I really liked this sentence, it worked really well as an idea for the story.

The scene at the end with Ron was well-written too, especially the last line, although I wonder if putting this in Ron/Hermione category is really the right place? After all, to me it's not really a romance between them... yes I know it's set on their wedding day, but the focus is more about moving on after the war. Perhaps Post-Hogwarts would be a better category.

Anyway... sorry I have gone on rather a lot in this review, I think this is a great story, particularly for your first fic :).

~Katrina

Author's Response: Don't be sorry, I really appreciate the constructive critizism. Thanks especially for the spelling help. (I need way more help than a pointer). I wrote almost the whole thing in Word, and only added grief as a second thought when submitting. The line about Hermione from an omniscient narrator, I actually was trying to write it in third Person, and it's not supposed to be 'in her head', it's more supposed to be from an omniscent narrator. Apparently that didn't work out so well.... I do think, however, that the story does belong in Ron/Hermione, because the whole time she's worrying about what Ron will think when he sees her scars, she's afraid he'll dump her. About Ginny having scars, I do think she would have scars, but Hogwarts had Madam Pomfrey, and I think Madam Pomfrey would have fixed her up. About Luna's laughing tendency, I think that she could have smiled, or she could have laughed. She almost died laughing about Goyle looking like a 'baboon's backside'. However, I know that Hermione and Luna's relationship is touchy at best, and I had Luna laugh because I wanted the readers to remember that they are very different. In other words, I knew it wouldn't be Hermione upset without some screaming. I didn't even notice I made a dialouge mistake, (oops!) because dialouge is not my thing. I can't write dialouge that well, because I don't know the other characters beside my main one that well. Sorry if I make any more dialouge mistakes, because apparently it wasn't so atrocoius that the mod wouldn't submit it. Thanks for all your nitpicks though, I'm kinda new to writing fanfiction. Thanks for what you thought of it, and don't worry, I have way too many stories coming soon....

I think this is an interesting idea for a story. I'm rather inclined to agree with you that Lily had feelings for Severus, (as in more than friendship), but her own beliefs became too important for her. Your descriptions of emotion and character were very good, I thought you really portrayed Lily, Sev and the Marauders well. It was nice to see a fic focussing on Lily and not James for once, although I noticed the hints of their future relationship.

As Carole pointed out in her review below, I think you have a timing issue here - JKR never explicitly states that Sev hadn't called Lily a Mudblood before the incident at the lake after the DADA OWL, but given Lily's reaction and the way she ends her friendship with Snape after that event, I don't think it likely. Perhaps you could set this in their sixth year, so they'd both be 17, and it would be nearly a year since they'd stopped being friends, but Lily still had lingering feelings?

The last line of this fic is just brilliant. It was just so poignant and well-written - not overdone, just a simple finishing line. Perfect way for this to end.

Some of Sev's dialogue didn't sound natural to me... like the line "Sorry. I know it's creepy." It just sounds a little too... obviously nervous or something for him. Personally I don't think he ever really let his guard down, even with Lily. I think it would have worked better just to leave it at "I followed you." I suppose that's just my opinion though.

Anyway, I hope you don't find this review too negative or anything... that's totally not the point, I really did enjoy your insight into Lily's mind. (I loved the idea about the prank - or lack thereof - too. Very clever.)

~Katrina

Author's Response: Ahaha, yes. I did debate that line, and honestly I don't have a very good reason as to why I kept it in, except for the fact that "I followed you" did in fact sound massively creepy. Thank you so much for the review!

Hi Carole,

I thought this was a really sweet fic, particularly as we as the reader know what happens to them. I loved the idea of mixing traditions with a modern world... as in they sort of followed the traditions, but already after they were married and she pregnant.

There's something bittersweet about it. Sweet, because it's nice to know that they had some opportunity to enjoy each other, particularly Remus as he'd lived such a hard life, but bitter because such good people deserve so much more...

Your characterisations were great, particularly of Andromeda. I really liked how she fitted in. I loved Remus' (hence your) creativity in following the steps too, it really fit his character.

So all in all, loved this fic :)

~Katrina

Author's Response: Thank you, Katrina. I also hate the fact that Remus and Tonks had so little time as a couple so I try and write some good times for them. Thank you for your compliments on the characterisation because these are characters I love writing and am very fond of, so it's good to know that someone shares my view. ~Carole~