How can you show a character going through so many emotions in less than 1000 words? You have such a wonderful grasp of Sirius' character, and what James and Lily really meant to him. I loved the line I cannot fail my friend in this one last duty, when I have failed him in all else. I think that's just so Sirius.

I loved the few one-line paragraphs you used - they really stand out and amongst all the other paragraphs it's very effective. I also liked that you didn't write any of the dialogue - even though obviously Sirius and Hagrid actually would talk, the way you wrote it sort of showed Sirius' numbness and attempt to put everything together in his mind.

Excellent story, Gina!
~Katrina

Author's Response: Thanks so much, Katrina. You know, it never occurred to me to write dialogue. I don't know why, it just didn't. It just wouldn't fit the style I set out with when I first drabbled this piece. I'm glad you liked the one-line paragraphs, sometimes those can be as obstructive as they are meaningful. I really appreciate your lovely review. Thank you so much for reading this story! ~Gina :)

This was a well-written story, and each of the characters came across really well, which is difficult considering how short each section was. I'll go through and write a bit about each part now.

James/Lily: Your James was just ridiculously adorable! I liked how you had Lily noticing the change in him, and how that culminated with him calling her by her first name. It was a really sweet section and a great opening for this story.

Luna/Anthony: For most of this section, I thought you really nailed Luna, and she's a difficult character to write without her being entirely spacey or too normal.
The girls looked at each other and giggled nervously. Luna waited patiently for them to tell her what was so funny. She loved laughing, she was always much happier when she was laughing than when she wasn't. But it didn't work simply to laugh to try to be happier. She had tried it. Laughing without something to laugh about wasn't quite the same. This was a great paragraph, and it felt really IC for Luna - I also loved the line about it being terrible when someone forgets your birthday.

I have to say, I found her reaction to Anthony helping her was a little bit over the top, or something. I don't think Luna would really think that they'd be friends just after him helping her... although I suppose she would get helped so rarely. I don't know, that bit just didn't quite sit right with me. It was great that he called her by her real name though.

Remus/Tonks: A drunk Remus, nice one! Tonks is an interesting character to pick in a story about names. I liked the way you ended with him calling her Dora. It provided a nice explanation for why he does in canon, when everyone else (except her Dad I think) calls her Tonks. It was also rather amusing to see him drunk.

George: This part was interesting, because most of this story is quite humorous and light-hearted, and this part was just heart-wrenching. You really captured his pain and his loneliness and this was just such a great characterisation of George in such a short section.

At times, he wished he could, but all it took was a look in the mirror. That line was just so sad and really showed what it's like to be George after Fred's death.

Harry/Molly: (That looks weird lol but it's not meant as a pairing...) I've always found it strange that Harry still calls her Mrs Weasley, even when he's practically an adult and has stayed with them so often, so I enjoyed you showing the first time he calls her Molly, and I loved the idea that she would walk down the aisle with him. This whole scene was heart-warming but also funny - particularly Ron's reaction about Ginny already being pregnant. You got the trio really well in character.

Hannah/Neville: You have a knack of making the guys in this story absolutely adorable... actually Hannah was pretty adorable in this part too. It was a really well-written part and just really cute.

James: This one really made me smile, I particularly liked how you incorporated quotes relating to Harry and James in canon. It worked very nicely. Your James junior was really how I imagine Harry's Dad to have been at that age. Anyway, this was a lovely scene, Albus and Severus were also really in character. I smiled at the chocolate frog cards thing.

Anyway, this was a great read and a really well-written story.

~Katrina

Author's Response: Thank you for the fabulous review! Yes, I didn't want the entire thing to end up in a pairings sort of thing, and I wanted to get a different mood in each section which is why I included the George one. Luna's was the hardest to write, I see what you're saying about her over-reacting, I kind of thought it out beforehand that she was maybe in her second year but that doesn't really work if Anthony's a prefect. Ah, well. Thanks so much for reading and reviewing!

I've read this story twice now, and I still find it a little hard to have a handle on it... in a good way, because your writing is so lush and rich, and I think I could read this several more times and pick up more details in each one.

I'm generally not much of a Harry/Hermione fan, I don't think that it's really likely based on their characters and their relationship in canon, but I found this very believable, because I think at this moment, Harry really needs a girl who understands, and Hermione can provide that, if only a little bit.

I liked that he was in a broom cupboard, because it was somehow cyclical and brought me back to the eleven-year-old boy we first meet in PS.

Your wealth of detail and description in this is really wonderful, and at no point does it take over from the characters or feel long and boring. For example, this opening paragraph - The even tock, tock, tock grows louder, and then stops. My toes scrunch around the seam of my socks, and my shoulders draw up tight as I watch the slow twisting of the knob. My eyes close, and I breathe in as the high notes of a far-away melody spill in through the opening door. I wait for the assault of gardenia to overtake the cold, mineral smell of stones and mortar, but it never comes. - that's just beautiful description, and I really felt like I was inside Harry's head.

So certainly flowers from me!

~Katrina

Author's Response:

Hi, Katrina,

I am glad you liked it, even though you aren't a H/Hr fan.  I did have the fleeting thought, writing this, that I might offend the sensibilities of the canon shippers (not that you seem offended, or are, indeed, a canon shipper), but I would ask them to look a bit closer.  I won't go into the back-story in my head, but I will say that this is not as much about two people coming together as it is about their inevitable seperation.  Perhaps this is why you found it believable.

Like Akay said earlier, the descriptions are the story, here, and I am pleased you found them effective. 

Thank you for joining my short journey into Harry's head, and for reviewing!

-S-

This is a very interesting and well-written story, and in general I think you have a great grasp of Ron's character. I liked how he noticed details about her - for example how he recognised her wand so easily - because I think that's definitely a part of his character, and in fanfiction people often seem to write him as rather insensitive (which he can be, but that's not the total sum).

I cannot go even an hour without opening my mouth to tell her something before I remember. That's a really heart-breaking line... for some reason it made me think of what George's life must be like without Fred, and I think that Ron without Hermione would be sort of similar, and you've really evoked that emotion.

I don't think there's a single paragraph in this story which doesn't say 'her' or refer to Hermione is Ron's dialogue, and that really shows the last line I quoted, because he really just can't stop thinking of her.

I loved the ending, because throughout the story you show that Ron's life is all about his memory of her, and stating that at the end really finishes the story off well.

I don't know that Ron would really desert Harry like that - the first time he walked out, he regretted it instantly, although I suppose that could have been more about Hermione than Harry, and obviously the depression he'd sink into after Hermione's death would be far worse than the locket, but I think after leaving that first time, Ron really learnt something about the value of friendship.

Anyway, I know you can't really change it because it's the premise of your story, and it is sort of believable.

I thought your use of present tense was very effective, because the reader is in that moment with Ron the whole way through, and I think you did a great job at really getting inside his head.

One small thing - you've written Even if Harry had chased me it wouldn’t have made a difference. I still would have run. Because I failed him. Failed you. - now I think that's a great line, but I would make it "I failed you" at the end, because I think the "I" just adds to Ron's feeling of guilty and responsibility for her death. Just a little thing.

Lovely story, and I checked on your author page and saw that this was your first one. Really great job!

~Katrina

Author's Response:

Wow, Katrina, thanks for such a fantastic in-depth review. I agree that Ron in fanfiction is often written shallowly, but he is human after all and humans are complex beings. I'm glad you think I managed to get good characterisation of him.

I thought through his desertion of Harry for a good while and rewrote that section several times because you're right, he would be reluctant to abandon Harry again. I think he might eventually try and make contact with him again, it's just that witnessing first hand Hermione's death had such a huge emotional impact which he's only just getting his head around it.  The pain he felt would have prevented him from fully realising what he was doing. When he did realise I think he would face a dilemma going back, feeling embarrassed and guilty but after time, he would probably return. But yeah, I knew I was kind of stretching things a lot even with that explanation.

Thanks for the suggestion about improving that line, I went and changed it.

A thousand more thanks for such great feedback!

WHAT??? You're not telling us??? How is this a conclusion??? This is probably going to bug me for ages... which is actually a compliment to you, because your story is original and well-written and memorable.

Well personally I think she must be a banshee or something, with that ending, but you really had me second-guessing it earlier in the story, and along with Oliver, I started to believe it was just a dream.

Julia is a great character - she seems very sweet and lovely and helpful, but she's also extremely manipulative and knows exactly how to play Oliver.

She laughed again, and the sound was infectiously cheerful. He was slowly starting to believe that her red eyes, the evil cackle, the piercing scream were all a dream. I really like how you explore the idea of believing what you want to believe, rather than what you think is necessarily true, and you culminate this idea with he didn't want to know at the end - it also juxtaposes really well with the idea of "No secrets" - because Oliver no longer cares about hers. (That was a long sentence...)

This was a very enjoyable read, there was plenty of humour and romance in it and it was certainly original and memorable as well.

~Katrina

I don't really know anything about poetry, and I don't think I've ever heard of pantoums before, so I really have no idea if you did a terrible job of it. But I really doubt you did. To me, it read really well. The repetitions (which I assume are part of the form) flowed so beautifully and it was great subject matter to have those sorts of repetitions.

Yes, after all this time. That was a great way to end it, I think it's just so Snape, because he never did forget her.

Anyway, great poem. I really enjoyed reading it.

~Katrina

Author's Response: Katrina! It's nice to get two visits from you in one day, particularly after a long, boring day of shopping. :D

I think Minna/minnabird once mentioned pantoums in her poetry thread over on the boards, but I only really understood the form when Julia set up the challenge for Poetry Anyone. Thank you for saying it read well -- that means a lot :)

The repetitions are part of the form, and I'm glad you thought it flowed well too. Thank you for such a lovely review, Katrina! I really appreciate it.

~Soraya~

This was an interesting story - it's not that rare to read a story which starts from an outsider's perspective and then changes to the main character's, but it's rare to find a whole story about a magical character without a single explicit reference to magic, narrated from a Muggle point of view. And you did it so well.

You did a great job of characterising Remus - his actions the whole way through were completely believable and exactly as I would have imagined it. I smiled a bit early on at the scenes with Justine and Johnny trying to ask him out, and I think you chose a great spot to end this story, with Remus leaving Little Devinton forever and finally having found happiness - though it will be short-lived.

I liked the repetition of the beginning line at the end (yes I know you replaced 'mysterious' with 'interesting', but it's still essentially repeated). I also liked how you explored the idea that while the Muggles are curious about Remus, they would never ever consider that he was a wizard. In fact, they constantly look for solutions which seem natural to them and they can understand. I think that's an interesting comment on human nature, as we do always grasp for things we understand to believe.

This was a very unique and interesting read, great job!

~Katrina

Author's Response: Thanks so much for reviewing! Yes, this was pretty difficult to write as I was trying to give a big idea of what Remus was like, but I essentially couldn't really reveal anything about him. I like your comment on how humans tend to grasp for the things we can understand, it seems quite true, especially regarding the Potterverse. Thanks for reading!

This was an interesting and well-written story. I think what you captured best is the love these people have for each other, and how horrible it is for them to even imagine losing each other, and yet they are still willing to fight.

The present tense is very effective throughout the story, because it really forces the reader to be in the moment with these characters.

I think Minerva was a great starting place. She's one of those characters who in my mind is simply a part of Hogwarts, much in the way Dumbledore was, and she becomes a form of leader in the Battle. Just a little nitpick - you wrote She had spent forty-one years of her life here - it would make more sense if you wrote "She has...", as the rest is in present tense. She will do her duty to her school. - That was a perfect ending to her section, and it really moved me.

I think this line - Because never before has he said it, knowing they may well be the last words he ever gives her. - was the best part of Bill and Fleur's section, because that really sums up what I said at the beginning - he loves her and doesn't dare to think of life without her, yet he still fights.

I liked your Remus - the first time he appeared, he was appropriately pessimistic, eg the line - And who waits to oppose them? A mixed group of students, teachers, and members of the Order of the Phoenix. Those that are left, that is. Although I think I preferred his dialogue with Kingsley... I just think you wrote that better.

I loved Molly's mothering instincts in her section. It was especially heart-breaking knowing what will happen in the Battle. I think you really nailed her character though.

Fred and George's section was perhaps the best in the whole piece. It was short, but it really had that spark of life and humour which is so much part of their characters, and the final lines of that part were just heart-breaking. In a way, I think that might have been a better ending for the story.

However, the ending you did write is also good, particularly the repetition of "You have until midnight", but somehow I don't think it's quite as poignant as "See you later, Fred", knowing what happens in the Battle.

This was well-written, well-characterised and moving. Great job :).

~Katrina

Firstly I have to commend you for managing to write this entirely in rhyme and with a good rhythm, which flowed really well and reminded me of the Sorting Hat song in PS. It had a sing-song sort of feel to it, almost like an extended limerick, which worked really effectively.

I enjoyed the message as well, and I thought you did a great job of explaining the past of the four founders in verse, although perhaps you might have mentioned the names of the houses?

I like the idea about "the choice is in you", but I'm not sure the Sorting Hat would actually say that... this is hard to explain, but I think the fact that Harry even thought to say what he wanted showed something unique in him... sorry, I can't really explain it, but I suppose times have changed and the hat might say this.

It can’t be decided by color, house, wars. - I really liked this line, I think it really summed up the whole message of the poem.

Great job, I really enjoyed reading this!

~Katrina

Author's Response: Thanks for the review! I've actually never written much poetry before, so I'm glad you thought it worked. I think with not mentioning the house names, I was trying to stress that it really doesn't matter, and the division is more superficial than everyone makes it. As I said in the summary, this was written to be in a next generation story, of which a main theme is: the war is over, this continued prejudice and division is ridiculous. So, I rather pictured that the Sorting Hat is getting quite fed up with all this fighting between houses. I also feel like more kids need to hear that, "It's our choices that make us who we are, far more than our abilities," because that's always been a really powerful quote for me. Thanks again for reviewing, it truly means a lot to me! -Claire

I adore Molly and Arthur as characters and I think it's rather sad that there's so few stories about them... so firstly I loved this story simply because you wrote about them. I also think you really got their characters, particularly when it came to Arthur's shed.

I think you did a great job of balancing the domesticity of this story with the war going on at the time, because of course the war would affect them, but I thought it was good that it didn't take up too much of this story, because the war wouldn't have taken away the difficulty of raising 5 boisterous boys (sorry about the alliteration) and being pregnant at the same time.

I also smiled at everything Fred and George were getting upto, although it might have been nice if the other boys made more of an appearance. Then again, they weren't really central to the plot.

As he gripped her hands he gave them a slight squeeze. They made their way up to their room still holding hands. Just another day in the Weasley household, Molly thought before closing the door behind them. - I thought that was a really sweet ending and rounded the story off well.

I also thought this idea was quite creative - as in how Molly got the clock in the first place. Also I liked your use of "Mollywobbles".

I just had a few nitpicks:

Molly had had her trepidations at letting the boys out of her sight. The war against You-Know-Who had reached a peak and there seemed to be no end in sight. - Perhaps you could change one of the 'sight's, because the repetition doesn't sound great.

She had though his Muggle obsession would have abated after they married. - You missed the 't' on "thought", and I think it would sound better if you wrote "She had thought his Muggle obsession would abate after they married."

“Well I guess that kneazles out of the bag. - you need an apostrophe to make it "kneazle's" (because it's a contraction of "kneazle is") - I liked the originality of the expression though!

The hands were inscribed with his, hers and Bills’ names - it should be Bill's.

Anyway, sorry that my nitpicks took up so much of this review... they're really just tiny things which could be easily fixed and would make the story flow better. But all the big things, like character and plot, were really great.

~Katrina