I bet you never thought I’d read a Marauder Era fic unless I was beta-ing it, huh? You were wrong! Ha ha. Though honestly, it’s because I love you more than I’ve given in to the category (which I haven’t).

“No more would he suffer the endless onslaught of experimental cures, each of which his mother sobbingly referred to as “his last chance.” Remus felt like he was waking from a long nightmare.” I’d never before wondered what Lupin endured during his vacations, but this seems completely true to me. His poor mother. They do ridiculous things sometimes, even to the point of rejecting their children for their illness, trying to ‘cure’ them of their permenant flaws.

I’m also glad that you made Remus’ transformation happen the first night at Hogwarts. I think it’s important to remind the reader that the changes aren’t convenient, and they do interrupt his life quite a bit.

“Good lord, don’t encourage him!” said James, exasperated. “That’s the last thing he needs!” That line sounded a bit too feminine for James. I would change ‘lord’ to ‘god’. I would also change the second part of it to something like, “We’ll have to beat the grin off him next.”

You’ve incorporated external lives, too! Brothers and parents…you haven’t made the Marauders exist in their own bubble of joke-playing and no consequences. Very responsible writing. ;)

I’m not sure what to think about your James. He’s alternately a decent guy and a complete ass, and my mind is still trying to negotiate the two into one person. Your Remus, on the other hand…such a pacifist it’s annoying. But that’s what makes him realistic to me.

It was a good first chapter. Not boring at all (like mine tend to be). I hope that future chapters make the two sides of James seem like sides, instead of an entire separate person.


Author's Response: Wow, thank you for venturing into Marauder Era for me! *hugs* You\'re right about James, as we discussed. I\'m still trying to figure out what makes him tick, and maybe surreptitiously observing my guy friends with jerky tendencies... ;) Since this was written two years ago, I hope I\'ve bridged the gap since then, but I\'m honestly not sure. I welcome your input on my next chapter! And yeah, Remus... poor, pacifist Remus. I get why it\'s annoying, and sometimes I want to slap him, too, but I think it really is a serious character flaw of his. Not just, \"Aww, he\'s a softie,\" but \"omg, he didn\'t even have the balls to tell Dumbledore about Sirius when he thought he was a murderer!\" Thank you so much for your review; I always love your insight!

Onward!

“Suddenly, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and shifted his position on the floor to be able to see it better. The pointed nose of a rat was protruding from the large crack in the wall that Hassseth had been staring at only a few minutes ago. Cautiously, never ceasing to sniff the air, the rat emerged from the crack. As it stepped forward, Harry’s breath caught in his throat; the rat’s right front paw was a metallic silver color, almost as if it had been dipped into a bath of molten silver and hadn’t yet had a chance to dry.” You’ve got such a wonderful description here. Instead of saying the rat ‘stepped’, I would have used a more sensory term, like ‘scratched’ so that the reader could really hear its presence. I have to admit that the idea of Hassseth eating Pettigrew cracks me up. It would be such an anticlimactic end for him.

Oh no! I think it was a good move to have Pettigrew change form as the poison sunk in (if Hassseth was truly poisonous, even to humans?) and simultaneously freak Harry out. It’s a time for some more answers, even if Harry doesn’t like them. I think this is an interesting way of reintroducing Harry to his ‘fate’. I wonder if he’ll accept it the same way this time around.

The fight scene is drawn out, which I liked. A complaint that I do have about the actual HP series is that the fight scenes tend to end with just a few spells. All the ones Peter used were well-known to Harry and matched my estimation of Peter’s abilities and intelligence, and therefore it was very realistic.

A sudden pounding on the door caused Harry to leap to his feet, his frazzled senses on alert. After preparing himself to curse the caller if necessary, he asked, in the calmest voice he could muster, “Who’s there?” Again, the reaction is very natural for what he’s been through. You’ve got a great skill.

“He wondered briefly whether this broom had belonged to the rat-wizard, but a sudden sound to his left stole his attention.” It is certainly too easy to just have a broom lying there, but this line made it believable. You do push the boundaries of suspension of disbelief, but you always make up for it.

“Not knowing a spell for dousing fires, he did the only thing he could think of: he made a slashing motion with his hand while saying, “Diffindo,” severing the burning portions from the rest of his broom’s tail. Immediately, he noticed that the broom’s response seemed more sluggish than it had been a moment ago.” Just wonderful. I would imagine that would throw its aerodynamics off.

I’d clap if I wouldn’t look retarded doing that here. You’re doing so amazing!


Author's Response: Thank you so much! This was really the pivotal chapter of the story, and at the same time the hardest to write because of what happens to Hassseth. From what I read on the Internet, an adder\'s venom would be plenty potent enough to kill a human, but they inject so little when they bite that it would normally only be lethal to the very sick/weak. However, when you combine the fact that Wormtail was a rat when he was bitten with his idiotic move of squeezing her head with the fangs still embedded in him, I think having him die is realistic enough.

I\'m glad you enjoyed the fight scene. It\'s actually been a while since I read a duel in the actual books, and the ones I read in fanfiction are usually much longer than what I write, so it\'s good to get a positive comment on that. Thanks! I really appreciate all of your thoughts. You\'re right that I tend to push the boundaries of believability, but I do try to always offer an explanation. I\'m glad you liked it.

“Ron gazed contentedly around the cozy room. Fred and George were sitting in a corner with Ginny, quietly showing her one of their newest products. Their father was talking softly with Remus Lupin about Order business, as Nymphadora Tonks tried to help clean up in the kitchen. Ron heard a particularly loud crash, followed by a muffled apology and an exasperated sigh. Tonks appeared in the doorway, shrugged sheepishly when Lupin glanced up at her, and joined Bill and Fleur in conversation by the fire. Charlie patted her on the shoulder as he stood to help his mother in the other room; Ron was glad, as he didn’t particularly feel like moving from the sofa.”

I’m not a big fan of scenes like these, where someone tries to portray a room of activity. I had to reread the paragraph in order to grasp all the activity. Maybe spacing it out could help smooth it. There just seems to be too much going on in that short of a reading time. As far as these types of paragraphs go, it was good though.

Harry shrugged. “Sure,” he replied dully, then smiled sadly. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. One last game before we . . .” he left the rest unsaid, and Ron quickly stood up before the conversation turned gloomy.

This is just an excellent example of how well you are portraying Harry here. He’s sullen, but not in a morose, teenage angst sort of way. You show that he’s got a lot on his mind, but still carefully skirt around the issue, just as Ron would. You stick with point-of-view in this story very well, too.

“George! I know you’re there, come out and reverse this or else!”

I think ‘come out’ should be a new sentence.

“You sleep with your wand, you prat,” growled Ron, and Harry laughed.

I’m not sure why, but this line really made me laugh. It’s so difficult to find an author that can portray Ron in a realistic way, instead of reducing him to an annoying dunce. You are so great at characterization! I’m really, really impressed.

“Pooottteeerrr!” The voice was familiar. A face full of ice stopped his second shout, and Harry found himself flung backwards into a large pile of snow. He stood quickly and an otherworldly laughter filled the air as another shower of snow rained down on him from the dark.

This is just another example of excellent description. You have a way of setting a scene, setting a mood, without being too verbose.

On another anal retentive note, Wizarding world needs to be capitalized.

I love the ending, even if it felt like it came a bit too quickly. It felt slightly rushed. Still, it was a believable ending that was not quite fluffy, but nice just the same. You’ve got wonderful grammar skills, great characterization and a flow that makes your one-shot a fast read.



Author's Response: Oh my! What an amazing review! This must be a SPEW review, yes? *SQUEE!* Thank you so much for reading this story! I really appreciate all of your comments. *blushes and then takes notes* It is so encouraging to hear what one is doing well. I really try to stay true to JKR\'s characters, and I\'m so happy I\'ve succeeded, especially with poor Ron. I\'m glad you enjoyed the descriptions, I always think I should do more. It is also so helpful to know what one\'s readers may find not-so-good, like rushed endings. I could see expanding on this one a bit, now that I think about it. Plus it\'s something I can look out for in future stories *thinks about current challenge entry* Thank you so much for both the compliments and constructive criticism!! ~Gina :)

Woo, may as well start in on the people I have never reviewed before. I suppose I will get right to it.

“Don’t you try and tell me it’s nothing.” Sally-Anne Perks said, sitting down next to Susan and enveloping her in a hug. There needs to be a comma after ‘nothing’.

“So, how about we respect his wishes and stop this teariness.” While this could work as a statement, it’s written like a question, and that’s how I read it in my head. It works either way, but I would prefer it to read as a question.

“Susan tried not to blush as Justin Finch-Fletchley came over to join them. She hoped it wasn’t too obvious she’d been crying, but there was small chance of that. In fact, she caught him looking sharply at her before turning to Sally-Anne with a smile.” I really loved the subtle interaction in this paragraph. It conveys a lot of information in such a short paragraph.

As a whole, I thought it was an excellent character analysis, and you really put your own spin on her. I would have liked to have seen more references to her past and other memories, but it’s a one-shots and those have some limitations. The macaroons and the Charms scores were such tiny tidbits of her life, but were poignant. I also particularly loved the conversation Susan had with her mother regarding her scores. It was wonderful.


Author's Response: Thanks, Lex. I appreciate your feedback. :)

I thought your story was extremely well written, but a bit advanced for what Harry’s age is. The narrative sounds like it is from the point of view of a thirty-something woman, when the point of view of Harry at this time would be…well…certainly less mature. I spotted a few Americanisms and some grammar problems, but nothing glaring or overly obvious.

Toward the middle, it was a bit difficult to concentrate on what was being said, done and thought. I think simplifying the word choices and bringing something physical to Harry’s attention would help quite a bit with that.

The emotions in this story also seem somewhat disconnected from the person feeling them. It’s almost as how someone feels when their ears are blocked off, and they’re meant to be in the middle of an important conversation. I think grounding Harry (since this is a limited third person pov) into his body and making him more aware of what’s going on with it might help with this.

You’ve got Hermione’s character down pretty well, and I like how you’ve used Ginny to explain the proposal predicament to Harry, who would not understand on his own. You’ve created a very strong depressed tone in this story which will set you up really well for both very positive and/or rather downcast events. The language flows very smoothly, and is a great lead-in to a long story.

This story was so well characterized, I nearly fell off my chair. You've made Ron into a belieably similar, yet grown-up version of himself, while Hermione...well. She hasn't changed, but she's definitely believeable. There was one place where Ron asked a question, but there was a comma there instead. There was also an odd description that needed some dashes, but otherwise, I didn't spot any clear mistakes. Your use of the English language reminded me that these stories are meant to be British in nature.

I love that you've made both characters have valid points of view. So often, arguments aren't simply about one person being wrong, but differing points of view. You wrote them well together, and I loved that.

I could have stood to see a deeper characterization on Harry and Ginny, though. Their own separation seemed odd and without substance or reasoning. I would probably change the pairings of this story to simply Ron/Hermione for that reason. Of course, there's always the possibility of adding a second 'one-shot' to this story explaining Harry/Ginny.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you how wonderful this story is. I love great characterization and drink it up whenever I can!

Author's Response:

Thank you so much for leaving the wonderful review! I love all the details that you have given here and I am thrilled that you liked the story. I would like to respond to a couple of things you commented on in your review.