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This is good. A small tidbit that could've easily fit into canon. The beginning was slow, and it seems it's only there to build the fic up, to make us expect something to happen. Not necessarily a bad thing, but when the word count is so low, it kinda sticks out. The place was well painted, and well-placed details made this a worthy read. One of the better ones I've read so far, for sure, but I0m still hoping for something better.

 

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This is excellent stuff. I have two quibbles, though:

Harry & co. just stumbling across this bar is a little far-fetched. It's not like this is the only possible time it could have happened, so I wonder why you chose this moment of all times. The bar happening to be the Marauders' favourite haunt is a little coincidence but if it's close to Grimmauld Place that makes some sense, I suppose.

I also wasn't able to guess who Madam Sauvage was, or her father. The main descriptor which hints at it is her having electric-blue eyes and her father being, apparently, dead. My first thought was Moody but there's absolutely nothing I can base that on except the eye-colour, which is an utter shame, I think. Give us a little more hints, please.

In terms of technical writing I've got no real critique to offer. 3.5/5.

 

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This story probably would have had a better impact, if I actually knew who Madam Sauvage is or who her father is. As I don't, it kind of ends on a flat note. Also, as I understand it, this happens when they're on the run from the Death Eaters. It's a bit illogical then that the trio just walks into a magical bar. It would probably have been better, if they were not on the run here. Apart from that, the writing and grammar is fine. So...3/5.

 

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I like it. It’s a nice, isolated moment in time that is both coherent with the world of Harry Potter and serves as an interesting story in itself. There probably needs to be more indication on the nature of Madam Sauvage, but it seems like that just comes from the limitations of the format.

4/5

 

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The implausibility of just stumbling across this bar annoyed me. Also it seems like something Ron may want to do, but both Harry and Hermione would strongly advise against. You needed to change the circumstance of them getting to the bar.

I liked it in general, I always felt there would be more underground support for Harry and co in the magic world, we see hints of it in the books. But this felt... forced?

3/5

 

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Highly creative, nice canon flourishes with Ron's dialogue and the general griminess but magical nature of the pub. The "let's dance" between Ron and Hermione felt a tiny bit off though. 3.5/5

 

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This is interesting. It feels like a very believable canon moment - or at least it did once I got over my initial misunderstanding, prompted by the half-naked vampire on a leash, that they'd wandered into a wizarding fetish club...It's decently written, and the emotional touches with the photos worked well. However, I will echo the confusion over Madam Sauvage - I thought the implication was that she was Sirius's daughter until I reread and realised she was the same mermaid as in the photo. Still, a nice little piece.

 

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This feels like a scene that could've been in canon, complete with the trio's interactions and Harry being reminded of one of his reasons to endure being on the run, and eventually beat Voldemort. I reread the last few paragraphs a couple of times and I still can't quite figure out who is supposed to be the father, but otherwise, a decent entry. 3.5/5

 

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Drat. I really enjoyed this up until the very end, when I got a little confused.

Unfortunately, I can't figure out who Madam Sauvage is related to, and I don't know whether that's my fault or not. I'm looking for clues and can't find any.

You did a really good job building up the tension here, and then you distracted me with a photo of the Marauders, which is a perfect opportunity to hit me with a sudden moment of danger while my guard is down. It felt like a missed opportunity for things to just peter out in the end like they did.

However, I want to emphasize: I really liked this. Every line is interesting. I'm always surprised with what happens next. It's a well-crafted story, because I both feel at home (the trio are perfectly in-character) and at the same time I'm in an entirely unfamiliar setting and plot point.

I got so excited when this happened. I love a new location that feels canonical, and you did not let me down. A shady wizarding London dive bar. I am headcanoning this.

I cannot stress enough how much I loved the mermaid detail, and the fact that it featured in the photo of the Marauders was absolutely hilarious.

The moment where I think your story wavered was when it's revealed that Madam Sauvage can see Harry. Harry should be extremely alarmed by this. There's a reason he's under the cloak, and if someone can see him, that is scary and should set off major alarm bells in Harry's head. Again — you did such a great job escalating the tension, so why squander it? The fact that Harry's so chill about it really threw me off.

Ok, so I just skimmed a couple reviews above, and is the implication that Madam Sauvage is the child of Sirius Black and... a mermaid? No, wait, that can't be right. The banshee?

EDIT: I'm seeing Moody floated as an idea as well in some of the reviews. That definitely occurred to me while I was reading the first story, but Moody was able to see through Harry's invisibility cloak because of his magical eye, not because of any innate ability that would be passed down through the generations. So that doesn't really make sense either.

If I were you, I would rework the end. You have such a good story here, and you just need to stick the landing. Maybe the photo catches Harry's eye, and he's completed engrossed in it that it doesn't hit him right away that the fact that he and Madam Sauvage are talking means she can see him. Maybe Harry is about to run, but then a Death Eater moves to attack Hermione. Madam Sauvage helps them out. Then in that moment of chaos, just before they escape, Harry can realize that Madam Sauvage is the likely daughter of.... whoever. The "make them proud" line would carry a lot more weight if she's just saved them from a moment of danger.

3/5, but a few changes to the ending could easily bump it up to a 5/5.

 

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This fic's a great attempt at extending canon, but I feel it's suited to being placed as a prologue of sorts to an AU. However, Hermione, Ron and Harry feel in character. I do like the setting and the idea that there are magical places that make themselves prominent upon satisfying conditions.

Madame Sauvage seems to be Aberforth's daughter? The similarities to Dumbledore (finding Harry under the cloak, being struck by the familiarity of bright blue eyes which seem magical) are too much to ignore. There's also that line about following footsteps. Professor Kettleburn's cameo is a pleasant surprise. All Care of Magical Creatures do seem to frequent questionable places after all.

I didn't like muggle musical influence here, but I can see it happening. It would have been nice for some changes from canon to emerge, but what's here is serviceable as well.

My rating: 3.5/5

 

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Hmm well it is a well written fic. Good prose, good dialogue, nice description. I suppose the weakness to me is... and it could be me missing something... i'm not sure what the point of it is. I got a little confused by the whole following in the footsteps thing and who the bar owner was supposed to be exactly. I think I probably spent too much time trying to figure out what going on to filly enjoy the story

 

Spoiler

I’m somewhat torn on this one. On the one hand there were a few details in that story that made me perk up because I thought them well-placed, for example the mermaid or the smoke perhaps emitting music itself. I also liked the link to the Marauder’s past, I thought that was a nice touch. On the other hand, I’ve no clue who Madame Sauvage’s parents were in the end, which made the last bits of dialog quite confusing. I also stumbled over this sentence at the beginning: “Ron said with a shudder that was mostly drowned out by a passing N25”. I’ve no idea what an N25 is. Wikipedia leaves me to believe that it might be a street. I thought maybe it’s an airplane overhead. In either case, I wonder why Harry - the pov from which he experience the story - knows the specific name.

Overall, while I think you’ve painted a nice, atmospheric scene, there isn’t much of a story to go along with it.

3/5

 

Thanks everybody for the feedback and for the votes!

I seem to have majorly fucked up the reveal on this, so without further ado Madam Sauvage is supposed to be Moody's estranged daughter.

Rambling, lengthy author's notes, feel free to ignore:

In my eagerness to get this below 1500 I removed a part in the beginning where I stress that Harry is underneath the invisibility cloak; initially I thought this was all that was needed to understand who she is, that Sauvage has the same eyes as Moody's magical one. Obviously I can tell from the comments that even with that paragraph it would have been too confusing, and I'll need to rewrite this with that in mind. I forgot that Dumbledore can see through the cloak and I also used the wrong shade of blue when describing Moody's eye-colour,

this is what I should have had.

This story is written as an easter egg type of thing to my marauders era stories, and to begin with it was a 'what if Harry and co find the pub his parents used to frequent during the war'-story. Madam Sauvage has featured in my stories as a side-character before but it was a spur of the moment idea for this fic to make her Moody's child. I'm still not sure if that's cheap of me or not, but it did provide a deeper layer than this fic otherwise would have had.

Anyway, Madam Sauvage is a witch who was born without eyes and with very limited magical abilities. Moody spent a lot of time and effort creating eyes for her and he also tried to raise her to become an auror just like him (and all of his family before him). She was an immense disappointment to him, as well as his greatest pride and joy. She grew to hate him, went to Hogwarts very unsuccessfully, dropped out before her OWLs and ran away to London where she, by unscrupulous means, got hold of a locale where she opened her bar. Accusations that the Grumpy Bowtruckle is also a brothel have never been proven, but there are some extra rooms above the bar where she lives. She had no contact with Moody until the 80s, and only sporadically afterwards.

An early girlfriend of hers was exceptionally good at wandless magic and taught her some, and she does not perform any magic with a wand anymore. The late 70s were the best years of her life and she has never gotten over how that life was taken from her.

I really like these ideas despite how against the Madam Sauvage I've come to know and love they go. If it's alright with you two I'll probably work a bit on these and add them in some way She's supposed to be a really apathetic lady by Harry's time, but I've just remembered that the new girlfriend I gave her in the 80s is a goblin, or maybe half-goblin. I always thought she died a long time ago, and she probably still died, but I might be able to have her be one of the goblin family killed in Nottingham by Voldemort if I tweak things a little. Make Madam Sauvage full of fresh rage, rather than the old dying simmering type, and she might just be ready to help Harry and co out.

Ah yes Edith and her pet. They've been banned at the big magical BDSM club in Soho for non-consentual blood-drinking, and Edith, to her ever-lasting sorrow, isn't quite posh enough to get an invite to the more private parties when the rich magical folk host at their manor houses. Edith and the vampire are more or less (and sometimes literally) part of the furniture at the Grumpy Bowtruckle, and will likely outlive all other visitors.

The mermaid has also been there for a long time, although she originally hails from the Black Lake. There have been attempts from volunteers at the Centre for the Rehabilitation of Magical Marine Life to rescue the mermaid, but what remains of her teeth are very sharp and leave permanent scars of what looks like bladder wrack (I googled this seaweed just now, never heard its name used in English before...) and the rescue missions petered out significantly in the 80s.

The mermaid was great friends with Aeval the banshee, sadly deceased. In her day she had a great appetite for human flesh and is known to have attempted to assassinate and have sex with Sirius Black on several overlapping occasions during the first war. They remained on surprisingly good terms until his prison sentence in 81.

Somebody noticed!!! Makes me very happy, thank you

This wasn't supposed to be a mystery either, sorry about that! It's a nightbus that goes along Mile End Road, or at least did when I last had the misfortune to be stranded in that general area at night. As an aside, if anyone here is knowledgeable about the history of London nightbuses and knows which numbers went along there in the 1990s, let me know! My fondness for the N25 would not stand in the way of changing it to the anachronistically correct one, but google and tfl have been unable to help me.

Yeah I agree. Might rewrite this bit completely. I think the reason I went with it originally is that they've just danced at Bill and Fleur's wedding, when Ron realizes Krum is about to make a move, so it's sort of a call-back to that. But it doesn't really work, or fit them very well.