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I KIND OF HATE THIS ALL CAPS NONSENSE. Though, I can see why you made this choice.

I think the original idea must have been a plying of "Harry and Ginny's fairy tale romance" being a common trope in fanfiction.

But it's still not a fairy tale - I would let it slide if it had some of the other elements of a fairy tale: a morality, a whimsical telling, etc - but the prose reads more like some strange scifi romance.

 

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I didn't see the fairytale angle for a long time, but when it hit me, it hit me hard. Very well done.

I enjoyed this a ton! Especially the end.

Hmmm. Maybe I was just dopamined by the brain making a connection.

Either way, well done!

 

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So, basically, this is a retelling of Persephone's story from the myth. Harry, in this case, is Hades, and obviously Ginny is Persephone, spending half of every year in the Big Down Below.

I don't like the all-caps stuff, though. Fucking with the text rarely works out well, even something so simple as italics or bold, let alone Zalgotext or all-caps. Those last two especially are more difficult to read and add very little to the narrative. I also think you could've done without the intro; we don't really need Death as its own entity, as it departs after two sentences and Harry takes over its role and its speech patterns anyway.

Adding to that, there's the whole thing with it being a shame that Ginny isn't the seventh son of a seventh son and that meaning she lacks power - why? I know that's a popular folk belief, but why bring it up at all? It doesn't seem to matter to the narrative.

I think you would've had a stronger, more cohesive story if you'd shed everything until Ginny "dying" for the first time. And no allcaps, obviously.

 

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Ha! I loved this line -- the assumption that having a girl somehow fucks up the ritual magic of seven children and that a girl couldn't gain that power. That line makes this story's mystical ending particularly satisfying. Small note: Wouldn't it be "Healer"? JKR also makes a passing reference to a midwife once on Pottermore, so feel to use or ignore that.

I enjoyed your characterization of Ginny. As a matter of fact, this story felt Changeling-esque. I like that Ginny rarely voices everything she's thinking, and you make it count when she is honest with people.

Nice detail.

Am I crazy, or does "Fred" become "George" halfway through Ginny's scene with him? Is this intentional?

I have a couple other suggestions that are so minor that I'm going to set them in a different spoiler tag:

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I would use Ginny's name at the beginning of this sentence. The BREAK meant I wasn't immediately sure who we were talking about. Also, I would say "trunk" here, instead of "train case."

I think you can do better here, especially since it's a turning point in the story. Lots of your prose is very good, and I have faith in your ability to make this line stronger.

 

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This is interesting, considering the ultimate point of the novel I wonder what you're implying? That she's powerful? That she's a goddess.
For me, on first reading, with this line (though it's seventh, not eighth) and the ALL CAPS Death speak, I thought you were going for a straight discworld thing, or you were going to be having a Gaiman style endless thing. Ultimately though you don't make any point about the nature of death that I can see.

At first, I thought this was going to be new love, or a Harry Endless style avatar. I didn't realise it was her falling to her death and it took me a bit of mental agility to go back and figure out what was going on as I read on.

I think this should be Fred and you made a mistake? Possibly?

This is from the start, but my first thought on realising what it meant, was how is the rest of this tale progressing? Is this a Voldemort ruled world? What's going on? It's not important to the story per se, except that it's missed opportunity and creates a question in the readers' mind that you don't want and won't be answered.

So she's Persephone. I think that although this is a well enough written story, it feels like myth not fairy-tale. I think it doesn't feel like it fits the prompt. It's a nice story about Ginny and Harry and conceptual personification which I usually love. I just don't think it suits the prompt and the context here. There's no lesson here. To be fair, unlike myth, it doesn't explain a natural phenomenon or religious mystery either, so far as I can tell.

Oh, important to say, not a fan of those BREAK either. Gauche.

 

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My first impression was that the story felt a bit too shouty.

That came in two parts:

1. The weird section breaks
   
2. The Discworld-esque characterisation of Harry

The first doesn't matter, but the second is a bit jarring. I guess it doesn't really express any of the... angst? that's supposed to be there.

Other than that, it's a pretty standard retelling of Persephone's story.

 

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Some interesting moments in here. I like that Death leaves Harry and he becomes Death by waiting for him for an eternity. I didn't really mind the all caps since it was a short piece and there wasn't too much of it.

You mixed up Fred and George at one point.

The Persephone allusion comes a bit late and falls a bit flat for me. It's cute that Harry offers Ginny sherbet lemons, but in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Persephone is abducted by Hades and tricked and/or forced to eat the pomegranate seeds and Demeter looks all over the earth for her. In Ovid, Persephone seems to eat the pomegranate willingly. Maybe if you continue this you can think of how Molly and the rest of the Weasleys would mourn Ginny for those six months of the year.

 

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As a retelling of Hades and Persephone, I like it. But this doesn't have the flair of a fairy tale. It comes across as a story told in brief, advancing arcs; Ginny is born, Harry doesn't come back and presumably takes Voldemort's tattered soul with him, Ginny struggles to go on, she dies as an older seeker, she reunites with Harry, and she returns to life several months each year. Is it good? Certainly. A good story. You borrowed the stuff from Greek myth as your foundation, pouring a Potterverse paint over the top, and it works. It just doesn't hit the right notes for me for this round.

The Discworld-styled DEATH SPEAKS LIKE THIS was fine. Could have done with a different scene break but it didn't break my immersion or anything.

 

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Nice twist on Persephone's tale, I liked the fact that Ginny actually dies in this and Harry sends her back. My thoughts on Harry being the master of Death was that it was a bit cliche fanon-wise. Instead of having his speech be all caps what about I dunno italics or just having it told and not shown.

I feel like he could've been made a more menacing character, and more on why Ginny never got over him. More on why Ginny is powerful, why is it all broken up into snippets? I liked the premise but it could've been better written.

 

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We begin with a weirdly placed comma in the middle of your opening sentence. Not a good start.

Also, how would Harry know how the inside of bones look like. Spooky stuff.

Wut? Which space, the halls? But the halls have colour, you just said they’re white. Technically the halls have all the colours, if you want to be on the spectrum about it (the electromagnetic one).

Cheesy but also not true. Harry’s mother also had green eyes, and we all know that ho to be 100% dead.

Earth can’t scream silly.

Cleary seventh daughters don’t have the same power as seventh sons if they can’t even do basic reparo charms.

Taure rant incoming.

Fred is the dead one, George is the half-deaf one. Get it right next time.

I think you went for something different and that is commendable, but sometimes ‘different’ really is a codename for retarded. Didn’t like. Greek myths are not fairytales. Don’t kill my Harry before his time or I’ll get angry. 2/5.