loved it in my hungover half-drunken stupor.

will re-read, review, and post again when i'm sober.

 

Yeah kind of hard to do the Independent Harry thing without either emancipation or something that prevent him being tracked by the ministry.

 

Good work, this managed to keep my interest over the entire story thus far, which is a feat these days. I liked the twist with Penelope being the Dark Lord's goddaughter. Didn't see it coming at all. I also, like others, enjoyed seeing Voldemort given some character and proper backstory here. I just hope things don't taper off when the story goes back to Hogwarts.

 

Like I said at the end of that chapter, anytime Penny appears in stories, she is there to save Percy from himself and put him back on the right track. Why not make her a Death Eater's illegitimate daughter? Why not have her whispering in Percy's ear, "They just don't understand your greatness honey. In two short years you are now the MoM assistant. They are envious of your success."

How many ambitious talented and arrogant young men have been taken advantage of by some "skirt" whispering all the things he wanted to hear?

I've got something planned for when our happy campers go back to school. It should keep things interesting.

 

I stopped after reading about Dumbledore yelling. I would like Evil!Dumbledore more than Angry!Dumbledore. Does the Dumbledore's character improve? 'Cause I actually Harry/Susan is hard to find.

 

If you mean back in the early chapters, then you'll have to cut Dumbles a bit of slack. He's 150+ years old. Its well past midnight and his secret weapon just up and portkeyed into the middle of a fight with the Dark Lord with no back up. Worse, the little twerp wants to yell at you.

Try to look at it from only Dumbledore's eyes. He's been paitient, he's been accomodating, he's been tolerant and Harry continues to rebel. The Dursleys conditioned him to respond to anger, so give him a little anger.

Oh well its like what Abe Lincoln said about pleasing people.

Harry and Dumbledore will have to learn to work together. This isn't a superpowerful Harry fic. He is going to need all the help he can get. Sometimes one of them will extend an olive branch other times each will be convinced that their actions are right and it will push them apart.

 

Nice chapter.

 

I am surprised that no one has made any comment about the Ron/Hermione/Ginny sausage joke in the notes section at the end. I figure the imagery is worth a couple of jokes alone

 

Started reading - currently on chapter 8. I like the explanation you provided for Voldemort being so weak, I admit that Voldemort being drove off by Bones and Harry bothered me. The story is good now that I've gotten pass the first two chapters. The disappointing bit is that Ginny got away with bitching at Harry, I was hoping to see some blood. = (

Edit - I tried to review but only users are able to, I think that's one of the reasons you get so little reviews, you should consider letting anonymous reviews.

I like how Harry's slowly gaining independence. By the way, awesome Narcissa.

 

Perfect chapter!

Narcissa was brilliant. You seem to have a knack for writting Slytherin characters... I'm eager to see how you do Snape.

I like what you're doing with Ginny and I'm glad to see you breaking up with that whole "Golden trio" bullshit. They should remain friends, but if Harry is to enter into politics and take on a leadership role, he needs a wider circle of friends than just a piss-poor family and a muggleborn girl.

Dumbledore is still out there, not exactly as he should be. Seems simply too powerless for a great Mugwarp and a man who had controlled Harry for 10 years... He should have forseen what will Harry learn at the will reading and did something to prevent it (or at least stepped forward and admitted what he did, with a few tears on the side). Oh, and I'm still not sure why would Dumbledore mess with Harry's love life. Is it the power of love crap, or something else?

Whatever, that was a great chapter. Keep going and glad to see you here!

 

Quack - Anonymous reviews have been enabled. Thanks for pointing it out!

IP82 - I will work on Dumbles. He kept delaying the reading while he tried to push his guardianship through. Since the ministry is in shambles, the paperwork fell through the cracks. He has alot on his plate, trying to get a new government formed, trying to run the OOTP and keep his weapon on a short leash. Its quite a bit for an old man.

As to why he would mess with Harry's love life - "Who do you think put Lily on to James?"

 

Ahh but does Harry find out? Now go away... Shooo. you have an update to do

Treck

 

Never thought of that, i guess that dumbles may have influenced lily, (two powerful wizards are bound to have powerful offspring) but i guess i always wanted to believe that lily and james were both good guys..

 

I enjoyed SOME of the Harry Narcissa action.

My big issue was that Narcissa contributed LARGELy to Sirius getting killed. Remember, Kreacher reported to Narcissa, who ultimately informed Bella. There should have been more tension rather than laughter.


I am a HUGE fan of your work. I really hope you update soon!

 

Ahh, great idea! Muggleborn wife would have ensured the Potter line's place firmly against Voldemort. Nice move by the old coot.

BTW, Chuck is right. In OOTP, Kreacher betrayed Sirius to Narcissa, who then tipped off the dark lord...

 

But who is to say that Lucius wasn't present when Kreacher showed up wanting to speak of "Filthy Blood Traitors". Narcissa might not have had a chance to decide what to do with the information. Lucius may have taken the information straight to Voldie.

Alternatively, Narcissa may have acted in her own self interest. Lucius was not imprisoned. She had no way out of the marriage yet. Perhaps 'good busines' dictated that she make that move at the time. Fortunately for Cissa, the rules of her "game" can be altered as necessary. Moral flexibility is a wonderful thing!

Still you have a point that Harry was a bit too charitable with her when they first met. I will attribute this to Cissa's natural charisma and ability to verbally disarm him. She can certainly steal the show!

Hope that satisfies you Chuck.

 

Decent fic. Great Voldy characterisation.

Small problem: speech. It just doesn't seem realistic.

E.g.

People just talk like that in England. Try and put apostrophes whenever you can. So that'll be: "You'll be a wonderful Minister!"

A tip: readout the speech yourself and think "would I ever say that in real life?". If not, scrap it. Dunno about anywhere else but we shorten most things that you can shorten here.

Sorry for nitpicking but it was beginning to grate me.

However you have a good fic here, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered helping you.

 

Actually I thought about speech a bit. Notice Harry and most of the "children" (except Hermione) tend to use contractions. Dumbledore almost never does and when people speak to him they are a little intimidated and try to use big words and avoid contractions."

In Susan's case her aunt's announcement had a formal quality to it. On another hand remember the emphasis in Pureblood culture on society and behavior. It would be less like everyday England and more like high society England. I could picture mothers chastising their pureblood children for using contractions in between their dance or music lessons. JKR has offered a world where the muggles are in the present day, but the Wizarding world functions more like the Victorian era. Probably yet another reason for the divide between Muggleborn and Pureblood, seeing as Muggleborn's aren't "raised right" and can't "speak right." Just my two cents. Tell me what you think.

 

That's actually a very intriguing theory. It would make sense that the purebloods would speak with integrity. However it's unlikely that all muggleborns come from working-class backgrounds. There will certainly be some of them who come from well off families who own large estates in Kent and stuff. Therefore some of them would also pronounciate and speak proper English. However that's all theory.

In reality, upper class teenagers do use contractions and things like that. It's just that they speak in that posh tone which makes it seems as though they aren't when in actual fact they are. Therefore, when writing, you'd still put the apostrophe in. However the language used would certainly be more sophisticated as their upbringing has enforced a wide vocabulary.

It's actually getting much more complicated than that but there's the simplistic overview.

 

I certainly can picture Justin Finch-Something as a noble british man.
He after all almost went to Iton
Still the Weasleys are pureblood but they manners and speech disqust many people. On this note we should pat Percy on his back for trying be more solid pureblood than his muggle loving family.