Good meeting with Dumbles. Makes a change for him not to be manipulative.
Writing style - I think you could add more descriptions. For example, the scene where Albus gets a drink after watching the memories - how many glasses? What kind of alcohol? What kind of flames did he belch? What sound came with them? Did he first make to drink from a glass, then shrug and drink from the bottle directly?
Perhaps those aren't the best questions, but you get the idea (I hope).
As for Ginny, it is indeed hard to see how she would care for anything other than the idea of being Mrs BWL. It's a lot easier to see Neville with someone else, like Luna or Padma. Someone that Hermione and Harry can get along with without having to be worried about being stabbed in the back.
Does Hermione have a sister or cousin? (And that's assuming you want Neville to remain heterosexual.)
Hope Ron remains shunted aside. It's not like he's ever going to have the discipline required to learn Occlumency even when he's older, right? And by that time, the new trio will be such a unit that he won't be able to break into it. PErhaps he'll become a friend - like Dean and Seamus - but it's hard to see him becoming more.
Author's response
Thank you for your well thought out review! I appreciate that you took the time to make some suggestions. I agree that at times my descriptions are a bit sketchy, but, I will work on it. I'll admit, I find, when I do put in descriptions, I have a tendency to 'tell' rather than 'show' but I will work on it.
I agree with the Ginny situation; she's too much of a BWL fangirl to be able to work well as Neville's partner. As for Neville, well, I've got a couple of ideas, and one of my reviewers on another forum pointed something out to me that I had overlooked. Right now Neville is mentally and emotionally 18 years old, next year 19 years old, do you really think that an 11 year old, no matter what their prior relationship, would be able to hold his interest?
Ron is basically going to fulfill the Neville from Canon role, a friend, but not somebody who is in the thick of things.
Thanks again for your review, and I'll post a new chapter tomorrow, I took the weekend off from writing, and got caught up on my reading.
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