Good chapter, bad ending. Really, how in the fuck would they be shocked at torture? Bellatrix was a death eater how long? How many times has Harry had visions of torture? Hell Harry has even been tortured by Voldemort. Harry was bonded to Bellatrix he knew she was being whipped or tortured when it happened. I don’t think you worked that through your mind before you wrote it.
Then the fact that after their ‘shock’, which shouldn’t have been, they didn’t reach out and stop Bellatrix or call to her. Bellatrix reaction was completely stupid. She can feel him in her mind she knows how he feels and then “he drew back he can’t love me” STUPID!
And sorry you can’t claim hormones on her reaction because they don’t start effecting like that for a while.
You should really go and edit the end of this chapter. It looks like a prelude to the huge cliché of “Harry is so great he can love me after all I’ve done, he’s the best man in the world. I know I am just being stupid for doubting him.”
Author's response
Thank you for reading and responding, really, wow, I didn't know Simon Cowell read my work. So let me review the reviewer here. I worked as a security guard when I was in college and one of my co-workers had a slight limp. We had both served in the Army but I came home with all my limbs, he didn't. I was shocked one day to see him in shorts and saw the prosthetic leg, I knew he had a bum leg, but NO leg?. I couldn't believe it, and like an idiot I stared. He of course had seen reactions like mine before and was accustomed to it by then, but when he first lost his leg he reacted much as Belle did, his wife (she had been his fiancé at the time) kicked his door in to convince him that she wasn't about to leave him over the loss of his leg despite the shock of seeing his stump for the first time. It's a fairly common albeit unfair phenomenon.
Oh, and the hormones thing? Some women become very emotional very early into their pregnancies, when my cousin finally got pregnant (they tried for years) she was an emotional wreck from about the first month, I kid you not.
And let me post a spoiler here, the beginning of the next chapter picks up exactly where this one leaves off and there is no way that Harry or Marietta will let her continue to feel the way she does now.
Thank you for a thorough review, with specific suggestions for improvement. If all I wanted to see were ego stroking "great job" reviews then I'd just show my work to my mom, right? (Actually, she'd have gotten a kick out of my work; she had a great sense of humor and was as earthy as any fleet sailors I knew.)
But I like it as written, so I guess I'll keep it.
But I’ll invite your to keep on reading, and reviewing.