Reviews for The Birthday Present
me chapter 85 . 11/17/2019
THIS IS SO UNDERRATED I LOVE IT.
Guest chapter 85 . 9/5/2019
good story
lantana chapter 85 . 6/20/2019
Lovely story!
Guest chapter 76 . 6/14/2019
Hmm. Master Seldon. Would that be Hari Seldon, founder of the Encyclopaedia Galactica :D?
Temple Cloud chapter 85 . 6/14/2019
Beautiful final chapter - it made me cry, the way beautiful things always do. I don't really think the 'two seasons' interpretation of the prophecy can be correct - after all, a season isn't a cycle of anything, but a stage in the cycle of the year. If 'sun cycle' doesn't mean a day (the time taken for the Earth to turn itself to face the sun again) I'd have thought it could mean either a year (the time taken for the Earth to cycle round the sun) or eleven years (the time taken for a cycle of activity in the burning of the sun itself), in which case two sun cycles would give Snape until he's nearly sixty - not a long life, but long enough to see the end of the war and see his children grow to near-adulthood, at least. He might decide that this is better than nothing, or he might decide that it would be unfair to have children when he will die when they are still in their teens - or, if he marries Molly, that her body has been through enough in producing seven children so far.
Temple Cloud chapter 74 . 6/9/2019
Beautiful chapter - the scene where Snape is naming his Matryoshka dolls was so emotional that it made me cry. I'd have thought a sapient pearwood broom would be intelligent enough simply to understand if Arvid Rosier told it that she was giving it to Severus Snape (the Luggage certainly seems to accept being given to Rincewind willingly enough) - but maybe the blood rite helps. The bit about the cactus reminded me of Jake Thackray's song 'The Cactus'. Do you know it?

I notice that by this stage you ARE referencing Half-Blood Prince, if only as a horrible reminder of what might have been. Even though you've made different decisions about some characters' backstories from the ones Rowling turned out to have made, they work for this story - for example, Petunia might accept advice from a teacher at Harry's school who understands how hard Harry can be to deal with, but might not have wanted help from Lily's annoying friend Sev who used to come into her room with Lily to pry into her private stuff when they were children. And even though Dumbledore in your version is heterosexual, he is still someone who has lost family members to Grindelwald and feels guilty about having allowed this to happen - even if, here, he doesn't have the guilt of having been a former friend of Grindelwald and having either directly or indirectly killed his own sister.
Temple Cloud chapter 10 . 4/6/2019
Lovely massage scene (I feared from the warning about 'any of you familiar with the phrase "happy ending" should realise that this is a story for adults,' that maybe it was warning that happy stories are only for five-year-olds and adult readers should expect nothing but grimness. I'm glad that's not true). I'm glad there is counselling available for recently-turned werewolves. And (going back a few chapters) I loved the comment about Madam Pomfrey having become friends with one of the gargoyles after treating him for a lichen infection.
Temple Cloud chapter 8 . 4/5/2019
I know Harry has a lot of anger and resentment in him, but I'm not convinced he would enjoy dreaming about murdering Snape and taking pleasure in it - or, if he did, that he would still feel happy about the dream when he woke up. Yes, we've seen that he was starting to head towards the Dark Side when he attempted to use Crucio - but it isn't until a couple of years later that he actually DOES. And saying that he had enjoyed watching Snape's memories in the Pensieve flatly contradicts the book (yes, Snape would have assumed he did, but this section is supposed to be written from Harry's point of view). But the Star Wars reference was a good touch - and if Harry thinks about what the end of the dream implies, there's a hope that he MIGHT finally start to empathise with Snape.

In the books, didn't Dudley's diet-and-exercise regime start a couple of years earlier than this? By the beginning of Order of the Phoenix, he's already transmuted from flabby lardarse to trained boxer - which, of course, just makes him into a more effective bully. But it's good that he seems to be mellowing a bit, even if it's just the effect of the potion - in the books, even if he's secretly grateful to Harry for rescuing him, it's two years before he can actually bring himself to admit it.
Temple Cloud chapter 3 . 4/4/2019
I'd speculated in one of my own stories that Snape's workload was so heavy that it would be impossible to complete without using time-turners, and that this is why Snape in the films is played by an actor considerably older than the thirty-something wizard in the books. Talking of ages - is it canonical that Luna is in the year below Harry? It hadn't occurred to me before. I think Fred and George are two years younger than Percy, and two years older than Ron; in Ron's third year, when Percy is in the seventh year and has been made Head Boy, Molly is ticking Fred and George off for not having been made prefects (which is a position given from the fifth year).

Disregarding Half-Blood Prince: I can understand that you weren't following the same plot, as you'd got your own mapped out, though you'd already guessed a few things that were likely to happen (that Draco might well be pressured into taking the Mark early, and that Harry and Ron would be allowed to take NEWT-level Potions. But I'm surprised you decided not to go back to the first couple of chapters and update background details (like Snape being a half-blood who grew up in a Muggle town in the North of England, rather than in Knockturn Alley).
Temple Cloud chapter 2 . 4/4/2019
Definitely the wrong time for Dumbledore to interfere by sending that dream, just when Snape was finally starting to work things out for himself.
Sleepyhawk502 chapter 85 . 3/8/2019
No it cannot be over! Loved it!
Guest chapter 85 . 2/19/2019
Thanks for this. I hadn't realized it was just the first story of several. I'll go look for Watches of the Night and for Widow's Walk . I hope at some point there's a real ending with all the loose ends tied up.
Guest chapter 79 . 2/17/2019
Great chapter. Nice drama. Very poignant end of the chapter. Bravo.
Guest chapter 77 . 2/17/2019
Yay! Very upbeat way to end this chapter.
Guest chapter 75 . 2/16/2019
Wow. You're on a roll now. I'm not getting much done in real life, because I spend so much time reading this. Thanks for the fun.
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