it's always nice that Voldemort cares about education and waits until after Exams

Lupin and the Order are useless cowards.

Nicely done. I was thinking about this a lot and surprised they never tried to do this in canon nor other fanficts. It just seems like an easy way to be proactive and trap the Snatchers and make it so people wouldn't be scared of the name anymore.

So I enjoyed this story overall. It started off really slow and rambling. Some of the characters were obnoxious like Hermione and Daphne early on. For the first half sometimes it just felt like it was dragging. In the second half though things started turning around. Things started happening, Hermione and Daphne actually grew up and addressed their flaws and there was finally good relationship development.

I do think a lot of the slow early stuff could've been condensed more. Some was unnecessary filler that went nowhere, some was repeating old information to Hermione that Dumbledore had fully explained a chapter or two earlier, etc. The second half made it more worth the buildup though.

In contrast I feel that after such a long story, the last couple chapters felt rushed. The war was going at a crawl, suddenly everything happened at once and then the next chapter is X years later with some brief explanations and then boom done. Judging by the dates of posting I'm guessing you were either burned out or weren't as immersed in the story and wanted to crank out the last few chapters for closure. I do appreciate that, though, so many stories get abandoned.

In any case, I liked the story and it kept me up for several nights. Thanks for writing.

I think having muggles around will be good for Daphne too. She has a lot of prejudices even if they've been lessened. Finally she'll have a chance to confront and overcome those.

I actually like how Dudley has developed tbh. It's interesting to see the worlds collide too.

AAAAAAHHHHH finally! I was afraid she'd take it worse knowing her hangups about the mind and personal identity. So cute though.

As someone with their own abandonment issues, this chapter hit home a lot and made me cry. I'm not sure about her voices, hallucinations and paranoia, hopefully those can be treated, but yeah the feeling of crushing loneliness and abandonment I get.

your Hermione is very unpleasant

I don't understand why Bill is so upset.

The last line was pretty funny

OK the self awareness from Hermione was very satisfying. A lot of stories turn up her negative traits but never have her address them or improve so that was some good character development. Hopefully it sticks, and it was nice seeing her visibly try to improve her behavior afterward too.

It was also funny after my previous reviews about the issues of keeping prisoners that they actually addressed a lot of the points I made. The draught is intriguing but if it requires regular administration it could be a risk if something comes up to prevent it. Still good to see Harry pointing out the issues and Hermione actually making an effort to be open minded.

I do wonder how they expect to win against enemies without killing. Daphne makes good points about him not really weighing human life as heavily as might be sane, but no one has offered valid alternatives to killing.

Stun the enemies? Their friends revive them.

Capture and imprison them? Where? Azkaban is under enemy control and useless, and keeping them elsewhere isn't very secure and they'd waste valuable supplies housing them. Plus who knows if Voldemort can track the dark mark.

Erase their memories? I think some of the early infodumps about the mind arts showed the memories could be repaired, at a risk sure, but Voldemort wouldn't hesitate if he could get answers.

I can't think of any valid alternatives that would work. And that's why the death eaters won so easily. The good guys are mostly ineffectual and reactive (if even that much).

Honestly I don't mind the talking as long as relationships and events are progressing. It was the early chapters that rambled on about esoteric things, some of which still haven't come into play, and future chapters where an info dump was reiterated in full to a different character that were a slog.

I find magic interesting, but I remember a previous reviewer saying it's kind of rambling and that's a pretty good word for it. A lot of the chapters could have been tightened up a lot, and my current related grievance is the moral lecturing over and over. But things have definitely improved from the start and the main pairing is finally progressing and is cute, so it's feeling smoother.

"You said you wanted to go after Death Eaters and their sympathizers. You know, your enemies. But this is something else, Harry"

And Nott was a Death Eater and the others definitely seemed like sympathizers. He defended himself, yes he was ruthless but it was effective. I get tired of Hermione and Lupin constantly with the "I'm disappointed in you" thing. He made choices he can live with, you disagree but talking down to him is just serving to signal your own virtue.

The cookie thing was cute af though.