Hmm well I know for sure I read this and the only reason I will keep going is if I remember correctly you also give this elemntal powers somewhat to Harry but in a different way so not expecting a super ginny story. Though I will say I hope I don't start knowing what is going to happen before it does since if so I will move on and this story is very good so don't want that.

An excellent story - actually I'm re-reading it in preperation for reading the rest of the series.

I did notice this time thru that during the floor stripping in this chapter (6) Ginny sees harry doing chores as a distraction, but Harry should already be staying at the cauldron at this point, yes?

The more I think about it, there is a timing issue all around - The Aunt Marge bit was just before the end of the holidays (as I recall) and Percy knows about the Head-Boy quite early in the holidays. Seems like it is too late to make changes that big and obviously if it too multiple readings to find them they can't be too upsetting, eh?

In Ch. 5, summer of the serpent, for 23 Aug you wrote: We kept up a running conversation the whole time, which was good — seeing as that without it I probably would have gotten distracted by the sudden flashes I had of Harry’s activities (mostly chores) and his emotions (mostly anger and frustration). They certainly do work him hard — those Dursleys. (And I thought we had it bad with Mum’s insisting on the garden being gnome-free!)
However, this takes place after Harry has left and moved into the Leaky Cauldron.

That left me with a bit of a sick feeling... the 'ritual' I mean. It... I absolutely hate it when people make Harry Potter witches out to be like 'real' witches--Wiccans, I mean, because *that's* why people think the books are evil, because people compare. I really didn't like that, but I can't stand not finishing stories that I start... and there's only three more chapters, anyway.