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Reviewer: mamu2 Signed Date: 2011.01.13 - 03:46PM Title: A Relatively Pleasant Start...
Nice that Harryis going to finally be able to tell everyone.
I really hope there isn't going to be new martial arts training. The new training with Remus is going to slow things down enough, but hearing about them kicking and blocking really grinds things to a halt.
Good story!
Reviewer: phoenixfighter Signed Date: 2007.12.03 - 10:31PM Title: A Relatively Pleasant Start...
I LOVE THIS FREAKIN' STORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Reviewer: Ginnykins Anonymous Date: 2007.07.09 - 12:56PM Title: A Relatively Pleasant Start...
I had to read and re-read the bit where Dumbledore obliviated Harry, cause at first I didn't realise he was dreaming it! Brilliant chapter and story!
Reviewer: The Seeker Signed Date: 2007.05.14 - 09:25PM Title: A Relatively Pleasant Start...
I've found your mesmerizing story somewhat late in the process and have been playing catch up over the past several days. While not totally caught up yet, I wanted to comment. Basically, you've constructed a plot that let's you amend canon any way you want, while using canon as a point of reference. That, in itself, is quite creative. What makes the story even better is that the quality of your writing approaches the creativity of your plotting.
Highlights, beyond the ingenious central plot line, include the deepened, but still believable, characters of Neville and Luna. You've grown both in ways that are consistent with canon, and I think you've possibly nailed Luna as well as any fan fic writer I've seen. She's an absolute treat and a deliciously humorous pairing with Nev and his Gran. Your Dumbledore also warrants praise. Thank God he's not the beloved manipulator as in most other stories. I really like how you've flipped his character upside down, making his manipulations his primary personality trait, and his power, intelligence, connections, etc. secondary. It makes for a much more interesting -- and scary -- character, and your use of the dream sequence certainly underscored Harry's lack of trust. Another interesting aspect of this is that you've allowed Harry's well founded concerns about DD to influence others in his close circle, inclusing Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Well done, because you've constructed these feelings subtly and developed them over a period of time.
About the only element in your captivating story that surprised me a bit is the relatively easy acceptance of Harry's intelligence, maturity, magical expertise, people skills, etc. by his peers, his professors and other adults he has come in contact with. Despite a good dose of angsty personality traits, he sometimes seems to good to be true. Let me assure you that this is a very minor nit-pick, though one I did want to mention. By the way I'm fine with the relationships the six have developed, among themselves and as couples.
At least I have several more chapters before I catch up, then I'll join the hordes requesting that you quit your job, stop your long commute and hunker down at your computer so you can update with astounding frequency.
Reviewer: witowsmp Signed Date: 2006.08.24 - 12:46AM Title: A Relatively Pleasant Start...
Terrific Story! I'm looking forward to Harry explaining things to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley.
Reviewer: Flavia Signed Date: 2006.08.22 - 11:26AM Title: A Relatively Pleasant Start...
You want to know what made me gasp?
The bit about Dumbledore in Harry's dream: specifically the part about all the futures leading to Dumbledore winning - and then Dumbledore killing him. I couldn't figure out how you were going to get out of that one - & then, of course, you did a "Dallas". Shame on you! :-)
Reviewer: denny Signed Date: 2006.08.19 - 12:31AM Title: A Relatively Pleasant Start...
this is an awesome story u simply continue to impress me even ur reviewers impress me with their never ending reviews lol but i agree with that really really long review =P (pretend its just as long and analytical)
Reviewer: dakinumas Anonymous Date: 2006.08.18 - 09:37PM Title: A Relatively Pleasant Start...
yes, so true, the thought of Dumbledore try to interfere and took matters his own ways is so scary, when i read up to that I almost have a breakdown! you make him so scary in my own eyes now...
anyways, please update soon, I just finish the whole story and i have been reading that without a break. It's really good!
please updat soon
dakin
Reviewer: firewhiskey Anonymous Date: 2006.08.16 - 02:08PM Title: A Relatively Pleasant Start...
wow...this is a really interesting concept for a story, and you are wiritng it VERY well. while i still don't agree with the whole "maturity issue", i will accept your answer and move past it. it really doesn't bother me too much, just on a couple of occasions.
anyway, i'm glad i decided to read your fic....i love how long all your chapters are. it makes waiting for new ones a bit more bareable. also, it warms my heart everytime molly tears up about harry calling her "mum". how very sweet. i'm very glad you didn't end the chap on the death of neville and hermione. that would have been cruel! i'm sohappy it was all a dream because as much as dumbledore likes to interfere, I can't imagine him doing something as extreme as that.
keep up the great writing and update soon!
Reviewer: whitefish066 Signed Date: 2006.08.14 - 01:29PM Title: A Relatively Pleasant Start...
Hello,
I've enjoyed your story immensely. I wait with excitment and antcipation for every new chapter. I don't have any suggestions except keep doing what your doing, the story is awsome
Hoping that a new chapter is right around the corner,
whitefish
Reviewer: whitefish066 Signed Date: 2006.08.12 - 09:45PM Title: A Relatively Pleasant Start...
Hello,
Thank you, this is one of the best stories I've ever read. I have grown to love AU stories were Harry goes back in or is able someone how to change his past self and effect the future in good ways.
My all time Favorite would Harry 'Potter and Fate's Debt' by Intromit, maybe because it is the first really good one I came across, but your story would have to be second on the list.
I hope you update soon as I can hardly wait for an update.
whitefish
Reviewer: DontTreadOnMe11 Anonymous Date: 2006.08.07 - 06:12PM Title: A Relatively Pleasant Start...
Great job with Chapter 29! After reading the story the entire way through i have some questions...
1- Your story is already approaching the legth of HP and the Sorceror's Stone. What length is this masterpiece going to be? Going all the way up to the second defeat of Voldemort? To a happily (or not) ever after? Book 7? A Trilogy?
2- Has Harry told Sirius the location of the Horcruxes? or is Sirius just winging it?
Reviewer: encyclopediabrit Signed Date: 2006.08.07 - 12:01PM Title: A Relatively Pleasant Start...
Excvellent chapter. Personally I like what you are doing with the ships. I think it is entirely appropriate that the underlying tones have Harry the adult wanting his relatioship with Ginny the way it was before, but Harry the 12 year old hesitant about what to do about that. I also like the way you have Sirius looking for the horcruxes. It is a good way to speed up the uldimate while Harry obviously cannot. You are also doing a really good thing making Harry realize he can possibly prevent Percy the Prat's reappearance. One thing I am a little iffy about is that you said earlier in the story that older Harry came to terms with Dumbledor and understood his reasoning, but that acceptance is not showing.
Reviewer: Rhetor Signed Date: 2006.08.06 - 01:02PM Title: A Relatively Pleasant Start...
I happened to read Intromit's Fate's Debt story at almost the same time as Viridian's Nightmare of Futures Past. Both have made a big impression on me and I find myself rereading them. Personally, I am especially struck by their two very different visions of a closer relationship between Harry and Ginny. Indeed, one can see these two stories as representing different views on what it means to be "close" to another person at all.
Each of these stories proceeds from the position that things would be better if Harry hadn't taken three years to notice Ginny. Jo Rowling, of course, has explained the delay in terms of their respective needs to grow before they can have a relationship -- Ginny needs to grow enough to see Harry as something other than a rock star, and Harry needs to grow enough to understand what kind of woman suits him. (I've always thought that Rowling is a bit hard on teenage boys vs. girls in this regard, but let that pass.)
Intromit and Viridian avoid this need for growth by finding different strategies to force the issue. In the case of NoFP, an 11-year-old Harry with the memories of his 30-year-old self already knows Ginny's worth, and deliberately accelerates her ability to see him as a person by actively cultivating her friendship. In FD, a "soul bond" is imposed on Harry & Ginny from the future, instantly giving them access to one another's thoughts and impressing them with a deep need for one another.
These two alterations in the story line lead to two different sets of consequences for the plot. The soul bond in FD allows us to see how much better/easier Harry's life would have been if Ginny had been there to watch his back and force him to deal with things he otherwise would have hidden or avoided -- for example, he has to withstand Umbridge's blood quill for only a few minutes because Ginny knows what's happening and makes him call Umbridge on it; his time at the Dursleys is much less onerous because she with him, either in his thoughts or in person, to make it easier. They are a constant source of comfort and support to each other. Interestingly, Harry in FD is much less concerned with being a hero or fighting Voldemort than Harry in the canon -- his relationship with Ginny makes him want to live his life in happiness. Thus, FD Harry doesn't ask McGonnegal how to become an Auror, but instead how to become a professional Quiddich player. As FD progresses and Ginny and Harry move from their initial "sweet and innocent" need for physical contact (one is strongly reminded of two puppies sleeping curled around each other for warmth) to a consummated sexual passion by the summer following Harry's fifth year, their unavoidable knowledge of each other's thoughts makes them apparently ideal lovers as well.
In NoFP, by contrast, intimacy takes its more recognizeable form of deliberately revealing the self to others and allowing others to do the same. Harry is initially frustrated in his mature (30-year-old) need for intimacy because he must conceal his knowlege from his friends (he fears that he will be imprisoned or otherwise prevented from acting if others -- Snape, Dumbledore, the Ministry -- find out how much he knows of the future). He suffers from this inability to be open and fears that his friends will despise him when they learn how much he has concealed form them. In three climactic scenes at the end of Harry's second year, he finally unburdens himself to his friends and tells them some of what he knows. Of course they do not reject him, but embrace him for acting out of love.
Harry's NoFP confession scene with Ginny, however, is especially instructive. Ginny, rather than asking him the future ("What's going to happen to me?"), asks him what is contained in his nightmares ("What is it that bothers you?"). When she learns that his first, most awful memory is of her own brutal death, and thus discovers that witnessing his pain will probably mean withstanding significant pain of her own, she does not blink, but sits on his lap and asks to hear all the rest of it. Afterwards she is grateful to him for "letting me all the way in." She also understands that she has grown up a lot in a very short time.
In FD, Harry and Ginny have no choice but to be intimate. They cannot avoid each other's thoughts and feelings and are blessed with a need for each other that makes accepting these thoughts and feelings possible. Their understanding of each other is complete, instantaneous, overwhelming, all-consuming. This sort of closeness is what I think most psychologists would call "emotional fusion" -- a pronounced blurring of the normal psychological boundaries.
In NoFP, by contrast, first Harry and then Ginny must make the deliberate, scary choice to share feelings about painful things. Neither knows what will happen as a result, and each is therefore exposing him/herself to pain or a risk of pain by choosing to be vulnerable. Such a choice is especially poignant in a story where Occlumancy, the ability to be invulnerable from those we do not wish to let in, plays such a pivotal role in the plot. Both Harry and Ginny, by Chapter 28, are fully able to shut out any intruder to their thoughts or feelings -- but they choose instead to share their pain.
Emotional fusion is often seen as a sort of inafantile fantasy -- we do not wish to separate from our mothers, and this desire to lose the self in another is something with which the maturing human struggles. Each new step in maturity requires accepting and embracing a new level of separation between ourselves and the things we cherish -- to the point where, in old age, we must acknowledge a separation between ourselves and our health and our very life. By contrast, deliberate intimacy, the intentional creation of vulnerbility by revealing our innermost selves, is seen as a highly evolved, mature response to the tragic but necessary separation between human souls.
I found both FD and NoFP gratifying, but for markedly different reasons. FD is a wonderful fantasy about complete fusion with your beloved; NoFP is a fantasy of a different sort, about being able to correct past mistakes and allow yourself to be vulnerable where previously you had been too afraid. Still, I can't help but think that Harry and Ginny in NoFP present me with something I really want to emulate, whereas Harry and Ginny in FD present me with something that a mature person probably wouldn't want.
Reviewer: annabananna Signed Date: 2006.08.06 - 12:08PM Title: A Relatively Pleasant Start...
Wow. It took me three days to read this story but thats probably because i kept stalling when i came to the final chapter. This is an amazing story and i've added it to me favorites. I've almost cried on a couple of accounts and i love how the charachters say the say things in both timelines. "emosional range of a tespoon" for one. I almost started screaming at the computer, and was thinking how he ruined everthing when Dumbledore Obliviated Harry. Then i relized that of course, it was a dream. You did have me for a second there though. I really like the vow Percy made about never abandoning his family and it seems like after this chapter, maybe he'll come around. So, great story, update really really soon.
~*~annabananna
Reviewer: MischiefManaged Signed Date: 2006.08.04 - 11:00AM Title: A Relatively Pleasant Start...
dun dun duuuunnn... So, is Dumbledore going to do what is "good for everyone"? I have to admit you scared me there when I was reading it! I was like, no way! Plus Neville and Hermione? nuh uh! no way! (i know, that wasn'tthe biggest news there, but oh well) The "Gryffindor Six" will prevail, with a little help from everyone! When do we see Padfoot again? I miss him! Please update soon as I loooooooove this story!
Reviewer: Dragen Signed Date: 2006.08.02 - 10:37PM Title: A Relatively Pleasant Start...
Another great chapter, I can't wait to see what happens next... I wonder what Mr. and Mrs. Weasley going to react when Harry tells them what he know... I can't wait. I hope in this one the headmaster makes Prefect... as he would be good at it. I hope to see some romance soon within the story soon. Hopefully with Harry and Ginny :D
Keep up the great work, and please update soon.
I wonder if you could read and review my story when you've got the time please, as I would like to hear what you think... and if you got the time, could you give me a few ideas on how to make my story better.
Reviewer: Chreechree Signed Date: 2006.08.02 - 07:27PM Title: A Relatively Pleasant Start...
That dream! Holy schnikey! When Dumbledore was talking about the seer saying that every outcome resulted in Voldemort winning, I got seriously scared. Dumbledore. What to do about him? I can see how he might react badly, but I would hope that he would work to find the best solution, to use Harry’s knowledge of the horcruxes and their locations, etc. to prevent Voldemort’s return. He hasn’t been resurrected yet. Take care of the Horcruxes first and make him vulnerable from the get-go. Harry is so guarded with him that it makes sense Dumbledore is wary. I hope that his recent experiences with the Slytherins will help his opinion of Harry and start moving them along a better path. I’m glad the girls have written themselves reminder notes just in case. Smart! Uninspired bookends. Funny. I like it that Harry helped Percy. I hope his efforts there will pay off. Great job as always!
Reviewer: LadyLatina Signed Date: 2006.08.02 - 06:43PM Title: A Relatively Pleasant Start...
Really good chapter! Can't wait for the next update. I'm going to get fired for reading this at work! Please update soon!
Reviewer: hjp74 Signed Date: 2006.08.02 - 12:36PM Title: A Relatively Pleasant Start...
wow this story keeps getting better and better . i know other people have commentted on the dream but that was a truley despebing part . also is ginny keeping close to harry for her own protection or is it to keep an eye on hime (I suspect the latter). and will the fact that she is now techniqally his sister cause futer problems. finnally iam looking forward to the talk with molly and arthur as i cant see any part of tit that they are not going to be pleased with
