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Reviews For For The Boy Who Has Everything
First, I love your writing style. I like the very original idea of having Dumbledore die at the end of OOTP, thereby removing much of the explanatory info Harry gets at the end, the prophecy, etc. And it really makes it very believable that members of the Order, in particular Lupin and Snape, would have a very difficult time dealing with their own feelings about Harry. In many ways Sirius, and in your story Dumbledore, died because of Harry's mistakes that eventually led him to go to the Department of Mysteries, thereby forcing the Order to go rescue him. Lupin, in your story, has lost someone extremely close to him with Sirius' death. We know from HBP that Lupin would have also been grief stricken at Dumbledore's death. And Dumbledore's death would have vastly affected Snape as well. And that's just the emotional toll on them. They're also having to deal with a great amount of trouble from Fudge and public opinion, all stemming from, as they would see it, the inability of Harry to do as adults instruct him to do, and instead take matters into his own hands. In your story, Lupin and Snape have gone through all this trauma and stress and are now risking Azkaban to keep Harry safe. Their attitude toward him isn't right, nor is it calculated to get the responses they really want, but it *is* very human and understandable. I love the way you've written everything from Harry's point of view and his slowly growing realizations of what's really going on. And of course, the reader sometimes "gets it" before Harry. I don't see this as an extremely dark story, but it does have a grittiness to it that is very appealing, as the characters react with very believable, if flawed, responses and attitudes. Your take on Lupin, by the way, is excellent. This is a guy who was so protective of *himself* that in POA he kept vital information regarding the safety of hundreds of children, and Harry in particular, secret for months solely so he wouldn't lose the goodwill of Dumbledore. And after POA, he did not contact Harry in any way to offer any support, leaving that to Sirius. Even after Sirius' death, in canon, we don't see Lupin attempting to contact Harry to offer any comfort or support. And in POA he is willing in very cold blood to kill a cringing, pleading unarmed man in front of 3 thirteen year old kids. I don't dislike Lupin, but he is a very flawed character, even in canon. I also find your depiction of the relationship between Snape and Lupin to be fascinating, as Snape continues to have a somewhat negative view of Lupin, even as he also apparently cares for him. And of course, that's a very Snapish sort of way to be. I hope you're able to continue this story as it's quite original, a fascinating set of character studies, and very well written. Author's Response: Reviews like yours are not only awesome for their own sake, but also provide so much food for thought. Truly, thank you for taking the time. Dumbledore is usually such a prominent character in fics involving Harry developing some kind of positive relationship with Snape, but in 99% of them he is the same character recycled over and over. The kindly manipulator who does things (sometimes ugly things) for "their good." In most stories Dumbledore makes me gag. To have him meddling and twinkling his eyes throughout my story... no. I wanted him gone from the start. Fortunately this also presented some interesting subplots, like the unrevealed prophesy, chaos in the Ministry, and no one around to "control" Snape.
Author's Response: Oh, it's quite a lot worse than that. Harry's making a very unfortunate mistake there.
Poor Harry, from this new POV the twins are indeed evil *pouts* *wants to comfort Harry* Great story :)
My favorite aspect to the story is Harry's deteriorating relationship with Lupin as a result of Sirius's death. Harry spends so little time mourning him in the Sixth book, I hated it. However I dislike some of Harry's reactions in the earlier chapter. I can't (and don't like to) picture Harry clinging to someone after they've spite him. I can understand the reasonining; in Ootp, harry deeply mourns the loss of Ron's friendship. However, Harry stands firm in his stance that Ron should admit wrong (at least until he sees Ron is ready to apologize). Lupin tries and fails to show compassion to Harry, often turning cold and bordering on showing outright dislike. Whatever his reaction, I like the conflict in his growing distance with Lupin. I love these lines: "He'd learned at the Dursleys that when someone was this angry with him, the only thing he could do was wait it out. Of course they didn't believe him. No one ever did." It's nice to see that the behaviors Harry's learned from the Dursleys apply to those close to Harry. I hope you update soon!
I will read slash as long as it isn't Harry, and is well written with an ingenuous plot--"Blood Magic" comes to mind. Can't stand PWP, absurdities such as mpreg, and/or Draco Malfoy, a hugely boring (to me) character who figures in a lot of them. My objection is not to homosexuality, but to the fact most authors don't write a gay couple but a man/woman (or even woman/woman) in a disguised form. Their cluelessness goes beyond amusing to stupid. Your story has not (so far) made that mistake.
Tonk's little not-to-subtle reminder was well done as well. Ron's going to be a real git about all of this isn't he? The twins too. Poor Harry. Nothing seems to go right for him does it? Of course, if it did that weould be really boring and nobody would ever have read the 7 books and then where would we be? *tee-hee*
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