I loved this story. My first thought was that you did a great job with describing the chaos of the Battle with all the short sentence/paragraphs. Eg He heard screaming. / Another smash. / Another flash of green light. / Green light. / Green. That was very effective and had me feeling like I was right here.

I also liked all the assosciations Draco has with green... it's not something I'd particularly considered before - the way it's both 'evil' (Avada Kedavra, Slytherin) and 'good' (Harry's eyes). It was an interesting idea and worked well here.

I liked your Draco as well - I'm assuming this is after the room of requirement? Although I do wonder that he's alone (and not with Goyle), but I suppose they could have lost each other at some point. I think Draco would feel guilty about what he'd done, but he'd also be too scared to fight for the other side in the battle - I loved the repetition of running, because that is what he seems to do a lot of.

I just had one qualm about him - you described Draco as seeing Hogwarts, not Malfoy Manor, as his real home. To me, though, I think Draco was perfectly happy at home, at least until the end of fifth year, so that doesn't quite make sense - obviously he'd have affection for the castle, but I don't think he was necessarily happier there than at home. But that's just my opinion.

Colin is fascinating here - I like how you first show him in the room - as much as he wants to fight, and is very brave, at times he is also scared and wants to hide. I think you characterised him well, because I guessed who it was long before you made it clear. I liked how Colin said ‘How can you say that? You don’t know me.’ The boy asked him, seemingly annoyed at the meaningless word of comfort. - Because I think he would know that it really is meaningless, rather than takng it as a compliment.

The scene you've created with Draco killing Colin is a fascinating one - he did do it for a good reason, but he killed someone nonetheless. It remimds me a little of Snape killing Dumbledore in HBP (although the circumstances are quite different). I liked that Draco was really disgusted enough with the torturing and cruelty to be able to do that for Colin - after all, we did see in HBP how hard it was for Draco to kill, and I think it's quite selfless in a way. However, I also liked how Draco thought this part - ‘Which means…’ He continued as if just realising it himself ‘…I’m worth saving, doesn’t it?’ His voice broke and he stopped talking. - because he does see something for himself in it, eventually, and I don't really mean that in a selfish way, but I just think that's how Draco would look at it. I also loved the touch of him becoming a Healer - a very appropriate job for him.

Overall I thought this was well-written and well-characterised, and presented an interesting situation which I haven't read before.

~Katrina

Thanks for writing such a great story. I really enjoyed it from Draco's perspective.