hi! thanks for the consructive critism. I made a list of all the negatives and postives of my own characters. I think it helped (fingers crossed) and I'm going over the rest of the story again. I did realize that Alex was a little too . . . perfect. You hve great writing. I loved it!

Another excellent story. I really liked the the combination of the song and the prose. They actually worked together in this case and reinforced teh point you wanted to make. I liked the fact that you made it centre on duty. Harry has a duty towards the wizarding world, one that is more important than his friends or his life. You conveyed that beautifully. I especially liked: He wouldn't have had to live with the pain, he wouldn't have had to live with the grief. The emptiness. Very powerful words and it is definetely understandable for Harry to think such thoughts. The only thing that slightly irked me was you use of the word pain. I did not always understood why you inserted it at certain moments while it worked teriffically at other moments. An example that did not work in my mind was: the pain was pounding in his chest. It was a bit confusing because you mention the word pain a lot while you also state that he is dark, empty and cold inside, deprived of any feeling. This is very contradicting. But besides that you wrote an excellent oneshot here that certainly painted Harry the way he was at the end of OotP and that reminded me of what that poor boy will have to deal with in the future. Great work.

the song fit perfectly! this really illuminated Harry's grief towards everything going on, and it is really realistic.

Author's Response: Thanks, I thought the song fit perfectly, too - it's why I just HAD to write this ;)