This is a pretty good story.

Wow, way to lie about this being beta'd. It's full to the brim of spelling mistakes. Shitty little liar.

A brilliant chapter. The Samhain celebrations and friendships are wonderful. Thank you!

It'd still be better to keep all four houses in the great hall, but keeping at least Hufflepuff and Slytherin is better than idiot!Dumbledore who sent half of his students potentially into the club of a troll.

Privet Drive in Surrey, England?
High Street in Texas, USA?

Surrey is a county. It's quite possible that there are a couple of "Privet Drives" in Surrey, especially in those dormitory towns where the London commuters sleep and the streets of every neighbourhood follow common themes. In my city (not in England) we have them as well, funnily enough even one with flowers.

Why didn't Hooch cast a cushioning charm to break Neville's fall?

A delightfully fun tale!

Just found this story and absolutely loved it! Now to hope you wrote sequels...or can you write them, please?

A fun and interesting story concept. I enjoyed it.
Did Quirrell bring in the troll to bring confusion so he could kill Harry?
Will they find Harry's invisibility cloak? You would think that Minerva would have found it by now.

Why does Harry get a 7th year student mentor while the others got younger students? (Tonks, who in canon graduated in June 1991, as Harry didn't start until Sept. 1991) This story is great so far!

That was a lot of fun, quite enjoyable at that. Sadly, I doubt that Dumbles will remain in the background for too much longer, but I'm glad that Harry is willing to work with the Unspeakables to some degree, and They Should figure out about the Horcruxes, including his Scar. Also glad that Hedwig is actively in the picture, as he hadn't chose, let alone found her when he found Ali. Thankfully he hasn't run into a situation (yet) where he needed to use the Walther. I look forward to reading the other two in this series (Years 2 & 3). Thank You. TTFN

Great story! It felt lighter than Snake, even with the horrific abuse! Really enjoyed seeing a strong Harry in Hufflepuff!

Nicely done. Off to see if this continues. Thanks for a great read!

Wow! So many changes but I like them a lot. It's nice to see a competent headmistress in McGonagall. And I liked the set up and description of Hufflepuff house from the common area to the mentors for first years and the way the prefects take them to their classes so that they learn their way around the castle a bit while it's new. These sound like policies the other houses should use. Hufflepuff winning the cup was awesome. Overall, I enjoyed the changes in the year and that Dumbledore and Snape were sacked legitimately, and that incidents of harassment and death attempts were handled well. It's nice to see Harry with a family, and that he got to see James and Lily at Yule. Love Hagrid in this, and the twins are a nice touch to get Harry into pranking. Love that Neville is a friend even if he's in another house.

I like this story with Aurora Sinistra being Harry's introduction to Hogwarts and the changes that are made based on that and Harry's background. It's nice to see it be someone other than Snape or Hagrid with the occasional McGonagall. Well done on an interesting and well written story.