i love the the fact the plot could surprise me. hope u continue ur work.

I enjoyed your tale. I'd like to know what Harry decided to do with his life. Curse breaker, lawyer, lawmaker? Or what Hermione did. Hopefully they had a bunch of kids and a good life.

Let's get the big thing out of the way first. I liked this story, really really liked it. Great job.

Now onto the more specific things.

First off, the title itself never made sense to me, it felt like it had no correlation to the story itself, until you revealed Issamir, at which point I became a little sad since I had assumed he would die at some point and it would be a tipping point for the war. Nope, left field Grandma Snek. Her death feels similar to Dumbledore's in a way. The elderly sacrificing themselves so the young can live.

Which segues me onto another point. Dumbledore. I won't lie, I was not, and kind of am not a fan of how you "revived" Dumbledore. Not that I am not quite glad to see a more fleshed out relation between Albus and Harry, but a magical phoenix swap that nobody noticed the fire effect? But still, whatever. Albus taught Harry a lot about life and some about magic, which is exactly what he needed to learn.

Bad Snape. I don't know how to feel I'm more ambivalent either way. Either Snape is a repentant man who can't see Harry from Jame's shadow, a double/triple spy, (Not sure which it would be. Where he's Voldemort's man through and through.) or he's a man who decides to help Harry for differing reasons. (Reminds him of Lily more, Harry ends up in Slytherin, discovers Harry's being abused, you know the tropes.) In your story he served little more than a footnote, which is honestly a lot less than I was expecting.

Ginny's sacrifice. I don't even want to touch this with a 10 foot pole because damn. I honestly can't decide whether that was a masterful stroke of reinforcing that love conquers all or a admittedly fucked up simple way to get rid of her, Voldemort's spirit, and allow Hermione to be with Harry in the end. Which I have to say, while this story had obvious leanings toward Harry/Hermione, I was actually starting to second guess myself when Hermione/Ron and Harry/Ginny started becoming an increasing point.

I could go on to discuss more point, but I feel the need to end it there and reiterated that I thoroughly enjoyed the story, although I'm quite disheartened that I didn't discover this story because of a redditor recommending it, or it being massively popular, but rather because I stumbled upon a random person who favorited the story, but I'm glad I did stumble upon it. I'll likely start reading your other story some time tomorrow, but for now, I hope you're doing great.
-Green

I am sorry I haven’t reviewed chapter by chapter, I always forget to do that.

I very much liked your story: I thought the plot and the adventure was top notch as was the characterization. Kudos for such feats as managing to stay close to Ron’s character (behaving like a git) without turning him into a full git. When you add good writing to that mix, It really was a pleasure to read.

If you care about constructive criticism, I think Ron and Hermione should have done more to help. It would have been particularly nice if Ron got a chance to shine. Ginny could have been inserted into the conflict even if she’d been useless in a pitched battle against death eaters not fighting with strict orders to not kill Harry Potter (ie with kid gloves on)

The reason for this is that their sacrifice and struggle should be more than ‘some emotional support’ imho. Instead you usurped Hermiones role with Dumbledore doing a cameo, and failed to use Ron on the few places were tactical acumen could be worth something (castle invasion: for example, observe troop movements while flying over the castle disillusioned, have Ron realize the dementors are hunting hurry and purposely lead them away, etc. Still don’t get my wrong, I LOVED the Dumbledore scenes.

overall, this is a fairly small issue in general, and did not detract much if any from my enjoyment of your great story.

Thanks a lot for writing it! (Almost made me reactvate my ff account, just to follow you, heh)

Wow! What a story. I loved it … even though you made me cry a few times, and I mean CRY. I'm not easily impressed, but I am impressed by this story. I love that it is unique, and I loved how you portrayed all the characters. Well done indeed, and thank you for sharing it.

This was spectacular. Thank you.

This has been such an excellent story. Not sure if you still check reviews or not, but I wanted to thank you for sharing it with us.

Excellent story - very well told. I enjoyed it very much.

This is probably a very late review.
However...

I love this, it is absolutely amazing. I especially liked Chapter 35, where Issamir said, "Serpents can be good or evil." To me, speaking as a person from Slytherin House, this just goes to show that, like our emblem, we can be good or evil. All that matters is our choices.

Again, amazing. :)

29 yrs old and for some reason the name Gabilian came to my mind a few days ago. Randomly, from some deep part of my brain. A memory from almost 12 yrs ago...a memory of a wonderful book that I read in anticipation of the last and final book in the Harry Potter series.
To give respect to that beautiful memory, and to rediscover why your book left such a profound impression in my brain, I decided to read it again. 12 yrs later. A lot has happened since then - 12 yrs of education, a lot of life experiences and hopefully some measure of maturity. However one thing did not change - how wonderfully written I found your book to be. Wherever you are, I hope you have done well Gabilian. I hope you have had success in the field of your choosing. If it is in literature, I would love to find out more and if it isn't in literature, then know this much - you will be remembered by several of us who had the pleasure of reading your book.

I have been returning to this story several times since the first read, and every time I find myself rereading all 45 chapters in one go. Every time I find something unique that hadn't been written to death in this fandom. Every time I enjoy the flawless, impeccable writing and the powerful characterizations.
I would really love to read more stories from your pen.

I consider this a far better 7th year story than DH. I look forward to reading The Bottom of the Lake next to see if you went 2 for 2 in that respect.
Besides the story being creative and well thought out, the quality of the writing is also well done.
Since I see a US flag in your profile, I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving today.
Thank you for the story.

Thanks for writing this!

This is a very enjoyable read, although the angst is a bit overwhelming at times :) I think I prefer bottom of the lake if I'm honest, a bit more light-hearted. Plus I'm not a fan of the Ginny storyline at all here.

The Dumbledore storyline was great, and I loved your journey with the horcruxes, very inventive and engaging.

Ron was done quite well I thought. The breakdown certainly is controversial, but there is a large part of me that says it's more realistic. This his sister, and I know for all intents and purposes that Harry is his brother, but grief is stifling and his need to leave is most understandable. Maybe in a few years when he is less cloudy, more able to face it, he will come back and reignite his friendships.

It feels like more of a Harry/Ginny story than a Harry/Hermione story given that a large portion of the fic is dedicated to that but nonetheless it is a highly enjoyable read and thank you for writing it :) You're a very good writer and the detail and extensive planning in your plot is incredibly impressive.

Both your fics should absolutely have more reviews! I hope everything is going well for you, and someday the need to write HP fics might strike you again if we're lucky :)

CR.

I've just re-read both of your stories. I can't say which of them I liked best, because they are both based on different concepts. I love finding such original stories, and yours are also written so well that they are doubly enjoyable. I've recently retired, which gives me extra time to go back and read again all the great stories on my personal list. Thanks for the time and effort you put into your work.

Really enjoyed reading your fic! Cried a few times reading it because I felt so involved. Thanks for writing it!