Beautifully executed and well led-into. It's sad a well-planned, well-executed fic doesn't get many reviews because it just doesn't fall in the right category...

Well, I just finished reading this and I have to say, I'm incredibly impressed with your ability to develop a plot. This story has great twists-and-turns; the reader can never be sure what's going to happen next. Your use of foreshadowing was admirable as well. I read your slash version of this story last summer, so I wasn't expecting a happy ending, but I do think it could have been edited a little more to make sure the relationship between Harry and Draco wasn't romantic in this version. Overall, even though the ending was (to me) just as frustrating for the reader as it is for the characters, this is an incredibly well written piece, and I think it deserves more reviews than it's gotten so far.

I'm just going to insert a comment here...Good God, that was brilliant! Stunning ending, too. I loved every word, honest! You're a fantastic writer...your grammar was great as well. Please, please, please, I beg you to continue you writing other stories.

Hm, if I were Harry, I wouldn't be angry about the lie. That would be arrogant and self-righteous when there are more important issues to be angry about! I would be angry at Draco for not exchanging places with the 'victim' like he had planned (if you're going to make sacrifices in order to achieve something, then make sure you *are* the one actually making the sacrifices, and not someone else in your place!). Lack of time sounds like an excuse.

Otherwise, if Draco were to show remorse (and I think he did, because he admitted his goal didn't justify hurtng the child), Harry shoud forgive him. Sometimes, good people are forced to do bad things when they're desperate, like when Xeno Lovegood delivered Harry, Ron and Hermione to the Death Eaters in exchange for Luna's safety because she was their prisoner at the time. Wormtail is a similar case (if he really gave away Harry's parents' location under torture). In such circumstances, people get desperate and make stupid decisions, what makes the difference is when people feel remorse at the way their actions caused others to get hurt, even if they don't regret the good consequences that also came out of it. In Mr. Lovegood's case, the fact that he managed to keep Luna alive, and Wormtail's, that he managed to stop the torture he was being subjected to (though what he did since Harry's third year onward is another matter altogether); perhaps, if Sirius and Remus had shown some forgiveness, perhaps Voldemort would never have managed to resurrect in Harry's fourth year at all, they practically forced him back to Voldemort with their lack of compassion, even if it's understandable that they'd react that way.

The thing is, desperate people sometimes do stupid things, but they're different from callous people in the sense that they can feel remorse, as we've learned, even if sometimes their pride makes them deny it in front of others.

It was Astoria who cast the curse, not Draco, with the permission of Marcus Flint, and she was the one who said to do it anyway, even if Scorpius wasn't in Slytherin. That sounds similar to the way Dumbledore at first let Grindelwald be nasty as he was, because he was inlove with him. If anything, I think Harry does understand Draco's love for Scorpius, but might be a bit jealous and horrified at Draco's "blind" support and loyalty to Astoria, the one factual "criminal" in all this (the one who actually cast the curse, and the one who wanted to go through with the plan).

This fic deserves reviews, and many of them. Here is the first one.

The plot is compelling. I read through the story without realising that there was an earlier version. I checked that one afterwards, and I have to say omitting the slash part makes the characters and the story as a whole even more convincing. There's nothing really conclusive said in the books about which way Draco swings, but Harry isn't likely to be interested. JK made sure he doesn't look gay.

Aside from that, the story is very close to canon.

It focuses on a problem that is, regrettably, glossed over in the books: the mutual prejudice. There is nothing done until the end of DH (epilogue included) to overcome that prejudice. Quite to the contrary, the final battle probably served to enhance the gap between Slytherin and the rest of the British wizarding community.

In the person of McGonagall, you show how used everybody is to discrimination against Slytherin. 'There is little we can do about the bullying because the students don't tell us' – that's such a feeble excuse for a headmistress. Years of experience should have taught her better. Doesn't she remember a gang of unruly Gryffindor students tormenting a lone Slytherin boy while half of the school was looking on? Doesn't she remember where that led? Obviously not.

Her thinking in your story is fully in line with canon and, therefore, all the more scandalous: 'There is no Head of Slytherin House – so what? It's not really my problem that no-one wants the job. I'm headmistress of a school and have other things to attend to.'

Honestly, did it ever occur to her to recruit somebody from Beauxbatons or Durmstrang? Somebody who fought on neither side during the war, somebody who didn't lose family members, somebody who can take an unbiased approach?

Don't get me wrong; Andromeda Tonks is a very clever choice. It would be hard for anyone to object to her. She can be the symbol that is needed.

She seems up the challenge if the way she handles the goading questions of the reporters at the press conference is an indication.

Her being sixty or so shouldn't be much of a problem, either. There has probably been many a Hogwarts professor who taught well beyond that age.

Your take at Harry in midlife crisis is superb – his marriage is about to fail, he has no idea what to do about it, his job has arrived at a dead end, he quits and is even more frustrated afterwards seeing as he has now less opportunity to take influence than before.

The Malfoys, on the other hand, are quite desperate because two decades of work toward redemption have led to nothing. Their son faces a rather grim future so they cook up a scheme that is daring if not downright insane. They follow through with it nevertheless, and when Harry shows up offering help, he's welcome.

Draco does use Harry, but he has second thoughts. He doesn't like what he's doing, he doesn't enjoy it. He just doesn't see any other way. When he asks Harry after the attack how Al is and hears the boy is in quite a shock, he doesn't just pretent to be sorry. He really is, and you make sure not only Harry but also the readers believe so.

The last chapter came as a nasty surprise. Despite Andromeda's warning, I wasn't prepared for the twist.

You portray Harry as being still his old self – he instinctively knows that there is something off and he doesn't rest until he's figured out what it is. Yet, he has lost all of his illusions. Draco destroyed the last remnants of them. Draco didn't aim at that; it's some sort of side effect. But Harry is forced to acknowledge what state the wizarding community is in, and that there is precious little he can do about it despite his best efforts.

To make it worse, being part of Draco's scheme – even though unwittingly – has damaged his integrity. He has to keep quiet about the machinations or else Al will suffer worse than ever before. The realisation that he has to do something dishonest in order to protect his son and that there is absolutely no way out really brings him down.

By implication, you have him also realise that this is the very position the Slytherins have been forced into all along.

This is a great piece of writing.

I'm looking foreward to reading more from you.