Name: bluefuzzyelf reviewed Chapter Twenty-Two on May 01, 2006 03:40 pm

Actually, the story you are talking about is also known as Tam Lin. It is an old Irish ((or Scottich, can't remember)) ballad, and has many, many different versions, mostly revolving around how Jane ((or Margaret, or whatever)) falls in love with the rogue forest dweller Tam Lin, prisoner of the Queen of Elfland and ultimately frees him.
It's pretty cool. I'm obbessed with it.

Name: bluefuzzyelf reviewed Chapter One on Apr 30, 2006 06:25 pm

Hi! I'm loving this story, especially how Draco is still all snarky/bitchy/arrogant/evil. That's pretty much how I like him best.
I also recognized one of those last lines! Is it from Cassandra Claire's work? I don't remember. I have it saved somewhere, waiting for the perfect fic to use it in...it makes me feel happy to know that I'm not the only one who does that.
Right then. Next chapter ahoy!

Author's Response: I have *never* *EVER* consciously taken a line from another fic, and any similarity to any line from another fic is pure coincidence. I haven't even read CC's work.

Name: Yuli reviewed Chapter Fourteen on Apr 18, 2006 03:05 am

Beautiful!

Name: CoolMilena reviewed Chapter Twenty-Three on Apr 09, 2006 08:31 am

Oh my god!There are so many things I would like to tell you...This story is great!No,not great...there is no word for it!Thanks....

Name: Estrel reviewed Author's Notes on Apr 05, 2006 06:03 pm

Hey, i just wanted to let you know i love this story. I really believe you could pull off a sequel. Okay, i admit it- i'm desperate for you to write a sequel! It can't end like that!!!
Anyway, i absolutely adore the way you write.
Please please please, consider writing a sequel for all us out here!

Name: nel reviewed Prologue on Mar 29, 2006 03:33 pm

eloquently written

Name: kittybro reviewed Author's Notes on Mar 28, 2006 01:56 pm

i need the next book now.. i want it soo much T-T

Name: passion reviewed Author's Notes on Mar 24, 2006 12:44 am

omg!!! i just finished reading this story!! and wow!!! so where is book two??

Name: Cathryn Aeiran reviewed Author's Notes on Mar 06, 2006 02:51 pm

Where is book two? where is your web site? Whats going on with DRACO!!!????

Name: Ms.Malfoy reviewed Author's Notes on Mar 04, 2006 01:52 pm

Just finished a marathon reading and I wanted to tell you how much I love your work. I can't believe I haven't read it sooner! I do hope that this is a trilogy or at least has a sequal, as it leaves so many unanswered questions. I really like your portrayal of Malfoy. So many authors seem to have him just give up on his roots after a few snogs with Ginny, but I've always thought that he would be obsessed if he were in love, like your work has him as. Thanks again for the great story!

Name: lizzyop reviewed Author's Notes on Mar 02, 2006 06:16 pm

Well, it took me a few days, but here I am, it's 5AM and I just finished. My head hurts as I haven't cried so much since I read the ending of the HBP, which says a lot. I will have to skip my morning lectures, because my eyes will be so puffy...
About the fic: I cannot really say too much. It is far too beautiful and compelling to say only I loved it and I cannot wait for the next parts.
I have to admit that I saw the fic loads of times and even started a few times before I started properly. There was just something about the first chapter. Firstly, you have a very unique, poetic style, and it was very strange at the first go. As I carried on, I grew to love it, but it took me time to grow accustomed.
Secondly, I have to admit, that I thought that this is going to be the average cliche - Draco comes to Burrow, falls in love, everything nice and dandy. It was everything but. I must say that this was one of the most precise and canon portrayal of Draco. It not only fits all that we know about him, but his upbringing, the situation and his history, too. I adore that even though he knows that with his love he destroys Ginny, he still can't bear to be apart - just like how I would see a Malfoy in love.
Another note: I rather liked the idea of a feeling Lucius behind closed doors. People tend to describe him very one-sidedly, only as a brute. I like that you gave immense depth to the character.
Well, just to conclude: you have an amazing talent for drama. I suppose this Draco is nothing like the one on the website's banner - rather like the embodiment of the love one might be afraid of. Enough from my babbling...
Congratulations, the award was well-deserved. I can only hope that I will receive a cabal email about an update from you in the near future.
I still can get over this fic, and am still teary eyed.
Thank you, it was unforgettable.
Liz

Author's Response: Thanks for giving this story a chance. I'm glad it paid off for you in the end! The formatting was off for awhile, but I believe Mynuet corrected it. I've never heard my writing style described as strange, haha! I'm glad you liked it in the end though. I wanted Draco to be a strong character, a presence that the reader could feel along with, as well as take a rather objective view and say 'Oh my god! What is this guys problem?" Most reader's have a love/hate relationship with the Draco I've written. Lucius get's the rough treatment. Writer's either shove him into the 'crazed sexy fetish fiend' catagory, or the 'abusive father and raper of innocents' catagory. I wanted a man, and then a monster. You have to admit, if ever there was a bad man, it was Lucius Malfoy. Thank you so much!

Name: Adri278 reviewed Chapter Twenty-Three on Feb 22, 2006 09:21 pm

Well, that was a superb story, I have to say. I am not a Draco/Ginny shipper. It is more of a guilty pleasure for me, as I love Ginny with Harry, and probably always will. Not because of canon, but because of stories like After the End and The Test of Time.
Draco is a very appealing and intriguing character. I can imagine that he would be very fun to write. Your characterzation of him is probably the best I have read so far. He has such darkness within him, and that is why it makes it so hard to picture him with Ginny Weasley. I liked how at the beginning of the story he kept his father's words in his head. It was nice to read a story where he actually had some kind of respect for his father, instead of just hatred and resentment. Growing up in the land of Malfoy has made Draco an almost terrible person, but it's not until very late in the story does he ever resent his upbringing. And that is merely because of Ginny. His internal struggle throughout the story was very well written. You kept him cold and calculating, and at the same time gave him more layers than even he knew he had. Great job.
Your Ginny was well written. Though, as most of the other reviewers have pointed out, she was very naive, and at some times so blind to the truth that it hurt to read. I know, "she was a fool in love", but I am not used to reading GInny as such a vulnerable character. I like her with passion and fire. I am a sucker for the Weasley temper, I admit.
Ron was Ron. Hah, you did well with him. He has slowly but surely become my favorite character in fanfiction. I just love when writers include his temper and loyalty in his character. I was touched by the helplessness he felt in this story. Wanting to change things, but knowing he could not. I also liked that he never accepted Draco, just because he was with Ginny (vice versa with Draco, by the way). Draco and Ron are probably the strongest characters in the series, in my opinion, and it's no wonder why they have always and will always collide with each other.
I so enjoyed your Pansy. I had never read a story that actually characterized her before, and I thought you did a terrific job. She is so dignified in her own way. Of course, she's a bitch, but what else who one expect? Her and Draco are so alike. I think I liked her so much in this story because she was the exact oppisite of Ginny. Like she said in the story, she knew Draco and Draco's world better than Ginny ever would. Her feelings for Draco were expected and supported by their world, and she knew it. It is a shame that the Slytherin world is so cold and unfeeling. Perhaps her and Ron will get together and he can teach her how to feel *wink*. Hah, I kept waiting for something to happen between the two of them, but I was content with them biting each other's heads off every time they saw each other. I loved how two people pointed out that she was starting to talk like him.
While Harry and Hermione were pretty much absent in this story, I did like the ways you included them. Harry's realization of his feelings for Ginny, too little too late, were a nice addition. I was shocked when he kissed her in the corrider, though. It seemed very un-Harry like. Um, I DO find the idea of Hermione and Snape squicky indeed, and the whole thought of them interested in each other just...no. I know some people enjoy it, I am just not one of them. Snape is a fascinating character in himself though, and I am glad that you included some of his musings in the story. The other characters were all very well written. I saw some people commented on really liking Blaise, but I just did not feel connected to him enough. He just seemed like a bystander to me.
Chapter 17 was my favorite. Everyone's separate POVs on the storm that is indeed coming was wonderful. You did write some very strong and intriguing characters in this story, and for that I commend you.
I am going to include some of my favorite passages from the story; I hope you don't mind.

"Perco."
Oh, how I laughed at that.

"She is guileless and naïve. She dreams of rose-strewn weddings, candlelit dinners, sunny picnics and chubby infants. She dreams of everything I cannot give her and I cannot bear to tell her otherwise because if I do her heart will break. Do you see, Gregory? Do you see? I know, and it destroys me each and every time I see her face because she does not."
So true, so true. I think that paragraph summarizes everything that Ginny is in this story.

"Indeed she couldn't. She'd wanted to be a part of those scrapes, those adventures, for as long as she could remember, but had never succeeded. She was always relegated to the position of sister or shadow, and it had bothered her for a long time until she realized her aspirations were fruitless, and she had to find her own path."
How ironic that her path would be Draco Malfoy.

"For Draco Malfoy was a cold and manipulative young man, and even though he knew what he should do, he would not. He had no intention of letting Ginevra know of his missions, his schemes. He had no intention of letting her go before he had to, before he was forced to, for he still wanted her and nothing else mattered. And most of all, he had no intention of alleviating her heartache, for when he left her he wanted her to remember the pain as he would. He wanted her to know that he held her heart – would always hold her heart – and that her every waking thought would be of him and for him, and that even though he would be gone from her life, he would remain a shadow, a blight, from which she would not escape, for that was what she would be for him."
Beautifully written and painfully true. I hate Draco, I really do.

"He would be unforgettable, irreplaceable, in her memory. He would ruin her for any and all men to come, and most of all he wanted her to believe that such trivial things as tea flavors and favorite colors things made him real too."
He's so selfish! Sometimes I just couldn't understand why Ginny was with him at all.

"She is a fool, wrapped up in her naïve world of red roses, hearts and confessions of love. There is no love in the Slytherin world. There is no room or use for it. Draco will destroy her as he does with everything in his life. She will be out of the picture, and of course, I will be in."
Did I mention that I loved your Pansy?

"Ginny realized something with savage clarity: the ruthless, glass hard truth of what made her lover what he was. He dealt in darkness, treated in treachery. He was cold and pitiless and the line between his business and his pleasure was perforated and blurred. He offered seduction in one hand, hid destruction in the other, and the receiver could never be certain which card they would be given.

He had trouble treating her with the same distance and cruelty. That was why she had shaken him. That was why he had no trouble lashing out with venomous words, silver-tongued and serpentine, but was heavy-handed and awkward with the slightest signs of affection."
At last we get some of Ginny's understand on the man she loves. I needed this.

"We lose ourselves to something miserable, Ginevra, in this wicked path I choose for us. We have lost ourselves within a maze from which there is no escape. With every step we take, we lose our souls, we lose ourselves... And soon enough, this path will end and war will begin, and we will lose one another... We will lose one another to the path I choose."
I really loved your story.

"It isn't as if we see him during his every waking hour, Harry," Hermione sniffed, "for all we know, he dances the cha cha and wears bunny slippers behind closed doors."
HAHAHAHA. Funny stuff.

This review is horrendously long, but I just wanted to let you know how much I liked your writing.

Author's Response: This is probably the best review ever. I really, really appreciate you taking the time to let me know how you feel, in depth, and for even including some of your favorite parts. I thought it might be fun to let you know a few of my own, so here they are! -- Number three on my list! -- 3."Yes, Ginevra. A pretty piece indeed for the only Weasley daughter, the love of Harry Potter – though I doubt he would have seen you had I not become a threat. They would have rewarded me, possibly by allowing me to rape you first, before passing you to the others. That, or allow me to keep you as my whore... impregnating the only Weasley female in generations with Malfoy spawn. Poetic justice for the Death Eaters..." His voice was no longer cruel and taunting. Instead it had become pained, lost. He was staring at the unlit fireplace, mug clutched loosely in his fingers. "That could easily have been your fate if my father had lived. I am glad he is dead. I am glad," he whispered, the realization dawning on him like a black horizon. --- This was such a pivotal moment for Draco. Such an awakening... He is truly glad that his father is dead. It freed him. He had never truly realized it until now. --- Here's my second favorite. --- 2. "I have nothing to give you," he whispered harshly. "I was meant for something... I have something to do that leaves no place for you." "I am unsuitable," she acknowledged, and Draco felt his throat tighten. "There is no alternative," he replied quietly, finality weighed heavily in each syllable. "I love you," she said tightly, beginning to cry, and Draco dragged her to him impulsively, burying his face in her hair and holding her painfully close. In the darkness, his voice was lost and hollow. "I will never love you." She began to weep bitterly against his chest, and in the emptiness, he held her. --- The reason I like this part so much, is because even though he's telling her he'll never love her, he does something he would never normally do... He holds her in her pain. The Draco we know would have spit on her and walked away! He's contradicting himself in his own actions. --- And lastly, my all time favorite part! ---- 1. This is what I give you Ginevra. This is the last time I touch the silent aria of your body as you wander gauchely about my bedroom, the satin ribbons of your hair strewn across the shadow of my sheets... The last time I see the winding labyrinth of your freckles in the candlelight, the butterfly flutter of your eyelashes as you sleep... The last time I taste the restless autumn on your lips, the ancient magic webbing like gossamer about your skin. The last time I smell the lost springtime of your perfume, the dusky, powdered roses of your hair. The last time I hear the violent wind chime of your laughter and the bubbling fountain of your sighs. The last time I make you mine, you naive, tender hearted fool. And I am so sorry, so very sorry, for I never knew that love would wound me this much, a pain as timeless and ancient as windswept sand and silent snow. I wish I could give you the things you deserve. I wish I could be as gentle and brave as that foolish Potter would be. I have failed you in every way that matters, and I never thought knowing you would lead to this. I never knew love would leave me broken.. I never knew... I never knew...Forgive me, for I never knew... --- Draco's most tender, sad moment, and nobody but him is around to experience it. Irony if I've ever known it. Really, this part was my all time favorite because the imagery was so bittersweet to me, and Draco's honest emotions came through. He truly loves her.

Author's Response: Ugh... I'm sorry for the formatting.