Name: Noelle Zingarella (Signed) · Date: 02 Feb 2020 10:27 PM · For: Harder Than It Looks

Hi Melanie! I’m here for CMDC Round 2 :D

 

I thought that listening to this story for the first time rather than reading it on the page made it even more tense and exciting than it would have otherwise been. I got to hear the story unfold—and at first I  had no idea where we were in the HP storyline. It’s been a long time since I read Deathly Hallows, so I didn’t really remember if there was a moment when Ron was facing Bellatrix before Molly took her down.

 

You wrote this confrontation so well—Bellatrix in all  her creepiness, and Ron trying to stand up and get a spot of payback. But he’s tormented by Hermione’s screams even while he’s facing Bellatrix—and it seems like the very screams that lead him to want to confront Bellatrix in the first place are preventing him from taking effective action.

 

Even at the point when Luna and Neville showed up and started talking to Ron, I still wasn’t totally sure what was going on. I did grudgingly agree with Ron when he stepped aside, willing to let Neville have the honor and the privilege of doing in Bellatrix.

 

I think it was around the time that Hermione’s voice started breaking into Ron’s confrontation with Bella that I realized it was a dream. And, moreover, I guessed that this was a new parent dream and that Hermione was trying to get him to get up with the baby. You wove that all in very well.

 

I got choked up at the end when Ron was sitting there, holding his daughter, and thinking about how he’s glad in many ways that his mother was the one who had both the honor—and the responsibility—of bringing down Bellatrix.

 

Wonderful job on this story—and on your first podfic! You read well—and I really like your voice :D You have a good pacing for the reading too—not too fast or too slow.

 

Nice work!

 

Yours,

 

Noelle

Author's Response:

Hi Noelle, and thank you for this review!

100% correct, Ron has murder on his mind for a very personal reason after what Bellatrix did to Hermione, but the memory is also crippling him. I'd like to think that wouldn't necessarily have happened in "real life," but this is a dream and all sorts of terrible things happen in dreams like being inexplicably frozen, unable to even move (I hate those dreams).

I mean...look, I haven't ever killed anyone (what a weird sentence to have to type out), but I imagine if you're a good person it's hard to do, even if it's necessary like in a war. So no matter how brave Ron may be, I totally see him thinking, "Thank god I didn't have to do that after all."

Thank you for your wonderful comments! <3

Melanie

Name: MadiMalfoy (Signed) · Date: 02 Feb 2020 08:53 PM · For: Harder Than It Looks

Hiya Melanie! :) 

 

First of all, I just want to say how much I enjoyed this fic, for a couple of reasons. One, the dreamstate of Ron being at the Battle of Hogwarts, facing off with Bellatrix. Two, for it only being a dream and the screaming actually coming from baby Rose crying in the middle of the night and Hermione trying to wake him up for his turn at comforting their child. Loved that sudden shift, and I didn’t have to worry that Ron was maybe going to be hurting Hermione on accident in his dream because he thought she was Bellatrix or something! Your podfic version of this is SO GOOD, by the way! Obviously, it’s your own fic, so you know the kinds of voice inflections and volumes are right for which part, but you really nailed the different character voices between Ron, Hermione, Bellatrix, and Luna and Neville. It forced me to slow down my reading of the fic and get more invested in the action that was happening in the dream, and gave it more tension, which I loved! This was a great first installment in your The Battle We Still Fight series, and it made me like Ron more than I normally do. So double great job to you on writing this and narrating it! :) 

 

~Madi

Author's Response:

Hey Madi!

I really am...not a fan of my own voice (who is, I guess?) and doing different voices is not easy for me, so thank you for your very kind comments on my podfic of this and the different voices.

I am ALWAYS HERE to try to make people like Ron more than they normally do! I may not always succeed, but at least in the process I get to have fun with a character I love.

Thank you so much for this review!

Melanie

Name: TidalDragon (Signed) · Date: 27 Jan 2020 04:52 PM · For: Harder Than It Looks

Howdy!

 

I saw this story noted for PTSD and I wondered whether that would be handled in a real-world breakdown/outburst or a dream state. Obviously you chose the latter. I think it was a good choice in this scenario, not just because Ron was, you know, actually asleep, but because it allowed for more fluidity - all the voices trying to bring him back from the brink of something that could have dangerously overtaken him, something made even more dangerous by his proximity not just to another person, but specifically a female person in Hermione and the fact that Rose was in the house. Who knows what he may have projected and acted on.

 

I liked that his awakening was peaceful though, relatively speaking, and that it was connected not just Hermione's voice in the dream, but her voice in the real world. I think it speaks not just to the reality that she was the one who brought him back, but more that she was the one who was actually capable of bringing him back - her influence - where others couldn't.

 

I also like that you closed with Rose. Though Ron is obviously living with the demons of his past, he isn't letting them define him and is embracing the present with joy in the form of his daughter. His final reference to Molly also suggests that him killing Bellatrix may have been something that did irreparable damage to him and that the connection of the word 'bitch' in the dream to Molly in the moment and thoughts about Molly at the end was also interesting.

 

And I'm starting to not make sense anymore so I'm going to leave it there.

 

Thanks for sharing!