Name: shadowycorner (Signed) · Date: 21 Jun 2020 11:15 AM · For: i.

Hello, I'm Eli from the forums and here for the HC finale :) and I think you have a very cool story idea on your hands. I can understand why maybe you feel it's not quite right and maybe I can weigh in a bit with my thoughts?

 

First off, I did love Petunia and little Lily connecting, Petunia seeing her sister in her and hoping she can do things better. It's also a nice sentiment to think that she would eventually try and reach out to Harry and fix her mistakes. I believe Dudley would be a catalyst (because of his actions in DH) to this and eventually Petunia would come around. I also believe Harry would accept it and if Petunia really changed, she could definitely be an auntie to his kids. I liked the moment at the end when all the kids greeted her and wanted to take her broom racing, and it was so sweet because it felt like Petunia can finally experience the magic she had once longed for but never got, now that she had overcome her bitterness.

 

The places where I think this story could be better is to work a little bit on the interaction between her and Harry. I thought Petunia was a bit way too sweet in the story, it didn't always sound like her. She was a haughty and mean-spirited woman for a long time, and it seems like even on her path of redefining herself, some of those traits would remain in her mannerisms and so on. And also if Harry is so open and supportive of her, it would be nice to have just a little bit of background as to how they got to this point.

 

Petunia's conversation with Vernon was very powerful and quite well done in a lot of places, because divorce is such a difficult thing or topic. Vernon has this typical reaction of 'but i never beat you or anything, so what's the problem', totally disregarding a million other things that make a succesful marriage. That point was very well presented. I liked that Petunia owned up to some of her horrible behaviour, but I feel like she's blaming a lot of it solely on Vernon while she was always a person that had a choice.

 

Your story is really well-written and the idea of Petunia breaking away from Vernon is wonderful. I think if you just revise it by going more in-depth into 1. Harry and Petunia's relationship and how it improved, what has she done to rebuild that bridge? 2. Petunia reflecting just a little bit more on her own role and choices, even though they were influenced by Vernon's behaviour...because there is evidence of her being jealous of and nasty to Lily even before she'd ever met Vernon.

 

I think it could be a lot of fun to write and expand this a bit more so that you could be properly satisfied :) Hope I helped.

 

Eli

Name: BBHP (Signed) · Date: 12 May 2020 04:02 PM · For: i.

This is exactly the Petunia redemption I needed. This was perfect. 

Author's Response:

i'm so glad that you enjoyed it. petunia redemption is slowly starting to creep into all of my stories and i just can't stop myself. thanks so much for the review!

Name: sunshine_locks (Signed) · Date: 12 May 2020 01:18 AM · For: i.

the coveted story i’ve been waiting for! i’m so excited! :0

 

immediately: great way to start the story! start your own life! dump him! find your own dreams and ambitions beyond being a stay at home wife! you go girl! (can you tell how excited i am?)

 

and oh my god, little lily potter already sounds so adorable and the relationship petunia seems to have with her is just *chef’s kiss*. she can look at her and not be reminded of her dead sister and she isn’t angry about it at all and all i gotta say is that’s growth babeyyyy

 

aw, poor petunia. (never thought those words would ever come out of my mouth, but…) this is so real though. a lot of women tend to stay in toxic/abusive relationships because they have no way to sustain themselves outside of their relationships because of life circumstances or whatever, and it’s really sad to see.

 

okay okay okay so she does think about lily senior when looking at lily junior but wants her to have the best life that’s even better!

 

and wowowowow i am so happy at the fact that harry and petunia’s relationship had improved so much to the point that harry is safe and feels comfortable enough to offer his home, possibly a safe space of his, to petunia. that truly is amazing right there. it really makes me happy when true and real growth happens in a character, because that’s so important to me. like the idea that people can be better and see the wrongs of their ways is just amazing.

 

ahh, petunia’s grievances about vernon ring too true. their relationship was never a great one, especially not if the petunia had to mold herself into a person that she wasn’t. and she stayed like that for so long? that must have been so painful.

 

hoo boy the dam has broken. i am so glad that she is acknowledging that her behavior was abusive and unhealthy as fuck, and the fact that she probably traumatized harry for the rest of his life. and the fact that heart hearts from the way that she treated him—that’s good too, because more than anything i really want petunia to regret what she did towards harry. what’s even better is that she utilized that as motivation to make herself into a better person that repents and apologizes for her actions. top tier.

 

damn, though. the fact that she manages to have compassion and kindness for vernon even after the mean things he said to her makes me smile but also makes me want to cry for some reason lol.

 

and omg! and the ending! ahhh the children are so cute and adorable and tickles me pink how close petunia really is with them! she’s definitely grown a lot since the beginning of the series, and i think that this is a petunia i can really accept because it doesn’t excuse her actions, but rather makes her regret, learn, and grow from the mistakes she made. i think a lot of authors forget that when trying to redeem her (at least of the fics that i have read), so that tends to sour the entire fic for me.

 

this was such a wonderful story, i truly loved seeing petunia’s growth and her strength! thank you for writing! xx

Name: potionspartner (Signed) · Date: 11 May 2020 12:43 PM · For: i.

Hi, I'm here for the BvB.

I think you did a great job with the interactions between Vernon and Petunia. He would be completely oblivious to anything his wife felt or did (as long as his house was clean and dinner was cooked.) The excuses he came up with, from ignoring her thoughts, to blaming Potter, to worried about the neighbor's reactions are exactly what one would expect from Vernon Dursley.

The interactions between Harry and Petunia were a bit harder to recognize. Although it's true that throughout the books, we see tiny elements of kindness in her (ie almost hugging him when they leave in the 7th book and insisting that he stay in the 5th book) their relationship here seems rather foreign. I would have liked to see some background about how/when this loving relationship was formed. 

I love the use of Lily Potter has a bridge between the two. Despite everything, one always had a sense that Petunia really loved her sister. You can see the regret as she looks at little Lilly. 

Great job. Divorice is always a tough topic to write about. Great job tackling it. 

Author's Response:

i am 4 years too late because of course i am.

 

i'm always happy to receive reviews and i'll admit it's been a while since i last looked at what i wrote and i had to jog my memory with this one lol. i think the perspective that i took with this is believing that petunia went to therapy. and harry went to therapy. and she did the work to make amends and heal and they were able to move forwards from there. i chose to believe that petunia was capable of doing better and being better.