The Tracey in your story acts like she has a mental disorder. Not sure what you were trying to do there.

nice

Awesome fic, i really loved it.

so who's impersonating Snape? Because he wouldn't ever care if Potter passed Potions. And he would never assign one of his Slytherins to actually HELP Potter. Wouldn't happen in a million years. Your Snape is completely unbelievable.

Love this surprising story. AU but believable (to the extent that a fantasy story about a magic castle is believable). Thanks for saving Sirius!

I've read this whole story over the last 3 or 4 days and I'm surprised I didn't find it sooner. I usually check the first few pages of new Haphne stories every week or two. I'm also disappointed I didn't find it sooner, I really liked this and I'll be starting the sequel later this week.

Taking that cheap shot at Hawaiian pizza was uncalled for.

This fix is amazing. I can't wait to read the sequel!

Great story! Thanks for sharing!

"the prodigal son" is not a positive thing. "prodigal" means skmeone who spends lots of money on frivolous things.
"the return of the prodigal son" is meant to imply that the son who has spent all of his money now finally returns home to face the music, or that he has learned his lesson and is finally ready to look his parents in the eyes again.
"prodigal" has nothing to do with "prodigy".

Two words. OH. SHIT.

Just watched your video. I've had this on my list to read for along time, and I'm giving it a go!
Well done!

Gotta say, so far I'm impressed. I've been reading harry potter fanfiction for about nine years now, and I've always been very selective about what I read. I have a library of almost three hundred fics at this point and less than ten of them are under a hundred thousand words in length. I judge stories based the plot, the logic of it, the planning, whether it evokes the feel of a harry potter story; I judge based on the pacing, doesnt matter if it's fast or slow only if it's done well; the characters, both main characters and background; I judge dialogue, mostly in consistency making sure that each character has a unique voice, but also on whether the dialogue makes sense given what is established about the characters; I judge the editing, spelling and grammar errors are to be expexted on occaison, but a story that is rife with them tells that the author doesn't care to check; I judge the worldbuilding, how well an author uses the world elements of canon, as well as how well they create and integrate their own worldbuilding; I judge based on theme, whether the stories I read have any notable thematic threds running through them, and if they do how well they're implemented; and lastly I judge stories based on their usage of tropes, not whether they're present in the story, but rather how they are used and to what level of success. You said in your video essay on Daphne as a character that your only loyalty is to quality, and I can see that on full display. Whenever I read something I do my best to go in without expectations and to merely appreciate and judge something for what it is, and not what it isn't. This story has all the signs I've come to find of being genuinely excellent, and I look forward to reading more. Well done my friend.

This story is 40 chapters long. For such a short story, this whole Cho thing is really dragging on what feel like far too long. If this is meant to be a romance between Harry and Daphne, it feels weird that the majority of the story will be them hiding their relationship. It sounds like the story is going to end when they finally actually begin a proper relationship, if it even gets that far.

The sneaking around thing has a little spice to it, sure, but since (thus far) much of it has been "I kind of hate you. Okay, now I kind of tolerate you. Aaaand now I basically want to jump your bones, be my boyfriend. Okay, now then, when are you going to break up with your other girlfriend? Have you broken up with her yet? How about now?"

Then there will be the inevitable drama of people finding out about them, the drama of Cho losing her shit because Harry will predictably drag this out until she finds out about Daphne while they're still technically "together". What time left will there be for an actual sense of progress in the relationship? Unless you just time skip into an epilogue where they're married or something, which sounds kind of boring. It would be skipping past the actually satisfying bits once the majority of the drama is finally out of the way.

But I guess I'm just speculating and procrastinating. I just find this cliche "I'll tooootally break up with my other girlfriend soon. I'm definitely not just a cheating, two-timing douche bag" thing to be annoying. I mean, it's just too similar to situations in real life where people do that with no real intention of breaking up with the other. Hell, "I'll definitely divorce my wife for you, my secret mistress" is a hugely common thing on tv as well. Because it really happens. And the guy always looks like a piece of shit as a result, which isn't really what we want from Harry is it?

I have the most sordid mental image of Snape in pigtails and glittery nail polish, and I blame you for that.

This would have been more impactful if Daphne wasn't asking to be "the other woman" and Harry jumped into it like he was switching cable services. They should have at least discussed Harry leaving Cho, which is something he obviously wants to do at this point for reasons that don't even necessarily involve Daphne. She's just adding a greater temptation that's making him have to face his lack of interest in staying with Cho.