"Amelia Bones had looked down at him, over the rim of her spectacles, and Percy had wanted to crawl into his chair, have it swallowed up by the floor beneath him." You do a great job in the whole beginning part of showing how upsetting and overwhelming this all is for Percy, and really how young and inexperienced he is at this point in his life.
There are a couple of minor phrasing things I might change, like “obvious changes” and “obvious problems” close together in the same sentence. There are also a few SPAG issues (a couple of misspellings of Dumbledore’s name, “there was to be no further extravagances,” “a bit more closer,” “a reminder of the way he had different from his peers”).
Going forward, I like the way his thoughts go off to things like his shoes and he keeps trying to remind himself that the important thing is that Crouch died. Very realistic and makes total sense. And then when he compares himself to Crouch and tries to push that thought away too. Dumbledore’s actual entrance almost seems a little anticlimactic after how in-depth you’ve been going with Percy’s internal experience up to that point.
Dumbledore cutting Percy off when Percy tries to thank him and just getting straight to what’s relevant to him seems very in character. As does the throwaway mention of the ballroom dancing lesson.
I’m not sure what “at least Mrs. Bones hadn’t dissolved into tears in hole hugging him” means, if that’s a typo or just a phrase I’m not familiar with.
"Percy bit his tongue so often these days." I like this observation and the way it’s separated out as its own line.
Brief as McGonagall’s appearance is, I think it’s well placed and says a lot - you can tell she knows something of what’s going on, and is concerned for Percy
I also very much like this conversation in Dumbledore’s office - the casual way Dumbledore offers candy and the way Percy sees it, the contrast he draws in his mind between Dumbledore’s Gryffindor values and Percy’s own “more political ambition” which he sees as more of a Slytherin trait despite also being a Gryffindor himself. The reference to Percy’s childhood awareness of the first war and specifically him hearing about his uncles dying, which is something we know happened in canon but is never given much more than a throwaway line in the books if I remember correctly, but is treated as something that had a bigger impact on him here which I like.
I think some of the things that were stated in that last section could have been shown to us in Percy and Dumbledore’s conversation instead of being summarized at the end like that. It almost feels a little rushed/glossed over.
That said, though, I really liked this fic - the premise, the characterization, the dialogue and Percy's internal emotions are all written very well.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2022-07-24 07:04 pm (UTC)"Amelia Bones had looked down at him, over the rim of her spectacles, and Percy had wanted to crawl into his chair, have it swallowed up by the floor beneath him." You do a great job in the whole beginning part of showing how upsetting and overwhelming this all is for Percy, and really how young and inexperienced he is at this point in his life.
There are a couple of minor phrasing things I might change, like “obvious changes” and “obvious problems” close together in the same sentence. There are also a few SPAG issues (a couple of misspellings of Dumbledore’s name, “there was to be no further extravagances,” “a bit more closer,” “a reminder of the way he had different from his peers”).
Going forward, I like the way his thoughts go off to things like his shoes and he keeps trying to remind himself that the important thing is that Crouch died. Very realistic and makes total sense. And then when he compares himself to Crouch and tries to push that thought away too. Dumbledore’s actual entrance almost seems a little anticlimactic after how in-depth you’ve been going with Percy’s internal experience up to that point.
Dumbledore cutting Percy off when Percy tries to thank him and just getting straight to what’s relevant to him seems very in character. As does the throwaway mention of the ballroom dancing lesson.
I’m not sure what “at least Mrs. Bones hadn’t dissolved into tears in hole hugging him” means, if that’s a typo or just a phrase I’m not familiar with.
"Percy bit his tongue so often these days." I like this observation and the way it’s separated out as its own line.
Brief as McGonagall’s appearance is, I think it’s well placed and says a lot - you can tell she knows something of what’s going on, and is concerned for Percy
I also very much like this conversation in Dumbledore’s office - the casual way Dumbledore offers candy and the way Percy sees it, the contrast he draws in his mind between Dumbledore’s Gryffindor values and Percy’s own “more political ambition” which he sees as more of a Slytherin trait despite also being a Gryffindor himself. The reference to Percy’s childhood awareness of the first war and specifically him hearing about his uncles dying, which is something we know happened in canon but is never given much more than a throwaway line in the books if I remember correctly, but is treated as something that had a bigger impact on him here which I like.
I think some of the things that were stated in that last section could have been shown to us in Percy and Dumbledore’s conversation instead of being summarized at the end like that. It almost feels a little rushed/glossed over.
That said, though, I really liked this fic - the premise, the characterization, the dialogue and Percy's internal emotions are all written very well.