Wow.

[amaya_natsuya]

Been awhile, ain't it?

Well, I've got good news.  I haven't sent in my computer, yet.  Which is good for you, because I was so close to finishing chapter fourteen of FotBB that I decided to just get it done today so I can send in my comp guilt free and you'll not have been waiting, like, six weeks for a new chapter.  So. . . that's the good news.  I

Comments

[calic0cat]

Another great part with a couple of interesting twists - the combined abilities of Harry and Quatre, plus the vision of Trowa's past - I'm looking forward to seeing where you take this.

One small but potentially important observation that I thought I should offer...

"Alphabetical or chronological?" Harry asked, picking up the first packet and glancing at it.

I initially thought that this was Heero speaking - "chronological" is definitely not the way that a child would express the idea, though Harry might say something like "by date". I'd even hesitate a little bit over whether Harry would use the term "alphabetical order". He'd probably know what the concept of putting something in alphabetical order was but he'd be more likely to refer to it as something like putting the papers in order by name. The best solution would probably be to let Heero be the one to inquire how to sort the papers, then he and the others could show Harry how to sort them, or Harry could gather them up and hand them to the others for sorting. While Harry's past as what amounted to the Dursleys' house-elf certainly would mean that he is indeed good at cleaning up messes in general, it seems pretty unlikely that his cleaning up would have included sorting documents.

I'm not sure how far into the future you're planning to take this story but, assuming an eventual happy/hopeful ending and assuming that you're going to either keep the HP side of things gen (and not make Draco Malfoy an irredeemably evil git that Harry will never so much as consider befriending) or that it's going to end up being Harry/Draco slash, I'd be interested in hosting it with the guest fics at my website.

One small bit of advice with respect to the computer issue - make sure that you back up all of your documents, bookmarks, etc. before sending it away. Keep at least two copies; preferably, one copy should be burned to CD while the other can take any format - a zipped file emailed to your Gmail or other webmail account, a USB memory stick, etc. If you send your computer away for service, I can almost guarantee that it will come back with the drive wiped and a fresh re-install of the factory-original OS. Frankly, I'd never send a computer out for service with any of my personal files (especially fanfic or email) on it in the first place; I'd transfer everything important to backup media and delete it from the original hard drive.

[amaya_natsuya]

About Harry knowing the term "chronological" I'm not sure how I would compare to normal nine year olds, but I did actually know the term by then. And alphabetical too, because we used to put our spelling words in alphabetical order for practice. So I figure Harry knowing the words isn't too out of left field.

I am planning to end this before the Hogwarts letter arrives, but I am planning on doing at least a collection of sketches (short stories, drabbles, whatever) about Harry's life in Hogwarts if not going a little further with it. And I have cinsidered H/D. Lol. I'd like to talk with you more about hosting at your website (I saved the link so I remember to check it out later).

As for the comp thing. . . yeah, there's no way I'm not backing my stuff up! ^_^ My bro (and everyone else) said the same thing. Fortunately, I have an external harddrive to put it all on, so no worries. And my written files are going to be saved in about four places. Everything else I can find again. Those files. . . not so much.

Thanks for the offer about the website, I'll be in touch with you about it!

[calic0cat]

It's not so much a question of Harry not knowing the term "chronological" (or alphabetical, for that matter), but more a matter of him not being likely to use those terms. If it was later in the story and you'd had him gradually starting to do the "walking dictionary" imitation (my own not-so-friendly nickname amongst the other kids back in grade school) throughout the story, it would probably fit okay but, as it is, it just feels more like something a young Hermione might say, as it doesn't really fit a canon Harry's speech patterns even at eleven and your Harry hasn't really had enough time (yet) in his more secure living conditions to have developed that much differently than canon.

One of my cousin's kids is nine. She reads a fair bit and she's quite clever but words like chronological and alphabetical just aren't in her daily speaking vocabulary. Does she know what they mean? Alphabetical, certainly. Chronological - maybe. She might, maybe, use the term "alphabetical" - but, when picking up papers, she'd probably just assume that they should be piled neatly unless someone else specifically suggested sorting them into some sort of order.

At any rate, it's not something that totally destroys credibility in the chapter, but it is somewhat of a jarring note, so I thought I'd mention it.

Feel free to email me at calic0cat(at)fastmail(dot)fm if you have questions about guest fic hosting at my site.