Hey Pooja,

This story actually made me mad, but in a totally good way. You started off the story as a cute little song fic that emphasized the joys and pains of a crush and first love. I was totally connected to the characters and the themes, and then you killed Lavender! I think that that is the magic of this story though. You connect us so deeply to the characters and the plot, and then you tear us down, and it is so effective.

The greatest strength of this story is how you portray the feelings of a major crush. I was really drawn into the story because of these feelings, and you got me to really connect with two characters that I really don't care for. First, you give me Lavender, the character I perhaps least connect to in the whole Potterverse (well, maybe Umbridge more), as she's everything I'm not, and you make me connect with her and love her and understand her in a way I never have before. I was drawn in from the very first line, " It was the best feeling that she had ever experienced in all the fourteen years of her life". I remember when I was that age, and feeling one of my first major crushes, and yes, it was a marvelous feeling. Then you outline every little feeling. The flip of the stomach, how everything is funny, how he lights up her world. With Lavender, you focus so much on those fun feelings, but then you also brush on the void that we feel when they aren't around. When you bring it all full circle, it's like, yes, I get it and yes, I can feel those feelings. When I felt that, I was one hundred percent dedicated to finishing the story.

Expanding on those thoughts, I loved how you had Lavender and Seamus focus on a specific aspect of the other person. The two aspects you chose were perfect. Eyes are so important in identifying a person, and if you want to be cliche, they show us so much about them, so it's natural that Lavender would be attracted to them, because she is attracted to what makes Seamus Seamus. Similarly, the voice is often the first part that a person associates with a person. So by Seamus noticing her voice, he is noticing what sets her apart. I just think there is so much power behind these choices that really add to those overall feelings of attraction.

Your description of their first kiss was perfect. Too often in literature, a couple's first kiss is described as this perfect moment in time, when in actuality, first kisses seldom are. In that one paragraph, you give the reader this in depth description of a moment and in the few short moments it takes to read it, you feel awkwardness and disgust and almost like you are invading their perfect moment. This is exactly how I think this moment should feel. You have managed to make their first kiss so personal that I felt like I was invading.

The ending is something that I just want to touch on briefly. Once I got to the ending, all I wanted to do was strangle you. You gave this couple a perfect get together, and then you kill half of them off. Normally, I wouldn't care, because Lavender dies in my head canon anyway and I don't like her in the first place. But because you made me connect to her, I got emotionally attached, and I actually wanted to strangle my pillow because I wanted them to be together and I didn't want a character who I had grown attached to to die.

One last major point about this fic is the use of the song lyrics. In terms of lyrics, you used quite a lot for the length of the story. For the most part, I think that they fit really well. With song fics, it's easy to use too many lyrics and write your story exactly around it, but here, you managed to include a lot, but to portray the characters emotions. At first, I was a little skeptical about the first use of the lyrics, as they didn't seem to fit, but on the second read, I saw that they totally do as a foreshadow of the story. Surprisingly, I found myself actually reading the lyrics (I usually skip them over in song fics) and appreciating how they fit into the context of the story.

In general, this is a fab story. I loved every moment of it, from the use of the song lyrics to the anger over watching Lavender die. You really captured the real spirit of a crush and managed to turn what could have been a major fluff fest into something so much deeper, creating this story that is relatable and reaches out to everyone.

Maple