NarutosBrat posted a comment on Thursday 7th June 2018 6:30am for Chapter the Second

I'm enjoying how you're doing a slow burn on this relationship, even with the tight timetable Daphne is on. I could never pull that off.

Shadowdog posted a comment on Tuesday 1st March 2016 10:44am for Chapter the Second

I've never seen a story where Harry used a Pinnocchio reference to explain his life.

Kokopelli replied:

I've actually used that in two of my stories - one I wrote a few years ago.  If Harry were normal, his upbringing with the Dursleys would have made him into a monster.  He's not, but he knows that he's not like other people because he's lacking a common frame of reference.  Hence, he feels that he's not like a real boy.

aalens posted a comment on Tuesday 27th January 2015 3:34am for Chapter the Second

Thanks for writing this. I am greatly enjoying it as it is different and well written. BTW if you will please forgive an in the fly Brit pick; we take milk in our tea, milk or lemon, but not cream, never cream. The term 'cream tea' refers to a small meal ( i.e. a 'tea') where served with the tea ( or coffee) are scones (I think Americans call them biscuits) which are served with jam (conserve) and cream. The cream is for the scones, not the tea. Tea with cream in it sounds not only odd, but also distinctly unappetising. We do drink coffee with cream sometimes though.

Kokopelli replied:

Like Popeye, I am what I am, which in this case means a speaker of American English.  Many years ago when I was much more serious about things, I anglicized my spellings and did a total comb-through to eliminate awkward nits  like this.

My mom took milk (whole) in her tea.  I could never stand it growing up.  I would either take mine straight or with a little sugar.  There was a particularly cloying blend called "constant comment" which she would often serve, which I could only stand if I took it with milk and sugar.

Tea  is enjoying a bit of a resurgance here in the states, but usually instead of milk, you'll be offered half-and-half (a milk and table cream blend) if you're offered anything at all.

Thanks for reading, thanks for your kind comments.  I hope you enjoy the story.

Ishtar posted a comment on Sunday 4th January 2015 12:36am for Chapter the Second

Possibly this has already been pointed out to you, but as of the end of DH, Teddy is only a month or so old - he was born in April 1998 and the Battle of Hogwarts was May 2, 1998. (I have no idea what Tonks was doing at a battle when she was only just out of childbed - she would have been in no shape to fight.) He's a babe in arms at the time of this chapter, not a toddler, and is nowhere near able to walk, talk, play peek-a-boo, and probably doesn't have anything resembling conscious control of his metamorph ability. I don't expect you to edit at this point, but please remember the dates for any future stories

Kokopelli replied:

You are, of course, correct as to Teddy's age.  That being said, a non-toddler isn't very interesting for this story, so I moved his age up.  When I was a cannonista, I wouldn't have played with "facts" like this, but now I don't particularly care, I'm writing a story and I'll move things around to suit my story arc.

Aaran St Vines posted a comment on Thursday 20th November 2014 9:56am for Chapter the Second

Very believable, hesitant and dually insecure first dating efforts.

Well done!

Kokopelli replied:

Courtship can be wonderful, but the initial phases are so awkward.

sanbeegoldiewhitey posted a comment on Thursday 20th November 2014 1:41am for Chapter the Second

Your Daphne was plain and I liked her anyway. Jeconais' Daphne had always been "drop-dead" gorgeous. But I like your Daphne more because she was willing to sacrifice herself by marrying a monster in order to protect her family and the Greengrass vassals and employees. Great girl, really wife material and I hope Harry realizes that because whether in canon or fan fiction, he was quite clueless when it comes to girls.

Kokopelli replied:

Most people are plain.

I like Jeconais, but I take a different approach to characters.

noylj posted a comment on Friday 31st October 2014 1:29pm for Chapter the Second

Harry has been controlled and manipulated all his life. A betrothal, to him, would just be more of the same. If any thing, he would try to get out and then, if interested, he might try dating her. Just curious—is she plain or what? Did your Harry really love/care for Ginny? I would suspect a week or two in the muggle world will be too much for MoRon.

Kokopelli replied:

Harry is free to act here, and is responding accordingly.

Daphne is plain - most people are.

Harry really cared for Ginny - they just never got a chance to reconnect.

Ron's actually having the time of his life.  He's not coming back from China for a long while.

brad posted a comment on Thursday 30th October 2014 2:10am for Chapter the Second

Reading in the reviews the attack/categorisation of this story as a 'Marriage Contract Fic' ... you know, that never even occured to me. Normally I roll my eyes at those silly stories and never read them, but your effort here just doesn't ping on the traditional MCF radar. Firstly, the reason for the contract is well reasoned and laid out - shucks, half the first chapter dealt with it. Secondly, Harry has freedom of choice in all this. And he's being quite up front in what he's thinking. While I think we can lay odds that he'll do the noble thing and marry the girl he's also not cartoonishly falling on his sword in the first five seconds. Nor is Daphne *completely* desperate about the repercussions - she'll just study bees instead. :-)

As a device for exploring the choice and the reactions of the HP characters the 'marriage contract' is being handled in a realistic and practical manner which works quite nicely IMO.

Kokopelli replied:

I too loath the marriage contract fics, but the weird thing is that today, 2014, there are still people getting married by means of contracts negotiated by others.  It's really reall!

The "right of conquest" was one of the key seeds from which this story grew.  Which meant that I then had to cobble together backstory to fit, and presto - an idea with enough legs to get written!

I did explore an alternate path in which Daphne was responsible for Ginny's death and all the rest was smoke and mirrors, but that story didn't work.  Maybe next time...

brad posted a comment on Thursday 30th October 2014 1:58am for Chapter the Second

> so the best case scenario would be a quick bonk

Still 'ugh' over this. Ugh. Good thing Harry killed the blighter.

> my bum’s too big and I’m just plain -

You're pushing the anti-fanon!Daphne here pretty hard!?

> for reasons I can’t explain, we thought that Riddle wouldn’t be able to use most of the magic. ... the magics in the grimoire are not exactly the sort of things that Dark Lords would use on their path towards domination -

Oh?

*is intrigued*

> it’s a brave man who walks to his death knowing that only his death will protect the people he loves. That’s something I think I understand.

Oh, great line! That really drew a connection/similarity between them. Nice one.

> "Harry, you were capable of making a corporeal Patronus when you were thirteen, and then you held off a herd of Dementors later that year. That’s real power."

And he never did anything after that worth a can of beans. Rowling was really determined to keep Harry mired down as a barely adequate normal wizard. Which is a pity; I would have preferred our hero to be powerful too.

(By the end of OotP half the DA could fire off a Patronus. It took Harry the best part of a year to learn just like it did them. And the time travelling gave him the confidence/will power to repel that herd of dementors. Nothing can bolster one's powering of an intent-based spell like the sure knowledge you've already succeeded! Note that he couldn't repeat the feat in the final battle; he had to be rescued by Luna, Ernie and ... shucks, forgotten the third. Anyway, just chattin' canon here; I'm happy to accept that *your* Harry is powerful, I like stories where he is powerful. And competent.)

> "You loathsome midget!" // QUEENIE LUVS HARRY!!!! - AJG

Heh. :-)

Kokopelli replied:

Yes, what Voldemort intended was loathsome, but it was all about him, and he probably would have enjoyed doing Queenie.  Queenie, not so much.

Yes, I'm demolishing the IceQueen, long legged buxom blonde trope.  That's not to say that Harry doesn't find her somewhat interesting.  Stay tuned.

99% of what's in the Greenglass grimoire has to do with agriculture - think about the family name...

The parallels with Harry and Daphne are intentional - and it's the hook to the attraction.

The later books are terrible.  JKR got tired, wrote to fulfill her contract, and by then was so rich that she probably could get her editors fired, which means she wasn't getting much in the way of good editorial support.

Yes, in canon (after book 4)  Harry's not powerful, he just has some good friends, and he's lucky.  

There is a difference, however, between lighting off a Patronus against one Dementor, and lighting off a whopper against a herd of Dementors.

 

The relationship between Astoria and Queenie is one of the drivers of this story.

 

 

dennisud posted a comment on Monday 27th October 2014 3:56pm for Chapter the Second

Nice development and good characterization. Wonder if Hermione will have her 2 pence worth here. IMHO She'd be protective of Harry but would have known about Daphne from the study groups.

Kokopelli replied:

You'll see Hermione in the next chapter.

scribbler posted a comment on Sunday 26th October 2014 11:43pm for Chapter the Second

Damn! I'd never read your works before I found this story, but I'm really glad that I did, because what you're doing here is a lot of fun. You tell a very entertaining story and the only problem that I see is that your chapters are too short (ok, so I'm a greedy little duck, so sue me).

I like both your characterizations of Harry as well as that of Daphne. You've taken someone who was badly overlooked by she-who-must-not-write-epilogs and expanded her into a real living, breathing person. Also, the interactions between her and Astoria are really funny. I'd love to see what Harry might do to Astoria if Daphne asked him to do so (would Astoria *ever* be able to reverse one of Harry's hexes, if he didn't want her to?).

Anyway - I've linked to this story from my facebook page and I'll continue to follow it avidly. Very definitely looking forward to more!

Regards,

the_scribbler

Kokopelli replied:

The first four chapters are all 6k to 7k words in length.  Chapter five (which I'm writing right now) will be longer.

Daphne is a zero in canon - we see her once during OWL testing.

As to Daphne-Astoria, you haven't seen anything yet.

Aberforth's Avatar posted a comment on Sunday 26th October 2014 9:29am for Chapter the Second

I quite like the pace of this story -- one of the things I appreciate about your stories is that you aren't in a rush to tell them. Your version of Daphne is unique; I am enjoying getting to know her. Thanks for sharing this. It's good to read something new from you.

Kokopelli replied:

Thanks for your kind words.

Patches posted a comment on Saturday 25th October 2014 5:04pm for Chapter the Second

This is moving along well but they don't have much time left. I look forward to more of this story. Thanks for writing. p

Kokopelli replied:

Yeah, yeah, we're moving as fast as we can...

diagonalpumpkin posted a comment on Saturday 25th October 2014 4:07pm for Chapter the Second

I am loving this story. I like the day to day moments that you are showing, and I really like your descriptions of Teddy. I like the little family that you have built and are building there. Keep up the wonderful work; I'll be looking forward to your next chapter.

Kokopelli replied:

Thanks.

LordSia posted a comment on Saturday 25th October 2014 9:18am for Chapter the Second

The constant references to Daphne's teeth feel a bit like a euphemism (for her being ugly), but I had the sudden idea that Harry - influenced by Hermione, who was brainwa- er, raised, by her dentist parents - treats nice teeth the way most people talk poetically about "beautiful eyes".

Weird, but it made some sort of sense in my brain.

Kokopelli replied:

A while back I supervised a fellow who thought himself quite the ladies man, so every Monday he'd regale us with the tales of the women he'd been with that weekend.  He had an odd turn of modesty in that he never gave physical descriptions, and his default comment was "she had nice teeth."  So, as backstory in this saga, I have Sirius giving the sage advice of paying attention to a girl's teeth.  Daphne really does have nice teeth, but that's beside the point.  Harry was trying to be polite.

Daphne's not ugly, she's plain.  She's the girl that gets placed in the back of a group photo (because she's tall) and no one notices.

Wolfric posted a comment on Saturday 25th October 2014 2:58am for Chapter the Second

I didn't think you could copyright fanfiction. So what rights are you reserving? Anyway, I enjoyed the chapter. Thanks for writing. W.

Kokopelli replied:

Against all the world (except JKR) it's mine.  And yes, there are people who try to steal fan fiction.

Brian64 posted a comment on Friday 24th October 2014 11:17pm for Chapter the Second

Another great chapter and I'm enjoying getting to know Daphne's personality. I'm not sure if there will be anything else to the story plot other than how Harry and Daphne deal with the forced betrothal, but you know what? I'll be quite happy enough if it is. A good character driven story is just as entertaining to me to one that is high on action - and who wants to read the same kind of story every time anyway? I expect I'll be coming back to this one from time to time just as I do with stories like Belcris's The Lost Summer. Just need more chapters to read now... :)

Thanks for writing.

Kokopelli replied:

There's all sorts of stuff that I could write - including what happens with the Truth and Recocilliation Commission, what happens with the Malfoy family, rabid Pureblood purists who want to turn the clock back, but this is a shorter story about a man and a woman trying to figure out if they have enough in common to make a go of it.

Enigma07 posted a comment on Friday 24th October 2014 7:26pm for Chapter the Second

So I read the second chapter as promised. The positive thing is that the Voldemort backstory is decoration, so it stops being as important to me. The negative thing is that it's now substituted with the real plot -- which is a marriage contract fic.

Ultimately, it's like this. Your writing is quite decent, the characters in character, Daphne nice, the plot fluffy enough -- but it's got the one problem every marriage contract fic has: it's got a marriage contract. It's an inherently undesirable plot to me. Typically, it's used by bad authors who need a shortcut, since they can't write a believable romance to save their lives and lack the imagination to think up a better way of getting character A and character B together. I wouldn't apply that in your case, but I must confess that I lack the ability to see the appeal of it outside of that reason.

So I guess this is the point where I stop. Maybe I'll give it another go once it's finished. Good luck to your writing, and thanks for sharing.

-SeriousScribble

---------

@BJH,"You seem to be intent on breaking as many fanon stereotypes as you can with this." well now, let's not get hasty. Goblins in the last chapter, marriage contract in this one. So far, that is a rather quick pace on ticking off the fanon sheet. I'm not sure what e.g. @"The Seeker" called 'original' here, but there must be a near limitless supply of 'marry her or she'll lose her magic'-contract-types stories out there. So far, I have seen nothing that would indicate this one would be any different -- although of course, if this ended with Harry rejecting the contract and Daphne losing her magic, it'd be an instant classic. That would be a true breaking and deconstruction of the Fanon trope.

Kokopelli replied:

You mispercieve the nature of our relationship.

I suggested in my response to your first review  that this may not be the story for you.

Pay me $25.00/hour to write the story you want and I'll write it to your specification, until then, it's my story, and my choices.

If you don't like it, don't read it, it's that simple.

You really have two choices: a)  don't read the story or b) write a story that's so breathtakingly beautiful that I become embarassed and never write another word of fan fiction.

You don't like marriage contract fics - that's your choice.  There's a marriage contract in this fic, it's laid out in the first chapter of the story and fleshed out in the second.  So, be a big boy and take responsiblity for what you read.

Riegert8 posted a comment on Friday 24th October 2014 7:24pm for Chapter the Second

You make Daphne a interesting character

Kokopelli replied:

I like writing strong female characters, so I'm having fun with Daphne.

I've been accused by fans in the past of being a woman, because "no man could understand how women think they way you do as author."  I've had to assure them that I was indeed male, brother to two sisters, father to two daughters, husband of one loving wife.

Michael10 posted a comment on Friday 24th October 2014 7:23pm for Chapter the Second

keep up the good work