I loved what you did with this story. You really captured the normalcy of married life, twinged with the frustration of being in hiding. I loved the little family moments with Harry's terrible costume and decorating the windows. This was a lovely interpretation of that fateful Halloween. I think you did a great job with it.

Author's Response: Thank you for your review! I'm so grateful you stopped by to offer your opinion on it. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

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Hi there! It's Amber (AmbezBambez) with your review!

Oh my flipping Merlin. The imagery. The emotion. The story. I have no idea what you did, TenthWeasley, but I'm sad now and a tear just left my eye. I knew what to expect...whenever Lily and James Potter are thrown in the same summary as "Halloween", it can't be good. I braced myself, even. But everything was so darned poetic.

You brought Lily and James to life. They aren't flimsy, throw-away-sticky-note type of characters, but characters so well-built they honestly stick out on the page. For instance, James playfully saying, "No one's going to see them" about the pumpkins and bats, certainly had a double meaning, and it was hummmann. The reason for Lily hanging them up anyway was realisiticcc. I just felt so bad for them, but then again, not really, because even though they were cooped up in their house all day, they did appear genuinely happy.

Poor Harry in that costume! James really does try, doesn't he? And then...about thirty seconds of reading time later...Voldemort comes in and kills them all? Deep, dude. Very deep.

My favourite part of this one-shot would have to be the end though (Lily's reaction). The descriptions were absolute poetry, and when it described her heart beating and how scared she felt, I felt the same way too.

"And then a flash of green light, and Lily Potter was gone. Another flash - a terrible scream, a baby's wail - and the light from the jack o' lantern guttered and was extinguished, a wisp of smoke curling to the open heavens where Harry's nursery had stood intact only moments before."

Aaahhh! That's epic! Just...goodness me...the best last paragraph I've ever heard in the history of forever? How do you come up with this stuff?

No criticism. Enjoy!

Author's Response: I cannot express the gratitude reading your review gives me. (: I just can't tell you how much I appreciate EVERYTHING you said! I am inexplicably happy that my emotions were conveyed through so well, and that I reached at least one person through my writing. (: Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your review! It is reviews like yours that make me feel I am doing the right thing in writing.

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personally i think you did a rather remarkable job on pcituring what could have happend on that horrible night. i like how it goes from a happy atmosphere to a frightened one. sometimes thats how things work out. i thought the description was pretty good throughout the story and i like the way you have it set up.

~Slytherinchica08~

Author's Response: Thank you for taking the time to review! I'm really glad you liked the story. (:

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Well I thoroughly enjoyed that! It's a nice idea, good plot. I like the normalcy of the day's events; how Lily was trying to make the holiday as normal as possible, following traditions, which Halloween is full of really. It was very simple, yet unique. A classic one-shot that was entertaining and light to read. Plus, I always enjoy a good Lily/James story, they're my favourites.. :)

As for criticism, many of your sentences seemed to run on, some of them would have been better as two sentences, or with just a comma, but it wasn't too recognizable, and there were only a few.

I'm not sure if you're one of those people who try and use britishisms? I'm not saying you have to be, or that you're wrong, just wanted to point out a couple of things you could have changed if you wanted to, but you don't have to concern yourself over this as its entirely the author's choice, just some people prefer to have british words thrown in there somewhere. So for example, you could have changed yard to garden, couch to sofa even.

There were a few places where it would have sounded better to add a joining word in, like and, or as:

..onto the Evans' windows, how she always managed to put one or two up on the dormitory... it sounds like there should be an 'and' in between windows and how.

..Then, sudden as a gunshot.. There should be an 'as' in between then, and sudden.

There weren't many spelling errors at all, only reentered is re-entered, and equaled is equalled.

Your grammar structure, other than some of the sentences being too long, is good. It was actually very well-written, just a couple of mistakes here and there, but they aren't noticeable, and it's only because I went over it a couple of times that I spotted them. :P

I really liked it, you did a good job. Congratulations for finishing the challenge, first to finish it too. :) It was a creative way to come at the challenge, and I like how you incorporated things that are so happy and things that are so dark and upsetting in one story, in such a short period of time, during Halloween. I didn't really think about the deaths of Lily and James when I created the challenge, but I really liked this, so I'm glad someone did! But I just thought I would let you know that I thought that was some good bit of thinking on how to turn a challenge that was created with happiness and festivities in mind into something with the perfect balance to it, creating a great story and an interesting response to a challenge in one go. You should be proud of this, as I'm very proud that I inspired it. :P
I hope to get back to you as soon as possible with the winners, but as you finished so early, that won't be for a few weeks. Good job once again, and thanks for the good read. :)

Author's Response: Thank you. Thank you, thank you - I definitely can't say it enough. Reviews like this make me want to keep writing; I'm reminded of why I love doing this. I'm so glad you liked the story! I am quite proud of this, it's one of my favorite things I've written. :D Thank you for the challenge! I'll be awaiting the results excitedly.

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Very well done. I loved Harry's costume! The end is very much like I imagined. Sad, but good. Overall, an awesome story. Great job!

Author's Response: Thank you for your review! I wanted to throw in a bit of funny stuff, since the ending was so inevitably sad, so I'm glad it went over well.

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