This chapter appears to be an exact match for the older version on fanfiction.net.

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Sirius' POV to begin with, waiting for Harry to finish a session in court. We don't immediately know why Sirius is waiting for Harry; possibly he just knew Harry would be having a tough day.

Until this point in the storyline, [I]Lessons for Life[/I] could easily have been shifted into alignment with post-OP canon regarding the fate of Sirius Black; this is his first appearance in the story.

Regarding Harry's characterization, it's pre-OP in regard to the rarity of his losing his temper in public, unless the author cared to cover that with revision down the line in the form of additional material, e.g. what sort of self-discipline Harry had had to master during the war.

[grin] Since this is the wizarding press, the reporters probably *literally* appeared out of nowhere. Of course, if they just Apparated in, how did they know how to time their appearance with Harry's exit from court?

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Depressing, but realistic, that some obvious Death Eaters would talk or buy their way out of Azkaban. In a way, Draco is a logical candidate, since his father managed to pull off the same feat in his day. In a way, though, Draco's not likely to be able to manage; he's not slick enough. He likes to gloat too much; he didn't have sense enough to pretend to be Harry's friend back in second year like Lucius told him to. Not enough subtlety to keep his public image clean enough to stay out of jail easily, I think.

On the other hand, he's bought and paid for his legal defense here, as Harry and Sirius make quite explicit. He's not the smooth article his father was, but he's still got his father's money.

Hmm. What has Draco done? What murder has he just gotten away with?

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The main effect achieved by putting Sirius into this scene (as opposed to, say, Ron as a fellow Auror commiserating with Harry), is that Harry's Chloe-induced freedom from bitterness reminds Sirius of James. Only Sirius and Remus could add that note to this scene, and it seems to fit the lively Sirius better than the more detached and controlled Remus, to remember something like that. (Alternately, I suppose some older member of the Order of the Phoenix would be able to remember such a thing, but there aren't many of them left, and of them only Moody seems like a likely candidate to turn up around the court at that time. The observation doesn't quite seem like Moody's sort of thing; I can see him recognizing bravery, but not so much fatherly affection and the like.)

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Realistic, that Chloe is a bit much to handle, but Harry knows she's not being difficult on purpose. Even better that "is she accepting that she is a witch?" doesn't get a simple "yes". The kid still has issues.

Nitpick: Sirius says that it's been about thirty years since the last Christmas ball, but a Yule Ball sounds like a Christmas ball to *me*.

How would Sirius know what people did last time - or rather, why would he speak of it as if he were around to watch? He got arrested and tossed into Azkaban without trial before November was out, after the Potters' murder.

Judging from the celebrations in [I]Philosopher's Stone[/I], the wizarding world wasn't terribly sensitive to the deaths of the Potters, compared to Voldemort's downfall. That lack of sensitivity always irked me, even though it's quite a natural human failing for those who didn't know them personally to focus more on the positive than the negative aspects of their deaths.

[sigh] Nobody knows how to deal out emotional blackmail better than an older family member. However, I'd think Molly rather than Sirius would be more likely to pull this stunt, unless Sirius is hoping to set Harry up with somebody at the ball.

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Harry's POV, picking up Chloe after school.

Nice bit of realism, that Ginny would casually use magic to clean the paintbrushes (which is neither easy nor emotionally satisfying work to do without magic, unlike, say, cooking for a cooking enthusiast).

Harry's special license is justified in the story; he has strong magical ability, and pull, so a relatively small perk like a dual Apparating license is reasonable. It's also quite useful, as it means that he is now seeing Ginny and having a bit of private conversation with her every school day when he picks up Chloe, since the other kids have to be sent home a tad early via Floo Powder. Very nice scene construction, there, without forcing.

[pet peeve perks up] Unsignalled POV change to Ginny, just for two paragraphs after Harry offers his dinner invitation. I think this would work much more nicely if Harry's POV were retained throughout, and we were kept guessing as to the state of Ginny's feelings a bit longer.

And as an adult who has been a married woman, would she really be so quick to blush at a friendly dinner invitation? (At least, not without reading way more into it than she's shown doing here.)

This is the first time Neville has been identified as Ginny's late husband, I believe; I had thought her visit to his grave served that purpose, but I was obviously mistaken. (That might have been worth doing, I think.) Playing on Neville-guilt for a bit longer and with more emphasis might add a bit of suspense. Seeing right away from their own POVs that Harry and Ginny have feelings for each other rather takes the edge off wondering if they'll work through the baggage of her husband's death.

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Nice, that Harry and Ginny opted to play a card game with Chloe, rather than shutting her out. They can both appreciate family (especially Harry, who never had a decent family growing up). Also nice that it's a wizarding variation of a common child's card game.

[laughs out loud] I thought *that* blessing was not only an Americanism, but specific to the Bible belt (typical joke for young males, though).

Given his Dursley upbringing, though, I'm a bit surprised that Harry has enough real religious training to think of starting a family custom of saying a blessing at meals. I'd put the Dursleys down as the type not to go to church at all, or to leave religion at the church door. (Especially something like a blessing, that would delay Dudley's and Vernon's chances to chow down.)

I like the touch of wizarding Christmas trees being live trees that aren't hurt by the process of becoming Christmas trees. It doesn't even contradict canon, since we don't know those kinds of details about Hogwarts' Christmas trees.

I agree with Harry; it's very good that Chloe has stopped envying her little brother, and now feels good enough about her life to feel sorry for him instead, that he's always going to miss out on experiences like this. (Heck, even for a kid they wanted, Christmas at the Dursleys can't be all that great on a family level, can it?)

Good call, that Dobby would quit his Hogwarts job once Harry had a substantial place of his own. But would Harry actually ask Dobby to work for him when he was living alone? He's used to looking after himself, and uncomfortable with being fussed over past a certain point, not being used to it. Did he offer the job to Dobby mainly for trustworthy company in a big empty house? (Just about anybody else would've been a security risk, but not Dobby, I think, despite his Malfoy past.)

Good characterization of Ginny; she really loved Neville, and feels guilty at having recovered enough from his death to notice another man in any kind of romantic way.

Copyediting nitpicks:
- "Godson" should not be capitalized.
- "Maitre de" should be "maitre d'", I believe. (The French spelling also requires a letter not found in standard English, if one really wants to be pedantic about it; it reads as a "hat" mark over the 'i'.)
"Monsieur" isn't spelled correctly in the text.
- "Death Eater" should be 2 words, capitalized and not hyphenated.
- "jealously" should be "jealousy"