meme list: live!mentors(all)

The text is essentially a match for that on fanfiction.net, but with cleaner copyediting.

[I]Here was a chance he rarely got. She had never heard of him. They could start from scratch. Actually, from the way things were looking, they were *really* going to have to start from scratch.[/I]

If Harry feels very strongly about this issue, why hasn't he been spending significant amounts of time in the Muggle world?

One possible answer is that the negative associations Harry has with the Muggle world from childhood have carried over for him into adulthood, to the point that he's not interested in establishing connections there. There's also the practical answer, that since the war hasn't been over for long, Harry simply hasn't taken time to even consider sorting out his personal life, let alone to do anything about it. In addition, any Muggles Harry chose to socialize with would either have to know about the wizarding world already (e.g. the families of Muggle-born Hogwarts students), or would have to be kept in the dark (which would be unsatisfactory; since he couldn't relax around such people at all, such relationships would necessarily be somewhat shallow, even if the other parties involved didn't realize that Harry was concealing something).

The matter of dual Apparition is dealt with later on; Harry is unusual in that he has a license permitting him to do it.

Not surprising that Chloe would cling to what material possessions she has; she's just lost everything else that was familiar to her. Even a lousy environment like the Dursleys' was at least something familiar, that she knew how to cope with; now she's been dumped on a man she's never met, and possibly never even heard of. Fortunately, Harry is a likeable chap, and Chloe is as susceptible as anyone.

Question: Why is Harry living in such a large place? He had no family until adopting Chloe just now, and he lives alone. He spent his early childhood in very cramped quarters, and his schooldays living out of a trunk. It's understandable that he'd want his own space, but why something so much bigger than he can use?

Naturally, Harry remembers quite well from his own childhood how Chloe has been living. Nice that he's nervous about whether she'll approve of his attempts at setting up a room for her.

I note that Chloe, unlike her biological father, is interested in books. Even if she weren't magical, I don't think she'd have fit in with her biological family. She'd still be better off with Harry. (Duh.)

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:) As far as my fading memory can recollect, Chloe's behaving like a fairly typical girl for her age; she's not going to come out from under the table to meet the Weasley twins just on Harry's say-so, yet.

Hello, I'm Disassembly of Reason, and this is my pet peeve, unsignalled POV change. [pet peeve wags tail]

The POV has changed to Chloe's, without a transition, by the time Percy and his family arrive, although the POV was with Harry when Ginny hugged him in greeting. It's actually been dodging in and out of Chloe's POV since the beginning of the scene. I'd recommend instead revising the scene to read entirely from Chloe's POV, although that would mean revising the portions of the scene. For example, where Ron and Hermione come in; Chloe wouldn't know them, so her reaction wouldn't simply be "Ron", "Hermione", but would include a physical description and her impressions of them. That might be useful, in fact, given that several years have passed; the reader might like to know how they've changed as they've matured.

Eight children in seven years; so Percy and Penelope in this timeline began having children round about Harry's seventh year, I gather.

Continuity nitpick: How would George know who the Von Trapps are? "The Sound of Music" doesn't seem quite like his kind of thing, even if he were Muggle-born. If Arthur has found a way to enchant a DVD player or similar (double points if he can get it to deal with both UK and US encodings), Molly might go for "The Sound of Music", but the twins?

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Not surprising that Chloe has trouble with being a witch. It's one thing to be rejected for being magical by your guardians, but somewhat different to be rejected by your blood family - particularly if it happened only after she was old enough to remember being treated differently. (I can't tell if this was the case or not, offhand, and she's so young it'd be hard to say anyway.) At eleven, Harry was old enough to have broken himself (mostly) of any expectation of affection from the Dursleys, but even he had occasional lapses (his twelfth birthday, for instance).

Would Chloe be so quick to accept Harry's negative assessment of her parents? It's true, but a child that young might still cling to the idea that her parents were right for awhile, even though it wouldn't be healthy for her.

I'd also think it might take Chloe quite some while to really change her attitude about magic, but she is very young and can adapt.

The poor kid's had a tough day. Being literally put out on the doorstep by her own father, turned over to a total stranger - that's rough, even though the stranger in question is Harry.

Typical of the Dursleys on a couple of counts, that Chloe has never been told a bedtime story before. In the first place, that's an affectionate, good-parent sort of thing to do, which lets Dudley right out. In the second place, Dudley hates reading. And finally, the Dursleys hate imagination, so they wouldn't be big on story-telling anyway.

How, in that case, would Chloe even know who Snow White is? Did Figgy tell her stories? Or is that something she picked up from TV? (Later in the story, the Disney version of Sleeping Beauty creeps in, so that might be it.)

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Note: The Von Trapps were (and are) a real-life family; "The Sound of Music" is just based rather loosely on part of their life story. (The original A/N on fanfiction.net made them sound like fictional characters, which isn't true despite the liberties taken in the film adaptation.)