Yayyyyyyy, DRAGON!
The way Snape becomes Newlin is novel, original, brilliant and took me completely by surprise when I read it. Also love how it makes Snape/Newlin younger than Harry. The political shenanigans are awesome and far too worrying for comfort. Davies deserves all he gets.
Poor Hermione, paying deeply for her academic isolation. (Isolation is not the right word: ivory-towerness????)
Ron, though we don't see much of him is rather dominant. He's grown up and matured. Interesting.
I really liked that Kreacher had the ability to appear from Grimmauld Place to France, juste comme ça! (Also, le français était très bien!)
But the Elder Wand. OMG! Talk about frightful. And that dilemma at the end: was it the Elder Wand or was it Harry? (I go with both.)
I read it in bed last night. Great bedtime story.
Oh, the ending. Harry in love with blue... Sigh. Nostalgia time for me. I fell in love with Delphi because of the colours. The green of the trees and blue of the sky merging into the blue of the sea. Oh, and as for retsina...cold it is far less 'pungent' than when it is warm. Also, if you soak fruit in it before eating the fruit or drinking the wine, the fruit juice 'softens' the pine-ish taste of the drink. And allows you to get slowly drunk while sitting in the shade of a lemon tree...at Christmas.