This was a gripping story. It took me several days to read, but reeled me straight back in every time. There was something disorientating about it - you had lots of wonderful magic, and weird things, and I didn't always know what was happening - what the ghosts in Harry wanted, what happened when he touched people - whether he didn't touch them because of the cold within himself, or because or what the ghosts might do to them, because later he tries to allow people to touch him, and I wondered what happened then. Your language was delightful; amusing, sharp, evocatively descriptive. There were strange elements - the Fred/George/other scenario, why Odile had placed such truly awful wards, even if there was a way around them eventually...and I felt horror that Snape took the ghosts into himself, rather than finding a way to disperse them... Nevertheless it made a marvellous whole. The only bit that jarred (rather than feeling uncertain) was the scene when Ron dies: I thought the descriptions of Ron had been wonderful, as had Harry's journey into coming to love this person who was Ron but wasn't, and the funeral rites were intriguing. Just, my personal experience of being at more than one death-bed didn't tally with the family's reaction of still lingering over him for hours after his death; because my experience has been seeing someone die, the change from them being the live person you loved, whether conscious or not, and this dead body, this frame that is no longer them, is so strong and obvious, that lurking with the body hasn't happened; also, there is such a profound sense of relief and exhaustion...but you may also be speaking from experience, just a different one than mine. I'm glad of the glimmer of hope at the end, though I worry for Snape! I know there are lots of little details that will catch me when I reread. A huge thank-you for this story! Philo