Twenty - September 2000: The Twins Are Born

I persevered with your story and have finally got through it.

I have to say, and I don't feel unjust in this, but I have read better. The whole idea of a Harry/Sirius relationship running concurrently with a Harry/Ginny marriage was totally unbelieveable.

Your research seemed somewhat lacking re the whole c-section births. I can totally understand Harry having to have a c-section, but why Ginny? Maybe you did explain this but I must have blanked it already. Oh, another question, what is the name of the baby girl twin? Britany or Jessica.

Sirius does come across as a stalker who preys on a young and immature Harry.  This isn't love!

Sirius can't have those sort of feelings for Harry - it's just not British!

Honestly I think this is a little too far fetched even for my very vivid imagination. 

"I'll manage?" 

So now, Sirius is going to refrain from sex with Harry--even though they both want it--just because Harry is going to need his energy for the next day?  He's been very selfish up to this point, but now you're trying to convince us that he's noble and willing to sacrifice his pleasure.  Of course, his "I'll manage" is filled with self-pity.  There is so much here that is illogical that it's impossible to figure out what you really intend.   

For this chapter, you seem to have focused on the fact that Harry is young.  There are only so many times one can read "young lover" without being reminded that this relationship is very, very wrong. Sirius is his godfather!  Harry is under 18 and the age of consent for a sexual relationship with a guardian is 18--and even then, it's squicky.

You also seemed to fixate on the word "albeit" in this story.   

From a research standpoint, I have to wonder how much you did about c-sections. Once the decision is made to do one, the incision is a rather quick process and it does not take long at all to remove the babies. Multiples are generally born within about 90 seconds of one another. Heck, even if a person has twins vaginally it’s an average of 17 minutes between births. It seems highly unlikely that it would take witches and wizards two hours to extract one baby and another 30 minutes for the other. It’s little details like this pull a person out of the story. Most authors I know of will put hours of research into something they don’t have much first hand knowledge about and will many times try to find someone who does to make it as realistic as possible. Yes, it’s fiction, but you are dealing with something that about a third of all women who have had children have gone though. Even if you haven’t, watching any of the TV shows on childbirth can give you some good second hand experience.

And the whole mathematical calculation of the due date and how early she is and how early Fred and George were is really superfluous information adding nothing to the story. I would highly recommend finding a good beta who can help you pare the store down to the essentials of the plot. Overburdening with details like that can bore a reader. More words do not necessarily make a story better. Neither does going through the thesaurus to find the $2 words. Also, being used to how things work here, it does seem odd in both cases that the other parent was not allowed in the OR for delivery.

Wow! Still being able to go face to face at the eighth month? That’s pretty impressive as that’s a virtual impossibility in the third trimester when just one is pregnant, though there is female sitting on top, but not if both have big bellies.

I will dispute the waiting 6 weeks after Cesarean, not only as a weak reason to choose surgery (which as I mentioned before would probably be shunned in the wizarding world as barbaric), it is also major surgery, and strenuous activity is not indicated for about that long after a major surgery. Though, this is the wizarding world, I suppose they could speed up the healing process.

Okay, first off, I didn’t understand the need to question about the sexual orientation or monogamy of Harry’s relationship, that just seems like filler material with no real value to the story. I was going to comment on the date discrepancy, but you kind of explained that away and I’ll push the “I believe” button on that one. The one that gets to me is the c-section. We learned from Arthur’s stay in the hospital that the wizarding world considers things like surgery barbaric. Presumably they know many magical ways of taking care of things that would require surgery in the Muggle world. Additionally, elective c-sections are not something that is pushed in Muggle Britain or the US for that matter. True, if you are rich and famous enough, you can have your doc schedule it, but it’s not normal in the least.

As to twins running in the family, it would be fraternal and not identical twins that run in the family, but it’s not that big a deal as most folks probably don’t realize that, just passing on that bit of trivia.

Also, I’m guessing that somewhere in these interludes the two of them have found time to take their Apparition tests since you made it clear before they weren’t able to do that, even going so far as to having them fly to London to start their honeymoon. It’s kind of a large plot inconsistency. It’s really an odd mix of Apparition and broom you are using in this story, almost as though you can’t decide whether or not they are qualified.

Okay, the first paragraph makes no sense. “Usually visitors simply Apparated in.” First off, hadn’t Dumbledore made it clear that they didn’t when he took Harry to visit Slughorn, talking about how rude and an invasion of privacy it was? Secondly, you then mention that Harry has set up Anti-Apparition wards, meaning that folks couldn’t just Apparate in. It’s a very contradictory paragraph. Aha! Finally a pseudo explanation for Ginny’s behavior: “Really, she wished she wasn’t so god-awful weak where he was concerned—but the moment Harry touched her, she was lost.” I guess late is better than never. But given what we’ve seen of the two of them in the past, it really doesn’t hold much water as an explanation, it’s a bit of a loosely woven basket. 

Interesting that you have Harry having called out Sirius’ name every night of their honeymoon (nearly), yet he somehow has been able to resist getting in touch with Sirius. Seems very contradictory. I could see if you had explained that Harry had been feeling guilty over his desires to see Sirius, though that would be a bit out of character from what you’ve established, too. I never know how the two of them are going to act. It’s as though you couldn’t decide on a clear personality and motivation for each and keep changing them to suit the needs of the plot, perhaps to build some sort of angst as you felt it was getting a tad too fluffy.

Well, we almost saw Ginny in this chapter, or at least her temper. She still seems far too accepting of this without having had any sort of argument over it. 

A couple of things that I have noticed about this chapter and others. First off, the chapter titles are pretty obvious in giving away the plot to the chapter. I know that JKR does the same sort of thing and I refuse to read her chapter titles as they can spoil the major plot point of the chapter. It’s not always necessary to use titles, numbers can be good enough. Second, there are a lot of Americanisms in the story. Yes, you are American, but there are ways to purge things like QT. There have been some others, but they are escaping me right now. It’s not quite as blatant as using apartment instead of flat or elevator instead of lift, but it has the same effect of pulling the reader out of wizarding Britain. Perhaps moreso because they have been pop cultures sorts of references.

So, Kingsley quit the Aurors to become a reporter, eh? Interesting choice. Another interesting choice is Sirius not wanting Harry to stay because he’d need his energy for Ginny the next night. Really odd considering you had more or less established that Harry was shagging one or the other of them every night. Obviously you’ve demonstrated Harry can keep up. Under normal circumstances this line would work, but in the context of this story it’s just funny. “She’s waited a long time for you.” I mean, she’s pregnant and they have been shagging like rabbits. If they had not been with each other before marriage, it would have made sense. And again, the godfather-slash-lover descriptor is really creepy, reminding the reader of how wrong this relationship can be. Other Sirius/Harry stories play down that aspect of their relationship. 

If the story had played out differently, Sirius’s behavior would have seemed more organic to the story, but it doesn’t. After all, Sirius is the one who came out of the closet and initiated the romance. He’s the one who’s been jealous of Ginny and not wanting to share. It would have seemed more in character for him to want one last selfish night with his lover before Harry went on his honeymoon. The characterizations in this story have been all over the board, making it hard to understand why the characters are behaving as they are.

“Ginny wasn’t about to deny her beloved anything that made him happy,” This line really sums up the saccharin nature of the fic. It’s all about Harry. You have made the Harry/Ginny relationship very disturbing in a Stepford Wife sort of way. She has given up who she is to make him happy. Of course the sweetness of the mutual pregnancies is up there, too. I do find it amazing how a wizard to wizard pregnancy seems to be such a sure thing whereas establishing a normal pregnancy can be quite a trying ordeal. You do contradict yourself in two succeeding paragraphs. One you talk about how they are both queasy, but it’s nerves and then immediately say they were too preoccupied to notice the queasiness. Which is it? You really can’t have both. Oh wait, the next line you reiterate the part from the previous paragraph. A beta can really help weed out that sort of needless repetition. Again, you have a feisty Molly totally stripped of her teeth as she just placidly rolls over and accepts that Harry is cheating on her daughter. The reactions of everyone else have been so colorless and two dimensional in this story. It’s pretty much like Harry and Sirius are the only characters, and they barely have any depth, and everyone else are just cardboard cutouts. 

I will say that I am impressed that you didn’t immediately have Harry popping off to tell Sirius the good news. That’s honestly the reaction I had expected given how you have built up their relationship, so I guess your OOC characters are going to act OOC. And it’s interesting the contraceptive didn’t work. Obviously the WW must be overrun with children from gay relationships since they can get pregnant at the drop of the hat and nothing seems to stop it. </sarcasm> Seriously, if Harry didn’t want to accidentally get pregnant, he would have researched to find out what he had to do to stop it. But then again, it would ruin the fun of the story and not all BC is foolproof, though you really make it sound like all BC would be ineffective.

Here would have been a good point to bring up the information you kind of threw out there at the end of the last chapter. It’s more organic here rather than a narrator just telling us. And it’s wonderful how selfish everyone is in this. Really strong basis for either relationship surviving. And really, from what you have shown of the Harry/Sirius relationship, it is very much a lustful and not so much a loving relationship considering that it pains Sirius to talk with Harry rather than just to shag his brains out. And this sudden maturity really doesn’t fit with the Sirius that you have painted.

Ah, yes, nothing says a wonderful post-coital moment like talking about your gay lover to your fiancée. </sarcasm> This would have been much better had you actually developed a personality for Ginny instead of her just being Harry’s girl toy.

As I feared, yet another recap. I mean, you wasted half the chapter on yet another retelling of what we have already read. And once again, you mention Ginny’s temper, but there is nothing to substantiate it. She just kind of stepped to the side and gave a glowing “Gee, Harry, whatever makes you happy, I support it!” I’m not saying Ginny wants Harry to be miserable, but you really don’t have her having any feelings. I guess Harry is that good in bed that she doesn’t mind sharing. I just don’t see Ginny as the type of placidly go along with her man wants. She grew up being very strong willed having six brothers and we are seeing none of that.

Ah, the fight with Voldemort is mentioned, but is it something that has happened or will happened? I still really have no idea. And I know that Harry can be selfish, but you are really driving it home. I have to say that he was coming out of being selfish at the end of book 6 when he tried to protect Ginny. Again, you have set this AU, so I’m not sure if you had that happening, but he was starting to grow up by that point.

Ah yes, babies make the world go round and save every relationship. </sarcasm> I will give you that at least you gave some sort of explanation as to the how, but again, you are reiterating in one paragraph, what was said a few above. I think most of us have good enough short term memory to not need that kind of immediate reinforcement. And it is incredible how calmly Harry took that thought. And again, Ginny just seems to be a non-descript character to provide heterosexual sex and the plot point to advance the story and not a character in her own right. “Oh, Harry, wouldn’t it be wonderful if you and Sirius had a baby? And then we could have babies and it would be sooo marvelous.” It’s really overly saccharin. At the very end of the story, almost as throwaways, you give away two really big plot points and not in a good way. You shift from a storytelling from Harry’s POV to an omniscient POV just to get the facts out. Perhaps you felt that this sort of blatant plot exposition would engross the reader. I think it insults the reader’s intelligence or is lazy on the storyteller’s part to just throw the information out there. It would have been more dramatic for it to happen organically in the story.

Again, I know I mentioned it before, but I think you use ‘mate’ too often. Normally when folks are in normal conversation with one other person, they tend not use names or other substitutes very much. And I do have to say that I can’t really recall any instances in canon where Ron or Harry used ‘mate’. They have almost exclusively used each others’ names.

It was nice to see Ron referencing Ginny’s temper, but the reference in this story seems odd as she has been strangely placid about accepting the Harry/Sirius relationship. Again, I know you have marked OOC, but a vast majority of readers really prefer to see their characters kept as close to canon as possible, at least in the beginning and then you can evolve them from canon to suit your needs, but it needs to be done slowly so that readers can follow the logic in the changes of behavior. Someone coming in to a later chapter might not understand it, but someone who has read from the beginning would still see the canon character, having understood how they reached that point.

And just something I have to wonder, I get the impression this story is set before Voldemort’s downfall, but that seems to be getting completely ignored for the soap opera of Harry shagging Sirius one night and Ginny the next. If this was a post-war fic, it wouldn’t be a big deal, but it’s very hard to imagine a pre-war fic where Voldemort is not hardly crossing anyone’s mind, especially with what happened at the end of book 6. Again, I know it’s AU, but it’s the sort of thing that is likely to really stick out as a gaping plot hole to readers.

Here is another thing that strikes me as odd, I’d say out of character for anyone, if Ron loves Hermione, I can’t see that he would have a hard time thinking about shagging her. Teenage boys and guys in general tend to rather easily be able to think about sex. To have Ron say he finds thinking about shagging his girlfriend difficult really seems out of place and to have no real bearing on the story.

Also, it may just be me, but you spend a lot of time recapping scenes. It gets kind of dull and laborious from a reader’s standpoint to have to rehash a scene you just read about. Yes, you are involving new characters who need the information, but the reader doesn’t need to be reminded. It’s like when you watch a documentary on History Channel that only has about 25 minutes of info so after every commercial break they spend 5 minutes recapping what happened in the previously aired part of the show so they can make their 44 minutes. I really found myself glazing over as Ginny recapped the story Harry had told to Ron which we had just experienced first hand. And I fear your setting up for yet another recap at the beginning of the next chapter.

This is why it’s important to have a beta. This is a person who can bring this sort of repetition up to you and help smooth through the story and make it more enjoyable for the reader. A beta can also help you keep characters in character. Now, you are never forced to take a beta’s advice, but his is a person that can provide a valuable second perspective on a story and get you to evaluate your writing before you release it to the public, where you are generally unlikely to get any sort of concrit. If it loses the reader’s interest, you just won’t get reviews as most are too kind to be honest. This advice to is to try to help you improve as a writer.

Ah, okay, now Ginny decides to behave more like we would have expected. Though only for the briefest moment. I do have to say the easy acceptance everyone has of this relationship requires a huge suspension of disbelief.

And now, for a brief style comment. I notice a few areas of the chapter where you seem to be in doubt about the pronouns, so much so that you add in the corresponding noun set off in commas after it. While this is grammatically correct, it is highly distracting from the narrative. If a pronoun isn’t clear on it’s own, it should just be replaced by the noun to preserve the flow of the sentence.

Knowing that Sirius is Harry’s godfather, it is really creepy to use godfather and lover in the same breath. It really sends home the incestuous nature of the romance. It would be more palatable if the godfather aspect was played down. And we know Ron can be thick, but it’s not like Sirius and Harry’s relationship is a secret. Why would either of them care whether Ron knew Harry was with Sirius or not? And to bring in Molly is rather odd. Before it sounded like it was Sirius, Remus, Ginny and the trio at Grimmauld Place. If Molly is there, I’m sure she would know what Harry and Sirius were doing and I can’t see her being at all accepting of Harry cheating on her daughter, or of pre-marital sex for that matter. Just seems very odd to bring her into the story so abruptly.

I hope you find this criticism constructive and will use it to help improve your writing as that is how it is intended.

Okay, I'm saying this to try to help you improve your story telling to make it more plausible. First off, it seems very odd that a bunch of late teenagers at a boarding school would not know the birds and the bees. I know it works from a storytelling standpoint as a lead in to discuss homosexuality.Now, since Remus and Sirius know how Harry feels about Ginny, it seems really unlikely from a storytelling standpoint that they would tell them all at once. And less so that Sirius would broach having a relationship with Harry in front of Ginny and not have her protest. But then again, this is an OOC story, so you can have everyone be perfectly reasonable about Sirius not only coming out but professing his love for Harry.And Harry took it very calmly that the man who is his surrogate father feels that way about him. I do dread where this is going with the comment about Sirius having a child with Harry. Mpreg stories tend to go downhill real fast as they are just some sort of odd wish fulfillment for an author who is attracted to the two male characters and wants them to have a 'traditional heterosexual type relationship' rather than any semblance of realism.

Weird and a bit icky.

Why does Sirius say "mate" in nearly every sentance?  I found it rather annoying after a while. 

It's almost like the spell to repel a Boggart--Ridiculous!

Oh, come on.  Harry doesn't know how many times he's had sex with his godfather? 

Once again, you've put Harry in the position of being the actual grown-up in the story.  He's the one making decisions and everyone--Ginny included--accepts what Harry wants almost as adoringly as a house elf accepts its servitude to wizards.  

Er, okay, that's a bit, well, icky considering there is no established relationship between the two of them. It just seems very far fetched to have Sirus suggest to masterbate Harry, but then again, you do have OOC listed, so I guess it will work.One thing I found distracting was the fact that you have Sirius say 'mate' just about every time he opens his mouth. It's like the British version of Bill and Ted who say 'dude' all the time.

This dialog doesn't really sound like them.  And it's rather creepy to think of Sirius masturbating Harry.  Doesn't Harry know how to do that  himself?

This story is at best badly written and offensive, at worst ridiculous and nausiating. You're characters are so far out of character that they can't even be considered AU.  You might as well just write your own story and rename the characters. But even then, the characterization is the least of your problems.  The sex scenes are far from erotic; instead, they are cheesy and downright gross, not to mention unrealistic. 

The premise is so ridiculous that the suspension of disbelief is impossible from the reader's point of view.  The plot and everything that happens, from the events to the dialog, makes me cringe and wonder where the hell it came from.

You also have a tendency to repeat things. You say in one hundred words what you could say in ten words--five times, no less.  You have your characters repeat things that have just gone on so much that it makes it seem you are going more for word count than actual quality.  What's worse, you have had several reviewers all through your stories who have pointed out problems to you and given smart advice, but you never seem to take it, and your writing therefore stays the same.

I don't know what else to say; all I can do is express my hope that you will seriously think and rethink why you are writing these stories and what you hope to accomplish with them. If it is to entertain and please, then you would do well to try to find ways to improve as a writer; if it is for yourself and to please yourself, then by all means, go on posting, but don't expect the reviews to be any more kind until there has been some improvement. 

Are we supposed to believe that Sirius has sexual feelings for Harry and that Remus is okay with this?  You make Sirius sound perverted.  I would have no problems with a gay relationship between consenting adults, but Harry is a child.  While Sirius is not a blood-relative, he is Harry's godfather and is in a position of trust.  His feelings, if acted upon, are an abuse of the trust Harry's parents placed in him.

Once again you've portrayed Harry as a selfish person who is only concerned with his own pleasure.  He doesn't care what others think.  He's willing to manipulate Ginny and Sirius for his own purposes and doesn't even care about how Ginny will be regarded by others.  You've made her a victim of a narcissistic half-boy, half-man whose interests in getting what he wants don't allow him to see how his actions affect others. 

I feel more than sorry for Ginny.  She's a dishrag.  Harry is a jerk, and Sirius has the emotional maturity of a dog in heat.