Name: Anise reviewed We All Scream for Ice Cream on Aug 03, 2014 07:47 am

What a great fic! And here's the review, as promised.... see, I DO eventually post these reviews.... ;)

There's a lot to like here, so I'll concentrate on a few aspects that really stood out...

She grabbed the empty glass in front of her and lifted it to her mouth. Then she turned it upside down and shook it with a forlorn frown. “What’s the point?” she said. “You know, when Harry broke up with me after Dumbledore was brutally murdered, I understood, you know? He has a saving people thing, and I knew he needed to go off and be the hero, and part of that was protecting me by not being with me. I knew that. I figured once the war was over, maybe we would get back together. I used to dream about it, that he’d see everything I’d done while he was gone and see that I didn’t need protecting. We could just be equals.

“Then afterwards we started dating again, and I thought we were finally on the same page. He’d already saved the world. He didn’t have to sacrifice our happiness for anyone else ever again, but then he became an Auror.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Does this story have a point?”

She pointed the mug at him. Her eyes tried to glare into his, but they kept crossing and getting distracted by other things. “Yes, Malfoy. It does. The point is I sacrificed my happiness for Harry and he didn’t even have the courtesy to stay with me and be unhappy, too.”



I love this part! We see the conflict between the different things that Ginny wanted from Harry, and the fact that they were mutually exclusive—they COULDN’T all come true. Harry left her because he wanted to “protect” her, but he didn’t understand her and didn’t even try. He couldn’t see her as an equal when he came back—in order to have that ability, he would have needed to try to understand Ginny as a person and what she really wanted and needed before he originally left her back at the end of his sixth year.

I think that Ginny knows that she gave up too much of herself for her relationship with Harry, or to be more accurate, her *ideal* of that relationship, and yet she knew that she wasn’t happy. There’s a selfish part of Ginny, which is why she wanted Harry to be unhappy too—but it’s understandable from the point of view of what he put her through.


Her nose wrinkled in distaste. “Shhhh. We’re pretending I wasn’t crazy enough to stay in a relationship with a man I didn’t really love just because he was famous.”


This points up the idea that some of the reasons that Ginny stayed with Harry weren’t the most admirable, which is realistic.

Ultimately, I think that Ginny wasn’t willing to be oblivious about the feelings and needs of others, and Harry was. That’s made very clear by the fact that he took it upon himself to inform her that he was getting married right before the crucial Quidditch match.

But it took her a long time to break free from that trap. In canon, of course, she never did.

Draco, however, does notice her turmoil, does see her, and he ends up caring about what she feels. I think that a big part of what makes D/G intriguing is that while the caring doesn’t feel inevitable, the seeing does. He sees her as Harry never did—which I think is something that also comes from canon.

And ice cream is the connecting factor! :)

Author's Response: "I think that a big part of what makes D/G intriguing is that while the caring doesn’t feel inevitable, the seeing does. He sees her as Harry never did..."

Yes! I love the way you said this. I think this story is ultimately about Ginny deluding herself into thinking she's happy, but it's also about the delusions that Harry and Draco have concerning Ginny, too. Harry wanted Ginny to be the kind of girl he wanted, and when he finally saw that she wasn't, he was the one who ended their relationship because he knew there was no point going on. Ginny, meanwhile, as you said, after all she went through with him, wanted that delusion to continue because she wanted her dream to be justified. And Draco's delusion is that Ginny and Harry are happy and perfect (because he couldn't imagine there being any problems in their relationship), but as soon as Harry burst that bubble, his prejudice against Harry showed him who Ginny really was, if that makes sense. He's only on Ginny's side because he's against Harry, but that means that he's the ONLY person on Ginny's side when she and Harry break up, which leads to him TRULY seeing her as even Harry couldn't.

I know I've written the way Draco "sees" her in other stories, and I think it's such a crucial part of D and G's relationship, for both of them. Ginny seeing Draco and vice versa is both of them getting over their prejudices, and potentially being the only people who see each other for who they are and not the people associated with them (Ginny-Harry and Draco-his family). I love that part of this ship!

Thanks so much for the awesome review!!

Name: Anise reviewed We All Scream for Ice Cream on Jul 28, 2014 06:37 am

There will be an actual review very very soon! :)

Author's Response: I look forward to it! ;)

Name: gidge_8 reviewed We All Scream for Ice Cream on Jul 25, 2014 02:49 pm

This was so sweet! I loved the how you described Ginny to be so vibrant. You totally captured her as outgoing and fun - most notably showing Draco the paper and her obsession with her empty mug, then being the obnoxious fan. Both characters were written to be adorable and fun.

Author's Response: I really liked Ginny in this and I'm glad you did too! She's still her usual feisty self, but she's also kind of pathetic, but she's also self-deprecating about her patheticness. I think it all works out. The pub scene is my favorite part for her. XD Thanks for reading and reviewing! I'm glad you enjoyed the story!

Name: Cara reviewed We All Scream for Ice Cream on Jul 25, 2014 12:02 pm

Short and so sweet! Really nicely done! Love it!

Author's Response: Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it! :D