Hi - I'm here from HPFT review swap

It's so great to get a Slytherin's point of view on this matter. This is so much missing from the original books, although we do see some 'good' Slytherins, not many.

The story was a good read, interesting all the way along. Also I liked how the dark thoughts on petrified students were mixed with everyday problems like a Potions essay.

The idea that there is a student who thinks is friend with Tom Riddle and that she starts worrying and then relizes... so "this" is a very interesting concept. I was first going to say that for me it did not sound very real, but I'm reconsidering now. After all Tom was a boy most people liked, why could he not have people thinking are friends with him. The one thing I'm not sure, is why he only took the memories of Olive. He had no problem killing people, and for sure he had no friends, he had most probably no feelings for her. And obliviating is not the safest option, as one can still have accessible memories. Or was he so arrogant not to think that anyone will get the idea to question this girl precisely?

Anyway I'm glad I found this story :)

Author's Response: Hello! I'm so glad you found this story interesting- background stories always intrigue me :)

Hmm...Tom could definitely have killed Olive, but that may have been a bit extreme. I suppose Obliviating just have seemed like a safer option, and I admit that I don't know anything about memories being accessible. But we all know Tom was extremely arrogant so he may have just assumed everyone would be too stupid to question Olive ;)

Anyway, thank you so much for the swap- hopefully it won't be out last! :D

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Hello! I saw that this was nominated for best one-shot in the Nargles so I just had to check it out.

Kudos for tackling such an underdeveloped part of Hogwarts's history. The professors, Olive, Myrtle, Tom, and Hagrid are all we really know about from this time period so there is so much room. There's a lot of potential, but it is intimidating. I've been reading Harry Potter fics for a long time, at least a decade, and I only remember reading one other story that featured Olive Hornby.

It was deliciously dark and you kept the mysterious tone up well, which is hard to do when we obviously have known the whole time who the Heir of Slytherin was. You showed enough development that Olive's progression from confused to maybe believing her friend to finding out that it was Tom Riddle all fit. It also didn't seem like it was 4300 words, which is no easy feat.

It's a bit random, but I want to compliment your naming. Olive's collection of names was great - Horton because I'm a Canadian so Tim Horton's and Horny because OMG what a terrible surname lol. (I actually accidentally typed that instead of Hornby earlier though, so it definitely is a possible mistake or Slughorn!) You also pulled some other canon stuff in, like the Greengrass surname, and used names that I could see as first names for the era like Millie. Those are often overlooked so good job!

One thing - how was Tom apparating inside Hogwarts? And how likely would Olive be to know about Horcruxes?

Having a) a Slytherin protagonist who is not "bad" and b) a Slytherin attacked were much appreciated. Your comment about there not being many Slytherin muggleborns is probably right, but there surely were at least some of them. And Olive having a Muggle mother also fits with what we know of canon - there aren't that many pureblood families after all.

And I know you said Myrtle is supposed to be 14 but I honestly would never have remembered that so whatever.

Good luck with the Nargles! :)

Author's Response: No, there don't seem to be many Olive fics around, do they? So I started asking the question of "how would she feel knowing she had caused the death of a fellow student?" Which led to this story :)

Lol, thanks for the compliment on the naming; some ideas were taken from real life. I know a friend who's surname was Horton and who also happens to be called Olive...it seemed too good an opportunity to pass. Like you said, I tried hard to stick to canon: Greengrass is an obvious option and Fawley was one of the Sacred Twenty Eight (I had to look that up...)

Tom Apparating inside Hogwarts was one thing I forgot. And Olive's knowledge of Horcruxes. Hehe. But thanks for pointing it out, I'll a have to edit it later :)

Anyway...thank you so much for this kind review! Much appreciated :D

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Hey it's me :)

I thought that this was a really amazingly original idea. Since it's Olive's POV, and no one's really done that as much, you really rose to the challenge and delt with it well.

I liked how you characterised everyone- especially Slughorn, to be honest. Olive and Tom were really believable! I think that since you took the Potter books into consideration too, there isn't any clashing- you could believe that it really is cannon :)

Glad to see you used my title idea XD

Author's Response: Lol hi :)

To be honest one of the main reasons I wrote this was because there didn't seem to be many Olive Hornby stories. I'm glad that the story was believable and yes, I used your title idea :D

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Hi there! Here with your requested review :)

This is a very intriguing concept. I love the idea that there's someone in Tom's house and year that caught on to what he was doing, and that Olive considered them friends because he helped her with Potions. For a (somewhat) long one-shot, the piece itself flowed pretty well. Nothing seemed too abrupt; the transitions worked.

I also liked that there were muggleborns in Slytherin, at least in Tom's time. It's entirely possible that they got thinned out over the years, and Olive definitely showed some strong Slytherin characteristics. Also, her inner monologue was hilarious at times and she definitely had me chuckling, which was a nice break in the darkness that was surrounding this one-shot.

To be honest, I was a little disappointed when I saw that it was complete. I wanted to know what was going to happen next! It stands on its own just fine, but there's definitely room to grow, too, if you ever considered expanding it into a short story, novella, or novel. I'm curious about Tom and Olive's relationship and how it grew over time and how it would change; he clearly didn't think she was as close to him - or he just didn't care, which is a very Tom trait.

Writing Tom Riddle is incredibly hard, and I think you pulled it off here. He really can be such a cruel jerk. And I like that she went to go check on Mrytle after she teased her, that seemed like a Hufflepuff trait and it was refreshing to see it in a Slytherin :P

The only thing I was a little curious about was how Olive seemed to know everything we found out in CoS. The basilisk was explained by the book, so I was cool with that, but how did she know about Horcruxes? I thought that was super restricted info because it was really dark magic, but it makes her character all the more interesting depending on how she knows that. :) It's also interesting that one of her parents was a muggle, I liked it!

Overall, good job with this. I haven't read anything quite like it and I do enjoy some me some Tom Riddle every now and again.

Thanks for the request!
♥Jill

Author's Response: Hi, thanks for the review!

Usually, I like writing about things that aren't explained in detail in the books, and an idea came to write about what would happen if someone caught Tom, because it could be likely and it would be very much like his personality to 'sort them out'. I was trying not to be too detailed about his relationship with Olive, but I hoped it would show that he didn't really feel very attached to her.

I think that Slytherins are sometimes thought of as just cruel pure bloods, so Olive was used to show that that was not always the case.

To be honest, I had completely forgotten that Horcruxes were very restricted and that not many people would know about it. It may have to do with the fact that Olive was friends with Tom and he was very interested in them, but I would leave it to the reader's imagination.

Once again, thank you so much for the review, it was really helpful and encouraging at the same time :)

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