Title: The Augurey
Author: La-Matrona
Rating: M
Genre: Family/Romance
Status: Complete
Library Category:
Pairings: Harry P./Hermione G.
Summary: After the war, Harry Potter is desperate to make sure that not a single life more is ruined by Voldemort's legacy. Aided by the ever loyal Hermione Granger, he makes a decision which will forever change more than one life. An epilogue disregarding, Cursed Child inspired, Harmony romance.
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12310861/1/The-Augurey

This is a novel-length complete romance/family fic and I admit that a well-written Harry/Hermione story has always been my weakness, so it may not be to the tastes of the majority of DLP. I found it to be technically good, not bogged down by too many terrible cliches, the characterisations seemed very well done and true to canon, while busting out some surprises here and there to liven them up, without it seeming OOC. The romance is written well and there isn't any angsty wallowing or dramatic bashing over the canon break-ups while at the same time it's not written simply to get the characters together as quickly as possible and banging. The resolutions are satisfying so far as well. I can't give this a confident rating yet as I am only 24 chapters (a bit less than two-thirds) through it, but for it's category I will give it a place-holder 4.5/5 rounded down to 4.

EDIT: Having finished the whole story, I can confidently give it a solid 4.5. Some of the later plot elements aren't quite as expanded upon, but it didn't feel rushed at all. The author mentions in their last note that a further 2 books were planned and may or may not happen some day, but as a stand-alone this works perfectly, as far as I can tell.

 

Agree with Zombie. I'm not opposed to Harmony either, depending of course on how it's handled. I've just downloaded it so I will eventually get a review up.

 

Is this just slice of life, or is there a plot? The summary is pretty lacking.

 

This fic mostly deals with

Spoiler

Harry rescuing baby D̶e̶m̶e̶n̶t̶i̶a̶ ̶R̶a̶v̶e̶n̶w̶a̶y̶ Delphini Riddle from a comparable situation to what he himself was subjected to at the Dursleys and his unresolved trauma from early childhood, while trying to be a parent himself

, so I would say like 80% slice of life with 20% plot and/or setting up for a sequel.

 

Is he still scared of pigeons?

 

Was heavily disappointed by this. This mystery was unraveled extremely quickly. All characters, from major to minor didn't... change from the events of canon. Ron fell into fanfiction Ron archetypes, though he managed to fall out of them which was nice. There was some Harry/Hermione fic ooc stuff regarding Ron, but that might be nitpicky. Neville has crawled back into his shell. Ginny is fooled again by the dark side. Harry and Draco act 15 around each other - though this is somewhat justified.

Points for probably the most interesting interpretation of Molly I've seen yet.

Points off for the gratuitous lemons that probably added up to 30k words I skimmed.

To be fair, I walked into this fic with different expectations. I wanted some kind of Harry-in-Dumbledore's-Shoes arc where he had to juggle Delphi's childhood against the truth of the past.

Middling 3/5 from me. I won't say it was a waste of time to read it for me (even though it ticked none of my boxes) but I can't in good faith say I thought it was good.

 

There's a reason H/Hr usually sucks and is just not good: Overemotional Harry, dummy Ron and awesome Hermione against the world (unless it's a full-on Ron bashing), not to mention the boys are suddenly not able to deal with anything without Hermione.

3/5 from me - I'd prefer if the subtle interactions "in favour of Hermion" weren't so subtle, so I'd know I have to dump it sooner. It's written not horribly, but I personally despise everything about it.

 

This was frankly why I was hesitant to put it up here in the first place. The author does tend toward writing mainly Hermione-centric stories it seems, and it definitely shows.

@Lungs With regard to characters not changing, you are basically reading the story at a point in time when they're still school-kids. I agree, a super-Harry doing the Dumbledore is nice to read, but post-Hogwarts Harry was not all that... Fair point about the lemons though, but I guess they don't bother me at all, even though I ended up skipping past most of them as well.

 

I don't care particularly for the power of the characters - I was looking for some kind of character evolution as a result of the events of Deathly Hallows. I think the problem is that the characters are more fanfiction caricatures of themselves at least from my reading of it.

 

Hm, fair enough. It's what I eventually want out of this as well, though it's really unclear whether there will be any sort of continuation, and reading three novel-length stories just to get a pay-off is usually too much investment even for me. I didn't really get the impression of fan-fic caricatures, though it has been quite a while since I've read the original books, so I will take your word for it.

 

It's been several weeks since I read it now, but I enjoyed it. Not great. It was about twice as long as it should have been, with fluff and angst and smut I could have done without. All the real plot points (bribery, kidnapping, etc.) came at the end and in a rush. The idea that Harry would give a damn about Draco Malfoy at this stage seems a bit strange, and his antagonism against Malfoys generally seems a regression back to Sixth Year, which was rather unfortunate. As I was reading, I hated Ginny's interpretation. When I figured out who the Big (though rather small) Bad was, I hated it more. But then we got a reason which I didn't mind so much. Getting duped by a Dark Wizard twice was fine for me, especially on the heels of a breakup with Harry.

Mrs. Weasley was great. The interactions between the trio were good, even Ron being Not-Okay with Delphi. The author didn't play it as him abandoning the other two or anything, he played it as Ron being quite hurt that they wouldn't trust him, especially with a secret as insignificant as her, which is a fair thing to be hurt by (if slightly icky to us going 'she's a baby!'). Ron never for a moment seems as if he's going to rat them out, and he sticks that landing at the end when he stands up the Minister on her behalf. I didn't care for the way Hermione's parents returned, but at least there was a reason they didn't bring them back immediately and it paid off when they did. (Though having her faint immediately was... too much.)

Speaking of that scene, I loved the graduation ceremony. I don't even really know why, but I was very moved.

Overall, I felt compelled to read it and was satisfied when it was over. Solid 3.5/5, rounding to a 3.

 

I read this one when it was still in progress and remember thoroughly enjoying it for what it is.

The saliant points have already been mentioned in thread and I agree with others in that I thought Molly was handled fantastically, but wish there was a little more growth on the part of the cast. Or perhaps that the story covered a greater length of time, showing Delhi as she grew and, as Lungs pointed out, showing Harry in the position of Dumbledore; balancing Delphi's childhood against the truth. This last is less a flaw of the story and more a disconnect between what I'd like to have seen and the story the author wanted to write, and didn't really detract from my enjoyment.

I'll add that the slice of life stuff was by far the bit I liked best, and the mystery seemed a bit ham-fisted at times, occasionally seeming as though it was there as an excuse ofr the slice of life.

It seems like it's the lead in to a larger series, and I think there's potential for more here, perhaps a sequel told in vignettes that span Delphi's childhood and teens.

3.5 out of 5. Eminently readable, but not without its flaws, but nothing egregious. A decent read for anyone looking to fill a couple hours, especially if you're a fan of the pairing.

Edit: it also gets bonus points for attempting to salvage that dumpster fire that was Cursed Child.