Ok, I've read enough and this is my final review of this story.

First, "The Meaning of Father" has the best Harry I've ever seen. He is confident and mature, he is smart and hardworking, and most importantly, as Raven said, he doesn't shit from anyone. Not Ginny, not Ron, not even Hermione. He has that air of authority around him and everyone (even adults) listen to what he has to say and they fucking do what they were told to do. Sure, Harry isn't as powerful as Hermione, but he still would beat the crap out of her in a duel, cuz he's a better fighter. That said, he doesn't leave a Marty Sue impression too.

Next, Hermione. Oh, she's one fucked up character in this story. Wiping evryones memories right and left... Kinda makes up for her being such a she-Merlin. Seriously, she's far from perfect but that's to be expected with so much power in your hands.

Ron and Ginny. I liked Ron's characterization because I don't like Ron. Ginny... she isn't a bad person in this fic. She's just somewhat immature and so is Ron. Still, their characters are well-handled.

We can't say much about the plot yet but there's definitely something planned, from what I can tell. Author's writing is good too.

All in all, "The meaning of Father" exceeded all of my expectations. It's one of the better stories I've read in a while.

5/5

 

That's why I'm opposed to Ron/Luna. Essentially every Portkey fic goes like this:

Hermione: Fuck off Ron, I'm totally in love with Harry!

Ron: Fuck you Mudblood! I'm gonna go angst! *angsts*

Luna: Hello Ronald. I'm strange and cute. Will you let me suck your dick?

Draco: Hey, have you three seen Ginny? I like sloppy seconds.

Harry: Wow, Hermione, you're so beautiful. Can I shine your shoes?

Hermione: *slaps him* Silence, worm! I shall only talk to you if you complete your homework!

And I'm a fucking Harmonian!

"Oh noes! It's Heman!" There are worse things than the bushy-haired Mudblood. I could point you to numerous Mpreg Harry/Snape fics.

 

I finished reading it but I felt ambiguous about it. On one hand Harry's indy which is good, on the other hand Harry is behaving like an immature prick pretending to be mature which is bad.

Can't really hate Ginny either as it's her upbringing's fault. Like an utterly useless damsel in distress she's the one who can't fart without dear mother's approval.

Is it explained just how Hermione got her amazing powers? Or why she has to obliviate and memory charm people left and right? Or why she has to keep everything hush hush? Kind of rushed the first chapters and I never read book7.

 

I did recommend this fic because it goes into a lot more detail then the standard:

"OMG, I hate Ginny and want Hermione" in Chapter 1. It has a good start off point, with Ginny and Harry actually being together. Then, we see the decline in their relationship because Ginny is too stuck on thinking "Family First, My Life second." To me it just flows a lot easier. And I especially love the temper tantrum that she throws in Chapter 5.

The Vatican is a interesting force to throw in, and I love how Harry goes about hiding damn near everything that would damn them at Hogwarts. I await the havoc that ensues.

Ultimately though, a lot of you are right. This is a Harry that isn't willing to take shit from anyone, even his lovers. And he practices his spells non-stop, instead of just instantly having them.

Lastly, I'm a romantic on some occasions, and I don't mind a coupling, so long as it doesn't go completely off the deep end.

I personally give a 5/5, but I'm the one who reco'd it.

 

No, she outshines him. By a long shot. "Breaking the laws of Magic".

But it's not as bad as it sounds. The author may be a rampant Hermione fanboy, but he does know how to write. So her powers are blatantly overboard, so what? This is fan-fiction, by fans for fans.

I admit I didn't see the whole thing with Ron coming - who'd think him capable of such behavior? I was really impressed.

Quite an enjoyable read, all in all. 4/5

 

Taure: I'd have to go with no. Harry maintains an advantage over Hermione mostly due to his complete and utter mastery of the spells he does know. Hermione on the other hand only needs to glance at a spell to learn it. Harry is the best a normal person could get whereas hermione is something far greater.

Overall I do like the story a fair bit. It's new and refreshing.

 

I didn't make it past the author's notes:

If I wanted to read Super!Hermione, I'd... actually, I'd rather have my pee-hole scab over than read this.

No rating from me.

 

This sort of thinking has really started to grate at me. Why? Because it leads to shitty stories.

Explanations are boring. Yes, they're important, but if you over-emphasize them, and try to explain everything, your story will slowly slip and slide into the wasteland of incomplete and abandoned stories.

Plus, this fic is still in it's beginning stages. We're no where close to the end.

Think about every shitty story that explained every single thing. Harry's 'shopping trips' come to mind. I wrote one of those scenes once. I started out writing something basically, 'Harry went to Diagon Ally and got his supplies,' and then I heard from some one later, 'Where did he get this book or that book?' and so I went back and rewrote. But no matter how much I rewrote it, and no matter how many explanations were given, it still wasn't enough, and instead of the story getting better, it got shittier. I gave up my vision of the story to try to answer some questions that in the end, weren't that important.

There is a really good example where not providing a complete explanation worked just fine. Imagine reading The Lord of the Rings in the same way you do fanficiton. In the first few chapters of the first book, we get introduced to Tom Bombadil. He's amazingly powerful, and very helpful at that point in the story. Imagine stopping to read simply because 'hey, who is this powerful guy? He's not a wizard, obviously! Only wizards can do these things. LAME!'

Tom Bombadil's character is never explained more than that, and Tolkien did it on purpose. He said it was important to leave some mysteries in there.

Along those lines in HP fanfiction, look at how jbern ended his 'To Fight the Coming Darkness.' I won't spoil it for those who haven't read it, but damn, does that leave us hanging. But it's OK! I'm content with that. The story is complete, and we can fill it the holes with whatever we want, or leave them empty.

That's part of what makes reading so enjoyable. I don't want a story that leaves me no room for imagination. That's why I read in the first place!

I'm not saying that's what you're doing; just giving my own reactions. If anything I'm taking something small you said and using that as an opportunity to rant about something much, much larger, so please don't think I'm aiming this at you personally.

Anyway, this story is pretty great. I really like reading how Harry starts to take up the mantle of dumbledore. After reading Manipulative!Dumbles so much, both of this authors stories have very refreshing views on the character.

 

I really dislike the stories in which Harry has a good characterization, but has some lesser character as baggage.

 

Bad analogy with Tom Bombadill. He does one important thing and then isn't mentioned more than once after in the book. He's a tertiary character who's there to add mystery to the plot. Canon!Hermione to this!Hermione _needs_ to be explained in some satisfiable fashion.

Another bad analogy with JBern's darkness. He ended with the main storyline concluded but with several new plotlines and some old open. That's fine. What isn't fine is if you have a previously mediocre character suddenly turn super for no reason what so ever.
Also, the characters were severely lacking in reasoning. Real people with real characters would not all behave like that. It felt as if was one person being the puppet master for everyone so that the plot could move on.

Bad writing.

Shitty stories are those where things happen for no reason. This story isn't horrible, it's readable if you can ignore some glaring plotholes but I wouldn't give it more than 3.5/5. Oh and stories where Harry isn't the main character pisses me off somewhat.

 

Yeah I didn't make it past the AN either. Any story where "It must be clear that Hermione is much more powerful than Harry is" doesn't strike me as a story worth my time.

 

Maybe because the AN, iirc, talked about the *challenge*, not how he was going to twist it.

Hermione's power is part of the plot. I am somewhat surprised you would say it is "unexplained", given that we are given enough hints that it is one of the central piece of the story. While it is not yet explained *how* she managed to get it and *what* rituals she got and *what* differentiate her from others that must have tried it, it is explained that she did something considered *bad* (the scene with the vatican at hogwart).

Taure: Hermione is very good at everything, while Harry excels in his chosen field (combat).

 

Imagine for a second that this Hermione is actually an indie!Harry. Now what you have is him suddenly gaining super powers that are extremely vaguely explained being dark in nature. Yet he for some reason is staying somewhat morally neutral instead of evil as would be expected of such rituals, if rituals are even the cause.
Just because the main character that gets souped up is Hermione instead of Harry shouldn't force you to lower your standards.

 

To me at least, the most important parts to a good story are unexpected plot twists and turns, instead of having everything explained to me in the first few chapters and then getting tired of the fic because you know what's gonna happen. In this story the author 'shows a bit of cleavage' to keep people interested with the promise of more, without being 'easy' and revealing everything at once.

I loved the Vatican's definition as above the law, since the Christian church has always seen itself as something more than a cult big enough to be defined as religion, even going so far as taking upon themselves the burden to 'rid the world of witches' in the middle ages and proclaiming that there is only one God, loved the politically competent Harry, kinda reminds me of In Light of Silver Memories.

Also as said before, this progresses nicely from HPGW to HHR, without making us feel as if the author started the story just to break up Harry and Ginny.

Hermione is heaps more powerful than Harry, though even that is nicely balanced with her character flaws, maybe even improving Rowling's version of canon!Hermione. Though I can honestly say that the comment about Hermione doing magics beyond even Dumbledore's comprehension peeved me a bit, being a Dumbledore fan myself.

Harry is well-balanced, and IMO, it is more important in an indie story for a character to have the mind and determination to succeed than the raw power to beat everyone, because that makes for a far more interesting story.

I'm quite sure people who didn't like this story can come up with various creative, and in some POVs, valid arguments, but I like the story as it is and give a 5/5

 

I'd rate the story at a 3/5. It was nice reading something where Harry wasn't the super-powered one, for once. The writing was excellent. It was the first post-DH fic that I've wanted to read past the first chapter one. However, over all, it was a bit boring.

Will keep reading though.

 

Magically Hermione is more way powerful than anyone, which for me was a first. But in terms of skill its Harry. There's one point where Harry describes his training regime, which included 1000 repetitions of his combat spells. I liked the fact that he worked for his skills like than instead of getting some divine power from the fart gas of a fermenting corpse.

I enjoyed this fic greatly. It was well written and kept my interest until the end. The sappy moments were a little tiresome and there were points where I was wishing Harry would stop being so overly noble and shag Hermione.

The political aspects were cool too and the Vatican Wizards was an unusual, but welcome touch. I also liked the way H/G slowly became H/Hr as well as Ron's reaction and jealousy at all that happens.

I also like Hermione's characterization here. In many H/Hr fic the author fall into the trap of turning Hermione into a Sue. Not so here. She is overly powerful but has some glaring faults, to the point it is fairly obvious that she is a still a teen. A super powered teen but a teen none the less.

4/5