Title: Quidditch in the Rough, or How Potter Got His Groove Back
Author: Femme
Rating: Explicit (NC-17)
Genre: Romance/Quidditch
Status: Complete
Library Category: Restricted Section
Pairings: Harry Potter/Pansy Parkinson
Length: 2 chapters, 17758 words
Summary: A bad breakup. Pudd United's worst Quidditch season in years. Harry's life is on a downward spiral, and just when he thinks things can't get worse, the new team owner arrives: Pansy bloody Parkinson.
Link: AO3

Not really long to be a character-piece, but a pretty good short story. One of the better HP/PP stories I've read, and the Quidditch is nice (not overbearing, thankfully).

4/5 for being solid, readable, and entertaining without any serious drawbacks, but little "wow" factor.

 

Eh. It starts off pretty bad but soon becomes quite readable.

Cons:
Most of the cast seem to be gay, including Neville, Malfoy, Zabini and a host of others. That's not a problem barring the fact it brings nothing to the fic at all but makes me seriously wonder about the prospects of wizarding England'a future procreation.

It starts with trying to hard badass Harry.

Ginny cheating with Krum, Harry with Lavender.

Harry playing second string to Ginny as seeker for the entirety of the fic.

The humour doesn't work. It just falls flat.
The author clearly tries to redeem Ginny somewhat but only succeeds in making her more detestable.

There's a lot of other small, minor annoyances.

Pros:

It becomes more readable as the fic goes on.

Harry becomes less of a sadsack desguised as a badass and more of a genuine character.

Pansy is written well.


Decent time waster. 3/5

 

It's well written.

But it's well written by slash authors, and it shows. During the first part, Harry non-sensically rages, blushes three or four times, and is basically witless emotional idiot—which is okay in fairy-tale like canon for teenager, but in realistic short story…

It's sort of believable, but for 99% of the story, I want to punch him in the face.

The 'understanding' and 'emotional moments' between him and Krum and him and Ginny were horrible.

3/5 for well written time waster

 

What. That's not her position.

 

No, it isn't. Which is something I found annoying, especially as the conflict would have been served better had she been a chaser.

For any other site this would probably be worthy of the library. For DLP, it's almost recommended.

 

I'm sorry, but while this story was written quite well (The only reason it's getting a 2/5 instead of a 1/5 from me), there were just so many things wrong with it that the only reason I read it was because my wifi had stopped and since I already had both chapters open I figured I'd might as well finish it.

• First of all, smoking. While I am against it in real life, that's not relevant. A cigarette is a very muggle thing, how would a Pureblood witch like Pansy even get her hands on one. It just seems like femme added it just to make the story more edgy or gitty or something.
• Harry is completely out of character. He's acting like HJ from Jbern's The Lie I've Lived. Again, it just seems like the autor is just messing things up to make the story more edgy.
• Also, why did the beater get a foul for hitting Ginny? That's kidn of his job, isn't it?And why on earth is Harry telling Krum to get his headin the game? They're competng against each other for crying out loud!
• You'd think that someone like Ron (Who knows both of the seekers) would have gotten a ticket tothe finals. Why is he listening on the wireless?
• Why the fuck is everyone looking down on Harry. This is the guy who took down the Dark Lord. Pansy of all people shouldn't have the guts to look him in the eyes.
• Ginny is a chaser, not a seeker. She played as a seeker in one game, one game. And she is certainly nowhere near the level of Harry.

 

The Harry/Pansy parts were good. Too bad the rest wasn't nearly as good. It feels weird for everyone to be gay. What was up with Harry calling a Krum a good guy and being alright with Malfoy kissing Pansy before they were about to fuck? It feels like fics have been trying out the cuckold Harry angle a lot lately.

 

For Krum, it's presumably intended as a sign that Harry has got over Ginny at last, so can just be happy that she's happy. For Draco, he's clearly established as gay, so why would it bother him?

Read this a while ago, and it's not bad. The main problem is that it's all rather dry; for a fic that revolves around Harry's barely restrained passion for Pansy, and his concerns over Quidditch, I never really got any sense of connection or involvement with it. Readable enough though. 3/5

 

You're telling me if a homosexual man (Who you've been enemies with since childhood) went up to your spouse and kissed her (Passionately at that), you wouldn't even be slightly mad?

 

First, at that point Pansy isn't his spouse. Or his girlfriend, or even a casual fuck buddy. Second, while Draco and Harry clearly aren't friends in the story, they don't appear to be especially antagonistic to each other, suggesting they've got past the whole childhood enemies thing. Third, there's a difference between intimacy and passion, and the kiss is described as intimate. Fourth, no I wouldn't, not in any meaningful way, if I also knew that said gay man was one of said woman's oldest and dearest friends.

 

Pansy's characterization was good and the writing was enjoyable.

The weak link is more on the side of Harry. He appears rather weak in regard to how he deals with both Viktor and Ginny. How he appears to feel like he wronged Ginny more than she wronged him is some kind of twisted logic and the fact that Ginny seems to think the same only makes her more unlikeable.

Overall, not bad.