Honestly, that line "I do not forgive. I do not forget" sounds like something out of an 80s revenge action movie.

 

I thought that this was a decent time waster with some pretty good points, but the recent romance focus has made me seriously consider dropping it. It was all right when Harry was getting into the standard independence and dark arts package, but the romance and Fleur interactions have become painful to read.

 

Updated.

We're off to fillertopia again and it seems we won't come back from it anytime soon. 4,000 words not even worth skimming.
This author can at times pull off quite impressive passages, but he simply doesn't know which scenes are worth writing and which aren't.

 

[citation needed]

I think the writing in this story is kind of consistently average. Dialogue gets wooden at times and is definitely the weakest part, and some of the action / description beats are probably the strongest. Author does have an eye for visually creative action beats.

I think stuff like this comes closest:

Which I'd call "something between workmanlike and good, but not great."

Curious what passages you're referring to.

 

Exactly. I think the action parts to be above many things I've previously read and in comparison to the at times annoying dialogue they really stand out. But maybe that is clouding my judgement and makes the action scenes seem better than they really are. If necessary, I could skim the text again for a fitting quote although I think you already found one.

For example those last chapters where he got things going with Umbridge's and the portrait's death. This battle in the ministry was generally fairly well executed, too.
In general, the scenes you also mentioned: Action scenes are often very dull in HP-fanfiction and (at least for me) difficult to write, so I really like how he pulled this off.

 

Updated.

Spoiler

Tonks is pointlessly introduced and then killed off within the span of a thousand words.

While I believe the author was trying to show realism and induce shock in the reader, it really comes off as being... well, pointless.

 

My only concern the entire chapter was if the box was ok. Not sure if it says something about me or something about the author's ability to make us attached to characters.

Spoiler

If the box had actually been destroyed I would have been far more upset than anything else that happened that chapter.

 

Hm, seems to rely on the effect that everyone liked this character and wouldn't like it

Spoiler

when she was being killed off.

Not the best storytelling, he should've made her likeable by giving her some screentime, not because she was likeable in canon.
Apart from that, this really came out of the blue. I like it better when something like that slowly builds up like in just about every book in canon.

 

Something about this chapter was simply.. off. I felt like it should be super importent and it kinda is, but in the end I had the feeling it could as well have been another filler chapter. Thats a bit the risk when you write a fic thats concentrate so much on a romance, you need a way to make the remaining chars intresting.
I mean i got thats Katie in danger is a hugh problem for Harry, but it isnt for me, the reader which kills the the chapter, sadly.

 

I actually really enjoyed the story but it is purely a guilty pleasure fic for me. There are so many cliches, but at least the author doesnt pretend they are anything but cliche. I honestly love H/F more than any other pairing, and (once again while cliche) its a pretty decent example of it. The whole repetitive bashing was a bit annoying and the whole Ron and Draco thing was extremely ridiculous. But, Harry's descent into the dark arts was actually pretty reasonable.

 

Honestly I think the story would've made more sense if it had been a Harry/Katie fic instead of Harry/Fleur.

Something about the Katie relationship seems a bit more... solid.

 

And this is the problem with making a story rely so much on the pairing. A story should be good regardless of the romance. It really shouldn't mattr what the pairing is.

 

I'm actually a little disappointed that Katie didn't die. She's too annoying to be left alive and that was a good opportunity. Maybe she should have been the one that died, and Tonks lived.

 

If the title is to be taken at its most obvious meaning, then I have to wonder if there's a point at which the author would feel the need to either kill off or push away everybody close to, or strongly involved with, Harry (except Fleur, presumably). This feels like another step in that path, even if having Tonks in the story at all is barely necessary.

 

I really hope that Fleur dies at one point. There is nothing to make her special, nothing to make her likeable. She's just a pointless character, and one we are constantly bothered with.
And her dying would be a very interesting turning point of the story, therefore it'd be a win-win-situation.

 

Having abandoned this a while back, I decided to give it another try. The writing hasn't really improved from the earlier chapters, but it hasn't gotten worse either.

I don't know what it is about Fleur that the author just can't seem to write any chemistry between her and Harry. I also don't get why the author is trying so hard at it. Harry and Katie have good chemistry. Worse, Harry and Tonks have better chemistry compared to Fleur, and Tonks barely even exists in the story.

Overall, the story isn't bad at all. If you ignore the fact that Fleur exists, it's enjoyable and has a pretty good update rate. Fanon peeves, where they exist, have a decent enough twist that doesn't make them annoying.

 

Now I feel bad that one of the reasons I like the story is because it's H/F. It'd seriously lose like 1 to 2 points if it wasn't. But I guess I'm just like that.

 

I can understand liking one particular pairing and reading it because of that - I just don't think it's carried out well here.
For example, if it was Harry/Ginny and if Ginny was portrayed in exactly the same way as Fleur is here - would you still like it?

 

Nope, but that's an unfair comparison since I dislike Ginny. If it was someone neutral I'd say that I'd still like it though. H/F is a big bonus for me but a lot of the stuff the story does are guilty pleasures for me and the writing is of high enough quality that I enjoy reading them.