I gave up early into year 5, but i liked how the yule ball ended and the butterfly swarms as an idea. He does seem to force plot developments in the most unnatural ways.

Edit, oh yeah the reincarnated wand, that was good...idk if its novel but I was okay with it.

 

I agree with most of what has been said, and I was pretty put out with so little romance in the fic, but overall I think its a solid fic with an impressive update rate. That alone, along with the lack of Harry/Fleur stories, places it in my top 20.

 

Cadmean Victory is one of the better Harry/Fleur fics that i have read, however, that isn't all that hard to achive for any story given the abysmal number of pure HPFD fiction.
Is it the best? No, not really. Is it the worst? Not even close.
The story has some great points, the remaking of Harry's wand, the secret plot Harry comes up with in order to get rid of Dumbledore and Umbridge, the (un)expected murder of Rita, all of them are rather original. Originality is always a plus in my book. The title of the story is great, foreshadowing the path this story is taking with the whole "Victory at the cost of one's own ruin" message.
The bad things are here, too. Magical cores, magical exhaustion, Harry being Salazar Slytherin's heir, flat-as-Holland Fleur and many more.
The update rate is nothing short of fantastic, though. I feel that the author is mayhaps harming the quality of the story with the crazy update rate, as sometimes parts of dialogue and even some of the narration scream lazy writting and I think that if he were to give himself some more time to make the sentences flow smoother, replace some dialogue lines and add a bit more spirit to some of the characters like Neville and Fleur especially, he would fare much better.
All in all, I find Cadmean Victory to be a solid read overall and if you are a hopeless HPFD fan like myself, well you don't have much of a choice anyway, do you?

 

I'd have to say the story was quite fascinating and the author rolls out updates pretty mast making it even better, but there are a lot of cliche's and harry transition is quite unexpected. So far 3/5

 

Updated.

Started out boring and pointless, ended in a quite interesting fashion though. It's something I haven't seen before, and it's something that hopefully is going to bring this story back on course. I really hope Harry is finally going to let loose, it's time to get back to the plot.

This dreary cycle of school/missing fleur/going to the chamber/visiting fleur/plotting was really pissing me off. He wasn't even training or exploring his interesting magical development, there was no real character development, the last few chapters were basically pointless.

That should change now.

By the way, it really looks as if the author is going to make Harry/Bird!Fleur a thing.

 

Is it me or does the dialogue in this story get worse and worse every chapter? Maybe I only just noticed it, but the conversation between Harry and Fleur in this chapter just made me want to give up on the story altogether.

 

Spoiler

'Legilimens,' he whispered.
The squib never had a chance, with no magic, and no idea of what to expect Harry
tore through his mind with absurd ease, following the trail of hatred and resentment
back to its birth, witnessing every connected moment in half a century .
The path began with the beaming visage of a young, dark-haired, pale-eyed girl,
wielding a wand in Ollivander's, and surrounded by yellow sparks. She bathed in the
pride of her parents while Filch watched on, forgotten, forlorn and furious.
'Obliviate,' Harry murmured. He knew from Lockhart's implication that it was possible
to modify memories, but even the gilded fraud would have baulked at what Harry
was about to attempt. There were fifty years of feelings to alter, half a lifetime to
change or erase, ending with their meeting on their stairs.
He purged every moment of the bitterness, every memory of watching magic and
feeling the resentment well up inside him was changed. The discontent that had
defined Argus Filch warped into calm acceptance, and every instant along that string
of emotions was transformed into something else.
Argus Filch's eyes rolled up in his head and he slumped to the floor.
Harry flicked his wand back into his sleeve, turned on his heel, and strode back in
the direction of the chamber.
Without the root of the resentment, without those bitter recollections the hatred they
had fed would wither and fade. He imagined that both the students and Filch would
be much happier for it.

Ermmm,what?Did that really just happened?:facepalm

 

Truth. This fic is entertaining.

 

Ughhh... If it weren't for the random awesome moment like Rita's murder, Harry's plot and the much wanted Harry/Fleur fluff, I'd likely drop this story.
I know my previous review said otherwise, but that was before the whole "Mindrape Filch into being a nice human being" thing. It seems that the author went all "Fuck, maybe killing Rita was a bit harsh? How about I show them that Harry is truly a marvelous wizard by fixing Filch?" on us. I don't mind Harry turning dark, but becoming dark with pink and white dots is a bit nauseating.
The rather boring tone of the chapters is becoming an issue, too. Harry wakes up, talks with Neville and Katie, goes to the Chamber, goes to France, talks to Fleur, gets back, sleep, does it over again. Yes, he has a class now and then, but every day seems to follow the mentioned schedule. Hope when Fleur gets to England and they buy the apartement together this will change. Also, a bit more characters wouldn't hurt. It seems we're stuck with some five or six of them and that's all we're getting.

With all this said, still a decent read. I have a feeling the author has some great thing planned out.

P.S. Somebody better notice that damned Horcrux in the valley of Umbridge's tities. The hints and random mentions are getting on my nerves.

 

FTFY.

/10char

 

Spoiler

she did not get possessed by the horcrux

 

Maybe my perception filter is off, but it seems to me that a lot of reviews/summaries get prefaced with "It's a little cliched, BUT..." Just an observation.

Anyway, the story is a solid 3/5 for being readable.
Some good points:
* A competent and active HP is always good and the plot is different enough from canon to keep your interest. I read the first 40 chapters in one sitting.
* The author's depiction of rituals/blood magic was fairly refreshing. The idea of sacrificing something in order to gain more power added some complexity to the magic system. It reminded me of Retsu's Folly where HP struggled to control his overwhelmingly powerful sword.
* The battle scenes/magic were very cool and imaginative.

Some major quibbles:
* It seems to me that HP has read the HP books, because otherwise some of his actions/thoughts/insights don't make any sense. Don't have an example off the top of my head, but it's a general feeling. In addition HP seems to have a large amount of plot armor; all of HP's machinations/plots just work: no wrinkles, no hitches. For a story called "Cadmean Victory" I expected something a little more... pyrrhic.
* Fleur seems to inexplicably accept HP's actions even when they break wizarding taboo.
* Gabrielle Delacour, who is supposedly the same age as HP, acts/is treated like she's 10 years old
* There's a lot of filler material, especially lately with the daily update rate
* dat ice

 

Gabrielle is 6 years younger than Harry in canon. Does the age change serve a purpose in the story?

 

No, not yet.

 

In regards to the title, I think the author is going for Harry slowly losing his morals. He doesn't care about killing and even goes out of his way to do it (latest chapter) in a slow and deliberate manner. I believe we will see him fall before the end of the story.

 

I will never understand authors that think this is a good idea. This is one of the few red flags that make me drop stories instantly.
Why should Fleur reach out to Harry of all people if there is a whole race of Veela facing the exact problem according to this description? Moreover for it to "work" Harry needs to be completely isolated too, which leads most of the time to some bullshit reason to break him, Ron and Hermoine apart.
This is already bad enough and doesn't even include topics like the allure or that not a single girl, maybe even other outsiders, is interested in befriending Fleur.

In my opinion the story has far too few good parts to justify anything more than 2/5 with all these cliches and random decisions out of nowhere.

 

Sigh,rituals in this fic are really small risk ,high and permanent gain.Seriously why isn't Voldemort jacked up throughout 100 rituals?Or any other power lusty magician for that fact?