Title: Finding Himself
Author: Minisinoo
Rating: M
Genre: Suspense/Romance
Chapters: 40
Words: 350,952
Updated: November 19, 2008
Published: October 13, 2008
Status: Complete
Library Category: Romance
Pairings: CD/HG
Summary: The-Boy-Who-Almost-Died has to figure out what it means that he didn't. Harry's tumultuous 5th year at Hogwarts is Cedric's 7th and final. Bound together by shared trauma, both boys fall under Ministry suspicion ... Who is Cedric Diggory? Cedric!Lives AU
Link: Finding Himself

Title: Dulce et decorum est
Author: Minisinoo
Rating: M
Genre: Suspense/Romance
Chapters: 15
Words: 135,527
Updated: August 25, 2011
Published: August 21, 2011
Status: "Complete"
Library Category: Romance
Pairings: CD/HG
Summary: Sequel to FINDING HIMSELF. In a time of war, how does a crippled man feel when he's the one left behind? There are battles fought with fire and magic, and battles fought in the hearts of men. Cedric!Lives AU, C/Hr
Link: Dulce et decorum est

Me recommending a pair of romance fics? Surely this is a sign of the apocalypse!

I read these stories years ago (back when DEDE was being updated, which was before it was posted on FF.net), but promptly forgot about them until a couple of weeks ago while I was re-reading fics on my favorites list. I read through Finding Himself and really enjoyed it, then noticed that the sequel had been posted and completed. After reading both stories, I wanted to post them For Review, such was my impression with them, but I've held off for over a week because this is one of those things that I fear I may get eviscerated on. Nevertheless, I've decided to post them.

The premise is essentially that Cedric survives the Third Task, but is crippled in the process. Over the course of several months, common interests spark a romance between him and Hermione. My third Harry Potter recommendation, like the first two, completely breaks Potter Law I, with the point of view alternating between Cedric and Hermione. While Harry isn't one of the viewpoint characters, he is prominently featured in the story, so that may assuage some of your fears.

The stories explore how Cedric and Hermione's relationship develops in the backdrop of Harry's fifth and sixth years, and did so in a way that always kept me interested. I've never been a fan of straight up romance stories, so my liking of this one is a clear aberration. I don't know why I like them so much, only that I do. Hell, I don't even know if the romance portrayed in this story is realistic or not, but it seems considerably different from the "typical" romance story, which may be the reason I like it.

The first story is complete, as is the second... for a certain definition of complete. In reality, Minisinoo never completed the second story, and in fact has left fanfiction. Before she left, however, she posted an author's note at the end of DEDE that revealed how the story would have ended, as well as how the Deathly Hallows analogue would have proceeded had she written it. So there is closure at least.

If I had to find fault with the story, it would be that it follows canon far too closely. This extends even to her unrealized plans for 7th year. I really would have wished that Cedric's survival would have changed more in the storyline. That being said, the primary Harry Potter storyline is just a backdrop for the romance, so I didn't mind it as much as I would have had Harry been the main protagonist. Aside from that, I've never been much for smut, so I tended to skip those sections.

In the end, I feel that Finding Himself was a solid 4.5/5, while the somewhat weaker Dulce et decorum est was 4/5. It's a romance story that kept my interest, so it had to be doing something right. I did a search, and neither the story nor the author has ever been mentioned on DLP, so I feel that this might be something that many on DLP aren't familiar with. I highly recommend giving it a try.

 

Weird that there's no response to the thread yet. I think at first, I accidentally read it as CD/HP, and went wuh? for full seven seconds.

The story is better than average. It served as a good breather of fresh things to read, but that was its only advantage. It had an interesting spin on Cedric, played the crippled person tropes not exactly to the letter, and had interesting developing relations.

It also was as close to canon as possible, and even though we only got to see Harry through Cedric or Hermione, I cringed when I recognized exact lines from canon. It's not that quoting is bad - it works, and flows rather well, to the credit of the author. It also gives us good and different perspectives on some of the lines spoken, but...

It feels as if there always could have been more.

More variety, more things changing.

How I hated the way Voldemort's return got instantly swept under the rug...

It wasn't just the rambling of a demented Harry Potter - it was the words of him, Dumbledore, Cedric, Professor McGonagal, and Arthur Weasley that were discounted at the same time by the Ministry. That was a leap of extra ignorance that I found difficulty believing and it took me a while to foget it.

However, it moved on to be about other things, and I found myself enjoying the read.

There were really weird moments, really bad handling of some situations, really weird Hufflepuff intervention with vote held at common room and in general, a lot of quirky stuff.

So yeah. I could probably go to more detail, but I don't think I have time and patience needed for a more constructive review than this one - for this one story, at least.

So, in general, the writing deserves 4/5, but the way it handled the overarching plot, or rather, was afraid to extrapolate upon changes that happened earns it a lowered mark.

3.25/5.

 

I thought he was just trolling DLP with this recommendation. Personally, I don't read Harry Potter for the Cedric Diggory. I attempted to give this a shot, but ultimately - what's the point? In the introductory author's note, she says "It's a full-scale novel, an AU rewrite of Book 5 "Order of the Phoenix". My problem is - if you've resorted to just copying canon, changing a few things along the way, have you really written a "novel"? Let alone something truly AU?

From "Finding Himself":​

From Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix:​

This is an example of my complaint with this "story". She just made a change (in this above case Cedric shows up as a character witness to Harry's trial), which has minor follow on changes, while rehashing JKR's plotline and character conversations.

For me this is just a bastardised form of plagiarism. Unfortunately, while her *truly* original parts are decently written, they still just end up mostly offering a different perspective of major canonical plot constructs. This continues through Harry's Umbridge Year, starting with a complete regurgitation of the Sorting Hat's song (one of my fanfiction pet peeves - right up there with the First Year Supply list). Peppered throughout are requests for feedback and every so often an acknowledgement that sometimes she lifts entire sections of dialogue from the book - but not an acknowledgement every time she does it.

In essence: "I made a change. It makes little (or in some cases - no) difference to canon. Applause please for my efforts. By the way, sometimes it isn't actually my work."

The only major divergence, it seems to me, is the CD/HG pairing - which I suspect has more to do with Robert Pattinson and Emma Watson than anything else.

Given that I didn't/couldn't finish it, I won't lodge an actual vote. But 1/5 from where I sit - more than anyone with this much pseudo-plagiarism in their story deserves.

 

Not a troll (and since I just asked Sesc if his most recent rec was a troll, I suppose I should clarify that). I admitted that I took issue with how closely she followed canon, so I can't argue with you there.

I do think that this is a bit harsh, though. Such passages are rare, scattered between vast swaths of (in my opinion well-written) original content and, as you admitted, she said she lifted wording from the books on occasion. I did notice this while reading, but it didn't bother me.

Truth be told, plagiarism has never really bothered me. I mean, I write original content because that's the point of writing for me, but if someone where to copy my stories (although why anyone would want to is an interesting question in its own right), my response would essentially be to shrug and say, "Go for it."

That being said, I don't think she was plagiarizing. She lifted material from the source, but all fanfiction does that to some degree or another, and I don't think what she did was excessive. That's my opinion, however, and if what you referred to as pseudo-plagiarism bothers anyone, that's a perfectly valid opinion.

I still stand by the opinion that this is a well-written story whose primary failing was that it didn't take a lot of chances in changing the canon storyline.

 

"Lifting material from the source" without attribution is the definition of plagiarism. Saying you are stealing someone else's words after the fact (which she does) doesn't make it ok - nor is it typical of most [good] fanfiction, which uses canon but exists outside of canon.

I won't comment on anything else as I can't speak to the work as a whole.

 

I remember reading it and quitting as author refused to diverge from canon. What is a a shame, because author is able to write well. Despite this produced work is barely above average ff.net quality - in other words lousy, low quality and terrible. I would recommend it only to Hermione\Cedric shipper. I will not rate because I am not sure how soon I decided to stop reading but from me it would get 1/5.