Does anyone know of any good, Hogwarts-era, Hermione-centric fics?

I'll try to define "good":

1. Generally high standard of spelling, grammar, and narrative style.
2. Hermione still friends with Harry and Ron...
3. ...but not Hermione/Ron pairing.
4. In-character Hermione*.
5. The story must have a plot, not simply be canon from Hermione's point of view.

Pretty stringent criteria, but I'm curious to see if anyone knows of any stories that meet them (or are close to meeting them).

Pairing may be gen, het or slash.

Hermione-haters need not post.

*In-character means:

She's got to be good at magic, but not the second coming of Dumbledore.

She's got to be reasonably pretty, but fairly unconcerned about her daily apperance (i.e. no super slutty Hermione who's "filled out" over the summer).

She's got to be reasonably brave, but not completely fearless like Harry.

She's got to be a loyal friend.

She's got to be a bit on the self-righteous side when it comes to certain aspects of society.

She's reasonably liberal.

She's reasonably socially aware but not a social butterfly.

Her story has got to stay related to Harry's conflict with Voldemort.

Her character isn't based entirely on how she was in Philosopher's Stone.

 

I don't know any stories offhand that match your criteria, but you might check out one of Lorien829's Hogwarts-era stories. She writes H/Hr and her Hermione is reasonably consistent with what you're after. I linked her fanfiction.net page, but I believe she has more on portkey.org. (My place of work considers that site porn, though).

 

'Dangerous' by Black Lotus kind of matches that. It's a post-DH story where Hermione leads a terrorist organization against the system that allowed the almost genocide in DH to occur.

Matches most of you criteria.

EDIT: Whoops, this is post-Hogwarts. My mistake.

 

Not asking for much, eh? I have a few suggestions but honestly, I don't know that what you're asking for exists in the fandom, since

(a) Hermione fans - especially those not in favor of Hermione/Ron - tend to go overboard in their attempts at writing her character and abilities, and

(b) these same writers (and that term is used in its loosest sense) almost invariably sink to character-bashing and/or lobotomize everyone around Hermione to make her appear ever more the genius.

Indigo Autumn: A Novella by TheDepartedFanfictionist is a pretty good character piece but not really what you're after, as it takes place during the Horcrux Hunt but was written pre-DH. It has a well thought-out backstory for Hermione that I enjoyed very much, even though I read it after DH was published.

Anything by lorien829 over on Portkey will be well-written, but again, not really to your criteria. Resistance and Eighth are perhaps my favorite stories by her, but I also enjoyed Shadow Walks, which definitely doesn't fit the bill. Pers linked her FFn account, and I don't know if there's a difference in the stories themselves, but she does have more posted on Portkey.

I remember All Nights by Goldy being a very good Horcrux Hunt H/Hr fic as well. Also on Portkey.

I'm sure there are some others, but in general, it's going to be difficult to fit all your criteria, at least with something that's not shit.

As an example of a story that fits *almost* all your criteria, I'd recommend After the End by Arabella and Zsenya, which can be found at FFn as well as The Sugar Quill.*I've said it before and I'll say it again - this is one of the best pieces of HP fanfiction you'll come across, and is in my opinion, the epitome of fics written prior to OotP.



That said, it's not Hermione-centric, although large portions are from her POV, as the story moves from character perspective to character perspective. It's post-Hogwarts, and seeing that it was written pre-OotP, large swaths of what we know to be canon are simply non-existant, such as Horcruxes, the prohecy, and numnerous canon characters. It's not a little bit Hermione/Ron... but the Ron is so well-done that I can't imagine anyone minding.

That's all I have for now; will edit with more later if I think of it. Unless I forget.

 

If you'll forgive a self-plug and don't mind waiting for a couple days, I'll be posting a canon-compliant H/Hr time travel one-shot on 23 Dec. It's not precisely what you're after, but it's reasonably close (at least in terms of how Hermione is portrayed).

 

Let me guess - you got inspiration after reading Time is the Fire and disliking it so much.

 

Nah. The inspiration for this one came from a couple places, including a few comments on a DLP thread a few weeks ago on time travel. I've always wanted to do one where a ruthless, competent Voldemort was the time traveler and not Harry, Ron, or one of the other good guys.

I've been asked this in a couple PM: The reason for the 23rd release and not now is that it's for a holiday story exchange. (It's the last day before we take off on vacation and I didn't want the headache of submitting a story while on travel).