Title: Hermione Granger and The Goblet of Fire
Author: Coulsdon Eagle
Rating: Pg13
Genre: -
DLP Category: Alternates
Pairing: Harry/Hermione
Status: WIP
Summary: What if it had been Hermione's name that the Goblet of Fire spat out? A complex spell cast one summer with the most innocent of intentions results in the Brightest Witch of her Age being entered into the Triwizard Tournament. How can she get out of this.

Link: Portkey


~*~

Now, reasons why I posted it.

Firstly, its well written.
Secondly, it deviates from cannon, which really makes it an interesting read.
Thirdly, no soul bonds.

Chapter 6, The Mendacity of the Ministers is pretty awesome.

4/5

Edit: ah, shit. Haven't posted here for quite a while so completely forgot about the title format.

 

If it follows the format of basically every other Portkey.org story ever written (and your summary does nothing to suggest otherwise), I'll give it my generic Portkey.org review:

Uber!Hermione-the-brightest-witch-EVAR does tons of cool shit and saves the day while LittleBitch!Harry grovels in her wake ("I'm not good enough for you!"). Throw in InsanelyJealous!Ron, Sociopath!Ginny, and Evil!Meddling!Dumbledore (and probably Molly) and serve over rocks...

It's a formula that NEVER GETS OLD, every bit as craptastic as Soul Bonds in it's own special way.

I can pretty much guarantee a -1/5 (kill it with fire) if I was inclined to read it... (before any bitching about "You can't review it if you haven't read it", if the story doesn't pretty much follow my outline then I'll eat my keyboard).

 

Try the first chapter. It won't completely dissuade your concerns, and might entice you into reading it.

I would give a larger review, but I really dislike writing them.

 

Bleh. I tried.

Only got about halfway through the first chapter.

Let me just warn you, flat out, if you don't like reading about Hermione the hero, then don't bother with this one. There's nothing in what I read and skimmed to make her even remotely likable. She just fucking annoyed me.

I like Hermione more often than not, but not as the central focus. And not in cookie-cutter portkey romance format. If you like Hermione, and can stomach super!bitch, the dom to Harry's sub, give this a try. It's well written and flows decently. But if you dislike her more often than not, there's nothing worth seeing here.

 

Well, it's a hermoine-centric fic, though I suppose you could argue that's obvious from the description, but lead supporting role is most certainly Harry, enough so that I wouldn't disqualify it based on that.

it's borderline angst, but no more so than Book 4 was in JKR's tales...

-shrugs-

it's get my interest enough to keep reading it, but it's not a barn burner. I'd give it a tentative 4ish.

Edit: I haven't read enough portkey stories to know if this one counts as 'cookie-cutter' or not, but as I said, it's not bad.

Edit2:
make that a 3/5 by chapter 6 it's early mometum starts dragging as we get mired in the details. I'll give it another chapter or so, but...

Edit Final:

Eh, not half bad. I'd call it a 3.4. Not enough to round up to a four, but not so poor as to be a straight 3

 

I made it to the third chapter before losing interest, to me it seemed to much like cannon with the whole school turning against her including Ron so i might come back to it in a month or so but for now it has nothing to hold my interest.

2.5/5 for now

 

A non-Harry centric fic, coupled with the blight of HP that is known as Hermione Granger? Yeah, no thanks

 

I liked it, though I'm one of the rare ones that doesn't hate Hermione and can stomach a fic not all about the title character. 3.5/5 from me, so far.

 

I've contemplated putting this up for review before, largely due to the fact that it is very well-written, but two things had stopped me from doing so: The fact that this violates Potter Law I and that the fic centres around Hermione, whom not too many here like as a character.

Then you have a Harry who looks like he might be even more pussy than in canon, plus him being shunted off into the role of a sidekick, and it's no wonder the fic isn't too well-received here.

I personally enjoyed it as a Hermione-centric H/Hr fic, but this fic sort of fails if I were to judge it by DLP standards, as an AU of GoF.

I'd give this 4/5, but it's just not too suited for DLP's tastes, and probably wouldn't make it to the Library.

 

I tried - really tried - to get into this as a Harry/Hermione fan but I do agree with DLP that Hermione is not a great lead character. As a secondary one, like she is in canon, is fine. But far too often I find fics unreadable from Hermione's perspective.

There is nothing that wrong with this fic. The writing, grammar and characterisation is spectacular (albeit, Harry is a little out of character to canon Harry). What makes me skip large passage to get to the dialogue is that the other parts just doesn't grab my interest.

Take the first chapter. A lot of it is taking the original scene and replacing Harry with Hermione, and altering his dialogue to suit Hermione's character. That made me skip half the first chapter, minimum. The same applies later on as well, multiple times.

The original material - such as the law aspect - didn't grab my interest either.

2/5. I can imagine it great for Portkey readers, but for DLP... no.

 

I fully recognize that this may seem a little petty, but I resent Fleur being referred to as a tart...


Otherwise, it's a meh. A story of this quality that was about independent!Harry, I'd probably go ahead and keep reading. Not the author's fault that I just really don't care to read a story in the Potter verse where Harry is a sidekick.

This though, might be one of the better taunts the Slytherins have ever used against Harry, despite the retarded moniker:

“Do you have your own opinion, Malfoy?” Harry seethed. “Or are you just a parrot repeating your father’s words?”

The insincere smile was wiped from Malfoy’s face, and he stepped forward, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle. “At least my father’s words mean something, Pott-Head,” he snarled.

“At least you have a father,” Pansy added slyly.

 

You mean Harry wasn't a sidekick in canon? Considering how weak he was in good chunks of OOTP, HBP, and DH it might have been better if he was.

As to this story, I like Hermione as a character and I found I didn't much care for the interpretation in this story. For one, it is much easier to give a character innate strengths when they aren't the focus of the story. Flawed protagonists require strong allies or rather allies with specific strengths. Still haven't exactly figured out where Ron fit in canon as to that respect.

The legal aspects of this fic were original, but about as interesting as reading a law book...

Hermione's character can't carry the weight of a plot written as she is here...

In terms of mechanics it is a well written story...but the concept is seemingly lacking.

3/5.

 

Which has a bit to do with why I spend a good amount of time at DLP, and not SIYE or Portkey...

 

Yes, he wasn't.

On topic: Went into this expecting to be pleasantly surprised, like I was by thanfiction's work. It was not to be. 1/5 for Hermione being more goddamn annoying than canon.

 

I skimmed the first chapter. Hermione had put a tracking charm on Harry without his permission over the holiday and was getting praised for it. No.

 

Read to half way through chapter two, immensely bored.

Well written but completely boring. This is the reason that JKR did not base the series around Hermione. Boring, stroppy and full of womanly-angst.

Zzzz.

 

It's...okay.

Not great, not that good really, but not really awful. The writing style is decent and there are some good snippets, but as a whole it isn't that great. A bit too cliched.

2-2.5/5, maybe.

 

I'm alright with a Hermione centric story, change of pace and all. But verbose does not equal well written. You could read the first and last sentence in a paragraph and nothing of any real significance is lost. 2/5

 

... I find this being too angsty. Hermione has been alone and ostracozed before, has she not? Why all the crying and the grief? The writing is good, if a bit too... much at times (I skimmed over a lot of the paragraphs). I don't mind Hermione, not in the slightest, but this is a rather boring piece of work. Some aspects of it are interesting, but not enough for me to skim past chapter 5.

2/5.