Title: The Two Body Problem
Author: Tozette
Rating: T
Genre: None
Words: 25,502
Chapters: 8
Published: May 1, 2015 (AO3)
Status: Complete
Library Category: Dark Arts
Pairings: None
Summary: Hermione receives the diary. Neither she, nor Tom, is what the other was expecting. [Origin story for a dark Hermione. This is not a romance. Canon AU.]
Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3459731

From the author of the (somewhat notorious) Hit The Ground Running, we have a frighteningly realistic depiction of Hermione's potential slide to the dark side. There's one element of the story which makes it AU that may bother some people, but it's not plot relevant and only takes up a few lines. Please do note that this is an origin story, so keep that in mind when reviewing.

Personally I found this fic to be fantastic - good pacing, spot-on characterizations. If you don't care about Hermione you might want to skip this one, though.

5/5.


Checked by Minion, February 2, 2017
Tozette moved all her fics to AO3.

 

How does the author avoid the death of Hermione by having her soul sacked out by the diary? I'd read the story myself, but I don't have the time right now.

 

I suppose it's because she knows that Voldemort was stuck to the back of Quirrel's head, so the Horcrux doesn't have the need to gain a body. That's pure speculation, though.

 

You may want to also rate the thread.

 

It's a pleasant read, but the story as a whole is little more than a watered down version of CoS. The writing is good and the characterizations are fine, although Hermione sounds a bit too condescending at times, and Harry and Ron have no actual role in the story story, which does irk me a bit. A rather anticlimactic finish too. 3.5/5.

 

That's a fairly common occurrence for Hermione-centric stories.

Had this actually gone on further, I'd have rated it a 2/5, but as is it's a solid 3/5.

There's bits and bobs that I genuinely enjoyed, but overall, I'm no fan of Hermione, and less so when it comes to this fanfic's Hermione. Still, enjoyable for an afternoon or an evening read, but no more.

 

Enjoyable story. Characters behaved exactly like they should. Writing was pretty good. I would've preferred slightly different ending, but that won't stop me from giving 5/5.

 

It's... good.

There is a bit of a slow start, but it picks up the pace around the middle. Hermione "torturing" the diary was an interesting idea. Canon-compliant, as far as I could tell. Not really a factor for me, but I know it's important to many. I can't give it a perfect score though:

:facepalm Really?

It's a bigger mistake because of the rather high quality of the rest of the fic.

4/5

 

Great story. 4/5 mostly because it doesn't go any further. This is probably the best Dark Hermione fic I've ever read. I could really see Hermione's thirst for knowledge taking her down a dark road.

Can anyone recommend any similar fic worth reading?

 

I really like stories about Hermione but in that case I somehow not really liking this one. I even not sure why. It seems lifeless for lack of a better word.

 

I have liked all that I have read of this author's stuff, though this particular one is somewhat... bland, at least in comparison to their other work. Considering that this is an origin story, though, and should be treated as a prologue at most for future "Dark Lady Hermione" fics, this is promising. It's not nearly as humorous as I've come to expect of this author, but, assuming that this preludes works of a similar calibre (with actual conflict in the plot), it is definitely library worthy.

4/5

 

I'm generally not a Hermione fan, but I love Dark Arts stories. This one seemed to drag a bit, and was a watered down version of COS, but over all good. It would be even better if it was followed up with development of Hermione as a dark witch.

4/5

 

I enjoyed this story even though it felt a bit dragged out at times. A very solid story 4/5

 

Really like this story, the conversations between Diary and Hermione are great, especially considering that Hermione what she was doing to it.

Would love to see this continued. It's not perfect, mind you, but still, for a short story?

5/5

 

Quite good. Lots of similarity to hit the ground running in terms of writing style. I felt like the harry - ron interactions were completely forgettable and not well written but they weren't the focus.

Would love to see a sequel but it works quite well as is.

4.5/5

 

I rather like the idea of a dark Hermoine, so I gladly started to read the story. While well written a few points bothered me.
First of all the I find Hermoine's reasoning for not informing an adult about the diary somewhat forced. Not informing an teacher, etc. is clearly the premise for the Tom-Hermoine interaction, and the reader knows that, so "They didn't believe us last time, so we will try it never again." especially with an (directly) checkable artifact seems unreasonable to me. Furthermore, Hermoine's attempt to blackmail the diary was definitly a clever idea from the author - I liked reading about someone getting the upperhand on the diary by intellect (in contrast to stabbing it with an old thooth or something like that) but it seems a rather aprupt switch in Hermoine's behaivour, which would have worked better if it was more slowly motivated. Finally much of Tom's motivation remains unclear to me - he gave in slowly (that's part of the good writing), but given his hatred for muggle borns, why did he do it at all?

So in summary: A well written story, featuring a Hermoine on the brim of going dark, but with a few story elements that where in my opinion to aprupt introduced, which reduces the credibility of the characterisation.

2/5

(I hope I got it right, that writting a not to short rewiev of the story is alright after the 30 days? All the best, Chiral)

 

I gave the story a 3/5, though it'd be closer to 3.5/5 - not quite there at 4, but caught me quite well when I read it. I just had a lot of trouble seeing Hermione not looking towards one of the teachers for help when sh learned about the diary, especially when she was only 12. She ran off to tattle about a broom with unknown sender when she was 13 despite the boys being against it, and the diary definetely seems more serious?

 

This updated. I am pretty excited, to be honest. And ashamed, for not finding out about it sooner. First chapter is fine. I am still annoyed because Hermione still isn't interested in dark magic, but it would be very OOC for her, so it probably will take some time.

Spoiler

I love this sentence. I hope this will have some normal magical system, I can't quite remember from the first story.

I just can't force myself to give anything less than 4/5. I hope author writes more of this.