This is a well-written story where Harry is a cheating cad. It shows how an otherwise good person, good husband, good father, can fall because of lust. WalkingDisaster is 100% spot on about this.

It's not that there isn't any romance between Harry and Hermione, it's that it's predicated on the physical. Sure, there is the long, deep relationship that makes them comfortable together, but what the author is describing is all physical.

 

It's easy, actually. Just have Ginny die.

Handwave something like, after CoS the life force stolen by Tom's spectre was never returned to Ginny, and thus while she seemed healthy at first she quickly withered and died while early middle-aged, or just after the epilogue.

Harry will struggle through raising the kids, being a heartbroken widower and etc etc, until [insert character of choice] comes along to help his lonely heart etc.

 

That's a cop-out. Also, it kinda violates a basic rule of interesting stories: have some kind of conflict.

I like this story quite a bit. Huge H/Hr fan, which sucks cause most of the stuff written for that ship is rather substandard. This is the only good story in this ship that I've read in months - although, to be fair, I haven't been looking very hard either.

 

No problem with Harry being a scumbag. Adultery, in general, makes good drama when written well.

The problem isn't the adultery. The problem is that I don't buy Harry's sudden change in feelings.

 

Who says this change is "sudden"? I don't know what Michelle AD - who is calling herself "MADharmony" now, for whatever reason - is planning, but a very typical - and admittedly cliche - trope in H/HR romance is the "surfacing of supressed feelings" backdoor. I get the impression that this will come up sooner or later, if not to pacify in- story moralists like "WalkingDisaster" then at least for Harry's and Hermione's justification of their behavior to themselves.

 

Excuse me for wanting the hero-protagonists of a story to be people worth respecting, not scumbag cheaters.

"In Story Moralists" indeed.

 

Excuse me for using your unrelenting stance on this for an example, but there is more to the world than black and white, as any user of a board called "Dark Lord Potter" should know. That goes double for romance stories, where constantly shifting human emotions are on the forefront of the prose.

 

Your attempt to lecture me on the shades of gray in Morality is laughable. And not worth response except this one.

Except the prose is bad, and the constantly shifting emotions are different shades of "I want to fuck her" or "I feel bad for wanting to fuck her" and almost nothing inbetween.

This is not a deep, emotive story. Despite your attempt to paint it as such. This is a story about lust and angst. Even those are not that well done, at that. It's 'meh' at best in terms of the main storyline. It's only redeeming factors are the callahan subplot and the technical writing skill.

3/5, and that's being generous. The main characters are shallow and reprehensible, the main plotline is fail, and the artistic writing is of middling quality for the vast majority of the story.

 

Seems to be worth more than you want to admit if you have to react this promptly and with such venom.

That's what you told everyone who read this thread from your third post onward, but it's more a result of your moralistic trouble with the story's theme than the reality of the prose. Let's see what the author has to say about it:

http://www.fanfiction.net/u/425801/MADharmony

Nothing about sex being the driving force of the story's development. Now, take a look at how the main character tries to rationalize what's happening to him:

Spoiler

Hermione. Kissing her is so different because it's forbidden…and it's new. Yet, I've thought this before. When I first kissed her, I thought the reason it consumed me so much was because it was new. But I've kissed her twice now—three times, if you count the hospital. Shouldn't the novelty be wearing off?

Novelty and illicitness. Does that explain why kissing Hermione is so…so fucking amazing? Does that explain the whole of it?


No…no, it doesn't.


He landed upon the truth.

Hermione's kiss is special because she is Hermione. I've grown up with her. She's my best friend. She means more to me than just about anyone. Kissing her has special meaning because she has special meaning to me.


So that's what it is, then? Harry asked himself. The formula for a transcendent kiss is one part novelty, one part illicitness, and one part kissing someone who is exceptional in your eyes? Someone like Hermione?

Harry heard the taps switch off in the bathroom. He scrambled and quickly slipped under the sheets, placing his glasses on the bedside table. Ginny emerged a moment later. He pretended to be asleep.


This must make sense, right? Harry thought desperately. This explains it. If I was married to anyone else it would be exactly the same. Say if I married Luna… and I kissed Ginny, I would feel exactly the same way towards Ginny as I feel now towards Hermione. Kissing Ginny has lost two of those qualities—novelty and illicitness—and that's why kissing her isn't comparable to kissing Hermione.


Yes, Harry thought. That makes sense. It's not because I have unique feelings for Hermione—it's because the circumstances of our kiss were so unique.

Chapter 12


Why do you pretend that the rationalizations Harry uses are the truth, and not the reality of his romantic feelings for Hermione, which threaten to destroy his marriage? Or what about this scene from the next to last chapter:

Spoiler

"This song is familiar," Harry said nonchalantly. "Wasn't it performed at the opera?"


Hermione looked up at his face, momentarily shaken from her reverie.
"Yes, it was," she replied. "It's called 'O, mio babbino caro.'" "What's it about?"


Hermione smiled strangely, her hand twisting slightly in his own. "It's about a girl in love," she answered, looking up at him as though wishing he'd join in on a joke. "It's a girl pleading with her father that he allow her to marry her suitor. She's telling the father that she loves the boy more than anything in the world and that if he won't consent to their marriage, she'll jump into the Arno River."


Harry smirked. "Well, that's not dramatic at all." Hermione laughed. "Exactly." Harry waited, expecting her to say more, but she remained silent. Their chests were nearly touching one another now. Harry's arm was looped entirely around the small of her back. Her lips were incredibly close.
"You cried," Harry whispered. "You cried when this was sung at the opera. Why?"


Hermione's brow furrowed and she looked away. "Well, it was beautiful." "The whole opera was beautiful, but you only cried during this song. Why?" he asked again. Hermione glanced at him quickly, perhaps impressed he had noticed. "I don't know…" she said after a long moment. "She sounded so desperate. So ardent." Her eyes became unfocused as she stared at a point beyond Harry's face. "I was almost scared for her. Isn't that silly? She really believed she would die if she didn't marry him…"

Chapter 18


If you can't interpret the subtext of this outtake, it shouldn't surprise anyone that you read the whole story as morally misguided erotica about adultery.

It is exactly that, as my quotes above have shown and any number of others could. I'm not going to comment on the rest of your lambasting of the story, since everyone who has read it can attest to the fact that it's main characters are neither "shallow" nor is the main plot anyting like "fail".

 

There are several issues here:
1- Does this story depict love or lust?
2- Are the characters here moral? Is this heroic?
3- Is this a good story?

I'd say this is about lust, not love. Harry surely does love Hermione, but the problem is the lust that's coming out now. You don't have screw someone just because you love them.

Harry dwelling on his attraction shows weak character. Definitely a flawed hero, since he is in some other regards noble.

As for if this is a good story or not, it really depends on how it turns out. Good stories can explore human weakness and protagonists don't have to be heroes. But if the ending cheaply justifies adultery or the hero fails to be redeemed yet there is no sense of tragedy, then it probably won't be good.

I don't have a problem with how Harry is now suddenly thinking about Hermione as he is. Once the thought enters the mind a person might obsess about it.

 

Not necessarily.
(1) If the story cover a long enough span of time, you can show Ginny's declining health until her death, and Harry's getting together with someone else happen late in the story, after a period of grieving.
(2) What give you the idea that this has to be the forefront or central conflict?

 

I was left feeling really impressed with the story. All the characters are painted with a fair brush and flaws not pointed out too obviously, but realistically enough. Hermione is made out to be a huge cock-tease though, and I was dying for a perspective from her, just to shed a little light on everything. But, the fact we do not get extra pov's from any character, yet still reach a awesome level of tension is the mark of a good author.

I'm just a touch disappointed in how Harry handles these new... developments, but the way the author explains it leaves me mostly satisfied. Harry is not all a scumbag if you actually read deep down into his motivations and circumstances. I also like that at times I wanted to sympathize with Ginny, while at other times wanted her to just disappear. And Ron, you just feel really fucking bad for him, yet at the same time, it is hard to be sympathetic towards him.

I'm not overly enthusiastic about some of the plots outside, some of it is really cheesy, but I like how the author attempts to add more depth than what I was expecting considering other H/Hr fics.

Overall, this is pretty fucking good.

 

I really love this story. The writing itself is some of the best I've seen in fanfiction. I like how Harry and Hermione's conflicting emotions evolve throughout the story. I think that their feelings towards one another start off more as lust, but then you can tell they are developing an even deeper emotional bond with one another as compared to what they had before. I understand that their families will be hurt, but you shouldn't condemn yourself to an unhappy relationship and home life just because you don't want to hurt others. I think the ideal moral solution would be to keep meeting up in secret. What the families don't know won't hurt them. Harry needs to get a better handle on his emotions with Ginny. Then they wait a few years, get divorces and live together. The time will get their spouses used to more distance, as well as have the kids be older. But what they are doing right now is just dangerous. I sympathize immensely with Harry.

 

However much I dislike Harry at some points, the writing really is quite good.

 

For Review lurkers are laaaame.

Thanks for reminding me about this story though, I must have forgotten to Follow it last time (an oversight which I just corrected), so I also hadn't read the latest chapter. The author page says we should get two more pretty soon, but I'll believe it when I see it.

 

It's been a while since I've done any sort of review in "For Review". Here goes, I guess.

I'm a bit more than halfway through so far, but I'm pretty sure than 100k words is more than enough to pass a fair initial judgment.

The writing isn't terrible, but the characterizations are pretty iffy and Harry's internal dialogue is mediocre. The sheer naivety and immaturity of his thought patterns regarding relationships makes it seem like he's actually a young teenager doing stupid things in his first relationship.

Meh.

Guess I'll finish what's there and rate it afterward.