Augurey or loosing of sanity
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:date: 2019-08-28T16:51:33
:modified: 2020-04-13T11:18:25
:category: literature
:tags: review, storyPrompt, harryPotter, blogComment, fromReddit
(my comments on “`The Augurey`_” by La Matrona, originally
published on Reddit_)
What is my pet-peeve is when the characters behave like idiots
just to keep the plot together. Let’s see. I have just deleted
“The Augurey” from my computer.
First of all, just let me state, I have nothing serious against
Harmony. I probably prefer Hinny, just because I don’t feel like
going against canon when not necessary, and because Northumbrian
and “`Inner Demons by serendipity_50`_” have shown me it can be
done well, but otherwise, it doesn’t bother me. For example,
“`Escape by SingularOddities`_” is a rather decent story (I wrote
a review_ of it). So, it is not that.
SPOILERS AHEAD, so please skip if it bothers you (and it doesn’t
make sense to mark everything as a spoiler, not much will make
sense without them).
It is not even the original premise of the story. The Trio while
still hiding in the Grimmauld Place finds out through the Family
Black Tree wallpaper (finally somebody found some good use for
it!) that Delphini happened (after all, Bellatrix was Black
originally). Harry, having a soft heart for orphans, finds her
after the war (completely neglected and abused), saves her and
brings her as his own. I have never heard about it before, and it
could lead to a nice story. So, it is not the basic plot either.
What bothers me, is **how** it is done. Harry for reasons nobody
ever explained (and which don’t make sense either) decides to
hide his wish to look for Delphini from everybody (including and
especially from Ginny; it looks like the only reason is to make
the tension between them, which could lead to their breakup).
Then he asks (only!) Hermione for help, and finally he breaks in
in the middle of the night to the house where Delphini lives
hidden, takes her away, and presumably kills her neglectful
foster mother (he “takes care of her” in a rage after finding out
how horribly Delphini was neglected). Then he brings her to
Grimmauld Place, where Hermione finds a book on the paediatric
care and cures her. So, to summarize, Harry (who still planned to
be an officer of the law at that point) just committed completely
useless breaking and entering, abduction of a baby, possibly
murder, and non-reporting of crime, and I wonder whether
not-bringing her to St. Mungo for professional help does not
constitute criminal neglect as well. What’s Hermione’s reaction?
She doesn’t report him to the law officers, but she gushes about
his big heart and how great a man he is. Sorry, I threw the story
away at that moment, so I don’t know how it continued.
There are zillion other things he can do (even if the existence
of Delphini should stay hidden from the wizarding world), just to
mention the first idea which came to my mind, he can ask for help
his buddy The Minister for Magic, there are zero reasons to keep
this whole thing hidden from Ginny and other Weasleys.
There are many decent ways how to break up with your girlfriend
decently, and there are many possible reasons which could be
found. I can happily imagine that after Ginny hasn’t heard about
him for a year fallen apart for the biggest hero of them all,
Neville. I can imagine Hermione deciding that after all her
affection towards Ron was more curiosity or wish to have her
first crush completed than true love. And no, Hermione not
forgiving Ron his leave after being cursed by the locket makes as
much sense as anybody accusing Ginny of bringing the basilisk to
the castle, i.e. none at all. So, I believe even post-War Harmony
can be written in a reasonable manner (I tried to make
a suggested talk between Hermione and Ron in “`Late Morning
Talks`_” to show how I would do it). And after reading “Inner
Demons” (mentioned above) I very firmly believe in Harry taking
care of orphans. However, the author was lazy and he just wanted
to to get to the Harmony cooing over the small baby as easily as
possible, so he went straight ahead. Grrr.
----
**[added on 2020-04-13]**
However, I still cannot get rid of the basic premise of this
story, because I truly believe this is so good idea. It is just
such pity that the execution was so horrible. So, let me suggest
this as a prompt for somebody to write it better (in the same
manner the author of “`The Accidental Animagus`_” admitted_ that
it was based on the idea from “`The Natural Animagus by
wsbenge`_”).
The start of the story could be exactly the same: The Trio in the
Grimmauld Place found on the Black Family tapestry, that
Bellatrix has a daughter with Tom Riddle. Then switch to the
moment immediately after the Battle of Hogwarts and you can
switch to search for the lost baby, which could make a foundation
for a good plot (although not very long one). I could happily
envision it as something similar to “`Hunters and Prey by
Northumbrian`_”: the first large case of young Trainee Auror
Harry Potter. This one could be probably even better than that
one because you don’t have to play in rather unrealistic hidden
werewolf village, but in the real world with realistically
crushed but bitter and hateful former Death Eaters and pureblood
supremacists. And it is even more fun because the whole
investigation is done amongst them, but they cannot have even
a shadow of suspicion of who that lost girl truly is.
Then you can have the next part of taking care of an abused
orphan, and Harry with his past would be very interested in
caring for orphans (an idea which seems to be very
underdeveloped, the only exception I can think of is above
mentioned “Inner Demons by serendipity_50” and also the brilliant
“`Dudley's Memories`_” and “`Snape’s Memories`_” by paganaidd).
I generally don’t care about the shipping of Harry in all this,
I don’t think it matters that much for the story, just if you
want to break up Harry and Ginny, PLEASE, do a better job than
the author of this story.
.. _voldemort-father:
Of course, the premise of the story is based on the idea that Tom
Riddle could father a baby in the first place. Yes, I don’t
believe this story (and the Cursed Child, one of many
disasters of that fanfiction story), that he would be capable
of falling in love with anybody, and I have deep suspicion
even about his ability to commit the deed. After all, he truly
doesn’t have the human body, what he *has* is the alchemist
construct, created by two sexually rather inept most likely
still virgins; I wonder whether his body truly has all bits in
the right places. Much more appealing (or much disgusting,
that’s the same thing) would be if Delphini was either just
by-product of some dark magic ritual (which would nicely lead
to her being neglected and abandoned) or even intended object
(produced by artificial insemination or its magical
equivalent) of some ritual. What about the ultimate Horcrux
created by sacrificing your own child? It would be an
opportunity to create truly disgusting dark magic, which would
eliminate all those jabbers about grey magic and acceptability
of the Dark Magic.
----
**[one more update on 2021-02-15]**
I saw a week or so ago `this comment`_ on `the riots in
Charlottesville`_ by Arnold Schwarzenegger. The thing which
particularly impressed me was his memory of growing up amongst
bitter and depressed former Nazis, who knew they were fighting
for the horrible cause, and what’s even worse, they’ve lost.
“They lived the rest of their lives in shame. And now they're
resting in hell.”
I would love to read some novel about this environment, but
I would love to see the parallel in the Harry Potter world as
well. That’s the world where this Delphini would grew up, and
where Harry would be searching for her.
And yes, of course, I have to mention `this clip`_.
.. _`The Augurey`:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12310861/1/
.. _Reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/HPfanfiction/comments/cj5w7b/what_are_you_least_favorite_cliches_in_the_fandom/evbm3bb?context=3
.. _`Inner Demons by serendipity_50`:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/601124
.. _`Escape by SingularOddities`:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11916243/1/
.. _review:
{filename}singularoddities-review-escape.rst
.. _`Late Morning Talks`:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/20141410
.. _`The Accidental Animagus`:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/14078862
.. _admitted:
https://potterficweekly.com/archives/1813
.. _`The Natural Animagus by wsbenge`:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4183350
.. _`Hunters and Prey by Northumbrian`:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/1857084
.. _`Inner Demons by serendipity_50`:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/601124
.. _`Dudley's Memories`:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6142629
.. _`Snape’s Memories`:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6329597
.. _`this comment`:
https://youtu.be/BaN78rXX6Lc
.. _`the riots in Charlottesville`:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally
.. _`this clip`:
https://youtu.be/hn1VxaMEjRU
