5061: Disenchanted - Hermione Granger
I figured getting back into the routine of things on the first of the month would be the best, but for some reason I got the good idea to look at Harry Potter stories on the pit which somehow involved COVID and I managed to come across today’s doozy.
Title: Disenchanted
Perpetrator: Miss Corbyn
Sue-O-Meter: Toxic
Cover/Banner Art: Their avatar is a black cat with a pumpkin lantern. Can't recognize where I've seen that image before off the top of my head.
Summary: “A challenge, a fic and my covid therapy. About a year after the event of the Cursed Child, Hermione commit suicide and met a few people she didn't expected in the afterlife. Being given the chance to change one single day in her entire life, she went back in time to her third year. Would the young Hermione learn from her older self lesson and make the best from this opportunity?”
Full Name: Hermione Granger
Species: Not Hermione, but some OC that thinks being cruel makes her the better person rather than a witch who is on the path towards the Dark Arts.
Hair: n/a
Eyes: n/a
Markings: n/a
Poessessions: n/a
Connection to Canon: We’re supposed to believe a strong character such as Hermione would actually commit suicide, but the fact suicide signifies the character either having serious mental health issues or that they’re a coward and running away goes right over the writer’s head. Except, this becomes even more unbelievable after reading the scene where Harry and Hermione kill each other and my mind finds itself quickly going not to how romantic their suicide is, but how the two are in desperate need of intervention regarding their mental health. We then jump to her talking to death as if she’d never been under any form of mental duress to kill herself, but Death actually goes on and claims she committed the act of “dating and marrying your teenage bully. Repeatedly failing your best friend and soul mate.” Hermione is shown the many, many different times she died just so she can feel guilty about picking Ron every time and not Harry. Is it worth it when Hermione turns into an outright brat by purposefully vanishing the bones in Peter Pettigrew’s arms instead of healing them, but apparently, “betraying her younger self by using the failed spell of that fraud was one of the best ideas she had come up with to change herself to the better.” Writer, this Hermione isn’t better, but this is where I decided I would stop reading. That said, I took the time to read the reviews and there is one reader who caught my interest in that they pointed out they didn’t feel Harry was growing while Hermione just “becomes more powerful and more talented with each chapter making Harry and pretty much everyone else obsolete.”
Origin: Basically, as the writer put it, “I’m going to make my own challenge by twisting almost every condition in the challenge,” the challenge being that dreaded “Don’t Fear the Reaper” challenge. I say dreaded because I honestly believe said challenge has resulted in a lot of the Harry Potter Stus we’ve seen on Pottersues where Harry makes some kind of contract with Death. We’re talking about a challenge where Hermione Granger is effectively Harry’s prize for defeating the Dark Lord, promised to him by Death because she’s his soul mate. Well, this one goes and ramps things up where, “Hermione [anyone but Harry but preferably Hermione] commit suicide [or anything except being killed by I strongly support suicide as opposite of murder.” They wanted the whole Death ranting at Hermione changed up, but wanted the whole soul mate thing kept, completely missing the implication of what the whole soul mate thing actually means.
Special Abilities: The opening sequence does a really good job of convincing me Harry and Hermione are not soul mates, but then again, the two characters we see killing themselves are pitiful things which are not at all Harry and Hermione. I’m not impressed with the fact the writer felt the need to vilify Draco, I mean Ron, by claiming she married the boy who bullied her as a child, but that the act of doing so is a sin against nature and the greatness that is Harry Potter. Okay, so maybe the writer didn’t put it into those words exactly, but it is framed as much that Hermione is wrong for not getting together with Harry, because Hermione isn’t allowed to have free will and choice regarding who she ends up with, right? She’s got to be a trophy for Harry, the Boy-Who-Lived. However, making it worse is this. Hermione’s Grim Reaper also happens to be Lily Evans. She’s died multiple times and not ended up with Harry, which, you know, is yet another indicator that they’re *gasp* not soul mates.
Notes: As I said in the “Origin” part of this, the writer really missed the implications of their challenge. I mean, the whole premise of the challenge is that the character didn’t get their happy ending, which is always forced by the writer into the narrative, but the only way they’ll ever have the happy ending they were meant to have is if they end up in the writer’s personal OTP for them. However, this one amps it up by implying that a character should feel the need to kill themselves because they didn’t get that specific happy ending.
And to be honest, I am not at all impressed with how the narrative makes Hermione feel like crap over the guy she picks and the whole thing is about forcing her to be with Harry, who is also a guy she decided to commit double suicide with. To me that screams her relationship with Harry is majorly unhealthy.
Sample:
"Oh Harry I'm so afraid..." Hermione said crying while slicing the dragon's heart.
"I know Hermione. I am too. But it's the only way... to get rid of that fucking curse... for good" Harry replied never being so set to brew a potion the right way.
"But what if they don't understand... what if they die... because of us" Hermione pleaded, as she threw the fox's fur and the raven's feather's into the potion, not sharing the confidence Harry newly found in their despair.
"You are my best friend. We always find our way. They will... I know they will" Harry replied firmly. Hermione knew it was his greatest wish. That it might work and every thing might be fine, again and forever. But she knew it couldn't be that simple.
"I really don't want to die." Hermione stated. It was when one is so close to one's own death that one realised how much one really want to live. It was only the promise of an even more painful death that would be waiting for her outside that prevented her to freak out and run for her life.
"It has to be the two of us. It always had been. Plus, there is no one left but us and we are already dead" He pointed out and Hermione knew he was right. There were no hopes left for them. They were walking dead waiting for their string to life to be cut.
"Our body... our heart... our soul... It's really dark. And we don't even know if it might work" They were sacrificing everything and they had no guarantee it might work. If someone ever succeeded, they didn't brag about it.
"Hermione... please believe me. I need your faith... I need your strength... We are in this together, are we?" Harry pleaded and Hermione nodded. She would never abandon him willingly and there was no point of the whole thing if she wasn't in. She served the scarlet mixture in their two goblet and their eyes met before drinking it, finding the bravery to drink it in each other eyes "Uuuuh... disgusting" Harry let it slip before finishing his share of the dreadful potion.
"You are ready to die but my blood is too much to handle? Please... if thought you were past all that bigotry" Hermione cracked a joke and Harry knew her friend really was a ball of nerves at the very moment.
Then they used the remaining of the bloody potion to paint symbol on their body and each other back. Hermione didn't see the point of wasting potion this way, let's suppose the brewing actually work but that were the instruction and they follow it to the letter.
"A Hermione's hug? I wouldn't be able to do it the other way" Harry asked when they were done, taking his knife shaking. Hermione was in the same state but couldn't help but obliged.
"I always feared you would stab me in the back but it never occurred to me we would actually die like this" She said before the piercing pain cloud her mind. They were bleeding and crying, clinging on each other, determined to die in each other arms.
"I love you Hermione. I always loved you." Harry whispered to her weakly, saying goodbye. There were neither hell nor heaven for them. They sacrificed everything in the name of hope.
"I love you too." Hermione said but then, as a shadow passed on Harry's eyes, she panicked: "Harry... please don't leave me" Hermione begged crying. She wanted to scream but she couldn't.
They were no future for them. They were already dead willingly and by each other hand. But Hermione couldn't let go of Harry. Her only regret was not that she was going to die, not even than they would be nothing for them after death. Even if she may have believe in hell or heaven... They gave away their very soul. Her only regret was that they were not mean to be. That was the end. They already failed and sacrificed everything so someone else can do what they couldn't.
Hermione didn't felt she died before it was over. The agony had been short for the two of them, magically shorten by their magic.
That was the end. The curse came to an end with the last living Peverell. The Potter's lineage was terminated as well as all the families that ever stand beside them.
And after them the entire world soon collapsed.