Child Of Grace: Chapter 27 - Draco Demented (Part 1)

[zelda_queen]

ZeldaQueen: Well, I guess the suethor missed bashing Ron and Hermione, because guess what this chapter is pretty much dedicated to? *sigh* Strap in!

Comments

[gehayi]

Plagued by strange bouts of a highly useful, non-canon powerful ability!

Highly useful, yes. And quite common. Every witch and wizard capable of casting "Wingardium Leviosa" can lift things with their minds. You want to move something? Put "Mobili" in the spell somewhere, as in "Mobilicorpus." You want to call something to you? Try "Accio." And these are all common spells. The only thing that Holly has that most witches and wizards don't is LACK OF CONTROL. Most magic users who are old enough to go to school aren't having magic burst out unexpectedly. Not Holly.

Basically, Holly is a much weaker witch than most in the Potterverse. Likewise, so is Tom Riddle. Only their tremendous egos keep them deluded that they are superior.

What about Dumbledore? Or Hagrid? Don't they count at all?

I wouldn't count Dumbledore as a friend of anyone. He's got an agenda. The people he cares about matter less than his plans. (Also, I think he's lying about being a Legilimens.) However, Hagrid should definitely should count as a friend.

From there

[zelda_queen]

"Basically, Holly is a much weaker witch than most in the Potterverse. Likewise, so is Tom Riddle. Only their tremendous egos keep them deluded that they are superior."

Technically, I think she was performing wandless magic if it *was* canon magic. When she's thirteen. So yeah...

Well yeah, Dumbledore had an agenda, but he also really considered Harry his favorite student. My point was that Holly is going on like that, when Harry had had all sorts of friends in his teachers and the like.

Harry might not have been smarter, but he at least acted more. Knowing everything in advance isn't any good if you just sit around and don't even try to fix something.

Hermione's rude for the same reason that Mrs. Weasley was a controlling jerk - the suethor needs to invent ways to make them unlikable, so Holly and her horrible little friends are who we support. It doesn't work. -_-

[slozar]

You know, I've seen unlikable people, but hell, even villians have more redeming qualities than Holly here. Good god, people are allowed to make mistakes. That's what helps them grow as people. They wrongly accuse you? Get over it. It's not like they did anything bad. They didn't physically harm her or slander her in front of everyone. They were just trying to follow up on clues, all of which pointed to her. Hell, if it wasn't her perspective, I would have believed it too.

[zelda_queen]

Exactly! Adding in the fact that her friends were attacking children while she stood by, and it's kind of easy to see why she'd be accused.

And the fact that she just won't get over it makes her look even more petty. Everyone in the school, including a lot of his friends, accused Harry of being the Heir of Slytherin and never outright apologized. Did he spend the next book snubbing them all? No! It's hard to sympathize with Holly when she's incapable of the most basic form of forgiving.

[slozar]

Hard? I feel more like impossible.

[beacon80]

Worth pointing out that Ron and Hermione don't even know that Holly knows. She only knew because she can read minds. But rather than confront them, she'd just angst silently. When she's vindicated, they, like any normal human beings, try to forget they ever doubted her. In order to apologize, they'd have to admit that they doubted her in the first place, and (from their point of view) that would just hurt her feelings.

[madamchaos]

Conversely, its tail was pencil thin, despite the rest of its body, and wiggled around like it had a mind of its own.

So I'm a cat person, myself, and seeing these conversation about poor Crookshanks is rubbing me the wrong way entirely. (Also about how Sirius is so against being turned into a kitten; I know his Animagus form is a massive dog, but he got along perfectly with Crookshanks, it's not like he hates cats or anything.) This line above is basically what messes with me the most, even despite all the bizarre Crookshanks hate.

(Crookshanks hate. I just want to mull over the reality of that situation for a moment.)

One of Crookshanks' main attributes -- the one that Harry actually described specifically several times throughout PoA (and a little bit in GoF), and one of the primary descriptors of the cat, was his 'bottlebrush tail'.

BOTTLEBRUSH.

Not 'wormy' or 'thin' or 'nearly bald', but BOTTLEBRUSH. Which, as a descriptor, references a bottlebrush flower, which looks like this. As in Crookshanks' tail is EXTREMELY FLUFFY

[white_wolf03]

I'm not sure if Harry intentionally pointed out the negatives of people. I think he just mentioned them because those features are what he used to distingish them from everyone else.

[zelda_queen]

Or it could be cleverly pointing out how people aren't glamorous on a regular day in real life. When it's a fancy occasion, everyone is usually described as looking quite nice.

[madamchaos]

Oh, I don't mean that he did it on purpose (except perhaps with Snape, but he even allows Snape a few flattering adjectives later on; I think he even called little!Snape "impressive"), just that's how his descriptions usually came out. Balanced, as ZQ puts it just below; he pointed out the negatives in the good people, and the positives in the bad. Here, Holly just concentrates on the negatives of people she doesn't like and makes everybody she does positively glowing.

[white_wolf03]

Well at least Malfoy's in character. He's a stuck-up little snob, he is.

[zelda_queen]

Yeah. Shame we're supposed to see him as in the right. x(

[white_wolf03]

How? It's basically stated that Malfoy doesn't actually care what happened to Neville, he just wanted to see them squirm.

I personally can't see how anyone could see Holly and co. as anything other than bastards in this scene.

[zelda_queen]

I'm fairly certain we're supposed to see Malfoy as rightfully getting back at Ron for kicking him. I could be wrong, but one would think that if Malfoy was supposed to be in the wrong, someone would call him out on it.

[emmram]

Oooh, all the Weasley and Hermione bashing is making my blood pressure shoot up... a giant kudos to you for soldiering on.

I think it's so obvious that this whole fic is a giant exercise in pure self-indulgence: since we already know the plot, she'll only focus on the attributes of better!Harry Holly and her Golden Trio substitutes Slytherin friends, and bash - endlessly - the characters she doesn't like. It would explain the constant emphasis on Ron's "rudeness" (the innumerable references to him kicking Malfoy's foot, knocking him out of the way, etc) in what is otherwise supposed to be a dramatic and mysterious moment.

Also - because I've only now started braving the HP fandom - is Weasley bashing some kind of trend? I'm a little hard-pressed to find well-written fics starring them, particularly Ron - and I do love him so. :(

[zelda_queen]

"is Weasley bashing some kind of trend? I'm a little hard-pressed to find well-written fics starring them, particularly Ron - and I do love him so