#fairylightinthenight

[fanficexcerpts]

"Hermione! Dragons! Harry has to fight a dragon!" Ron ran towards her as soon as Cedric was brought off the pitch. "Brilliant deduction, Ron. How did you find out?" Hermione spat it.

Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling - What If - Chapter 12 - fairylightinthenight [Archive of Our Own]  

[metamehta]

Review: What If by fairylightinthenight

Summary: Being soulmates means to have a special bond, one that can be a deep, true love or a pure, strong friendship. Hermione Granger is eleven when she first hears about soulmates. She is fourteen, when she falls in love head over heels. And she is fifteen when she discovers who her soumate is and that heartbreak is awaiting her. Written for the Slow Burn Trope Challenge

Romance/Drama -  [Hermione G., Fred W.] [Harry P., Ginny W.] - 26 Chapters, Words: 123,700, Rated Mature

Read it on ff.net or AO3

Status: WIP (last updated August 9, 2019)

Review: Okay, let’s get straight to it, y’all already know that Fred x Hermione* is my favorite ship (if you’re new, don’t worry – you’ll hear me say that repeatedly) and of course I skipped my entire reading list to read this when I found it.

As far as premises go, I’ll admit I wasn’t particularly keen on the soulmate trope. I’ve never explicitly mentioned this, but I find my reading preferences have shifted in the past year, and I find myself favouring new adult romances to high school/teen stories. As a result, I tend to be wary of, and slightly more nitpicky about stories that feature Hogwarts age romances. 

What If is an example of a story that has a good story to tell but suffers from two major things: prose and story structure. The hardest part about this story is making the adjustment to the story’s prose. You see, a majority of the story unfolds through dialogue, and there’s something about the writing itself that makes the characters come off as a bit flat and indistinguishable.

The story also handles its plot in a rather elementary and formulaic way. For example, the first five chapters of the story add little narrative value to the story and are entirely forgettable. In fact, the story could have started off in third year (referencing the first two years through offhand dialogue or even flashback) and still worked.

Nevertheless, I give fairylightinthenight credit for creating believable chemistry and good angst about Hermione’s choice to tell Fred he’s her soulmate. Furthermore, the story is still unfinished, and has the potential to have its characters evolve over the remainder of the story.

Mainly, I find myself having mixed feelings about What If. On one hand, I like the story arch that the author has been building towards in their story. On the other hand, I wonder how much my OTP has biased my perception of the story.

My final thoughts? Worth reading if you like teen romances and soulmate drama. If you don’t like those plots elements but like the FredxHermione ship, give the story a try and see for yourself.

Rating: 2.5 / 5

*Many people online don’t seem to get why people who ship Fremione can’t just substitute Fred for George, but I’d just like to address the fact that Fred and George are two different people. I’ve always thought that Fred’s more callous nature pairs supremely well with Hermione’s canon tendencies to toss aside the rules when she doesn’t like them.