HP rec: In Loco Parentis
Jun. 1st, 2011 09:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunabee34In Loco Parentis by Dolores_Crane; HP; Harry/Hermione, Harry/Snape, Tonks/Hestia; Adult; Long; Warnings under cut
(I personally think that reading the story without being warned makes the story more effective, so if you know you don't have any triggers, I'd recommend reading without being spoiled because I'm totally spoiling for absolutely everyting under the cut)
Wow. Just wow. This story has taken over my brain. I think it is so clever and so well written. I am in awe.
First off, warnings: this fic deals with abortion, detailed descriptions of unjust imprisonment, partner betrayal, and a student-teacher relationship that is technically unethical and possibly underage depending on where you live and your perspective on such matters
This fic is written from Hermione's perspective and is based on the premise that Harry is the one kept in the loop after Sirius dies at the end of the fifth book, and Ron and Hermione are on the outside for the whole summer knowing absolutely nothing. The fic begins when they all come back to school and charts changes in their relationships with each other as well as massive changes in the wizarding world. I doubt I can turn this into a coherent essay, so numbered list!
1. Hermione was brilliantly characterized throughout the whole fic. I completely buy that she fools around with some dude she doesn't know on her "Muggle summer vacation" just because she wants to feel something other than afraid and like too much is being asked of her. I completely buy that she and Harry fall into this weird relationship that is more about the physical than anything else because they have lost everything else that's between them. The depression she feels after she has an abortion is very well rendered, as is the bleak despair she feels in Azkaban and the numbness she feels when she is released. The depictions of Azkaban in particular were very well done. It's not this place of torture but rather a place of utter boredom, of utter stasis, of waiting around for nothing.
2. Harry is also well characterized in the fic. The author very cleverly sets it at the end of book five when Harry is so messed up. He's angry, and he's grieving, and he lashes out at everyone, even his friends. In this story, you take that Harry and thrust him into the Order, give him a purpose to channel that rage into; then add the magical caveat that he literally cannot speak about Order business to Hermione and Ron who have not been inducted, and watch the Trio fall apart. Harry literally has nothing to talk to them about because he is so consumed with the war. There's one moment in the story that hurts to read, when Harry seems to be acting out of character. He believes that Hermione has aborted his baby (it's not his baby), a baby that Dumbledore has assured him is going to be instrumental in defeating Voldemort, and he is so cruel to her. In the instant that you read what he says to her, Harry seems so out of character. But![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
crazydiamondsue and I have decided that he's really not. This Harry is messed up. He's just lost his last link to his family in Sirius (cause the abusive Dursleys don't count). He assumes he will never have biological children because he's with Snape, and it makes sense (for his character) seen in that light that he just loses it with Hermione.
3. Harry's relationship with Snape is very interesting in that it is largely ambiguous, and we don't know much about it because Hermione doesn't know much about it. She isn't going to ask, and Harry isn't going to tell. That feels very real to me, the way we don't really know about the relationships around us except in little slices, except in what's made public, except in what we're allowed to see.
4. The wizarding laws about reproduction in this fic complicate an idea that shows up in fic all the time--that because the wizarding community is so small, every magical child is precious and a gift and a joy for the community. In this fic, abortion is illegal for all underaged witches and in all cases of magical babies regardless of the age of the mother. Women pregnant with Squibs can petition the Wizengamot for permission to abort (which may or may not be granted). To paraphrase Sue, here you have Hermione who's decided not to have the baby of this guy she doesn't know which is really the best decision for her, and then she gets thrown into Azkaban for it and shunned by most of the people she knows when she's released.
5. Another issue this fic tackles is that of pureblood privilege. The story suggests that the threat to the world, Wizarding or otherwise, is not just that madmen like Voldemort want to kill the Muggles and seize power. The threat is much more subtle and insidious than that. It's Dumbledore casually remarking to Hermione that he has to tell her the most important thing he's told her since she "became one of us," as if the fact that she's human and has been all her life doesn't make her "one of us," as if wizards are superior to Muggles. It's the Weasley family, which remains pureblood throughout generations; while they clearly don't want to kill all the Muggles, keeping their bloodlines pure is one of their values or they wouldn't have done so for so long. It's the systematic eradication of all that is Muggle from the lives of Muggle-born and half-blood witches and wizards, which brings me to point 6.
6. The complete divorce between the Muggle and wizarding worlds is beyond ludicrous. So a kid spends eleven years in what Lorraine likes to think of as the real world, visits this real world every summer for seven years, and then goes forward to a life which is partly spent in the real world (if only to visit family and friends), and yet this kid decides that dressing like Fantasia and eschewing technology is clearly the way to go. WTF?! LOL There's a line in this fic where Hestia is all, "The Ministry has got Arthur Weasley in charge of the Misuse of Muggle artifacts, and after thirty years, he still can't pronounce electricity!" There's something really, really bizarre about the insularity of the Wizarding world that has nothing to do with the statute of secrecy. I mean, you can't tell me that waistcoats and jackets with eleventy million buttons are preferable to microfiber and zippers and denim and velcro. I simply cannot believe the average wizard doesn't know that people are starving in Africa, that the U.S. is at war with Iraq, that airplanes fly through the sky. Crazy. And the whole wizarding supremacy thing is a load of bullshit; clearly Muggles are better. They're curing diseases only with the power of their minds and their hard work and their sheer intelligence. When they build tables, they do it with their hands and their rulers and their sweat and their TIME, and how much more does that mean than transfiguring something into a table with a flick of the wand?
7. I like the portrayal of Dumbledore in this story. He's not evil, but he's way too interested in the Dark, way too calculating and willing to see people as weapons, way too willing to make sacrifices that truly aren't his to make. At the end, he's atonished by the world he's wrought with his machinations.
8. And finally, the title is awesome. It's about Harry and his relationship with Snape and the way that Snape struggles with moving from the teacher role to that of lover. It's about Hermione and her struggle over whether or not to become a mother. It's about Dumbledore assuming that he has the right to decide the fate of Hermione's baby and even of Harry and Snape. It's about Hogwarts and the way it takes Muggle-born children and brainwashes every single bit of the real world out of them. And it's about the wizarding world at large and the way it assumes it knows what's best for the rest of the world without knowing anything about the rest of the world at all. OMG, I have writer's orgasm from how many layers that title contains.
So, that got long.
(I personally think that reading the story without being warned makes the story more effective, so if you know you don't have any triggers, I'd recommend reading without being spoiled because I'm totally spoiling for absolutely everyting under the cut)
Wow. Just wow. This story has taken over my brain. I think it is so clever and so well written. I am in awe.
First off, warnings: this fic deals with abortion, detailed descriptions of unjust imprisonment, partner betrayal, and a student-teacher relationship that is technically unethical and possibly underage depending on where you live and your perspective on such matters
This fic is written from Hermione's perspective and is based on the premise that Harry is the one kept in the loop after Sirius dies at the end of the fifth book, and Ron and Hermione are on the outside for the whole summer knowing absolutely nothing. The fic begins when they all come back to school and charts changes in their relationships with each other as well as massive changes in the wizarding world. I doubt I can turn this into a coherent essay, so numbered list!
1. Hermione was brilliantly characterized throughout the whole fic. I completely buy that she fools around with some dude she doesn't know on her "Muggle summer vacation" just because she wants to feel something other than afraid and like too much is being asked of her. I completely buy that she and Harry fall into this weird relationship that is more about the physical than anything else because they have lost everything else that's between them. The depression she feels after she has an abortion is very well rendered, as is the bleak despair she feels in Azkaban and the numbness she feels when she is released. The depictions of Azkaban in particular were very well done. It's not this place of torture but rather a place of utter boredom, of utter stasis, of waiting around for nothing.
2. Harry is also well characterized in the fic. The author very cleverly sets it at the end of book five when Harry is so messed up. He's angry, and he's grieving, and he lashes out at everyone, even his friends. In this story, you take that Harry and thrust him into the Order, give him a purpose to channel that rage into; then add the magical caveat that he literally cannot speak about Order business to Hermione and Ron who have not been inducted, and watch the Trio fall apart. Harry literally has nothing to talk to them about because he is so consumed with the war. There's one moment in the story that hurts to read, when Harry seems to be acting out of character. He believes that Hermione has aborted his baby (it's not his baby), a baby that Dumbledore has assured him is going to be instrumental in defeating Voldemort, and he is so cruel to her. In the instant that you read what he says to her, Harry seems so out of character. But
crazydiamondsue and I have decided that he's really not. This Harry is messed up. He's just lost his last link to his family in Sirius (cause the abusive Dursleys don't count). He assumes he will never have biological children because he's with Snape, and it makes sense (for his character) seen in that light that he just loses it with Hermione.3. Harry's relationship with Snape is very interesting in that it is largely ambiguous, and we don't know much about it because Hermione doesn't know much about it. She isn't going to ask, and Harry isn't going to tell. That feels very real to me, the way we don't really know about the relationships around us except in little slices, except in what's made public, except in what we're allowed to see.
4. The wizarding laws about reproduction in this fic complicate an idea that shows up in fic all the time--that because the wizarding community is so small, every magical child is precious and a gift and a joy for the community. In this fic, abortion is illegal for all underaged witches and in all cases of magical babies regardless of the age of the mother. Women pregnant with Squibs can petition the Wizengamot for permission to abort (which may or may not be granted). To paraphrase Sue, here you have Hermione who's decided not to have the baby of this guy she doesn't know which is really the best decision for her, and then she gets thrown into Azkaban for it and shunned by most of the people she knows when she's released.
5. Another issue this fic tackles is that of pureblood privilege. The story suggests that the threat to the world, Wizarding or otherwise, is not just that madmen like Voldemort want to kill the Muggles and seize power. The threat is much more subtle and insidious than that. It's Dumbledore casually remarking to Hermione that he has to tell her the most important thing he's told her since she "became one of us," as if the fact that she's human and has been all her life doesn't make her "one of us," as if wizards are superior to Muggles. It's the Weasley family, which remains pureblood throughout generations; while they clearly don't want to kill all the Muggles, keeping their bloodlines pure is one of their values or they wouldn't have done so for so long. It's the systematic eradication of all that is Muggle from the lives of Muggle-born and half-blood witches and wizards, which brings me to point 6.
6. The complete divorce between the Muggle and wizarding worlds is beyond ludicrous. So a kid spends eleven years in what Lorraine likes to think of as the real world, visits this real world every summer for seven years, and then goes forward to a life which is partly spent in the real world (if only to visit family and friends), and yet this kid decides that dressing like Fantasia and eschewing technology is clearly the way to go. WTF?! LOL There's a line in this fic where Hestia is all, "The Ministry has got Arthur Weasley in charge of the Misuse of Muggle artifacts, and after thirty years, he still can't pronounce electricity!" There's something really, really bizarre about the insularity of the Wizarding world that has nothing to do with the statute of secrecy. I mean, you can't tell me that waistcoats and jackets with eleventy million buttons are preferable to microfiber and zippers and denim and velcro. I simply cannot believe the average wizard doesn't know that people are starving in Africa, that the U.S. is at war with Iraq, that airplanes fly through the sky. Crazy. And the whole wizarding supremacy thing is a load of bullshit; clearly Muggles are better. They're curing diseases only with the power of their minds and their hard work and their sheer intelligence. When they build tables, they do it with their hands and their rulers and their sweat and their TIME, and how much more does that mean than transfiguring something into a table with a flick of the wand?
7. I like the portrayal of Dumbledore in this story. He's not evil, but he's way too interested in the Dark, way too calculating and willing to see people as weapons, way too willing to make sacrifices that truly aren't his to make. At the end, he's atonished by the world he's wrought with his machinations.
8. And finally, the title is awesome. It's about Harry and his relationship with Snape and the way that Snape struggles with moving from the teacher role to that of lover. It's about Hermione and her struggle over whether or not to become a mother. It's about Dumbledore assuming that he has the right to decide the fate of Hermione's baby and even of Harry and Snape. It's about Hogwarts and the way it takes Muggle-born children and brainwashes every single bit of the real world out of them. And it's about the wizarding world at large and the way it assumes it knows what's best for the rest of the world without knowing anything about the rest of the world at all. OMG, I have writer's orgasm from how many layers that title contains.
So, that got long.
