Title: Hunting the Grim
Author: Sophprosyne
Rating: T
Genre: Tragedy/Drama
Status: Complete
Library Category: The Dark Arts
Pairings: N/A
Summary: Betrayal and isolation are a disquieting combination. Forced to accept life altering truths about Sirius Black, Harry must fulfil his potential in order to right an injustice over a decade old. PoA.
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12495358/1/Hunting-the-Grim

So, to put it simply, this is a classic revenge story. Harry thinks that Sirius Black might be gunning for him, and decides to start flexing his magical muscles so that he might have a fair chance. And then he finds out the 'truth' about Sirius, and, with his new found skill with combative magic, his objectives shift from self defence to revenge.

I think that the writing is great, I was hooked from the first chapter and I didn't notice any glaring errors, or any errors at all really. The story is relatively short as these things go, but it's punchy. There aren't any wasted words to be found.

I think that Harry is characterised very well, and I quite like the friendship he develops with Cedric. I enjoyed the depiction of magical combat and theory it felt very real and vivid, but the author didn't get bogged down with the details.

I won't spoil the ending, but all I'll say is that it's a tragedy in every sense of the word.

5/5.

 

One of the best fics of 2017. It does what it says on the tin. And very well at that.

Only gripe is that while there's an emotional payoff by the end, it wasn't satisfying enough. It felt like the first arc of a larger story, as if things came to a halt right as they were picking up.

We see the beginnings of an avalanche ... but where's all the destruction?

3.5/5, but rounded up for being a cocktease

 

This very much deserves to be in the library.

A character driven fic, with the highlights being Harry, Hermione, Cedric and Lupin.

Harry is much more mature and immature at the same time. It brings to mind canon post-fourth year Harry. It's much better seeing this canon version of Hermione, with her role in keeping the trio in sync.

The only complaint I can have is of Ron, he has a teaspoon's worth of character building here.

The tragedy is fairly predictable, but like the previous poster said, there is much payoff left on the table.

4.5/5

 

I liked this well enough. The writing is such a simple thing, not trying for anything extravagant nor purple in a way that makes the fic very readable at quite the pace. That came in handy around, say, chapter 3, that in my opinion could have been skipped altogether. Perhaps not the exact chapter but I do feel the whole thing would have carried more of the punch had it been some 10-20k words shorter, and I think the fic wouldn't lose much with proper trimming.

The tragedy is fairly predictable but there's this delightful

Spoiler

Your father would've been ashamed of you

that made me glad I came to the end without skipping but rather through build-up. However, most of the build up, and here I mean training, seems to be there just to have suspension of disbelief applicable in the last chapter.

I do feel like the training itself is a secondary to characterisation so that kind of takes care of that particular problem. I liked Harry and Cedric the most, I think, with the rest being somewhat more of a supporting cast as to not make fic too white in sense of too empty castle with too little characters appearing.

There's no real conclusion to this, however, because this is a fan fiction, and we, readers, are aware of the truths that Harry never finds out in this so were we not aware, the whole thing would have been pointless, and those particular truths are all that made possible for this fic to happen. I'm not sure how I feel with that being used as a fuel to the tragedy because it is tragedy only because of what we know that is never ever mentioned in this. I think that's why I'd liked this to be the shorter fic, because IMO it works much better in that case.

All in all, these are more personal little whinings so I won't take much from the fic because of it. 3.5/5, I think, and rounding up because I really missed this simple sort of writing. It's something that in my opinion so few authors realize nowadays that the best way to say something in 9 out of 10 cases is the simplest way to say it.

 

Not for me. As Villanelle said, it feels like barely the start of a story.
I get that not every story needs to be a 2M words mammoth but this one really doesn't seal the deal.
The ending should have been a lot more brutal. Everyone dies. Or something.

 

Spoiler

The story should have continued till Pettigrew's unmasking and the consequences of that. I really wanted to see the quote haphnepls picked out boomerang on him. Given the author's other story, I'd expect Fleur and the tournament to reduce the angst such a direction would require.

 

I enjoyed this story for the most part. The writing is solid, there are some definite themes the author is working with and the plot and characters are well thought out. The only real complaint I have is that it offers several motifs in a subtle way, most of which have no real resolution.

Spoiler: Spoilers

There's Harry's pursuit of the dark arts which instead of getting any conclusion/aftermath/regret (like On the Way to Greatness) Harry just sort of shirks it off at the end, saying he won't do it anymore. There's stuff about Lupin and his character that we never see resolved. Of course Harry himself never discovers the tragedy of Sirius - the author seems to expect that we do because of our knowledge but I can't help but feel like him realizing what he's truly done would have made the tragedy at the end all the more profound.

Overall I will echo other reviews that it feels incomplete, like all these motifs deserve to be finished in a future story but they never will be, which leaves the ending feeling slightly hollow. That being said it is highly readable, and packs in a surprising amount of punch and weight given its length.

4/5

 

That the story ended without Harry being confronted with the realities of the climax was a bigger negative for me than it seems to have been for everyone else. It's a shame, because I enjoyed everything else about it, but 3/5.

 

Didnt much care for this one. The idea is great, but the execution less so.
We have four chapters of a sort of third year indy!Harry divergence, before a pretty abrupt and very telly ending. Much of the conclusion depends on Sirius having gone mad, itself a divergence from canon. The emotional aftermath with Hermione is basically just told to us directly,.
And of course, the most interesting part of the story never happens, how Harry deals with having killed an innocent man.
2/5