This fic is freakin' amazing, i love it. this version of Hermione is so different and completely believable because it actually deals with the emotions post war. i commend you. its awesome and i love it.

This fic is amazing. i love it, Hermione is the ultimate Gryffindor. hardened by war but feircly protective of her family. if only more authors could see this version of her and expand on it. but daaaamn that was so cool, when i figured out what she was doing to Ginny i had the most manical smile on my face. amazing.

I honestly adore this fic, it was amazing and i am so impressed with the way you wrote it and the understanding behind it. you rock.

Holy shit how have I never read this story before? It seriously gave me shivers. But I definitely can see it, somehow. Eeks.

This fic was excellent! I would love to see more from this universe. Perhaps a small glimpse a few years down the road? I think you definitely succeeded in creating a "dark Hermione" within cannon limits. Great job! I look forward to seeing more from you.

This is a good story.

I agree it is able to happen canon-wise. I like that you did not have her use some insane super-powered spell that has no similarity to anything read about. It could still work within the story well. Hermione's personality, besides being more cruel, also stays wihtin what she is capeable of doing.

Your essay at the end actually gets at something else which I've been thinking about, most authors who write a "Dark!Char" fic have no clue what it means for something to be 'Dark'.

A solid majority of them are simply based around a Harry who realizes ends are more important than means. But in a very crude way, negative means just involves a willingness to use any tool to kill enemies.

Humans have a deep in built willingness to kill to protect the clan. Displaying this willingness does not lead to disapproval.

The other aspect of dark is what you mentioned, blood magic, torture, necromancy, etc. Magics which do to their nature seem questionable.

The thing is actual evil almost never exists. People act according to motives, and what makes someone evil is not the means they use to pursue their aims, but what those aims are in the first place.

Being willing to do absolutely anything for the correct aims is not actually dark. Dark is acting towards the wrong aims.

This is why its necessary in the Dumble bashing fan fic to make it clear that Dumbledore is incompetent. Because if his treatment of Harry actually was the most effective way to fight Voldemort then the actual question comes up.

Torturing the children of your dead allies is far more distasteful than killing your enemies. It, unlike the avada kedavra curse, is something we instinctively see as dark. There would be cognitive dissonance if this dark behavior actually worked, so it is always portrayed in fan fic as a stupid idea.

Which makes sense of course, because it actually *is* a stupid idea.

I loved this. The wickedly, coldly, frightening Hermione is always a character I love and this was fantastic.

this is amazingly magnificent, using crookshanks to intrduce the story was a good start and then hermione's speech to ginny was absolutely brilliant, i would feel sorry for ginny but since she was never, in my mind, more than a cardboard cut out, a stereotype, rather than a true character the way hermione was i find it rather hard to be sympathetic though this was quite extreme and i think perfectly in character

thank you for sharing it

I agree that canon-Hermione has it in her to be this nasty (which makes her *very* different from Snape, but not from Dumbledore or Voldemrt or Bellatrix), but I'm afraid I found the story tediously long.

I love, love, love this Hermione. Part of my problem with her portrayal in fandom is that she's regaled to an intelligent, blubbering, screeching little girl. Her spell on the list of D.A. names alone shows her calculation, foresight, and viciousness. I especially loved how you portrayed her relationship to Harry, as I, too have always seen her as the primary mother-figure in his life

I have to say though, I stopped and restarted this story many times. I am a firm, firm Ginny fan, in that I always saw her as Harry's perfect match - I know many people saw them as thrown together in HBP, but I had been expecting their eventual pairing since he rescued her in the Chamber - I'd always seen her as someone who was created wholecloth to be Harry's perfect girl.

One of those attributes is the Weasley's total dedication to family. It was always my impression that their struggles with Percy were less political differences, and more their incomprehension at his ability to throw the family away for his personal gain. I simply CAN NOT accept that Ginny, having been raised with such values, would do something so stonehearted as to abandon her husband and children.

Such an act is... unthinkable, the height of selfishness, and I can't be certain I wouldn't do the same thing as Hermione if one of my sister-in-laws did that to one of my brothers... or if one of my brothers did that to one of my sister-in-laws. I don't have her... deviousness, I would never have been able to come up with the idea myself, or create the spells necessary, but if such abilities existed and I knew about them...

The only way I was able to get through the story was to console myself that Hermione's invented excuse for Ginny's break be correct - that such seeds of selfishness and inhumanity WERE planted in her tender, eleven year old mind by a sociopathic psycho.

In the end I'm leaving this with very mixed feelings.

This was wonderful! I loved the concept and got goosebumps when I realized what Hermione was condemning Ginny to a life of. I agree that Hermione's love for Harry and knowledge makes this fic very plausible. Thanks for the great read!

I can't even comment in the sheer level of fail of this. Just another shitty Hermione fangirl story to the trash

This. Is. AWESOME! Oh my God! I love it! I got chills reading this! Your take on Hermione and her potential as one of the most dangerous and vicious characters in this series was awe inspiring! Thank-you so much for this!

(sorry I am not signed in, just realized it. Oops!)

Brilliant story! Thanks for explaining so much in the author's notes as well.