Hermione's Talent
by hotttopicgirl is a Harry Potter fanfic in which, according to the summary, Hermione demonstrates her titular talent of singing (!) to prove that Muggles can be just as good as wizards. Then the angst lands.
Hermione's Talent contains examples of:
- Aborted Arc: Most of the subplots about Hermione's love life are quickly dropped in favor of Hermione singing anachronistic songs until something else happens.
- Absent Animal Companion: Draco buys Hermione a kitten named Merlin to replace Crookshanks, but he only appears in the scene where he's introduced.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Ron is a cheating bastard who later gets killed by a Death Eater.
- Adaptational Villainy:
- Lavender Brown of all people becomes a Death Eater. Needless to say, Book!Lavender showed no such inclination.
- The Death Eaters themselves are subjected to this, since apparently they're all serial rapists. Dolohov demonstrates this when he appears, then Draco reveals in an ALLCAPS rant in part two that they had massive rape parties at Malfoy Manor.
- Anachronism Stew: None of the songs that Hermione sings had been released when she was at Hogwarts. Also, the war is over but Dumbledore is somehow alive.
- Beige Prose: The entire fic consists of dialogue, internal monologue and copy-pasted song lyrics, with no actual descriptions of anything or anyone.
- Contemplate Our Navels: Hermione is often lost in thought while she's singing.
- Crapsaccharine World: At first glance, it looks like a cute fluffy fic in which Hermione sings the author's favourite songs to her classmates and teachers. It isn't.
- Creator's Culture Carryover: Even aside from the anachronisms, a lot of the musical choices are not well known in the UK. To say nothing of how the characters talk.
- Cuteness Proximity: Hermione, when faced with Merlin the kitten, does a very good impersonation of the xkcd strip illustrating that page.
- Did Not Do the Bloody Research: The author doesn't seem to realise that "git" is a very mild insult in British English and contrasts sharply with the general tone of the rest of the dialogue.
- Drama Bomb: The plot consists entirely of standard-issue teen angst. Then Antonin Dolohov appears in the Forbidden Forest, kills Ron and rapes Hermione.
- Fantastic Racism: The original premise was of Hermione demonstrating that Muggles were just as good as wizards, but this got overshadowed very quickly.
- IKEA Erotica: When Draco and Hermione get back together at the end of part 2, they have what Draco tells us is the best sex ever. The description doesn't convey this.
- If I Can't Have You…: "If I can't have you, neither can that ferret," Ron to Hermione.
- Lampshade Hanging: Neville notes that people in-universe are surprised by him rapping."Wow when I first got up on the stage and started rapping, everyone was like what the hell he can rap. Who would've known. It was so funny to see their faces."
- No Indoor Voice: Hermione, Ron and Lavender have entire conversations in ALLCAPS.
- Obligatory Swearing: Hermione, who doesn't say anything stronger than "arse" in canon, is now saying "fuck" every other sentence.
- Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Neville Longbottom performs BoB's rap from the song "Airplanes". The audience initially reacts by staring at him "like he had just sprout(sic) three heads", but they quickly warm up to his performance.
- Present-Day Past: Harry Potter is set in the 90s. All the songs Hermione sings were released in the late 2000s, a full decade after she would have graduated from Hogwarts.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Now the Death Eaters were definitely not the most pleasant folks in canon, what with the Nazi allegory and the like. Still, they weren't, y'know, rapists!
- Rouge Angles of Satin: Constantly. Most notably, the official title is actually "Hemione's Talent".
- Slut-Shaming: Hermione tells Lavender that she's worse than Ron, even though he's the one who cheated on her, because she's a "slut".
- Soundtrack Dissonance: None of the songs are a particularly good fit for anything to do with Harry Potter.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Harry and Ginny don't think it's unusual that Hermione is dating Draco.
- What Happened to the Mouse?:
- Lavender becomes a Death Eater but then disappears from the story.
- The Death Eater Dolohov vanishes after Draco punches him.
- Merlin the kitten only appears in the scene where he's initially given to Hermione.
