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Draco Trilogy #1
Draco Dormiens
Draco Dormiens - Draco Dormiens is the first installment of The Draco Trilogy by Cassandra Claire. Since it was written before Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and set after it, it is now an alternate universe fic. It was very influential in the early days of the fandom, but became controversial when it was found that parts of it were plagiarized.
It was followed by Draco Sinister and Draco Veritas. Cassandra Claire removed the whole series from the Internet after she became a published author.
http://broomcupboard.net/fanfiction/D...
It was followed by Draco Sinister and Draco Veritas. Cassandra Claire removed the whole series from the Internet after she became a published author.
http://broomcupboard.net/fanfiction/D...
281 pages, ebook
First published August 1, 2000
34 people are currently reading
1097 people want to read
About the author
Cassandra Claire
11 books266 followersCassie Claire was a profilic fanfic author in Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings fandoms in early to mid-2000s. Her work is now traditionally published under the pseudonym Cassandra Clare
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 91 reviews
June 11, 2014
This is it. The source of TMI and Cassandra Clare's career. Don't mind the fact that the contents of the book are heavily lifted from other sources. After all it's not like this word was heavily reused...never mind it was.
May 19, 2016
Pre-review October 30, 2014
Because nothing says Halloween like reading one of the most controversial fanfics of all time. I'm shivering with fear (and doubt).
Ms Clare, it seems that I have used up all my contempt and angry tears on the 'original' 'trilogy' that is now known as TMI – seeing as no book has provoked similar reaction since – so please make me laugh this time around. Please.
November 2nd, 2014 –
Nice review
Well... I guess it wasn't exactly my cup of tea =) But... everybody likes different things and I'm totally cool with that. Maybe I just didn't understand it? Uhh.
Honest review
Disclaimer for "honest review": I did not like Draco Dormiens and express my dislike of it...with insensitivity I'd normally regret. Despite my scorn, the intent of this review is not to cause hurt or to imply that I'm somehow superior to other people. Far from that! However, if you are the type of a person who takes offense easily, please do not read forward.
The quotes included are from the PDF version I read, titles for them (if they exist) are by me.
*****
What - the - actual - fuck - was - I - thinking? (Spoiler alert: I probably wasn't.) Also, the "nice review" contains a lie. I'm not sure if I can take seriously anybody who honestly thinks this piece of fanfiction is great (as in, of high quality / good) or who enjoyed reading it as something other than brain-fogging trash. But then again, I actually attempted to read it myself, so if somebody else does the same... maybe it's true that it's not exactly my place to scold them for it.
This "book" is so terrible that it puts City of Bones to shame. City of Bones I could actually finish – it was a painful experience in a way that's at least half funny, AND it contains a quote that describes said experience perfectly ("If you were half as funny as you think you are, you'd be twice as funny as you are now"). This one I simply cannot, because as each word registered in my brain I almost felt it burning like acid, and I respect J.K. Rowling enough to not purposefully taint my memories of her world and characters by reading awful fanfiction – especially as there actually *is* some high-quality HP fanfiction out there. Plus, I don't dare to read any further because then I may have to give up on my hope that every single character is brutally murdered by the end of chapter four.
I understand that the story is about as unedited as they come. Still, in the 25 pages I managed to survive, several questions had more than enough time to arise. Here are some examples:
◆ Did she not use a beta? Everybody who has read TMI with at least one eye open knows that it's not a literary masterpiece with all the nonsensical similes, long-winded sentences, overt reliance on vicious element of deus ex machina, abhorrent pacing, lack of coherent characterization, and... what have you. The Drago Trilogy contains all of the same issues but it's considerably longer*, and it contains misspellt words and grammatical errors enough to make a non-native Englishspeaker reader wince.
◆ Was she new to using a keyboard? Well, what can I say. It damn well looks like it when you can't tell the difference between ' (or ’) and ´. Seriously – and this is to everybody who writes something on the Internet – learn the difference. Please.
◆ Did she read the HP series? Also known as "why don't I remember this thing/rule/character". Here's the setup and an example of how her Harry acts (page 5):
(Okay, did she understand any of it? It sure doesn't bode well with my understanding or even what I'd call a respectfully altered version of it...)
◆ How much can a woman hate other women? This is her Hermione (page 10):
It's also a brilliant example of too damned long sentence, if you ask me. And yes, the quotation marks are indeed different in that one paragraph.
But wait, there's more! Always so much more! Draco turns into a human being (on page 16) when he's learnt that Hermione feels sorry for him!
And I'm getting tired, so let's just end this would-be review with a conclusion. The important questions are the broad ones, like "Whaaat?!," "Whyyyyyyy ;__;" and "Just how is this possible?"
I'm not sure if I want to live in a world where something like this has been hugely popular.
* The PDF file I have is 207 pages long, Draco Sinister 997, and Draco Veritas comes close to being astonishing 1700. I quit reading the first installment halfway through page 25, and what I read was 25,5 pages too much.
** Okay, have some fun! "Because Rowling didn't highlight the dumbness and simplicity of evil enough, Part I: Where Draco Tries to Act Harry", by Cassie Claire (page 12):
And "Part II: Death Eater Insights" (page 21–22, interjections and irrelevant branches of dialogue removed):
Anyway, I'm obviously not continuing with this trilogy. I also don't plan on reading the original Ron/Ginny fic titled "Mortal Instruments" and... I'm not so sure anymore whether or not I want to continue with the TID trilogy either. Maybe I was just so desperate to read a good book that CA didn't kill me further back in the day.
Because nothing says Halloween like reading one of the most controversial fanfics of all time. I'm shivering with fear (and doubt).
Ms Clare, it seems that I have used up all my contempt and angry tears on the 'original' 'trilogy' that is now known as TMI – seeing as no book has provoked similar reaction since – so please make me laugh this time around. Please.
November 2nd, 2014 –
Nice review
Well... I guess it wasn't exactly my cup of tea =) But... everybody likes different things and I'm totally cool with that. Maybe I just didn't understand it? Uhh.
Honest review
Disclaimer for "honest review": I did not like Draco Dormiens and express my dislike of it...with insensitivity I'd normally regret. Despite my scorn, the intent of this review is not to cause hurt or to imply that I'm somehow superior to other people. Far from that! However, if you are the type of a person who takes offense easily, please do not read forward.
The quotes included are from the PDF version I read, titles for them (if they exist) are by me.
*****
What - the - actual - fuck - was - I - thinking? (Spoiler alert: I probably wasn't.) Also, the "nice review" contains a lie. I'm not sure if I can take seriously anybody who honestly thinks this piece of fanfiction is great (as in, of high quality / good) or who enjoyed reading it as something other than brain-fogging trash. But then again, I actually attempted to read it myself, so if somebody else does the same... maybe it's true that it's not exactly my place to scold them for it.
This "book" is so terrible that it puts City of Bones to shame. City of Bones I could actually finish – it was a painful experience in a way that's at least half funny, AND it contains a quote that describes said experience perfectly ("If you were half as funny as you think you are, you'd be twice as funny as you are now"). This one I simply cannot, because as each word registered in my brain I almost felt it burning like acid, and I respect J.K. Rowling enough to not purposefully taint my memories of her world and characters by reading awful fanfiction – especially as there actually *is* some high-quality HP fanfiction out there. Plus, I don't dare to read any further because then I may have to give up on my hope that every single character is brutally murdered by the end of chapter four.
I understand that the story is about as unedited as they come. Still, in the 25 pages I managed to survive, several questions had more than enough time to arise. Here are some examples:
◆ Did she not use a beta? Everybody who has read TMI with at least one eye open knows that it's not a literary masterpiece with all the nonsensical similes, long-winded sentences, overt reliance on vicious element of deus ex machina, abhorrent pacing, lack of coherent characterization, and... what have you. The Drago Trilogy contains all of the same issues but it's considerably longer*, and it contains misspellt words and grammatical errors enough to make a non-native English
◆ Was she new to using a keyboard? Well, what can I say. It damn well looks like it when you can't tell the difference between ' (or ’) and ´. Seriously – and this is to everybody who writes something on the Internet – learn the difference. Please.
◆ Did she read the HP series? Also known as "why don't I remember this thing/rule/character". Here's the setup and an example of how her Harry acts (page 5):
"How -- how long´s it been?"(See? I resisted the urge to make it more aesthetically pleasing for you.) Ahem.. yes. Charming, Potter boy. Seems like I'm not the only reader who found him rather annoying – but (1) one would've thought Harry's had enough of Muggle fights to not start them himself, (2) Malfoy has a ROLEX? Suppose this is what makes him so appeal to Muggle women... (3) WTF is up with that Polyjuice Potion? This seems like the only question we should be asking, so let's just move forward!
"Forty-five minutes," said Draco, consulting his Rolex. "We ought to have changed back by now."
"Well, what´s going on?"
Malfoy shook his head, an odd little smile on his face. "I wish I knew," he said.
Harry´s heart began to pound loudly. "Did you do something to the Potion?" he hissed. "Malfoy-"
"Of course not, Potter," said Malfoy with contempt, "d´you really think I want-"
But Harry wasn´t listening. He grabbed a hold of Draco´s robe and yanked him forward. "Turn me back!" he hissed violently. "Do it now, or I´ll break your face!"
(Okay, did she understand any of it? It sure doesn't bode well with my understanding or even what I'd call a respectfully altered version of it...)
◆ How much can a woman hate other women? This is her Hermione (page 10):
Hermione sat for a long time in front of her mirror that night, one elbow on her tattered copy of "Affirmations for Witches Who Do Too Much" and the other on equally tattered copy "Witches Who Love Wizards and the Wizards Who Don't Notice." She sighed; it wasn't exactly true anymore that Harry didn't notice she loved him, she'd told him so last month, when she couldn't stand it any more, and he'd been very nice about it, but very clear.Apparently not even Clare could turn Hermione into an isabelle, so she must be a pitiful, weak, lovesick doormat (who, on top of everything else, ruins books). Because how COULD there be a strong, smart, independent and compassionate female character in the CC-verse?
He didn't love her.
It's also a brilliant example of too damned long sentence, if you ask me. And yes, the quotation marks are indeed different in that one paragraph.
But wait, there's more! Always so much more! Draco turns into a human being (on page 16) when he's learnt that Hermione feels sorry for him!
Hermione dissolved into giggles. Draco looked over at her, and, without even pausing to ask himself what on earth he was doing, drobbed his Firebolt and his Quidditch robes, grabbed Hermione, and kissed her.◆ What was she THINKING? All put together, the story makes absolutely no sense. Not only are the characters one-dimensional, dumb, and distractingly different from the original (and trust me, I'm not opposed to fans developing their own versions of existing characters), but Hogwarts is not what it used to be. Every detail of Rowling's world is slaving away in service of poor humor not much different from that of the worst American comedies.** Which, by the way, mostly utilizes the technology that's generally associated with Muggle world (for example, atom bombs and mailing lists).
For a moment, she melted into the kiss.
And I'm getting tired, so let's just end this would-be review with a conclusion. The important questions are the broad ones, like "Whaaat?!," "Whyyyyyyy ;__;" and "Just how is this possible?"
I'm not sure if I want to live in a world where something like this has been hugely popular.
* The PDF file I have is 207 pages long, Draco Sinister 997, and Draco Veritas comes close to being astonishing 1700. I quit reading the first installment halfway through page 25, and what I read was 25,5 pages too much.
** Okay, have some fun! "Because Rowling didn't highlight the dumbness and simplicity of evil enough, Part I: Where Draco Tries to Act Harry", by Cassie Claire (page 12):
"Goyle," he said, lowering his voice now so only the two of them could hear, "Did you know I could read minds?"Ah, my hero! *pretends to be dying of laughter because PINK UNDERWEAR and an IDIOT WANTING TO FEEL PRETTY* – have you ever heard of something more ridiculous?
Goyle stared at him blankly.
"It´s true," said Draco. "It´s the magical power of my scar," he added, wondering if even Goyle was dim enough to believe this malarky.
"I don´t believe you," he said slowly, but there was a fear in his small eyes.
"For instance, I could tell everyone that you sleep with your night light on, you wear your pink frilly underwear because it makes you feel pretty, and you´re secretly in love with Crabbe -- you´ve got a photo of him under your pillow."
Goyle let out a yell of horror, shoved the toad at Draco, and took off running. For such a big fellow, he moved pretty fast and was soon out of sight.
"Here you go, Longbottom," said Draco, thrusting Trevor at Neville, who looked at him gratefully.
And "Part II: Death Eater Insights" (page 21–22, interjections and irrelevant branches of dialogue removed):
"So, Lucius," he said. "I wanted to talk to you about the Plan. And about Harry Potter." –It goes on for another page or so, but maybe that's enough to give you a sense of how it is like. Am I wrong to assume that people who found TMI funny would also laugh at this? (Honest question!)
"You said you had bad news for me, McNair," he said. "Please tell me it´s not yet another harebrained scheme to kill off the Potter boy."
McNair toed the ground. "It´s a really good scheme this time, Lucius," he said. "It´s really evil and cunning."
"Indeed," snarled Lucius. "And you said the same about the scheme to kill off Harry by sending him a poisoned birthday present at his relatives´ house where, I might remind you, he is protected by Dumbledore´s Familius Charm. All that happened was that his cousin Dudley wound up eating the chocolates and vomited out the window on the Death Eaters who´d come to collect Harry´s body. Do you recall that, McNair? –"
Anyway, I'm obviously not continuing with this trilogy. I also don't plan on reading the original Ron/Ginny fic titled "Mortal Instruments" and... I'm not so sure anymore whether or not I want to continue with the TID trilogy either. Maybe I was just so desperate to read a good book that CA didn't kill me further back in the day.
September 26, 2017
My secret vice!
July 28, 2019
All I knew when I found this was that it was written by Cassandra Clare and if I'm honest that was all that mattered.
While I'm preparing myself to be unfriended and get rocks thrown at me its important to admit that I have only read 2 of the Harry Potter books and that was when they came out like 15 years ago....fuck I'm old.
Yeah...I know, I'l get to them I swear!!
So I can't really have an opinion about the difference in writing styles but I can say it was signature Cassandra and it was like a warm kiss to my heart!
Can any words express how much this woman and her work mean to me??? No, not really.
The plot was truly original and she kept the characters as they were, from their personalities and temperament and did a great job at maintaining this world as it is.
The little love triangle was a bit repetitive at times and I won't spoil it but I will say I am 100% TEAM DRACO - go get some baby boy!!
Moving on one of my favorite qualities here was that reading this at times felt like a test draft for the Infernal Devices and I loved it!
I can so totally see so many more aspects of the Harry Potter universe that inspired her for her own series and I think its one of the reasons she had these babies removed from the internet.
I already have the next two in my possession and will one thousand percent be reading them!!!!!
Die hard Cassandra Clare fans like me I believe will immensely enjoy it! Let me know if you need help finding it and most importantly tell me if you read it so we can talk about it!!!! :)
While I'm preparing myself to be unfriended and get rocks thrown at me its important to admit that I have only read 2 of the Harry Potter books and that was when they came out like 15 years ago....fuck I'm old.
Yeah...I know, I'l get to them I swear!!
So I can't really have an opinion about the difference in writing styles but I can say it was signature Cassandra and it was like a warm kiss to my heart!
Can any words express how much this woman and her work mean to me??? No, not really.
The plot was truly original and she kept the characters as they were, from their personalities and temperament and did a great job at maintaining this world as it is.
The little love triangle was a bit repetitive at times and I won't spoil it but I will say I am 100% TEAM DRACO - go get some baby boy!!
Moving on one of my favorite qualities here was that reading this at times felt like a test draft for the Infernal Devices and I loved it!
I can so totally see so many more aspects of the Harry Potter universe that inspired her for her own series and I think its one of the reasons she had these babies removed from the internet.
I already have the next two in my possession and will one thousand percent be reading them!!!!!
Die hard Cassandra Clare fans like me I believe will immensely enjoy it! Let me know if you need help finding it and most importantly tell me if you read it so we can talk about it!!!! :)
February 10, 2017
Best fanfiction I've ever read! Even with all the stolen quotes and plot points (who doesn't like Buffy though?) it was woven together so wonderfully and it, to this day, is still my all time favorite fanfiction (and the reason I can't bring myself to read the Mortal Instruments Series).
May 17, 2018
I've always been a huge fan of Draco Malfoy. And I felt so bad and sorry for him at times. I loved the relationship that Hermione and Draco had and the ending broke my heart..!
May 7, 2018
I just reread Draco Dormiens, the first novel in Cassandra Claire's Draco Trilogy. The works have been deleted by the author, but if you look for them it's easy to find PDF versions. If you look more deeply, you can also find well-formatted epubs to use with e-readers.
It's impossible to talk about these books without addressing the controversy surrounding them, but I'll do so at the end of my review. Let's talk about the story first.
As I remembered it, Draco Dormiens is an excellent fanfiction novel. It's not a long novel, at around 70.000 words, while the other two books in the trilogy are much longer.
It only follows canon up to Goblet of Fire, since it was written before Order of the Phoenix. The premise is this: During a Potions class, there's a weird accident with Polyjuice Potion and Harry and Draco become indefinitely bodyswapped. The need to keep this a secret, the even greater need to find an antidote and avoid a conspiration against Harry's life, and a love triangle where both Draco and Harry are interested in Hermione (no slash), power the plot of the novel.
The relatively short length suits Draco Dormiens. It's a YA romantic comedy and it's also an adventure novel, and the two things coexist together quite well. The plotting is tight and fast-paced and it never feels like fluff. I think this is an advantage, because even if you are not a great fan of YA romantic comedy you can enjoy this story.
At the time I originally read this, it made me look at the character of Draco Malfoy in a different way. Not that I thought a redemption arc for him was likely to happen in canon, but it made me think that it would be cool if it did. What's the fascination with Draco? Well, as depicted here he's sophisticated, snarky, fashion-conscious, strong, bright and sharp. A bad boy on the surface, with some seriously evil relatives, but not evil himself. Of course, canon did not go that way. Canon!Draco turned out to be pathetic rather than dashing. He fought on evil's side but turned out not to have the stomach for it, and ended up demoralized and happy just to survive. A more realistic Draco, I think, but probably not as attractive or interesting as the one in this fanfic.
As an adventure story it's good, and as romantic comedy it works too. It's a pleasant read, but I wouldn't have wanted canon to go that way. The price of having this fine romantic comedy is placing Draco, Harry and Hermione in the spotlight and leaving little room for other characters. A clear victim of this is Ron, but at least I liked that there was no Ron bashing. Ron may be under the spotlight less often than in canon, but when he is, he is quite cool too.
The characters were all a bit OOC, but not enough to make them feel like different people. Hermione tended to flirt more than in canon, but she was still Hermione. Draco was the most OOC, of course. It's an idealized Draco rather than the pathetic Draco in canon. Harry was also Harry and his always snarky relationship and gradual bonding with this version of Draco rang true. Among the secondary characters, I was surprised by how wise Sirius was. Not the grudge-holding, act-before-you-think Sirius from canon.
All in all, a very good read. Definitely of professional quality.
Now let's talk a bit about the controversy...
Some context: It's difficult to explain to those who were not there how huge the Draco trilogy was in the early 2000s. This and a very limited amount of other fandom works at that time opened people's eyes to the possibility that fanfiction could actually be very good, that in some senses it could be as good as canon.
I was disconnected from fandom for years, reading mainstream work, but when I came back I learned of the vicious controversy that these books had ended up originating within fandom. Probably you are aware of it, but if not here's an overview:
https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Draco_Tr...
https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Cassandr...
Make of that what you may. Reading the evidence, and as much as I admire her and am grateful to her for entertaining me for so many hours, there's no question that Cassandra Claire acted wrongly. I'm not sure whether it was a cunning plan to gain prestige and get a professional contract or whether it was just the naivety of early pioneers of fanfiction figuring out what was allowable and what wasn't... I mean, if fanfiction is not for profit and it is all about taking someone else's characters and world and using them to tell stories, is it so wrong to use snarky one-liners from other works and put them in your characters' mouths? But if you do that, is it so much wronger to use a few descriptive passages from other works? ... Slippery slope indeed! If you go that way, where does it end?
Still, even though she did wrong, I'm not quite ready to lynch her. Perhaps she was dishonest, but perhaps she was just a young but talented fan writer making mistakes while trying to get out the best fanfiction she could, or perhaps it was a combination of the two. In any case, I still have to respect the talent and the extenuating work of writing such fanfiction novels. I mean, I could steal quotes from Blackadder and Buffy and other places, and still I would not be able to put together a coherent and well-written novel. Writing is a lot of work, and writing well takes work and talent. If someone argues that this novel would be nothing without those quotes, I have to respectfully disagree. There's solid writing here, beyond the borrowed elements. On the other hand, those quotes made the characters funnier, so part of the admiration she was getting for her fanfiction should have gone to the real authors of those quotes.
So that's enough about the writer. I'm reading her fanfiction, after all, not marrying her. I understand if some people are turned off by this controversy, but I have always found it easy to separate the author's behavior from the quality of the story.
TLDR: I enjoyed this fanfiction a lot, despite the plagiarism controversy around it.
It's impossible to talk about these books without addressing the controversy surrounding them, but I'll do so at the end of my review. Let's talk about the story first.
As I remembered it, Draco Dormiens is an excellent fanfiction novel. It's not a long novel, at around 70.000 words, while the other two books in the trilogy are much longer.
It only follows canon up to Goblet of Fire, since it was written before Order of the Phoenix. The premise is this: During a Potions class, there's a weird accident with Polyjuice Potion and Harry and Draco become indefinitely bodyswapped. The need to keep this a secret, the even greater need to find an antidote and avoid a conspiration against Harry's life, and a love triangle where both Draco and Harry are interested in Hermione (no slash), power the plot of the novel.
The relatively short length suits Draco Dormiens. It's a YA romantic comedy and it's also an adventure novel, and the two things coexist together quite well. The plotting is tight and fast-paced and it never feels like fluff. I think this is an advantage, because even if you are not a great fan of YA romantic comedy you can enjoy this story.
At the time I originally read this, it made me look at the character of Draco Malfoy in a different way. Not that I thought a redemption arc for him was likely to happen in canon, but it made me think that it would be cool if it did. What's the fascination with Draco? Well, as depicted here he's sophisticated, snarky, fashion-conscious, strong, bright and sharp. A bad boy on the surface, with some seriously evil relatives, but not evil himself. Of course, canon did not go that way. Canon!Draco turned out to be pathetic rather than dashing. He fought on evil's side but turned out not to have the stomach for it, and ended up demoralized and happy just to survive. A more realistic Draco, I think, but probably not as attractive or interesting as the one in this fanfic.
As an adventure story it's good, and as romantic comedy it works too. It's a pleasant read, but I wouldn't have wanted canon to go that way. The price of having this fine romantic comedy is placing Draco, Harry and Hermione in the spotlight and leaving little room for other characters. A clear victim of this is Ron, but at least I liked that there was no Ron bashing. Ron may be under the spotlight less often than in canon, but when he is, he is quite cool too.
The characters were all a bit OOC, but not enough to make them feel like different people. Hermione tended to flirt more than in canon, but she was still Hermione. Draco was the most OOC, of course. It's an idealized Draco rather than the pathetic Draco in canon. Harry was also Harry and his always snarky relationship and gradual bonding with this version of Draco rang true. Among the secondary characters, I was surprised by how wise Sirius was. Not the grudge-holding, act-before-you-think Sirius from canon.
All in all, a very good read. Definitely of professional quality.
Now let's talk a bit about the controversy...
Some context: It's difficult to explain to those who were not there how huge the Draco trilogy was in the early 2000s. This and a very limited amount of other fandom works at that time opened people's eyes to the possibility that fanfiction could actually be very good, that in some senses it could be as good as canon.
I was disconnected from fandom for years, reading mainstream work, but when I came back I learned of the vicious controversy that these books had ended up originating within fandom. Probably you are aware of it, but if not here's an overview:
https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Draco_Tr...
https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Cassandr...
Make of that what you may. Reading the evidence, and as much as I admire her and am grateful to her for entertaining me for so many hours, there's no question that Cassandra Claire acted wrongly. I'm not sure whether it was a cunning plan to gain prestige and get a professional contract or whether it was just the naivety of early pioneers of fanfiction figuring out what was allowable and what wasn't... I mean, if fanfiction is not for profit and it is all about taking someone else's characters and world and using them to tell stories, is it so wrong to use snarky one-liners from other works and put them in your characters' mouths? But if you do that, is it so much wronger to use a few descriptive passages from other works? ... Slippery slope indeed! If you go that way, where does it end?
Still, even though she did wrong, I'm not quite ready to lynch her. Perhaps she was dishonest, but perhaps she was just a young but talented fan writer making mistakes while trying to get out the best fanfiction she could, or perhaps it was a combination of the two. In any case, I still have to respect the talent and the extenuating work of writing such fanfiction novels. I mean, I could steal quotes from Blackadder and Buffy and other places, and still I would not be able to put together a coherent and well-written novel. Writing is a lot of work, and writing well takes work and talent. If someone argues that this novel would be nothing without those quotes, I have to respectfully disagree. There's solid writing here, beyond the borrowed elements. On the other hand, those quotes made the characters funnier, so part of the admiration she was getting for her fanfiction should have gone to the real authors of those quotes.
So that's enough about the writer. I'm reading her fanfiction, after all, not marrying her. I understand if some people are turned off by this controversy, but I have always found it easy to separate the author's behavior from the quality of the story.
TLDR: I enjoyed this fanfiction a lot, despite the plagiarism controversy around it.
July 21, 2013
First of all, you must start reading it knowing that it is a fanfiction.
If you are well aware of this fact, then you really might enjoy this "book".
It was written by Cassandra Clare (author of The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices Series) after the release of the forth Harry Potter book. So everything that happened later, is not included (since Cassnadra Clare didn't even know it was going to happen). And obviously it was before Clare became a published author.
There were a few passages were I thought, if I were her editor I would have cut these or told her to rewrite it to make it a little bit more believable. I thnik a few "things" would just have needed more time to develope.
But this said, everything else was really good. It is fast paced (as I mentioned, this could count as something positive or negative, depending on the situation)and really inventive.
Now a little bit of the story:
As you may have guessed from the title, Draco plays a way bigger part in this fanfic as in the original books. Which doesn't mean, that Harry is neglected. Now include Hermione and you have the three main protagonists of this story.
At the beginning Draco and Harry are paired by Snape in class for an "experiment". They are studying Polyjuice Potion and to get the experience they are ordered to transform into the other for half an hour. Just that for some reasons the Polyjuice Potion doesn't wear off and noone (except these two themselves of course) realize it. So what will happen if Harry looks like Draco and Draco like Harry??
Nevertheless after reading it I got the feeling, that the first book was just written to set the setting of the following ones (that's only a guess, since I haven't read them yet...as for I know, the other two books could be seperate stories alltogether...which I don't hope lol).
If you are well aware of this fact, then you really might enjoy this "book".
It was written by Cassandra Clare (author of The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices Series) after the release of the forth Harry Potter book. So everything that happened later, is not included (since Cassnadra Clare didn't even know it was going to happen). And obviously it was before Clare became a published author.
There were a few passages were I thought, if I were her editor I would have cut these or told her to rewrite it to make it a little bit more believable. I thnik a few "things" would just have needed more time to develope.
But this said, everything else was really good. It is fast paced (as I mentioned, this could count as something positive or negative, depending on the situation)and really inventive.
Now a little bit of the story:
As you may have guessed from the title, Draco plays a way bigger part in this fanfic as in the original books. Which doesn't mean, that Harry is neglected. Now include Hermione and you have the three main protagonists of this story.
At the beginning Draco and Harry are paired by Snape in class for an "experiment". They are studying Polyjuice Potion and to get the experience they are ordered to transform into the other for half an hour. Just that for some reasons the Polyjuice Potion doesn't wear off and noone (except these two themselves of course) realize it. So what will happen if Harry looks like Draco and Draco like Harry??
Nevertheless after reading it I got the feeling, that the first book was just written to set the setting of the following ones (that's only a guess, since I haven't read them yet...as for I know, the other two books could be seperate stories alltogether...which I don't hope lol).
August 27, 2016
This review is also posted at https://cabezadecrecre.wordpress.com/...
Is this really what rose Claire to fame? If so, it at least makes me hopeful. Because I could definitely write something like this. If this is what it takes to become a National Bestselling author, I definitely will not be hanging up my hat anytime soon. It wasn’t even edited well. There were a lot of grammatical errors. Sometimes things as simple as punctuation were even messed up.
I have two main disappoints with this novel (apart from the editing business):
1) The dialogue. It was a mix of campy and corny for the most part. There were some great Fred and George lines that actually felt spot on characterization wise, but the rest was just bland. A few lines stood out in the story, but they were stolen from other pop culture media! I think that’s what upset me the most. The one or two lines I really liked, Claire didn’t even write!
2) The romance. The plot of Draco and Harry switching bodies due to a Polyjuice Potion that doesn’t wear off was kind of weak but at least a little interesting when events lead to the Malfoy Manor. But my God, the love triangle. I’m all for character redemption for Draco Malfoy, but this just happened to be wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am and it was done. His personalty changed with lightning speed, and Hermione was all up in his business. And just Hermione’s character in general in this story; no thank you. She goes from the rather independent, strong character Rowling built to this love obsessed teenager who can’t focus on anything but pining over Harry or Draco or both.
Claire had the potential for an interesting story, but everything just went sideways and the characters grew more and more unrealistic from what Rowling developed. I guess this is a good reminder, though, of why I don’t typically read fan fiction.
Is this really what rose Claire to fame? If so, it at least makes me hopeful. Because I could definitely write something like this. If this is what it takes to become a National Bestselling author, I definitely will not be hanging up my hat anytime soon. It wasn’t even edited well. There were a lot of grammatical errors. Sometimes things as simple as punctuation were even messed up.
I have two main disappoints with this novel (apart from the editing business):
1) The dialogue. It was a mix of campy and corny for the most part. There were some great Fred and George lines that actually felt spot on characterization wise, but the rest was just bland. A few lines stood out in the story, but they were stolen from other pop culture media! I think that’s what upset me the most. The one or two lines I really liked, Claire didn’t even write!
2) The romance. The plot of Draco and Harry switching bodies due to a Polyjuice Potion that doesn’t wear off was kind of weak but at least a little interesting when events lead to the Malfoy Manor. But my God, the love triangle. I’m all for character redemption for Draco Malfoy, but this just happened to be wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am and it was done. His personalty changed with lightning speed, and Hermione was all up in his business. And just Hermione’s character in general in this story; no thank you. She goes from the rather independent, strong character Rowling built to this love obsessed teenager who can’t focus on anything but pining over Harry or Draco or both.
Claire had the potential for an interesting story, but everything just went sideways and the characters grew more and more unrealistic from what Rowling developed. I guess this is a good reminder, though, of why I don’t typically read fan fiction.
January 23, 2023
Basically what happens in this fanfic, is that Draco and Harry both want Hermione, but, clearly Draco deserves her as Harry literally ignores and rejects her and most of the book Harry is being angry😠 and Draco is being all nice and romantic. Ron🥴 is literally irrelevant. The characters are way more funny than they are in the actual books.
Narcissus and Sirius are also in love🧐🤨 which is...slightly weird as they are cousins.
Narcissus and Sirius are also in love🧐🤨 which is...slightly weird as they are cousins.
March 8, 2015
I seriously hope that all those comments saying this is probably the best Harry Potter fanfiction on the Internet are not true, because I found this story awful. The characters are plain and uninteresting, and the only thing they seem to care about is love. In addition, they are the stereotipical characters found in every single book written by Cassandra Clare I have read: sarcastic. Seriously, can this woman create different kinds of characters at all? I doubt it. Also, the storyline seems unbeliavable to me and almost nothing is coherent with the real Harry Potter world.
To sum up, all that charm that can be found in the Harry Potter books is totally lost here. I even regret having read this fan fiction. I hope to find better fanfics in the future.
To sum up, all that charm that can be found in the Harry Potter books is totally lost here. I even regret having read this fan fiction. I hope to find better fanfics in the future.
July 25, 2022
Speed-read this on a whim. I avoid Harry Potter nowadays for obvious reasons but I can see why this was well loved. Its annoyingly long winded in parts so loses points for that. Im fairly certain Cassandra Claire invented Queer Baiting with how drarry-ish this is.
Between how fast I read it and the fact its fanfiction its a bit silly to count, but, nah, Im counting it anyways
Between how fast I read it and the fact its fanfiction its a bit silly to count, but, nah, Im counting it anyways
August 11, 2016
I actually read this trilogy while it was online, before Cassandra Claire became published. It was awesome fun. I will have to read it again.
August 27, 2015
This was what started my true love of novel-length fanfiction. Plagiarized or not, it blew my mind. I have never been so enthralled by anything I've read online. Fantastic!
December 30, 2020
This was an absolute laugh. Honestly. A light-hearted, fast read brimming with the lols. I don't know why a fanfiction counts as a book here on Goodreads but it helps my reading challenge, I suppose.
I was laughing every other page😂
If you didn't know, Cassandra Clare - before writing the oh-so-famous Shadowhunter Chronicles - actually wrote a prominent Harry Potter fanfiction called The Draco Trilogy. For all you readers lamenting the Hermione-Ron pairing, this provides an alternative scenario where Hermione, Harry and Draco are the stars. It starts with as usual, a potions class, in which everyone has to drink polyjuice potion, but it doesn't wear off for Draco and Harry, who are trapped in each others bodies. Mayhem, adventure and romance galore ensue. It's loads of fun, and not very long, I promise!
"Everyone's staring at me," she said under her breath to Draco.
"That's because you're the girl who dumped Harry Potter for Draco Malfoy," he said cheerfully. "Whether you knew it or not"
I was laughing every other page😂
If you didn't know, Cassandra Clare - before writing the oh-so-famous Shadowhunter Chronicles - actually wrote a prominent Harry Potter fanfiction called The Draco Trilogy. For all you readers lamenting the Hermione-Ron pairing, this provides an alternative scenario where Hermione, Harry and Draco are the stars. It starts with as usual, a potions class, in which everyone has to drink polyjuice potion, but it doesn't wear off for Draco and Harry, who are trapped in each others bodies. Mayhem, adventure and romance galore ensue. It's loads of fun, and not very long, I promise!
August 3, 2020
I remember very little from when I read this, except for:
1. It was bad. (There's literally no sugarcoating this.)
2. Sooooo many stolen plot points. I get that it's fanfiction, but c'mon!
3. Apparently The Mortal Instruments was borne from this 'series', which... actually explains a lot if you think about it.
1. It was bad. (There's literally no sugarcoating this.)
2. Sooooo many stolen plot points. I get that it's fanfiction, but c'mon!
3. Apparently The Mortal Instruments was borne from this 'series', which... actually explains a lot if you think about it.
April 14, 2019
It's been 15 years since I last read this.... was fun! Though not as good and clever as I remember. I guess a lot has happened since 2001.
March 1, 2018
I can't believe this is actually on Goodreads.
With a mistake in Potions, Harry and Draco's normal lives get turned upside down with a twist of romance, family, friends and of course Death Eaters.
Haha, I really can't believe Goodreads has a fanfic listed as a book. I'm only agreeing that it can be on my shelf because this was a wonderful distraction in the middle of crazy semester (the kind where you just love to read mindless stuff instead of doing homework) and I spent a week reading this series. I know there's a lot of debate about this series and I agree with some and I disagree with others.
1) This series was never truly edited and you can tell in the grammar, plot and writing. But as to the fact it's fanfic, I wasn't expecting a polished novel.
2) There is almost no similarity between the characters in this series and Rowling's characters. Written early in the HP verse most characters and histories weren't defined so Clare came up with her own and changed the characters. But it's a great AU and probably the only H/Hr I can stomach. Probably because Clare's Hermione doesn't resemble Rowling's.
3) It's a mindless romance that will make you laugh if you need it, but if you can't take teenage fluff it's definitely not for you. It's also where Clare took the story for her Mortal Instruments (I'm surprised she didn't name Jace Wayland Drake or something in her books). So if you like that series this is the original. And honestly while being highly unpolished I have more of an inkling to reread this series than the Mortal Instrument series. Draco and Harry are much more interesting than Alec and Jace.
4) Yes to the plagiarism, it's there and most of the time obvious, but it's a fanfic, so I know most of the story is going to be taken from elsewhere.
The first book isn't as great as the last two and they are rather long, but great if you want a laugh and such. Personally I have to laugh, because you can tell that this fanfic did influence a lot of fanfics after it with characters and such.
With a mistake in Potions, Harry and Draco's normal lives get turned upside down with a twist of romance, family, friends and of course Death Eaters.
Haha, I really can't believe Goodreads has a fanfic listed as a book. I'm only agreeing that it can be on my shelf because this was a wonderful distraction in the middle of crazy semester (the kind where you just love to read mindless stuff instead of doing homework) and I spent a week reading this series. I know there's a lot of debate about this series and I agree with some and I disagree with others.
1) This series was never truly edited and you can tell in the grammar, plot and writing. But as to the fact it's fanfic, I wasn't expecting a polished novel.
2) There is almost no similarity between the characters in this series and Rowling's characters. Written early in the HP verse most characters and histories weren't defined so Clare came up with her own and changed the characters. But it's a great AU and probably the only H/Hr I can stomach. Probably because Clare's Hermione doesn't resemble Rowling's.
3) It's a mindless romance that will make you laugh if you need it, but if you can't take teenage fluff it's definitely not for you. It's also where Clare took the story for her Mortal Instruments (I'm surprised she didn't name Jace Wayland Drake or something in her books). So if you like that series this is the original. And honestly while being highly unpolished I have more of an inkling to reread this series than the Mortal Instrument series. Draco and Harry are much more interesting than Alec and Jace.
4) Yes to the plagiarism, it's there and most of the time obvious, but it's a fanfic, so I know most of the story is going to be taken from elsewhere.
The first book isn't as great as the last two and they are rather long, but great if you want a laugh and such. Personally I have to laugh, because you can tell that this fanfic did influence a lot of fanfics after it with characters and such.
July 6, 2015
English:
I remember when I found this fic, I was very excited because it was a Harry/Hermione one, but now at the end, what it really liked about this was the non-romantic plot.
Why did I give 3 stars then?
Am I going to read the next fic? Yes. And the reason is the plot. One of the things I love about Cassandra is that she always write to let you hooked on her stories, and this one has a very nasty Lucius Malfoy (he's really disgusting), new curses, new types of wizards, so of course I'm looking forward to what happens next.
I remember when I found this fic, I was very excited because it was a Harry/Hermione one, but now at the end, what it really liked about this was the non-romantic plot.
Why did I give 3 stars then?
Am I going to read the next fic? Yes. And the reason is the plot. One of the things I love about Cassandra is that she always write to let you hooked on her stories, and this one has a very nasty Lucius Malfoy (he's really disgusting), new curses, new types of wizards, so of course I'm looking forward to what happens next.
November 29, 2015
I came to this fanfiction by coincidence and was very very pleasantly surprised how good it was!
It´s witty, sarcastic, thrilling in some way, funny and absolutely brilliant!
I love Cassandras writing, because this makes the FF just easy to read. I´m usually a slow reader, but I just kept flicking pages and got through the Draco Dormiens within 3 days, although I was moving out at that time, which is very fast for me ;)
This series adds perfectly to the Harry Potter books - especially for all Draco fans. And I even have to say that I liked this FF so far actually a little bit more than the Harry Potter books. This may be because maybe I was reading the HP books at the wrong time for me, but they were hard to get through for me...
Anyways, brilliant series, great writing, interesting ideas and you could relate to all the characters and understand the reasons for their actions :)
It´s witty, sarcastic, thrilling in some way, funny and absolutely brilliant!
I love Cassandras writing, because this makes the FF just easy to read. I´m usually a slow reader, but I just kept flicking pages and got through the Draco Dormiens within 3 days, although I was moving out at that time, which is very fast for me ;)
This series adds perfectly to the Harry Potter books - especially for all Draco fans. And I even have to say that I liked this FF so far actually a little bit more than the Harry Potter books. This may be because maybe I was reading the HP books at the wrong time for me, but they were hard to get through for me...
Anyways, brilliant series, great writing, interesting ideas and you could relate to all the characters and understand the reasons for their actions :)
February 21, 2015
It was because I'm a fan of Cassandra Clare and her mortal instruments. I've read reviews and comments on how it was quite similar with city of bone. The best fan fiction ever and I loved though yes it was indeed a replica. We all started from scratch so I think this book is totally one of the best by Cassandra Clare.
April 2, 2015
When I started reading this, I made the mistake of thinking it would be like the Harry POtter series. This is not the case. In the Harry Potter books, Draco is a wimpy whinny spoil rich kid who you do not like or hate just feel sorry for, in this book he is still the rich kid but he has character and is quite funny and you can like and hate him.
January 6, 2016
Yeah I know, my first book of 2016 and it's actually fan-fiction. Deal with it. I'm going to count it anyway, because it was actually book length and it exists on Goodreads so why not? :)
Regarding my rating: it seems pretty low, but of course this is fan-fiction, I couldn't just ignore that fact and it was a good one, but yeah, just not in the 3 star book category.
Regarding my rating: it seems pretty low, but of course this is fan-fiction, I couldn't just ignore that fact and it was a good one, but yeah, just not in the 3 star book category.
May 14, 2020
I didn't know good reads included fanfiction...huh.
Well, if you ever wanted to read the Shadowrunner Chronicles but you didn't want to pay for them then you can just read this for free. Its basically the same thing.
Well, if you ever wanted to read the Shadowrunner Chronicles but you didn't want to pay for them then you can just read this for free. Its basically the same thing.
February 16, 2014
Once I started this I could not put it down. I liked that Draco was a likeable character, and found myself rooting for him throughout the story.
July 23, 2016
One of my favorite FFs EVER
September 19, 2014
Amazing fanfic! Must-read for all HP fans. In many ways this storyline is better than JKR's... and, well, the love plot is MUCH better :)
March 4, 2015
This completely butchers the character that is Hermione
July 21, 2016
Well, it's plagiarized and I hate what she did to Hermione, but this will make for an excellent discussion.
February 4, 2017
3.5 Stars. This version of Draco is so much better than the cowardly wimp in the HP series. I dare say, I like him!
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