The Problem With Purity

by Phoenix Writing

Fandom: Harry Potter
Relationship: Hermione Granger/Severus Snape, Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy
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As Hermione, Harry, and Ron are about to begin their seventh and final year at Hogwarts, they learn some surprising and dangerous information regarding what it means to be Pure in the wizarding world. HG/SS with H/D. AU after OotP.

Genres: Fan Fiction, Fantasy, Romance, Fiction

2553 pages, ebook

First published December 31, 2009

Reviews

[Roxana Chirilă · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best fanfics I've read. Intricate, capable of juggling both plot and romance at the same time, sweet, exciting and completely worth it.

[Kristian Wong]

I really can’t be bothered to put in all the books I’ve read but I demolished this in like 2 days which is crazy did not sleep much

[Brittingbloom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow.

Talk about some amazing AU world building (we were on our way to 4 stars)!!!
Really loved this idea of Pure Adults (even though I was a bit skeptical in the beginning of an opportunity for SLEAZE TOWN). One of my main issues is that the teacher power dynamic with Snape and Hermoine was brutal: the emotional back and forth gave me serious whiplash. Consequently, the poor lack of communication took away from the eventuality of their relationship (I could not forget, not forgive his prior behavior).
PLEASE COMMUNICATE BETTER Y'ALL :)

[Kaitlyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

WOW what a plot idea. The "Pure Adults" thing was something I was reeeeally turned off by when I first started the fic, but once I got into it, genuinely loved. I can also say this was the first fic where I was introduced to Drarry.... not there with you guys on that one but I'm shipping Hermione with just about every man in the universe so who am I to judge. I did like how there was believable logistics behind being a Pure Adult versus something just thrown together, and I loved that it included Hermione and Harry together, most fics with a conflict even remotely similar to this often push 2/3 of the trio on the back burner.

There are a few reasons this wasn't a four star for me. Number one is for all that build up about Purity, I kind of wanted more. I get why it had to be rushed with Snape, but I personally would've loved for the other Hogwarts boys to find out while she was still Pure and have that chaos ensue. Number two is while I feel Snape's character was definitely on the nose with his stubborn and often cruelty, I felt it lagged on too far without any development. He felt a little stuck to me and his constant miscommunication fell flat for me. I will say, it's often hard to nail Snape in his entirety in fics because he's so complex but you're trying to make him have a HEA, so I get it. Overall a decent read. My rating stands as such:

1 star- DNF'd
2 star- read through but didn't enjoy a minute of it
3 star- enjoyed reading, may re-read
4 star- fell out of my seat, definitely re-read
5 star- a spectacular work that wrecked my very being and for that fact, may never want to touch again

[Maari · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disgusting and disturbing account which is written badly and offers no trigger warnings for horrendous gaslighting, emotional, verbal and psychological abuse of H by S. Even unforgivables. All this abuse gets to be swept under the rug and excused as mere 'misunderstandings'. That effectively results in what looks like some sort of an abc manual how to start an abusive and humiliating illicit affair. Yet the author does not seem to call it out for what is and instead encourages constantly making excuses for this abuse.
Dnf at about 45%, I had enough. Even the plot itself was utterly ridiculous and I have no idea why the reviews and scores are so high.

[Lilabooks]

Finallyyyy. Longest book I've ever read. ~3k pages :oooo

Was a proper book with a proper story. I was expecting major focus would be on ss/hg but nope. Hermione was the star of the book. There were A LOT of things I didn't like about the story - the height of familiarity between student and teachers + dumbledore; Ron; hermione being so snotty, arrogant and plain pathetic; severus being downright cruel (some instances were inexcusable even for me); a lot of repeating happenings. Could've been shorter; constant miscommunication.

Liked the last 700-800 pages (were packed w ss/hg). I skipped a looot of pages esp the weresbane safe house parts

[Paige Bays · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ohmygosh. This was such a rollercoaster of emotions for me. So far this is one of my favorite Severus/Hermione pieces.
There were so many details in this story that made me fall in love with this world in a different way.
Can we talk about the animagis and the magical creatures?
Mind speech. Slow burn, I think this is the only story I could do with the misunderstanding trope. But omg was it worth it! 🥲♥️

[Aly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so good! So complex and long and so many different pieces.

[Steph · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVE. this was such a great read. while i’m not a huge fan of estranging ronald for so long, this does it in a fairly believable way. i’m happy to have read it.

[A · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don‘t get the hype. Snape was extremely immature. DNF@32%.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is almost a comfort read for me. It is a fanfiction that I revisit every few years for a reread. I love the idea of the Pure Adults.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Longest fanfic ever it seems like although I know I’ve read longer.

Sometimes I wish there was some point of view from Harry’s perspective but why not an insanely long book about Hermione being a baddass.

[Miri M.]

This is apparently the longest 'book' that i 'read' in 2016. I will not give this a star rating, but I will write some of my thoughts on this fic (which is indeed 638k words, though i only(..?) read about two thirds).
This had a lot of good things going for it. the writing did not get boring, there was a lot of world building and there were some very great relationships within. For example harry and hermione, who are only friends in this, but could have easily been a beautiful queer platonic pairing.
what really bothered me about this is how uncomfortable i became with the main ship. hermione and snape. kudos, i guess, for being what people probably expect the sshg pairing to be. It was extremely abusive, and that in itself didnt bother me. After all, I've come across dark fics before, but this was obviously meant to be rooted for? the moment i stopped reading was when, after all the fighting and hurt, it was literally going to transition into happily ever after. idk if thats true, but it felt like a honeymoon phase and i couldn't read anymore.

[Sabrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read it twice now. I love everything from the slow build to the intricate story. The way Harry and Hermione protect themselves and their plan to ultimately defeat Voldemort. It's all so good.

[L · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was surprised to see this on Goodreads (and confused to see the purchase links!), but did enjoy it very much. A guilty pleasure, to be sure.