Review: Paws of Fury — by Veritas03

Other Reviewers: Goodreads

This week is another fan-fiction review:  Paws of Fury by Veritas03

I am a big fan of Fan-Fiction, and now in TV series like TeenWolf, I am frustrated with their inconsistent plot lines.  In Fan fiction, we get the freedom to not follow these lines, but create a whole new world or expand on an established one.

In Paws of Fury, we are in the Harry Potter world again and we have a romance between Harry and Draco.

Basic Plot:

Harry is full of anger and it shows.  Finally an angry tirade is interrupted by an old lady and she tells him: “Bellow, bluster… your rage is insignificant. No more than the mewing of a kitten. Do not be afraid. He will save you. Calm you. Love you.”  Now, Harry finds himself turned into a black kitten at the feet of Draco Malfoy.  Is this relationship real or just a result of a curse?

Harry Potter:

Harry’s character is much of what I would expect from the movies.  He is once again put into a position of undergoing an unknown threat and he rises to the challenge.  He has been crushed down by this angry he can’t control:

“The evil … it’s like this malignant force.”  Harry sighed deeply and looked at Draco.  Receiving the encouraging smile that he needed, he continued.  “I’ve been struggling with… these feelings of anger for a long time.”

Now Harry has found someone he can rely on and while being a kitten, he can stop being the hero.

Draco Malfoy:

Draco’s character is a matured version of what we saw in the movies.  To be fair, I have not read the books, so I can only go on the character we found in the movies.  But Draco is forced to mature and has left the past where it belonged.  But we still see him as his sassy self:

The door slid closed as he realized that Harry Potter, rather than getting off at the floor for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, still stood in the lift, stabbing him with a glare.  This might have intimidated someone who didn’t know the Auror as well as Draco felt he knew Potter.  Or someone who hadn’t hosted the Dark Lord of Terror and Insanity in his home.

Draco understands where Harry is in his life, dealing with these curses.  He understands unexpected anger and Draco is the perfect person to help him heal.  I love his nurturing character, something that shows growth from the character we saw from their past.

Theme Summary:

This is mostly a love story, a light fluffy romp in the city.  But this is also about accepting people for who they are, understanding the past is there and learning to love the person they are now.  For Harry, he has been feeling anger and sadness for years because of the curse.  He had almost felt like giving up, but his friends and work kept him going.  For Draco, his family and work kept him going, but he still had not found someone who he was properly matched.  With this conflict and what feels like fate, they are pushed together and find that they are more alike than they thought.

Strong Points:

I love when I open a book and can have a simple, warm love-fest.  While there are problems and conflicts, the relationship is not really one that we need to worry about.  This gives the author time to focus on the actual mystery story.

The scenes between Draco and Harry were great, there was a sweetness between them that we obviously did not have in the Harry Potter world.  Making characters that resemble, but are not exactly like who they were in the books/movies is a risk.  What happens when they are so different from the “bible” so to speak?

What could be better?

The plot is fairly simple.  What concerns me the most is that Draco’s character is really nothing like what was in the series: he is no way a selfish asshole.  Which makes this book entertaining, but makes the character more of “inspired” rather than developing an established character.  At the same time, we see the author has created a character of their own, which is what is expected.

Conclusions:

I love fan-fiction, and I certainly love being able to see established characters and seeing someone else can do with the basic ideas.  This book is a nice fluff-fest, which if you need to feel happy and light, then this book is for you.  No real drama here, just lots of cuddling with a cute black kitten.

Bea