Beyond The Castle Walls

by singularritae

The war is over, but the new attacks have been worrying the magical world. When Hermione gets hit by a curse that sends her to St. Mungo's, she has no hope left and is left to remember about her days at Hogwarts before the curse gets her memories as well as her body.

A story about beginnings and ends and two people too scared to be together.

Genres: Fan Fiction

984 pages, ebook

Published June 1, 2020

Reviews

[Chesa Reed · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m going to be honest, the grammar in this story is HORRENDOUS. So many errors that at first it was hard to get through a few paragraphs. But when I tell you that the plot and character development are THAT good that I was soon able to completely overlook these issues, I mean it whole heartedly. This story is so unique and I feel like I will carry these versions of Hermione and Draco with me for the rest of my life

[Kait · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounding up to 4. I loved the idea of this fic, but the execution itself didn't deliver in the way I think the story deserved. This fic could've benefitted so much from having a beta reader, because the frequency of grammatical and spelling errors proved to be extremely distracting and really took me out of the story too often. The story to me deserved 4.5 stars, but for that reason it ends up around 3.5 stars.

[lia · Rating 4 out of 5]

amei muito a história deles, só queria que o final deles não tivesse sido rápido demais 🥺 caelum my babiee💝💝💝

[nb bae · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kinda OOC for Hermione to be pregnant so young, I kinda thought she’d never do it. Also the story line kinda confusing, the Malfoy hiding with the baby? Or what?

[Skylar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Through the years, our love only grows. This quote is such a simplified version of what this story encompasses. I absolutely loved being able to rewind from the start and see how Draco and Hermione could have ended up together from an alternate timeline but WITHIN Hogwarts before the actual war. While there are many fics that go into this idea, the notion of their pure and innocent lives before He Who Must Not Be Named arose to power once again was beautiful to capture. I also wanted to take the time to highlight the author's bold idea to flip back and forth between past and present which ultimately fueled my desire to rush through the pages in order to mesh the two realities together. Hermione goes through so many tragedies within this book that they can seem rather rushed over. Draco's and her love story leaves some things to be desired on his end as our silver-eyed protagonist can never seem to quite open up. While the story kept me on the edge of my seat, ultimately the finale was wrapped up delicately and free of some needed final angst. All this to say, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this fic and falling in love with another version of Dramione.

[Maria Costa · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I wish we could have a life beyond this castle's walls.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Overall: 3.8 ☆
Characters: 4.5 ☆
Writing: 3 ☆
Romance: 4 ☆
Chapter length: 3 ☆
Pacing: 4.5 ☆
Ending: 3.5 ☆
Plot: 4 ☆

[julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

not my fave fic, but the flashbacks were cute and the spice?? some scenes had me blushing. the grammar in this is rough— an editor is really needed and tbh i fully skipped like 80% of the present time and just read the flashbacks

[Nancy Valentino]

People seem to think this one is good but it is genuinely the worst Dramione fic I have read so far. And guys, I’m at like “hook up an IV bag of Dramione smut straight into my veins” levels of obsessed at the moment; I’ve read a lot of these. And this one is the worst.

Firstly, I usually quite like a post-war story and there’s nothing inherently wrong with Hermione in hospital slowly dying from a mysterious dark curse (it actually sort of reminded me of the start of Wait & Hope, so I was kinda on board at the beginning). But here are the problems: we never actually get the scene of her being cursed, it’s unclear who cursed her and why, and the cure to the curse ends up literally being “love” (or a potion based thereupon) which at the very least is lazy writing. What was the curse even meant to do to her? Ugh.

Secondly, the use of flashbacks to show the Dramione story happening? Fine. Hermione Granger getting accidentally pregnant at 16 due to plain old teenage irresponsibility? No thank you. You’re telling me that the brightest witch of their age can’t work out contraception? She can literally borrow Harry’s cloak, waltz into the restricted section of the library and steal any book she likes about wizard sex and there’s no “contraception charm” (featured in any number of other fics) or “plan B” charm or potion (featured in at least 1 fic that I can think of)? She doesn’t go talk to Poppy Pomfrey and get some medical support from a witch who literally works at a boarding school full of horny teenagers?? There’s at least 1 fic where Madame Pomfrey makes Hermione do the contraception charm a heap of times in front of her, why not do that? What about a monthly potion (featured in a number of fics)? Instead of any of that, they’re using condoms and not even consistently. What the actual fuck. On top of all that, she knows she’s going into a war, she discovers the pregnancy really early, you’re telling me that the brightest witch of her age wouldn’t have used the old “foetus deletus” spell? Please.

And then okay, if you follow it along, Hermione’s pregnant, I get why she keeps it a secret, she gets tortured, the babies are born, the girl dies (protecting the boy - completely heartbreaking) but then why does she keep the existence of the girl baby a secret? From people who don’t know about either baby, sure. But why keep it a secret from people who already know about the little boy that they’re all secretly helping to raise?!

Insufficient follow-through and detail provided about a number of plot lines. What happened with Blaise & Ginny? What were Caelum’s care arrangements that have lead to him seemingly bonding with both his mother & father? We don’t even know how long Hermione’s been hospitalised with this curse, but it’s implied maybe quite a while already? But then we get the scene of Caelum learning that his mum’s in hospital so where did he think she was this whole time?

The maths doesn’t make sense. If she has the babies around 1200 days and the present timeline is around 5500 days, Caelum should be about 11-ish, not 5.

Theo & Daphne are a weird pairing that I’m not here for, sorry.

This story made me so angry and on top of that the spicy scenes weren’t even worth going through the rest of this agony.

And the grammar’s atrocious but I think the author speaks English as an additional language so that’s honestly the easiest thing to forgive about this nonsense.

[A · Rating 3 out of 5]

Summary: 2.5/5 -- Hermione is attacked, and gets hit by a curse that requires her to relive her memories at Hogwarts. I think this story has a lot of potential and was a mostly enjoyable read. The premise is intriguing and the structure of the book made me keep reading; it reminded me a bit of the Fallout but less linear. It is D/HR endgame and is the story of how they kept a secret relationship through Hogwarts and the war. Their relationship begins around 4th/5th year (1994-5) Hogwarts but jumps forward and backward in time to about 2003.

The author wants to handle a lot of complex and difficult concepts such as memory loss and grief. It would have been made stronger with a beta reader to edit, add more nuance and details at certain points when discussing the grief and the complexity with Pansy's motivations between balancing being Hermione's (best?!?) friend and her feelings for Draco, but I also understand that the story is meant to come out in pieces and not be linear. I guess the addition of side characters and wonder if it was meant to add unnecessary drama/trauma for drama's sake (e.g., Astoria, Greyback) unless they would have been given appropriate time to breath and develop as pivotal to the main characters' development.

I'm giving it a 2.5 stars because I am really not a fan of how Hermione is basically a punching bag for everyone (e.g., Draco, Ron, the world), and she essentially becomes a martyr without a true identity behind dutiful friend/Draco's lover/protective mother. It also seems laughable that people continue to call Hermione "Draco's girlfriend" after all that she's been through for him/them. Some of the language/dialogue choices took me out of the story -- for example, when a character would pontificate in a long-ass monologue about their reasoning behind their actions (e.g., Pansy). It felt out of character and becomes at times, a frustrating exercise in "telling, not showing." Also, the name of the potion that Hermione fell ill to was really cringe-y. Finally, I would like it a bit more if the author gave more credence or thoughts to how unreliable memories can be, or leaned into Hermione as an unreliable narrator (which would actually make me like Draco more), but it would have changed the direction of the story.

CW: Child loss, mentions of rape done to main characters, unhealthy relationships, toxic Draco
Tags: Eventual HEA, explicit sexual content, OOC

Highlights
- they really build the relationship between Hermione and Draco
- quite spicy (and interesting takes too!): 4/5
- thematic continuity (e.g., castle walls)
- complete and a feat of a multi-chapter story, if you're looking for escapism for 2-3 days

Stuff to Work on
- using A LOT OF trauma for the sake of character development (e.g., child loss, rape), and then it wasn't discussed/dealt with. The charitable side of me says that's how it was for the character, but I'm not convinced if it wasn't just a plot device.
- Hermione was one-dimensional
- more nuanced writing, rather than barrelling the reader with unsubtle dialogue
- still not convinced that Draco's behaviour toward Hermione was justified and Hermione would just wave it away saying she understood why
- Draco's redemption arc was rather flimsy because he continued to be very passive
- grammar, spelling, and formatting errors throughout

[Yuliya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Agree with previous reviewers about the horrendous amount of mistakes. At times it was difficult to read, but I managed. And in spite of it, the story was a good read.
The characters and their development felt real, and it was engaging to follow them.
I also liked the idea of the plot. For some reason, unplanned dramione pregnancy is becoming one of my favorite tropes. So yeah, spoiler alert: dramione pregnancy.

I was confused by some of the events in the story: like why Hermione left her son with Draco, why they weren't in touch. It seems it was explained in the story, but briefly and more along the lines.
And I couldn't understand the dynamics between Hermione and the Weasleys after Calleum's birth. There were some tensions but they weren't clearly explained. I guess, by adding them the story would become even stronger.

I liked that the story was divided into clear parts: introduction, development, and outcome. And while introduction and development were quite long, the outcome felt short, sort of. The last 5 chapters were a mix of flashbacks and present, where flashbacks dominated. So the outcome of the story felt to be happening in the background. And the motives of the Seventeen group were unclear.

But it's a good and remarkable Dramione read.

[sylx · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5

Final read of 2023!! I don't know when this dramione spiral would end but it has been a ride.

This was pretty meh. I enjoyed both the flashbacks and the present scenes, it was quite interesting. However, can't say I felt much for the characters. Mildly OOC, and some parts were a bit cringey. All in all, it wasn't terrible, but it was just eh.

Moments I liked:
“I have to love him quietly,” she says when she thinks he’s out of earshot. But Theo hears and turn around, “it has to be in lingering touches, hidden glances, subtle smirks and exaggerated fits of laughter.”

“But you shouldn’t have to Hermione.” And Theo calls her by her name, and she knows he’s serious.

“But it fills me with a tingling happiness, a mischievous contempt in knowing I love him softly and with everything I have even when he doesn’t want me to, because it makes me feel like I’m winning in a game he doesn’t know he’s playing.”

---

“I want you this close forever,” he whispers in her hair and Hermione gasps, it’s suddenly too much and she might be hearing things, “I hate when we are not together and I hate how I can’t make you mine, but mostly, I hate whoever made the world bigger than the space enough for both of us.”

[Emma Bernard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Post war.
Lots of flash backs to year 4-end of the final battle.
Secret relationship.

I really like this story. A few chapters left me in tears. The build up of their relationship; enemies, study buddies, friends, lovers, enemies, to lovers again felt like a natural transition. I loved the present day to the flashbacks as she re-experiencing her time at hogwarts.

Her trauma from the war was extreme and could have been touched on more. She eased everyone’s memories to protect her child and remove the guilt from others. I wish the more devastating parts offered more detail as it felt brushed over. What happened at the final battle would result in psychological trauma and it’s noted that the healers are uncertain of how she will recover but then it’s not mentioned again.

I wish we could have seen a POV from Draco while he was on the run with their son to better understand his love, and why he waited 5 years to see again.

[Megan Oneail · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is well crafted and written with so much emotion. I cried at least 30 times, including once in the waiting room at the doctors office. I really loved how the story moved between present and past, unfolding the history of Hermione and Draco’s relationship.

This being said, I’m fairly certain the author’s first language is not English. The fic is riddled with constant grammatical errors and incorrectly used words, as well as poorly formed sentences. While it did pull me out of the story from time to time, the plot was enough to keep me hooked. The whole thing would greatly benefit from a beta reader going through and cleaning things up. If that happened, I’d give it 5 stars!

[Franceska · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have no idea how to rate this. I don't give half stars, I like to be decisive but I'm likely going to rate this higher than it really deserves. The grammar, the spelling, the weird mention of Thanksgiving? In England?? But god, this Hermione and Draco 🥹 the torture scene, the overall story... it's so good. Perhaps a little rushed at the end. The present is the much weaker side of the story but all of the flashbacks (which make up the majority of this fic) are so good. I wish this had a beta because it could easily be a 5 star read but at times it's unreadable and truly cannot be *read* merely skimmed.

[Kate Childers · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm crying, I love dual-time books so much and this one was no exception. The whole story was beautiful and real, and I love Caelum with my entire heart. I want to know about the 5 years when the Malfoys we're on the run with him. Hermione has been through so much in this book, and she deserves absolutely everything. Every friendship and happily ever after 💕 The ending felt a tiny bit rushed in my opinion, but it wasn't an unsatisfying ending, I just wish it dragged out a bit longer. But maybe I just didn't want to say goodbye to this story.

[Alexis Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Between a 3 and a 4. The plot was super intriguing especially in the beginning. The end felt a bit slow and I found myself skimming quite a bit. Draco was borderline abusive in one scene which I did not like. I wanted him to redeem himself more. He just wasn’t my favorite Draco. But overall I was hooked and stayed up way too late reading this. Heart wrenching. Slytherin gang was wonderful. Love Blaise and Theo. I think it may have originally been written in another language? But the grammar was understandable and the plot more than made up for it.

[Lottie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The amount of spelling mistakes I can’t but I got past them AND OMG ONE OF THE BEST ONES
I THOUGHT SHE WAS GOING TO DIE AND THE FLASHBACK THINGYS WERE SOO GOODDD
PANSY I WANT HER I NEED HER BESTIE SHE NEEDS TO GET WITH SOMEONE
THE POTION I I CZN’T THOUGHT SHE DIED LLLLL
DRACO IS A GOD AND THE NOBODY CAN HAVE HIM I WANT HIM AND THERE KID UHHHHHH WHY IS HE SOOOOO CUTE STADNING UP TO LUCIUS LIKE GHAT HAD MY HEART

[AB Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

It hurt my feelings, it made all my emotions go crazy. There were grammar and tense issues throughout that were a tad off putting and if that is a huge no for you, don’t bother. The story defining middled and ended way stronger than it started. For me, even with that driving me crazy, it was still a fantastic read and I will reread it. The characters 💕.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.
1. Grammar was poor. It was so hard to read
2. The parts that were supposed to be hard hitting weren’t explained enough. It was mentioned, hit, then glossed over.
3. There were parts I felt weren’t necessary. The story was 200 pages too long

Although, I was reeling hard to know what happens in the end. That’s probably the thing that kept me going through.

[S · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a confession to make, I have never read or seen harry potter.
but I truly love dramione
this was the first fanfic I have read and I loved it
I loved draco and hermione’s relationship
I really loved hermione and the slytherins friendship especially her and pansy

[Mathilda · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book itself was really good, but there are so many grammatical errors and at times the plot felt as though it could have been developed a bit more to create more tension and excitement towards the end

[Avery Frazier · Rating 4 out of 5]

The teen romance was fabulous! The heart break it put me through ridiculous!

[Abla Ghannam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This by far became my favorite book

[Taylor Dunn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the story line but the grammar and structure didn’t do it justice. Still worth a read and a very interesting plot!!

[titi · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️

couldnt care less the present timeline

hogwarts years were great tho and i loved snape and blaise in this fic

[L.M. · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hacía más de un año que no leía un fanfic de Dramione. "Beyond the Castle Walls" me ha ofrecido todo lo que más me gusta encontrar en ellos.

[ariane jones]

In place of The Missing Sister

[Maria Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 máximo y es todo por el pasado, las escenas del presente me aburrieron un montón y asu no puedo creer lo tóxico que es esto jaja es el fanfic donde los personajes menos se parecen a sí mismos

[cassandre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incroyable !!! La fin un peu rapide à mon goût mais j'ai adoré. Mon cœur s'est brise tellement de fois olala.