Title: Wit of the Raven
Author: japanese-jew
Rating: M
Genre: General
Pairings: None
Chapters: 14
Words: 101,733
Updated: May 22, 2010
Published: January 6, 2006
Status: Abandoned
Summary: Highly AU. Mr. Harry Potter is age eleven, and the possibilities for his future are endless. Rated M so that I can do pretty much whatever I want with it.
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2740505/1/

This 1st year AU Ravenclaw!Harry story is outwardly based on standard “abused Harry mentored by Snape” idea, but realization is anything but clished and overused.

In short, this story for now has little to no mushy/crying/abused bullshit. Instead, 80% of the plot are original magical concepts and detailed workouts of canon aspects of magic (Arithmancy, runes, spell casting etc...). It’s truly refreshing to see a story that goes a bit more in depth about different aspects of magic, instead of trying to turn Harry into a 11 year old warrior/chick magnet/prankster. Harry’s relationship with Snape is nice too (no emo crap, no adoption, no Severitus, no slash).

The only drawback of this story is that the author seems to have set things way more ambitious than he can handle. To truly make something out of this, he’ll need to write at least 150,000 words to finish the year one, and I somehow don’t see him being able to produce that much.


Checked by Minion, January 7, 2013

 

You're likely to be correct on this, which is a shame because other than the fact the author inists on making Snape a pureblood misunderstood 'good guy' with a quirky sense of humor, this is one of the better attempts at this genre I've seen. He'll definately need at least 80 or more chapters to finish up the first year alone though and unless he cheats (reminices aka flashbacks) I can't possibly see this as making it past book three. If it did it'd likely be very very different than cannon though, so who is to say that he couldn't some how wrap things up way before that?

I suppose it depends on how he handles the Trio, does he try to recreate it or does he somehow influece Hermoine to become a Ravenclaw as well? I'm looking forward to the scenes when Harry realizes that Severus was purposefully manipulating him towards any house but Gryffindor...and seeing if this was in fact instigated by Dumbledore himself as a way to ensureHarry didn't go dark (Slytherin House) duie to his worse than cannon upbringing.

--bornagainpenguin (hoping he updates frequently)

PS: You posted this to taunt me and provoke me into continuing my Dursely\Snape reversal spamfic, didn't you?

 

I better go and read it then, I generally trust IP82's choices.

:::Goes off to read it:::Comes back an hour later:::

I find it pretty well written with few errors that I can see. It is AU however and it shows. The Theory in this fic is quite good and indept, though could go deeper but would bore most people if it did. Action wise it is kinda slow but may speed up as this is only the beginning. I find Snape to be to friendly but as this is in the Severus section it is expected, though a gradual buildup would be nice.... All in all pretty good.

 

i kinda agree with u bornagainpenguin but unfortunately i don't see this author writing past book 1 unless there is a major change of heart

 

You got me!

 

this is rather good, I like the characterisation.

 

Meh, I stopped reading when Ollivander offered to make him a staff - always reminds me of Super!Harry Heir of Merlin fics, which is one of my pet peeves.

 

Yeah that was a bit off turning, but it might mean that the author intends to make a Super-Harry fic and off Voldemorte completely in first year. I read a story from the anime community that crossed over Harry Potter and managed to pull off a believeable ending to Voldemorte in first year, even taking the horocruxes into account. Besides, its not like he runs around with it as a staff, he uses it miniturized so for all practical purposes it is a wand.

--bornagainpenguin

 

I like it, but I think it is too soon to really tell. I'm glad it's not a wussy Harry fic, and I like that he is learning a lot. I realize that it might take a while to finish, but considering how much Harry is learning, there is a chance that he will skip some grades, or just go through them faster than average students. It's even possible for Snape to take him as an apprentice.

 

DB, your sig is waaaay to big hight wise. 120x500 max size.

~DGD

 

He just posted a new chapter... and took a defining turn into the Massively-AU category.

JJ's world is basically a wizarding society obsessed with bloodlines and magical power... which is of course, completely different than JKR's vision of HP, but this doesn't change the fact that it's FUCKING BRILLIANT.

I mean, this is like Miranda Flairgod's story, only with Hogwarts and all the characters that come with it. And that means new ideas, concepts and magic blooming at every step... not to mention blatantly OOC-ness (it seems that Harry will team up with confident water-mage Neville, seductress Patil twin and Terry Boot, the enchanter...)

In short, read this if you like Massive-AU. It's one of the best stories of this kind in HPverse (beaten only by A Second Chance at Life).

 

In-Fucking-Credible!!! This actually is the best story i've ever read, and I say this with utter conviction. JJ has taken JKR's world and created a dynamic world, rich with character depth and subplot... something our esteemed Ms.JKR seemed to have forgotten while writing her series. The magical systems are incredibly detailed, and much more plausible than the traditional "Swish and Flick" method. The political structure has only been just introduced, and I hope that we see it grow along with this story, into something incredible - I can't wait. I really must say that this story is the best i've read in the Harry Potter fandom, and it has given this author some hope and interest towards the community. Wit of the Raven can only go upwards from here. 10/10

 

hmmm, the last chapter left me underwhelmed.

i think it's the choice of canon characters used for the parts the author wanted them to play.

i can dig terry boot. even the patil twins. but a confident neville? an articulate hagrid? that's pushing it too far for me.

mostly the hagrid.

 

I saw all the people calling this "fucking brilliant" and "the best story ever" and decided to go against my better judgment and read it.

I must admit to being disappointed. The fic is fine. There's some great ideas here. Some different takes on things, and it really does toss most of canon out the window. But what it boils down to is that this is going to be just another fic attempt where they tried for too much. After five months we have only five chapters and like 25K words? And the author's a student who can't write much during the school year? So he decides to write an AU starting before Hogwarts and then taking us to Harry's first year.

Dear god why. How many complete AU fics are there that start at first year? And how many of them ever even finish the first year? How about second or third? Or say actually get to the point where they kill Voldemort? The authors get some brilliant ideas involving starting over from scratch and knock out a hundred thousand words if we're lucky and it gets dropped.

This is a good start. If the author finished it, it could be a truly excellent fic. I just think this is going to go nowhere. And there will be good ideas in here that might have fit in better with a more reasonable attempt at writing fanfiction. I doubt the author's got a beta, there's a few minor mistakes. And I think the fic is already a repost after the author started over one time. Heck the Prologue asked for reviewers to give ideas for shipping. Harry just turned 11. And it seems "love" is a taboo concept in the wizarding world. So is this going to be clincal learning about girls and boys? Or some angsty going against society forbidden romance? I don't know. It just feels like the author is trying to do too much.

But I will agree what he's done so far is excellent. And that's what makes it even more disappointing.

 

I also thought it was very good. The beginning chapters were disappointing, but this last update was very good. It does seem like they are trying to do too much... but for the sake of my sanity, I'm going to ignore the possibility of the story being dropped.

I agree with Syn, though, articulate Hagrid? Definitely weird.

 

"She [Ginny] closed her eyes, and he was struck by the most peculiar sensation of need, and he reached his hand out, slowly, to touch to her face, as if controlled by an outside force."

I don't like where this is going...

Everything is so hard to keep track off, and the OOCness is going to come back and bite us and the author in the ass. There are going to be parts where we have to go back and reread things because its so different.

Everything in the story that Harry does must be planned, and he must be careful, it's neurotic.

"Do I do this..no, love is bad, can I be friends with her? No...she's going to slip me an love potion diguised as an apple...does she even like me? No, she wants my genes. Do I be friends with him? No, he wants my name..."

It's like the whole fucking school is Slytherin times 10. It's impossible to do anything without risking total ruin. If this is how it is pre-sorting, how is it in 6th year Slytherin? People are going to trap, ensanare "mates" to ensure better offsrping.

While the detail is mindblowing, it's waaay to complex to pull ANYTHING off without causing a shutdown on the part of the reader. Harry probably can't even get a girlfriend, less the girl trap him into marriage.

Also, it doesn't help the author that he responds to this review with:

---------------
To the tune of "One" by Aimee Mann

Apples... are the most dangerous fruit, you'll ever know... But
Pears... can be as dangerous as Apples...
---------------

about 10 minutes later after I posted it.

 

I agree with Amerision. This has possibilities, but there are so many things that Harry is going to have to watch out for and I think that this will make the story forced.

So far, this is a good story. However, the maturity level that the kids are showing is somewhat nauseating, and the OOCness of everybody makes me have stop and think about whether this is still a Harry Potter story or not.

One downside is that you can't immediately get into the characters' minds, like in ordinary fanon. You can't predict how a certain person will react to a certain situation, because their personalities are so completely different.

A major plus is that there is almost no way all of the Weasleys will have gone through Hogwarts. Did you notice how it said that most families pay thousands of galleons just for one child to get into the school?

 

Kind of like Card's Ender's Game series, except without the crude biting wit. I don't know, I rather like this. I knew this guy to be a pretty sharp tool from some of the reviews he gave. It's good to see him writing. There's a lot of interesting original things. Even if he doesn't deal with all of them very well in the end, it is a very noble effort on his part for trying.