Title: Quo Vadis?
Author: Ruskbyte
Rating: T+
Genre: Horror, oneshot
DLP Category: Dark Arts
Pairing: None
Published: December 27, 2009
Words: 10,488 (FFA); 10,758 (ff.net)
Status: Complete; oneshot
Summary: It is the greatest threat the world of magic has ever faced. It cannot be reasoned with. It cannot be bargained with. It cannot be hexed. It cannot be cursed. It cannot be stopped. It cannot be killed. And only Lord Voldemort stands in its way.
Link (FFA): http://ruskbyte.fanficauthors.net/Quo_Vadis/Quo_Vadis/
Link (ff.net): http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5614134/1/Quo-Vadis


Interesting little oneshot from Ruskbyte, from a unique perspective. Author credits “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell as his inpiration for this fic. This probably wouldn't work as a longer fic, by any means, but as a oneshot in this manner, it's very well done.

5/5


Checked by Minion, September 1, 2013

 

Just read this today actually. It's a well written fic with a fairly good idea but I found myself bored about half way through.

Good enough to pass the time but i really wish ruskbyte would continue with "flying without a broom."

4/5 from me.

 

This was quite good. Seems like Ruskbyte is starting to write more often.

The best part was the rather unique perspective of the story. Its a very interesting idea and definitely original. 4/5 from me.

However, a few things were rather unclear:

Spoiler

How did Harry become the magic eating thing?

 

Good stuff. A nice re-tale of canon events with a major difference and from an interesting point of view.

4/5 because the ending was a bit obvious, and there wasn't the epic quality found in Ruskbyte's Evil Be Thou My Good (though it's far from the same length).

@Johnny Farrar :

Spoiler

He was born this way, apparently, because he was already the monster when Voldemort tried to kill him as a baby.

 

Huh, this story kinda disappointed me. It had an unique premise, but to me it dragged on a tad too long. After reading it I felt vaguely let down, since there was a complete lack of tension by the time of the big reveal to me.

3/5

 

To begin with, this appeared to be an average story using the clichéd premise of something hiding under canon Harry, without changing anything on the surface.

Perhaps that was why I was so pleasantly surprised.

Spoiler

The creepiness didn't really catch on with me until the second half of the story, I find the idea of the Lockhart Monster taking over St. Mungo's quite disturbing for instance. The attack on Malfoy, and Pettigrew's sudden betrayal worked quite well also.

Like with any good horror, it's often the mystery that keeps it alive and interesting, so not letting the reader no exactly what was going on may have been a good idea.

Only peeve I have is the Magic Resistance thing, but that's probably because it digs up bad memories from other stories.

Not as good as Evil Be Thou My Good by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm still rounding up for Horror Fanboyism.

 

@Johnny Farrar:

Spoiler

Did some research about the books that gave inspiration for this one-shot. Who Goes There is the plot for the movie The Thing while The Midwich Cuckoos explains how Harry became what he is.

For a one-shot the story is really good. There is the suspense as to how Lord Voldemort could be the savior of the wizarding world, than we learn the subtle changes in original plotline ending with the climax of the reason for the interview.

All in all I found the story to be really enjoyable, although I wish Ruskbyte finished or redid Backwards Compatible...

solid 4/5

 

Neet.

4/5

 

If Voldemort was already assimilated by the monster, there was no reason to tell the entire story to Rita Skeeter before taking her over.

The characters can't very well narrate the entire saga to every single convert before dramatically revealing they're already assimilated.

And the apparent inability to try to physically harm Harry is contrived.

I'm giving it a Jon3776 out of a Ruskbyte. The writing style's not the brilliance I remembered from Evil Be Thou My Good and his Azkaban story, and the language was conventional.



Rusk: Spice it up.

 

I liked it. I thought Rita would be the one who was actually Harry Creature at the end, so even the 'surprise ending' worked for me.


4/5

 

Glad he's writing again, but where the hell is my Flying Without a Broom!?!?!?! D:

 

It's an interesting concept. But it has a number of problems. One, the use of the singular possessive by Voldemort, which ties up to the why the exposition, which basically makes the narrative illogical. Two, while it seems to be quite a novel idea in fanfiction, it assuredly is not beyond it. And since he didn't really add anything 'new' to the idea itself, you can't really praise it for that. Three, again, since Harry is so super-duper, his choice of staying in Hogwarts (and following cannon even more so) is once again confounding. While granted that Hogwarts provides a structure for the creature to illicitly subvert, giving it it's horror elements, the choices don't add up. Why wait until 1st year to act? Why wait until the end of the year to take out Voldemort? If it is such an alien entity, why aren't its actions alien to those of a more human Harry as well? (quite, unlike, in Evil be Thou my Good).

Basically, the idea to mesh this idea with the HP world is novel. The rest is trite, illogical, and fails and falls on multiple levels. Relative to previous works, a sad 2/5.

 

It suffers when comparing to his classic 'Evil Be Thou My Good' but on its own merits is good but lacking that something extra. I think that could be because I knew what to expect.

Maybe if Ruskbyte had moved the Author's Note to after the end of the story it would have helped. That being said, 4 stars.

 

This is an extremely well-written little tale, but I'm disappointed by it.

Mild spoilers ahead:

There's nothing wrong with the idea of BodySnatcher!Harry per se, but it's an idea that is too alien to the cosmology of the HP universe to function in this way. We don't get any explanation for why he's the way he is (or even what he is), and that is a failure here.

Plus, as Andro said, there's no reason to tell the story in such a tedious manner. There's no reason for the interview to be taking place at all, and listening to that single rambling POV for thousands of words is grating.

Lastly, I'm disappointed that the story isn't actually about what's described in the summary. I realize that it was necessary for it to be deceptive, but it would have been neat to actually read a savior!Voldemort story.

3/5

 

The story description at the top actually sounds like it should go with the 'Ravenous' story instead of this one. Actually, this fic and the 'Ravenous' oneshot do have a lot in common. If those two ideas could be joined together, that would be something.

An idea I'm throwing out for how to do something like this could be this:

(Voldemort's killing curse on Haloween 1981 changed the Boy Who Lived. By all rights, he should have died, but prophecy saved him, destroying his would-be murderer in body, but not in soul.

Avada Kedavra shifted young Harry Potter's soul, and then it was snapped back to the material world. But something had changed. His spirit was mutated, damaged, it was dead, but had come back to life.

The 'child' was thought to be screaming when he was found in Godric's Hollow because his parents were dead and he was alone. But he was crying out because he was sooooo hungry.

So Hungry.

The Dursleys were first.

Vernon had thought to punbish the boy with an extended stay in the cupboard with no food or water for turning his teacher's hair blue. But the 'boy' was in the hole too long and died for a second time.

Petunia was panicking about what to do with the body and Vernon was half in the bag when green eyes snapped open, almost on fire with their light. Vernon was fatter, and had more meat, so he died first, his guts spilling out and consumed.

Petunia had little meat on her, but she died screaming, as did Dudley.

That little spark of energy each Dursley carried in them, call it 'atma', or 'soul', or anything you like, Harry's hunger went away, for a little while. What was strange was that mother, father, and child got up a short while later, and their eyes were green too! It was strange, that Harry could now see in four ways, instead of just one.

The bad part was that now he felt four times as hungry.

Oh well.

Surrey was home to a lot of obese people. Pleanty of meat to fill Harry up.)

That's all I have for now. I might try fleshing this idea out into something. I feel this way combines the idea of Harry as The Virus and zombie devourer!Harry well.

Thoughts, everyone?

 

Eh, I actually liked it. Not the best from Ruskbyte but it's still pretty nice for me to read. Of course, I would love seeing another "Evil be thou my Good" though...

3.5/5 rounded up to 4.

 

That was a pretty amazing idea, Dethklok. I enjoyed your little one shot, but there's just one problem: it's not Harry Potter anymore. At all.

It's a mindlessly hunger-driven zombie who just happens to have Harry Potter's body so it's justifiable to make him be able to control the bodies of the victims whose souls he eats. It will continue from there in the exact, same vein as a mindlessly hunger-driven zombie can do nothing but mindlessly find more souls to ommnomm.

It wouldn't make for a very interesting story, honestly.

 

What it super zombie!Harry gains something from the souls he eats? In 'Ravenous', after the Harry!zombies consumed the Dementors, they gained their ability to fly. If this Harry eats souls, it would absorb their potential, and it's mind would grow and fragmant and reform in ways that eventually become alien and inhuman.

If eventually it consumed a witch or wizard, this Harry!being, after learning what and who he was in relation to magic, would attack the Wizarding World through subversion and consuming people and spreading. As it ate more and more, it grows smarter and smarter and sees what it's doing to humans as some kind of game, like a cat playing with a mouse.

Eventually Voldemort would be brought back to life some years from then when at least most of Europe was under siege from these undead things with green eyes. The first zombie, Harry, who by this point makes it a point to hunt down and consume powerful wizards and whose intellect has expanded beyond all human measures of achievement after spreading through England and beyond, has become powerful enough to begin taking in other kinds of matter beyond the simple biological...

That's all I have for now. It's a blend of Quo Vadis and Ravenous, while expanding some of the parts from Ravenous, such as the fall of England and the depopulation of the various cities, along with the fall of Hogwarts and the Ministry.

Thoughts?

 

I liked it, for the most part. The concepts from the Midwich Cuckoos we- MORE BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE! MORE CULTURE SHOCK!

Shit. Sorry About that; it slips out sometimes.

As I was saying, in some ways it reminded me a bit of one of my Draco Kill Off posts, which I've always thought about expanding upon, making it an actual fic (12k words of notes), but haven't spent much time actually writing.

Anyway, I liked the idea in general, though the unanswered questions like why Harry is the way he is do gnaw at the brain a bit.

Thankfully, as a one-shot I can live with that, and should he expand upon it later, well, at least I'm not sitting around waiting for the update.

 

It kinda sucked. Was I the only one wanted to hear how Voldemort won in the end? I spent the entire time waiting to see what would be the weakness, what would be that one thing. The whole thing wasn't much of a mystery considering it was just some super overpowered thing killing everything. Unsatisfying end, confusing logic with the super things, and random things such as everyone but Voldemort being useless. 2/5