Title: To Play the Devil
Author: The Wayland Smith
Rating: T
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure
Chapters: 26
Words: 188,725
Updated: Mar 25
Published: Mar 20, 2013
Status: Complete
Library Category: The Alternatives
Pairings: None (Past mentions of Harry/Ginny)
Summary: Immortality is not all it's cracked up to be. At least not when the only other immortal around is your worst enemy and possibly the closest thing to a friend you have left. The war ended over a hundred years ago and Harry Potter and Tom Riddle have each been enjoying the quiet life, and politely ignoring each other. However, war is coming and enemies abound. AU. Complete.
Link: FanFiction.Net

First of all sorry if this has been posted before but Search came up as blank

Moving on:

This story becomes completely AU early on, introducing powerful magic, oaths and international backstabbing.

Greatest thing about this fic, Voldemort has a real personality, which canon lacked. He becomes a character you can even sometimes sympathize with.
Harry is his own character and a bit of OC, but retains most of his canon characteristics.

There are problems with pacing sometimes and grammar, but overall this fic has great biggining, middle and end. And it's Complete, not a lot of fics like this nowadays.

This here is a real Gem, I rate it 4.5/5, rounding down it's 4/5.


P.S.
First two chapters are first person perspective, which is a bit disorienting, afterwards it keeps to third person

 

Pacing is indeed terrible. I am about halfway through and nothing exciting has happened. It's mostly been character introduction and vague backstory. And descriptions, lots and lots of descriptions.

It tries to do the grand magic, large world, deep history, powerful characters, mysterious events thing, but the author doesn't world build too well and it's kind of meh. The prose doesn't flow too well and it goes on forever, which makes reading it tedious.

The characters are good and the plot seems interesting if a bit slow, but the writing, while good, isn't up to par considering the kind of story the author wants to write. 3.5/5

 

Ponderous, but fascinating nonetheless. I adore Harry and Tom's relationship to one another, and I read fast so I can live with the fact that it takes literally 100,000 words to get to any action whatsoever.

The characterization is truly stellar, and the worldbuilding is actually quite good as well. The prose is solid if not spectacular, and magic feels suitably international. Stuttgart in particular was fantastically imagined. Furthermore, it brings some truly unique concepts to the table. I can think of no other fic that does anything similar - a Harry that despises but is at peace with Voldemort's ministry? Brilliant, and there's a mind-boggling amount of plot threads begging to be written.

Unfortunately solid prose does not ingenious make, and it takes a bit too long to get to the action. Still, I'm enamoured by it.

I'm giving it a 5/5. On its own merits, it doesn't deserve a 5/5, a 4/5 is probably more the fair. But the brilliant character writing combined with a truly unique setting and new ideas more than make up for the poor pacing and unspectacular writing.

It's a breath of fresh air. A ponderous breath, but one that will show you things you haven't seen before and won't see again. It's truly, truly unique. That's something special that deserves to be taken into account.

 

In the first few sentences we get something decidedly unironic called irony and then a line of Shakespeare that's been used so often it deserves its own circle of hell. The rest of the first chapter is tedious.

By midway into the second chapter the author's stylistic choices (or lack of them) become very tiresome and there's literally nothing keeping my attention.

I'm not going to rate since I could barely manage 4k words of it, but this is pants.

 

I couldn't get past the premise that Draco Malfoy was able to force Voldemort to do his bidding. Draco basically claims that unless Harry and Voldemort help the Ministry then Britain will lose the war against the French, and Harry and Voldemort will be locked up afterwards. I find it utterly unbelievable that any magical government would be able to find a wizard of Voldemort's calibre unless he wants to be found.

 

Spoilers:
Harry made a deal with Voldemort, no more attacking or trying to rule in exchange for Harry's life who is Voldemort's last Horcrux. You learn about this in later chapters. Which to me seems reasonable, since we know Tom is obsessed with immortality.

 

Also wrt being able to lock up Voldemort/Harry:

Spoiler

after a hundred years neither of them are in peak magical condition

I actually rather like that. Voldemort and Harry are both very powerful, but they're not unspeakably so. They're still human - immortal, but neither can take on armies by themselves. A dozen aurors maybe, but more than that is pushing things. It's refreshing.

 

Story Review

The story is one of the few fanfics that have both Harry and Tom in a partnership in which they both stay more or less loyal to each other. The pacing was a bit slow and the ending seemed a bit hurried in my opinion. There were times where I had to skip a few paragraphs as to get to the meat of the chapter. Overall, a good one time read. 3/5.

 

BOOOOOOORING. That's all I have to say.

3/5 at most.

 

The author seems to actually be editing it (finally). So some of the worst stuff (such as the egregious Shakespearian quotation) is disappearing and the word count is dropping a little.

I think that perhaps the premise stretches the capabilities of the government a bit far and the story seems a little bit of a railroad at times; however, if you like a story for the long haul it's quite a good ride.

It has a certain style.

I'd give it 4.5/5 or 4/5.

 

Readable, nothing special, 3/5

 

The short summary: The author describes places. While he's at that he employs terrible grammar.

I don't quite like the fights in there. In one instance the author tells something to this effect: and then Harry and Tom fought, the ground shook under the force of their spells. This gives the impression that they are very good fighters. But in another instance, when actual description of a fight is given, we see that they both use general spells, dodge spells, sustain damage like any average person would.

I also have difficulty suspending my disbelief over the story premise. Neither Voldemort, nor Harry should have agreed to take part in Malfoy's mission.

The characters are very well defined. The dialogues are good. The descriptions are solid but written with terrible grammar. Is english his native language?

The story is very long: it's novel-length in fact, but I liked the pacing. The plot is excellent, save for the fact that it creates an oppressive atmosphere.

Must read, if you can plow through the terrible grammar, and ignore other specific aspects (like an epigraph for each chapter, etc.)

4/5

 

The grammar seems to be better than some have suggested. The pacing is good, and the plot is enthralling, if somewhat dark.

The battle scenes are on the whole quite fun and realistic in their own way with enough unusual magic to show that Tom and Harry are exceptional, whilst at the same time putting most of their successes down to either plans, luck or other advantages. For instance, in one case Tom clearly wins a fight against a large number of attackers because he had chosen suitable ground, in an earlier fight he struggled against a similar number because he was fighting in an open space.

The premise isn't perhaps the strongest, but if you read the whole piece you can kind of see how their characters might have got into that position. One important thing seems to be to remember that they aren't always honest with each other, the reader or other characters. I'm not certain, but I kind of feel Tom had his own reasons for agreeing to the mission and Harry's personality and weariness with the deaths of those around him may have forced him into it.

I would thoroughly recommend this story.