Title: A Dreary Tale of Katelyn Potter
Author: FenneHP
Rating: T
Genre: Friendship/Hurt/Comfort
Status: In-Progress
Library Category:
Pairings: Gen
Summary: Katelyn Potter, the 'Girl Who Lived', is miserable at Hogwarts. She's ignored, or despised and looked down on - so she decides to leave it all behind and join the only two people who ever loved her. However, her attempt to take her own life fails, and she's left to pick up the pieces. TW: Suicide attempt in 1st chapter. Mentions of abuse. !femharry
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12814058/1/A-Dreary-Tale-of-Katelyn-Potter
Trigger Warnings: Suicide Attempts, Child abuse (off screen)

I found this story recently while I was browsing FF.net. It's a very moving story which tackles issues like PTSD, depression and anxiety quite gracefully. This fic features fairly realistic characterizations and most of the students are portrayed as what they are, pre-teens and teens who don't fully realize the consequences of their actions. There is little of the bashing that is so prevalent today and there is a greater focus on character development over plot and magic
Rating: 5/5

 

Based on those two quotes alone, I was not filled with confidence that this would be anything more than another angst fueled fic that attempts to be completely novel by making shit really sad.

It wasn’t.

Really, there was.

In the first goddamn chapter we not only have savior!Snape, but we have manipulative!Dumb old Dumbles confessing to his myriad crimes and attempted schemes. Hell, the author managed to trip every tired old cliche that has ever appeared in an angst fic, and do so in exactly the same way as every other angst fic.

Though there were a few highlights: The deathly pale hanging victim that was wearing a peaceful expression while clinically dead, because that happens. The use of muggle CPR, because there is no way wizards have or the author could think for five seconds of, a better way. I suppose it might also be a little petty of me to wonder why she wasn’t moaning in pain after having her ribs broken from CPR.

Oh, and that glorious suicide note.

I couldn’t make it past the first chapter, but skimming forward didn’t fill me with any more confidence. Hell, the last line of chapter motherfucking 16 is:

This fic does have two things I can credit:

1. Basic technical proficiency. It was at least polished in that sense.
2. True to its title and summary. It is dreary. But dreary is boring when it isn’t a metaphor.

1.5/5 because of a lack of originality and angst. Rounded down.

 

I read a bit of this out of morbid curiosity, because I don't think I've ever read fanfiction where the protag attempts suicide. I read the first chapter and skimmed the next five or so, and the bleakness just continued to grow.

The characters are massively OOC, especially Hermione and the female chasers. They're all inexplicably turned into vicious bullies.

Pbluekan is right that the writing is proficient, but that's all the story has going for it. I don't see why anyone would write 80k words of this unless they're using it as a form of therapy for suicidal ideation. Which is fine, if that's the case, and I hope it's useful for the author. It's the sort of story that depressed teenagers might identify with if they were suicidal; but it would work better in a different context with original characters.

As Harry Potter fanfiction, it's just unrelenting, unrealistic misery.

 

I can't take any piece of fiction seriously that includes trigger warnings and a teen rating.