Title: Something to Live For
Author: Grey Silver Hawk
Rating: M
Genre: Adventure/Family
Status: In-Progress
Library Category: The Alternates
Pairings: Harry P./Bellatrix L.
Summary: Harry sacrificed everything to kill the Dark Lord. He sacrificed more to kill the next one. And the next. And the next. By the end, he had nothing left to give, and nothing left to win. Burdened by failure, he's thrown into a new world with familiar faces and unfamiliar personalities, and must fight to survive. AU, Dimension Travel, Graphic Violence.
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13250447/1/Something-to-Live-For

In my attempt to recollect any stories from the last year or so that really piqued my interest, this one percolated up through the layers of my subconscious.

The basic premise is thus: war-worn Harry travels (through the big magical explosion method) to an alternate dimension or timeline in which Lord Voldemort isn't. Due to small changes and the resulting ripples, he was able to find the influence he craved in the political sphere, and never went all the way down the path of darkness. When Harry arrives, he's become Lord Slytherin, and is seemingly locked in a game of political back-and-forth with Albus Dumbledore. He even had a son.

All is not sunshine and roses, however, as there is still a Dark Lord on the rise, and a group of terrorists wreaking havoc across the country.

Now, this story isn't brilliant, but it's got some nice ideas going on. Unquestionbly the best part of this story is Bellatrix and her relationship with her daughter. It's such a breath of fresh air. She's arrogant, she's a bit of a bitch, but she's not crazy. I won't go into detail of exactly what happened in the past to Bellatrix, as it's probably the best part of the story, and it doesn't deserve to be spoiled, but everything in her back-story speaks to a person who so easily could have become canon Bellatrix, had circumstances been different. It's really a fascinating take.

The rest of the story is fairly vanilla, but with enough uniqueness thrown in to keep the interest. Sadly, the story didn't get all that far into what I suspect was meant to be the meat of the story, and I'm not sure how likely future updates will be, but what's already there is well worth reading, if only for the very well thought out alternate history of Tom Riddle, and the knock on effects of that.

The weakest part of the story is probably the 'Dark Lord of the Blood Purists', who feels like he's been pulled out of a hat to provide the needed conflict. With how carefully the author has constructed most of the history of the known characters, the blood purists are too much like pointless mooks for Harry to cut through. And without any real indication of an identity for the Dark Lord, he too feels out-of-place. Perhaps the author intended to have a grand reveal of the identity of the Dark Lord, but we don't see it in the story as it stands now.

 

The author lays down the ground rules on how magic works by organically sprinkling short sentences here and there. Legilimency isn't an option because x, unnamed measures have to be taken to avoid being tracked when apparating etc. At no point does it feel that you have been hit with a info dump.

Even when Harry is reading up on something he takes regular breaks to continue brewing interesting potions. Author lets Harry properly consider actions he doesn't pursue instead of only spending time on things he later decides to do. Small things that make the story more alive.

There are a few chapters from other characters perspective and they all feel and sound like individual characters.

The issues:

• Improper spell usage (than/then, through/threw, their/there, brought/bought breath/breathe etc.).
• Spoiler: Big Bad

  The purist secret lord feels like a bad Voldemort impersonator. He is generic and it hurts the story as you can't take him serious. The big shock reveal can't be worth keeping his/her identify secret for so long.
• All thirteen chapters were posted during ~1 month roughly 10 months ago with no chapters since.

Clear 5/5 for the early chapters.
4.5/5 for the story as a whole and not sure how to round it.

 

2/5

Why? Because adult characters are acting, or rather written, like children. The author might expect readers to care for this as if it's some gripping turmoil or thrilling action, our protagonist transferred from his own world to a strange, new one, with his own issues and tragic past haunting him. But the reality is as soon as I read "Dumbles", "Snivellus", "catbitch" and so on, I just knew this was going to be shit.

It's mostly technically sound, hence 2/5, but otherwise, it's boring. I don't care for the characters, I don't care for mimicry of events from the origin world into this new one. And the last time this was updated was in May, last year, so don't hold your breath for updates either.

 

Personally, I rated this a 4/5 mostly for the interesting take on 'not-evil-Voldemort', and the knock-on effects of that change. It was interesting enough that I was willing to overlook the story's rougher edges, shall we say.

Also, I read it months ago, and the things that stayed with me were more good than bad, so that's probably a good thing too.

 

Getting a lot of Delenda Est vibes from this one, which is I believe one of the inspirations. That said, I found this an enjoyable read (mind you I liked Delenda Est a lot as well and not just as a guilty pleasure which seems to be the majority consensus here). I am a little concerned as to how the story will shape up from here onwards as it moves towards a Harry/Bellatrix partnership. Another concern I have is the total lack of conflict between Harry and Tom. They seem to have resolved their differences a little too easily and within moments of meeting each other as well. A bit more ambiguity would have served the story well.

A 3.5/5 rounded down.

 

The story is rather poorly written with a bland writing style and enough mechanical errors to suggest a lack of attention towards revision. That said, the plot is interesting to an extent, though very exposition based. 3/5 for me.
Edit: Upon further consideration, the characters are so one-dimensional and boring that I can't see it worth being one of the better fics in almost recommended. 2/5

 

I read this months ago and remember enjoying it. Definitely one of the best stories of its genre (dimension-hopping of an adult and competent Harry).

Given that's my favourite trope, my subjective rating is already high. But even objectively, I'd argue the story deserves good marks - Harry actually feels adult and competent, his decisions make sense. Dialogues flow naturally for the most part. There are some original ideas.

That's what stayed with me months after reading. That's why I'm giving it a confident 4/5.

 

TBH, it feels like Indy!Harry written in 2008 but without glaring grammatical errors.

 

Can't really argue either way, it's been too long since I read it. But maybe yes, I remember getting a bit of that vibe.

I didn't close it down in frustration like many other stories with wannabe mature characterisation of Harry, though, so that probably counts for something.