Passageways has one of the single worse beginnings that I've ever read. I tired to read it once five years ago and it still sticks out to me. Here's the review I wrote of it back then -

Summary of first chapter (starts years 4):
Loses friendship with Ron AND Hermione
Weasley's turn their back on him, disavowing him
Outcast from the student-body
No support from Dumbledore
Flung of a staircase, nearly dying
Beat up by Dursley's as well
Sirius randomly dies during the summer
Inherits stuff by going to Sirius will reading with the goblins
Becomes the lord of House Black (and House Potter, of course)
Learns lordly doctrine from the portrait of Walburga Black
Learns Occlumency from the Portrait of Walburga Black
Kreacher reforms
Dobby comes to work with him as well
Overuse of the word "nee"
Gets banned from the Gryffindor tower at the start of the next year
Delusional!Ron browbeating Hermione
Harry uses a supercharged locking reflecting charm thing
More delusional!ron, practically twirling his mustache.
Delusional!Dumbledore
Threatens to take Dumbledore before the Wizengamot
Kept of of Gryffindor Tower by the portrait
Hogwarts talks to Harry
Deus ex Machina with the Room of Requirements and young!Bellatrix

So I look back on this now, as I did back then, and ask myself how anyone could actually read this story.

 

Yeah, I never could finish that one either.

My guess is that those kinds of fics are emotionally satisfying to a lot of readers. The fact that it's bad writing doesn't matter, because it's beside the point. The goal was always to escape into a fantasy world where they're powerful. Time-travel stories are built around that emotional core: you get a chance to do things over, fix your mistakes, get revenge, and rescue/be rescued by your ideal partner.

It's kind of the same reason a lot of people casually play mmo games. DLP is like the elite group of raiders who argue over the quality of endgame content. To casual readers, we're the snobby assholes who are missing the whole point of why most people play.

 

I think this post nails it.

 

Solid recs.
I gotta ask about October:

Spoiler

Is the rest of the fic legit just god-emperor Azrael ruling over Mars?
The fic was okay until that point.

Delenda Est was my first true love in time travel stories. It's a shame it didn't really work out.

I'd like to recommend Tangled Strings and Technicalities.
Three main characters go back to the 1970s. They all go back from different points in time.
It's a bit mopey at times and does summer from a bad case of fluff.
It's enjoyable and almost finished however.

 

Depends slightly on where you left off, but in general the fic moves on. So while the character is still doing that, it hasn't been a focus for a long while.

Spoiler: Very minor spolier

Azrael stays there and takes less of a role for the rest of the story (though he may become relevant again in the next arc). In general he shows up once a few years to talk. In terms of the story, time moves on and the cast changes - Tom is still the main focus of course. The story also changes focus, and becomes quite different.

Spoiler: Larger spoilers

Tom goes to Hogwarts as a professor. He gets married, has a kid and so forth. Societal tensions continue to escalate, until we see things that happened in canon begin to happen. There is a slight difference though, in that many blame the Martians, which distracts many from the actual problem and causes issues between people who would otherwise probably be allies.

Comment on the story itself: We've had a longer break from Tom actively studying magic and I hope we get back to that -- would love to see him get to Voldemort levels of power. But that isn't really the authors style, or so it seems. I think its just that I rather like Tom and rather dislike a lot of characters.

 

I really liked that time travel fic where adult Harry travelled back in time to the night of third task and had, like 12 hours to destroy the Horcruxes. It was really really fun.

 

The Unforgiving Minute, by Voice of the Nephilim

 

Gryffindors Never Die (Almost Rec thread HERE) is one I've always had a soft spot for. I've not re-read it in a long time, so can't give you much on it, other than Harry and Ron come back in time, and act like assholes. By no means one of the best of the fandom, but I know I've read it a few times, so it's good for a laugh.

 

The fact that it deals with a timeloop isn't made apparent until the end of the story. so spoilers I guess, but Gemino, by Portus, is a really good one-shot about Alastor Moody; part character study, part killing spree.

 

It was great. Then the author got annoyingly preachy.

 

This is the best news I've heard all week. If you need help with beta'ing, hit me up. Anticlockwise is one of my favorite timetravel fics posted in the last few years.

As for best time travel fics..

Circular Reasoning
A Long Journey Home (if we are talking about going back in time)
The Wizard From Earth (similar to above)

 

I recently tried to read this story and I ended up stopping at around chapter 10. The start is promising, the writing is adequate and the characters are, if nothing else, not obnoxious.

Then the story begins to lose its shine as the initial interest wears off and you realize it has no plot and only rambles around throwing wealth and cool glitz at the readers face to try and elicit some sort of thrill, which isn't really possible without some sort of tension in the story. I guess some people consider her reconciliation with friends as a '''plot''', or the build-up to the wedding, which seems to be the central theme towards the end.

The characters also end up being rather bland, and turn into the wallflowers when the writer decides that they want to focus on another aspect of the scene, instead of acting organically.

Definitely not the worst, but not particularly interesting either.

 

Agree with this completely, although the writing is far more than 'adequate.' I can't believe I never encountered this story. It's some of the best prose in fanfiction. The problem is that the rest of the story doesn't live up to the promise of the first chapter. But holy shit, that long first chapter is impressive. It's a shame the rest of the story doesn't really have much of a connection to canon.

If you're looking for story that explores an immortal female Harry, a hypothetical Morgana/Merlin relationship, and other scenes throughout early wizarding history, this one is amazing (and incomplete). If you're looking for a connection to canon characters, don't bother with it. Either way, the writing and characterization are first-rate.

 

My favorite would be http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3963087/1/Harry_Potter_and_The_Trust