Title: On the Wings of a Phoenix
Author: makoyi
Rating: T
Genre: General
Pairing: Unknown
Status: Abandoned
Chapters: 35
Words: 130,269
Updated: July 1, 2008
Published: June 19, 2006
Summary: AU, where nothing is as simple as good vs. evil. A summer spent trapped in Number 4 and barred from contact with his friends leads to Harry accepting an offer to correspond with a Death Eater. The consequences of thinking for oneself are far reaching.
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3000137/1/

I'm putting this in the independent category even though Harry hasn't gone into one of the common rants at Dumbledore or his friends yet. This story gives a view of a Harry who isn't trying to be a hero or live up to the prophecy, just a common teenager attempting to get out of the middle of a war he want's nothing to do with.


Checked: June 10, 2012

 

....
shouldnt this be in the alternate universe categry and not the independant category?

 

Yup, seems like AU to me. Not a bad read so far...haven't finished it though.

 

If an admin wants to move it so be it. But I posted it here because it's no more AU than any other of the many post OotP stories out there. Minus that part in the begining that I still don't understand.

 

Tons of plot holes, Pussy Harry, and one of the most AU stories I've ever read. Logic seems to be completely lost on this author..

 

Hum... Death eaters are terrorist who rationalise their killings -like all terrorist do. Speaking and arguing with one is a waste of time, and can be dangerous. This is usualy done by hermione (who i supposedly arrogant enough to believe herself firm) in hgss fics:/

I have trouble reading those type of fics...

 

I liked quite a few ideas in this fic, certainly original. But chapter after chapter I am waiting for Harry to get his shit together. Last chapter hopefully puts him on the right path.

 

Hehe
Raggerd reads Ctrl+Alt+Del Online
I just had to say that

 

I like this fic a lot. Its an interesting AU where a good case is made that "light" isn't always "good" nor is "dark" always "evil".

 

It had been an original story when I first read it. Back then I also considered it worth the time. It had been updated regularly and even been finished in the end. But even back then it was hard to ignore the plotholes all of these fics with bad!Dumbledore and almost-good!Voldemort have.

In 2007 the author started to rewrite the story which then became much longer. It was last updated Jan. 2008, but as far as I can see the rewrite never was finished - though it reached a point where it could end.

I didn't read much of the rewrite. The style has improved but the plot still has the same problems as the original story.

3/5

 

Title: On the Wings of a Phoenix
Author: Makoyi
Rating: T
Genre: Presumably General or Action/Adventure
DLP Category:Either Independent Harry or The Alternates
Pairing: None
Status: Complete but in need of Epilogue.
Author Summary: AU, where nothing as simple as good vs. evil. A summer spent trapped in Number 4 and barred from contact with his friends leads to Harry accepting an offer to correspond with a Death Eater. The consequences of thinking for oneself are far reaching.
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3000137/1/On_the_Wings_of_a_Phoenix

I found this one while browsing for alternate schooling stories and I found it to be reasonably good. Basically, it's a non HBP compliant AU. There were a few minor tweaks to canon in the prologue and first chapter that I felt were not needed.

There are multiple divergence points, that culminate in Harry living in a fidelius protected village that contains quite a few DEs and DE sympathizers. Harry ends up in regular correspondence with one such DE and finds himself less interested in fighting for the Order when some of his neighbors and friends are DEs.

This fic has some of the most plausibly written Dumbledore bashing I've seen. Voldemort is OOC, but well written. Overall, I liked it. It's not staggering or awe inspiring but it has a few ideas I haven't seen anywhere else.

[4/5] for good grammar, spelling and originality. Give it a try.

 

I highly recommend this story, and I have mentioned it in a few previous threads of mine. I have thought about putting up a recommended thread for it as it is my number one favorite story.

I would not say it is a 5/5 story though. There are a lot of parts that have dull story telling or bad formatting, and awkward to read (such as the ginny/harry stuff that has no real point to it). Harry comes across as too naive and dumb for the story, it is worse than canon. c36 is also one of the most rushed chapters i've seen, and I think the guy meant to use that as an epilogue but there is just so much not addressed after AD died.

There are toooons of stuff I love about this story though. The obscured 'dark' side. The views on the wizarding religon, which as far as I can tell is a mix of Wicca and celtic polytheism. I like the underlying theme of "History is written by the victors". I like that both sides of the war were responsible for many deaths, but when the auror's kill someone, it was justified, but when death eaters do, its an atrocity. I just love stories where being dark is not what everyone thinks it means and being dark is more about tradition and culture than the spells you use.

Oh, I guess I should mention that I have permission from the author to rewrite the fic and I am currently on chapter 10 Mine is truly starting in year 4 instead of it just being a flashback.

 

I posted this a long time ago, it's in the recycling bin now. Even though its gotten a re-write I can't bring myself to re-read it, was slow the first time around and while a re-write may close plot holes it shouldn't change to overall tone, which is slow.

 

I read it a few years ago and liked it ... I don't remember the storyline but a few details are still fresh, especially about the customs and defenses of the village, that is one of the strong points of the story.

 

I think the village has a lot of potential, we just don't see enough of the customs of the village come to light. Harry does not actively try to learn the traditions, culture or history. He is always constantly feeling like he is betraying the ideas that other people have forcefed him his whole life, even though he starts to realize that, but I think that process happens way too slow to be realistic. I think it would only take one major 'red flag' to make Harry start to question Dumbledore instead of trying to create excuses.

In my re-write (which i have not yet published, but will eventually but into WBA) I plan to add a lot more of Harry actually learning the culture. For example, in the Graveyard scene, Riddle asks if Harry even knows three of their gods, and I don't think Harry every learns any in the whole story to be able to answer that question. I plan on using one of the recurring characters to help Harry actually learn the customs, and probably some other things. The story word work well as Harry/Daphne, so that is probably what I will make it. I will have Sirius not die during y5 so some scenes between him and Regulus could happen, and I will probably involve Gideon at one point because I don't think he is ever seen in the story outside of a few mentions (and maybe at the end where Charlie and Hermione are kidnapped? In my first planning of the story I actually had Grindlewald be the headmaster of the school while Riddle was just a teacher, but I have since changed back to what it is in the fic.

I do have 60k words written already though, and two weeks off from work starting tomorrow, so expect to see something posted soon I project the story to be 300k words instead of the posted 180k.

 

I think I read this before.

Is it the story where Voldemort is rewritten as a good guy and the Ministry and Dumbledore as the bad guys?

 

Kind of. Voldemort was not as evil as everyone thinks, and Dumbledore has an evil side to him that is hard to see if you don't know how to look. Voldemort is still guilty of killing and stuff like that, but every attack was done for a reason. There is no real 'good' side, it it just what you believe in. Dumbledore wanted to remove the statute of secrecy, Riddle did not. In that sense, Riddle was trying to preserve wizarding tradition and integrity while Dumbledore potentially doomed the wizarding world. Dumbledore had the upper hand because he vanquished Riddle for a dozen years and had that much time to push his agenda while the other side was weak.

 

The must have been why I dumped it. I don't like stories where Voldemort and Dumbledore even partially switch places. One is evil. The other is good. One works mainly for his own selfish needs. The other works for his selfless needs. Outside of major AU's this dynamic shouldn't change. What I'm saying is that if Harry Potter becomes a DE or a DE sympathizer it shouldn't be done because he believes they are the "good" guys who would most help the wizarding world (if he thinks this initially or is tricked/manipulated into thinking so, then it's still cool)

 

I guess we have exact opposite tastes then

 

Because I was a fan of this fic when it was new I've given it a rating of four stars, despite the many flaws which have already been pointed out by others in the past.

I think it is important to consider the timing of the story and what the author was trying to do in the times they were trying to do it, not just whether or not it looks like a retread of the same old same old to our jaded eyes. At the time it was written (unless my memory fails me) this was one of the better fics that tried to give a realistic look at the other side of the war.

This was one of the few fics to rewrite cannon in such a way I could see there being a legitimate "other side" to the war. The Dark side seems sympathetic here, their goals more in line with their stated social roles and status. More than anything else the Death Eaters become people with something to fight for rather than simply mad cultist following a mad man.

I look forward to reading the rewrite mentioned earlier in the thread.

--bornagainpenguin

---------- Post automerged at 07:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:40 PM ----------

Did they really switch places are is it simply a case of the truth being more complex than we had previously known?

Consider propaganda during war time. (Which is what we are talking about essentially.) One of the most interesting things I've ever seen was a propaganda film made near the end of WWII intended to drum up financial support for the war by basically telling people that the Japanese were tireless machines working day and night to destroy us and how everything they did was geared towards this end while we lazed about. What makes it so interesting is that much of the footage used there and in other war propaganda films came from documentaries intended for school children to show them how much like the United States Japan was.

Amazing how the same facts and images can change from something good to something terrible just by changing the narration and framing devices used. I was stunned at how the Japanese went from "people just like us" to inhuman monsters intent on destruction of everything we hold dear. So if an entire nation of people can be so swayed to the point that concentration camps seem like a good idea to protect people from their neighbors; why should we be so surprised if Harry Potter--whose whole life was orchestrated would be duped into thinking there was a "good side" and a "bad side" in his war?

This is part of what made this story so interesting to me when I read it back when... There aren't so much as good and evil so much as this being a war instigated because people wouldn't discuss things rationally and resorted to violence. That there are attrocities on both sides of the war--and really how could it be any other way?

--bornagainpenguin