Title: Harry Potter and the Legacy of Strength
Author: Dreyden
Rating: T
Genre: Adventure
DLP Category: General Fics
Pairing: None Yet
Status: WIP, 4 chapters in at about 25k words
Summary: When Remus Lupin receives custody of Harry Potter, the whole world will change. Follow a Harry who's only ever known a loving environment as he grows to become a wizard capable of taking on the Darkest wizard of the century. AU, Remus-raised!Harry


Checked by Minion, August 18, 2013
Dead link is dead. If you know where to find another copy of the story, please inform the library staff.

 

This line, alone, was almost idiotic enough to make me close the fic in disgust. Rest of the story seems bland and genericish, no different from all the other fics that start off mediocre and then are abruptly abandoned. Not bothering until there's more content.

 

I read this a couple of days ago.

It's decently written- but nothing dramatic changed to make me really interested in it. I suppose he dosen't want to branch out too far yet. But I get the feeling this might be just going through canon events with a smarter Harry.

Looking at the writers favorite list shows he likes the Grey Maiden series and Harry x Hermione pairings... so I'm going to wait and see.

3/5, mostly for the decent writing.

 

Seems well written and nothing major really rubbed me the wrong way. I didn't like the way the author changed the quidditch rules though, but hopefully it will make for some interesting quidditch scenes later. Anyway still seems like preciously little has actually happened so far, so it is very hard to pass any kind of judgement. So far so good could as easily turn into boring as it could to brilliant. At the moment I would rate it as a solid 3/5 but would like to see some more before I pass judgement. That is if there will actually be more. I'm not holding my breath.

 

It so far seems bland and dull and not something I'm particularly interested.

That aside, why do people insist on putting fics up for review when they're still in the beginning stages. There isn't nearly enough to rate here, we haven't even gotten into the real plot yet. The story was just started. Give it time to develop. Reccing fics so early does absolutely nothing except harm their chances of making it into the Library. It's irritating and pointless.

 

deleted.


/words

 

Average at best, and some of the cliches/plot directions make me cringe. 2 bordering on a 3.

 

Nothing special 2/5...

 

I have the strong suspicion that the OP and the author of this story are one and the same- fishing for hits and reviews using a fake account doesn't endear you to me, TrueBlueJP90/Dreyden. If you were truly interested in constructive criticism of your work, why not post the fic in the "work by author" subforum here on DLP?

My review of the story itself: While I like the general idea of HP raised by Remus, this fic doesn't harvest the possibilities that are opened by the premise. The point of divergence (Dumbledore finding JP/LPs testament in Godrics Hollow) isn't presented in an interesting way, AD is just a deus ex machina here, not the shemer he was in canon. Harrys childhood is presented in a lazy and rushed way, with Lupin and him living more or less as hermits. The fight scene with Greyback was the highlight of the first two chapters, although it wasn't very plausibe for him to run across their camp just incidentally.

There is no pre- Hogwarts magical education to speak of, something I find hard to swallow after Dumbledore spilled the beans over the prophecy to Remus. This is made even more strange when Harry gets sorted into Ravenclaw later on, while the author hasn't shown us any academic tendencies of our hero. Most interactions between the characters are cliched to death and there are nearly no original ideas to be found in the Hogwarts scenes of the first few chapters.

The technical writing isn't breathtaking either, a Beta could do some good in that regard, especially for typos and grammar problems. Altogether, this is a rather bland story with some potential for more, especially if Ravenclaw!Harry is made more plausible by showing behavior and thinking on his part that distincts him from canon!Harry. Up to now, this is just a canon Harry in Ravenclaw disguise.

2.5/5

 

Alright, you got me. I honestly didn't know about the work by author section and posting your own stories is frowned upon. Sorry for the deception, just didn't want sugarcoated replies.

 

Oh, no need to worry about that. If anything, most of the folk at DLP are harsher on authors who pimp their own stories.

 

At least you admit your slightly fishy tactics after being called on them, that's worth something in my eyes. Now go on and re- read your first two chapters in light of your choice to put Harry into Ravenclaw. Do you see the lack of "Ravenclaw characteristics" in Harry?

Put in some practical defense training and a lot of magical theory work between Remus and Harry, give a more plausible reason for the Greyback incident (for example: his "pack" is residing near the camping ground because it's a muggle forest, much less danger of DMLE interference. Greyback was out hunting, info introduced via boasting).

One very important thing you should constantly do is checking for cliches. If you really HAVE to use a revamped canon szene -as implausible as it is that they actually happen even remotely that way, given that this is an AU running for 10 years- at least cut out everything that has been used in hundreds of fics before, like the Snape/Harry interaction in the first potions class or the Ron/Hermione spit before the troll attack. Delete cliches and insert your own ideas how the characters could act in an interesting way that furthers your plot.

 

I'll try to address each point one by one by my reasoning for why I did them.

1) Ravenclaw characteristics. My idea on the sorting is that the hat puts you where you will have the best chance to reach your potential. That and I don't believe everyone in a house should be identical. That said, I'll try to make the changes more obvious in the future.

2) My problem with Remus/Dumbledore training Harry from a young age is the fact that I can't see either of them subjecting a child to that sort of lifestyle. Above else, they're living in a time of piece after a long period of suffering. They aren't omniscient, and cannot know when/how/if Voldemort will come back. They treat Harry as what he is, a small child. This is actually something I firmly believe in, and probably won't be changed.

As for future training, well I haven't gotten there yet have I

3) I was aiming for the Greyback encounter to seem completely random, because it was. I thought I implied that he was just hunting/residing there at the time, but I guess it wasn't as clear as I thought. The main purpose of the scene was to basically get Harry to see and understand where some of the werewolf stereotypes come from. It'll be important later.

4) I see your point on the cliche scenes, and I could have worked around the Hermione/Ron fight, but that served two purposes. a) Get Neville to stand up for his friends b) Get Harry on his own.

The Snape scene, and the glimpse of him after class, were put in to show how the events of chapter 2 changed Snape, even just a little.

Could have been done better, yeah, but they served their purpose.

I know my writing isn't perfect, and I do appreciate the constructive criticism. I just can't wait to get out of PS, but the scenes go on longer than I plan and keep extending it. I'm a good ways into Chapter 6, and it looks like I'll be able to move onto CoS with Chapter 7, and that's where the divergence will really show.

 

Your Dumbledore tells Remus the prophecy AND about Voldemorts "spirit form" being rumored to flow around somewhere. Why wouldn't Remus begin with some practical defense training and some more magical theory? It wouldn't be like fucking boot camp, just an extra hour every few days would make a big difference.

If you give some more info why Greyback was there it doesn't look so extremely random anymore. The UK is in fact a rather big country for such a meeting to ever occure.

There are two problems with this:

1) Most of the cliched scenes wouldn't even happen in an AU running for 10 years.

Example 1) Why would Harry get the exact same snowy owl as in canon and name her "Hedwig"? That's just not plausible. Give him an eagle owl and call her "Athena" or whatever, but don't use cliches which were beaten to death five years ago.

Example 2) Malfoy in the train- why would he give Harry the exact same spiel as in canon, after Lupin boxed his dad in the mouth? Would he even go and search for him at all?

Example 3) Why would Hermione react to Rons words in the exact same way as in canon while all other circumstances have changed? She has three good friends and is much more accepted by her peers.

2) The cliche problem isn't only important for the internal consistency of your story, it's central for keeping discerning fanfiction readers interested. Why would anyone want to read the same old scene for the 101st time? This is a massive AU, that means you should write it that way. Period.

 

1) The owls at the store would not be affected by Harry being raised by Remus. They go to Diagon Alley roughly the same time as canon, it stands to reason that Hedwig would be there still.

2) Because the Malfoys are opportunists, and, long shot or not, having Harry Potter in your pocket is worth a play.

3) She's still a 12 year old who spent most of her life alone. One month of friendship won't magically fix that.

4) Remus/Dumbledore aren't perfect. Whether or not it would be smart to give Harry some extra training is irrelevant. They reasoned not to do it by trying, as I had Remus mention in Chapter 2, to take it on themselves.

 

You sir, are stubborn. And you seem to lack some knowlege about nomological and philosophical principles. Here is my last shot at convincing you:

The most plausible causal chain taking "Hedwig" out of the equation starts with the changes in Remus and Harrys mind and behaviour. You yourself describe to your readers how they live in a rather comfortable way with the money left by James and Lily- this surely enables them to have a private owl for their personal (Dumbledore, Hagrid etc.) and buisness correspondence (Gringotts) long before Harry gets his Hogwarts letter, thus deleting any need for them to have another owl. If you don't accept this causal chain, look at all the others produced by the POD you used in your fic: A lot of people changed their behavior and thinking after AD found the testament, beginning with himself (Chief Warlock etc. etc.) and the wizzengarmout and not even ending by Harry.

This prime cause of your timeline will produce a myriad of physical and mental changes differentiating the AU from the canon universe. Those causal events will accumulate and gain in breadth and complexity over the years, influencing billions of micro and meso factors inside the very small wizarding population of Britain. It's not unlikely that one or more of those affected events could take "Hedwig" out of the equation. Just one of many possible examples -I use Dumbledore as starting point because it's simpler to follow the chain if we use actions actually shown in your story:

Remus Patronus call about the Greybaclk attack takes Dumbledore away from a meeting with a wizzengarmout member. This wizard uses the time gained to walk his last meal of with a random trip through Diagon. He sees a beautiful snowy owl at the emporium and is reminded that his nice -who loves owls- has her birthday in a few days. He buys said owl, causing the shop owner to order another snowy owl by his supplier, who sends out his owl cathcher to aquire said owl. This owl the catcher comes back with is "Hedwig", caught nearly a year earlier than in the canon universe. After 2 months at the emporium, she is bought by someone else. End of "Hedwig".

Even if you postulate that those billions of changes over ten years haven't effected Hedwigs presence in the emporium, they will still have affected Harrys own mind. In canon he names his new owl "Hedwig" after a historical figure out of one of his schoolbooks. But in you AU, Harry has a wealth of backround in the magical culture of Britain and a totally different state of mind compared to canon. The likelihood of him christinening his owl "Hedwig" after all the described changes is very small indeed.

Really? Your own story contradicts this if you take a look at Dracos behaviour:

Reminding Harry of the confrontation between Lupin and Lucius and scorning his guardian/father is no way to get him into the Malfoys pockets. Even Draco must know this, not to speak of Lucius, who will be very sure that there is no chance that they can influence Harry.

If we accept that Hermione was in fact "spending most of her life alone" (fanon I think) she should be doubly aware of her new status as one in a group of friends. One month is more than long enough to change your behaviour, even parts of your personality if you are in a new environment and interact with new people. In addition, Ron's attack wasn't really that hurtful in your story, because the most serious hit against Hermiones emotional well being from canon ("no wonder she has no friends") isn't even used.

Even if I grant you that Dumbledore and Remus might make such a serious error in judgement, you forget that up to 70% of all human learning is casual in nature. It's just not conceivable that the Harry in your story wouldn't know how to perform some simple spells and charms, just from seeing Remus do them every day for 10 years. Not to speak of his alleged Ravenclaw tendencies- he should have a very good basic knowledge of magical theory.

/end of discussion on my part, this takes too much time.

 

It seems to me that your more trying to justify your work to this forum than actually take the advice and criticism given to you- which is counter productive to actually posting the story for review.

I agree that the owls in the store wouldn't be affected by Remus raising Harry, but the fact he dosen't go on the same day and still finds Hedwig means you don't have a firm grasp on the reality of retail. If you have ever worked in a retail shop then you would know that you actually have to replace an item about thirty times in one day because that's about how many of one product is sold in one day, e.g. about a week ago the shop I work at sold about twenty/twenty-five of the same shirt in one day. Which means by the time the day is out in that shop, the owls would most likely all be gone and they would get more shipped in, of course this actually is never seen and would never be addressed, but it's a fact of life.

Secondly, and the reason that is much more important, Harry didn't actually pick Hedwig out, Hagrid did, Harry liked Hedwig so much because of the fact it was the first proper birthday present he ever had, which anyone would like, Harry who was raised around Dumbledore might actually like red-looking owls because of being around Fawkes.

Eleven year olds are not politicans. Period. Also, insulting Remus about ten seconds into the conversation takes away that argumant, dosen't it? It's more like you wanted the typical cliche of meeting a rival on the train.

About the reasoning of not teaching Harry spells, well, Remus is someone who knows that some people arrive at Hogwarts knowing more spells than others- and the fact that it wouldn't be that hard to teach him some basic spells like the Disarming or Stunning Spell kind of ruins your argumant, I think Remus would rather Harry be able to defend himself, especially after the Greyback scene.

Also, Remus is the person who said this to Harry:

So we know he would view it as a poor way to repay James and Lily without helping their son learn to defend himself.

Yes, for a child a month of friendship is equal to about a couple of years for an adult, clearly you forget what it's like to be a child and how they exaggerate things, so I don't see that argumant holding up.

Hermione spent most of her life alone? No. Rowling obviously modeled Hermione after herself since she's perfect, so she would've had friends as a child, but:

It's never stated about what Hermione did in her childhood.

I'm not even going to start on the clique of him still befriending Ron and Hermione...

I'm going to direct you to a topic that should help you, as I won't be wasting another ten minutes doing a long post like this again.

http://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?t=18801

Edit, seems I was beat to most of my points. =)

 

I agree with basically everything that has already been said about your fic and would like to add that as I said in my review on ff.net you seem to make to many pointless changes to canon and then don't change canon where it should be changed based on the different upbringing of your Harry. Also with Harry already knowing Hagrid for several years in you story how is it that he was never introduced to Fluffy as he was around in your story when harry was still an infant.

 

Even though you are 'done' with discussion, I'm still going to take each of your points and try to argue them. Because If I couldn't defend the reasoning I used while writing this, why bother writing in the first place?

First off the bat, you assume Remus and Harry will need/want an owl. Why? He talks to exactly two people in the magical world, Hagrid and Dumbledore. a) He has a floo b) Dumbledore can apparate. I know that a 'what if they can't do either as part of an emergency?' Well then, they have their patronuses(patroni?) If they don't have enough time to send their patronus, they didn't have time to send an owl.

Meanwhile, 1991 rolls around, and a man who has not been affected by Harry's change of location finds a beautiful snowy owl and decides he could do with the money and captures it to sell to eyelops.

The discussion on Hedwig is pointless and minor, but you're only using it to introduce your Butterfly Effect point so...

Which in and of itself is a purely romantic concept. It gives people the comfort of thinking that what they do every day actually makes a physical difference in the world. And while it does, to a certain degree, by no means does it mean that if someone bangs their elbow in Texas, it wouldn't mean some man in Japan will luckily pick a winning bet.

But I'm getting off the point.

I made sure to mention in the prologue that Remus requested a 'closed' case, which was granted to him as long as he won the case. From that point, the people of the wizengamot are bound by law to not say anything. Obviously it doesn't keep everything from getting out, which does explain how Malfoy knows about Lupin's status in my story, but I digress.

Things won't change until the variable factor, Harry, is directly introduced into the equation.

I claimed the Malfoys were opportunists, not that Draco was good at it. He is 11, after all. He just does what Daddy tells him, like any other child who grew up being indoctrinated on a closed-minded set of beliefs.

From how canon!Hermione acts during the first two months at Hogwarts, she shows very little in the way of social skills. From this, I inferred that she didn't have many, if any, friends her own age and is very self conscious of herself. As for a month(two actually, i mistyped earlier) of exposure to a group of friends being enough to give her said self-confidence, no. Take it from someone who suffered similarily to she did on the self-esteem front at that age. That shit never leaves you, even when you've got a brilliant group of friends. It's always crawling at the back of your head, whispering your fears of being left out again.

You grow out of being cowed by it, but it nevertheless remains.

If all magic was as simple as see a spell being done and suddenly you were able to do it, there wouldn't be a need for Hogwarts, now would there? And unless Remus was spouting off magical theory, Harry wouldn't get much more than what i showed him getting by way of being mentioned between Remus and Dumbledore in Chapter 2. He's not clueless, but magic takes a damn good amount of practice.

And if there's one thing I hate, it's super!Harry who can pick up anything without any bit of struggle. Now that shit is boring.

---------- Post automerged at 01:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:08 PM ----------

First off, thanks for the thread. It's got a lot of interesting ideas that I may or may not use in my fic as time goes on. Much appreciated.

Now I'm going to only cover points I didn't in my previous reply, even though you won't 'waste' anymore time. I'd like to show I can defend my reasoning.

It is correct that if you work in retail you replace stock very often. It is also true that pet stores aren't retail. I've already explained my reasoning for Hedwig above.

You're right, Hagrid did pick out Hedwig in canon, and I neglected to take that into reason. My point on her still being there remains, however.

You're right, 11 year olds aren't politicians, which is why Malfoy sucks at it.

We are never shown, in canon, that some people are taught before Hogwarts. Even Hermione, in canon, is only shown to know the reparo. And she is well above average as displayed in the books. Going back to an example I used previously, Harry and Malfoy, we were told, would only be able to shoot sparks at each other during their duel, had it happened. If Draco fucking Malfoy doesn't get a pre-education, then I don't know who does.

And he doesn't befriend Ron, at all.


And I'm done too. I'm not the only one who's stubborn around these parts. All I can say is I hope you give my story time to really catch its own, but yeah. I'm done arguing.