I totally agree with Sesc about this update, I think this is the worst chapter of the story.

The shopping trip seems like a badly written filler, the "stupify multiplicitus" made me want to kick a puppy, the projection charm should be more limited otherwise it would be to easy for Harry: he does the spell and hey! He wins every fight, bypass every protection and is awesome... End of story.

The Bellatrix part is, like everyone said, much better... It didn't mean that it was that good, just that the Harry part was that bad.

Positive point: how the Blacks see the Harry/Bella relationship. I'd like to see their reaction when they realize Harry is the Black Boss.

1.5/5 for this chapter. Can do better.

 

I totally agree with above. It was shown that it can be done better - only 1.5/5 for chapter,

 

Phoenix fire transportation? Wtf?

This was one of my favorite stories before, a very engaging plot and excellently written characters. The Voldemort chase scene was superb, and the politics intriguing. Then he murders half the important characters in a single chapter. Shit.

 

I guess I'm one of the few who didn't have that many problems with this chapter, Harry's still being way to passive but it appears to be leftover habit from when he was basically fighting the war in the future by himself and had to be so cautious Moody himself would say "dude, wtf?". Luckily Bella's started to prod him about it so hopefully we'll get to see some Guerilla!Harry creeping around in the night, murdering death eaters sleeping in their beds, see how Voldemort likes his tricks used against him.

Though I have to say I was quite disappointed that Harry didn't seize the opportunity that fell into his lap and use the thugs to capture their employer. He should take every chance he can get to weaken Voldemort's forces, what else is gonna be doing with his time? Might as well capture, interrogate and kill every death eater he comes across. Considering the future he's seen I'm surprised he's fighting this war so cleanly..

Bellatrix part was rocking, Black family drama just exploded and I can't wait for Harry and Bella to choke those insolent harpies to death.

@Sesc
What about the shopping trip bothered you? He just did the very sensible thing and prepared hidden caches of money and supplies in case he had to get the fuck out of wherever he might stay. It's not as if he went into Diagon Alley and bought a magical katana which used to belong to the greatest wizard ever, Naruto, or a Magic for Dummies by Merlin.

 

The shopping trip smelled like "Hurr, Ima buy a super-trunk and live in it". It's not, not really, but it's still a tad too close for those battered by the usual, cliché-ridden independant-plot. Buying a case of wands? Why?

What bothered me way more was the Multiple Stupefy. It's just ... fail.

 

I think the guy is trying to cram too much into this story. This story does not need a super!Harry. It's got enough going for it as is, and adding stupid stuff like "Stupefy multiplicitus!" and phoenix fire travelling is a good way to ruin a story. And I could honestly care less what 18 strongboxes full of potions, wands, and money is for.

 

The phoenix fire travel spell is pretty stupid, though so far it's limited enough to not be complete shit. I didn't think the image projection spell was that bad. Unless I completely missed something, Harry just did his best Dumbledore impression when Bellatrix's back was turned. It can go through wards and stuff, yeah, but he can't physically interact with anything. It's essentially that same thing as a fire/floo-call without needing a fireplace.

The worst part of the chapter was the 'stupefy multi-whatever' spell, but I can forgive it so long as that's the only time. The case of wands sounds pretty retarded, but it might not be to bad.

 

Was hoping he'd pay the thugs double so that they'd get him their employer. I mean, when you've got the cash, use it for Merlin's sake. :facepalm

 

@Sesc
thanks for clarifying, makes a whole lot more sense to me now. Harry's lack of follow-through did indeed make the entire scene pointless, the hardly-a-duel didn't bother me since these clearly weren't top shelf opponents, just useless thugs who you probably can't walk 10 feet in Knockturn alley without stumbling over. A proper duel against their employer would have been nice, or the employer and his backup, maybe some of the students Harry ran out of Hogwarts. Because I doubt he'd have any trouble with just one of them, unless they were one of Voldemorts classmates and therefore reasonably experienced.

@Oruma
Why bother paying them when he'd already made the coward tell him everything? He would have given Harry their employer in a heartbeat after the show Harry put on for him.

 

The "hardly-a-duel" isn't the problem. The spell Harry used is. And so are the two other spells he used in this chapter.

That said, last chapters of this story are still the best ff updates I read lately.

 

The shotgun stunner didn't bother me, the über-rare book that Bellatrix wished up in the RoR did, would've been preferrable if she just stole it from her family's library or the restricted section or something. As for the spells, well.. the author should have limited them in some way, but it ain't a dealbreaker so I'll wait and see where the author takes them.

 

Am I the only one who's bothered by the "DracoInLeatherPants"-treatment of Bellatrix? I'm not normally a canon-adherent who rains on others' parades, but Bellatrix doesn't seem... evil enough.

Yes, this is an AU and time-travel, but if Nice!Malfoys are considered annoying, why aren't more people irked by Nice!Bellatrix?

It's a little disconcerting to see a woman who shoved a wand up Neville's nose act civilly... without the rabid blood prejudice.

 

Apart from the AU argument, one can point out that we don't know whether Bellatrix was a psychopath from birth or if she became one through some traumatic ordeal. Nature versus Nurture man.

She could just as well be slowly introduced and cajoled into Voldermort's camp, but Harry prevented that. What's more in this AU original timeline Bellatrix in the prologue is different and not very canon.

Another thing: in canon she's insane only after she appears, which is after her incarceration in Azkaban.

 

When it comes to the sanities of Potter character, I personally subscribe to the Rowling school of thought: it's a combination of nature and nurture.

Jo made a comment about Voldemort, I think, and how his upbringing wasn't the only thing that created the Dark Lord. It's especially telling how Tom is the scariest thing in the orphanage. I mean, HBP makes it clear that while Harry and Voldemort both had similar upbringings, they were very different people. Something about Tom being born without love due to the Amortentia, while Harry is the progeny of a consummated marriage.

Catman mentioned in the Boy Who Lived thread that Megii's story was good because it didn't try to wave away all of Voldemort's sociopathy. I have a friend who's studying psychology, and her professor tells her that while many serial killers are products of broken homes, there are also many who showed signs of instability even when things were "all right".

Yes, nurture probably played a large part in Bellatrix's ascension to villainess, but it's too simplistic to conclude that it is the only contributive factor.

I wouldn't argue this if there was even a scrap of evidence in canon that Bellatrix would have been a decent cookie if it wasn't for her upbringing, but lo and behold! A family with a history of in-breeding and violence.

Sirius isn't certainly not a reliable source, but he does imply that Bellatrix was a little "off" even as a child. If anyone, it'd be Andromeda who's most likely to act like "Bella" in this fic. Even Narcissa is a more likely candidate.

If Nice!Malfoys are annoying, why not Nice!Bella as well? Surely I can't be the only one.

nb: gbbz, she was definitely veering on insanity even before Azkaban. The Longbottoms, anyone? The Dementors merely pushed her a little more over the edge.

HBCarter said something really interesting in an interview, I think. She compared postAzkaban!Bellatrix to her own two year-old toddler; shrieking and fickle.

 

That's JKR's opinion on Nature/Nurture though. At this point in the fic, Bellatrix is still a schoolgirl, still forming her opinions on blood status and Voldemort is only just arriving on the scene to sway people to his cause. Bellatrix has years yet to develop to the state we see her in during canon.

She's found someone else to follow over the Dark Lord, and that will impact her views. I agree she could be a bit more cold metal bitch, but she's trying to get into Harry's good books, and she does look up to him.

Also, you don't need to be insane to torture someone into a comatose state.

 

First off all, this story is the one of the few such Harry/Bellatrix fic which is worth reading. It could be much better but enjoyable especially compared with the usual crap (I am a nice, light-sided, good girl who was controlled). Furthermore it is very difficult to write a serious, novel long Harry/Bellatrix fic with a psychopath!Bella (same as with e. g. canon!Luna), so we know that almost everybody cheats (notable exception Only Enemies). And in this story Bellatrix is not nice. She has no friends, she almost exclusively cares about herself (before Harry's entrance), strives for power and although she isn't a pure blood purist (yet) we see that she could easily have became a top Death Eater without Harry's intervention.

I think that's why we don't complain (much) about the sane!Bellatrix.

 

Makes sense, I suppose. Still, you'd have to acknowledge that Bellatrix is probably a little OOC here, even though she is still selfish and not a "Woobie". I was just expecting a bit more of a hint of madness from this teenage Bella. Judging from Sirius's words and what we know about the Black family, they were rather unstable even before Voldemort's rise. I would have preferred a darker, more racist and perhaps more violent Bella. She doesn't need to be the bunny boiler from the books. I would just like more allusions to her perhaps latent sociopathy.

It is in-built to some extent. What I remember of Bella from the GoF trial, she wasn't quite the foaming nutjob as her post-Azkaban self. However, even then she was a bit cuckoo. Rational and cunning, yes, but sociopathic? Double yes.

It's just like the Boy Who Lived fanfic; if we don't tolerate Nice!Adopted Toms and Nice!Malfoys, why the Nice!Bella?

Okay, maybe not so much "nice" as "sane", but you know what I mean. She doesn't seem sociopathic or "evil" enough.


(Is it possible that we are more likely to tolerate a nice/sane!Bella than a nice!Malfoy, because of Bellatrix and HBC's "huge tracks of land", to quote TvTropes?)


Still, the writing of the fic is rather good, and the Harry/Bella relationship, which I think I'm subconsciously treating as practically a Harry/OC relationship, is decently done.

 

There is no depth to Bella in canon. There is no depth too most of the characters in canon. And what we do see in the books or movies isn't a foaming nutjob, but a cruel person that appears slightly or not-so slightly deranged. So I think the author has done an excellent job of presenting a plauisble young Bella. If you're going to be a strict canon fanatic, the elder male Blacks and Malfoy are much harder to believe.

I can understand people not liking this portrayal of Bella, but people who say this can't be Bella from before she became a death-eater aren't being honest about how little is known about canon-Bella. Or are cherry-picking canon things they agree with.

Look at Kreacher. A character inside the book goes from blood-purist house-elf to leading the charge against the death eaters at the battle of Hogwarts. I find that inside the book reversal of fortune harder then believing Bella is a bored over-powered slightly unhinged princess.

 

Rowling implies that Bellatrix was unhinged, even as a child. Granted, this evidence is either from the mouth of Sirius (unreliable) and her checkered family background, but since there is no indication of otherwise, we should interpret this as Rowling's canon. Like or not, Rowling thinks Bellatrix is a nasty piece of work; she made that very clear in her interviews. You are entitled to have your own opinion and who is to say Rowling makes good decisions (Ginny from HBP is a particularly telling example), but canon is canon.

And on the serious Blacks and Malfoy, they're probably less canon-compliant than this Bellatrix, but at least they're unseen characters. Blank slates like Daphne Greengrass, upon which you can be more liberal in your reimaginations. Bellatrix is so strongly characterised in canon that this Bellatrix is jarring. Still fascinating to read about, yes, but jarring nonetheless. I had to almost pretend that she is an OC future Death Eater, or Andromeda.

I'm basically iterating my previous tl;dr posts, but to-mae-to, to-mah-to, we have to acknowledge at least that this Bella is an AU version. Probably not IC, and not particularly plausible. It doesn't mean she's any less awesome; even though Orion was probably non-canon compliant, I still really enjoyed the political intrigue he presented. He's a breath of fresh air. But OOC/AU, nonetheless.

And I'm not trying to "cherry pick" canon; I'm just a little puzzled by how many DLP-ers are fine with this Bellatrix, yet would be a little uncomfortable with Nice!Malfoys or Nice!Toms. Is it because this Bella is well-written, while most Nice!Malfoys are a walking sack of fangirl angst?

EDIT: And it's not expedient to declare that canon!Bella has no depth. As you mentioned, she's surprisingly dangerous, resourceful and rational even as her nutjob self. And you could easily explore the extent of what HBCarter called Bellatrix's "functional sociopathy"; the author of this fic could do the same sort of shtick he does here, trying to portray a saner Bellatrix who isn't completely down the road to madness. However, he could have injected more cruelty into his Bellatrix; many sociopaths show signs of disturbance, even as children. (e.g. playing with insects, pulling their siblings' hair for no reason, playing with dead birds, etc.)

That Bellatrix would be more plausible and IC, in my opinion, and still be interesting - and sane/"nice".


I guess that I was holding out for a Peter Wiggin-esque Bellatrix. She can have sociopathic tendencies without being evil, and whilst still being raised in a decent home with Harry's ameliorating influence.

A little more cruelty would make this Bella more interesting, in this reviewer's humble opinion. Then again, it is only my opinion. Everyone is entitled to their own.