I first saw this fic today on DLP. I really enjoyed the story so far. The writing was well done, and the plot was interesting. 4/5

 

Just found this story and was pleasantly surprised due to the low reviews. The story covers alot over a short amount of time and the characterization was great, almost like watching a drama, though more interesting. I really like the Harry/Fleur pairing and was dissapointed it ended, i always love some Bill bashing.

 

I have this in my feeds, but I didn't remember this story at all. Started reading this and had a deja vu. I think I've read some of this fic in 2007. But I think it has been edited since, because some of it feels different from what I remember.

I've read 13 chapters so far. Needs some proofreading. The Fleur part was nice. Getting Ginny to confess and then just letting her go was criminal, IMO. I hope it bites Harry in the ass and she gets someone he cares about killed and he has to live with the guilt of knowing he let a dangerous sociopath loose on a school full of innocent children. Because that is exactly what he did.

 

I did edit the story down (approximately 60,000 words) from what it was originally. The scenes that I removed were either unnecessary or involved rehashing, so nothing significant is missing.

No, nobody is going to die because of Ginny. But that doesn't mean Ginny doesn't pay thoroughly for what she did later on.

 

I had read this back in '08 but couldn't remember any of it, so went back and refreshed my memory. It's quite good so I don't quite understand the worries that you had in regards to the quality Scary.

Out of curiousity have you regained enough motivation to write regular updates for Sixth Year or is it going to be more sporadic updates when the muse strikes?

I'm sort of divided on the Ginny issue. On one hand it does seem that she got off lightly, but on the other I'm just glad she's out of the picture and she does seem like she's genuinely given up.

Either way keep up the good work.

 

I'm hoping this update is the beginnings of something more regular, but no promises. I have 2000 words down on the next chapter.

As for my issues with the quality of the chapter, as I struggled with every scene it became a concern. I probably spent far too much time considering it and the content (i.e. 2+ years). I wanted to ensure I'd made the scenes emotional, or at least sympathetic, and that the character drama side was interesting rather than dragging on, given that aspect was the focus of most of the chapter. Wasn't sure I succeeded. So far, reception has been pretty positive though.

 

That's probably because you're reading the post edit version. I recently reread this story and it's greatly improved from the pre-edit version. I've upped my rating accordingly.

 

I like it and was dissapointed when i ran out of chapters. I like most is the characterization, it's hard to find stories that focus on having the plot moving with characters than just action situations, like Death Eaters attacks.

It feels almost like a Drama but much, much better. Keep up with the great work.

 

Pretty good story. I'm curious to see how it flows with such a large gap between the updates.

 

Updated. Chapter 20 posted.

 

holy fuck reading soon, Scary I love you. (nohomo)

 

Well, one more thing to re-read. I remember liking this very much from the very first chapter. Any fic that starts with Harry throwing someone from the moving train will allways have a special place in my heart.

 

Hopefully the stupidly long chapter at least somewhat compensates for the long wait. No promises on anything in the future. I'm going back to uni work now until end of November.

Definitely not abandoned yet.

 

This story is decent, but I wouldn't say it's anything special. The combat is pretty choppy, and the relationships between characters even more so.

A few of the things that bugged me the most, is that everytime Harry argued his point about Malfoy to Hermione, he ended up apologizng a few seconds later like some little bitch. As if it was his fault, when clearly Hermione was the one in the wrong.

And then the bullshit with Ginny was what truly made me drop this story. The fact that they done practically nothing in response to her trying to force him to love her and drop all of his friends.

The Daphne of this story was right. Harry is too much of a soft hearted wimp. He doesn't have the stones to beat Voldemort and that's why I dropped this fic.

He isn't proactive enough. It was mentioned earlier in the story that Harry was learning legilimency. Why not stun Malfoy, drag him to the R&R and the Legilimens him repeatedly until they get through? I'm sure an Obliviate charm wouldn't be to hard to work out, because hell ol' flophart could use them.

So to sum it up, I didn't like how wimpy Harry was. And the blatant ignoring of people breaking the law in regards to him, and Harry doing nothing in retaliation. The use of these pretty outrageous plot-holes to make the plot progress is something I just can't stomach.

I'd rate this a 2/5 at best honestly. And only because of the good grammar and spelling. The story started out good, but then crashed and burned by the 10th chapter.

 

Although I'm not feeling quite as strongly, nor would I phrase it exactly like that, my concerns are mostly the same, and my rating slightly higher.

 

I haven't had to defend my decision on this in awhile, though I do recall the chaos when I first released it.

You know what happened. Ginny used the spell, hoping to capture Harry's attention like her mother did her father. It wasn't working, so she kept applying it. Shit went wrong. Harry's pretty upset. He's hurt that someone he trusted would resort to something like this. He wants her to stay away from him, something that Dumbledore ensures. He doesn't want to prosecute her because she was a friend until that point, he wants to keep his life away from the media, and doesn't feel the Weasley's, for all they've done for him, deserve to have their daughter sentenced to Azkaban for something horribly misguided.

I recall some reviewers who believe this reaction was basically an invitation to try again. I think everyone who does seriously misinterprets Ginny as maliciously evil rather than horribly misguided. I don't recall ever making her out to be that way. If I have, by all means point me in the direction of the section I do and I will rephrase it. That has never been the intention, and Ginny will not attempt this again.

Plenty of people get turned off by this. If it didn’t warrant such an enormous rewrite, I would’ve removed it and had Ron and Ginny be removed from the picture a different way when I fixed the story up two years ago. As it was, that section was written still well within the height of the love potion era. I needed them gone (Ron and Ginny's personalties do not fit within the vision I have for this story), and this was what came to mind most vividly at the time.

Malfoy. As is becoming increasingly realised in the fic where I’m up to, the Ministry is corrupt. Harry raping Malfoy’s mind via legilimency is illegal. Oblivating is illegal. Torturing him is illegal. If found out, I argue that in this world it was going to be more trouble than it’s worth. But the waiting to see Malfoy make a mistake doesn't work either, so Harry eventually does take the risk. All intentional to teach Harry lessons.

Other people breaking the law in regards to Harry? Works because they all have power he doesn’t. Except for the aforementioned Ginny bit.

As for choppy action, I'm not going to lie. I'm simply balls at writing action. That's why I wrote a character focused fic. I'm working on improving.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by choppy character relationships. I thought they were fairly consistent in what I was achieving with them. Some getting closer to Harry (Padma, Susan and Hannah flirting with him), some fight (Daphne and everyone, but especially Harry and Neville), some are quietly involved (Luna, Su), some are increasingly afraid of what they’re facing (Katie, Ernie). With such a large cast, I know there are issues. But I’ll admit I thought I’d done a decent job of keeping characters and their relationships to each other (what we see from Harry's perspective at least) consistent to what we know of them at this point.

A major arc of SY is Harry growing into the role of a leader. I’m not going to say I haven’t made missteps, but the end goal is someone who will get things done. Harry was passive at the start of HBP. So he was here. The only changes I made were Harry and Fleur talking at the Burrow, the prophecy not said, and Harry thinking of bringing the DA back in this form.

All said and done, thanks for bothering to write what you thought. I’m still amazed this story is in the library.

 

I can speak only for myself.

The wizarding world being a place where the government can do horrible things to you and yours and protects people who do even worse is unfortunately realistic. But in escapist fantasy, where the setting is this bad, I want to read about a protagonist who is successful at creating lasting change. This, IMHO, would begin with declaring that the law and its enforcers are parts of the problem and using oaths/brainwashing/murder/etc. to eliminate anyone who would support Voldemort for reasons of ideology, habit, greed, fear or following orders.

Unfortunately this almost always means the protagonist and the plot are unrealistic. Because realistically, he would fail and he and all his friends would be tortured and killed.

Making the protagonist successful and not making me hate him more than I hate his enemies is hard. JKR certainly failed at it - canon!Harry did not deserve to win and I was not rooting for him. He also failed to create lasting change.

This protagonist is also too soft, too weak. It is fine if we see that in his head he is unsure of success. But externally, he should be more powerful and more confident. He should be like Dumbledore in power and like Voldemort in his willingness to use power to achieve his goals. At least by the time the plot is resolved. The current progression makes it appear that this won't happen, and in order to win he will need divine/authorial intervention.

 

I think most criticisms about Harry as a protagonist will be resolved come the other side of the climax of Sixth Year. I know that's a horrible response, but with the manner I approached this fic it really is the best I can do.

I wanted to write a fic with a gradual evolution of Harry, becoming the leader he needs to be. That was one of the major instigators for me to write in the first place.

I feel that I've changed the most significantly throughout the major events in my life and only a little bit in-between such events. My experiences shape how I approach situations in my fic sometimes (others I've no experience and BS my way though it). This is one of those.

Harry's been gradually changing since the fic began. Once he's out of Hogwarts, facing more Death Eaters, experiencing the reality of the responsibility, that'll change him even more. But the significant events of the climax are what will essentially change Harry into the type of protagonist most of my critics appear to desire.

I won't need authorial intervention for Harry to beat Voldemort. He's gonna grow into his role as he meets the challenges.

Practically everything I did with this fic was playing the long game. Long game for romance, for mysteries, for character development, etc. Mistake? Maybe.

Knowing the full vision of the fic really helps. Hard not to give away spoilers though when you know issues with the fic will be resolved.

 

I hope you are more truthful than Dumbledore was when you say, essentially,"trust me, it will be ok".

 

For me the worst thing is the fact that everyone seems to be thinking that opposing Voldemort is a personal favor to Harry. Like Harry is the only who will ever be negatively affected by him, so Harry must kiss the ass of anyone who could help, instead of dishing the shit out of everyone who isn't helping. Seriously, what the fuck?

I can't decide if Harry's characterisation is consistent or not. He spends 90% percent of his time being a whimpy pussy with no backbone, with the occasional flash of 'hey, I can stand up to people! Maybe, possibly'. This kind of reminds of canon Harry though, so idk.