Harry and Nathan are not identical twins. Physically they look very similar (For this reason, Hermione mistook them in the train), but have different physical characteristics, including the famous lightning-shaped scar that has Nathan, or the color of the eyes (Harry has green eyes, like her mother; while Nathan has brown eyes, as his father).

There is another distinct physical characteristic, which are their hairstyles: Harry tamed his unruly hair and liked to slick it back in a traditional pureblood way with a great deal of ever-holding gel. Nathan, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy mimicking his father's unruly hairstyle.

 

Look, the whole idea makes no sense. Harry wanted to enter to prove himself. He's not going to let his own efforts in the tasks be attributed to Nathan. His need to prove himself is one of the main facets of his character.

 

My mother is a fraternal twin and I've mistaken her for her sister before. It doesn't happen often but it's happened.

 

You think that Harry would rather let Nathan die than to allow Harry's own efforts be attributed to him...I think not. Especially given Harry's lack of reaction to not getting in the tournament and willingness to help his brother. I didn't say it was a great idea, I'm just saying it's is a viable possible future. One that I don't want, but have seen some other fanfiction writers go done that route.

 

I'm a bit disappointed that Harry didn't get into the TWT. We've been reading for two years in anticipation of this part of the story. Hell, I think a quarter of this thread is dedicated to talking about 4th year.

Still, failing is failing, and Harry failed in front of everyone. I'm sure everyone appreciated what Harry did to be able to do that when Dumbledore told them, but their minds will move on to more important things like the real champions soon enough.

To make a sports comparison of the situation:

Harry's failure was like watching an American football team reach the conference finals, but lose to a field goal with 1 second on the clock. It's awesome how hard you worked and the effort you put into being that good, but ultimately your achievements leading up to that are forgotten for those that made it beyond to the big game.

Of course it's still one of the best stories I'm reading at the moment and I'm holding onto the hope that Santi will do something different in 4th year. Harry needs a little adventure once in a while.

 

This at the moment just seems to be building Harry's resentment of Nathan.

Great chapter though.

 

I just want to clarify this point a little bit. Several commentators have gone on about how Harry was calm and didn't rage hard because he found out that his brother was in danger and thus rationalized his rage way in favor of helping his brother.

Harry's about to find out that his brother is going to fight a dragon. I want you guys to read that again so he's about to find out his brother is going to fight a dragon. A goddamn motherfucking dragon!!! It's as big as two story house, impervious to most spells, it's teeth are larger than he is, and it breathes goddamn magical fire.

Even Harry being the bad ass that he is wouldn't really just want to go fight a dragon. You don't just wake up in the morning and say I want to go fight one of the powerful magical creatures that it usually takes 10 trained men to contain. It is a very dangerous magical creature that even wizards on Dumbledore's level hesitate in fighting. That isn't to say Harry wouldn't face the Dragon if he had become a champion, but that he would be aware of the risk and his own skills and would be extremely nervous in facing it.

Now imagine what his reaction is going to finding out his brother is going to be facing down a goddamn motherfucking dragon. His brother who hasn't even learned the accio spell yet, the brother who refused to learn the dark arts(not that it matter this late in the game), his brother whom he loves very much. Harry's has to do something as he's not going to let his brother walk into a situation where it is almost certain death for him. A situation where even Harry will feel his own skills aren't entirely adequate. Impersonating his brother so he doesn't die or at the very finding a way to cheat for his brother sounds very plausible and even extremely likely.

 

Harry's going to soon realize (assuming he learns that Nathan has to go against dragons) that it's not a fight against a dragon, but to move around a dragon and take something from it. I don't think Harry would have any problem cursing a dragon, unless Durmstrang intelligent-Harry has some sort of problem-solving deficiency. Sirius knew about eye weaknesses, Harry would. Who knows if there will even be dragons? It's possible that the tasks could be completely different, although I can't see any particular reason why they wouldn't be. Either way, it's likely that anything Harry learns both Nathan and Krum will learn, unless some sort of barrier is put on that.

I'm getting the vibes that Harry won't go through all seven years of schooling. At this rate, maybe two more years before he finishes all his coursework and/or begins travelling and learning other magic. That's when this story will move into its own truly, for me. Sorry if this has been discussed, but I'd rather not read all of what's posted.

 

The task it to take from a mother dragon her egg...in other words he is going to be fighting against a dragon...in fact if mother grizzly are anything to go by he going to be fighting against an enraged mother dragon for her egg. True the task isn't to beat the dragon, only take her egg, but your still staring down goddamn dragon. That's how Harry's going to see it, his brother is going to face a goddamn dragon. I'm adding goddamn in front to emphasis what a young barely trained wizard is suppose to go up against. It's beyond dangerous, a dragon can kill you so quick and in so many different and horrifying ways that you should realistically expect a least one competitor to die in the attempt.

 

Could you stop pointing that? The only thing you're doing right now is making me more sad that Harry will not face any dragons in the foreseeable future. I suppose there could be other awesome things in 4th year for him, but you know - dragons.

Also, if he could, Harry would replace his brother, but I highly doubt Santi will make it possible in his fic. Once the Champions are chosen it should be a done deal.

 

Does anyone else kind of hope that Nathan is critically injured or killed in this competition? I don't dislike his character or anything, but if you want to go with a plot twist that takes people by surprise and changes the dynamics of this story this would be the way to do it.

I don't think it will happen as Nathan is supposed to follow canon Harry's path at least up until 7th year from all indications, but if it did, I would approve of the direction of this story.

Edit: To those of you saying/hoping Harry makes it to the graveyard, I would quit reading this story if that happened. Voldemort was never supposed to be Harry's task. I wouldn't mind an enraged Harry taking Dumbledore's place in rescuing his brother from Crouch after the final task though.

 

As always, I enjoyed reading the next part of this fic. There have been a lot of people complaining about Harry not getting into the TWT, how he failed and his (lack of) reaction afterwards.

As I see it there is no problem at all with Harry not competing, for various reasons already stated; like it ending up as a rehash of canon with a more competent!Harry etc. While it would be interesting to read about him competing, being a total badass and gaining glory the potential for character development would not be nearly as great as the path the story is taking now.

Competing in the tournament would honestly be more of the same old - more of the things that some in this thread is tired reading about. You would have the competition sure, but Harry would still need to sequest himself to the library to prepare for the tasks. By not competing Harry is now in a much better position if he is to fall to the "dark side".

True, there haven't been a lot of reaction from Harry so far, but this could be explained in a lot of ways (some already posted above) like him being drugged from potions etc. I reckon it is pretty obvious his emotional response to all this, will come later.
I reckon he will be feeling a lot of frustration from watching Nathan; not prepare himself enough, for stumbling through the tasks and for once again overshadowing / lampshading Harry. (Remember, one of the reasons why Harry left Hogwarts was due to him always being in his brother's shadow.) I reckon this would lead to a lot of dark emotions like bitterness, anger, envy... you name it - those emotions would be just what Harry's character needs.

I think the way Harry failed to enter his name in the cup was fine. It wasn't great but it worked. It is better than him succeeding in entering his name but still not getting chosen as champion and also better than him failing to enter his name due to not being able to break the wards around the cup.

-----

Some people are predicting that Harry will take his brothers place in the tournament (in various ways like the polyjuice) due to the tasks being too dangerous for Nathan. This, I think, is utter bullshit. No way will it happen. Should Harry replace Nathan and have everyone think he is his brother? - Where is the glory for Harry in that? How would it even be possible, with the magical contract, for Harry to compete in Nathan's place and why would he do it? Why not have the entire magical community see that Nathan isn't some next coming of Merlin like they think he is?

Sure Harry don't want Nathan to die but I'm not entirely convinced Harry will want Nathan to succeed either, in the end.

I would write more, but will head to bed instead.

 

I respectively disagree.

I disagree

Last time I checked their was no hangover happiness effect to dreamless sleep potion. Given the fact that he woke up with headache and pains he obviously wasn't on any major potions nor drugs. Also his general language after waking up such as saying things bitterly and the fact he snapped a Dumbledore a few times.

You seem not to understand that this tournament is dangerous. Not dangerous as in a few people have broken arms or legs and stuff, dangerous as in a good piece of the competitors have died. The kind of danger where even under Dumbledore watch they pit you against a dragon. Their is a reason Dumbledore pushed for an age line, the reason of course being anyone under that age wouldn't have the magical knowledge to survive the tournament. In Harry's own words, "“But Nathan can't compete!” Harry exclaimed. “Sir, I love my brother, but he might not survive the tournament, let alone win. Nathan has no chance whatsoever.” " And realize that is his reaction on just the reputation of the tournament, not even knowing the first task is to face down a dragon.

Is showing the wizarding world that Nathan is not the second coming of Merlin worth the very likely result of his brother getting killed? The answer using Harry's current feelings for his brother is no it would not be worth it.

 

I have been thinking about the progression of this story so far. For the first time in ages I actually spent some time trowling through some of this truly massive discussion thread and I have definitely noticed that this last decision of Santi's has become a pretty major turning point.

I will admit that it is past time that Harry interacts actively with an adventurous storyline (even if it isn't canon). The endless building of skill needs to actually lead to something. Most people went with the immediate assumption it would be The Triwizard Tournement.

 

I think this is just a question of what "level" we're looking at it. From a closer-in POV, there would be differences in the nature of their participation, yes. From a more coarse-grained viewpoint, they would both still be dodging dragons, swimming in lakes, and navigating mazes. It just depends on how you look at it, I guess. (shrug)

If Santi's plot is designed to run similar to what I outlined above...well, let's just say that time will tell how good it comes out. There is potential for excellence this way, but there sure as hell aren't any guarantees of it.

By avoiding things like TWT participation, the quality of this story becomes a great deal more dependent on Santi's creativity. If Harry had been Durmstrang's champion, all Santi would have had to do was to "tweak" canon enough to keep things interesting. That is a ... well, I won't say "easier," but certainly it's a more straightforward job. DLP and the fic's readers in general would have been perfectly happy with that approach - by and large we like the idea of smarter, more independent Harrys making canon!Harry look like a bitch.

This way, he's going to have to create interesting moments from scratch.

If Santi fully succeeds, then the result will be quite pleasant: we'll see scenes and development that add on to the canon background without stepping all over it. I hope he does.

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Harry not being able to enter TWT. However, as you planned this all along, you could've cut the previous chapters you've had by half and reach the same effect. In fact, even if he did enter, they were already unnecessary long, but as it's fanfiction, there's no real problem. But as of now, there's just too much build up for an undramatic failure. Why were there no reason for being late to submit? Did the potion take too long to make? Were there no set time for the Goblet to choose champions? Did Dumbledore purposely cause the Goblet to pick out the champion before Harry could succeed (Now THAT might be interesting). And then there's the general things that others have mentioned, like how Harry just shrugs it off now, etc.

In general, I agree with what Anarchy said, although not quite at that point of hatred.
As I mentioned in previous posts, the main problem with this fic is the lack of conflict or rather, an antagonist. Of course, the new ideas with Durmstrang were good enough to offset this problem. The character development is nice, but the pacing is slow. While the training/studying/learning scenes were great at first, the whole fic has been like that so far. Why must Harry be super awesome before things happen to him? And now that an event that should've brought a challenge to Harry has been pushed aside, we must wait patiently again for you to introduce new elements.

Despite that, the fic is still above average, although that doesn't say much considering what "average" means in ff.net. Nonetheless, I look forward to what you planned for the rest of the fourth year. But really, going by what some have posted ( like Harry impersonating Nathan to take place in the tournament), I really hope you will not go along those lines.

 

Something occured to me as I was browsing through this thread, maybe it has already been mentioned, maybe it hasn't, but what I'm wondering is, because Harry is going to, most likely, be compareable to the greats of wizard-kind at his absolute peak, then....who is realistically going to take him down, assuming his infamy stems from being a.....Dark Lord, for a lack of a better description.....Just something to think about

 

His brother. He is going to end up in a life or death duel with him and in a crucial moment he won't be able to kill his dear brother. Of course his dear brother is going to believe that Harry is now an evil dark lord and isn't going to hesitate when he cast the spell that ends Harry's life...or so the cliche goes.

 

But if Nathan is suppose to basically be canon!Harry, then he'll bitch and moan about having to kill Voldemort, and anyone else, just as I recall he did in book 7, even to the point Remus Lupin called him out for it, and if he couldn't bring himself to kill off all those physco wack-jobs. I highly doubt Nathan/canon!Harry would be able to bring himself to kill his "beloved" brother/Santi!Harry.....he's too big of a wimp, so I call it right now. He'll end up in some Legendary duel with his brother, one that eclipses all others, gets his ass handed to him, but just barely, kind of like the TWT incident we expirenced, and lands in an unescapeable prison....Just like Grindlewald.

 

Or we could realize that this isn't a published work and there's no reason for the good guys to win. Harry could enslave all of humanity and get away with it.