You do know, that now you have to write it? :3

 

This would be my definition of Hell in the Harry Potter world: from the perspective of the entity in question, he would be doomed to repeat the same actions for all eternity, unable to effect even the tiniest change.

 

Correction to my original post: it breaks linear-time causality, not causality in general. We're just mostly used to dealing with the first one.

 

This isn't a very good story, by any stretch of imagination. Just something different.

+ Good technical side
- Sirius' emancipation will (not as over the top, though), mentions magical core, magical 'bonds'

+Interesting view on what would a lot harsher werewolf laws entail
- Handled in a bit too over-the-top way

2.5/5 I guess. Just something I figured I'd share.

I went in expecting for Harry to have to vouch for Lupin in some case, or have trouble related to that. It ended up a strange dysfunctional-forced-master story. With no hints of slash as of yet, and some hints at an female OC, but too short to say anything to that regard.

 

Definitelyliked this fic. Not quite library worthy atm, but I think once it gets a few more chapters, it would easily fit in there.

 

I ran across this old story this weekend that I found readable, though not Library-worthy. (It received a brief mention before on DLP in this thread, somewhere around three years ago, but I'd missed it at the time.)

Category: Harry Potter
Title: The Basement
Genre: Adventure/Drama
Rating: Rated: T
Summary: AU third year. I must have a sign on my back that says psychopaths
please attack me. I would not put it beyond Dudley to affix such a sign to me,
but I doubt he could spell it accurately enough for a psycho to understand.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1625069/1/

Better summary: Harry is kidnapped by a mentally disturbed Sirius at the beginning of year three and his period of extended captivity does little for either's sanity. It's a Stockholm Syndrome take on the PoA events, told in first-person POV. Not badly written, though nothing particularly great. Almost recommended.

 

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8730465/1/C-est-La-Vie

The usual time-travel/dimension-hopping fic. A few cliches but mostly glossed over. Writing is good and characterizations are above average. Seems fairly interesting if somewhat slow paced.

 

Thing that stood out: Hadrian. No idea why it pissed me off, but every time the fic referred to him like that i got a little twitch. Why can't we just name the Harrys of these new dimensions something else, so we can retain the familiar name for our protagonist? Like Lily and James listened to a Chuck Berry album instead of reading about the royal family that one day and Harry2 is now named Charles.

There should also be a warning about the fact that there are mentions of Slash in the fic (Sirius/Remus). Not that it matters overly much, but people will get pissy about it.

 

A lot elements in this story feel contrived to me. The immediate friendship with the people he knew from before including some "submissive" werewolf related to Remus/Sirius. The icing on the cake is some bizarre Draco version of alternate Harry/Charles which makes no sense to me.

If I would switch the universe into an unknown environment I surely wouldn't act like Harry in this story. Too many of these annoying elements just rub me wrong with this story to be entertaining.

 

Really enjoyed it, good find.

 

C'est La Vie is Library-worthy, IMO. The only downside is the slightly slashy undertone it has in some of the male-male friendships, but the author has stated several times that it's going to be a Gen fic, so undertone it will remain.

 

I'm actually really enjoying this. I thought the characterization was good and that it was well-paced.

 

I read it. Some grammar mistakes here and there but nothing major. The angst is really bad, but overall is an average story. The slashy undertone is like underundertone. I will follow it but I don't think it's library worthy. 3,5/5

 

That's a really nifty title and summary. It makes you anticipate something special. But I read it, and it's... too minimalist. The format almost entirely consists of characters trading lines of dialogue. It just cycles through too many characters in the space of only five 2.5k word chapters.

The Skitterleap started with this lush introduction in Leipzig:

Enembee put forth hints at the cards up his sleeve, such as the Dementors as sentinels in the city. Something to suggest the uniqueness of his world. He spends a significant stretch of the beginning following Harry.

Taure begins Lords of Magic with a calling card of his own: one of the Lords of Magic at Godric's Hollow:

Again, something mysterious and bigger than yourself is at play. Taure then switches to Harry's POV and follows him for a while, and enembee likewise.

A Gathering of Clouds starts off with its own AU-World-unique opening, the Ceremony of Foretelling. It's admittedly pretty original... let's say stunningly brilliant even, but the delivery is terrible.

Spoiler

The crowd applauded politely as Cornelius Fudge entered the chambers of the Wizengamot. He forced a smile, privately thinking of how many other things he could be doing right now that would be far better uses of his time. The truly sad thing was that he suspected the crowd felt the same way.

More scattered applause came as the seer entered the room carrying a smoky grey crystal ball before her with great reverence. She was clothed in long, many-layered, brightly-colored robes, and she wore thick round glasses that magnified her eyes significantly.

Fudge wondered if she had been given a written statement, or if she would be ad-libbing her prediction.

It was Albus Dumbledore's role as Chief Warlock to make the introductions, and so he stood and began the cursory niceties. It was all fairly standard and not at all different from how it had been three terms ago when Fudge had first become Minister of Magic. Fudge really didn't see the point in the foolishness; everybody present knew that this was the Minister's divining ceremony (and if they hadn't before, the seer and crystal ball should have clued them in).

It might have some sort of basis in educating the children, he mused, noting – among others – Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter sitting beside their respective fathers, watching the proceedings with rapt interest. But really, James Potter and Lucius Malfoy no doubt were explaining the entire thing to them, so the introduction still wasn't necessary.

The whole bit of foolishness really wasn't necessary, and now he was back to thinking about all of the more important things he needed to do.

Dumbledore finally finished his speech, benevolent smile on his face, and the seer began chanting softly. The torches along the wall of the chamber flickered, then dimmed, and Fudge shivered as a cool breeze passed through the room. He wondered how much these theatrics were going to cost. Whole-room illusions rarely came cheap.

The seer – Trelaney, or Tralonna, or something like that – opened her mouth to speak, gazing deeply into the crystal ball. For a second, no words came out, tendons standing out in her neck, mouth gaping.

Fudge had to give credit to whomever had devised this scene – and the seer's acting was excellent. He found himself interested for the first time today.

Finally, she spoke, in a flat, raspy voice, eyes still lost in the swirling mists of her crystal. "He approaches, before the end of the reign, inexorable darkness on the horizon... And all may be engulfed in his eternal night, for he shall be greater and more terrible than ever before. Foundations will crumble and blood will betray, for the dusk is upon the world."

Write the concept down and pitch it to me, and yeah, it's a badass idea. But the build up of the mood is terrible. Imagine the Dark Knight prologue being compressed into like one minute, and the Joker just ripping off his mask and killing his crew in the middle of the bank robbery, instead of biding his time till the henchmen double-cross each other to the last survivor.

And unlike enembee, Taure, and the example set by thousands of professional novelists, he starts hopping POVs all over the place. I think he's trying to emulate George R. R. Martin with these POV changes, but GRRM still wrote his POV chapters with proper attention to detail. And good writers introduce characters into the story at a controlled pace.

The author's writing style is still in that larval form of development. It can evolve into something worthwhile. It's kind of like The Binding by Nuhuh. This guy just needs to get a couple ten thousand more words under his belt if he thinks critically, or a few hundred thousand more if he doesn't.

 

I really really enjoyed C'est La Vie as well. I think it's actually the first new HP fic i've read in well over a year.

I would easily give it a 4/5. In fact, I have to say that the slashy tones between Remus and Sirius are almost perfectly done. I have no issues with it what so ever. There's no attention drawn to it, it's simply there. Just how slash in fanfiction should be. i

I really like how everything is handled, from reading summaries you may think "Oh man, some of this shit sounds awful", but it's really not. Everything is tastefully done.

It's not a masterpeice, but it's definitely something I can enjoy without feeling guilty about it.

 

Yeah that's basically how I felt about it. I'm aware that some on DLP just won't enjoy it no matter what which is why I posted it here, but I really did think it was a 4/5 at least with only a few minor issues that niggled at me. Mostly the cliches, and

things like that.

 

When I was talking about slashy undertones I wasn't talking about Sirius and Remus, who are openly gay and done pretty well. I was talking about Harry and Orion, how protective they are of each other and how sappy they get on a regular basis.

 

Oh wow, my story got Almost Recced. Awesome

Andro, this is really helpful. I've had the feeling that things weren't... 'beefy' enough, so to speak, for a while now. I'm thinking I'd like to start reworking the story through WbA. Do you(or anybody else reading this) have any other suggestions of things - particularly in the intro - that come across as lacking?

Maybe in a week or so I'll have the first chapter reworked into something a bit more developed and post it to WbA...