Title: A Fairy Tale Ending
Author: BJH
Rating: PG
Genre: Romance/General
Status: Complete (Oneshot)
Library Category: Alternatives (Not time travel, but distantly releated)
Pairings: Harry/OC; Hints of Harry/Ginny
Summary: After the final battle, Hermione developes a rather unique relationship with Harry. The question is how do Ron and Ginny fit into it?
Link: http://www.fictionalley.org/authors/bjh/AFTE01a.html

This fic isn't my usual fare and I hesitated at first to rec it due to the purple prose in the beginning and the fact that 23k words covers seven years, but over all, the writing is pretty decent, the characters are deep for a oneshot, and the plot is something I've never seen before, moreover, it was done well.

It begins with a final battle against Voldemort (story was written before HBP). Harry kills him, and the Draco hits Harry with the Killing Curse. Dumbledore's Phoenix tries to get Harry out of the way, but he hits Harry at the same time as the Curse, and both Fawkes and Harry are killed. In the middle of the Phoenix ashes however, lay a baby Harry. The rest of the story is about Hermione and Ron raising Harry, but every night, Harry dreams of that same day he had in his previous life, so that in essence, he's living two lives in one.

There's a thread/tension that moves through the story about not talking about the Weasleys that are dead, and it is pretty well played out. A couple plot twists are worked in, but nothing that stretches the suspension of belief. The very end however, as the title states, dives into fairy-tale land, and a very common cliche/trope is used, but it seems to work.

Again, I almost put this in the "Almost Recommended" thread, but then I thought it was at least worth the chance to make it into the library.

Edit: I'd personally give this 3.75/5, rounded up to 4, which in the end, is what made me decided to offer it up here.

 

Sorry, but my loathing for Child!Harry fics is too great for me to rate this story objectively. And the ending is just riddiculus even for this kind of fic.

 

Props for being objective enough to realize that. As for the ending, I disagree. You pretty much can't have any other ending but that one, as your set up for exactly that from the title.

With that said, yeah, it probably could've been handled better, but after the utter crap on FF, I found it refreshing that it seemed to be planned out from beginning to end, even in a oneshot.

 

Tries to read. Couldn't. The Grandfather Albus and Jimmy Wood really ticked me off. Also, I felt like the author took the story in a far too serious tone with such strange plot and almost no development of it to make it feel serious. I thought that Hermione was pretty well written, but Harry wasn't. The little bits I've read with him, I disliked it.

 

Was kind of interested, babby!harry was never an issue in this. 3/5 at best, until that ending.

It has to be a troll. This old thing started playing in my head after I realised that really just happened.

 

Eh. The premise is really interesting. This could've really gone somewhere.

If it hadn't been utterly wasted on one of the worst twists I have see ton date.

This story, and its author, cannot be saved. 2/5

 

Interesting fic, and the ending was interesting as well. Not what I was picking, but it suits this sort of fic, because it is pure fluff. A half-decent fluff one though.

3/5, decent read but nothing your going to read again.

Spoiler

I was hoping that on the day where he died originally he would burst into flame and be reborn again as a baby. Would of been a twisted ending, him being immortal, being reborn every single time he reaches the last day of his memories, forever stuck as a child reliving a war in his head.

Obviously not suited to what the author wanted, but it would of been a cool ending.

 

Haha wow it was pretty good up until the twist. Super brutal ending. Id give it 2/5.

 

Barely scrapes a 2/5.

 

It was fairly meh, I got bored and this review is only for the first third of the fic. It was written before Halfblood Prince, apparently no one important dies in a war (and those that did weren't important yet in canon), and everything stays the same. At Hogwarts Snape is the same sorry excuse for a human being, and we have the same Draco with a new last name.
It bugs me a bit that Ron and Hermione would accept Snape being anywhere near Harry, considering both his general behavior as a teacher, and his comment early in the story. Poor Harry, having to experience his lessons twice, and isn't the whole point of Harry going to Hogwarts for him to make some happier memories? Technically he has already achieved his OWLs and will in time receive the memories automatically.
The author is even worse than Rowling when it comes to keeping the status quo, typical of post war fluff fics.
I wonder, is it a fanon thing that Fawkes can flame everywhere? Here he can't, or the the author conveniently forgets that he can swallow Killing Curses.

Ended up skimming the rest of fic anyway just to see what is up with the ending. It didn't improve, I ended up caring slightly about the interactions between Harry and the OC, not at all about the Harry/Ginny ship. It doesn't help that we don't really know anything about their relationsship, except that Harry for some reason loves her, without showing why or how that came to be. Which isn't at all engaging for the reader, and makes it difficult to care about the ending.

 

Not gonna rate it, this is too much of a guilty pleasure to me. And, well, call me names, but I liked the ending. What can I say? I'm a sucker for love stories like this. What I found really bizarre was that it seemed to be a Harry/Gee at first and all of the sudden it's like "HAHAHA, NOT REALLY, GO BACK TO HARRY/GINNY, KISSES". I mean, it was WAY too sudden. And what the hell happened to her, anyways?