Black Bond - An eight-year old Harry Potter comes across Acquila Black, a girl at his school, only to realise that he shares a strange connection with her. And when Sirius Blacks escapes Azkaban, how will he help his Godson and daughter in defeating the darkest wizard of all times?

Here's one I've been reading lately, it's a Harry/OC fic, with the OC being Sirius's Black's daughter who is well written. Surprisingly good, even if the pacing is a slow. It takes ten pages to get to first year, and we don't get to year two till Chapter 21, which is 350,000 words in(though 100,000 of those words are about the summer between year 1 and year 2). Still, it's well written and I really like it. Only problem which is a nitpick as well is that the character of Acqulia's mom is also a OC, but also a McKiddon, which makes me wonder why the author didn't just make her Marlene instead of making her being a OC. Other than that, probably my favorite fic that deals with Sirius Black having a kid.

 

I quit after they started bashing Molly for at least a good few paragraphs. Which was incidentally right at the beginning.

The grammar was decent enough, but the author used far too many ellipses in speech, most notably when Harry spoke.

 

How do you guys check out, which stories might be interesting? Of course: Summary, genre, words per chapter, writing style in the first chapter etc.. - but what I also do, is check out the author's favorites. If the author only has crappy stories there and none of the good ones, his own fics will almost certainly be crap as well.

 

They actually redeem Molly a bit in the ending of the chapter. I accidentally uploaded link to the latest chapter(chapter 21) instead of the first chapter, so in context you don't understand things from Molly's POV which is explained a bit in chapter 20. Also I wouldn't say it was necessarily bashing, more of Molly causing an argument because she's a protective mother.

 

Given that, to me at least, she was acting rather OOC in her arguments, and the fact that everyone was against her, it seemed quite a bit like bashing.

She wasn't really acting like an overprotective mother, she was acting like a bitch, which is how people who bash her characterize her as.

As for the linking to the latest chapter, I was wondering why the hell the chapter started like that. It gave no introduction of our OC, which is about a quarter of the reason why I quit reading.

 

Read about four lines of this. Yeah no.

 

Title: Reign of the Serpent
Author: AlphaEph19
Rating: T
Summary: AU. Salazar Slytherin once left Hogwarts in disgrace, vowing to return. He kept his word. A thousand years later he rules Wizarding Britain according to the principles of blood purity, with no end to his reign in sight. Then fate intervenes, by bringing together a green-eyed boy determined to restore his family's status, and a Muggleborn girl who refuses to quietly accept her fate.
Link:http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9783012/1/Reign-of-the-Serpent

Interesting idea, but too early to tell, Hermione hasn't even reached Hogwarts yet.

 

Use of the word fate shouldn't happen that many times in the summary :/

 

Twice? Picky much?

 

So Fate intervenes by Hermione not accepting her ... fate?

 

A lot of people use FFN favorites for things other than tracking their favorite stories, such as just keeping track of what stories they've read. I personally only find it necessary to track stories which I started reading and didn't like, so my favorites list would be entirely bad stories.

 

I guess I was fated to not bother checking out this story, then.

 

Fate proclaimed such for your fate is to not check stories where fate is fated to be written several times.

Hum I feel like I could have fit another one there somehow...

 

Black bond... I got through dumbledore's lecture of Remus (and yes, it was definitely a lecture), and I realized that I just didn't want to read more about Sirius' daughter. The author is trying so very very hard to give Dumbledore reasonable explanations for why he can't do anything, for why Remus shouldn't do anything, and it doesn't work.

Dumbledore's speech is also butchered. I can't think of a time when I would expect dumbledore to say "Thanks a lot" seriously, especially with attempting to make it formalized speech.

 

I made it through ten chapters of Black Bond. It's a very stupid story. Narcissa Malfoy saying "do the needful" made me cringe.

 

From the author of The King of Limbs, the mercenary!Harry fic we always wanted:

Possibly even library-worthy - while I couldn't get through ch1 of his other fic, I quite enjoyed this all the way through.

 

Enjoying Midnight Blues so far, only read the first chapter but I found it pretty good. The tone kind of reminds me of the Harry in Havoc Side of the Force, but that might just be the similarities with the mercenary stuff coming through. Worth a look as a time killer, not sure if it's worth the library, but I've been chuckling a few times. Did cringe a bit with the Dragon Age Blood Mage imports though.

 

Currently on Chapter 6 of Midnight Blues, and I'm really enjoying it. The characters feel like people, and it's set post-Hogwarts. There's been real consequences for acts in canon, and it actually feels like a real world.

 

Im liking Midnight Blues too. My main issue is that it is indeed a bit weird that Harry and Ron would randomly start killing for hire. It just doesnt seem like something they would be cool with without a major AU. Especially their own classmates. Also the Hannah thing feels absurd.

Overall its the best new story I've read in some time.

 

I don't know what it is about Midnight Blues, but it's made me laugh out loud more than once and that's good enough for me.

Plus it has, quite possibly, some of the most real characters I've ever seen. Ron is, of all people, particularly fantastic. Harry's alright, even if the "sex addict" trope is overplayed, but even then it's barely present and played for laughs in any event. It's really quite impressive, because the story is genuinely funny. That's a rare enough thing, especially when it's combined with above average writing and phenomenal characterization.

That's not to say it's without flaws - the AU itself is a big one, and randomly tossing in classmates is a bit odd to say the least, but it certainly merits a 5/5 from me.