I don't know why. But I like well written series of these kinda fanfics just for character reactions at certain instances. Like Harry slaying the Basilisk or walking to his death in DH.

Sadly, very few of them actually were well written and even worse was some sad guy kicking up a fuss about them a few months back and ending up getting them removed from FF.net.

So if any of you know of any well written ones still up - I'd appreciate any links you can give me.

 

April Fools day sure came around again awfully fast...

 

In theory it is possible to write something like this that would not be thoroughly awful, but good Hermione/Draco romance will appear faster than this.

 

Don't say that. I used these stories a lot if I had to check something from the books while I didn't have them on hand.

 

Nah he's pretty much right. Before they all got taken down, I found only 1 decent guilty pleasure one. The rest were all crap as hell.

 

I wouldn't call it the worse kind of Story out there, but it's certainly the laziest. Most of any such Story is literally copying and pasting from the actual Books, with random characters giving random reactions every now and then.

In Theory, it's possible to make a decent story with the premise, just like it's possible to make a decent Harry/Draco Mpreg. But most of the time, you're left with nothing but utter shit that would be better left Unread and Unwritten.

 

Well, there's 'One Flogged Horse'. It's not exactly a book reading story though, which is probably why it's alright. Amusing idea though (the books are sent back in time so that the teenage Tom Riddle can read them, and he's appropriately horrified by his older self's uselessness), and if it had got beyond three chapters it might have been good.

 

The concept is viable.

Hear me out.

Replace the canon story with your own one, one based on an A/U premise, and the "reading" being revelations to the school as a whole/reader of hidden plot lines and sub-plots. The A/U premise can be as batshit as you want it to be.

For example:

Harry went into Ravenclaw or Slytherin, and the "yearly adventures" he had in this AU, the author's own story and not the canon one, are read out in the "Books in Great Hall" fashion.

Turns out that Pansy Parkinson, who Harry hates and vice-versa? They've been covertly meeting up and fucking each others' brains out since fourth year, while Harry was also manipulating and "stringing along"/doing that Gryffindor dork Granger up the ass since fifth year.

Or better yet:

So, yeah -- a story within a story.

 

I like some of that Jorm, just don't steal my idea. I think it's a good one but I don't want to say it in case somebody steals it by subconscious theft.

 

Tin-foil hats are your friend. :awesome

 

I admit, I never really could get into this particular genre. When I read fanfiction I want something that actually takes the plot in a different direction. For example a fifth year story with a bad-ass political!harry that still submits to Umbridges torture and still ends up in the DoM with Sirius dying in exactly the same way simply because the author can't come up with their own plot-line irritates the hell out of me.

That said, I did enjoy Se'elvor's The Real Us, which is somewhat similar - wherein Harry and Hermione take the time to debunk what everyone in the Wizarding World "knows".

 

"The founders read: Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone" was the fic that got me into fanfiction. The founders were appropriately cool and it seemed to set up to them kicking Voldemorts ass. Slytherin in particular was a Stu and it was foreshadowed via dream that he'd mentor Harry and leave the founders for the trio.

In retrospect, it was awful. No cultural dissonance. Do these authors realize corporeal punishment only went out of style during the last century? That this is the time of witchhunts and teh inquisition? The founders were all Sues and Stus. More importantly, they were the same Sues and Stus. They talked the same. Were all outraged at the Dursleys. All liked Harry. All the same teacher/mentor mentality.

You could make a good reading the books fic by leaving out most of the quotes. You just start with he went down into the chamber of secrets ...

Then skip until the scene is done and show their reactions. The readers of the fic already know what happens and maybe the readers inside it can keep their mouth shut and listen until the end of the chapter.

 

Quoted for truth. They usually either fizzle out or (rightfully) get removed before they get to the later books, but while they're up, I look at those stories as free, searchable versions of HP for research purposes.

 

Because PDF versions of the books are so hard to find?

 

I found a collection of all the reading the books stories you could want.
http://readingthehpbooks.proboards.com/