Hi, all.

I've been looking for some good fics where Harry is apprenticed, where he grows from an incompetent wizard to a brilliant one. Or just good stories where Harry is not the average child he is in canon, and is rather brilliant at magic.

The darker or more AU the better, though those aren't necessarily requirements. I suppose I've grown a bit too frustrated at reading stories where Harry is average at best. Reading Dagger and Rose right now.

 

You've proabably read it but Prince of the Dark Kingdom is pretty good though it falls off later in the story.

 

The Golden Needle is a good one.

 

Demons feign Merlin's pain, retsus folly, fawkes gift, forging the sword, on the way to greatness, catharsis, the gunman and magician

 

Thanks for the replies. I've read all of these except The Golden Needle, and I couldn't find the gunman and magician - do you have a link to that?

Any other fics of a similar nature?

 

Gunman https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2821455/1/The-Gunman
Magician WiP https://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?t=19117
ffn http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6989216/1/Magician
more of magician in WiP than ffn, i reccomend reading the 7 chapters on ffn then continuing at page 39 of the wip

 

Damnit, I forgot about that story. I'm brokenhearted all over again, I remember really liking it, though that was 5 years ago.

 

There goes my suggestion...

It's a mess of a story, but AngelaStarCat's With Strength of Steel Wings has a very magically talented Harry apprentice under Nicholas Flamel.

These aren't really apprentice-Harry, but they do fall under your "brilliant Harry" desideratum:

The Santi's story Harry Potter and the Boy Who Lived is an obvious choice. By your join date, it's possible you haven't read it (there's a WBA thread for the story with several chapters not up on fanfiction.net).

Similarly Myst Shadow's Forging the Sword has a brilliant trio (not just Harry).

 

Two stories that fit the apprentice requirement: Magicks of the Arcane and The Warlock's Apprentice.

First one has gone through Almost Recommended if I'm not mistaken, a pretty good story with a nice balance of funny and humorous as well as dark and tense scenes that contains Harry being Dumbledore's student.

The second one is worse in regards to quality and writing, plus it hasn't been updated in years. But if I remember correctly (it's been years...) it has some incredible action scenes and is great, pulpy fun. Harry as Dumbledore's student, Harry doing somersaults mid-combat, Dumbledore doing some really questionable things and an interesting if minor Harry/Ron friendship that leaves Hermione out of the loop. Expect Legilimency conversations.

 

I enjoyed Apprentice, Journeyman & Master Potter from draco664, can be found at

http://draco664.fanficauthors.net/Harry_Potter/

 

enembee's By The Divining Light and Conlaodh's Song are both brilliant.

 

The Prisoner's Cipher by Ecthelion3.

 

Thanks for all these recs. More to read! Yay!

 

Well, I just finished Magicks of the Arcane. Probably one of the best fics I've read in quite a while.

Apprentice Potter, though, I had to quit after the first few chapters. Harry's an arrogant, unreasonable prick; the author isn't well-versed in HP history or lore at all, and it shows; and there are far too many cliche's to make it worth reading, for now, at least.

Thanks for the recommendations, though!

 

In defense of Apprentice it did come out nearly a decade ago