I left you a review on FF.Net, which I will reproduce here for the benefit of Almost Recommended readers. Some very small spoilers.

Also, I'm not offended in any way but you using "my" magical theory. This is because I don't really view it as my theory at all. I didn't create it. I don't see myself as coming up with something of my own, but rather analysing the text we have in canon and simply discovering the theory that already exists there- That is, I'm trying to work out the way JKR intuitively thinks about HP magic, though I doubt she's put her intuitions down into such a systematic series of propositions.

 

I'd like to recommend pretty much everything by Pitry

Mostly slice of life oneshots. The writings good, characterizations good, cliches remarkably missing. His stories seem to have a dreary atmosphere, even if the're intented to be uptlifting and the're not very exiting. And that's the only downside I could find. Seriously, I don't know why I've never heard of that guy before.

For example:
Don't Look Back

Postcanon. Mysteryish, much more would be a spoiler.

If I Knew You Were Coming I'd Have Baked A Cake

Postcanon Dudley stumbles into the Leaking Cauldron and meets Lavender Brown. Together, they open a pastry shop.

 

So that story that was recommended a few pages back with a lot of discussion on the annoying Aussie OC What You Leave Behind updated and I really liked it. Had a really solid depiction of Hogwarts daily life sort of stuff in my opinion, and the Harry/Cho/Cedric friendship trio works surprisingly well. The author also did a nice job of covering events without getting too bogged down in the details.

The AU elements around the Dumbledores are an interesting but subtle change and I'm looking forward to seeing where that plotline goes and seeing Harry find answers about his past. I'm still not keen on year 1 fics but assuming the author can keep the pace moving this story definitely looks like it's going interesting places.

 

Author here. Glad you liked it. I myself am not a fan of 1st year fics - they get old really fast, especially if they take elements from Book 1 and just recast them in a different light. Like I say in my profile, you can only read so many versions of Hermione+troll+Harry=friendship before they all start to blend together.

Anyway, despite this, I wanted to start my story in Harry's 1st year for character-building reasons. A Harry/Cho/Cedric trio doesn't have the same automatic reference points that Harry/Hermione/Ron do, so I felt it was important to build that from the ground up, so to speak.

That being said, I have no problem skipping large chunks of time - you'll notice there's one in this chapter from mid-September to right before Christmas.

Next chapter: the end of 1st year, and the introduction of Fleur to the story. And just in case anyone is getting any funny ideas (I already had a couple real unsettling PMs on fanfiction.net about this), Harry's romantic development will be what it is in canon: he won't even notice girls until he's 13, and girls won't start being a thing until he's 15/16.

 

I did a quick seach and didn't come across any recommendations for this story. I thought I'd share:


Title: A Cloak and Dagger State of Affairs
Author: Raul Fictitious
Rating: M
Genre: Suspense/Mystery
Status: WIP
Pairings: The most recent chapter seems to indicate H/Hr. But you can't really be sure.

Summary: He was meant to be the perfect soldier, the ultimate sacrifice for peace. The Department of Mysteries had other plans.

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9909334/1/A-Cloak-and-Dagger-State-of-Affairs

A super-spy, Metamorph, Genius!Harry story. He's picked up by the DoM, who of course have a super-secret Intelligence division. Although you're hit with quite a few cliches at the begging I found that actually sticking with the story paid dividends. It was technically well written enough that any mistakes that were present didn't interrupt my reading of the story. Once you get passed the begging cliches the I found that the author handles the whole super-spy concept well and does a fair bit of interesting world building.

 

It's in the WbA.

 

Excellent. I hope you can avoid the usual dribble about them understanding each other oh so well because 'just Harry' & 'Veela stuff' and such nonsense.

Looking forward to it.

 

Hah, your phrasing made me laugh, because when they meet (slight spoiler) they literally don't understand each other at all because neither speaks the other's language.

Not sure what you're referring to with "veela stuff," but I've found the fanfics that use 'veela bonds' or mating or marking or special veela magic to be pretty silly. My version of Fleur will have the traits she has in canon: that is, she's an extremely beautiful, very talented witch who happens to have a veela grandmother.

 

A lot of authors go the 'She's so misunderstood, people only like her for her looks/girls are jealous of her' route for Fleur, and obviously only Harry understands this (Because of his celebrity,etc) and fills her with the power of lurv.

I'm guessing that's what he meant by 'Veela Stuff'.

 

Yes exactly, thanks CrackedMind for clearing that up. Just couldn't be bothered to write more because I was using my phone and my fingers are too bloody big for the screen.

By the way, I really liked chapter 3 Newcomb. Really looking forward to the unraveling of the memory charm or whatever it was/is. I have some speculations of course. But I should probably write in your WbA thread.

 

Oh, yeah, gotcha. Yeah, I've seen that dynamic used before, and while I don't think there's anything objectively wrong with it (Fleur and Harry bonding over people putting unreasonable/incorrect expectations on them), it seems played out. I might reference it at some point, but it definitely won't be the foundation of their relationship. That will be a mutual respect for their skills, physical attraction, a similar sense of humor, a couple other spoiler-y things. I really want to make their relationship something that could have developed even if they were non-magical and non-celebrities.

 

I've also enjoyed What You Leave Behind. Looking forward to seeing where its going. So I second (or sixtheded or whatever) the rec. Plus Harry/Fleur for life.

 

If (at some point) this doesn't evolve into Harry/Fleur there will be hell to pay, Newcomb.

 

Hah, that would be pretty ballsy, wouldn't it? List the story as Harry/Fleur, talk about how a big part of the story is focused on that relationship... and then have them meet, shrug, and say "meh."

In all seriousness though, my story is explicitly Harry/Fleur... not trying to hide it, not doing a head-fake.

 

Then all is well in the universe.

 

I really do not understand the appeal of Harry/Fleur.

 

Hot chick with sex powers, surely you can understand the appeal?

You don't have to agree with it, I couldn't care less about Fleur. But the reason why people like her is pretty clear I thought.

 

For me, it's that she strikes a good balance as far as what we know about her from canon - she's not totally fleshed out and set in stone, like Hermione, and she's not a complete blank slate like Daphne. There's enough to build on, but room enough to grow, if that makes sense.

Plus, you can infer from canon that she's a moderately to extremely talented witch, and she's bi... lingual, which is a bonus.

 

Hopefully Harry is a cunning linguist, or else I just don't know how he'll be able to keep up with Fleur.

 

There's an app potion for that