Title: 0800-Rent-A-Hero
Author: brainthief
Rating: T
Genre: Drama/Adventure (also listed as humor, though that doesn't fit imho)
DLP-Category: The Alternates
Pairing: Harry/ofc
Chapters: 9
Words: 66,210
Updated: May 30, 2015
Published: April 4, 2015
Status: Work in Progress
Summary: Magic can solve all the Wizarding World's problems. What's that? A prophecy that insists on a person? Things not quite going your way? I know, lets use this here ritual to summon another! It'll be great! - An eighteen year old Harry is called upon to deal with another dimension's irksome Dark Lord issue. This displeases him. EWE - AU HBP
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11160991/1/0800-Rent-A-Hero


This is another Dimension Hopping story I came across, still a work in progress.

Harry is summoned by the Order of the Phoenix to a world with a girl-who-lived, Iris Potter. Harry, heavily injured and lucky to survive the trip, is quite annoyed and declines to help out with their Voldemort problem. Though as he doesn't have any money and isn't a registered citizen anywhere in this world, he is basically forced to make a living as teacher at Hogwarts. And it isn't Defense against the Dark Arts he is going to teach ...

Harry arrived during the summer of 1996, in between years 5 and 6. The situation of this world deviated from canon when Voldemort abducted Trelawney and had her spill the prophecy, then leaking it to the press. And now the public and the Ministry are demanding that Iris Potter is handed over to train and fight Voldemort. So far the story covers Harry's arrival, interaction with the Order and first contact with Iris.

This is a story with loads of ups and downs. I really like the way this summoning works as an almost fatal trip, though it is also a plot device to make Harry unrecognizable and allow him to hide his identity. Harry's interaction with the Order is in my opinion better than usual, and Harry is rather insistent in not helping out. But of course there is some kind of trap set up by the author that will force him back in.

It's already obvious that Harry won't be watching the scene as a bystander. The DMLE knows about him, the DoM, the Order of course, so there are enough groups with an interest in keeping him involved.

The quality varies. I don't like the interaction with 'Cassandra' and the whole plot around that, but it might play an important role later on. It's listed as humor and it apparently is intended to be humorous, but while it has some nice lines it doesn't really work that way. There have been better romance subplots, but there also have been way worse. The short flashback concerning Harry's original world and his former relationship with Ginny was imho bad, though.


For me it is a guilty pleasure I follow for now, and I rate it as such with 3/5 as almost recommendable.

 

Tried it, didn't work for me.

I wrote this to the author:

His answer:

all around 3/5.

 

I considered posting it for review, but it is just starting (and note on profile strongly suggests that it is already fully written).

Author intends to subvert cliches what is showing, though there are some leaks. Starting from bad things - obligatory romance plot that is not terrible but still it is a mandatory romance plot. There is again attempt to invent new branch of Occlumency, fortunately without dumb, pointless and repetitive details. Also, story is not finished.

And now good things: it has some nice handling of Bones. Effective but not through declaring herself to be ruler of everything and overcoming all laws, rules and reality because protagonist told her to do this.

Nice blackmailing Dobby demanding oath from Harry (with said Oath later limiting also manipulations by elf), nice to see something close to canon characterization rather than "All elves are so happy and proud to be a slave race" fanon.

Also, the portrait is one of the better OCs.

Handling of trip was also a nice variation, rants/dialog/discussions were not written by an obvious teenager - reading it is funny and/or interesting, without inducing feeling that I am wasting my life on reading that.

"and his former relationship with Ginny was imho bad" - maybe I am reading too much but my reading was that this entire flashback was fake, crafted by defenses of horcrux and that never happened - and was intended to make fun of that tired portrayal of Ginny.

Maybe it is effect of lack of good stories in HP fandom I am giving it 4.5/5 (with assumption that it will be completed, the same abandoned story would get 1.4/5).

 

Oh, yeah, it was. I totally forgot about that. I only remembered the weird flashback.

 

It has its moments, but overall it gets a bit tired for me. The author tries to avoid the typical stereotype, but has swung a bit too hard in the other direction in making this dimensional travel a "hard slog" for ole Harry. It gets old - particularly the Bones responses and the Order/Mooney threats - at least for me.

I also have a suspicion about Amanda that would take this story into eyeroll territory - I see in the reviews that couple other people have the same thought. Sad when that might be what keeps me reading - to see if I'm right - rather than the story.

 

Wrong minion fic. This is the one I called shit, though I don't doubt the other is equally bad.

2/5

 

This one is actually interesting. Things happen, problems exist and Harry has to do shit on his own. Sure he gets taken for a ride in the first few chapters, but he is learning from it. Or at least I hope he is.

The problems with it have been covered.

 

A decent time-waster. The beginning was a little rough, but bearable, as I found myself skimming most of the dimensional!angst. Once you get past it though, the story starts to move in an interesting direction, with all the Divination stuff. While not amazing, I do agree with Dark Minion that there are some good lines in the story and some jokes that had me chuckling. Definitely something I'm glad was recc'ed so I can keep an eye on it.

 

Hmmm i read it in one go. I'm not rating it until the Hogwarts year starts, but it's looking like a 3/5 right now.

Positives: 1 Every chapter is slightly better than the last, which gives hope, i think.
2 The whole Divination angle is fun, Harry is learning stuff.

Negatives: 1 Harry is slightly too emotionally/socially inept
2 There are blushing adults
3 The 'Amanda plot' feels very predictable

Spoiler

Edited. I feel like Amanda is Tonks.

 

[/SPOILER] to finish a spoiler section and

Spoiler

to start it.

Hadn't even considered Tonks for Amanda though.

 

It was good until the Amanda dialogue. I'll read and rate the rest tomorrow, I have to get to sleep as I have work in the morning.

---------- Post automerged at 23:15 ---------- Previous post was at 23:13 ----------

I was hoping Harry would be more spiteful and make some Order members cry/unhappy. He certainly knows things that have a chance at doing that.

 

The "summoned from another dimension" thing is usually a guilty pleasure, but this one just can't get to that level. Harry is way too much of a whiny, stupid cunt for me. 2/5.

 

Shoehorned romance is shoehorned.

The fic certainly has its problems. The tired hostile approach to lolevil!Order, turning characters into caricatures (Moody), all that stuff is bad.

Then again, there are things in there that balance it out for me. The little things, like

Spoiler

Lockhart's portrait showing up in the RoR and Harry's subsequent conclusion

make this fic.

There are fics I award 3/5 because they're worse than their authors think they are and I enjoy being contrary. Then there are fics I give 3/5 feeling pretty good about it and wishing I could bump the rating further. This is the latter. It's somewhere between being average and actually kinda sorta good. I appreciate the author's efforts to subvert some common cliches, but the fic nonetheless gives in to some of them, mentioned earlier, and they drag it down to the guilty pleasure territory.

It's enjoyable if you don't take it too seriously, as the Humor category suggests. I laughed a few times.

 

I agree, random things like that portrait keep this fic alive as a guilty pleasure. Also quite like the idea of Divination being a real thing that anyone can learn, in some sort of primitive fashion. Because Magic. Why not? As long as the things you see are vague and could either be really useful or lead you to do something stupid, it would still be an addictive hobby that you kind of know you shouldn't touch but still do anyway because seeing some glimpse of the future is fucking bad ass.

 

I really tried to get into this but the order is just so OOC. It's like they're going out of their way to make Harry hate them, and yet instead of forcing them to figure out a way to send him back before giving them anything, he's helping them indirectly through Amelia and going after the horcruxes.

I'd be able to stomach it if they were at least apologetic about what they've done or a bit more in line with their canon characterizations, but every interaction is just a bunch of veiled threats and reminders that he has no where to go.

If he had met his counterpart from the start and decided to protect her, or just had any real reason to go along with it I could probably suspend my disbelief, but there's just no reason I can see for him to do anything but watch these people burn after they ruined his life far more effectively than Voldemort could ever hope to.

The Dobby scene was painful as well.

 

... because he's not petty enough to let thousands suffer and/or die just to satisfy his personal revenge?

I could be crazy, here.

 

Eh you're right and I got carried away.

Nonetheless the people in this world are appalling without enough redeeming factors for me to read it. I simply can't bring myself to care if Harry saves anyone in this world really, and so it's disinteresting for me.

 

Anyone who would think that has a massive messiah complex.

Harry knows how Voldemort was defeated in his original world and knows that this world is close enough that the same rules might apply. So him thinking that all those people might die just because he did nothing would be psychotic.

 

It might be because of my massive messiah complex, but I do not follow. Do explain.

Especially considering tons of people would have already died had he done nothing.

 

Well, in the story, Iris Potter is basically Harry as a girl. With all that entails, which is being the one prophesied to defeat Voldemort.

Therefore, since Harry succeeded in killing Voldemort in his own world, there is a fairly decent probability of it happening in this alt world too.

He doesn't have to destroy Voldemort and his horcruxes if there is already someone who is fated to do that.

In canon, he had to put himself in danger, as Voldemort was coming for him regardless. Here, he doesn't have to. He could just live his life, and let Iris handle it.

But Harry does have a massive messiah complex, which is why it's fairly in character for him to help people.