Spoiler

Interesting. It's nicely written, and a pretty clever take on how to get rid of Azkaban while dealing with the dangerous prisoners - certainly not one I've seen before, although admittedly I don't read much HP fic other than competition entries these days. There's a nice murkiness to it as well, assuming I'm not just reading too much into it - certainly, I'm not convinced that the Obliviation is quite as morally acceptable as Harry says it is. Kudos, too, for managing something I'd hitherto thought impossible, and inspiring a degree of sympathy for Umbridge.

 

Spoiler

Nice and dark, making excellent use of the short story format by leaving the reader space to fill in how they got here or if it's really morally more acceptable to utterly destroy someone's mind rather than rending their immortal soul from their body or just killing them. It's a death of the mind rather than the body, I suppose, which frankly I find far more terrifying.

Honestly, excellent stuff. Wish I could've written it myself.

4.5/5.

 

Spoiler

I'm not quite sold on this one.

It's hard to objectively comment on a story with such short format, when I don't agree with fundamentals of it, but it's not the discussion for here and now, so I won't even try to get into that rabbit hole. Sure, it's your story, your AU that might've been canon for all I know, but as far as I'm concerned, it's just not there.

The writing itself is rather well done, pace slowly picking up to it's crescendo and delivering the needed last note to wrap the story around.

On the other hand, in terms of genres, I'm sorry to say I'm not sold on them either. It sets a heavy tone, yet the darkness of such decision and their consequences is missing. It argues the morale and the time needed to come up with such nasty, troubling decisions, yet it misses the afterthought of the resolution that might never come.

I feel the story, I truly am, I just don't think it's quite there.

 

Spoiler: review

Ugh, I have… mixed feelings.

Overall idea: great, but terrible. It's a tragedy, I guess? Basically a death sentence, with the whole "good side" doing a make believe that since body still lives, it isn't really. But they won't be capable of creating new memories - ever, so it'll be a string of days, where they'll be scared, confused, and basically… innocent? Horrible.

As for wording, it was okay, if somewhat unfeeling. Was that a point? Or should it lean to "what a horrible end" or "a glorious end"? I don't know.

The only thing that was very meh for me was the anger slipping like a sand through the fingers, it just doesn't feel like a fitting metaphore.

 

Spoiler

The ease with which the dementors are dealt with bothers me. I know it's only a device to get to the story you actually want to tell, but it feels very cheap. Sort of like if it were really that easy, why were they so often described as unkillable? Anyway. On to more important things.

The prose was difficult for me to get into, specifically at the start. A lot of the terse, straight-to-the-point sentences that read like a report, which may well've been intentional but still made it a bit of a slog. This abated once Harry's thoughts grew more into the story, and was practically nonexistent by the time you reach the courtroom scene itself.

I think a lot of your physical details are very well chosen. Umbridge's post-obliviation actions especially were wonderfully vivid, and striking. That you got it all done in two-thirds the wordcount impresses me more than I can properly express.

Also, kudos for how close you get to Harry's mind. You, more than the two prior entries I've read, really stuck to the prompt with that. Love the way we get Harry's view of the process alongside the one we build for ourselves, and the room it allows to agree or disagree with him.

 

Spoiler

Really dense with description, could do with more dialogue. The ending feels a bit sudden and leaves a lot to be desired. I think Harry’s observations are well-captured and congruent with his canon personality. That said, Harry doesn’t do much but observe. It’s clear he’s a few years into his Ministry career, so perhaps you could have filled in the blanks with more of his thoughts/job history, especially in the exposition which remains the weaker half of the piece

You’ve laid out a morally ambiguous situation with a lot of subtle hints regarding Harry’s ambivalence and fatigue from post-Voldemort restoration. That requires a patience/thoughtful reading from your audience, but some may find it boring or overly polarizing.

 

Spoiler

Very strong entry all around. The prose is effective and feels appropiate to the tone of the story (although I would not use 'desrepair' to describe a person - that's more for cars imo) and the story has emotional impact despite its short lenght. Every part of it feels very purposeful and I appreciate it. My only caveat is that you and I seem to have radical different ideas on appropiate punishment for criminals, or at least me and your Harry, which results in him readings like a very different Harry than the one we know from the books. I will explain.

We have these two lines from the story:

As far as I can tell these lines suggests that in the political decision of closing Azkaban, some people, 'survivors', opposed personality death for the prisoners as alternative for imprisonment as being too lenient, and that, furthermore, Harry was pressured to position himself pollitically one way or the other.

To me this seems baffling, because personality death is not only a far worse punishment than imprisonment, even in Azkaban, its also a punishment that, ironically, eerily resembles the dementor's kiss. And we're meant to be horrified by the dementor's kiss in the books, a punishment reserved for the worst of the worst, literally called worse than death if I recall correctly, because it leaves the person an empty liveless husk, and yet it doesn't kill them, meaning their soul cant go into the afterlife and yaddi yadda. And yet, in your story, every single prisoner, is given the equivalent of a dementor's kiss - personality death, and yet, everyone is kinda down with it? And the ones who don't are because they dont want 'murderers walking free'. Like, I can see it because who knows, maybe wizarding society is super bloodthirsty (including Hermione, lol) but it raises my little eyebrow.

What does more than raise my little eyebrow is the second point; how could Harry be possibly down with this (and still be Harry)?

Now, to your credit, the above does show him have some serious concerns as to what is going on. He seems like he's convincing himsef that was is happening is not like super fucked up.

But then we have this again. 'Surely this was enough'. Who thinks this isn't enough? Why is Harry leaning towards the side that thinks that personality death is too lenient? Harry m'boy, don't you remember the whole Sirius plotline from book three?

And then we have this final line which to me is anthithetical to Harry's character. No, this isn't a fresh start. Umbridge is going to spend the rest of her life next to Lockhart in St. Mungo's and also Umbridge is dead. She's dead. They've literally executed her in front of you and you're like ok with it.

Perhaps I'm overthinking it, but if so it speaks to your credit. The best entry of the lot, in my opinion, despite the above.

 

Spoiler

While the concept is interesting and feels pretty much how it would be handled in canon it just didn't grab me. he writing is good, precise, and moves to the conclusion, but beyond that there's nothing interesting for me.

 

Spoiler

I like the way you write, I think you have a very good grasp of both story-telling and of when to add details to make things come alive. Very impressive.

Murky dark angst feat. revenge as genres do nothing for me, unfortunately, unless they’re mixed with humour or a failed epic romance, so I’m the wrong audience for this. It doesn’t grip me in the intentional way. It also means I overfocus on the morals you’ve included, and found they don’t make sense to me. Don’t think they’d make sense to canon Harry either. Or maybe you’re trying to show that there’s more to the story with the way you end it. Hmm. For me personally, a different ending, even making it dystopian might have saved it, e.g. where you end by showing Harry and co are just husks of themselves because of prolonged dementor exposure when they got rid of them or something like that. Nah, nevermind, I’m just the wrong audience I think.

 

Spoiler

This was good. Creative, dark. I’m not totally sure I buy a Harry Potter who would’ve endorsed a plan like this, although I guess I can imagine him deciding that it’s better than execution.

I would’ve liked you to explore more of how this plan came about and how people had to bring Harry on board. I’d like to see him grappling with it more, which would’ve brought more interesting conflict to this story.