Dude. Canon Harry (Iris) have the whole selfless thing going on. She would not run away. For the dozens of reasons Harry himself didn't even consider the possibility in canon.

Any premise with her doing so is flawed.

 

Canon Harry also had no reason to doubt the Order or Dumbledore. There was no scarred dimensional traveller there to influence him.

Also, I think it all largely depends on when Iris gets the horcrux news. For Harry it was all "you're the Chosen One; you have some mysterious power that will kill Voldemort" and suddenly, when he had no choice and no time to think about a different way, it changed to, "Oops, sorry, m'boy, you have to die. Now be good and go get slaughtered, please."

If Iris has time to think and someone who encourages her not to die? It might change her position, especially if Harry is clever about it. Iris' presence in the wizarding world is actually detrimental to its defense, as people put their hopes on her and not on well-equipped, well-trained professionals like they should.

Selflessness can be outgrown, as shown with this Harry. Iris might not need an inter dimensional trip to figure it out for herself.

It might not be likely, true, but it would be much more interesting than Harry joining the fight on the side of the "good guys" to help Iris and the Order patting themselves on the back for having done a good job in getting him.

 

I'll be honest. I read up to the chapter in which Dobby forced Harry to make that horrific bargain, then I stopped. It's repugnant, horrific, and absolutely detestable in the worst possible ways. The situation, the characters, everything. I honestly have no idea how anyone can stand reading this story unless they take the stance that the author seems to (based on his/her notes throughout the chapters I read).

The author seems to use Harry as a kind of punching bag. Actually, it's worse than that. Harry seems to be a torture doll, an entity written entirely to put through horrible situation after horrible situation, then eventually be tossed aside. The circumstances seem to be such that Harry cannot escape the situation, cannot improve the situation, and can only suffer until his eventual destruction. The only "way out" so to speak,that I can think of, would be some kind of Deus Ex Machina. I mean, based on my understanding of the circumstances, he literally does not possess the capacity to single-handed end the war/ defeat Voldemort, even if he was so inclined. He is just canon Harry, right? He was basically just a par wizard with an enormous amount of luck and a knack for certain spells. At most, he can provide information, but hasn't he been doing that anyway?

I guess I just see this as a kind of "Chronicals of Thomas Covenant" without any hope for redemption or success, although perhaps I am looking at the story the wrong way.

The sad thing is that the author's technical skill and writing are both above average, and the premise itself is just unique enough to generate interest (for me, at least). The situation the author has placed Harry in just seems so abysmal that there is no reason to read it. It becomes legitimately painful, for me at least.

I don't really have a reason for writing this, except to vent. I am simply saddened that a story with some potential from an author with some degree of technical skill has been rendered completely devoid of entertainment value (for me, at least) because all of the characters are, as everyone has already said, legitimately horrible people.

 

I like this story in general but don't really feel all that strongly about it. I follow updates and would like to talk about those. Anyway, this just as an introduction so that you know where I'm coming from with this, because your post is straight out false on several levels.

Fair enough.

Okay? I mean, what the order did was all of these things, but I wouldn't label the entire story with those terms. It's not great, but I wouldn't call it 'repugnant'.

Different tastes. Crazy, right?

The summoning was a disgusting act to say the least, and the scarring and disfiguration seems to serve the only purpose of concealing his identity. But beyond that and one situation with a death eater he hasn't really been physically hurt so far. He's in a terrible situation to be sure, but he is not really being used as a punching bag or even torture doll (are you fucking serious?).

Harry is in an incredibly difficult moral quandary. All possible solutions are detrimental to him, so overall he is not in a great shape. Beyond that?

That's true, and this is what makes the story interesting and intriguing enough for me to keep reading. The fact that you can only come up with a deus ex machina solution doesn't matter to my enjoyment of the story. We'll see how that changes if the author goes down that road.

I think that the author manages to create and convey a fictional, abysmal situation is worthy of note, but that's just my opinion.

Fair enough. I wouldn't call all of the characters horrible though. Iris isn't, she's just naive and a bit short-sighted. Some of the other characters did and do condone Harry's summoning, which is horrible, if that colors their whole character remains to be seen. I think it's human to have varying morals, views and opinions that aren't explicitly good or bad.

Again, I'm just trying to clarify: You've stopped early. In some aspects the story does not improve, in others it most certainly did. I think the portrayal of Harry's and Iris' characters with their small differences is really well done. They read and feel different but similar at the same time. Harry is a few years older, more experienced and more jaded. Iris is a female version of 16 year old Harry with slightly different characteristics. I think the author did a pretty good job at showcasing this.

 

Fair enough.

But that's the thing with fanfiction. I don't pay a cent to read it. If I don't like the first few chapters, I have absolutely no reason to continue reading a story and can simply read one of the other hundreds of thousands of fanfictions on ffnet, AO3, or wherever.

This story is extremely frustrating, so yeah, I'm not going to continue to torture myself because 'It gets better, I promise'.

I mean holy shit I read to relax, not to end up irritated by 'Harry Potter: and you thought Kafka was a nightmare'.
The characterization, as good as it seems to be according to you, isn't going to be enough.

 

That tends to lead to angsty Dark Lord Harry.

 

To be a Dark Lord you need to be atleast above average in terms of magical skill. Unfortunately cannon Harry does not have those requirements, meaning he will become a common murderer(for a well founded reason though). Yet i would never combine that idea with cannon Harry,it seems far to dark for his character, however Harry was never really pushed that far into the dark pit of despair, so ultimately we would never know what kind of divergences his character might have taken.

 

Wow, its amazing how polarizing this story is.

Well You have Iris Potter who is every bit that Harry Potter was at the age of 16 with two X Chromosomes. She wants to have a more active role in the conflict but simply can't. She is underage and simply doesn't have the training. She looks at the Daily Prophet and sees people are dying left and right. The Majority of Brittan's the Wizarding Community is so complacent that they have fallen for Voldemort's Ploy, that once person can save them and they dont have to risk themselves.

And Iris looks at Harry knowing that he is her, and she doesn't understand why he wont fight when she is more than willing to. She has no idea of what he has done through before he was brought to this world. Nor has she experienced the losses that he has had. In Chapter 17 Iris and Harry destroyed two Horcruxes, the Diadem was easy, but the Locket tried/did attacked them both.

Fast forward a month later Iris gets snippy and cracks, and takes a shot at Harry. And Harry K.O.s and discovers that she has been hiding under a Galmor. And it becomes obvious that she hasn't been sleeping, possibly not eating. She is constantly having to look over her shoulder. She has people take pop-shots at her when she is alone. And there is whatever Malfoy is doing.

 

You know the irony is that Harry had his own brand of magic in the end but you probably didn't realize it. Something more than "books&cleverness" Hermione unwittingly mentioned in the first book. Something which couldn't be quantified by science and learned through education. After he "died" and came back he *believed*. He knew he would win. Like his Patronus moment. Something I would describe as enlightenment.

That was true power in that (magical) moment and imho the true difference maker in the HP universe and not knowledge/skill. Otherwise there would have been more people of Dumbledore/Riddle's caliber.

 

That brand of magic is called protagonist armor my friend.

Correct me if i'm wrong but did you mean something among the lines of "The true lord will be chosen by magic/fate(in the form of some king of outworldly force that can chose a person on a whim).If that's what you are referring, you're basically telling him "**** you, no matter what you do , you will always be common rabble". It makes the world very dull and boring.

 

Narf I believe the part you're looking for is the following basically the last few sentences in the chapter. I could be wrong but I do believe this is the only reason
Edit: The copy from calibre was choppy the only way I could get the text here since ff.net seems to have some selection prevention measures. Hope it helps either way.

Spoiler

"You know," he said air*ily, fol*low*ing her lead, "Volde*mort's track record with prophe*cies is noth*ing to brag about. He only ever tried to in*ter*pret the one and took an AK to the face be*cause of it."
"He's an idiot," she agreed tremu*lously, but her voice strength*ened when she added, "as op*posed to you, a gen*uine pro*fes*sor at Britain's most pres*ti*gious school."
Harry's eye*brows shot up. "Is that sar*casm I'm hear*ing?"
"Not at all." She shrugged one shoul*der faux-ca*su*ally. "I am well aware of the ed*u*ca*tion you re*ceived prior to 'earn*ing' your 'pres*ti*gious title'."
Harry stuck his tongue out at her, pro*vok*ing a real smile, small as it was and let out a breath of re*lief. She was going to be okay.
"Is that it?" she asked hope*fully, sound*ing bone-weary. "Can we fi*nally get out of here?"
"That's every*thing. Ex*cept, well..." Harry re*luc*tantly pointed to the crum*pled body of Kreacher lying in a pile of limbs a few feet away. "We can't just leave him here."
"Well we can't very well carry his trai*tor*ous lit*tle car*cass through the school," she re*torted ex*as*per*at*edly. "Can't you just wake him up?"
Harry winced. "He's ex*hausted, I'm afraid. He needs to re*gain a lit*tle strength first be*fore he can pop out of here."
"What does that mean?" she asked slowly.
"We have to wait until he wakes up?" Harry said, cring*ing.
Open-mouthed Iris stared at him, be*fore look*ing around at the di*lap*i*dated cham*ber filled with creepy stat*ues, a rot*ting car*cass and a pond's worth of filthy stag*nant water. Her shoul*ders slumped and she de*spon*dently flopped onto the filthy floor, lay*ing on her back with her legs and arms spread out, un*car*ing about the filth mak*ing its way into her robes and long hair.
"I re*ally hate you right now," she an*nounced in a dead voice, "and when we fi*nally get out of here my vengeance will be bru*tal."
Harry shook his head at her dra*mat*ics with a small in*dul*gent smile while he too made him*self com*fort*able.
"Bru*tal," she re*peated em*phat*i*cally, rais*ing her head to look at him. "Don't you dare smile."
The cor*ners of his mouth curled up until his teeth showed and Harry couldn't find the will to stop.
Her head slumped back*wards in de*feat. "I hate you."

 

Does it really matter if it's some supernatural force/fate(the prophecy seems to hint that), some alchemical process or a random path to enlightenment? All major players had a zealot like belief system which defined them at their prime vs. the lower tier players.

 

This fic is original especially the divination approach but it makes the mistake of bashing the order of phoenix by caricaturing its members and the relation tonks harry is too quick in coming for me at least.
But it does get better with each chapter so we will see..

 

Oh bugger. Forgot about that running on like 12 hours of sleep for the past couple days, thanks Jon.

 

I don't think it really bashes the OotP. This is all from Harry's point of view, so the Order is portrayed worse than actuality. Granted, what they did and their initial treatment of Harry was pretty horrible.

I agree with many of the previous reviewer's comments about how angsty Harry has been. The choice of helping the Iris vs not helping the Order, while frustrating to read, kind of reflects the turmoil that I imagine a noble-but-petty(?) Harry would face.

I want to like this fic. The premise is very interesting, especially because I like dimension-traveling-harry fics but there are so many annoyances that detract from it. I think I might like this fic better if I wait until it's completed and read it all in one sitting. The pause between chapter updates combined with the short chapters where not much seem to happen makes things seem so much slower and more angsty/frustrating.

 

Also works to just go to the mobile version. Their copy protection only works on www.fanfiction.net, it seems to do fuck-all for m.fanfiction.net.

 

I used some kind of code, that made it possible to copy ffnet directly, cna't remember what.