I was responding to Darius

As I said, I was responding to Darius who commented that the relationship moved too fast. I think that his training also progressed too fast also, as he was able to successful duel Voldemort to a veritable standstill after probably less than a month of training.

 

Burn, would you mind telling me some good HP/NT stories where thier relationship doesn't move a such an impossibly fast pace? I'm a fan of the pairing, but I tend to find the same problem with the stories that you do.

 

I think part of that is a tendency to want to 'go straight to the good stuff'. Also, a lot of people feel like they are racing against the clock. Most HP fics cover a single year of school plus the preceding summer. Considering that Hogwarts, I believe, lets out for summer around the end of June, that only leaves two months for Harry and Tonks to get involved before school starts. If you extend the 'getting to know you' phase of their relationship into the school year, you have to find an excuse to have her at school...
Since most of the 'drama' or 'good stuff' or whatever, happens after they're deeply involved, that only leaves you X months of the school year left. That's not taking into account the rest of the plot, the conflict... that Riddle guy.
Now, obviously, if you break formula and don't have him go to school at all or cover more than one year, you aren't bound by such things. One could also try to cover each and every single day of vacation to give their relationship a lengthier feel but... yikes.

I have seen fics that jump start Harry/Tonks by working a little revisionist history, claiming that they wrote each other a lot over the course of OoTP and that's why they hook up so fast come Summer. Plausible though it may be, it leaves one wanting. After all, if he'd been spilling his guts to her through letters, one would think the events of OoTP would have changed somewhat drastically.

Okay but who wants to read about Harry training for decades? It's magic, none of it is realistic anyway. I don't recall either Dumbledore or Voldemort being children of prophecy anyway; there's always that excuse.

The only way Harry can train for decades and not bore the reader to tears is to simply skip ahead and say, in essence, 'Harry trained hard for ten long years. This is where our story starts.', and in those instances there are always a litany of the good guys who have been slaughtered while Harry was doing all of this training.
Well, some people don't want to start their story in some post-apocalyptic Europe with most of the Order members and students already dead. But to write that none of the principal good guys died during a decade of conflict is, perhaps, even more unrealistic than Harry being able to attain Tom/Albus-level mastery over his powers in a single year. So there has to be a compromise made somewhere.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any fics that started with 'Harry trained for many years', that I enjoyed. That's not to say there haven't been any, nor that I haven't read any but none are coming to mind at the moment (that happens when you've read a zillion fics).

The other dodge is either he trains up and Time Travels back to the past, which not everyone likes to read/write...
or
...the whole time-warp trunk/room device, which is mocked as being grossly cliched.

It just occurred to me that the Trio must have spent 6th year undergoing intense training while a set of chemically-unbalanced simulacra went to school in their stead. Yes, that explains the insanity of HBP quite nicely.

 

Take it as you will, but this fic and its author is the newest addition to Jeconais' list at www.fanficauthors.net. Good fic, one of my favourites.

 

I saw that too. My first thought was: "Nice! I guess he must be working on a sequel now."

And then I checked his yahoogroup and saw the author just posted this morning saying among other things "I still have no plan for a sequel, but re-reading and editing does shed light on a few ideas that don't suck too bad."

So another addition to FFA with a fic almost everyone's read and no plans for more fic. Meh. I think I'd even like the ending to this fic better if the author lied to me and said he'd write a sequel, but it's just not ready to post yet.

Knowing this is a summer fic without the real payoff it was building towards is disappointing.

And yes, I agree you can write a fic about Harry growing, getting better and all, but this one was specifically about rising to the challenge of Voldemort. They met up a couple times, battled once, and included a little face to face standoff in the last chapter. Now that we see Harry is up to the challenge of Voldemort we simply go back to school with about a million unanswered questions? Bah!

Good fic. Author should lie about the "sequel" though.

(At least sib-ff's 6th year fic desperately needing a sequel wrapped up most all the questions you have... this one just leaves the concept of an Unspeakable at Hogwarts and juggling those two duties - his mission to get the portkey spell from Dumbledore for example? - and dealing with his friends and life at school, everything just hanging in the lurch.)

 

I really liked this story.

Moving too fast is a fairly common complaint with most HP fics featuring romance. But, then again, it should be noted that JKR herself did just that with the whole Harry/Ginny relationship coming out of the blue in her latest HAB (Half-Assed Book) - also known as HBP.

Personally I'd rather read a fic that has them moving a little too quickly than one that spends 100k+ words of emotional angst over whether they should or not before anything ever happens.

 

A Summer of Change

This is probably my favorite HP/NT story. Seeing as how I can't find any that I really like because there are none finished. I do believe that it is my favorite. Yes the relationship moved to fast but and harry probably did learn way too fast I still found it enjoyable. The way the author presented the plot made it possible that he could learn that quickly. I too hope he writes a sequel. But unfortunately he seems to be taking his time. =(

 

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3788259/1/1
this is a AU of OOTP where the honks isn't rushed but it may be abandoned

 

An amazing piece of fanfiction.

Probably the best HP/ NT out there to date.

Has plenty of humor, angst, action, romance...Win-Win in all regards.

A sequel would rock, but it's still an amazing piece of work.

If only we had other fics of that calibre concerning HP/ NT >.>

Regards
Aerin

 

I didn't like this story too much. I mean, it's well-written, I guess. And I did enjoy Harry/Tonks, that's a great pairing and probably pretty hard (or fun) to write since it's a bit unusual.

I didn't like all the 'training', stripe collecting (for healing, fighting skills, etc), 'power up potion' (forgot what it's called) and Horace. I hated his guts! It all felt rushed to bring Harry to power. Thankfully, it wasn't 'super Harry' story, but it bordered on having power levels

 

The story is probably the definitive Harry/Tonks story out there; at least it's the one that others of the same pairing are judged against.

The two of them hooking up was rushed, indeed; and the pet names for Tonks got old. But the detail that went into describing life as Unspeakable was top notch, IMO.

Since he's not writing a sequel, I wonder if anyone would be bold enough to pen their own; he said he had some ideas bouncing around, maybe he could hand them off to another author he considers talented enough to undertake it.

 

I actually emailed Lord Dwar about penning a sequel, before I started my own story a month ago. He said that he wasn't ready to abandon the idea of a sequel just yet. I have really enjoyed this story for a long time, and it is by leagues the greatest Unspeakables-as-badasses story I've ever read.

Kevin

 

I have to say this story is indeed a classic. I think it was one of the stories that got me into appreciating Harry/Tonks. Not that I consider that my favourite pairing, but I still appreciate a well done one.

The Unspeakable training was excellent, I really enjoyed Marcus and Horace. They were two OCs that were just enough developed without them being overbearing.

The pet names for Tonks got quite annoying towards the end, but not enough to detract me from reading this story.

The smut was all right, although it got too much towards the end. Perhaps that is a tendency for these sort of stories. I frankly enjoyed the waiting part more than the "finally let's fuck part."

It did leave the felling of unfinished, and it would need a sequel to do it justice. kmfrank if you are joking with us doom will be upon you. However, there is quite the difference between not abandoning the idea of a sequel and actually doing it.

Still a good story at its time. 4/5.