This. This is one of the better fanfics I've read recently. Harry is witty in a way that makes me giggle, and the interactions between him and the rest of the cast are nice. Children are children, and for the first time, Hogwarts is a fucking school.

First five or six chapters are not great though. Very, very wall of texty.

 

Is Harry good at magic?

(This is the number 1 question I always demand of a fic before reading).

 

Couldn't get past the first chapter. Sorry, but stories which feature such phrases as "Lord What's-His-Name" or "Lord Soiledshorts" are simply not my thing.

 

It's actually not that bad, certainly not library worthy of course. There are certain cliches you need to be willing to over look like magical cores, century old powerful wands, familiars with extreme intelligence, and horrible nicknames. I have to say, this story features an impressively creepy Tom Riddle. I was a bit disturbed when he gets a moment of control.

Overall, I would recommend giving it a shot if you can look past a few cliches.

 

Yep, prodigious in fact, but not in a completely over-the-top way.

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Great fic, thanks for the rec. What I've read so far I've enjoyed immensely. I wouldn't complain about the cliches, but maybe that's just because I haven't read enough cliched fics to get truly sick and tired of certain concepts. My only minor quibble is that one can spot a few misspelled words and questionable punctuation in the text, but it's rare enough not to be irksome. The prose is quite good and there have been a few times the fic had me ROFLing.

Spoiler

Besides, Harry's in Slytherin and that's always a plus for me.

 

That shouldn't be a spoiler. That should have been a part of your rec. There are people that strongly dislike slytherin!Harry and all that goes with it ("Alliance building", children acting as adults, Ice queen Daphene, misunderstood purebloods, "Mah customs" etc.). I'm not saying that any of that features in this fic as I x'ed out the second Harry was sorted. I'm saying a little heads up would have been nice.

 

Not every wizard fanfic that is sorted has Harry sorted into Slytherin turns out evil bad.

 

Only about 98% of them.

 

So about the same ratio as the ones that don't have it then.

 

Didn't say that. There are plenty of people on this forum that would actually like reading a fic where Draco/Daphne/whoever goes on and on about how terrible muggleborns are because they "disrespect our traditions". It's just that not everyone wants that and recommendations should be helpful to as many people as possible.

I actually went back and read the rest of the fic. My main problem with it that there are so many influences shining through that it's impossible to hear the author. Terrible rooms for which you have to earn upgrades. Harry receiving the diary and it using his thirst for power in order to corrupt him. Genius Harry raised by a proper family than ending up in a orphanage. All of these feel real familiar to me and all come from decent fics that the author is taking inspiration from. Now add the uber wand and the super smart familiar. What you get is a situation where I'm thinking that all the bits I like are there because the author liked them as well, but thought that trials Harry went through in those fics might be best solved by a wand of plot convenience.

Yes there is the constant. It's just a wand it doesn't do anything, but than there is the one bit where it could effect Dumbledore just watching a memory in a pensive. So it's bound to end up in a situation where Harry is fucked and the wand comes alive, or something, and solves the problem in 2 seconds flat.

 

If Burgundy Blues were posted in For Review, I'd rate it a well-deserved four stars. If it keeps up the same quality and gets through a couple more years, I'd bump that up to a five. Here's my review:

 

As much as I like the story, I hate the riddle bits in it. Harry's willingness to write all of emotions, his ridiculous anger at the theft,... it's like the diary is making him stupid. And riddles dialogues are very contrived: yesss tell me how you feel... :/

 

I'm more annoyed at that bloody bird. The intro was generic but for Hermione hating Harry. The bloody bird though. How the hell was this thought to be amusing? I'm at the Sorting and I want the bird to die.

 

I am reading the sorting and the story looks more and more like about the bird than Harry Potter.

 

Bloody Bertram! *insert laugh track*

 

Oh yeah, I can't believe I forgot about the damn bird. So unfunny it was almost painful. Of all the contrived ways to get Harry sorted into Slytherin, the sorting hat having a grudge with a talking raven has got to be up there with the weirdest.

Giving it some credit though, the fic was readable and enjoyable in other non-raven or non-diary scenes.

 

The bird doesn't bother me, especially with the latest scene having the bird trashing Harry's room I am hoping there is something more behind it, as I figured it was searching for the diary. I hope.

However when I first come across this story I gave up at chapter 3, the McGonagall scene followed by Dumbledore was awful on another level, maybe just to me because the attempted humor fell below flat.

Reading the responses here I gave it another try, and it definitely gets better as the story goes on. I am liking the diary taking over Harry slowly, the dialogue from Riddle doesn't really bother me much and Harry is only an eleven year old with no friends, as far as he knows a magical talking diary are per the norm.

I liked the Hermione scene with her living in her own little world regarding Harry, was hoping to have another scene with her reaction when the confrontation happened on the pitch between the two quidditch teams.

So as far as the story goes it starts off terrible, a lot of instances of stopping yourself from clicking the cross, but persist through it and it terms into a little gem that is updating and getting better. Considering it seems to be the first story of the authors on the site, the author definitely has potential.

 

Chapter 11 so far, and I have no idea what people see in it. I would have stopped at the first couple of chapters after having to skip over half of them if it wasn't for this thread and the varioyus recs.

It's pretty bad, honestly. The bird, Tom's dialogue, and the charcterizations are atrocious. The only decent one is Harry's, but even that fluctuates depending on what the author wants Harry to do (-Tell me everything. Pour your heart out. -I will. Derp)

Meh.

 

Just read Burgundy Blues, quite liked it.

The writing style is, ehr, extrapolating narrative and was hard to get into at first, I quit once before giving it another try thanks to the reviews here. I really like how the characters are portrayed, they feel real and there's always a funny sidenote; for example both Hermione and Harry thinking they won their contest thanks to different counting or Snape giving Harry housepoints as well as sabotaging his work, or the introducing scenes with Mcgonnogal, her bet with Snape at the start as well as when the first years decided to play with the cute kitty.

Cliches are both there and averted, Harry knew Hermione before Hogwarts and they had studying contests, Crazy Luna imprinting on Harry, seemingly helpful Tom RIddle ...

On downsides, the story lacks tension at the start and Harrys education seems a bit over the top for an eleven year old, I find the orphanage to be needlessly horrible, this is the first fic with "Magical Cores" I havn't instantly deleted in months. The Raven seems far over the top and out of place and why the hell is it here anyway and not in a crackfic.

 

... I don't know why, but I literally could not read the story. The story just didn't flow well, just blocks and blocks of text for me. I couldn't even try and explain what the story was about, given I didn't get past the second paragraph.

Weird.