Title: Barefoot
Author: Zaxaramas
Rating: M
Genre: Adventure
Library Category: Alternates
Pairing: Harry/Tonks
Chapters: 46
Words: 128,155
Updated: September 16, 2016
Published: July 7, 2015
Status: In Progress

Summary: Harry has the ability to learn the history of any object he touches, whether he wants to or not.

Link: Chapter One

Let me start off by saying this is not a great story by any means. It is, however, an entertaining story with what I believe is an original idea. It's a Super Harry story, except I've never seen it done this way before. As the summary says, Harry has the ability to learn the history of any object he touches, and he gains more abilities that center around this as the story progresses. It starts in Year 1, and moves pretty quickly from there. It's already in Year 4 now. Harry has a pretty interesting relationship with Dumbledore, and it's one of the best parts of the story. There are also some funny moments in his interactions with other faculty and students.

It could probably be classified as a Crack fic, and some parts are cringe-worthy (like the whole Hedwig plot arc), but it's a good time waster if you're bored. It will probably end up in the Almost Recommended section, but I'm at the stage of my fanfic reading experience where I'd rather see interesting new ideas, with sub-par execution, than a well-written fic with 100 cliches, and I thought others might feel the same. Cheers.

EDIT: Forgot to rate it. I give it a 3.5/5.

 

I've been following this for a while. I liked the idea; that Harry touches something and learns its history. Pity the writing is just mediocre.

2/5 from me, mostly carried by the concept.

---------- Post automerged at 12:01 ---------- Previous post was at 11:58 ----------

Oh, and the cliché storm. I guess that falls under mediocre writing.

 

3/5 from me. Very readable, but not one of the great stories. Few new ideas, and the main one is played interestingly. Kept me entertained for a few hours.

 

I really tried to get into this a few months back... and it was very cringey. It was like autistic, omniscient Harry, and was not nearly as engaging as the summary would lead you to beleive, since the idea itself seems interesting, but it's not.

2/5

 

It has some nice idea and even a few good scenes occasionally. Too bad there are so many stupid things in-between.

2/5 in general with a few 3.x/5 in-between.

 

I found this a few weeks back. It has been an ok read and can see following it going forward. However the grammar and spelling mistakes are atrocious. If I notice them, they must be bad - I am far from a grammar freak. Get a beta please.

2.5/5

 

I've been following this and can agree with OP's opinion. I'd give it a 3/5, it's a nice time waster, but not anything special.

 

Hedwig arc kinda killed it for me. 2/5

 

The concept is pretty cool, but I imagine it's something that's fairly hard to execute well. The trouble with poor authors giving main characters powerful abilities is that it renders them pretty boring. I've only read the first chapter, but I think I can predict where this is going to go. I don't want to read about a Harry who effortlessly solves every single problem that ever challenged canon Harry without ever having gone through the accompanying personal struggles and character development. That'd be uninteresting.

The story's written in first person, and by an author who isn't skilled enough to write it well. It's also chock-full of grammatical errors.

I may be wrong about the first of my complaints. Who knows? It may yet improve. But I've no intention of wasting my time reading more than I have so far. In the interests of fairness, I'll decline rating the story.

 

Interesting enough premise. Execution was sub-par, but that didn't bother me initially. I've read worse. Or so I thought.

I got as far as the spectacular implosion of chapter 25 before admitting to myself that this was too shitty to handle, lack of stuff to read or not.
1/5

Edit: For anyone wondering, this is how NOT to do Harry/Tonks

 

3/5.

The story is readable, and pretty decent. Harry being turned into Sherlock Holmes is annoying, but given that the author is so transparent about it as to make the characters actually say it, I'm not sure I can fault them for it.

There are typos spread throughout, but nothing major, and I don't remember any impacting my ability to read the story. Also, I quite like Dumbledore - he still makes mistakes, but he isn't a massive bag of dicks.

I've read the author's other story too, and both honestly feels like stepping back in time - super!Harry, de-aged Tonks, large amounts of physical abuse that never really gets brought back up, familiars, mind-speaking to familiars, humanimaguses... Don't get me wrong, they are both fun, but they aren't incredible. Definitely worth a try though.

Spoiler

Although I hate the fucking universe shift in the other thing, it's really weird, and basically never touched on again. Almost like I dreamed it, except it's real.

In all honesty, this reminds of Lionheart's PKH, or Rorschach's Blot. The author had all these ideas they wanted to write about, and so they crammed everything into a single story. But the ideas get moved through at a frenetic pace, and picked up and dropped as needed, rather than being a thread through the whole story.

I want to be able to give this a library rating, but I don't think I can. It's certainly enjoyable, but it isn't great writing.

 

I want to start off saying this is roughly my third attempt at reading this story. All three attempts have left me wanting. As many have said before the premise promising (and at the very least interesting), however, the overall execution was poor. I will also note, that I am slightly biased against 1st person writing styles when reading fanfiction.

I give it a 2/5

 

I actually took this all the way through to the most recent updates in the hopes that it would improve. The Harry/Tonks romance kinda comes out of nowhere, Harry literally runs into her one night and the next thing you know they're best friends and he's sitting with her at breakfast, and no one at all questions that a final year student and a first year student have become so close.

All conflicts are resolved far too easily, I've never at any point really thought that this super!Harry would be in any real danger at any of the things he faced.

Admittedly, the concept is really interesting, and executed well - it could have been a fantastic story. Sadly, this is the complete opposite to being well executed. Author is very open about the fact they're making it up as they go along, if there was a purpose to things like the Hedwig plot - I could maybe forgive it - but it seems to have been done purely to have something to write about.

The interpretation of Dumbledore is really the only saving grace for this story, his interactions with Harry are pretty entertaining and it's refreshing to have him not be a completely 1 dimensional villain as most super Harry stories would normally go down.

Killed some time, but I don't think I'll continue to follow it.

2/5

 

I'll be honest, the idea of this story was quite unique, and I did enjoy the first part of the story. I even tolerated the relationship with Tonks (six years age difference is borderline for a relationship in my opinion).
But I stopped reading the chapter where Hedwig turns into a girl through pixie magic, making her kind of a twin sister to Harry. Despite this, there is apparently a threesome relationship going on, and the author mentioned, that Fleur might join the harem soon. I quit right there. I'll rate it 2/5, would be lower, if not for the idea of Harry's ability.

 

Tried reading this a little over a week ago. Writing is shit. 2/5 from me.

 

I read this some weeks ago, and although I can't recall any of the typos or grammatical errors being mentioned, (my brain tends to smooth these things over with time) I do remember a quite well done first chapter which was let down by the following chapters which RAPIDLY decrease in quality.

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At a guess, I'd say the author got the idea and put it to paper and then realized they needed to follow up and had no idea where to go until he eventually got to the point where Harry shares an apartment with Sirius and can be a wolf occasionally. The romance is so pointless it barely needs mentioning.

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1.5 from me, if you find the premise irresistible, do yourself a favor and just read the first chapter and move on.

 

Good idea, mediocre execution. As far as I remember he pumped out chapters like crazy in the beginning, which in my opinion led to what the story is now. Writing could probably be better but I haven't read any of the newer chapters yet and reading the others was quite a bit ago.

Still a relatively interesting guilty pleasure for me, if only for the premise.

3/5

 

This was a bit disappointing. The story is not horribly written, but the premise was so interesting that it was upsetting that the author didn't write it better. I don't think I have to go through what exactly is wrong with the story, as others have summed it up pretty well. It basically boils down to a super-Harry done badly – no tension, no character development, his ability giving rise to multiple power-ups that would each, on their own, make a super!character, a character 'voice' that doesn't seem to decide on boy-genius, socially awkward, or Gary Sue, and a pointless romance.

Heck, I don't understand Tonks' character at all. Granted, I ended up skimming through much of the story, so I may have missed something, but I don't understand how an 18 year old would ever be attracted to a 12 year old, no matter how mature the 12 year old is. And even their friendship – it seemed odd that a 17 year old would spend so much time with an 11 year old in school, with both practically being each others best friends. It would have been much better to have them meet in Harry's first year, and get along well enough, but then go about their own lives in their own appropriate social circles. Then you can have Harry find out about Tonks needing a place to live and have him offer her his extra room. Have them slowly become closer, while still having their own lives, loves, etc., until Harry is about 16, when they start seeing each other differently. Still, as I said, I ended up skimming much of the story, and stopped entirely after chapter 20, so maybe all of this is addressed. Point is, this all makes Harry particularly unrelatable.

Instead, he should have limited the initial ability a bit. Have him see an object's history, and remove the communicating with animals entirely – I don't think it adds anything. He can then see the spells his parents have cast, and perhaps even have the memory burned into his mind (so he can remember details like wand movements, while at the same time being forced to remember even the less savoury of histories). So he doesn't automatically know how to cast the spells, let alone duel or fence, but can try and copy the wand motions and the incantations. Having access to his parents' entire magical histories would still give him an understanding of magic beyond most Hogwarts students, which would help him with his magic, and make him appropriately 'super'. But then you can take away all the alchemy and the other unnecessary power-ups, and give him something to work towards.

And then he could have thought through Harry's personality a bit more. Imagine growing up with such a deluge of information running through his head at all times – Harry should probably act nothing like a kid. And yet, perhaps not entirely like an adult. Have Harry be a bit socially awkward, unsure about conversations when he could get all the information he could ever need from a single touch, and a disconnect with other people for the same reason. His development could be in this aspect – he may be powerful, with an understanding of magic of Lily Potter, and only getting stronger while in Hogwarts with all the magical objects to touch, but he cannot make friends, inspire people, or teach them as canon-Harry did. However strong you are, you can't fight everyone yourself after all. This could fit the theme of boy-genius, while also providing a different angle to the whole romance thing.

Anyway, that was a long, unnecessary rant. As Gurukid said, it reads more like a crack-fic, without actually being a crack-fic, and so it, in my opinion, falls flat. I'm rating it 2.5 stars, rounding up to 3 only because of the interesting premise.

 

I managed to get to chapter 25 based solely on the premise, but then there's a huuuuge crap cliche that just threw me off the whole thing.
2/5

 

It kept me entertained for twenty chapters or so. An interesting premise and some of the humor hits the right notes. I can't say that I'd recommend it. I particularly liked the creative use of Harry's ability in solving an (attempted) murder investigation.

2/5