Holy shit. This chapter pulled no punches. Harry Black is a complete fucking monster.

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Causing upwards of 250,000 deaths is perhaps the largest fuck-up I've honestly ever read. I hope the upcoming fallout and reaction from the various parties are equally poignant and terrifying.

 

I'm current on the story but I wasn't quite sure what exactly is going on.

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If Harry didn't do the (original) ritual at all, what would have happened? What was the relevance of seeing the Lethifold at Hogwarts? What did he do the second time that messed it up further? Why did the reverse-rune thing he did with Tracey cause London? Why did the Lethifolds speak at him and not try to... eat him, I guess?

 

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Nothing?

I don't get what you mean here.

He undid the contract that bound them to attempt to kill Rose, so they did what they wanted.

"Then you're still perfectly safe. Despite your rather dire lack of common sense, as long as you don't actively seek to harm them, the Lethifolds won't attack those of our name."

You really should improve your reading comprehension.[/QUOTE]

 

Thanks, that's ... slightly more understandable. I think the timeline screwed me up (and the long time between updates didn't help).

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To clarify:

So during winter break year 1, Harry summoned and bound the lethifolds to kill Rose. They were banished temporarily, but showed up again in the forest in year 2. Harry freaks out about them being bound to attack Aenor, so tries an untested anti-ritual which cancels the binding but doesn't send them back to wherever they came from, so they do whatever they want.

Was why they ended up in London revealed?

 

Yes, I can't remember if it was explicitly stated but it was implied by Tracey ^^.

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It was suggested that once they undid the biding made by Harry the lethifolds could do whatever they wanted/leave Hogwarts. However being complete and utter insatiable monsters they went straight to London due to the concentration of prey (humans). The final scene showed them either fleeing due to presence of the sun or dying to it when the wizard contingent unblocked the clouds (sun is an insta kill). [spoiler/]

 

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I'm curious as to how the author is going to spin this catastrophe, I can easily see it spun around and used against the ICW who only acted once 250,000 people died, instead of stepping in when the group arrived in the forbidden forest, the reactions of daphne and tracy is going to be interesting though.

We also need to wonder if our favorite professor is going to react negative, or hell, if she died in the attack.

 

I've been reading this story for the last few days and finally caught up with chapter 41. Simply put, I like it.

The initial criticism of Harry acting too young for his age has been addressed and edited it seems, since I never got that impression and there was an author's note at one point talking about revisions to the earliest chapters fixing it.

The girl phobia definitely lessens over time, with a breakthrough happening at one point, although it's not completely dealt with yet since whatever traumatic experience is the cause of it is still a mystery to everyone including Harry (repressed memories or a spell). Anyway, it hasn't bothered me too much and it feels more like teenage awkwardness at this point than some crippling fear of girls.

It's an interesting world, there is no Voldemort which is a breath of fresh air, and Harry gets to deal with the consequences of his own actions and the greater political landscape rather than some singular villain. I really, really like Harry's prowess at magic without being some OP fighting machine. His strengths are more subtle and his knowledge esoteric which let him hit above his level while still being vulnerable to mere students when ganged up on.

I thought his tendency for landing in the hospital wing a bit overdone, but I just accepted that wizards are magically durable and people think differently about injuries that would seem more serious or life threatening to a muggle.

I like the way the author keeps you in the dark about things, slowly revealing past events, current politics, and characters' hidden depths over time rather than quickly and info dumpy, though I admit that sometimes things can drag a bit. It's a minor criticism, there's usually so much going on that I can wait for things to resolve themselves. Chapters are never boring at least.

The romantic aspect of the story is pretty fun, what with Harry being pretty clueless and nervous with girls yet having touching moments of earnestness and impressive moments that show his skill and passion.

In conclusion it's a good fic with a competent Harry in an interesting world dealing with cool magics, some political intrigue and mysterious past. I rate it 4.5/5.

Here's my 'spoilery' review from fanfiction.net based on the latest chapter 41.

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Just wanted to give my appreciation for the story, suffice it to say it's really engaging and I love reading it.

Aenor's and Harry's interactions are probably my favourite part of the story, both the intellectual stuff and the romantic parts. I'm not convinced that you plan to have them end up together based on your hints in Author notes, but I hope I'm wrong because they are my favourite pairing. There's just something about Harry impressing an older, more capable witch and romancing her that makes me giddy.

Anyway, I like that while Harry is really smart, resourceful and driven, that he struggles with things. I enjoy his prodigious skill at charms and his foray into darker magics while still not being able to cast some relatively "simple" dark curses. Although I believe you hinted at his proficiency with the Imperius curse at the end of his lesson with the puppies?

The lethifold story-arch has been fun to read, and the London scene was particularly gruesome, although I'm not sure why the multitude of Aurors couldn't chase off the lethifolds with the Patronus and had to rely on some kind of elaborate anti-dark-cloud-charm. Still, I could imagine and accept that this lethifold pack is of an unusual strength based on the passage about the elder lethifold in that book they read. Now I'm left wondering if the Aurors successfully dealt with the problem, or simply diminished/chased them off, or if it still falls to Harry to deal with them once and for all.

I'm not sure what to think of Arcturus. On one hand I can understand the philosophy of letting Harry deal with his own mistakes and not letting him rely to strongly on his grandfather to solve his problems for him, but letting things go so far and out of control is surely going to deeply affect Harry and from what I understand that will upset Arcturus greatly to see his grandson suffer so, especially considering that he took advantage of Harry's mistake to further his political agenda. I suppose that he couldn't have foreseen Harry negating the control contract and letting the lethifolds loose, leading to the tragedy in London, but it's still nagging at me.

It will be interesting to see the interaction between Tracy and Harry after all this, especially at the Ball, and I wonder if they will grow closer or distant based on all this. I kind of get a feeling you are developing something romantic between them, and while I do kind of enjoy it, I'm conflicted because I can't imagine Harry with anyone but Aenor.

I know I'm jumping from one thing to the next in my paragraphs (I'm probably breaking all the rules of writing comprehensively right now) but I wanted to talk about the politics briefly. I think the political landscape is interesting. It's a believable post Grindelwald era, and I can see how the post war legislation of integrating muggleborns would make it so Tom Riddle never became Voldemort, but rather simply go on to delve into the dark arts for his own purposes rather than political revolution. I can also imagine him having a family eventually and ending up with a beautiful, smart and talented granddaughter. A granddaughter not biased against the dark arts and well versed in various magics. I admit I initially suspected Aenor of being a descendant or affiliated with Grindelwald, but I am more leaning to her being related to Tom now. Probably having a German grandmother and danish/german mother and father.
Anyway, regarding the politics I think it's kind of confusing and sometimes contradictory how the Blacks can be so reviled and shunned publicly that their allies can't even openly support them without devastating political results, and yet they have this mysterious influence to do all kinds of things, like barging into Hogwarts and attacking a teacher without consequence, having power over the board of governors of Hogwarts, getting away with breaching the law of underage magic (the owl/portkey incident), or hosting the most anticipated political ball of the year (despite not being hosted for many years, if Harry's and Arcturus's quiet Yule prior being an indication) and so on. I guess it's just old money and secret connections of the conservatives holding firm in the face of the popular liberal ministry, but it's still a bit weird, how are they so powerful if they are such black sheep? If you could clear up the situation somehow I would appreciate it.

I hope Harry will develop his mastery of Occlumency further so he can remember whatever traumatic event caused his girl phobia. I'm also very interested in the fate of the Potters.

I think that's it for now, I'm probably forgetting a million things I have to say, but overall I greatly enjoy the story and think you've done an excellent job building this AU and developing the characters. Whatever the naysayers say, you deserve praise for this piece of writing. Keep up the good work and I am eagerly anticipating the next chapter.

 

While I really enjoy this story, the latest chapter felt like such garbage. Super forced conflict by Harry being an indecisive retard.

 

I understand your problem with certain cliches, but what's wrong with character unable to control her emotions having a scene that shows that she can't control her emotions?

I wouldn't exactly call it forced as it was set up earlier, but it was definitely way too long and ended up being annoying instead of dramatic.

But I must say that accidentally gaining a title of

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enemy of humanity

due to trying to impress a woman is actually pretty impressive.

 

Some authors really have this grand vision that absolutely cannot be changed. Even if it's absolutely ridiculous. You really see it with this guy in the notes about the story on his profile page. He doesn't do it to the extent that Starfox or The Sinister Man does, but similar nonetheless.

For some reason he needed Harry to have been traumatised in his childhood. My best guess is he wanted an excuse to give him sociopathic tendencies and a very specific form of social anxiety that has him completely crippled in front of women. I don't get what the point of it was. Just so Daphne and Tracey can mollycoddle him? So he can write a few hot teacher scenes involving Aenor and Harry? Beats me.

The story is littered with plot points that reek of someone who thinks they're a lot smarter than they are. Impossible gambits that somehow work and ideas contrived enough to put me in a hair-pulling fit. So many "Oh look at how subtle and smooth X character is. Such social grace. Such finesse." moments and god, Bellatrix's kids are the worst. More comically unstable kids who'll poison people on a whim.

Having said all that, I enjoyed this story. It's real fucking cheesy, but I liked reading it. The author appears to want this to be a grand story, but it really isn't.

 

Why wouldn't you write characters who have "internal" problems? It's one thing when the problem is angsting endlessly over everything and halting plot progress with that but, the last chapter aside, that's not really the matter with Black Luminary. I can't help but be reminded of people who rated Magicians lowly because of the main characters being life fuck-ups when that was the best part of the series. What do you want, for everyone to be perfect?

 

Problem with comparing The Magicians (one of my favorite fictional novels btw) to something like this fic, is that the characters are written convincingly as fuck-ups in the Magicians and in this fic their problems seem to artificially created that I physically cringe during certain parts.

 

@Sataniel - you read Mind Arts, yet? The traumatised super!Harry trope is done better there. Same with bubbly!Tracey (tho she doesn’t appear to be smarter than she looks in this one). The interactions between people feel a lot more fluid, in general.

 

...good lord.

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Is this the part where we talk about a group of 12 year olds infiltrating the ministry of magic and putting the kibosh to a group of aurors, somehow... distracted aurors or not?

 

Tbf they'e actually 15 because everyone starts Hogwarts at 14 for a reason that I can't remember. Also the Aurors where shown to be much better than the kids who only won because of sneak attacks so I don't mind it that much.

 

I agree with @why? i enjoy reading it just bc its not complete garbage there's a lot of hair pulling and frustrating scenarios. That are beyond annoying to read and also am I the only one who does not know what the over arching plot to this story is?

 

I don't compare them in a quality of character writing, but in the idea, because Sesc attacked the idea itself.

No, I've seen the praise here, opened the fic, seen "cannon", closed the fic.

 

Well, I can understand why, emotionally complex writing is hard to do on a good day with a good writer (as made pretty clear by how badly Lev Grossman managed to bungle it up in the Second and Third books). Attempting emotional complexity when we're following pre-teens/barely teens just makes the author look like he's trying to be as verbose as possible.