I did a search in this area of the forum (twenty pages before I gave up) for these types of stories - where the Potters are alive and/or Harry has a sibling.

Most seem to have an OOC (from what we know of their canon characters, at any rate) Lily/James abusing Harry in favor of his famous brother, and whilst there do seem to be some average fic's out there that are worthy of being a guilty pleasure read, most are poorly thought out/written/unrealistic.

I was wondering if -aside from The-Santi's/pureb99's 'Harry Potter and the Boy-Who-Lived (which is very good, by the way and what I'd expect to see in an A/U like that)'- there were any other decent fan fictions of this genre out there?

So, can anyone please help me?

 

It's hard to believe, especially when this is a quite popular idea, but as far as I know, aside of Santi's fic, there is no single good fic using this idea. There are few mediocre, but most of them get automatic fail from me, because they try to make Potters look bad one way or another, without any good reason for it. Santi is the first one to get this right and popularity of his story is a proof of this.

 

"The Other Boy Who Lived" is a Harry-centric, Neville BWL, Potters alive fic that I'm a big fan of with a personal 4/5 rating. It's in the Recycle Bin but you should definitely give it a shot. Starts out slow and then suddenly starts kicking ass out of nowhere!

http://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?t=13665

 

Aside from Santi's fic which is honestly the shining crown pinnacle of the best your ever going to find in that particular sub-genre I dont know of any other good ones.

 

You could check out Lightning on the Wave's completed series.

Several warnings, though.
1. It's 3 million words long.
2. It's HP/DM slash, so if you avoid it on principle regardless of how well written, then you know.
3. It falls into the "cliches" that you mentioned, though it's likely that this story spawned them originally rather than picking them up. Also, there are decent explanations for everything - the characterizations are probably the strongest point of the series.

 

Unknown Relations series is the best you're going to find out there. Harry lives with Sirius and Remus and doesn't even know he's Harry until third year.
Very fluffy, a bit boring, but there's not much else out there, and Santi's story far surpasses the rest. Also, the update time is absolutely ridiculous for something that so closely follows canon.

Unknown Relations: The Philosopher's Stone
Unknown Relations: The Chamber of Secrets
Unknown Relations: The Dementors of Azkaban
Unknown Relations: The Goblet of Fire

 

http://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?t=10225

It might qualify as decent, I dunno. I keep telling myself to finish it, but then I read Santi's and cry a little bit on the inside.

 

4. It's god awful.

The best Wrong Boy Who Lived after The Santi's is probably Unsung Hero.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2900438/1/Unsung_Hero

It was pretty good until the end. Somewhere around chapter 20 there's a jump the shark moment and from there it spirals somewhat.

 

If by "spirals somewhat", you mean Professor Flitwick burrows into the mind of the writer and plants a time delayed trap which releases hundreds of snakes.

 

The Santi's isn't a wrong Boy Who Lived story. Nathan is indeed the Boy Who Lived.

WBWL stories are plagued by terribad shit like explosive shrapnel giving the twin a scar that resembles a V. Then Dumbledore will go "OMG A V! V IS FOR VOLDEMORT! MARKEDLOLOLOL!" or maybe a S for Slytherin and will feature a hateful/neglectful Lily/James.

 

"HP/DM slash"? Relationships like that do exist but how can you pair Harry and Draco while being "in character"?

 

Obviously by changing Harry a lot, and starting from year 1.

 

Harry is half-blood.

Malfoy's hate half-bloods.

Two things that can't (or shouldn't) be changed.

 

You forgot the "'OC-twin with shitty name' is The Boy-Who-Lived!". God I hate when authors do that, even if Dumbledore decided to give him a title, it certainly wouldn't be that retarded moniker.

 

Malfoy is eleven, he doesn't hate. You should read first and then pass judgement. The first book is only 80k words long.

 

I'm fairly sure eleven-year-olds do nothing but hate.

 

I'm fairly sure you're disconnected from reality. I didn't hate anything at eleven; hell, I don't hate anything specific now, only concepts and ideas.

 

If you are very good in French, I advise http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4137346/1/Revenge_is_so_sweet . This is the best WBWL story that I've read so far.

Other than that, Unsung Hero wasn't so bad until the author decided to screw up at the middle of the story.

The Story of The Guys is nice when you have nothing to do, one afternoon.

Harry Potter: the Other Child, Harry Potter: Chosen One: hmm, well.... "it's on the line!!"

 

I was hoping that this wasn't the case.

Got it loaded up in a Firefox tab: I'll read through this later. Thanks!

Thanks for the suggestion, but as soon as I noticed the word 'slash', I automatically discounted it.

I could write up a logical and well thought out rant about how such pairings are merely twisted perversions of the characters' personalities to such an extent that they become either self-inserts (with the author/authoress' slipping into one of the characters' shoes), or OC's with the names/looks of the Harry Potter cast, and how terribly unrealistic and improbable (see, "When Hell freezes over") their situation/behavior/storyline would be (thus making many of the cock slobbering teenaged fan girls out there that compose most of the slash-crap out there cry), but I won't as there'd be no point to it being in this thread.

You can't. Harry is not gay nor does he have any inclinations of that kind, and Draco is -probably- not gay or bisexual orientated. There are no "What If's?" or "decision divergences" that could make Harry logically suddenly bat for the home-team. Even by going back to when he was 11 and trying to change something there, it still wouldn't work. If the author/authoress writes a slash story, "Harry Potter" automatically either becomes a self-insert or an OC with his face/name.

Off the top of my head, the most commonly used angles that are used by rabid and cock slobbering fan girls to justify their piss poor slash storylines can be discounted by simple text passages from the books themselves.

It's simple: slash is trash. It's unrealistic between those characters and would/could never happen.

I'll give these a try, thanks!

I'll check it out when I've got time. You should complete it though, good or bad as it'll help hone your literary skills and perceptions.

Practice makes perfect!

I read 'Unsung Hero', and up until about half-way, it was pretty good. Then, it started to fall to bits. The ending was an especial crap-out, as was the whole 'King of Snakes!' thing that came up about three-fourths of the way in. The ongoing sequel is also just terrible.

Those are what I never could understand in these types of stories.

Most people also poorly plan those storylines out. For an example, do they really expect Snape to be around at Hogwarts like in canon with James/Lily still around? He's the one who originally painted a bullseye on them for Voldemort in the first place! The whole "deal" between him and Dumbledore wouldn't exist, as well.

No, but he is arrogant and spoilt -thus strongly reminding Harry of him being akin to Dudley- and he did try to bully Harry into either being a friend/minion/follower when his attempt at overt friendship was rebuked. Include the prejudices that his father/background drilled into him, and you've got the prime candidate for him being a little, hateful shit. See book one.

Eh, I'm learning French at the moment (French for Dummies, I got it for Xmas) but reading an entire story written in French is beyond me, at the moment. Thanks for the thought, though!

 

The story is entirely AU and you could argue that Harry is basically an OC, so most of what you argue is irrelevant. If you can't stand reading Harry with a different personality, then how the hell do you read most fanfiction?