This is hands down my favorite fanfiction actually, but it sounds like there was a rewrite between now and when this thread was started. I can't speak to how it was before, but it is certainly amazing now.

The action scenes in this are frankly, second to none. I'd frankly challenge anyone to find better action scenes in a fanfiction. I've read over 1000 so that's why this one stood out so much. The details and dialogue just mix SO well. The author is also the MASTER of writing non-smutty make out scenes. Granted, all of these scenes do not start until around chapter 18, so if you got turned off by the OC mystery in earlier chapters and stopped reading just...man you've seriously missed out. That's all I can say on that.

As someone else mentioned the author went on hiatus, but there's a big difference between a few of the early chapters and the latter chapters and rewritten ones. From the notes the author has left they are still rewriting chapters 5 to 8, since they wrote them when they were fairly young it sounds like.

There's something about this story that really draws me in and made me extremely emotionally invested in it. To be honest it's downright stressful at times, but in a really good way. The evolution between Harry and the OCs relationship is just so well done, a slow burn, and you wind up rooting for them. It also has been, happily, devoid of the 'he loves her, she loves someone else' cliché drama. While there are a lot of potentially cliché plot points

Spoiler: Details

(zombies, time travel, an OC with a power)

they are twisted in a very un-cliché way that has left me surprised and eager for the next installment.

The other unique thing here is they bring lesser known characters like Dean Thomas, Tonks, Remus Lupin, Luna, McGonagall, Madame Pomfrey, and Regulus Black to life. I've only seen a handful of stories do that successfully.

I also really like that the character is not a Mary Sue. She can only do one 'type' of magic, isn't that good at her classes, gets sick a lot, has poor social skills, and Harry seems to be the only one to think she's pretty, while Ron repeatedly gags and doesn't "get" the attraction. That's kind of refreshing given most female OCs are always 'gorgeous' creatures that everyone drools over.

I think the story must have been rewritten between when we both read it? The character nearly dies if she uses magic so I'd think the cons of it far outweigh the benefit.

I think that's a valid concern, but it is not the case with this story (it's well written throughout). I actually PMed the author to ask about that author's note when they posted it awhile back, as I was frankly fairly alarmed, and they struck me as very intelligent and matter of fact with their response. To be honest I was impressed by that, because my PM was a bit harsh initially. The impression I got is they have no tolerance for flame reviews (they said they get a lot of guest flames from people who haven't actually read their story, and they were able to tell because the reviews don't use the right OCs name) while never hearing anything genuinely constructive, so that's why they posted that note. I can't really fault them for taking a firm line on that, particularly since they were very open to true negative constructive critiques. My take at least.

Overall I guess I feel like it's a really good writing style with a bit of everything in the story. As I mentioned, this is my favorite fanfiction that I'm currently reading so I'll give this a 5/5.

 

There's just no getting past the excess of adverbs and all the non-said dialogue tags. It's unreadable.

 

I'd think that was a matter of taste, Aggravaine. You are correct in that, if that is the kind of thing that turns you off, this wouldn't be an enjoyable read for you, but for me I'd chalk that up to a matter of taste and hardly dub it unreadable.

Personally I find stories with mostly 'said' dialogue tags to be repetitive and indicative of poor verbiage (honestly how many times can you read she said or he said before questioning whether or not the writer knows any other words?) so that's one of the things about this story that makes me enjoy it so much: the fact that they rarely use said. They have a vocabulary and actually use it. Don't know about others but I hate stories that don't take advantage of different dialogue tags, but this one fortunately does. They frankly remind me of Stephen King's verbiose patterns (again though thats hardly everyone's preference).

The adverbs also are something I prefer, as opposed to just constantly reading boring dialogue tags over and over. I do see how that would turn people off who prefer the less is more approach. The story can be verbiose and in the early portions can be purple proise like. That seems to be something they corrected in latter parts of it.

I noticed as well that souldn't this be in romance and not general fics? It is hardly a general fic when the entire thing appears to be a romance.

 

I thought I would finally do something productive for the community and read the million or so words in this story so others wouldn't have to, but holy mackerel was it ever so hard. This fic raises so many red flags in such a short amount of time than I do not see how people can get past the first ten chapters, much less read the whole thing (Disclaimer; I didn't). I'll try to keep it short.


1. The opening does not really work. It's your typical flash forwards into the future, but it fails to elicit much interest in what is happening. This is for several reasons which I will elucidate in a bit. Stylistically it also quite odd, as it overuses cursive (this) to emphasize certain words, to the point where it becomes really distracting. See what I mean?

Spoiler

The dragon let out an earth shattering roar.

"No sense of humor, that one," Ron snarled, grabbing a hold of his freely bleeding arm and clenching hard to slow the flow.

They were trapped.

Around them the courtyard's ground shook.

[...]

They had one mission: one. Get off the grounds, get to safety, then find and kill the rest of the horcruxes.

Everything within Harry screamed to do the exact opposite, to go back for her, to go back for all of them.

But they couldn't. He couldn't. If he did, then everything they'd already done had been for naught.

Unnecessary and somewhat weird, for it does not happen again as far as I can tell. In any case, this is what follows;

Spoiler

Harry was screaming, having thrown his wand out, "PROTEGO!" bellowed, a massive sheet of blue bursting forth. A second spell slammed out alongside him, Luna Lovegood standing there, pale hair blowing in the scorching breeze as the fire slammed against their shields.

Harry's arms were screaming in pain, his entire magical core straining as they were engulfed in orange flame and black smoke, the heat so intense he could no longer hear himself. He could no longer hear Luna. He never heard Ron and Hermione's wands joining theirs, death imminent-

The flames died, their vision clearing-

Harry had fallen to all fours, Luna right alongside him on the ground, panting as sweat dripped freely down her face. In exhaustion he reached across the leaf-strewn dirt, grasping frantically at her hand, squeezing tight before the finishing round struck.

It never came.

Harry heaved a breath, gaze jerking up-

He saw why the dragon had stopped roaring, stopped scorching them into the earth, stopped paying attention to them.

A golden chain of light had writhed across the ground like a snake, coiling up from the raw and brutalized earth to crawl up the dragon's scales. It was punched into the dragon's chest like a scorpion's stinger, the beast rearing back its neck and screaming-

Harry's heart nearly stopped. Nearby, so, so impossibly close was Kally. He could make out her familiar features, nearly see the golden glint in her eyes, her hair a mess of impossibly golden hair.

It might not look like it but just in the opening scene the fic commits three personal deadly sins (magical cores and a few typos aside);

1) No new magic/scenarios/plot devices.

2) Harry not being particularly competent (despite the summary's promise of a Dark!Harry --which as far as I can tell must be a reference to his hair).

Which ties to:

3) Harry being bailed out for the umpteen time, and by an OC of all people.

It's all very tiresome, at least to me, which is the exact opposite of riveting or exciting, probably the intended emotion. If I had gone in without the intent of reading enough to review it I would have likely dropped it right there.


2. And if I had not, then I certainly would have in what follows. Which basically is: come and meet my new OC! Isn't she great?

Spoiler

No.

She isn't. She is, in fact, almost insufferable. The OC cum love interest --Kalliandra-- is described as having (in decreasing order of annoyingness) ; a tragic past, mystical powers, haunted eyes which only Harry can see, unbearable attitude so that the two lovers can dislike each other at first before getting together 200000 words down the line (I did not reach that part), and much, much more. Compound that to the fact that she seems instrumental to the plot, and has equal or more 'screen-time' than Harry and I do not think I could have disliked her more had the author actually tried to make me do so.


3. The...plot...moves...at...a...glacial...pace.

Every single event must be analysed from several different POV's. Every. Single. One. Hey, did you think that scene was mildly OK? Let's fucking relive it for the next three chapters, see if you don't want to hang yourself by the time the fourth secondary character goes over that trip to the bookstore Harry and the OC went that one time in Chapter 1. I might be exaggerating, but don't bog down the reader in the first few chapters of your story with useless detail or 'characterisation' (or boring Hogwarts days) or you will lose them. I'm certainly lost all right. I've abandoned hope, and I wish I had never entered.


4. The Romance. Yes, this is a romance fic, on top of everything. A Harry/OC, the creme du la creme.

It's a standard teenage romance, by which I mean that it's terrible. The author warned me, however, so I can't complain much.

Direct quote from the first AN: "This story is full of slow burns and misunderstandings between characters. Humans aren't rational creatures so why would they be in fanfiction?"

I mean, yeah... and nay. If I wanted to read multiple conversations between two idiots arguing over nothing I'd have recorded and typed down the many arguments between me and my ex. I don't remember who it was that said that fiction was reality with the boring bits left out, but I think the author might have killed him.

Also, as an aside; if I ever read another sentence on how Harry does not understand females I will blow my fucking brains out.


5. Characterisation. Every character might as well be an OC, especially those secondary characters the author spends inordinate amounts of time fleshing out. It's pretty hard to recognise any of them, and the small bits of personality that are genuine to their Canon counterparts are exaggerated for plot purposes, particularly in regard to Ron. No bashing though, which is always a positive.


Any other (positives)?

Well, the writing is pretty solid as far as I could tell, aside from the example I gave in the beginning. Shame its used in the purpose of forwarding such a boring plot. I mean, maybe the story picks up after chapter 20. I don't know and frankly I don't care. I tried to make it there, I really, really tried, but I couldn't. That says all there is to say, really.


Conclusion; It's not terrible, it's not good; it must be 2.5/5.

Before anyone acts surprised, in the review I was overly harsh with certain elements to illustrate a few points and because it really was not my cup of tea, but it's not a dumpster fire either. It's just so full of things I personally hate that I could not progress much into it at all.

Suggestion: Put it in almost recommended and try to forget about it. Otherwise get a brave soul willing to read through all of it to write a proper review. I'm afraid I wasn't the chosen one, after all.