Title: Growing up Black
Author: Elvendork Nigellus
Rating: T
Genre: Family
DLP Category: General
Pairing: None so far
Status: WIP
Summary: A somewhat used up cliche, HP is taken from the Dursleys, but the execution is at least interesting. The strongest point of this story is that not one (or at least not many) element is over the top. For example: the author tries to present purebloods as aristocrats of Europe's past, not as murdering psychopaths, that are so often seen in fanfiction. Of course, there are stumbles, bigger and smaller, but overall a fairly decent fic that tries to present a pureblooded, but not mouth frothingly evil 'I will kill you and not go on trial, 'cause I'm the main character' Harry.
Link: Link

 

While I understand what you're saying and in general I like stories that explore pureblood culture (or rather that explore it well), I feel compelled to point out that purebloods are frequently shown this way because in canon, most of them were murderers. And more than a fair few of them were in fact murdering psychopaths. Just sayin, there is a reason for the fanon portrayal.

That being said, onto the story. Let's start with the premise, which is supposed to be "Harry is raised as a pureblood." Except that he's found at (at least initially) raised by squib members of the Malfoy and Black families. The author goes out of his way to make clear that they were mistreated by, and fear their birth families, yet they still hold views like the following.

They're fucking squibs. The trash of the wizarding world. Not only that, they're squibs from incredibly conservative pureblood families that disowned and don't care about their existence at best, and mistreated them at worst. The idea that they hold these pureblood bigot views, want to associate with purebloods at all, and pass these ideals on to Harry is ludicrous.

And the story doesn't improve. The first couple chapters are a veritable smorgasboard of overworked cliches. This Black couple is of course incredibly wealthy. They miraculously have a portrait of Lily and James Potter. They adopt Harry using a procedure that changes his appearance.

Then, after Harry's a "true black", the wizarding branches of the family find out, and fall all over him. Understandable to a point. But they never make even an attempt to gain custody of him from a pair of squibs that they don't give a shit about and could easily overcome. For families as powerful as the Malfoy's and the Black's, and two families who are convinced of their own superiority and the unimportance of the rules as they are, it just doesn't ring true. Of course they would remove him from the care of the squibs, and frankly, there isn't really much that Marius and Clytemnestra could do to stop them.

And the ease with which two squibs can negotiate the Ministry halls of power and pureblood circles is just ridiculous. We have examples of squibs in the wizarding world, Argus Filch and Arabella Figg. They're pitied, scorned, mocked, looked down upon, not trusted by those in power, and generally treated like dirt. That wouldn't change for these two just because their names are Black and Malfoy, especially when their families have cast them out.

The Black family is this story is also willing to mingle and welcome with the Tonks's, and later accepts Tonks into the family with open arms. Do I really need to point out the lunacy here? The same family threw Andromeda out for marrying Ted Tonks. They blasted her off the family tapestry. They aren't going to welcome her or her halfblood daughter anywhere.

Then Sirius is released from Azkaban with no issues whatsoever and instantly sides with the family that he fought against, and ran away from due to their bigotry.

Then there's incredibly mature, less bigoted Draco, despite being raised by the same family that raised him last time. Having one cousin who is apparently being raised the same way you are is not going to change your character that much.

In short, this is insipid, uninspiring tripe with unbelievable characterizations. It doesn't explore pureblood society either, at least not in anything resembling the context the book gave us, which is what it claims to do.

And of course, there's my my pet peeve of ridiculously intelligent super-snakes. Oh and parseltongue of course makes all spells stronger. Just no. Do not want.

The story is terrible. For content it deserves a 1/5. But the writing was good so I'll give it a 2/5.

 

Tenages makes good points, and as it is right now (I'm halfway through), I'd probably give the story a 2.5, if only because it reads fairly easily. I'm waiting and hoping for a plot to take over. That's the one thing that could potentially redeem this story, as the family angle is mediocre.

Hilarious thing in ch20, bonus points.

Spoiler

WTF HE IMPERIUSES THE SORTING HAT. I'm giving it extra points just for that.

edit: Last three chapters were... fairly decent.

 

I must say that I approve. I found it engaging and with a bare minimum of WTF ARE YOU DOING?!?! moments. Not library quality but an acceptable read. 3/5

 

Ths gets better as it goes on. If you can stand to read about halfway through, it start improving rapidly past that point. Not sure if it belongs in the library though - 3.5/5 tentatively.

 

This strikes me as . . . well, just wrong in the context of what we clearly see in canon. The vast majority seem pretty neutral, if not anti-pureblood supremacist.

 

Most purebloods may have been neutral, but you can't show that from canon evidence. The issue is lack of evidence. Only a few families were confirmed as being purebloods in canon. The majority of those were Voldemort supporters. On the other side, you've got the Potters and the Weasleys and the Prewetts. Maybe I'm just blanking, but I can recall any families on not on the Voldy side of things that we know are pureblooded. I could be wrong though.

Either way, it doesn't matter to my main point about the story, because the author didn't choose to explore a neutral pureblooded family. He choose to use the Blacks and Malfoy's as his storytelling vessel of choice. And it's hard to imagine a more rabidly conservative pureblooded family full of certified murderers than those two.

 

Bones, Longbottoms, and Dumbledores.

 

I don't know where you got this from. If it was stated somewhere, I'd like to know where, but I don't remember this being said.

The problem with inferring stuff about canon is that it leads to stories that state like fact things the author believes is true, when there is no proof for either view. Harry's crush on Malfoy, for example, can be shown through examples of Malfoy being on Harry's mind all through sixth year.

I came in here expecting this to be Harry growing up in the slums.

 

Rowling said something to that effect in an interview.

 

True, but there's no way of telling how many of these families are truly pureblooded (like the Malfoy's) or full of half-bloods like Harry. Given that these neutral families are more likely to not hold "purity of blood" as the be all end all that the conservatives do, its much more likely that these families are in fact full of mixed marriages. (See the next gen Weasley families. At least three kids marry non-pureblooded spouses.) It's easily conceivable that this type of marriage is common among the neutrals and "light supporters", whereas that type of marriage is anathema to the other side.

Also, I think this argument regarding pureblood political beliefs is more easily made for the first Voldemort rising. During that fight, Voldemort killed off and extinguished many pureblooded families who opposed him. (Prewetts, McKinnons, etc.) He also virtually eliminated many others, (Bones, Longbottoms.) It's very conceivable that this tilted the political balance among the purebloods toward the Voldemort supporters.

And I think canon evidence can be taken as showing that a large chunk (even a majority) of the purebloods support Voldemort. Look at the people we're introduced to at Hogwarts. The majority of the people that we're introduced to outside of Slytherin are halfbloods or muggleborns. The majority of those in Slytherin support Voldemort. It's not a huge leap of logic to think that the majority of the purebloods support Voldemort. The Ministry in DH gives another example. There appears to be a small population of purebloods controlling a large majority of half-bloods, muggleborns and mixed marriages.

Anyway despite all that I tend to agree that there are probably more neutral purebloods than Voldemort supporters. My point (which was perhaps expressed poorly originally) is that the majority of the purebloods that are confirmed in canon, and that take center stage in the HP stories, are Voldemort supporters and muggle haters (or at least support them, e.g. Umbridge). That's why so many stories show purebloods as murdering psychopaths.

EDIT: Also what Insane Juggler said about book evidence of the pureblood population size. As far as Rowlings statement goes, I don't really care. Author statements in interviews, etc. about the details or snippets of their world are interesting, but that's about it. IMHO they're not canon (and in fact often contradict other, earlier statements or facts from the book. Rowling does this all the time).

 

@Sesc:
No spoilers, but if you continue reading you'll see Harry adopting some of the views as well as seeing a variety of "pureblood" characteristics expressed through various characters.

 

...so this isn't about a black Harry Potter? I was hoping for something original. And funny.

 

2.5/5 - Story is developing, better with each chapter.
Positives:
- writing style
- idea
- sorting hat ..
Negatives:
- relationship between squibs and Black/Malfoy family
- super extra potion that your squib uncle can make in just hours that will change you forever in one night...
- 11 years old capable of using Unforgivables

 

Fuck it I'm not even sure why we're debating this when I actually agree with your position. I like the idea, but it was done terribly. Although I still think that if you want Harry to grow up in a family that believes in pureblood culture but doesn't want to kill/dominate all muggles than you should probably use someone other than the Blacks or Malfoys.

tl;dr Good idea, terribad execution.

 

ALL OF YOU WILL RUE THE DAY YOU DECIDED TO ALIGN YOURSELVES AGAINST THE HOUSES OF BLACK AND MALFOY.

That's a line from the story.

Spoiler

His grandfather snorted. 'Figures,' he said with an angry snarl. 'I swear on my father's grave that Tom Riddle will ever rue the day he decided to attack the Houses of Malfoy and Black.'

I rued the minute I started reading this tripe.

2/5, because of excellent grammar and punctuation.

 

Yeah, the story really seems to be going down the pipe lately.

 

I think there are only a few more chapters left: with Harry having all of Tom's memories they'll just destroy the horcruxes and eliminate Riddle over a couple of chapters.

It's the best proofread story I've read in a long time, and the idea was good, but it's not a very good story overall. 3/5