I don't see how he would have the ability, since it passed onto canon Harry from being AK'd by Voldemort.

 

AMAZING PHOTOSHOP SKILLS.

 

It seems a little weird to me that students at Durmstrang (or any school) would cast their doorknobs red to announce that they are engaged in playing the "tonsil hockey" so to speak but then again that may be just from my limited experience as I wouldn't want to broadcast it to the world. I'd probably just lock the door (or in Viktor's/Kira's case, cast a stronger locking charm). But again, that's just me.

 

Its a pretty common practice irl to put a sock/rubberband/whatever on your door so people know you're gettin' it on and to leave you alone.

 

Yeah, but at 15? That's pretty young. And Kira's quite young to be in that situation at all. It's not unbelievable, but I did find it slightly odd for a girl of maybe fourteen.

I'll also agree with this. There's just no reason for him to ask in her presence, since it's obvious she's not interested in helping him. Similarly, I thought he had a bit more character than to fall for her over-the-top "Professor Rosier is going to kill you in your sleep" act.

There are maybe two reasons why the scenes are slightly odd. Firstly, Harry puts himself in awkward situations: he enters the rooms of two different friends uninvited, and finds things that make him uncomfortable. The other thing is that I personally don't identify very well with Harry during these passages. Maybe that's just me.

 

He did just see Kira in half naked , and from what was said earlier on in the story she is pretty deadly in a duel - if i was in Harry's situation i would be blurting out why i interrupted them so i don't get hexed...

And Harry was freaked out enough that Prof Rosier did not take any oaths add that to him being a former death eater and possibly having his daughter spy on him - enough reason for anybody to freak out...

that is how i read it anyway

 

Clearly you've never been to public school.

12 might be a bit young but i've known lots of girls and boys that started having sex at 13, not that uncommon. I got my cherry popped by a girl my age at the start of freshmen year and i was 14 going on 15.

I'm as average as they come and i had no trouble getting laid in high school. Always annoys me when in fanfics the hero doesn't get laid, especially if he's famous or really good looking, it just doesn't make sense to me.

And to bad Fawkes didn't stay around to get the benefits of the herb.

 

I was talkin' about marriage, dude. I know very well the sexual exploits of 13 year olds.

EDIT: I'm keeping that, because it can be taken hilariously out of context. However, I meant that I used to be 13, and in a public school.

 

You know, I'd love to have a counter on the site that would count up the number of times the "Kids this young don't do X" argument. And It's always followed by some guy saying, "Yeah well I fucked a girl when I was eight. Shit was so cash."

Not only is calypso too fucking young to be thinking of marriage, that whole thing doesn't seem in her character. At least not at this point.

 

Bollocks. First of all young children do think about marriage, how many times have you heard kids say I'm going to marry so and so when I'm older. Now they don't really (or at all) understand what marriage is about and most don't think declaring that they're going to marry someone is a big deal but they do think about it. As they get older they start to understand a bit more of what marriage is about but also realise that you dont go about declaring you're going to marry someone you've only me once.

Secondly while wanting to get married because she's fallen in love and is all gushy and romantic is certainly not in Calypso's character that's not the only reason to get married. Some of the older more traditional families in Britain (read 'stuck up') and some of the stricter religions for that matter bring up their children within strict guidelines of how they are supposed to behave, about being a 'proper' young man or woman.

From what we have seen from Calypso I have always thought that this is the kind of family that she comes from, which brings us back to marrage. One of those 'guidelines' is that a proper young woman must have a suitable husband. Now fine they don't actually get married until they are older, but for me a girl looking about for a potential husband after having been brought up her whole life being told she must find a suitable husband and marry him before a certain age is perfectly understandable.

It's also fairly easy to see what a suitable husband in the magical world would be; from an old, rich, influential family, magically powerful and skilled or magically gifted if you prefer, similar beliefs on light/dark magic and so on. Harry all of these except the light/dark magic part, which Calypso (and harry himself) is working on so it's easy to see why she might be interested.

 

I feel obligated to post here now due to another thread.


Naturally, there are always going to be more complaints than praise, but I feel that 95% of your story is really good, but it is almost always the 5% that people are going to nitpick, like me. But this is more of a review and my personal opinion, rather than suggestions for your story.

Your Durmstrang feels off to me. It seems like you are trying to get Harry to become something without being dark or evil, so he can remain on good terms with his family and the Hogwarts people. But the way you are portraying all of Durmstrang, minus Krum, you have Durmstrang looking like every single person there is bloodthirsty and potential killer, and that Durmstrang is seemingly one giant school of Slytherins. Maybe that is the effect of having the majority of the school being pureblood.

Also, it seems like Harry is trying to resist following the dark path, but that path has already been chosen by him by Dumbledore not telling Harry about Quirrellmort. I find it annoying that Dumbledore still has some control on Harry's life despite having very minimal contact with him being several thousand miles away. But you could also interpret it as Dumbledore is in fact trying to protect Harry so none of the people with malicious intent at Durmstrang will learn anything significant from Harry. It is hard to tell whether Dumbledore has already written Harry off as Dark and a lost cause, or if he is in fact attempting damage control. You have Dumbledore drop the phrase "what is right and what is easy" and there are a lot of comparisons and metaphors that can be made from that (such as the often used dark = easy, light = right). I think the conclusion is that Harry already knows he is a dark wizard, but he does not want to become an evil wizard. He is willing to accept that he is dark if that is what it takes to be knowledgeable and skilled.

It seems that Durmstrang can either be a 'breeding ground for dark wizards', or that it can be equal to Hogwarts in that it is the only option that students in the region have for a public school. It seems to me like you wanted it to be the second one, but ended up getting the first one. It's just an observation really, and it does not bother me.

I just find it odd about the stuff Harry is learning, but I think you need to state specifically what is Dark Magic and what is just normal magic. Are spells like the bonebreaking and entrails expelling curse actual dark magic, or just dangerous curses? Or is true dark magic stuff like demonic fiendfyre, mind altering nightmare inducing curses and blood magic? It seems to me that for your story with the way its plot is progressing, your Dark Arts course should just be a magical combat course with more dangerous but non-fatal spells. What exactly is being taught in the dark arts class, and what exactly is going to be learned from the library?

I have mixed opinions on the trauma spell that Harry learned. There are almost no non-evil uses for it. You could hit someone with the curse to make the cower in fear, so you could easily follow up with an incapacitation spell later. But if you can hit the person with the trauma spell, you could hit them with stupefy first anyways. There are two uses I see for the curse that are not evil, but not necessarily moral either. The first is to use as a deterrent (either in an enchantment or ward or in a fight as a warning). The second is a method of torture to get information from a person. Beyond that, it seems you would need to be sadistic to use such a spell, to willingly make a person cower in fear. It seems less severe than torturing someone for fun, but the principle is the same. It seems like Harry learned the spell to be a deterrent, but that does not seem like the reason it was taught in the first place.

While there is no restriction on dark magic at Durmstrang like there is back in Britain, it just seems like the line has been drawn at the wrong spot. Or maybe I am just reading something there that has not been written.

I guess that I think it would be more logical that instead of having an actual dark arts class that the spells would be taught in the respective classes such as charms, defense (magical combat?), transfiguration and potions. It seems like with the way you have it, it feels like everyone knows they are learning something that is specifically looked down upon, rather than just having it be part of the normal curriculum mixed in with everything else. It would feel more natural if the dark arts were treated just like every other piece of magic instead of being singled out. I mean, it just seems confrontational, and almost as if Durmstrang recognizing that dark arts are a sketchy subject, rather than taking the role saying that magic is magic, and everyone should be able to learn it.


On an unrelated note, The way the Calypso scenes are playing it, it does not seem like she and her father mean any harm. Instead, it feels almost like the possibility of a marriage contract or similar is in the plans if Harry is 'dark' and skilled enough for the Rosiers.

Regardless of my opinionated nitpicking , the story gets 4.3/5 for me. Too many awkward (but realistic) scenes for me to give 5/5

 

Yea everyone has different experiences but how many really good looking guys or famous(popupar) guys do you remember being virgins unless they were horribly shy back in school?

And to the marriage thing. The magical world always reminded me of old school England where girls got married young and arranged marriages for political reasons were common. I mean hell even in the U.S. in the early 1900's girls were getting married pretty young and with magical britain seeming to be behind the times of the regular world by a few centuries in certain ideals i wouldn't find it out of place if girls and boys from certain types of families expect to get married young to benefit their family in some way or other.

 

Lots. Fifteen and up was pretty much the minimum in our school. We had a little class.

 

I can't just help but speculate, that perhaps she, calypso that is, is not only simply looking for a husband but is looking for someone to take over the family when good old dad passes, just got the thought from reading last part of chapter 6

 

Possible, but there's no reason to assume that she cannot inherit the position herself.

 

Yes there is. She's a woman.

 

And why would her gender matter? Wizards aren't any magically stronger than witches, and so they lack the strength to impose their will on women, which makes it likely that witches and wizards have equal social standing. It would make little sense for the wizarding world to be patriarchal.