I quite enjoyed this.
I was a bit uncertain about a HP/DK crossover but the author has merged the two together well.

The way the author set up Harry to be The Joker was masterfully done in a fashion that I found believable. The way he played with Petunia was both outstanding on its own, and extremely in character. I liked how he seemed like "he was trying to force himself not to skip." (Chapter 2)

I'm not sold on the whole 'Neville = Batman' idea, but the idea of Draco as Two Face pleases me greatly.

I hope the author keeps up the good work.

4/5

 

I was rereading some of the posts on this and I had an epiphany. While it's true that there are not enough chances for mayhem in the few magical places, just think. Harry causing a whole lot of destruction in both the magical and muggle worlds and having both groups searching for him. Maybe give them the whole choose one target or the other like in the movie with the two boats, only with one target magical (ex. hogwarts) and a muggle place like the parliament or something. Maybe that's a little too close to the movie, but it seems like a cool angle to look at.

 

The thing is, if he does go rampaging through muggle cities, the wizards still have to deal with him there, as long as he's using magic!

Because they have to protect the secrecy of their society, it will be their obligation to follow him into London in an effort to contain him before he causes their world to be discovered. Which will be especially amusing considering how clueless some wizards are when it comes to the muggle world.

Not only would Joker!Harry not care about protecting the Statute of Secrecy (thus his hands are free in regards to what magics he can use in populated areas, whereas the Aurors' will be somewhat tied) but he also knows the muggle world better than they do. Talk about a home field advantage.

LOL, not to be confused with Catwoman, of course.

The best part will be watching Joker!Harry manipulate Draco into destroying himself.

"Mmm, no, no, no, no, Draco. You see, you're not a good man. Nope, never have been. You always wanted to be better than me, didn't you? But you never got a shot until they stuffed me in a cell with the bogeymen." The emphasis he placed on the phrase was punctuated by a manic grin and a slow swipe of his tongue along one of those horrific scars.

"You see, I- I know you. As an apparent murderer, I was better at evil than you. So you tried something else, you figured with me gone, you could be better at playing the good guy. Mmm, hoo hoo, yes you did! And this, this is the best joke of them all, you were never good, not in the slightest.

"It was all just face paint, a mask like the one dear old daddy, Lucius, likes to wear. All this time, you were really just trying to prove that I was innocent so you could be the better bad guy again. And now you have, so that pure blood of yours will call you back to your real mask soon enough."

"No!" Draco shouted, "That's not true! I will never be that man. I've changed since school, I've helped people. I saved you and that means I've saved everyone."

Clutching at his sides, Harry laughed and laughed, making Draco wonder if the scarred man would ever stop. When he did abruptly cease his laughing, he asked of the blond, in a condescending tone, "Do I look saved to you? You don't have to answer that.

"I saved them from Voldemort how many times, and what did you do? Defy Daddy, fuck a blood traitor, and then spend the next few years trying to save li'l old me? We both know that's just chump change. No matter what you try to do, they'll still turn on you in a hearbeat if they think you've put a toe out of line. All those years of dedicated service and they'll only remember that all Malfoys are death eaters."

Draco's mouth was set in an angry line, "They'll remember that I was the one who exonerated you!"

"Hehe, yes. All those years of your time to set me free and in the end, all you did was set up my best joke. No one's going to give you an Order of Merlin for that, Goldilocks. No one's going to even remember your part in this until it comes time to pass out the blame. Hoo, that's the good stuff right there, that's the way I was rewarded too.

"They'll have to find someone else to write nasty stories about you, though, I think Skeeter's writing has felt a bit flat lately. Any way you slice it, the joke's on you."

As he walked away, he called over his shoulder, "Tell me, Draco, when you decided to do all of this, did you suddenly shout, 'When my father hears of this-' and then realize your life was pointless without me?" he chuckled again, laughing out a, "See you around, Malfoy", and then he was gone.


Hehe, I suck at writing joker!Harry, but I couldn't resist. I'll have to settle for taking pride in my spelling.

 

Actually, it wasn't that bad, it just needed a bit more crazy to tip it into balance. But yeah, leave Joker!Harry to the Mysterious Nobody, you may find a way to be acceptable at it, but he just nails the character without even trying. Bravo, Nobody, Bravo.

 

The Mysterious Nobody is not the author.

 

Oh...Shit. 'sweats nervously'

...nobody heard that...at all...right?

Well, good job DENIAL AND DECEPTION...yeah.

And bravo to M-Nobody for finding it. Yeah. That's totally what I meant in the first place...

 

Palver found it. Mysterious Nobody posted it.

 

God damn it! <(>.<)>

 

-stares- I flirted with eternal shame there, didn't I? lol.

Warlocke, that whole bit was creative as hell. I quoted the last part because its the nail in the coffin, a delicious coup de grâce. You think you suck at this? Jesus I don't need to read the story anymore, all I wanted to read it for was to see Draco's fall, you gave me that, and how!

-bows-

You're the guy who usually points out my embarrassing mistakes and complicated writing, now I know there is a hidden story teller. Get to it!

Oh in the next installment, after Ginny sees Harry, can she scream at Draco she was faking it all this time? But you know in a more crushing way than my juvenile mind can come up right now.

 

One thing to look forward to is Harry might decide to blow Ginny up like in the movie.

"what the fuck do you mean they came for you! Wait till I use my BAT BOGEY HEX! *poof* "goddamn it nothing happened!"...BOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!

The thought of Ginslut going bang just make me feel all giddy inside.

 

Read it, liked it, but felt it could be better. A story like this is best told when you can see into the heads of the victims, criminals, and everyone in the middle of it all. To be honest I haven't seen much relation to TDK movie. Other than the characters and a few lines the story itself isn't all that similar.

However, the story is only 3 chapters in and can that can easily change.

 

@Blah : And that is a GOOD thing. We don't want to be able to predict everything happening, after all.

So, back to the issue of Joker!Harry's female sidekick (forgot her name in Batman canon...sorry). Luna's a obvious choice, but with the skill I've seen from this guy, he could bend it to include Hermione (That'd be a hoot...crazy Hermione...sort of redundant), or perhaps Fleur, by breaking them by murdering their Weasley sperm doners in front of their eyes in very nasty and gruesome ways.

Or maybe go younger, touch the new generation. Victoire Weasley, Fleur's daughter, anyone? Very impressionable minds to crush and distort there, methinks.

 

Never said following TDK story was a good idea. But as to the female sidekick (which is Harley Quinn, though I doubt I spelled that right). Luna would be interesting. But if you wanted to go by Batman canon, then TDK xover thread would be right with suggesting Ginny.

As far as a dark arts story goes, I would have to agree with the idea of using one of the younger generation. I personally like the idea of using Rose. I could just see Joker!Harry using the children of his past-life best friends against them.

 

Christ, I'm sorry they cry so much! Oh, yeah, it's me. The update will be posted soon. I'm glad some of you liked it, I'll see if I can improve it for the rest.

 

Whoa, Denial and Deception, you nailed the Joker!Harry. Very well done, it kept me captivated the whole time.

The only thing that irks me about the story is the whole Malfoy business. I honestly have a hard time picturing Malfoy as Harvey Dent, although in your story his character dose have allot of potential. Oh, and all the crying, but thats been mentioned before.

I would have to give your story a 4/5, only on the fact that you are using ideas that are already in place. While you have thrown an amazingly original twist into the mix you plot is nonetheless, already constructed.

 

As this is a Joker!Harry fic, it must be said that a contrasting character has to be put in place. As Vash reminded us all, in the Jokers mind "It's always been about Batman."

As such while I agree that Nevile being to much like Batman would wreck the story it can be said that the definition of to much like Batman is very open. Nevile has magic and thus can do things Batman never could. Nor would it make sense to arm himself with an army of gadgets or dare I mention it Shark repelling spray. :awesome

However having a vigilantly that is Nevile, that's not so bad. Its just a matter of how much he is like Batman and How much he is different.

I wont rate this yet as I don't think the story has gotten long enough for an accurate judgment. However I will say this is a story to watch and a good read.

 

And updated. And being gay.

And now its readable, and wow, I really enjoyed that.

Just wow.

 

This was more of a set-up chapter for a believable Harry v. Neville. I won't make any further judgments until the next chapter because of that, but I thought it was pretty good. I'm intrigued at the hint of Fleur being up to something, and I really want to know what the twins are doing, and what Harry was doing in the basement.

 

Spoiler

I figured it out. It was all a joke. It was all some fantasy. There is no such thing as magic. I’m back under the stairs. I’m under the stairs and I’ll wake up soon. I’ll wake up and it will all be okay. I’ll be okay. I’ll be better now. I’ll do all my chores faster. I won’t eat as much. I’ll be good. I can be good. I can be better. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for whatever I did…

Some parts of it were intense, even poignant I think. As per my expectations with the nature of the fic, my only source of disgruntlement stems from the fact it is a near direct transcription of Batman events into Harry Potter. Too much of it is lifted from the movies, the whole Batman Begins trial of Joe Chill, elaborate parallel between Neville and Bruce, complete with the conversation about revenge and justice.

The story's equivalent to the Bat Signal is at Hogwarts, at the beginning of the chapter. The reason the signal works in the cartoons, movies, comics, is because the setting is metropolitan. The thought of seeing the signal hanging in the sky above a castle, visible from a village, a few hundred people at most rather than a few hundred thousand is a bit saddening.

A lot other than Harry himself is rather lame though. DarkKnight!Neville, Rachel!Ginny, but everything except Harry is more than I would hope for. A lot of authors seem to be getting the Joker right lately, but this is by far the rightest.

Great story D & D.

I mean Dungeons and Drag - oops.

 

My thoughts exactly, to the letter.

The lifted courtroom scene... I cringed when I saw it coming and was disappointed to see that it took up the bulk of the chapter, but I understood why it was there.

I imagine the reason it is basically the movie script with the names changed is because (and, yes, I'm guessing here) it's so much more fun and inspiring writing the Joker stuff, that making Neville (or anyone) into a competent foil for Harry seems boring by comparison, and thus that much harder to write. You can't really rush it, because he has to have a nemesis... but you can phone it in by sticking to the source material. So, like I said, I think I understand why it is the way it is, but I don't have to find it riveting to read.

If the wait for this chapter hadn't been so long, the disappointment would have been lessened considerably, which is always the danger with writing fanfiction; the longer you take to bang out the next installment, the more your readers will be expecting come update time.

That the original stuff with Harry so completely blows the rest of the chapter away makes it a bigger shame that Neville's, virtually pre-written, scenes are there. I was literally glued to my screen wondering what the Joker was going to do. The original material here is sooo much better.

I just hope we get to see more of it in the next chapter and I hope that with the necessary but boring beginning of 'Neville becomes Paladin' out of the way, the author will be able to turn the next installment out a tad more quickly, even if it's shorter (after all, the lion's share of this one was Batman Begins retread).

[5095 words without Neville VS. 13295 with, FYI]

The author did say the next chapter would be out faster and does seem to be aware that there's probably too much Neville in this one for most people's taste. Awareness is good.

And if the author is reading this: If you feel honor bound to rewrite the Neville stuff (It was a necessary evil, I know) with original material, please do it after the story is completed. I can't fucking stand mid-story rewrites, it's an almost sure step towards Abandoned Story Syndrome.

And keep up the most excellent work.

Spoiler

So, place your bets... is that Fleur at the end, under the Imperius Curse, or is it Harry under Polyjuice (or similar magic), fishing for info on how he can wreak havoc in Gringotts?