Hello. This is the first time I'm doing this so if something is missing or wrong or whatever please tell me.

Title: Harry Potter and the Dark's Rise
Author: Marshall Angmar
Rating: T
Status: WIP
Library Category: Drama/Adventure
Pairings: Harry/OC (no slash)
Summary: "This story chronicles the rise of Harry Potter, the right hand of the Dark Lord Voldemort. Features a dark Harry in Slytherin, from pre-hogwarts to the end of the war. Harry knew nothing of the wizarding world until a teacher from a mysterious school visited him and told him the tale of his father, catapulting him into a world of intrigue, politics and Power."
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10267302/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Dark-s-Rise

I read this story recently and it's now one of my favourites.
Neville Longbottom is the Boy-Who-Lived, Harry Potter the son of Lily and James Potter, born three years before the original Harry would have been.
James Potter is accused of betraying the Longbottoms and in Azkaban because of it, Lily is dead and Harry grows up in a muggle orphanage.
The first few chatpers concentrate on Harry's early years in Hogwarts as he tries to deal with the stigma of his family name.
The more the story progresses the more interesting it gets, the in debt description of Harry's Hogwarts years start when Neville enters the school.
From there on it's not just a retelling of the canon story but the events are influenced by Harry's presence.
What I really like about this story is that there is no "evil child genius" Harry but just a normal (very ambitious and ruthless) boy who longs to make something of himself.
The other characters are mostly in character. Dumbledore for one is not evil or overly manipulative but I think quite close to his canon version.
The story moves within the canon boundaries, there are no black phoenixes, overly helpful goblins or any other such thing, the characters are (mostly) true to their canon selves and Voldemort is not suddenly the misunderstood good guy. (thank god)
In the later chapters the author manages to make the wizarding politics interesting and Harry is in the midst of it. Harry is not evil but he is certainly not a good guy either. It's a dark Harry story.
I would give this story 5/5. I've been looking for a story like this for ages.

 

I'm not a fan of the prologue at all. The idea of having a framing story set in the future can work, like in Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind, but the crucial factor is that the framing story must create ambiguity. It has to raise questions.

In The Name of the Wind, the framing story makes us curious about how Kvothe became Kote. It makes things more mysterious than if we had simply started with Kvothe as a young child. There's a sense that Kvothe's story is still not finished, and that we have to understand where Kote came from to see where he will go in the future.

In this story, the prologue just provides answers. It tells us how everything will end up. Harry's story appears to be pretty much done. It's an epilogue.

Also, the dialogue is wooden and there are numerous grammatical mistakes. On top of that, Harry looks like a terrible teacher. It's the first class of the year and he just sits them down, tells them to turn to page one, and starts dictating. He's basically Binns mk.2 lol.

Still, I'm a bit curious, so I will read on. Mostly I'm interested in how much this story is going to rip off Knowledge is Power, given the similar Neville BWL and Harry being older thing.

Edit: thoughts for chapter one, quoting the review I left the author.

 

The problem isn't just the prologue, which tells us pretty much how things are going to end already (so why bother reading past it), the writing is... how to put it nicely... utterly dull. It takes conscious effort to make myself read it. The dialogue is stifled, flawed grammar being the least of its concerns, more apt for flat statements than what is supposed to be actual humans talking with each other.

Oh and the sorting part is exceptionally shit.

If I could, I'd give this a 0/5, but as it is 1/5.

I'll probably go on for a few more chapters before completely losing the will for it.

Edit: Christ, it keeps getting worse. Harry starts learning the Dark Arts year one, gets tortured and hounded by other students, tortures them back with the aid of an older student, who happens to be the daughter of Augustus Rookwood, writes up plays for Quidditch that the Slytherin team captain appropriates for future games... I'm gonna quit now before I get a sever migraine from this literary diarrhea.

The only thing I could say goes in the story's favor is the rather novel reason why Harry ended up in a muggle orphanage in the first place, and that's it. Still, Lily getting killed by a mob, but Harry surviving seems very odd.

 

I think the writing gets better in the later chapters. I thought he/she may have rushed through the early chapters to get to the main plot and that is reflected in the writing...

 

I posted this story on irc several days ago as a excellent time-waster. I stand by my opinion, although it probably is a bit influenced by this story being exactly what I'm looking for in time-wasters: a ruthless, yet human, protagonist. And not a gay one, ffs.

I may not be a native speaker, but the story reads rather smoothly for me. It is as unique as you can get in HPVerse without trying too hard and inventing rainbow phoenixes. The characters are fairly believable - even Dumbledore. The pacing is fast, which is a good thing, as all the uninteresting trivia is simply skipped. Overall, I have nothing to whine about.

As for the beginning: I don't like epilogue-like prologues, but I still have to admit that this was better than, for example, Emperor. At least this prologue isn't the end of the story and it raises questions about important events: What happens to Voldemort? Dumbledore? Why is he viewed as a hero/villain? Why does he worry about the Ministry? What happens to Miranda (besides Pax)?

Spoiler

Does he still own the stone?

5/5 in guilty pleasure rating.
3.5/5 for the Library. Rounded up.

 

There are many grammar errors, some unfinished sentences, capitalisation is utterly wrong, etc. It is barely readable. What caused me to stop reading was Harry's interests and his weird manner of speech. For example:

I just don't see an eleven year old talking like this. If someone in real life would talk to me like that, I would think that he has gone insane or something. Well, maybe it would be okay in some formal meeting, but never in normal conversation.

Harry's interest in what was labelled "politics" also seems strange. Why in the hell is an eleven year old interested in politics, of all things? Also, he keeps talking about manipulating his classmates and calling it "politics". I am quite sure that politics is supposed to be about some competing between politicians, not eleven year old children. I think that there is another word for that. This Harry is creepy and seems unnatural to me.

I wanted to rate this 2/5, but considering total lack of good stories as of late, I am grundingly rating it 3/5. It's not really that bad. It's also quite original.

 

Okay, I take that smoothly back. Dialogues are very confusing, I often find myself wondering who was speaking just now.

Spoiler

"Neville," began Dumbledore calmly "Did you put your name in the Goblet of fire?"
"No! I swear Professor, I don't know what happened!" Dumbledore looked at him intently,
"Did you get an older student to put your name in for you?" Neville reddened,
"No, of course not! Professor I swear!"

That doesn't change my rating, though.

 

I nearly stopped reading in one of the early chapters as well because of the problems Radmar mentioned but I have to admit I overlooked this in my review because the story developed really well in my opinion and after reading 160 000 words the beginning was not that fresh in my mind. What I really like here (if you read far enough) is that Harry just sides with the dark without Voldemort or Dumbledore or the wizarding world changeing. It's not about dark or light affinities that force you to a side, not being influenced by a horcrucx, not because of a sudden love for Voldemort or finding out that Dark Magic is not bad at all. The story is very true to Rowling's universe and is what realistically (in her universe) could have happened on the other side of the war. If there would have been an intelligent, powerful boy ready to side with Voldemort.
There are some other dark Harry stories I also enjoyed reading but most of them have many characters totally out of character (like the Weasleys, Dumbledore or Voldemort) so I like this story so much because it stays really true to Rowlings world.

 

My thoughts exactly. I felt like the prologue was giving enough of the future without reveling how exactly it came to be, and most importantly what will happen from that point forward.

I like the idea of the story a lot, but as it was said the execution is quite lacking.
I think the biggest problem of the story is that the author wants to get the content out and is not really patient enough to rise the quality a bit.

Evidence of that can be seen in chapter 7 where the author has literally copy/pasted the dialog between McGonagall and the "golden trio".
In that story Harry is suppose to be overhearing the conversation, but McGonagall still answers:

Probably with a beta it would have been quite a bit better.

Having said that, I like the story and I'd want to see where it goes. The fact that it already has another 19 chapters to read and I'm very bored, helps a lot too
So, so far 3/5 , let's see if it truly gets any better in the later chapters.

 

Despite all the little things wrong with the story, such as the technical errors, inconsistent characterization, and poor dialogue, the story's main problem is far more severe: it's not a story.

A story has a narrative thread running through it. It has conflict and resolution. It has a beginning, middle and end. It has a plot.

This fic is just a series of things happening. Not only that, but those series of things happening aren't ever really described in depth or detail. No tension is ever introduced, nor are there interesting interactions between characters. World building is very thin. Everything is glossed over in summary detail before we move on to the next event in Harry's life.

It's not a story, it's a timeline.

Mildly entertaining for a rainy day, but not library quality. Not near. 2/5

 

After the latest update, I have to agree with other posters, it's a 1/5.

 

With all the subtlety of a naked, drunken Hagrid in a china shop.

 

Updated. The update is below par compared with the rest of the story.

 

I like this story so far.

 

It seems to have just finished