Wow, the new chapter really does set new standards for this fic.

That was... quite phenomenal almost. I really really really look forward to seeing where this fic could go.

If he continues playing intelligence as the main attribute of Harry in a believable manner, I can see myself loving this fic.

The subtleties and intricacies are very enjoyable at this point in time. I hope in continues in the same vein, and doesn't run out of steam or ideas partway through.

It's slowly creeping up to 5/5 for more than just the Malkins scene.

 

I'm definitely liking the more serious tone of this chapter. I thought the humor-intelligence combo fell flat, but if the author keeps future chapters like this, I will be much more engaged. It's still horrifically unbelievable, but I don't find myself caring anymore.

I'm bumping my rating up to 4/5, with the potential for more or less depending on future chapters.

 

Even as the pendulum swings between irreverent, impossible crack and dead serious moral implications the narrative has this sort of manic intensity that weaves it all together.

Pulling off the entire arc ending with Harry basically turning the entire magical (and rest of the) world upside down is going to be very difficult, but if it's done properly this will be a masterpiece.

 

A great new chapter. It added interesting and thought-provoking new avenues for the story. I particularly enjoyed the mindset of the purebloods seen by Harry through Draco. If the story can maintain momentum, alternating as it does between insanity, humor, and an interesting and rather serious look at the culture (and hopefully the magic) involved then I think it'll go far. Keep up the good work.

 

If this story stops being humor, and switches to what that chapter was, the thing is good.

 

Its annoying, though. Like Orson Scott Card, the author doesn't seem to grasp how children, all children, to some extent at least, act. Look, I do not care if they are a genius, a protege, or child soldiers; no kid acts like that.
4/5, minus 1 for including Malfoy as something besides a retarded childish nemesis, +1 for the Malkin scene= 4/5 from me.

Definitely library worthy.

 

I like this story. But, I disagree with the last few posters. As a preposterous crackfic/Braniac!Harry, I thought it was great. Even the Malkin's scene, where Draco was implausibly, but still entertainingly, engaging, I still enjoyed it. Normally I fail a fic for making Draco tolerable so early in the story. But, since the fic was original and humorous and obviously over-the-top, I didn't need to suspend my disbelief. But, the tone of the last chapter was too serious to keep my disbelief suspended. As a serious treatment on the pureblood philosophy, using Draco (of all people) as the avatar of psychological manipulation, the way he just casually threw raping children and manipulating the system out there to a Potter boy he just met, is bordering on epic fail. That Harry would just take it so calmly and rationally, makes Harry a much less sympathetic character. I think the author needs to decide what he wants in this fic.

It is quite possible to address serious themes in a screwball comedy story (think Mark Twain). But you need to use allusion and allegory, rather than the frank exposition of that last chapter. To me, it felt like a cheap and easy way to introduce and then supplant Malfoy's teachings. It would have been much better to introduce those things subtly, through the interactions of the characters, rather than "hey, let's just rape her and obliviate her afterwards!" I mean, it wasn't even making a joke of it, which made it creepy and sad, especially given the scene's treatment of Draco as a mini-Hannibal Lecter-in-training.

Again, I like this fic and have high hopes for it. I just hope that it get's back to the light-hearted silliness that made it truly epic. Otherwise it will fail as a comedy and fail as a serious story.

 

I think combining hilarity and seriousness will be a tough task, but it is doable. The author will definitely have to be careful in how he/she proceeds from here, though.

The one thing I didn't like about the chapter is what Sooner90 mentioned regarding Draco...I'm willing to suspend disbelief for now, but too much more will ruin it for me.

Other than that, I really liked the update, and there is a ton of potential. I just hope the author can deliver.

 

63 votes... I honestly think thats the most votes i've ever seen for a fic.

 

Draco is OOC because the protagonist is overpowered and the author wanted to keep the conflict in the story (this doesn't appear to be a crackfic, at least not intentionally so). So the Hogwarts first years are going to be precocious and tutored, and Ron Weasley will be bashed a little by the harsh contrast. I'm eager to read about Hermione and the Weasley Twins. 5/5

 

If you think of it more from Draco's point of view rather than from Harry's you'll see that maybe there are deeper, underlying messages being sent. The thing about the rape + obliviation is that the world this guy is setting up seems to have a much less strict moral standard than ours, and holds murder as the most despicable crime, rather than rape. Maybe it's a side effect of living longer, or the ease with which you can make it seem like it never happened, but in this world rape just isn't as 'bad' as it is in ours. That's something Harry is obviously going to try and fix, since this is a story about the meeting of two different worlds and the protagonist will inevitably win out in the end, but for now it's society that's the problem, rather than just a single person or family.

 

This story is absurd.

In the author's attempt to introduce LOGIC! and SCIENCE!, he'll almost certainly miss the "logical" part where Dumbledore sifts through the little fuck's mind, figures out what he's nerdgasming about, and reprograms him to simply not think that way. Instead, what's going to happen, is Snape is going to haaate him, Harry's gonna use the "I think of the worst possible scenario lololologicalol" and figure out that Snape reads minds, and learn Occlumency in his magical trunk room. With the time-turner he'll get for his oh-so-fucking-convenient 26-hour sleep cycle.

Fuck this story in the ear.

 

I can already see it now... Cliché Ahoy!

 

Why the fuck would Dumbledore do this? Do you fall onto the side of "OMG Dumbledore is teh evilz" or something? It'd be completely OOC for him and certainly not logical. Unless you're being sarcastic, in which case, huh?

And clichés aren't necessarily bad (assuming that they'll show up) if they're written well.

 

I personally enjoyed this story a great deal. If for nothing else, the random bits of trivia he's throwing in are particularly interesting.

I mean, nothing particularly difficult to find (as the author points out), but a little outside research in fics is nice.

I can totally buy the characterization as the author made it clear from the start that these children are far beyond our realm of experience. Not to say "wizard did it", but he makes no secret that he isn't writing real children. Looking back to the nineties, Harry kind of reminds me of the little brother that guest-starred on Sister-Sister, what with the genius and gift-wrapped moral lessons.

5/5

 

Why would Dumbledore try and keep some know-it-all kid from (a) attempting to upset the magical economy, (b) taking over the world ?

Because he failed last time with Riddle and Grindelwald, and because removing the desire to fuck with the magical world in the name of SCIENCE! is relatively benign compared to completely killing or obliviating him. That's hardly evil at all.

But that won't happen, because only Harry is allowed to have teh super logical skillz in this story.

 

Basically you have a Dumbledore who is Like a Voldemort, but for Stagnation instead? that's silly.

First, i doubt Dumbledore use legilimency unless he really has to.

Second, Dumbledore knows the prophecy, and while he believes 'the power he knows not' is love, there has been *many* indication than mind manipulation is very, very chancy, and using it on someone who must have a special power is extremely stupid.

Don't go putting Fanon!Dumbledore everywhere.

As for this fic, i liked it. I liked the way Harry joked around With Draco, and then realized they simply were from different Worlds, with Draco never having learnt that other people are, well, people and not just tools or obstacles.

The slow realization and freaking out of harry was a nice contrast with the humor earlier, and the rushed way harry tried to get out of the hole he went in after Draco told him he wanted to rape luna (meaning he either has to accept it or risk opposing someone on his home-ground) was quite funny.

I liked how Draco thought that Harry wanted to tempt in just in order to change him, while Harry did want to change him, yes, but he also mostly wanted to just STOP what he just put in motion

Hoping the order of Chaos isn't the Twins.

5/5.

 

It is, since Dumbledore is nothing like a Voldemort, nor does rejecting this Harry's endgoal for introducing science into the magical world automatically mean a de facto acceptance of status quo/stagnation. Next you'll tell me that only 2+2 equals 4.

Based on what ? Vapor statement.

Hermione did it on her parents, and she's far less intelligent than Dumbledore. Making someone lose the urge to take over the world is less taxing than making two people forget 17 years of their lives.

And his desire to upset the banking system has exactly dick-all to do with fulfilling the prophecy - unless you want to use the author's implementation of superlogic, and connect a string of bullshit involving how deconstructing Gringotts bank by shifting raw minerals and currency between worlds will obviously lead to Voldemort's defeat. Lol.

Don't let the supposed introduction of logic into the story blind you from the canon-provided methods of quashing the streams of bullshit that the author is going to introduce in order to make this fic "work."

 

You said Dumbledore would do this because harry wants to change the WW. Change by itself isn't 'bad', and fighting any kind of change *is* stagnation.

Based on the times where someone tried to use Legillimency being painfully obvious? E.G, all the times Snape tries to see what is Harry doing (he has trouble too, hence the hint that legillimency isn't really mind-reading, AS IS SAID), or AD in CoS asking harry 'do you have anything to tell me' and then having harry thinking of all the things he would want to tell Dumbledore, with lots of terminology hinting at legilimency.

Hermione, as you said, is far less experienced than Dumbledore, and much more prone to mistakes.

Also, there is an enormous difference between erasing someone's memory of things, and changing one's way of thinking- the second is much more iffy and dangerous.

No, it has to do with who Harry is. Who harry is has a direct influence on 'the power he knows not'. Magic *is* driven by the wizard and his peculiarities.

Dumbledore Rewriting Harry is the stupidest thing possible.

What canon-provided methods? the one you just invented? having Harry be mind-erased won't help on that as he will still be the same person (especially if AD wants him to go back to the blood protections) and trying to change who Harry fundamentally is will be the worse thing AD could do.

Not to mention, both those options are things AD will not do anyway.

 

Based on what? There aren't many examples of Obliviation being used in canon. The closest we get is seeing Lockhart fuck it up, but not much else. You say Hermione erased years of her parents life, but she didn't do that at all - she made them believe they were different people, and made it their lifelong dream to move to Australia. A 17-year-old witch (who is admittedly above average) removed some memories, left others, and implanted false goals into the minds of 2 people. We don't see the mechanics, but that sounds like more than a mindwipe.

What's to say that Dumbledore can't do that to Harry, whose entire 11 years of life is less than what Hermione manipulated in one of her parents? That signal Harry threatened McGonagall with would be utterly useless if he still remembered everything about it, but suddenly decided he didn't want to take over the world.