Title: Harry Potter and the Orb of Souls
Author: SerafinaMoon
Rating: T
Category: Angst/Drama
Summery: Harry's lost his memory thanks to a potion and now he's working for Voldemort. Will he ever remember his past?
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2290892/1/


An interesting story with a unique plot. Absolutely worth reading.

 

i hope the author pulls the song lyrics out of there, FF has been a royal bitch and pulling anything with lyrics in them


I have a major problem with the sorting hat not telling Harry who he is. That sort of device in all the Harry forgets who he is and goesback to Hogwarts storys is annoying.

It's not as the ["withered hand"-and I won't tell you how it happened until you get mad] or the [lets watch a assload of memories instead of telling you what the deal is in 2 minutes] bit, but it is damned close

Also, the constant memories and the things DUmbledore notices, for them both not to know fairly quickly that he is Potter is a bit off.

 

song lyrics are very disappointing too see in a chapter..

 

very good and originally, definetly interesting, worth a read..

 

There is nothing wrong with song lyrics as long as they are used within reason.

 

For me song lyrics in the middle of a story add nothing or very little to it and literally scream 'teenage girl' at the reader.

 

Must say it is a little weak at the beginning but after that it really starts up! I can only reccomend this.

 

Song lyrics in a story are just ridiculous and overall shows very low talent for the writer.

Its like they said, "wow, my chapter is really short, think I'll add a song"

I did the same thing in school. Paper was short, well we just need another quote.

It also looks bad when the author needs someone else's words to express their feelings/thoughts. You might as well just get someone to write your story for you.

I'm happy FF.net is pulling stories with song lyrics in them. Hopefully it will make authors stop doing it.

 

Usually I'd agree with you on that but the problem is that FF.not is so heavy handed with their approach to things banning any use of song lyrics in a story regardless of how they're used is the kind of thinking that ends up killing stories like Jeconais' This means War! which for all that it was HP+GW is still one of the funnier stories written during its time period and I'd sincerely like to see the story updated eventually...

That and there have been a few songfics that worked... I know they're rare and I know that it gets harder and harder to find them these days because everyone wants to write 'music videos' instead of actually creating a fictional work which uses a song as a base around which to tie the plot. Yet it can be done and I'd hate to see an entire style of story writing lost forever simply because its so rarely done well.

---bornagainpenguin (who would try to post a link to the story he thought was done well, only its in the anime fanfiction community and thus unlikely to be well liked in a Harry Potter forum)

 

This story started out alright. A potion that makes the imbiber lose all prior memories, while a little out there, isn't exactly brand new fare. The bit with the poison was compelling, because you knew he survived, just not how.

The point where the fic started going downhill (for me, at least), was the point where we find out Harry was slipped the Draught of Living Death. How would Dumbledore not have considered that? I could elaborate, but suffice it to say that this was the first strike.

The next chapter, we find two men dueling. One is named Ganmou, and the other is named Naito. Neither of them is named Harry Potter. Woohoo, name change time! My favorite!

A few lines down, we find... "Naito" has been given what amounts to the "Super!Harry! Checklist" of recent times. Master at silent apparition, master at wandless magic, multi!animagus, metamorphmagus, master legilimens and occlumens, vague things like "advanced magic principles," and all other manner of bullshit. At this point I began skimming the story, hoping it would pick up.

Naito/Harry meets up with Dumbledore to see about being re-admitted to Hogwarts. Dumbledore knows he is a Death Eather spy. Dumbledore allows him to enter the school as a student. Thankfully, the chapter ended, so I had an excuse to change pages rather quickly...

Then, he meets his "old friends" and we see the memory retrieval plot device being foreshadowed, as he vaguely recalls his first day on the Hogwarts Express. Then, in a fit of literary genius, the author pens:

“I’m not quite sure what I want to do,” declared Ginny indecisively.

By all accounts, a minor thing, yes? Probably.

Anyways, the final straw was I noticed, of the four chapters I'd looked at, the author had quoted 3 Evanescence songs and one Kelly Clarkson song. I closed the window.

As far as a rating, I'd give it a 0/5. I wish I could actually choose to rate it as such... but then that'd be unfair.

Personally, I don't think this is library worthy. Perhaps recycling bin? Seems to be an amalgam of cliches all thrown together by some crazy japanophile author who thought they'd write a cool story with all this. I know it's technically dark/independent!harry, but... it's just done so poorly.

My $.02.