This story while having some merit do to original (i think) ideas irks me to no end with the draco beaver interaction. it literally ruins the whole thing in my eyes and each time i get to another section where one of them is thinking, i get migraines and pray to god that theyll just die like everyone else and leave me in peace. For now i'm going to stop reading in it (and i'm at chapter 60)
so long

 

i stopped after the second 'harry-bashing' by moody.

the first was warranted, the second should have had harry snap moody's neck.

 

I stopped because I was sick of it always being ? instead of '

 

i liked this fic quite a lot, actually it was the first "dark fic" i've ever read (and i dont mean the somewhat ridiculous conception on fiction alley where a dark fic is mostly when draco has his dick up harrys ass uke

 

I liked it, but then I downloaded it, and forgot what chapter I got to and couldnt be bothered to find out. it was around 70 something

 

I read it when it first came out in schnoogle years ago. From what I can remember it was pretty good, thought the author never posted the sequel he promised after the cliffhanger ending. It’s a descent read.

 

Dun shoot me for the 3 year necro. Saw the fic in the "Neglected Stories" category, knew where an updated/complete version was, and decided I'd throw it out there...

Title: Harry Potter and The Third Key: Reloaded
Author: Slowfox
Genre: General/Action/Adventure
Pairing: Harry/Parvati, Harry/Cho
Status: Complete
Summary: COMPLETE: An AU Fifth Year fic written pre-OotP. Sword fights, apocalyptic battles, new kinds of magic. Love, betrayal, angst. Doing the right thing, doing the wrong thing, and doing it in style. This is epic. This is dark. *This* is TTK:Reloaded.
Link: FFN

I never read the original version, but the author took it down because he wasn't happy with it, edited it (to what extent, again, I'm not sure), and reposted it on FFN. I think it's a pretty solid story. No cliches as far as I can tell, the "romance" is more like a footnote in the full scheme of things, the only angst comes with the protagonist's ongoing debate about the morality of his actions, and there's a competent Pettigrew character. Many deaths. There's also a Dramione vibe throughout the story. Very few grammatical errors. I'll rate it a 5/5, personally.

 

Using the link provided by rogueboy above, TKK: Reloaded... *shudder*:

This is extremely long, but somehow manages to keep up amazing quality the entire way through. The author is channeling both JKR's writing style and quality, but not her ideas about where the characters ought to go towards the later stories. The characters are in-canon as you'd expect them to be from GoF, before everything went wrong. There's some pretty original plot devices, a lack of any major cliches (except the swords, but its tastefully done).

As rogueboy says, its got negligble romance which is a plus for me, and the partnerships which are there aren't done in a cliched way imo.

I get the distinct impression that the author wrote an ending to this in his revised version, as opposed to the cliffhanger that was described in a previous post, however I thought the ending was by far the worst part. Its clearly rushed...and just meh. Tacked on the end imo. Thankfully the story up until there is well worth reading. Moody's character is a pain in the ass, but if you can ignore the odd annoyances its definitely going down as one of my favorite stories of its length, and probably my favorite story that was originally written this early.

I can't adequately describe how superior it is to the other stories I've read that were written post-GOF.

I think there are a few isolated points that I would have liked to have been done differently, but nothing really substantial.

Writing Quality: 5/5
Plot: 5/5
Characterisation: 5/5
Ending: 3/5

Overall: 5/5

I really don't think its sufficiently flawed to take away from a 5, considering the ending which I took issue with is about 2 chapters out of a 90 chapter piece.

If you have a hard time getting into it at the start (I don't really think its boring early on, but nothing much happens) it starts to get really good at about chapters 13/14. If you don't like it after that then you have no hope.

 

The Hermoine/Draco is unadulterated fail. Not because I dislike the pairing, but because it reads like a 13 year olds Idea of a good romance novel. "I won't think of him because I can't think of him like that, but he's soooooo dreamy, but I won't think of him" Ad infinitum.

I just finished chapter 13 and the story thus far is a 1.5/5.
3/5 for being somewhat decent, -1.5 point for the crappy romance (All of it, and believe me there's a lot), and the curse that's more compelling than the imperious.

14:
Harry's teacher is somewhat interesting, as is AD's reaction to his lost abilities. Remus and Sirius being contacted is somewhat re-assuring considering the age of this fic, but... -shrugs- it's still giving me a rather 'Meh' feel.

17: Parvati's inclusion (even ignoring the crappy romance) in the core three feels rather rushed. Patchy at best. Neville being a complete outcast with no friends to speak of is pointedly pointless, Slytherin being universally hated is idiotic (why does everyone and their dog make them that way?) and crappy romance is still crappy.

18: Moderately interesting. The show of solidarity was rather nice even if pansy's power is vastly overstated. Fudge's fudge, while somewhat expectable in hindsight, actually caught me by surprise.

Harry's source of power is looking pretty damn Deus Ex. I'm told there's drawbacks, but he's not even following the advice he was given Frankly if anyone else reads the reviews before the story I recommend you start at 14. everything up to that point can be summed up by the following

Spoiler

-Harry is stuck at the Dursleys for the summer,
-harry picks up his school stuff.
-Harry goes to school.
-Harry and Cho are kind of together, but as 'Just friends' despite his initial monster-in-the-chest reaction to speaking to her.
-the new DADA teacher is introduced.
-Harry hooks up with parvati.
-Hagrid, while not back yet has aquired and/or bred some massively rare creature that will probably play a significant role in the future.
-There's some massive hints at DM/HG pairing including a chapter where all we see is her trying and failing to use his sur-name instead of his given.
-The Deus Ex power device is introduced,
-the trail of breadcrumbs is laid.
-Crappy highschool drama type romance is had by harry and pavati
-The DADA teacher ends up being evil,
-harry ends up having no magic because of a massive plot hole.
-Harry realizes that he has a little bit of magic from another source.
-Dumbledore realizes the same and conveniently knows someone else who can train harry.

there, you can skip to the better part, you're caught up.

I'm not going to pursue this to the new site, it just doesn't hold my attention. Relaying on it's other glowing reviews to give be some brief hope that the 'getting better' trend continues I'll give it a

3/5

 

Don't take the DM/HG pairing at face value in the story.

 

I read this story years ago at Schnoogle.com and it was great at the time. From what I remember I'd rate it a 4/5, though my memories may be biased.

The DM/HG pairing I can't seem to recall, but it does include rather awesome necromancer Hermione and almost Zombie/Wraith Ron and the repercussions of such. Also, Remus dies before the end, Ron dies before the fic is halfway through and the ending line (by the Sorting Hat if I remember correctly) was pure win.

So yeah, I give it a 4/5.

And now I'm off to read this again.

 

It was good when it started, then it becomes horrible later on.
Seriously, if I had stopped reading around halfway, I would have given it 4 starts. As it is, it gets 2 from me, just for the direction it heads towards.

 

I remember loving this story back when it was first completed. I read it again recently and while it is far more angsty than I typically like, it is still well written and more interesting than the vast majority of shit out there. So from me, it still gets 4/5

 

Arghgh

Spoiler

If there is one thing that I absolutely can not stand (its up there with fucking slash), it is permanent Power Drain, especially when the canon makes no mention of such thing. If a universe is going to have random shit that wrecks you completely, the least it can do is put you out of your fucking misery at the same time IMO. Even worse, random lackeys like Malfoy and this DADA twit can cast it, it isn't even limited to exceptional wizards. Next Death Eaters will be wandering through Diagon Alley multiplying their powers by the dozen while the retarded wizarding world fumbles blindly.

I suppose there is justification for wtfpwn Unblockable SR:No Save:None curses in the Potterverse (which has always rubbed me the wrong way), but I just can't stomach this level of mularkey.

 

Stopped reading when Dumbledore allowed a bunch of political fuckwits to kick him out of
Hogwarts. No way is the most powerful wizard in Britain going to let corrupt incompetents oust him from his position of power when he knows that the bad guys are wandering around with a permanent power-drain spell.

 

This was an okay fic years ago when it was first written. But like a lot of other things, it didn't age well. And it shows.

2/5

 

Just finished reading this 370,000 word behemoth, and I have to say that it has aged relatively well. I enjoyed it this time around just as much as I remember doing the first time. My original description of the story was a little off though, with Sprout and Wood being so involved and Harry wasn't actually sent to Azkaban. I was conflating it with another story I remember involving a battle at Durmstrang.

Back to this story:

It was written before OOTP came out (where it was posted on Schnoogle I think), and I thought the author did a very good job showing the consequences that result due to the events on the night of the third task: from Harry's relationship to Cho Chang, to the creeping progress of the war on all fronts. I thought everyone remained in-character (although Hermione reminded me a little too much of Sansa from GOT for my liking), and side characters like Dean, Parvati, Lavender, etc. were all further explored and handled well.

Even though Harry is turned into a "Mage", he doesn't suddenly become all powerful. There are limitations to what kind of magic he can perform, but the powers he does have are especially useful in war, making for a number of extremely action packed battle scenes.

The only thing that had me cringing a little while I was reading was the fact that Dumbledore and Bellatrix were using spells like stupefy and expelliarmus throughout the story :facepalm. But then again, this was written before OOTP came out, and the subtler aspects of magic/incantations during fight scenes had yet to be explored by Rowling. Dumbledore is still a powerful bad-ass in this story though, and he ends up being an instrumental contributor at the story's conclusion.

Honestly, the writing is top notch by fan-fictions standards, the fight scenes are well-handled, and the characters are interesting. This story is definitely a hidden gem that I'm glad I read again.