Title: In Servitude to the Dark
Author: xXxLuckyxXx
Rating: T/M
Genre: Adventure/Drama
Status: Part One covering late Second Year and all of Third Year is done, Part Two is currently completely written, but still being published.
Library Category: Dark Arts
Pairings: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Summary:

Part One: In 2nd year, Riddle makes a deal with Harry: Ginny's life for the horcrux in his scar. Seeing no choice, Harry agrees. Marvolo, born of the 2 horcruxes merging, teaches Harry to be the perfect servant of the dark. HP/LV.
Link: The Hand That Guides Me: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7642914/1/In-Servitude-to-the-Dark-The-Hand-that-Guides-Me

Part Two: Harry enters 4th year and must deal with the Tournament and losing Marvolo to Voldemort. Will the newly risen Dark Lord accept Harry or will he still see Harry as an enemy?
Link: My Obeisance: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7722957/1/In-Servitude-to-the-Dark-My-Obeisance



This is a fairly slow building Dark!Harry story with Tom acting as both mentor and eventually love interest, and a mentor Snape. With Old Magic, more studying than is normal, and Harry's growing independence and hatred for Dumbledore, this is a story that is sure to keep the reader interested, even if the pairing isn't your typical cup of tea.

 

I wish I could say the pairing was the worst thing here. Unfortunately...

- Typical fetishism of "the dark" which has very little to do with anything actually evil or even anything repulsive.

- Harry is made super-childish.

- Poor understanding of Lily's sacrificial protection resulting in a shitty argument against it from "Tom" (aka the author).

- Feminine Harry who speaks with "breathy whispers", lets out "little moans", blushes, etc.

- Mispelt "Avada Kedavra"; mispelt "horcrux", etc. Errors abound.

- Referring to the spells by incantation rather than name.

- Riddle just telling Harry about his horcruxes.

- Shitty horcrux mechanics.

- Dumbledore hate.

- Second year Harry suddenly knows how to cast the stunning charm and about the unforgivable curses.

- Tom Riddle honours his deals even when doing so would disadvantage him.

- Voldemort feels possessive of Harry and calls him "little one".

- Voldemort doesn't want to kill Harry.

- Absolutely absurd Dumbledore characterisation.

- Shitty Ron characterisation.

- Sudden unexplained distance between Harry and his friends.

- Sudden unexplained closeness between Harry and Neville.

- The "Old Ways".

- Voldemort who is "not proud" of killing Harry's parents.

- Harry-Voldemort soul bond.

- Power blocks.

- "Light wizards".

- Magical cores.

- Second, custom, wand.

- A unicorn willingly gives Voldemort blood.

- Harry suddenly able to perform non-verbal magic.

- "If you wish for it hard enough, you don't need magical knowledge!"

That's all in the first three chapters.

On the plus side, the idea of transfigurations being temporary unless you cast a memory charm on the object, making it forget what it used to be, is pretty fun.

That's about all I have to say on the positive side.

1/5

 

I think the only redeeming quality this fic has is that its author has good spelling.
Harry is
developing his Slytherin side.
Harry's development is as realistic as I can make it. Emotionally, he's still just a 13 year old boy, so the farthest he'ever got is a kiss from Marvolo. He carries two wands, his Holly Phoenix wand and another that is actually a unicorn horn gifted o him. It is bicolored, black and white,symbolizing Harry's Light and Dark magic.
And there is
heavy HPLV. There will be M/M
with an underaged character, heavy
BDSM dynamics, and all the other
good stuff that goes with that. If you
don't like that, then you are in the
wrong
There may be redeeming qualities further on in this fic, but I'm sure as hell not going to be the one to look for it.
1/5

 

Personally, I never got why people love the Dark Arts so much, and have to make Harry "Dark but Not Evil", or occasionally "Dark and Evil". Ignoring the fact I long concluded most of HP Magic is distinctly grey, I think if the Dark Arts exist, they should probably be Dark in every sense of the word.

Also, I'll be honest, I could tell it was going to be a bad story the moment I noticed the Pairing. Even if I could ignore the Slash, Creepy Age Differences are Creepy.

But, to be fair, I tried out the first chapter. It didn't help. The Dark Arts are just another area of Magic (which makes me wonder what is the difference between the two in the first place), the casual mention of Horcruxes, the fact Riddle would even care to do something 'nice', the casual disregard for Lily's sacrifice, and the hints of what will likely be a whole lot of Dumbledore Bashing.

 

I think we need to applaud Taure for reading and reviewing it. I for one would never click on the story link given the summary by the OP.

 

I like author's writing style and I found some fairly interesting ideas in there, but these are only positive things I found. Harry suddenly hates Dumbledore and agrees with everything that Riddle said. It's like Riddle turned on some mental switch inside of Harry or something.

This is an excerpt from author's profile:

It's actually quite ironic. While author considers them strongest points of the story, I think that they are the weakest. While grammar seemed okay to me, author seems to be unable to spell any spells correctly. He/She even mispelled word Occlumency and incantation for killing curse, even when correct term is mentioned one or two paragraphs above in a quote from canon.

I normally don't rate slash, but I will rate this one, because it is so bad that it would be 1/5 even whitout it.

Btw, that tag is quite amusing.

 

The tag made this from a waste of time and space to an amusing waste of time and space.

 

Couldn't you argue that a soul bond of sorts is cannon between Harry and Voldemort?

That said "so slashy my laptop is leaking semen" is a pretty cool tag.

 

Hey, Harry/Voldemort soul-bond is canon! Also, *cough*.

 

Okay, who added that second tag, because I definitely did not do that!

As for the objections, I must admit that I had never noticed a spelling problem, except for the occasional missing second 'l' from Legillimency. Second, the age difference is not so bad, not when you compare it to some of the pairings in books, or fan favourites, like Hermione/Severus or, dare I say it, Harry/Severus, ugh!

As for the first list: Harry is twelve-thirteen in the first story, so you should expect a little childishness-that actually reminds me of Hermione's action on the train in First Year. Second, the Dark Arts get more dangerous the further you go and there IS a defined and explained difference between Light and Dark Magic. Third, as the author states on their page, after all that Dumbledore has done, can you be surprised that Harry would hate him? Also, manipulative!Dumbledore is one of the most popular AND CANON clichés in the fandom. What is more manipulative than convincing Harry that he needs to die without a fight? Also, Ron is portrayed much as he is in canon, so what's the problem there?

Now, getting back to the list, technically speaking Harry doesn't have a custom wand, as it's nothing more than a unicorn horn. Next, the 'unexplained' separation between Harry, Hermione and Ron IS explained (their different courses mostly,) and Harry gets close to Neville due to his secret interest in the Dark Arts. Tom becomes a teacher and more because he believes Harry could become his greatest asset, and because a part of him WAS in Harry for eleven years, giving him a way to understand Harry more than anyone could. The only 'power block' in this is the bit of power used to keep Tom's soul piece separate from Harry's soul. The unicorn doesn't give it's blood to Tom, but to Harry. Finally, as I recall, the "shitty argument" is actually quite a common one: most mothers would die for their children.

 

But that's only part of the equation. The sacrifice in and of itself is meaningless. It only worked because Voldemort offered to spare Lily, while presumably, being serious about it.

And citing Hermione/Snape and Harry/Snape as reasons Harry/Voldemort isn't that ridiculous isn't helping.

 

Should I be worried that someone's actually defending this Story.\?

First of all, my problem isn't the spelling. As long as I can read it, I couldn't care less about the spelling.

Next, the Age Difference. Ignoring the fact I actually am divided on the age difference between Tonks/Lupin (the only Canon couple with a significant age difference), it probably isn't a good thing when you use Hermione/Snape or Harry/Snape to justify age differences.

You have no idea how sick and tired I am of the Manipulative Dumbledore Cliche. I honestly would not be surprised if "The Greater Good" exists in the story: a phrase that just so happens to represent a whole lot of pain thanks to Grindelwald and would be the last thing he would ever actually say. Was he manipulative at times? Absolutely. Did that make him a Bastard-Coated Bastard with Bastard Filling? Absolutely not. He cared about Harry. He could have been more helpful at times, but he isn't being horrible to him. And with the whole 'dying without a fight' bit, I'd like to see you come up with a way to destroy the Scarcrux without Harry dying in any way, shape or form, never mind with a convenient way to let Harry live anyway with the blood bit.

I'm not going to talk about the rest of it, since I only lasted one chapter and the stuff you're trying to defend isn't convincing me to read any further.

 

This story is literally written by a person called 'xXxLuckyxXx'.

I'm sort of impressed that a 12 or 13 year old or whatever age the author is has managed to write this much, but it's still just a big pile of garbage.

 

Technically not. That 'bond' is between two parts of Voldemort's soul - between Harry's so-called "scarcrux" and Voldemort himself. Harry's own soul has nothing to do with it. Harry is just a vessel for said "scarcrux" that sometimes experiences slight discomfort in case of intense emotional experiences of Voldemort's.

 

Saying something is fanon or popular does absolutely nothing to defend the idea. Case in point:

Those pairings are equally bad.

The issue is that he's more childish than in canon, which is something of a step down. I have no idea why an author would choose to make Harry more childish when his young age is often a barrier as-is.

My objection was not a lack of a definition. My objection was:

1. That "light magic" even exists in the first place.
2. That immersing yourself in dark magic is compatible with being a good person.

"After all Dumbledore has done"? That would mean keeping Harry alive and maximising his liberty, I suppose?

Clearly you do not understand the last book. Having Voldemort hit Harry will a Killing Curse under those exact circumstances was the only way to remove the horcrux from Harry and have him survive. All other horcrux removal methods involve a permanently dead Harry.

In this story Riddle is able to remove the horcrux from Harry. (See: shitty horcrux mechanics). This is not possible in canon. The only way to remove a horcrux is to destroy the container or to feel remorse. Judging canon Dumbledore on the basis of shitty fanon magical theory doesn't work.

No he isn't.

No, it is not explained. On the first first time Harry goes to breakfast in this fic, he chooses to sit with Neville instead of his friends. That's before they choose different courses, before Neville starts learning the dark arts. At the very start of the fic.

Is it a magical focus other than his holly wand? Yes. Is it matched to Harry via some "compatibility" bullshit rather than "wand chooses the wizard"? Yes. It's a custom wand.

Thus ignoring a) Harry being prophesied to be the ONLY ONE who can destroy him and b) his hate of Harry for destroying his body.

There is no rational explanation for what Tom Riddle is doing.

This is nothing more than a handwave. Tom Riddle is ultimately self-interested and is utterly incapable of caring about another person. Being in Harry for eleven years should mean nothing more to him than relishing destroying Harry even more, for having kept him prisoner for over a decade and for putting him there in the first place. The knowledge Voldemort has of Harry from that time should matter only to Voldemort in so far as it enables him to make Harry even more miserable in the moments before his death.

Harry's wand also has a power block on it.

Again, something being common doesn't give it any greater weight. Especially when we're talking about the people in the HP fandom. In this case, calling Lily's death a sacrifice is something of a misnomer. What appears to be happening is more a contract or exchange. Lily is freely offering her life in exchange for Harry's. "Take me instead".

This required first that Voldemort wasn't going to kill them both, thus making an exchange possible. That it itself is unusual. How many mothers who die protecting their kids do so against a killer who specifically wants to kill the kid but goes out of their way to spare the mother?

 

I find it hilarious that people take the OP seriously enough to argue about it.

 

Yeah... The story is bad and you're bad for recommending and defending it. Not sure if you're trolling or not, but we should probably move on from this thread now.

 

This hasn't been moved to the hall of shame yet? I really hope that the OP is just a gimmick account of Minion's. Fics don't get much worse than this, and it seems like the OP is having trouble understanding what quality is, despite what Taure is saying.

 

Out of curiosity, who voted this high enough to go from a solid 1.00 to a 1.19?

 

There needs to be a 0 we can vote for.