Title: Memorium
Author: Aesop
Rating: K/FR7
Genre: General (Political)
DLP Category: General
Pairing: None
Words: 27,424
Published: June 22, 2011
Status: Complete (technically a one-shot but it's 26k words, so I think it deserves to be treated as a full story)
Summary: Memory alteration spells are a common tool wizards use. The need to maintain their secrecy justifies anything, or so they think.
Link: TTH, FFN

Incredible political fic dealing with the ramifications of using Obliviation to preserve the Statue of Secrecy. Had my heart pounding by the end.

Easily the best new fic I've read since The Apprentice, and possibly even better, though it's not really comparable. 5/5.

Edit: Man, I feel like an asshole now. Kensington put this in Almost Recommended and planned to put it in For Review if it got enough positive responses. Of course I go and do it first, totally forgetting. :facepalm

Edit2: Just found the FFN link.



Checked by Minion, August 20, 2013

 

Brilliant.

Just Brilliant.

It really shows how horrible the world of Harry Potter could be. I was not sure which side to take, not even in the end. This is a situation that can never win.

5/5 easily.

 

It's amazing. I loved it.

5/5

Also, by "The Apprentice" what fic do you mean?

 

Damn you T3t, I was going to submit this fic.

This story hooked me from the beginning and was an interesting read - highlighting especially how helpless muggles are against the magical world. There are no commandos running around willy-nilly with guns in this story to prove the superiority of muggle over magic.

The downside to this story for this site at least, is that there is no Harry Potter in this story. The only canon characters are Dumbledore, Fudge, along with Susan and Amelia Bones. Additionally, the timing seems off compared to canon. Even though it is set in the summer after GoF, the aurors at least seem to recognize that Death Eaters are active, which runs contrary to what I recall from canon.

5/5.

 

Pretty good story, you got to feel for the muggles here (and punch Fudge. A lot).
4/5 for me due to the un-continuity with canon, though----the aforementioned DE running amok thing. Easily fixed and that'd make this fic a fiver.

@ Jnottle: I think The Apprentice is the Snape/Lily fic. See Time Travel section for details.

 

I went in with little expectations, and was pleasantly surprised with this story. As I said in the FFN review, the tension is pretty palpable, and it really shows the disregard with which Muggles are viewed even by what we'd consider the more moderate of magical persons.

The timeline missteps are a problem and I said as much in the review, but all in all I think this is a very good fic.

4-4.5 out of 5, and with a few tweaks and corrections, it could be 5/5. Author has written a lot of stories, most for fandoms I could not care less about. I'll look over the other two HP ones to see if they're passable.

 

I enjoyed this; it was a new idea (or at least one I haven't seen before) done well. Writing is sound, and - despite the lack of HP - the characters involved are believable, well written, and just seem to mesh well. Solidly a 4/5, and I'd actually give it a 5/5. Was pleasantly surprised.

 

An amazing story with a powerful central point, showing that very few things are black and white. An easy 5/5 for me.

 

Awesome fic. 5/5 idea wise.

After reading it, I'd love to see someone do a story about Harry taking after Lockhart and using obliviate as a non-deadly equivalent of the Killing Curse; who needs to kill someone when you can turn them into a vegetable? Most plausible jump off points are pre-Hogwarts (Harry using mind erasure in a similar way to a young Riddle causing pain wandlessly) or the end of third year (as a measure to deal with Wormtail; Harry knows that Gilderoy is a vegetable in St Mungo's, why not have Pettigrew join him?).

Also, about the Aurors suspecting Death Eater activity, it seems strange to me that the DE forces would just stop after Voldemort got blown up. Sure, I can see the rich & influential ones stopping and just abducting Muggles to 'play' with, but I don't see why the thuggish underlings would stop altogether, or why other criminals wouldn't use similar masks to throw off suspicion.

 

Interesting idea for a one-shot. Though one thing was rather strange, why would Bones agree to something as dangerous as an unbreakable vow, especially one so vague.

Wizards already have no quams with simply changing memories like re-arranging legos, what's to stop them from just using legilimency to take the information from her mind. Cruel sure, but it'd make more sense than a witch putting her life on the line for a muggle. 4.5/5 nonetheless.

 

Um, that's kind of obvious from one of the major plot points: because doing so to Joanna has a major risk of killing her, and Bones is not willing to kill innocent people if there's a more peaceful resolution available, even if it inconveniences her more. So Bones has a stronger sense of morality than some other wizards would when places in her shoes... why is that strange?

 

Ah right, forgot about the magical allergy thing. Still, I just can't see anyone doing an unbreakable vow, with such vague promises. You can die from not fulfilling it, and I'm sure it's considered almost taboo in the wizarding world.

The strangest part is she suggested it. She could have easily just promised regularly or made up some random vow. It's not like a non-magical would understand the difference between a real or fake vow.

 

Excellent concept for a fanfic, and reasonably well written. There are a few niggling issues with the writing that drags my score down a point, e.g. a bit of stilted dialogue from Joanne, but I still liked the fic a great deal.

Solid 4/5.

 

Fair enough--it's reasonable that Bones could have buttered up Joanna in some way less extreme than this, if she had been thinking straighter and was not so pressed for time.
Though I don't really think it too strange to go for her to gone for the first solution that occurs to her, under the circumstances. Bones' characterization throughout the fic points to her not being the kind of person for whom deception would be the natural conclusion.

Joanna definitely would not have taken a regular promise; she showed zero trust and wanted an immediate solution instead. So the only fast alternative resolution would be some showmanship to deceive her.

 

It is perhaps telling that I was cheering Fudge on through all of this.

 

I cannot imagine a less surprising revelation.

 

Haha, a nice idea, but I think you're being overly generous to the author. I think the fact that the wizarding characters that we are supposed to like - Dumbledore, the Healer - we partly persuaded by Joanna shows that we're meant to think she was right.

 

I think my biggest problem with the fic was that Joanna was kind of a twat. Yes you're in a shit situation, that doesn't mean you have to constantly bitch about it. Take what you can get. The wizards seemed mostly bumbling and incompetent, and they also inspired no sympathy. I was slightly unsure of who I disliked the most, and the message here didn't have much impact either.

Obliviation seemed pretty bad yes, but not mind rape bad, and Joanna's rants made me like the spell a bit more. It seemed totally warranted for a group like the magic community to protect themselves, since fanatics like Joanna were exactly the type of people they're trying to hide from. Honestly, she would've left a child to die out of spite, if she knew enough to do so. What a twat.

Regardless of the fact that it was well written and it conveyed its message stylistically well, the lack of a real conclusion and the utter inability of the fic to make me like anyone mean I can't give the fic more than 3.5/5.

Also, Fudge as the only man who doesn't compromise his morals in the face of trouble, as well as the driving force behind law and order? Geez, talk about alternate interpretations. He didn't even seem all that racist.

 

Quite honestly it bored the crap out of me. At no point did I ever feel more than a vague interest in what was going to happen. I also think the author clearly meant us to think Joanna's point of view was in the right, and I didn't so he failed in that. Other people mentioned the timeline problems and there were other minor issues as well.

I honestly didn't buy Dumbledore being somewhat persuaded by Joana's arguments either. The mans well over a hundred, he's thought of every side of this issue before. He may be a "muggle-lover" but he also has close personal experience with exactly why the Wizarding World absolutely has to stay a secret. I think his experience of seeing Ariana tortured and crippled after her magic was discovered would far outweigh any weak arguments made by Joanna.

I generally like political fics, and after seeing all the high ratings I had high hopes. But I am disappoint.

3/5