Title: Mirror
Author: InfamousGalaxy
Rating: M
Genre: Adventure/Drama
Status: In-Progress
Library Category: The Alternates
Pairings: None
Summary: [AU] A decade ago James and Lily Potter made an extreme choice to protect their son. Now, Harry Potter enters the magical world and tries to make sense of his past to understand his future. Maybe he can avoid a cycle of mistakes. And out of sight, unbeknownst to most, looms a prophecy with strange ways to be fulfilled. (Dark Harry, no bashing, no children politicians) [8/33]
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13237981/1/Mirror

This story needs editing. There's a lot of typos and some sentences are plain odd. The prose isn't beautiful by any stretch, but it remains engaging. The story starts off very similarly to canon, but the divergence is quickly made apparent: James and Lily became Death Eaters. The author does a good job with Harry here, somewhat reminiscent of On the Way to Greatness and it's hard to not be reminded of Traitor's Son, considering the premise. Harry is still a lot like his canon counterpart: quick witted, strong willed, curious and easily provoked, but the effects of his parents being alive and in Azkaban are felt. His dealings with his classmates are believable — you won't see eleven year-olds going around politicking and scheming, and least of all, talking about Occlumency certifications — and so is his treatment by the professors.

Among the more compelling stories published this year.

3.5/5, rounded down for now. The spotty writing brings the score down, but I've high hopes for this story.

 

It's is only 40 000 words long at this point but the fic is of to a good start. The set-up is quite creative, I don't recall reading a story with both Lily and James in Azkaban and it is quite different from canon already, and in the end we will probably have a story that is quite different and thus interesting to read. Harry does appear to be powerful, but so far this is not the focus of the story. It is about what it means for Harry to have Death Eater parents, his relationships with his peers and professors and the few friends that he has. Even the one OC is well written.

This is definitely a good recommendation, though, maybe, a bit early for the library, as we can't be certain how much further the author will take this. If the author is able to do the good start justice, this is easily 4/5.

 

I'll give this a look later, but I just want to express my dismay that we now need disclaimers about whether a story has children acting like an idiot's impression of how politicians talk and behave.

 

As already pointed out, editing is needed; though mostly for the early chapters as it seems to get better as the Story progresses.

One thing I definitely like about the story is Harry's characterization. It really does well at portraying

Spoiler

a canon Harry ending up in Slytherin

without changing his character too much.

I also think the author did a good job on the OC character, all things considered.

 

I think the first few chapters were much better than the last couple. The prose and dialogue felt clumsy and unedited and getting through it was a chore.
Too early to rate, but I'm not going to follow it.

 

So this is the first story that had made me want to break my lurking status.

I went in with a lot of hope for this story. The premise (though hard to work) I feel has a lot of potential. I'm a big fan of slightly more rational Voldemort one who could feasibly have convinced muggleborns/progressive families to join him.

The victors write the history books and he is painted as a monster. Blah blah blah Harry finds his own path after defeating him and build a better wizarding world.

This is not that story. The writing is tolerable. The plot is just so watery though that it can't compensate. Cassiopeia is a quite boring character in my view. I couldn't get past the shouting in the great hall scene and the lack of a clear voice.

Anyway my 2 cents. Hopefully this review doesn't get me banned. Not library worthy but good fodder for someone to take and be inspired by.

2/5

 

I didn't really like this. My biggest problem is I feel that Harry has an odd characterization, he hates Voldemort as "the reason my parents abandoned me" but his biggest most heartfelt goal according to the sorting hat is to break them out of Azkaban and after they do that themselves he still wants to contact them. Slytherin hates him from the start even though I feel like despite a muggleborn mother he'd be part of the crowd with two death-eater parents in Azkaban and being sorted straight to Slytherin. He spends a lot of time jerking off to how muggles aren't so bad and straight up tells his friend she's just scared of muggles even though his sole examples are terrible people and he as a child has no reason or attachment to the cause.

It feels like the author desperately wanted specific things to be the case, Harry should hate Voldemort, Harry should want to reunite with his parents, Harry should like muggles, Harry should be friends with Ron, my OC Lestrange should be in Gryffindor; All without thinking or writing why these things would be the case and how to realize them organically.

I give it a 2/5 it's an interesting premise but the execution is just lacking in so many ways.

 

I'm a little curious about this one, but I'm not sure I understand the general set-up. Is the idea that Lily and James became Death Eaters to protect Harry, but Harry became The-Boy-Who-Lived anyway? How does that work? Or is Neville the BWL and Harry's just a resentful Slytherin lecturing people about muggles?

 

It's... okay.

3/5 is my rating for it, definitely Almost Recommended, but not quite good enough for Recommended.

The first chapter is definitely the worst bit of the story, and I was a hair's edge from just closing my laptop. It's not the worst opening chapter I've seen, but it was hard to get by.

McGonagall flatly telling Harry that his parents were in Azkaban and were Death Eaters... I'm not sure why but I just didn't like that. It's a quick reveal, whilst it could have been a shocking revelation Harry comes to later, it would have a more profound impact on him.

Imagine the first chapter of 1984 by George Orwell was an info-dump on how the world came to the dismal, dystopian state that it was. That basically sums up my discontent with ch. 1.

The prose certainly isn't the worst I've read, but it fails to draw me in. Bland isn't quite the word for it, it's decent but I felt it was a bit boring, though that may just be personal preference.

On the technical side, grammar, spelling, dialogue, et. I'd say the writer has it handled. Only a few speech tag errors and little mistakes like that.

The later chapters are what drew me in, and moved my rating from 2/5 up to 3/5.

Harry meets his godfather. Yes, Sirius Black, teaching at Hogwarts, most certainly not in Azkaban.

It would've impacted me more if McGonagall's expo-dump in Chapter 1 had been removed. Anyways, he meets Sirius and the events of the past remain vague as the story progresses, only itty-bits being shown.

There's an air of mystery around everything, a lack of bashing, and believable character interactions. Cassiopeia feels like her own person than an OC cardboard cut-out. Romance, if it is a thing, is certainly a long way down the line.

I feel like these first few chapters are a set-up for whichever conflict we're going to see, but it has to come soon so the story isn't boring. For example, we haven't seen the troll, no mention of Flamel's stone, etc. Voldemort also hasn't made an appearance.

Altogether, 3/5, and sorry if this feels really jumbled. If you feel like there isn't anything left to read that's decent, I'd recommend this.