Title: Once More
Author: Conscience15
Rating: T
Genre: Adventure/Romance
DLP Category: Time Travel Fics
Pairing: Honks
Status: WiP
Summary: After years of fighting in the War, Harry realizes that Voldemort has won. In a desperate gamble for one more chance, he goes back in time to try to get things right. He soon finds himself training in the Auror Academy with more than one familiar face. AU
Link: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3906763/1/Once_More

Found this story a couple of weeks ago but couldn't bring myself to read it. But this not-so-lovely morning I got bored to tears and, having absolutely nothing else to do, I decided to give it a try. A pleasant surprise awaited me.

Now, so far, there are only four chapters posted so it's not much to judge from. But the potential is definitely there. The writing isn't flawless but it's decent. I like the way Conscience15 brings up some facts from Harry's past. She (or is it he?) gives us the bits of information only when it's needed; there is no "what happened before the time-travel" bit as an intro.

On the downside - Harry is a bit angsty, although it is to be expected from what happened to him before he lept back in time. At least he isn't some naive lazyass emo. He time-traveled to become a better fighter and he works hard on it. (Everything is realistic on the training side of the story too.)

Oh, and me enjoys Tonks so far too. She's just the way Rowling described her in OoTP.

It's still too early into the story for me to rate it but if the author at least keeps it at this level of writing it will 4/5. If he/she improves I'll give it 5 stars without a grain of hesitation.

 

To be honest, I hated how the author renamed Harry 'Mark' and how he had green hair. Also, Tonks says Wotcher way too frequently. It just irked me.

It's an interesting story so far though, and the writing style is definitely good. I'll keep on reading, since the detail put into the Auror Training is nice, characterization is good, and it's definitely original.

 

Don't have any problems with 'Mark' but green hair... yeah.
Oh, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there was one Mark Evans in canon.

 

Yeah, I think that was the kid that Dudley beat up.

Anyways, another good thing about this fic is that while Harry is strong he's not super!Harry, so the story is very realistic. Also be warned, there's angst concerning Ginny, and it can be pretty bad at points, but it's possible to ignore. Well, at least I was able to. And if you don't like a Harry that's very canon, then this probably isn't for you.

 

The Auror stuff is good, but the Honks is horrible, as is the angst.

Tonks is just very annoying: you find yourself wishing Harry would AK her. The author has also kick-started their relationship artificially. They know each other for 2 days and then when Harry doesn't speak to her for a few days she acts like she's been snubbed by an old friend, rather than a passing acquaintance. They shouldn't be treating each other as if they are old friends when they've only known each other for under a week.

3/5

 

Didn't find Tonks really annoying. Harry, on the other hand...

Try to look at it from Tonks' point of view. She tries to befriend a guy and everything goes fine. But then he suddenly alienates from everyone he knows, her included. Now some people (Ok, most of them) would just get mad and ignore the moron but Tonks (or at least this version of her) is freaking stubborn. She got mad at him alright, but she didn't intend to abandon him just because of his issues. And that's what this angsty!Harry needs - someone stubborn and bold enough to free his head out of his ass' confinements.

 

Replace "Tonks" with "Ginny" and you have the basis for 99% of the bad H/G fics out there. Die.

 

Don't know about that, don't read "bad H/G fics". But that's neither here nor there.
My guess is that 99% of those H/G fics are bad because, obviously, they feature a character whose name is Ginny Weasly (don't need to explain why is it already distasteful) and because they are written by 14-years-old fan girls. The fact that Tonks doesn't give up on Harry doesn't make her a Ginny-clone.
Finally, I believe this argument is pretty dumb since we have only 4 chapters as the basis for our opinions.

 

Gave this a shot, and couldn't make it past the first real chapter. However, the writing was good and the story was flowing rather nicely. It's just that I feel positive that just by the end of the first chapter you could fill 10 50 gallon drums with all the angst floating around, and well, to me, conflict is good, angst on the other hand makes a fic basically unreadable when their is that much of it.

Other than that though, could be a decent fic.

 

Eh... Ill give it a big 2/5, the green hair and pure emoness brought it way down for me. Also if im gunna read a story with auror training the training itself has to at least be realistic.

 

First chapter wasn't half bad till the last two paragraphs. they were, suprise suprise, harry on a shopping trip, complete with the stores he went to and what he bought. Luckly thats only a mid-sized chapter in leangth, the next paragraph however we get a glimpse of his 'Soft heroic side' as, and this is a direct quote:

"His untrained voice faltered a bit but gained strength as it carried its way through certain pop songs he had heard over the years. He didn’t have the memory needed to make up his own songs and tunes, but the ones he had heard he remembered well enough, and he repeated them like a mockingbird. He thought about what he knew of his future and his past and decided that the best thing he could do was to take it all one day at a time."

I'll give it another chapter, I liked the first one up to this point, but if this continues, expect a 2 from me...

Edit: The fic has potential... Unfortunately it's drowned out under the premature fluff foreshadowing, angsting over Ginny, and mental monologue-ish flashbacks. I'll give it a 3 for the two chapters I read just because the author was at least intelligent enough not to send him back to his 'Younger Body' or give him a tacky 26 compartment truck with built in mansion and unbeatable wards.

 

I want to read it since some say its a way to past the time, but right up there with the rules on 'not to read a fic' is; Harry, you know the main character whom the books are named after, is not called 'Harry'.

 

Well, that does happen a lot in "Time Travel" fics.
P.S. The author says that someone will recognise Harry in the next chap, so there is a chance that someone will start calling him as "Harry" again.

 

Then the story will automatically fail. There is no other possibility, what's the point to write a time travel story if everybody know who you are and be sure that if someone know everybody know. It's just a weak plot to reduce the age gap between Harry and Tonks.

 

Have you actually read the story?
Yes, I agree. If someone figures out then everyone will know eventually. Eventually is a key word. It may happen in the very last chapter. And every single secret is always revealed at some point. It's just the law of life.

This story is firstly action/adventure and then romance. Time-travel was done for Harry to get training and only then to hook him up with Tonks.

Honestly people, stop being so assumptious.

 

Actually my problem with this particular story is how the character of Harry was portrayed. The angsty, broody teenager "suffering" through "war" and death... yes I can imagine it and if done right it could be a setting for a nice story. But when the author adds to the lost of his friends, grieving for the death of his supposed great love(fiancée... at the age of 17 for fucks sake... though all those fluffy lovers would argue here that at "dark times people do that kind of stuff") it simply fails miserably when talking of creating an interesting and readable character. Unfortunately this seems to be some kind of freaking pattern one too many stories follow.

Another problem I'm having is the authors inability to convince me that this Harry Potter has actually been the "Commander in Chief of Dumbledor’s Army"... unless this was a try to make a joke out of the idea to have the DA as an actual battle unit or something of the sort... it is a grand fail.

I'd still have to wait for another chapter or two to make my mind on whether the author deliberately wrote HP being an idiot send back in time by an accident or it was planned but then all of a sudden he forgot what he was suppose to do and decided to wait for several years and then confront Voldemort by himself when he gets resurrected(of course he would win with all the training he gets during that time... don't even doubt it for a second)...

Overall - another time travel story with too many plot holes. Why most authors writing them don't even entertain the idea that anything that is changed would reshape the future(yeah that is the basic idea... ain't it) but if it is the main character, yes the bloke that just popped out of nowhere, should just as well disappear the moment that happens since he never had to go back in time or it happens for a different reason. (read Balancing Destinies by DobbyElfLord for a good example of how it should be done)

Even though I'm hude fan of the H/T stories, I could barely read through that one. On the romance topic I won't even say a word since he made a better setting for HP to get into "office relation" with Alice rather than do anything with Tonks. Speaking of which, her character seems just like an annoying OC that you can't understand why is in the story in first place...

Well, read it and understood why it has been added to this list >> Read This Before Posting or I'll Kick Your Ass!

It's a sad day that, Yet another, honks story turns out to be rather disappointing...

 

...Well, off to the Trash Bin it goes, then.