Story is Great. I like the way where the plot is going, and the whole Description of:
"Dark Wizards" I only hope it doesn't get Abandoned. It would be shame, Really.
5/5

 

This fic was recommended to me in the story search thread, and I got to give it 5/5. I love stories like this, where being dark is essentially just being entrenched in wizarding tradition and culture, but there are simply not enough of them.

 

One of the better Dark!Harry fics I've read in quite some time. There are cliche's aplenty, but they're tolerable. I find the writing to be very well done and I like the general view of dark magic. The OC's are well done and among my favorite characters in this fic.

Normally I wouldn't even read a fic that had a tolerable Malfoy in it, but the way it was handled in this didn't offend me greatly.

I hope it doesn't engage in too much Dumbledore bashing, though. That's one cliche that I could do without. Obviously Dumbledore has been around the block enough to know who are the dark wizards and he still extends them considerable courtesy. Hell, as a friend to Grindewald, he's obviously had his own experiences. Hopefully the author will avoid this trap and figure out a way for Harry to kick some death eater asses.

 

There's a new update, btw.

That said, the only things I like in this story are the way the Dark Wizards are portrayed (basically the lesson in history Draco gives Harry) and the decent characterisations we see. Some of them are off, but if you suspend disbelief for a moment, you can actually see these people as real people, not some 2D characters that serve to move forward the plot-line. (Most authors fall into that, me included...)

On the other hand, there's the problem of the plot-line. A couple dozen thousand words and all we saw is Harry's slow descent into the dark. I think the author eased the idea in pretty well, but it could've been faster. And I'm not particularly happy about that library either. The idea would be cool enough if it wasn't so secret and exclusive, and if Lucius coouldn't get to it from Azkaban.

I also dislike Hermione's inclusion in this. I have nothing against her as a character - she can be written well, I believe - but the way the author did it... It almost feels as if she's there because she felt Harry's close friend should be with him and because her readers kept asking about her and Ron.

There are a few other good and bad things about the story, but this is what I remember (I read it a couple of months ago)

Anyway, for those who like the story - happy reading.

Nick

 

Snape's POV = Win. :awesome

 

This. Raining ink did an awesome job with the other POVs.

 

This story is a 5/5. Even if there are possible hints of slash, I will continue reading.

 

One page back. Unless she's changed her mind, this is what I'm going with. As for hints of slash, I may be oblivious or subconsciously ignoring them because I didn't really notice any - although what I consider a hint of and what other people do can differ greatly.

I'd stopped reading this a while back - can't remember why at this point - but went through the chapters that I hadn't read and I'm glad I did. It's not perfect, and the negative aspects have been belaboured elsewhere in this thread (Hermione seems to be a polarizing influence in the fandom), but it's an entertaining enough story and the grammar is decent. Oh, and yeah, Snape's POV was full of awesome.

I give it a 4/5 with the caveat that the pacing is a tad bothersome. Here's hoping it picks up a bit now the preliminary stage setting is complete.

 

I really liked the way Raining Ink managed to preserve canon-Harry's personality while making him somewhat dark. Draco's role in the whole story seems to be a couldn't-resist sort of thing from the author and is quite out of place.
The writing itself is really well done but I don't feel that this author really knows how to write action/the story isn't going anywhere.
4/5

 

DarkHarry! fic have this problem, too slow of a build up, or, three paragraphs in, he's murdered the Dursleys. Hard to find the sweet spot.
The Library gives me problems as well.
I really like the story, read it a while ago, then just now caught up on the last 4 or 5 chapters.
I like the Hermione angle, no problem with that.
I have a uneasiness with how he's going to handle the war. He may pull it off with out a hitch, anxious to find out what he has planned.
SOooooo, I assume that Voldemort went dark the wrong way, and Harry is doing it right, if the premise is the Dark does not equal evil.

 

Meh, this whole deus ex Dark Wizard Society thingy is getting more and more annoying with each chapter.

 

Makeup, huh? >_<

I usually enjoy the story, and feel that it deserves a 4/5, but for some reason, the recent chapter was... Boring. Half of it, I just wanted to get on with it.

I can't help but to fear, now that you're going to Hogwarts. I have hard time imagining how you're going to pull it off so that we can enjoy it, when we have to stand for all the annoying characters, and the usual 'changed HP returns to Hogwarts' cliches.

Well, do your best~!

 

I'm on Chapter 14 at the moment, but I'm rapidly losing interest. This story is frustrating, to say the least. The author has created a really interesting back story with the world of dark wizards, but even an interesting original world can't hold my interest for 60K words of wandering around Knockturn Alley, reading books, and worrying about Malfoy.

Malfoy is a big negative in this story, in my opinion, as his whole role feels out of place. I was able to go along with the whole invitation thing, but pretty much anything beyond that seemed clumsy and out of place to me. The meeting in the library was absolutely terrible. It's one thing to say hello to someone new, it's quite another thing for a teenager to want to introduce someone they just met to their convict of a father. I can understand Malfoy's role in the story (I assume he'll serve to introduce Harry even further into dark wizardry?) but the way their relationship was set up was extremely lacking. This isn't even mentioning the fact that Harry goes from hating Malfoy, to not only wanting to get him a birthday present, but worrying if the present will be opulent enough.

3.5/5, rounded up to 4/5, because I feel that the overall story is interesting, original, and of a high enough quality to deserve a place in the Library. With that being said, I'll give it a few more chapters, but this story just might not be for me.

 

I'm still enjoying this - it's not perfect, but it has some decent ideas. I prefer when Malfoy and co are portrayed badly, makes for sense to me, to be honest. It's been inconsistent lately, but it's still interesting enough for me.

3/5

 

I liked this one quite a bit. The characterizations and storyline are a original and the characters that usually make me grit my teeth are written decently enough that they don't irritate me. 4/5

 

Odd thing just happened; I looked at the story and it indicated that there were 30 chapters, five minutes later there are only 29.

Was there a glitch or did you just restructure the story?

 

I just finished reading this, and I'm not sure what to say about it, to be honest. This is, I suppose, it its own way, a positive indication of my reaction. I really got into this, so much so that it's hard to separate what I did and didn't like in a coherent manner in order to share.

Spoiler

The whole knockturn experience was excellent, and I really enjoyed the author's take on Dark Magic, particularly the midsummer ritual. I hope the whole atmosphere of the story continues in Hogwarts, and isn't lost in Harry returning to his "original identity/world". For the Knockturn Alley really did have a sort of surreal "whole other world" quality to it, especially when taking into account Harry's thoughts/comments/reactions to Diagon Alley and the muggle-world after having experienced so much of Knockturn.

I didn't find Harry's transition to the "dark" particularly slow. I thought it felt quite natural, and that you could really feel how he just stepped into this "strange new world" and slowly came to truly appreciate it.

I'm finding it harder to quantify and collect the things that I didn't like, other than to say there were a few things here and there that just felt "off" at times. Little things about Lucius, the Library, and Draco, mostly. I understood the logic, ideas, and motivation behind the situations, mostly, but at times there was just "something" off in a scene, or a comment, or what have you. Truthfully, I can't seem to put it into words much better than that, so they aren't really a big deal, and what I did like easily drew attention away from such things.

For now, I'm giving it a solid 4/5, but I think it definitely has the potential of a higher rating.

 

@ZombieHunter: I've been going through the story and tidying things up a bit (typos, author's notes that are no longer necessary, etc...), and I combined a couple of the old chapters into one. It's not missing any material, just a structural change.

 

Hmm. A lot of the good and bad have been mentioned.

When I started this, it didn't bug me as much as it should have. It has every cliché - literally every one I could think of for the beginning to one of these fics - from the car ride with the Dursleys pre-6th year to the new name, inheritance tests, etc etc.

That aside, at the beginning I thought it was shaping up nicely. I could appreciate how well-thought-out it appeared - very clearly structured and so on. There were some of the best lines I've ever read in fanfiction... for example;

Spoiler

Illegal in every country of the world except for Canada. Not much is illegal in wizarding Canada.

and

Spoiler

Harry felt like crying. There was an unconscious prostitute in his room ... Realizing that he was running out of time, he acted on the first idea that popped into his head. He hated it, but (The Prostitute) was stunned. It wasn't like she would feel anything, and this could be a life or death situation for him. He grabbed his History of Magic textbook out of his trunk, and closing his eyes, he smacked it rather hard against (The Prostitute)'s creamy forehead

Passed-out hooker abuse ftw.

All the same, at chapter ten, a grand total of two things have happened and I'm rapidly losing interest. There's very few exciting or dynamic things involved and the foundation that's been / is being laid for what is to come feels a bit like it's been wasted.

3/5 but not one I'd necessarily recommend to the average DLPer.

I'm going to finish it all the same, though, so watch this space.