I think the biggest thing you seem to be ignoring, is that Harry is a teenager. Even in canon, Harry was pretty proactive when attempting to deal with Malfoy, it's just that his options were limited.

Teenager's are not known for their patience, and Harry even less so when it comes to matters regarding Voldemort. It's completely unbelievable to me, that a Harry who 100% believes Malfoy is a Death Eater would be doing so little in regards to him. Hell, earlier in the bloody story you hinted that Daphne could end up being gang-raped by other Slytherin's for even talking to Harry.

It seems to me, that you throw in big ideas where it suits you. But don't in other places to progress the plot, even when they would be completely logical. And how would Malfoy know he was 'mind-raped' if he was obliviated?

The more I hear, the less I like this story.

 

I'm actually surprised this incoherent story is in the library. It has far too many problems with the plot and character interaction.

 

Just when I thought it was abandoned for good it gets updated.

 

Someone needs to make a timeline or something so I don't have to reread the entire damn thing when it updates once a year, although I'm very glad it's not abandoned.

 

I'm rereading this after having lost interest in the HP fandom for a long while...and am really not impressed. The writing style leans very heavily on telling over showing, with lots of scenes reading as "Harry did this or told Hermione that, and Hermione reacted like so". What's more, the writing likes to shift from one character's POV to another within the same scene, which breaks immersion, IMO. If we need to know that the character thinks what you're telling us they think, than either write that into their dialogue, or come up with another way to get it through to us.

Then there's the gratuitous Weasley bashing, which might have been in vogue back in 2007, but I've lost patience for it. There's no buildup for it, the universe just up and decides that Ron is incompetent and useless, and we just watch as he flails about in his own ineptitude, while Harry and Hermione spontaneously develop an immunity to any sympathy for their best friend. Whenever we're shown a lesson in the story, we know that we're going to see Harry and Hermione get the spell right, while Ron fails "hilariously" (Quotes because I'm not sure it's supposed to be funny or not. It certainly isn't, but...). Granted, Ron's a very "meh" student whose laziness and stupidity are being exaggerated, but honestly it's Harry and Hermione's sudden indifference towards him that really feels OOC. And then there's Ginny, who turns into a jealous psycho bitch for no reason. Honestly, though, I think I find the contrived mishaps between Harry and Padma just as annoying as far as that scene goes. Lastly, the voicing is serviceable, but sometimes too formal for teenagers.

I'm only 5 chapters into my reread, but I'm not sure I'll go much further. I think 2/5 is appropriate for this, especially since I remember where the Weasley angle will be going from here.

 

I have no idea what people ever saw in this story. This in an incredibly masturbatory fic, with Harry having a fling with half a dozen girls the author likes, gratuitous bashing of those he doesn't, leading to this circlejerk of a thread of a story with little to no substance in it.

It is almost amazing, how many words the author takes to do so very little, and that people actually like this mess of a 'story' enough that it has a place in the library. Perhaps the author deserves kudos for that : never before has a story with so little going for it achieved so high a rating. It must have done something right, even though I can't see what it is for the life of me. Even the technical writing is ordinary at best, so the fic doesn't even have that going for it.

I might be acting a tad ungenerous here : after all, this is a 2007 fic. But I spent around 15 minutes skimming the damn thing, and the Weasley bashing gave me a greater headache than I had anticipated, so I'm not feeling particularly generous at the moment.

1/5.

 

It's been a little while since I've read it, but I did leave a pretty extensive review on FF.com when I did, and the author (who seems to be a member here as well) responded in a well-thought-out manner. One of the things he wishes he did different was the RW arc. But remember, at the time this whole thing began, that idea in FF wasn't one of the seven signs of apocalypticly bad writers.

Compared to some of the stuff that has made it into the library, especially seeing the date this was started, I'd give it a 4/5, but I'm not going to officially rate it until I can reread it.

EDIT: It seems I rated a while back, and did give it a 4/5. Huh.