Title: The Blood On My Hands... It Scares Me To Death
Fandoms: HP/Marvel (starts after the first Avengers)
Author: RosemaryRabbit AO3

Summary: The fight against Voldemort went on for years. In the final confrontation, Harry found himself not at King's Cross, but in a whole different world - one without wizards, and without magic. He flew under the radar for two years, but when the Chitauri invaded Harry couldn't help but act. His attempt to protect civilians caught the attention of SHIELD.

After meeting the Avengers, Harry quickly finds himself entangled in far more than he bargained for. All he wanted was a safe place to stay off the streets during the winter. When Fenrir comes to Midgard and Loki escapes his prison, things get far more complicated than anyone expected. [Taken from AO3]

I'm usually hesitant to recommend anything on DLP because my tastes are not what this forum looks for, but when I first stumbled across this, it was one of my favorite HP fics. Now that it's updated half a dozen times or so, I feel comfortable putting it up for review. Not to mention it's got one chapter to go and sitting at a nice 105k.

Beyond the basic "Harry goes to another universe after Voldemort AK'ing him" conceit, the author has a steady hand regarding tone and characterization. It deals with trauma but nobody's been infantilized, it's not wangst, and the author obviously has a grasp of what normal people do around strangers, which fics of this nature don't usually have.

Harry's magic in the MCU is pretty paired down, and there's some interesting applications of runic magic and such. It fits well within the MCU, I think.

Grammar and spelling are clean beyond an infrequent typo or two.

Because it caters to my particular taste so well, I'd personally give it a 5/5, but from a more objective lens, a 4.5/5 rounded down if this genre isn't your thing.

 

Is this another one of those seemingly ubiquitous Harry + Loki crossovers?

 

Loki's pretty much only mentioned briefly in this, so no lol.

 

Read the first two chapters; very PTSD and hurt/comfort focused. Technical side of things were well done, but otherwise not my cup of tea.

 

Don’t know why but the HP/Avengers stories tend to attract Hurt/Comfort genre like desis to jalebi.

Might be the propensity of gorgeous hunky men.

Might be Maybeline.

 

Fairly well written, but it's for people that consider the hurt/comfort genre to be porn - if you're not much into it, this is not the story for you. We're one step away from fetal position in someone's lap here. 3/5.

 

The majority of this story is just about Harry's suffering. This could be half the length it is now and not miss anything of importance.

Won't actually rate because it's not my type of story and that would feel unfair, but I'd give it a 2/5.

 

It’s the usual hurt/comfort/PTSD dunk in depression with a side of slow paced, dry, prose. It’s hardly engaging and doesn’t really do anything new to try. It hit every single stop on the HP/Marvel hurt/comfort road with absolute precision. I could have read a dozen other fics just like it. That said, the take on the magic is interesting, but that’s about the only real plus here.

2.5/5 for technical quality.

 

My biggest problem with this fic is that the story it alludes to - Harry and Ron going hardcore on Death Eaters with esoteric rune magic after Hermione's death, with Bill and Fleur as significant characters - is way more interesting than Harry being sad in the proximity of the Avengers. There's one really great scene of Harry losing himself fighting Fenrir which just feels like a tease for a much better story before it immediately resets to more Harry being sad for several thousand words of introspection.

 

I liked it well enough. I skimmed over anything overly angsty. It has some problems, but one issue that stuck with me is that the world Harry is pulled from is an AU. Not because it's AU, but that it's not obvious just how AU it is until pertinent to the plot. This makes it hard to get an estimation of what Harry is capable of. We only learn that Harry participated in a dangerous and dark ritual with Ron to gift them more power when the after-effects of it flare up while fighting Fenrir. I wish there was more foreshadowing on that front (it's also fully plausible I missed something while skimming). The rune system is very cool. It does kind of feel cop-out-y that Harry can basically substitute blood for a wand, but I won't complain much on that. Technical writing is fine. This largest problem with this story is definitely the sheer amount of angst. I can deal with the Hurt/Comfort genre, but this much woe-is-me is exhausting.

3/5

It's alright. The good parts are good.

 

2.5/5 seems accurate. 3/5 if I'm feeling generous.

I rated it 3 anyway, to compensate for any bias I might have; hurt/comfort fics are not my thing. Especially since I just recently finished my binge on Attack on Titan.

Harry's... "brokenness", for lack of a better word, is... well, I don't know many war veterans, but I think it's way too exaggerated.

Objectively speaking, however, I feel the biggest flaw of this fic is that the author doesn't seem to understand that if something isn't relevant to the story, you shouldn't put it there. It's a beginner mistake, trying to fill out the wordcount by adding unnecessary filler.

Oh, and Harry deciding to stay in the Stark Tower was awkwardly-executed. It feels forced, like it was done only for the sake of the plot; it was, but that doesn't mean it should feel so.

Other than that, not much to say. I dropped it pretty early on.

It's possible the author improves, given that this is a 105k fic, but I wouldn't bet on it. The only fic I've ever read over the course of writing which its author made vast progress is A Cloudy Path (a Worm fic).

 

I got to chapter six before throwing in the towel. It's not that it's particularly bad, I've read some truly terrible things where I gave up half way through, but if I had to describe it in one word I'd probably choose bland. Or uninspired.

It loses points for the tired, dog-eared use of magical cores, and the inevitable magical exhaustion that comes with it. It loses more for the clumsy way it tries to portray Harry's conflict over whether to trust or not, whether to reveal everything or nothing, how it trots out his "saving people thing" and his "saying I'm fine when really I'm not" which can be used well, but aren't in this case.

The approach to how runic magic was uninspired, like the author had picked up a fifteen page primer in a new age shop - you know, between the incense and the quartz crystals - and shrugged and said, good enough.

This is the point in a review where I would say the things I liked about it but I'm drawing a blank. The problem with all the points it loses are there are few, if any, it gains. When I try to think of positives all that comes to mind are more negatives. I found the flashbacks, or dreams, tedious to wade through, the wandless magic unearned, the portrayal of the avengers inaccurate, but the most damning thing was that it was boring.

1/5