Potential. That word definitely fits this story.

We've got a very interesting situation here. The Dark Lord at Hogwarts at the same time as Harry Potter, in the perfect position to wreak havoc on the time-line, even if he has no memory of his future self.

Let's ignore the Soul Bond Foreshadowing in emotion sharing, and possible future slash for a moment.

The young Riddle sometimes seems like what he once became, but other times he's just a mere shadow. The Hogwarts Letter Sequence pales in comparison with the one from HBP, despite the fact that what we get to see of the alternate up-bringing fails to explain this change.

Tom's attitude at the beginning of his Hogwarts career was very enjoyable. First impressions of Harry weren't all that good however, but that changed later on.

I have an issue with the staff's general reaction to Tom's appearance. Suddenly someone appears at Hogwarts with Voldemort's original given name, with a conspicuous lack of surname and general record, an unpleasant attitude and great magic skills. They're suspicious, as they should be. But nothing gets done until the first Petrification. WTF? It could have been quite easy to feat the students some BS about a Magical Accident, and take Tom aside for investigation. Even Dumbledore isn't that naive to let two Voldemorts run free in Hogwarts.

First year was pretty mediocre, I thought. Reading about Tom's suspicion regarding Potter's actions doesn't capture much attention, because the situation was obviously going to resolve itself. The canon compliant ending was also rather disappointing. Developments regarding Neville were excellent though.

Second year, on the other hand, started out on the strong foot. The meeting with Harry was quite entertaining, despite the possible relationship foreshadowing. The plots with Malfoy and Dumbledore showed much promise, and the memory dreams showed that Tom's obliviousness was coming to a close. Things started going down-hill after Harry spoke Parseltongue in public like an idiot, without trying to find a different way to get rid of the offending snake. Tom's brain mysteriously shut down after Ginny stole the Diary from him. He could have found many different ways out of the situation, but yet he just ignored Ginny and allowed her to keep a very suspicious magical object that was obviously connected with important events. And he accuses Harry Potter of complacency? What a hypocrite!

Again we're treated to a cloned ending, and Ginny's little explanation for her actions was flawed at best. The climatic meeting between the two Toms was well executed, but Diary-Tom shouldn't have come out as such a clear victor, IMO.

The future seems pretty clear from here, it seems. Our protagonist will become less and less of a bastard. We're going to get a repentant Tom, who wants to step away from his supposed father's evil deeds, some angst when he realises his identity, and Potter butt-sex. But superb writing skills and boredom on my part will probably force me to stay on board a little while longer, if the story gets off hiatus.

On the whole, this fic is just another AU that consists of an interesting idea, and a clone of major canon events. The Butterfly Effect can bring much life to these stories, but the authors always make sure to keep the status quo. This one is well above average in some aspects, but the cons more than equal the pros.

3/5

 

Lol the jack in the box imagery made me chuckle.

This story is seriously one of the best ever written in fanfiction. I think that this story is well on par with the stranger trilogy (which is the standard of comparison I use in my fanfic judgement). It has a great almost hypnotic writing, superb characterization, a tight plot, well done pacing... It's a great story and I've read it, no slash so that's not an exuse to trash it without reading. I read all 100k in one night. That's how interesting it was.

Give this a try. 5/5