Title: Time to Spare
Author: EmySabath
Rating: K+
Category: General
Pairing: None
Chapters: 41
Words: 171,869
Updated: May 3, 2011
Published: August 17, 2005
Status: Complete
Summary: HBPcompliant rewrite of Time For Me. Voldemort has a plan to catch Harry out of bounds and cast a spell to send him back two hundred years, but all does not go as planned and Harry isn't as gone as he'd thought...
Link:http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2538955/1/

I think its pretty good so far. Harry and Draco becoming friends actually makes some sense in this one. It is post-HBP but the book doesn't affect the story that much since its time-travel. All in all, its pretty decent.



Checked by Minion, March 9, 2013

 

This looks good, I've started reading Time for Me but I never finished it. If your saying that this one is better then I'm really looking forwards to it.

 

Possibly my favourite back-to-marauders-time fic. I especially like Harry's personality in this fic, and he/she offers a logical explanation on the personality change! Although he changed kinda fast... oh well.

 

Sorry for bumping but I think not enough DLP members read it and maybe they should. The story now have 18 chapters and a solid 69483 words.
Harry and Malfoy now finished Hogwarts and start working in their new jobs. Snape and Harry both take the dark marks in the latest chapter.
In short this story is progressing in the good way and worth our time.

 

I've been reading this for a while. It's good, but I don't particularly like the characterization of Harry much. He's a bit too goody-goody.


Worth a look, though, definitly.

 

Its really good,keep it up

 

Ah, i was having trouble with this fic, too much Malfoy for my taste, and Harry changing was a bit quick. Beside, i don't like Marauder!Bashing, and it is too risky take the dark mark- you can't be 100% certain it doesn't contain a control charm, as Voldemort is surely better than you are at those things. Ah well...

EDITED

 

I rather like this story, especially about harry taking the dark mark to keep an eye on voldemort...

 

I really liked the beginning of it, but the most recent chapters haven't been keeping me interested as much. Draco's character seems a little out of place and ever since the whole bonding to Hogwarts thing, Harry's character has declined a bit IMO.

 

Something about the first few chapters of this story always seemed to deter me from reading it. Just the fact that Snape and Malfoy were apparently Harry's best buddies and Harry himself a death eater, and all that followed by the clichéd time-travel thing, was usually enough to do the trick. But now that I've finally gotten past the start and read the whole thing, I must say I was pleasantly surprised.

The best thing about this story is a nicely developed magical theory. Spellcrafting, warding and potions are all superbly conceived and implemented, intermingling with each other and leaving the feeling of a comprehensive and well thought-out setting.

Hand in hand with this comes Harry's character, or more specifically, his skills. The author managed a remarkable achievement of making Harry competent in something else other then Quidditch and ducking curses, and yet, keeping him remarkably in character, instead of turning him into either a clone of Hermione or Tom Riddle, like most authors do. Even though Harry is spending hours practicing spellcrafting and dueling, we never get a feeling that he's overpowered or perfect; just that he's gradually becoming competent in the fields he’s studying. Even in the subjects where he's average, like potions, he's not represented as a total bozo, needing Beaverhead to drag him by the dick through classes, while he’s lazing out and playing chess; Instead, he's simply doing an average job, finishing the potions but not making them very spectacular (like the majority of students). I find this a truly refreshing approach; more authors should try pulling off something like this.

As for "Sev" and "Draco", I didn't mind them much, but I must admit that I rarely do; As long as they keep their greasy dicks to themselves, they can be redeemed all they like. Luckily, they’ve largely stayed in character; Snape almost completely and Malfoy keeping his Slytherin traits and dropping off his jerk-like attitude.

Biggest downside of this story is that the author had foolishly transferred this from post-OOTP to post-HBP setting. Even with all her effort, you can see that some elements were left hanging, especially Harry's reaction towards "Sev" and Malfoy.

My other complaint is that the author has far too much ground left to cover; She had only completed one year, out of 19 years before the prologue hits... and then the real plot begins. Of course, she'll probably skip a lot once Voldy bites the dust, but still, I'm not so confident she'll manage to pull this through to the end.

Other than a few smaller problems, this is overall a very good story, unjustly overlooked by DLP until now. Grit your teeth through the first few chapters and see for yourself.

4.5/5

 

This is the best DeathEater!Harry I have read but it has major problems. Voldemort and Dumbledore's characterisation is poor and they both come off as a bunch of idiots and the angst is unbearable. And the worst problem with this fic is Harry's name is changed to Aries and he is referred to as that throughout the fic. It felt as if as I was reading about an OC rather than Harry. Changing the name of Harry is a complete fail and thats not even mentioning the cringeworthy friendship between Harry, Malfoy and Snape.

2/5

 

I actually enjoyed this book. Warning - this review contains spoilers. If you want to read it, which I recommend, do it before reading this!

First up, yes the setup is a bit contrived. Why would Voldemort think that sending Harry back in time was a good thing to do? Even if he had gone back 200 years as intended, Harry could have set up all sorts of things to thwart Voldemort. Bizarre, but most launching points for fanfiction are barely believable so I'm happy to give the author that one. It sets up an intriguing fic for me. The unlikely trio of Draco, Snape and Harry is told well. Snape's back story is fleshed out nicely and an effort made to reconcile Dumbledore's faith with Snape's death eater ways without the Lily connection introduced in DH. They are all slightly OOC, but recognisable. I was frustrated with the lack of interaction with the marauders or Dumbledore, but it worked well. The author managed to convey the darker side of the marauder/pranking culture (basically, bullying and isolating the victim) without making them seem inauthentic, which is a challenge.

One of the biggest attractions of the book was the clear thinking behind the time travel elements and magic in general. The author lays out a theory for both and the story is pretty consistent with them throughout. Time travel can be particularly difficult to pull off well, with most authors taking a deus ex machina approach of a fully aware actor going back to prevent all the bad stuff that could happen easily. There's none of that here, it's more like the time-turner version of time travel in which the time traveller cannot alter the things they've already witnessed. This is pretty much the only thing that could make sense of Harry's decision to alienate himself from the "light" side and keeping an eye on Voldemort by becoming a Death Eater - neither seem logical without reasoning that he can't actually prevent any of the bad stuff he knows will happen, so he's best off learning as much as he can about the horcruxes from within Voldemort's ranks. Given the horrible things that Harry knows about but cannot prevent, there's actually relatively little angst, if anything not really enough particularly about his parents.

The theory of magic is also interesting. Harry's chosen profession of spell crafting is totally non-canon but it fits well, and is a great choice. I enjoyed his extended explanation of warding and runes, of Dark Magic vs dark magic, and the new non-canon magic in the books is cool.

I also really liked the whole identity swapping approach. Harry and Draco grab the opportunity to create new personalities for themselves, and they both make a lot of sense particularly in the post-HBP setting of the book. Harry would love to be able to shed the Chosen One image in favour of quiet anonymity, and does so. Malfoy was clearly questioning the wisdom of becoming a Death Eater and grabs at the chance to start fresh. Of the two, Malfoy's transformation into a Gryffindor was less believable but not offensively so. Harry's is totally believable and for me really well done. The degree of transformation in character is reinforced by the use of their alternate names throughout the book, allowing both to truly become the person they'd invented for themselves. The author plays with this concept of what makes a character a few times, most effectively with the light side hero Harry doing some dark things as Aries.

There are some grammatical and spelling errors sprinkled throughout, but not enough to dent my enjoyment. Overall, the plot and characterisations are well conceived and well written. 4/5 for me.