Title: Wrath of Merlin
Author: O'Shea
Rating: Mature
Genre: Adventure
Status: Complete
Library Category: General Fics
Pairings: Harry/Ginny
Summary: Deep within the Department of Mysteries, a clandestine unit dedicates itself to the destruction of Voldemort's surviving forces in the aftermath of the Wizarding War. This group, lead by Harry Potter, does not officially exist. But for those who fight the darkness that threatens to engulf their world, it has a name, heard only in the shadows: Operation Wrath of Merlin
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7015057/1/Wrath-of-Merlin

Some folks in the Almost Recommended thread think this is worth being in the Library. I disagree, but I only read a few chapters before I quit, so take it with a grain of salt.

For all its pomp, the summary does explain the general premise very well. To wit, Harry Potter leads a black ops group of wizards hunting down the remnants of Voldemort's forces after the war. The group includes two Unspeakables, named X and Y at the start of the story, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Arthur Weasley.

The story flips between Ginny's and Harry's perspectives as they deal with their new status quo. Ginny's part is essentially pinning after Harry, who couldn't tell anyone what he was doing. The reason for why is as stupid as it is simple: Harry gets to use Dark Magic to kill Voldemort's remaining Death Eaters. I don't know why he needed to cutoff contact with everyone to do this, but whatever. Now if Harry's sections were actually about this then I might give the story a pass, but instead they come across to me as overwrought angst porn because Harry wants to be with Ginny and can't--see above stupid reason as to why.

I don't like this story. The foundation is fine, but the rest is a mess. I like the idea of a black ops group of wizards doing shady stuff, but all the potential that idea has gets wasted. The author is trying really hard to have Harry come across as this grizzled bad-ass that I can't help but laugh at how ridiculous it comes off as. The transitions between Harry's and Ginny's PoV are not done well either. You get a name and a line break and are thrown right into the (not) action. It's clunky at best.

The only positives as far as I can tell is that the story is complete at 22 chapters, clocking in at just under 90K words. It isn't that much of a time investment in comparison to some other stories, so I could see at as a fic to read when there isn't anything else.

The writing quality itself wasn't bad enough for me to close the tab within the first few sentences, so I suppose there's that too.

2/5: Interesting premise that was executed poorly. Kind of dopey storytelling. But it's complete and has enough there to be a decent time-waster if you can get past the other bits.

 

This is the kind of story that I would have loved had I read it about 5 years ago. Now it's just a mildly entertaining popcorn fic. 2.5/5 ish.

 

I've read around 2/3rds of it and am losing interest. It was fine when Harry was morally conflicted, but then the author had him go all murderdeathkill and now Harry doesn't feel even remotely like Harry Potter. Meh.

In other news, Ginny is still sitting around and doing absolutely nothing. I have no idea why the story cuts to her POV so often.

The dialogue isn't done very well. There are long stretches of nothing but dialogue which really needs some getting used to, but you do get used to it in a while.

The action stuff is fine. Far from amazing, but still fine.

The story as a whole shows glimmers of potential -- my review in the AR thread was written after a couple of pretty good chapters -- bit overall it isn't a very satisfactory read. Harry's killing spree killed a lot of my interest in the story.

A competent-ish time waster. I'll edit in a rating after I'm done.

EDIT: 3/5 seems about right. There are some enjoyable moments for sure. The plot isn't half bad, and with better writing this could have been library material. As such, Almost Recommended seems like the appropriate place for it.

 

The story is average in every sense of the word; the idea of black ops units and clandestine operations in HP felt jarring, but luckily the story goes with it and actually comes up with an interesting plot.

The stories centers mostly around Harry, Ginny, Kingsley and the two OC Unspeakables, codenamed "X" and "Y". It does a decent job of exploring dark and powerful spells and it's certainly gritty, like the author promised it would be. Especially towards the end we get to see some pretty interesting fights. Likewise, Harry's slipping humanity was nicely done without coming off too angsty.

The cons in the story, and what keeps it average, would probably be: 1) it's length, which could have been shorted down and still having kept the same story. 2) Harry and Ginny's relationship. While I don't really dislike Ginny, like some on this board do, I didn't see much point to her side of the story. She was the damsel in distress at best, which I thought was doing her a disservice compared to books. And that brings me to the last point: 3) nearly everyone is completely buffed up magic-vise. The magic that the Unspeakables and the villain(s) bring to the table seem too powerful, compared to the nearly uneventful confrontation between Harry and Voldemort's in the books, being the Master of the Hallows and prophies aside. There is a lack of consistancy in the story, when it feels like that the Death Eaters here seem much more powerful than Voldemort was.

All in all, it was fun to ses the old Department of Mysteries being a clandestine force again; it's certainly been a while since I've seen that trope. Although Summer of Change still did it way better, even with magical auras and the fluff.

Epic moment:

Spoiler

Where Harry enchanted the centaurs' sword with fire and charged an undead Inferi horde.

3/5