#fireandgold fanfic reviews

[firendgold]

The fifth fanfic review/recommendation goes to Lemon Drops and Blood Pops by Toki Mirage! Avid blog-followers may recall me mentioning a personal top-five best Albus/Harry stores... yes? Good, this one's included in that ranking.

One of Lemon Drops' best features takes two commonly annoying HP fanfic tropes and does them right: namely creature!Harry and snarky!Harry. The Harry of this story is a super-competent assassin, half-vampire, and expert killer who accidentally ports himself into an alternate dimension, and must deal with the fallout once he realizes exactly what new time and place he's ended up in.

Similar to Ephemeral Time, Harry lands in the Grindelwald era and must deal with the budding darkness in Tom Riddle as well as his own unfinished business with Dumbledore—but unlike ET, we see Harry spend a lot longer establishing his new identity in this world, with a unique job I have yet to see redone in any other fanfic.

Although I mentioned Harry is snarky, it's not in the indy!Harry way that has so many experienced writers rolling their eyes. Harry has been hardened by his experiences and is more jaded than in canon, but he is still kind and cares for those he considers his 'family', and he's also quick to take initiative and seek change—all traits that appeal to Albus. His vampirism is also a running theme in the fic without feeling overdone or just thrown in to make Harry "special" or "different".

Albus is pretty similar in some ways to canon, but because we are seeing him from an adult's perspective we get some fun additional insight on his feelings and behavior from both canon and the fanfic itself.

(Oh, and did I mention there's some very nice Harry/Albus, er, physical development in this fanfic~? *wink*)

Lemon Pops also just... has everything. Staff infighting. Vampire covens. Found family. Broomstick lore. Humor that's really really funny. Love triangles. The friggin' mafia. You name it, it's there.

So yeah. If you haven't already stumbled upon this gem, consider me the airhorn at your ear begging you in capslock to just... read this fanfic. Just read it.

[firendgold]

The third fanfic in this review/rec series is Mystical Magician’s Ephemeral Time, and it’s in my top five favorite Harry Potter/Albus Dumbledore fanfics of all time, so buckle up, kids.

First published in 2009 and updated for about 4 years afterward, this fic has the honor of being among what I consider the “golden age” time travel harrydore fics of the 2010s. This is because it is wonderfully written, and has everything that I feel defines the ship: secret-keeping, mysteries, conflict, intrigue and inevitable attraction woven through all that. 

The basic premise: in a bad end timeline, Harry uses a ritual to go back in time and stop Voldemort before he really gets started. And although that part of the plan doesn’t give him too much trouble, once he runs into Albus Dumbledore he quickly finds he’s got much more to deal with than one budding Dark Lord.

Ephemeral Time really does have a little of everything. For fans who want a Harry that’s skilled and powerful and shows it, they get it. For fans who want a Harry who’s not a complete automaton and who has to deal with nightmares and PTSD and healing from everything that’s happened to him so far, they get that too. For fans who want to see a realistic slow-burn of Harry and Albus’ developing relationship, they get that in spades. And for fans who want to see Harry clash with the likes of Grindelwald and his minions... well, they don’t quite get that, but it’s clear that’s where the fic was going, and the agents of Grindelwald’s that Harry does fight get to see why you shouldn’t mess with the Boy-Who-Lived.

The slow-burn romance aspect has been mentioned before but deserves another highlight. Fanfics can vacillate between developing their relationships way too fast or so slowly that the readers lose interest or patience, but the year’s time the fic takes place over makes Harry and Albus’ compassion and care for each other stand out and feel very authentic.

Although the fic is currently unfinished, it still stands the test of time fourteen years later as one of the best Albus/Harry stories ever told. I highly, highly recommend every fan of this ship read it.

[firendgold]

more fic reviews coming!

I was thinking—I come from a time where I decided on whether I was going to read a fic based on the summary and the ship only, but lots of people nowadays prefer a more detailed summary of what they’re getting into than the AO3 tags or FFN character limit can give them. 

It might be a good idea to start reviewing older time travel harrydore fics I read long ago, so newer fans can get a more detailed idea of what they’re about, and be more willing to give them a shot.

(And tbh I was really inspired by that Shiny and Blue recommendation post, because even though I found the fic before that, I can only imagine how many people it has impacted!)

What do y’all think?

[firendgold]

The sixth fanfic review/recommendation is for Impundulu by Alim Siemanym!

Unfortunately this one clocks in at just one chapter and is incomplete, but imo it deserves praise because (like other time travel harrydore fics) it is so well-written and really sparks the imagination. It joins the annals of so many what-could-have-been HP fanfic greats.

Premise is short and simple: in a world where the war with Voldemort brought Muggle attention to the magical world, the entire trio go back in time to fix what he broke. The author promises "time travel slash, vampires, werewolves, and basilisks, oh my" and just the thought of the trio fighting Grindelwald and Nazis has my writer side salivating.

Dear author, poke this blog really hard if you ever come back to this idea, eh?

[firendgold]

The fourth fanfic review/recommendation goes to Mystical Magician’s Last Words! This one is short and sweet, so I’ll do my best to talk it up without spoiling the whole thing for those curious. 

Like the other fics in this rec series, time travel is the primary method to bring Harry and Albus together—but unlike a lot of the others (minus Planning Behind), the time travel is less of a single event and more of a repeating cycle that ebbs and flows like the tide. This means that Harry gets to “drop in” on pivotal moments in Albus’ life, and we the reader get to see how they do (or don’t) change.

Saying any more would spoil, but I highly highly recommend you give it a read. All of Mystical Magician’s stuff is fabulous and this one is a part of that ‘all’.