Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past

I'm copying my reviews from FF.net here, where they won't be quite so lost among the one-liners and squeeing. Hope that's all right.

This is a very impressive fic, so far (I haven't read past the chapter I'm reviewing, and will continue to review as I go along whenever I feel inspired to). Given the high quality of your craftsmanship, I'm not surprised to see in your notes that you've also written novels for publication; I've only read a couple of other fan-fics as well-written as this, one of which (Monkeymouse's Or Die Trying) was also by a professional author (though not of fiction -- Monkeymouse is Patrick Drazen, author of a pop-scholarly work called Anime Explosion! The What? Why? & Wow! of Japanese Animation).

The only thing that's really bothered me so far is your characterization of Snape. I understand that this fic was started shortly after HBP came out, and obviously you were in the camp that took the "proof" of Snape's villainy at face value, just as Harry and all the rest of the characters did. I take some pride in having reasoned out almost precisely what Rowling was doing by the time I turned the last page of HBP: I maintained, until DH came out and proved me right, that (1) Snape killed Dumbledore on Dumbledore's orders; (2) Dumbledore had no more than hours to live in any case due to the potion he'd consumed, the curse on his hand, or both; (3) Snape loved Lily Potter, and the real reason that the pensieve scene in OOTP was his "worst memory" was that it was the day he'd called Lily a Mudblood and killed their friendship. I did not, of course, realize the full significance of what Dumbledore had done, because Rowling provided no information about the Elder Wand or the inherent difficulty of destroying a Horcrux until the final book. I figured the plan was for Snape, having won as much trust as Voldemort ever gives anyone by slaying Dumbledore, to backstab the Dark Lord at the moment when his betrayal would do the maximum possible damage, enabling Harry to prevail.

Of course, the rationale for your fic could not be compliant with DH; it requires a far longer, more devastating war than actually happened in canon. However, one could change a couple of crucial plot points in DH to achieve the same goal; if Voldemort had gotten true control of the Elder Wand, for example, he might well have ended up destroying Hogwarts when its people failed to capitulate, recovered at least one Horcrux (the diadem, probably) before Harry could eliminate it, and waged the campaign of terror that sets up your story. I would have been very interested to see how you wrote the time-travelling Harry's relationship with the canonical, not at all nice but ultimately good version of Snape. (Shades of Into the Woods: "Nice is different than good;" "You're so nice. You're not good, you're not bad, you're just nice. I'm not good, I'm not nice, I'm just right! I'm the witch, you're the world.")

So why did Harry not kill Snape, preserving the time line?

Very good. I love it that Harry is taking action.

gunny

ive been reading this bit by bit mostly at my school library, so i havent had a chance to review...

anyway, i think this story is actually...very good...lol. the idea behind it is very interesting. it's fun reading everything from the books all over again, but with everything else we know from canon being applied to change/fix things...haha.

however...one thing that took some getting used to for me was the addition of Neville in the "core group" so to speak. at first, it was nice that Harry was helping him out, but then after a while, i got bothered by it because it sort of ruined the whole idea of the "Trio" between Harry, Ron and Hermione...

but oh well.

time to continue reading...:D

Each chapter is more fun than the one before it. I can't do better anywhere.

After stupefying snape, why didn't Harry cast Legilimens on him before obliviating him? Could have found out a whole lot of stuff like that, including, but not limited to snape's agenda!

hmmmm every part of this awsome cept my personal hatred when ron and hermoine get hooked up...well for that case when any1 but harry gets hooked up with hermoine dont know why just dont seem right.
moving along now...
awsome well written well done congrats!
if u write more im sure no1 will be complaining!

omg very good very good
write more it awsome
maybe harry comes clean to dumbledore and tells him?
or talks to him bout the order of the phoenix stuff like that

Are you editing the chapters any before you post them here? I read the six chapters you have posted and I was so hooked that I went to PS.Net and read the other fourteen last night.

I want to save a copy of this for my collection but there is no point in doing that if you are editing the PS chapters before posting them here.

I look forward to more updates.

Treck

Wow!
Whatever you do, DO NOT stop, don't take any breaks, feed intraveniously if you have to but DO keep writing (and publishing) HPatNoFP. The characters are so real I feel as though I can touch them - and the Harry/Tonks swansong left me in tears. Its incredibly refreshing to read a story when you know the story but you know that you won't really know what's going to happen. . . Doncha LOVE a good paradox?

When you flash back to someone's death in Harry's nightmares of day-bad-dreams, it breaks my heart.

This is so very clever.

So well written.

You left the comments in the text!

J