Harry Potter Harry Potter: HERO OF HOGWARTS

[esran]

note: i decided to put this fic on hiatus for awhile because i am unhappy with my writing skills. i will come back to it eventually.
A/N: Consider this a rough draft/proof of concept

Forward:
Three months ago I was surprised to find that I was in the will of the late Harry Potter. It had been years since we had last talked, and I had assumed he would leave everything to his children. As it turned out he only left me one thing: a large collection of journals which held his memoirs, along with instructions to “Publish these, so that the world can know my true story instead of the rubbish they think happened.” Looking through the memoirs I found they were incomplete, unedited, and clearly written over a large period of time, not in any sort of chronological order. I had long since decided not to share my particular story and opinion of Harry’s supposed “adventures”, but since he took the time to write them down I decided to honor his wishes. I spent the last few months editing, annotating to clarify certain parts, and doing the best I could to put into chronological order his words so that they could be published, and shared with the Wizarding World. And so, by his dying wish, I present to you the story of Harry James Potter in his own words.
-Hermione Granger

 

[esran]

Introduction:
My name is Harry James Potter. You probably know me as the guy that vanquished Voldemort, the man who lived to help others, the perfect altruist, and the greatest hero of Wizarding Britian. Hundreds of stories have been told about me. People talk about how my duel with Voldemort was even more amazing than Dumbledor’s duel against Grindelwald. People discuss how I hunted down all seven of Voldemorts horcruxes, fighting dementors, inferi, and dragons. People speak in awe about how even in my earliest years I fought against dark forces to save Hogwarts. I can hardly go a day without somebody asking for my autograph. I can’t walk through Diagon Alley without somebody wanting to shake my hand and thank me for their lives. The way people talk about me you would think I was the bravest, strongest, and most benevolent wizard since Merlin. But you would be wrong. Almost every story told about me is false, altered, or embellished. Most of what people think I did with bravery and strength was actually cowardice and selfishness. When people think I fought I really ran and hid. I have no accomplishments that weren’t mainly luck. I never went on a single “adventure” that I didn’t hopelessly stumble through while frantically scrambling to escape. It baffles me to this day that after years of being the biggest coward in Griffyndor, I was labeled anything similar to a hero. I’m Harry James Potter, and this is my story.

 

[Hardcore Heathen]

I have the strangest feeling that you've read the Caiaphas Cain novels.

Other than that: you have a number of punctuation issues for such a small amount of text.

People talk about how my duel with Voldemort was even more amazing then Dumbledor’s dueled Grindlewald.

This sentence doesn't make sense. "Then" should be "than" because you're making a comparison, not talking about a chronological sequence of events, and "dueled" should be "duel with."

A lot of the sentences feel short and clipped, and this also doesn't sound a whole lot like Harry or Hermione. You need a lot more text than this to have anything resembling a story or even a rough draft.

 

[pidl]

Might be an interesting fic, but I don't think transplanting Cain's personality on Harry will be easy or plausible. Cain gets away with his 'cowardice' because he isn't actually close enough to anybody for them to notice (except Jurgen, but he's Jurgen). This probably wouldn't work with Harry, especially since you mention he's got kids.

 

[bissek]

Might be an interesting fic, but I don't think transplanting Cain's personality on Harry will be easy or plausible. Cain gets away with his 'cowardice' because he isn't actually close enough to anybody for them to notice (except Jurgen, but he's Jurgen). This probably wouldn't work with Harry, especially since you mention he's got kids.

Ever read the Alcatraz Smedry books? That's effectively what they are.

 

[esran]

AN: yes the cahpters are short for now. i'm going to try to go back later and make them longer, as well as fix the spelling and grammer errors. for now im just trying to see if the idea works at all.
AN2: i cant figure out how to do something like subscripts, so for now annotations are given as *number.
AN3: the 2 listed fake accidental magic incidents are placeholders until i can think of better ones.

Chapter 1 early childhood part 1:
I should probably start by writing about my life before Hogwarts. I rarely talk about it with anyone, and as a side effect there are numerous misconceptions being spread as fact around the wizarding world. Everybody seems to think the Dursleys, the muggle family that raised me, were abusive, and no amount of me telling them otherwise seems to shake this belief. I will just say, once and for all, that the Dursley family was perfectly normal*1. Also everybody seems to think I preformed incredible and miraculous feats of accidental magic. One particularly outrageous story claims that I rescued a muggle village from an automobile. Apparently its controllers had “lost control” causing it to “go rogue” and start a rebellion. Another story claims to have proof that I “withered a child” that had “disturbed” my pool of water. Most likely, every story you have heard about my use of accidental magic is untrue. The most impressive thing I ever did was a make a teacher go bald, and he had all his hair back the next day*2. It wasn’t until I received my Hogwarts letter that I even knew I had magic.

1 I only met the Dursleys once, but I can testify that they were quite normal. The most normal family I have ever seen. Disgustingly normal. Their house literally looked precisely identical to every other house in the neighborhood.
2 Most likely because of the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad.

 

[esran]

AN: next snippet will include the troll incident, which hopefully will be more interesting than this.

Chapter 1 part 2
The entire train ride to Hogwarts was filed with people running up and down the corridors, looking in every compartment, and moving people’s hair aside to check for the telltale scar. Afterwards they would stare at my scar for a few seconds, then look at me all squinty eyed and ask me “are you really Harry Potter?” After a few times I decided to just tell everyone “no”. that was how I met Hermoine Granger, who was apparently smart enough to realize both that I was in fact Harry Potter, and that being friends with the Harry Potter would greatly improve her status*1. I also met Ron Weasley. I don’t remember how but I think it had something to do with large quantities of candy. And with that the legendary trio was born, and would remain inseparable throughout Hogwarts because none of us had any other friends*2.
1 I choose to take this as a compliment
2 I actually had many friends, but they were muggles so I quickly lost touch

The sorting ceremony was long, boring, and was one of the most important events in determining someone’s future prospects. Despite being in a large open room with hundreds of people staring at me, people still managed to make up wild and fantastical stories about what took place. This probably had something to do with the fact that my personal sorting took over ten minutes. Most people agreed that during those ten minutes I faced terrible quandaries and had to make the ultimate decision between good and evil, and I supported this story because it was much more dignified then the truth. In reality, the sorting took over ten minutes because I didn’t fit into any of the houses. Apparently the founders didn’t consider that they might need a house for stupid, cowardly, unambitious, and disloyal people. After a while it abruptly, and without explaining its reasoning, sorted me into Gryffindor. After everyone else was sorted, the headmaster stood up and declared “Nitwit, blubber, oddment, tweak”, and those words stayed with me until this day because somehow I was certain that they were personal insults directed at me.

Classes at Hogwarts must have been completely unregulated, because every teacher had a dramatically different teaching style. In potions Professor Snape would start each class by taking attendance, and then spend most of class ranting about how he couldn’t teach us anything because we were dunderheads. He completed each class by giving an arbitrary number of points to Slitherin, and taking an arbitrary number of points from Gryffindor. In transfigurations, professor McGonagall would give each of us the object we were expected to transfigure, and then proceed to ignore everybody who failed. When somebody finally succeeded she would praise them, and then give them the next object. On the first day of transfiguration she gave each of us a matchstick and told us to turn it into a needle. Hermione succeeded immediately gaining 5 points. I asked her for help, so she demonstrated by turning my matchstick into a needle. Professor McGonagall gave me five points having assumed I had transfigured it myself*1. Professor Flitwick of charms class was actually a rather good teacher, but taught almost exclusively theory teaching almost no spells at all first year. He also apparently thought the ability to make a pineapple dance was extremely important. I don’t need to tell you about the history ghost since he’s probably still teaching. And finally*2, in defense class Professor Quirrell stuttered so much it gave me a headache.
1 I think Professor McGonagall saw exactly what happened and was being as biased but slightly more subtle than Professor Snape.
2 actually we had 3 other classes that year that Harry does not bother to describe.

 

[pidl]

Contents are nice, wall-of-text is not. You should split it up in more paragraphs.

Might be an interesting fic, but I don't think transplanting Cain's personality on Harry will be easy or plausible. Cain gets away with his 'cowardice' because he isn't actually close enough to anybody for them to notice (except Jurgen, but he's Jurgen). This probably wouldn't work with Harry, especially since you mention he's got kids.

Ever read the Alcatraz Smedry books? That's effectively what they are.

Never read them, so don't know how much they have in common with this story, but this fic is basically Ciaphas Cain in Hogwarts.

 

[bissek]

Contents are nice, wall-of-text is not. You should split it up in more paragraphs.

Might be an interesting fic, but I don't think transplanting Cain's personality on Harry will be easy or plausible. Cain gets away with his 'cowardice' because he isn't actually close enough to anybody for them to notice (except Jurgen, but he's Jurgen). This probably wouldn't work with Harry, especially since you mention he's got kids.

Ever read the Alcatraz Smedry books? That's effectively what they are.

Never read them, so don't know how much they have in common with this story, but this fic is basically Ciaphas Cain in Hogwarts.

Alcatraz Smedry is Brandon Sanderson's (Of Mistborn fame) answer to Harry Potter. It's written as the self-deprecating memoirs of the title character, writing about how he grew up to be considered a hero in the war against the evil librarians who rule the Hushlands, equipped only with a number of magical spectacles and his family's ability to weaponize their peculiar personal faults (Losing things, being late, dancing badly, getting lost, etc. Alcatraz's talent is breaking things)

 

[Glimmervoid]

I've tried a Ciaphas Cain/Flashman story myself (Joseph Abel, World's Bravest Man! set in the Whateley Universe) so I'm a bit practised at this.

As others have said, work on formatting and basic writing rules. Doing speech properly isn't very hard, despite what you High School English teacher might have let you think. For a quick primer read this. It tells you the basics of correct grammar when using speech. For something longer and covering more topics give this a read. A few parts are MLP:FiM specific but most of it is good, solid writing advice. Well worth your time.

On the good side, you've got a nice voice and rhythm when it comes to Harry's narration. Just split it up more and consider writing in large chunks. Doing speech properly will help with this problem. That lets you see how things fit together and makes it easier to see a continuous story.