Title: As Black As Night
Author: Roses and Lavender
Rating: M
Genre: Drama & Family
Status: Completed (250k words)
Library Category: Alternate Universe
Pairings: x

Summary: The House of Black still stands. The House of Black will always stand. But what happened after Halloween 1981? Dynastic feuds, family politics and maybe, just maybe, a hope which can be found in the dark of night, and the darkest of hearts. Not your typical Sirius-has-a-daughter story.

Link: FanFiction.Net

I noticed the review board was looking kinda empty so I figured I'd go through my favorites list to see if there was anything on there that's not already here. As Black As Night is what I came up with.

I read this story a while ago and it has to be said that it's not one of those great stories that stays with you. I enjoyed reading it enough at the time that I read the sequel as well though, so it was good enough to keep me captivated for about 400K words.

I started a reread before posting here because the story has to have held up and my memory of the story was a bit foggy, but I'm far enough into the story again now that it's coming back to me so here goes.


As Black As Night is basically a character driven 'canon rehash' from the perspective of the various members of the Black family, with the main protagonist being Annie/Maia Black, Sirius' daughter (with Marlene of course, because that's how we role in the fandom).

After the events at Godric's Hollow (which the fic thankfully doesn't show 'cos we've all read that about 1200 times), Annie Black is in Remus' care. Remus can't handle raising her because of what Sirius has allegedly done, so he goes to Dumbledore. Dumbledore in his eternal wisdom decides to give her to Marius Black and his wife Caroline. Cue childhood years, some drama with Remus gettin back into 'Maia's' life as a random tutor before being chased of for being the big bad wolf by Cassiopeia Black who has learned of Annie's existence and decides to take a hand in raising the last true black. Hogwarts years follow, but the focus is not really on the stuff we all know happened. Instead the story expands to include the rest of the blacks like Narcissa, Tonks and eventually of course Sirius.


For me, this fic shines when it comes to characterization. Canon is fairly black and white (with the exception of your Snapes and such), but throughout Maia/Annie's life we're shown that it's not as simple as 'blood purity is bad', 'muggles are more advanced', 'Slytherins are bad' or what have you. The various Blacks have good reasons to hold the views they do and Maia/Annie is an impressionable child who's confronted with many conflicting opinions.

Plotwise, one shouldn't go into this fic expecting many, if any, twists or great bursts of originality. The prose also isn't anything particularly great, although dialogue comes of as pretty natural and it's not bad by any account. There's a fair few spelling mistakes almost every chapter that should've been picked out by a beta reader, but nothing too annoying.


All in all, As Black As Night is not one of the great stories out there, but it's certainly enjoyable if you enjoy a good character piece or if you're just looking for a good timewaster.

3.5/5 rounded down for me and do tell me if I went overboard with the length of my post.

 

I like it so far

I've only read the intro, but this seems like something I would enjoy. Not being black and white is one of the most important parts of a good fic in my opinion. One of the things I don't really like is the title, but thats just a matter of opinion and isn't very vital.
So far 3.5/5, likely to go up.

 

One question - how does Harry fit in this story?

 

Harry is a Black through his grandmother Dorea Black. He doesn't really come into the picture until book 3 though. Before that we only see short flashes of him because of his interaction with Annie/Maia at Hogwarts.

 

So despite all the addition of OC stuff, it's still a canon rehash overall?

 

It's basically canon plot with divergences because of OC-interference yeah. Although most of the blacks aren't actually OCs, just extended canon. Canon plot is not the focus though, Black family 'drama' and Annie/Maia character development are.

 

Read through it all just now.

Nothing special really and it seemed to me that the author got bored with the story at the end, leaving quite a few things hanging.

What the story has going for it is the effort it spends exploring the characters, giving them a certain amount of depth.

Barely an almost recommended

3/5

 

As Black as Night ain't bad, the problem is when you get to the end and try to read the sequel, the story slows down to a crawl almost to the point that it takes a hundred thousand words spread over 52 chapters to get to the Christmas break in the forth year

 

For an OC-centric plotline, the story is actually very good. The writing is average, and typos are commonplace, but the characters have depth, and the world is interesting. It's decidedly overly pretentious, but honestly that's not much of a flaw all things considered. Continuity is consistent, and foreshadowing is present, if not refined. The Black are likeable, enough to ignore the OOC aspects. It had the potential to be 4/5 right up until I realised the sequel is abandoned, which bring down it down to 3/5 because absolutely nothing will get resolved. >_<