Title: Harry Potter and the Power of Paranoia
Author: arekay
Rating: T
Genre: Humor / Adventure
DLP-Category: General
Chapters: 23
Words: 103,707
Updated: Mar 31, 2015
Published: Jun 26, 2012
Status: Complete
Pairing: Harry/Luna
Summary:
The events at the end of the Triwizard Tournament have left Harry feeling just a little bit paranoid.
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8257400/1/Harry-Potter-and-the-Power-of-Paranoia


This story is neither overly good, nor really bad. Just a nice timewaster and now it's complete, with a good and original epilogue.

The story starts the summer after the Triwizard Tournament. Harry is back at the Dursleys, no one is telling him anything, and he is angry about the current situation. Thinking about the last events and everything that happened so far, Harry starts to doubt the loyalty and allegiance of certain protagonists: Lupin, who conveniently forgot to take his potion at the worst possible moment; Snape, who, as a Death Eater, should have known Pettigrew was the traitor, not Sirius; Fudge, who goes quite far to deny Voldemort's return.

And then, some days later, he hears someone apparating right outside the house - Death Eaters have found him. That's the moment Harry leaves Britain and decides to hide.

Halfway through the story comes a time skip: 10 years later, Dumbledore is still holding the castle against Voldemort, while looking for the boy who lived - whoever that is. Then, suddenly, the Fidelius Charm Harry is hiding under breaks.


The story has elements of Rorschach's 'Make a Wish', some indi!Harry (though without most of its clichés). The author listed it as 'humor', and it has its moments, though over all it's really not that funny.

The first chapters, and to a lesser degree the whole story focus a lot on internal monologue, especially Harry and Dumbledore. Sometimes these monologues work well, sometimes they don't (i.e. with Voldemort's pov).

Some really weak points of the story: There are some plot devices stretching canon quite a bit, i.e. the way Harry uses the Fidelius Charm to hide himself. The US- and Australian Magical Societies are soooo much better than the Brits. Thus compared to 24 year old Harry both Dumbledore and Voldemort are uneducated and incompetent.

The quality of the writing varies. The second half of the story is definitely better, but in all it rarely exceeds average. I like the concept and general plot idea of the story, and I found it interesting enough to follow it until the end.

I rate it with 3/5 stars, but I wouldn't be surprised if it ends in the trash bin.

 

I think this story started off pretty well, but once Dumbledore finds Harry it's pretty much downhill from there.

Dumbledor in this fic is a moron, and that messed with anything else I could have enjoyed. It probably would have helped if there actually was some humor. It's like one of those poorly written bashing fic Dumbledore without actually going into hardcore bashing; or maybe it does go into bashing, I was never completely sure of where the author was taking Dumbledore.

Voldemort is not threat, Death Eaters are defeated like they don't even matter, and overall I think it could be called a Wizarding Britain bashing fic.

2/5 at most.

 

What bothered me the most is

Spoiler

how easily the horcrux in Harry's scar was removed by that american mediwizard, or whatever. I find this part of the plot really weak. As if Dumbledore wouldn't have made the necessary research...

That aside, it was somewhat enjoyable - I even added it in my favorites list way back, which means it made an impression.

2.5/5 rounded up to 3/5

 

There were a few interesting parts like

Spoiler

Luna's nargles idea and Dobby becoming master of the Elder Wand.

I like it. I wish there was more humor as Dumbledore's ignorance of muggles was pretty funny at times, at least the way it was written.

Spoiler

As Hermione walked towards the gate, she wondered why Dumbledore had bothered with all the multiple portkeys and phoenix travel he had made them take in an effort to disguise their destination. It was rather obvious where they were. All she had to do was compare the time on her watch with the position of the sun in the sky and she knew that she was most likely somewhere on the west coast of America. Throw in the climate and she didn't even have to check the license plates of the cars parked on the street to know that she was somewhere in Southern California.

The notice-me-not charms on the street signs were also a wasted effort. Really, all she would have to do was look-up the registration information for some of the cars and she would have a street address as well. All it would take would be a little trip to the local DMV and a spell or two on unsuspecting clerks to make them look the other way and... Why was she bothering to think about this, she wondered. For that matter, all she really needed to do was find the nearest letterbox, as she doubted that Dumbledore's notice-me-not charms would extend to the letters inside… She wondered again, why she was bothering... Really, it was best to just endure this meeting and get Dumbledore off her back. Then she could happily go home and forget about all this.

Also the chapter 18 omake about the Weasleys not warning Harry about the dragon in GoF was interesting and I never thought about Dumbledore at Riddle's orphanage like this:
'"He set fire to his things?" asked Luna in astonishment.

"They were undamaged, so it was probably just an illusion but... Come on. You don't do that, not to an orphan who barely has anything anyway. Even if he had been stealing, he was still just a eleven year old kid. Why would you do that to someone like him? Riddle was obviously...shocked, enraged, scared, terrified? If someone did that to you? If they showed you that you were powerless to stop them from destroying everything you owned with a simple flick of a wand? That you were obviously nothing in their eyes. How would you react?" asked Harry.'

Overall it was a decent read with the usual skipping over overly detailed sections. It wasn't a great fic but it was enjoyable. 3/5 but add another point for actually being finished unlike most fics. 4/5

 

Original concept, completed and with nice grammer. That alone makes it 3/5. The whole Luna pairing gives a +0,5 and the epilogue which is one of the most original endings gives it another 0,5.

so 4/5.

 

I enjoyed it. Original concept, I think the idea of a super paranoid Harry was rather cool.

There were problems however with the execution. The fact that every other country was better than Europe was rather lame.

I should rate it a 2/5, but I really want to give it a 3/5.

 

How could you possibly get through the first fifteen paragraphs? The bashing is horrible (and cannot be excused by the author's note saying 'I know there's bashing but this isn't a bashing story' because it definitely is a bashing story. That's not inherently bad - see Bungle in the Jungle - but in the year 2015, and after reading most of everything we've compiled here, it's just not passable to me).

Why would Harry disdainfully say Sirius is an Azkaban-escapee? Like, the dude broke out to save you from the same cat who got your parents killed. Have a little consideration for the man's efforts. Why would you belittle your best friends? Be frustrated with Ron and Hermione for their silence, but don't pick out every single thing Hermione's ever kept from you (without a single thought for the reasons she kept quiet).

On top of what's essentially every pre-OoTP Independent!Harry fic's beginning (without my two best friends and godfather I'm all alone, who can I write to in order to give my summer some adventure? I'll choose this unlikely person) there are a slew of other problems. Harry sucks. The dialogue with Dobby has no emotion, except for Dobby salivating at the thought of serving his one true master. The internal monologue is that which horrible stories are constructed around. Please stop thinking, Harry; you're God awful at it. I don't care how creative the Epilogue is if I can't get through the first chapter.

When he declares that Remus would have turned his wand on Sirius at the last moment if Harry hadn't stopped Sirius from killing Peter... what the fuck kind of leap of logic is that? That's beyond teenage melodrama; that's just outright stupidity.

WR; WR. Won't rate; won't read. Nah, nah, nah, hey, hey, goodbye.

 

I managed to read about half of it. Most offensive part of story for me was that all magical communities are so much better than Britain to the point it's ridiculous (and not believeable). It feels like Britain in this story is some kind of hell, whereas every other magical place in the world is heaven. In the beginning of the story, every character except of Harry is shown to be untrustworthy (if not outright evil, in some cases). Then, Harry travels out of Britain, and every person is suddenly cheerful, magical comunities are perfect (well, they are supposed to be perfect, but I don't think that kind of system could even work), and healers from other countries are able to heal even most obscure problems with lazy flick of wand.

I found first three chapters pretty good, but when Harry leaves Britain, I found the story boring. Harry hides, then some supposedly bad wizard finds him, so he escapes again, etc.

Something strange happened somewhere around chapter twelve. I am honestly not sure if it was supposed to be romance. I feel that story would be better without it. Luna wasn't even properly insane. She even felt normal and rational at times.

All in all, it wasn't that bad so that I would have to close the story in rage. It's average, so 3/5.

 

As some others have said, the beginning is good. Harry being overly paranoid and drawing the wrong conclusions was pretty entertaining. But after leaving Britain it just went downhill.

In the end, I was hoping Dumbledore would win, to finally put and end to it.

2/5

 

I found the experience similar in certain ways to reading a Bobmin fic. Some of it was humorous and most of it was trying.

I give it a rounded-down-to 2/5.

 

I liked Dumbledore's nonchalant destruction of the death eaters as soon as he decided it was needed.

 

read because of this and couldn't get past the third paragraph

 

You'd have to make it all the way to the end pretty much.

 

I'd pretty much taken a break from HP fanfiction for the last couple of months, so I thought I could give this a go, and see if it was any good. If it was as bad as some people seemed to think, then at least I'd be not completely familiar with the cliches, and could maybe push past them.

I got through the opening salvo between Dobby and Harry, and then just quit.

It treads the normal grounds of "Hermione? What a bitch. First my broom, then the time turner, then Krum. Ron? Ron is also a traitor because he was jealous. Lupin? That werewolf is annoying because he planned things with Snape to be a wanker. Poor lonely Sirius being on the run. Grar, I'm so ANGSTY right now!"

I'll admit I have read worse things, but normally because they've hooked me beforehand, or because they're short enough it doesn't matter.

I haven't really been able to read enough to give a rating, which is kind of a rating in itself.

 

I think you guys missed the point. The author says that nobody is haxxor!evil and Dumbledore isn't stealing candy from orphans and all of those evil,evil things are all Harrys imagination.

 

Nah, we got it. The author proceeded to tell us he wasn't doing something and then do it so ridiculously badly that we couldn't proceed to read it. At least I was nice enough to hate it without rating it.

 

You are still missing his point.

Spoiler

It's Harry overanalysing the situation. He is convinced everyone is out to get him and is sure he can't trust anyone any longer. For the reader it should have been clear that Harry is misinterpreting canon!events when he struck down Mundungus convinced he was a Death Eater.

Only years later Harry learns that he was wrong about almsot everyone and everything. It's not until the very end that Dumbledore is actually trying to kill Harry to fulfill the prophecy - and not because he is evil!manipulative!Dumbledore, but because he is convinced that otherwise Voldemort will be ressurected.

The story is average, but for other reasons. Tthese clichés you are complaining about are actually turned over here.

 

I believe I said this in the past with a different story, but this story pretends to be terrible so well that it is, in fact, terrible.
Also it subverts one cliche while using dozens of other, just as bad, cliches.

 

Okay, that does sound kinda cool. If only I could be bothered reading the lead up to that.

The problem is that fanfiction is free, and therefore I have no reason to continue with it if I don't think it's awesome.

If I buy a book, and find it slightly mediocre, I'll likely finish it because I paid for it. Fanfiction is free, and there's such a ridiculous amount of it that I can find decentish quality stuff without too much hassle. If I have to spend several hours working my way through the crappy shell to get the oozy gooey centre, then I'm probably going to instead not.

This author is better than a lot of others, they remember to use speech marks, to use a new line when someone speaks, to seperate sections properly, etc...

But they're not fantastic, and it makes reading it an effort.

 

I don't think he is. Having read the story in its entirety, there is a lot more to it than the clichés just being turned over.

It's not a simple matter of Harry imagining everything. Even if you completely ignore Harry's point of view and look at things only from those scenes that are in Dumbledore's point of view, you will see that Dumbledore is either a moron or evil. Not only is it not canon Dumbledore, it comes very close to the representation of Greater Good Dumbledores from many of those bashing fics.

Beyond that, there is no real plot in the story, and no real conflict. The way the Death Eaters are handled undermines the entire plot in the canon. If things were that simple, we wouldn't really have the Harry Potter books at all, at least none that were worth reading.

I think overall it could be summed up as being too much of a 'Harry Potter and the Power of the Author's Paranoia'.