Title: The Hogwarts Strike Team
Author: Myricle
Rating: T
Genre: Adventure, Action, Time Travel, Romance
Pairing: Harry/Hermione
Chapters: 15
Words: 155,874
Updated: March 3, 2015
Published: Nov 6, 2014
Summary: An older and more experienced Harry and Hermione return to their first year at Hogwarts. Their goals? Assassinate Death Eaters, destroy Horcruxes, and deal with Voldemort's hidden contingency plan... by any means necessary. And maybe they'll fix a few other things along the way.

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10807718/1/The-Hogwarts-Strike-Team


I'm actually really enjoying this, just found it today and read the whole thing. The update rate seems quite quick based on the number of words now compared to when you posted this and the writing isn't completely terrible like most time travel fics are. In fact, the only time I had to question whether the author knew what they were doing was during chapter 3 - or something like that - when everyone seemed to go extremely ooc for a while until the confrontation with the troll, after which everything went back to normal.

The plot is good so far, I do worry that the author is going to burn through it too quickly though, much of what the story set out to be has already been accomplished and they've really only completed a year of Hogwarts. Either this is going to end early, like by their fourth year, the story is going to suffer from having random plots added to keep it on life support, OR the author is going to do the unimaginable and actually make this plot work for an extended word count without it becoming too slow.

The author also hasn't gone for the standard time travel plot path of having the travellers try and fix everything and revamp the entire wizarding world, as seems to be done in just about every other story I read in the genre. Then again maybe I just find the bad ones.

I have to disagree with an earlier review that cast the writing as amateurish, maybe I've just been reading a lot of crap lately but it honestly seems of extremely high quality. I can't recall any repetitive grammar issues either.

So far though I easily give it a 4/5 and really want to give it a 5/5.


Edit by Minion: See post below

 

I moved the review from the Almost Recommended thread here, because I actually was considering to post the story for review.

I follow a few similar stories right now, and this is by far the best of the lot.


(insert review later on)

 

Ah, that makes certain questions unavoidable. You cannot rec a Harry/Hermione fic (or really, any fic with Harry and Hermione as main characters) without giving detailed characterizations of both characters. Too many otherwise good stories with this pairing end up with Harry sucking Hermione's metaphorical cock - H/Hr shippers seem constitutionally incapable of writing Harry as anything other than Hermione's bitch.

These stories also the unfortunate tendency to bash Ron/Ginny/Molly since its the easiest and laziest way to break their canon ships and get Harry away from the Weasleys (because of course Dan and Emma Watson are awesome and Molly sucks). Sometimes I wonder whether I missed the Evil Weasley version of the books that a lot of other people seem to have read.

That said, time travel is one of my preferred genres and I'm not willing to miss a good story because of idiots who can't write to save their lives. I just need reassurance that Harry is worth more than Hermione's pussy and that Ginny doesn't get within a mile of a love potion.

 

Oh no, you moved my review to its own thread! I'll probably have to change some things as I question my ability to write a review worthy of an OP.

As for your questions about the characterisation of Harry and Hermione. It's actually really good, very mature, they have yet to bash anyone at all. They go out of their way to involve Ron and Ginny in their lives and while it is clear Hermione is the smarter one, it's nothing more than the fact that she really is just the smarter one. Harry's intelligent in his own right, but Hermione simply reads more books so out of the two she does know more, he still knows an awful lot himself.

There has also been no Dumbledore bashing, and probably won't be either. In fact Dumbledore is actually rather well done, it's not the best characterisation it could ever be, but if you consider all the fics out there this is in the top 1% for it. His actions seem realistic and fair, which I think is especially shown with the Sirius fiasco.

 

holy shit is that even possible for a h/hr time travel fic

 

Ok, here comes my review:

Years after Voldemort’s downfall Harry and Hermione are dealing with the aftermath of Voldemort dabbling into arcane natural magic he better had left alone. They realise they won’t make it and would have needed to deal with the problem even before it occurred. Thus they decide to travel back in time and clean up everything that happened.

They start with year 1. They don’t even try to keep a low profile and pose as two prodigies, befriend Ron, Neville, the Twins, start a duelling club to train everyone against the Slytherins and for the perhaps still upcoming war. And they, indeed, start to round up known Death Eaters. There isn't any real bashing, though Malfoy is still Malfoy.


The writing is ok. Over all the story reminded me of S'Tarkan's NofP, but Myricle's story is less melodramatic and in comparison downright fast paced. Further Myricle’s Harry and Hermione are way more proactive, and they aren’t just focussed on Hogwarts. Harry sometimes overestimates his abilities and, getting careless, gets taken down several pegs.

Harry and Hermione are linked, though it’s rather one sided, and right now I can’t say if it is based on the way they travelled back or on her abilities at legilimency. There is romance building up between them, but isn’t that bad and definitely not a soul bond. Hermione is the brighter mind of the two, and there are some slight tendencies into the sub!Harry territory.

The worst downside of the story is the way the author deals with supporting characters. Several characters, especially Dumbledore, imho lack consistency and switch characteristics depending on the role they have to play for the plot.


All in all I rate it at 3.5/5 rounded up to 4.

 

Damn, your review makes the story sound much more average than mine does.

I didn't really feel that, I felt it was more of a general character development thing - most of the supporting characters - or in Dumbledore's case, an adaptation to what he was facing - in this case two brilliant young children that he doesn't understand.

I would have to read it again with it in mind to be sure but I don't THINK his character ever went back on itself...

 

Perhaps I am too focussed on canon!Dumbledore. But take chapter 14: The way Dumbledore acts over the course of the chapter is almost bipolar.

 

When you say chapter 14 do you mean the chapter called Chapter 14 or the /14/ link. The story starts with a Prologue and Chapter 1 starts on /2/.

EDIT: I assume you mean /14/ since /15/ doesn't have Dumbledore in it. Oops.

In that case I have to disagree, he only shows up when they're trying to get back inside and Harry disarms an auror, then they have one discussion in his office and we don't 'see' him again for the rest of the chapter.

Could you be more specific to what you mean?

 

I've been reading this since it started and I have to say I like the reason they went back. Too often you get the sense massive universe altering time travel is trivial and can be undertaken lightly. In this they only do it to prevent apocalypse which seems much more reasonable than saving a few lives given it also brings back all the bad guys.


4/5

 

I will refrain from rating this until I've read more, but just to bullet point the first 2.5 chapters:

1. 11 year-old make out sessions
2. Pretty much 11 year-old soul bonds
3. hyperintelligent 11 year-olds outsmarting teachers and students
4. one dimensional romantic interest Hermione
5. "Memory Palaces" give me a break
6. Angsty self-hating Harry wants to run from what I'd call "emotional scarring" and needs to cuddle with Hermione to get over it
7. "Oh Hermione, how could I ever do anything smart without you telling me to do it!" Yeah, he says this many times already, but I'm paraphrasing.
8. Harry is incapable of thinking for himself (redundant, but worth noting twice)

This is basically a typical "Hermione glorification fic".

And this is just the start. I can't fathom all of these bullet points being overturned by some amazingly awesome writing a couple of chapters from now. Pretty damn near unlikely.

This is still an almost recommended at best.

 

I don't think it's fair to call them "hyper-intelligent 11-year-olds" when it's clear they're adults in children's bodies... of course a 20-something disguised as a preteen would come off as a super-genius, and a 20-something with insight on a person's character and potential actions from their futures, as well as multiple years of experience in both fighting a "war" and intensive research... I'd expect them to be at an enormous advantage in nearly any school-based situation, let alone regular life.

At any rate, I'd hardly call this "Hermione glorification", since Harry (and others) have and continue to regularly criticize her mistakes and some of her bad habits (specifically, her casual use of legillimency.)

Anyway, my review from the thread back in the day:

Pros: It's a lengthy, currently updating time travel story that contains no bashing or excessive cliches (Harry and Hermione are not trying to avoid major changes to the timeline to "preserve their foreknowledge"). It contains a unique reason for traveling back in time- the problem they are facing legitimately requires them to go back in time to attempt to fix it; I personally love the fact that there's a reason beyond "save the people who died in the war".

Cons: The only problems Harry and Hermione are really facing thus far are a result of their own impatience, which is not really given a solid justification in-story, although it's implied that it's a side-effect of them being in their 11/12 year old bodies. Harry is likewise more stubborn that I'd expect, although it could be argued that this isn't necessarily out of character for him.

Other information: Appears to slowly be developing into a Harry/Hermione romance and both are considered magical "prodigies" due to the fact that they retained their skills from before the time travel. They were mistaken for a couple in their first year and went along with it as it gave them an excuse to spend as much time together by themselves as they did.

Additionally, the ultimately reason behind Voldemort's "contingency" plan is still a mystery, hopefully one that will be solved as the story develops.

Overall, certainly recommended if you're a fan of time travel stories like I am; the characters are all intelligently written and the story so far has pacing similar to the Harry Potter series itself.

I feel like my early criticisms on Harry & Hermione and the lack of conflict have been largely addressed, and I definitely enjoy the pacing of the story and the speed of updates.

5/5 from me.

 

I also don't think of Hermione and Harry as "hyper-intelligent 11-year-olds". They very much appear as what they are: adults in the midst of children. It shows, for example, when Hermione is just amused by the crushes her fellow girls get on Harry or them trying to give advice when their young friends have problems. It is really very refreshing to see that kind of maturity in time travelers. Usually, that aspect isn't handled as well in such stories.

As for the story itself...the writing is fine. It flows well and the reason why they travelled back is interesting. I haven't seen something like that before, at least. They haven't done anything about it yet, though the reason for that was explained in the story. I do hope that the author has thought that backstory through, though.

Though I enjoy the story itself, I cannot say that it has really gripped me emotionally. I've never felt that Hermione and Harry were in any kind of danger or that they were in a situation that is above their head. That lack of conflict, both internal and external, might put off some readers, though it seems like the consequence of one of their actions is coming back to bite them. Whether that happens or not remains to be seen, though.

Dumbledore...Dumbledore acts reasonably in character in my opinion. He's always been a bit hands-off in canon and I don't see why that would change in this story. From his point of view, he's dealing with two young geniuses who show a startling maturity for their age and could be expected to not endanger themselves without good reason or thinking before acting -- as shown during the Sirius situation.

All in all, it's a good enough story and somewhat memorable among all the others. It's not something for you if you want ASOIAF-kind "anyone can die" situations or excitement, or if you want deep emotions that make you weep.

So...

3.5/5

 

Not gonna go into a ton of detail because its 330 am and im drunk. Last night i read this, lots of words. Well written, nothing fucking happened 3/5 cause i read the whole story

 

The story is less insufferable when year one ends. The action sequences make up for the nigh soul bond level interactions between Harry/Hermione and the drivel that is the current plot. As soon as they're back in school again, however, everything starts unwinding again. I kept reading it, though it feels like a guilty pleasure than anything worth talking about.

I'll give this a 3/5, though that feels a little too generous. This story would be vastly improved if there wasn't such a huge focus on adhering to a canon retelling. It still doesn't make up for the lack of conflict I would expect super eleven year-olds to endure.

 

I think this is the story I dropped once Harry and Hermione...

Spoiler

Became unrepentant sociopaths. I don't have a lot of patience for "I thought this Death Eater was going to try to kill me in the future so i killed him back first" justifications, no matter how nicely written the rest of the words around the story.

I'm rounding my rating of this one down to 2/5 for unenjoyableness on several fronts (Hermione-wank among them).

 

Incredibly boring.

 

I wasn't bothered by this because Death Eaters are in many "omg death eaters won" universes are rapists, murderers and torturers, nevermind what we know they did do in canon to people.

Spoiler

It's not even the case of them being "potentially" dangerous, people like Lucius have already committed grevious crimes against humanity. It's perfectly fine to murder them in their sleep considering what they have already done. Sure, the more moral thing is to have a trial before you gas them, but it's war; you don't get that luxury.

Of course, I would expect those two to have some guilt or more second thoughts about how they've basically become assassins - but in a time of war, I would say it is totally justified. It's not like they killed Draco or some kid, they killed hardened nazi wizards that have made their beds, if you put it in very dumb terms.

Sure, they could be reformed, but Harry and Hermione are going to imprison them and open up a rehab clinic? That's about as unlikely as them becoming professional assassins, so I guess both ideas are pretty dumb, but nevertheless your reaction I think is a tad too strong.

 

To be fair, a lot of time travel fics involve unrepentant killing of DEs - The Unforgiving Minute (Harry breaks into Azkaban to kill everyone) and Backwards with a Purpose (All that and more. Ron and Ginny join in the fun as well) come to mind. Its the execution (no pun intended) that matters here.

 

Fourth-rate timetravel fic with too many clichés. 1/5