Story: Harry Potter: The ‘Boy’ Who Lived
Rating 5/5
One thing I won’t hesitate to admit is that, when I start reading fanfiction for a new series, looking for gender-benders is one of my first goals. Unfortunately, as with anything else, Sturgeon’s law holds true and 90% of it is crud. “Harry Potter: The ‘Boy’ Who Lived” is one of those rare stories that not only makes it into the top 10%, but the top 1%.
Anyone who reads a lot of Harry Potter fanfiction will probably recognize the “what if Harry Potter had been born a girl” plot, but it’s what the author does with it that makes this story special.:
First, as an additional layer of protection, Dumbledore convinced the Potters to tell everyone that they had a son… a charade he convinces “Hallie” to keep up during her first year at Hogwarts so that she could get a good reputation and gain peoples’ trust without having to worry about gender-related prejudice.
Second, the story puts some focus on Draco Malfoy as a person, rather than just a one-dimensional rival, as well as adjusting the chain of events leading to his rivalry with “Harry” just enough to make it fresh.
And finally third, the author recognizes one of the aspects of fanfiction writing which is far less common than it should be: If you are writing a derivative work, you don’t need to revisit every event that took place in the original… that usually just makes your story boring.
So, in conclusion, another story that deserves 5 out of 5. Just keep in mind that this only covers the first year, so you’ll have to start reading Hallie Potter: Secrets Revealed once you finish this.
Fanfiction – Harry Potter: The ‘Boy’ Who Lived by Stephan Sokolow is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
I have to disagree about the rating.
I mean, the story is enjoyable, sure. But the characters are a bit off, especially children as they don’t think like children their age. Especially Hallie, whose trains of thoughts appear to be closer to someone who is 17 rather than 11.
Not that big an issue in the end, but for me it was enough that I had to force myself through certain parts of the story rather than just stop reading.
I really should re-read it one of these days. I may agree with you now that I’ve had six and a half years to become more perceptive.