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Basilisk-born
Fandom: Harry Potter
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Fifth year: After the Dementor attack, Harry is not returning to Hogwarts – is he? ! Instead of Harry, a snake moves into the lions' den. People won't know what hit them when Dumbledore's chess pawn Harry is lost in time… Manipulative Dumbledore, 'Slytherin!Harry', Time Travel!
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Fifth year: After the Dementor attack, Harry is not returning to Hogwarts – is he? ! Instead of Harry, a snake moves into the lions' den. People won't know what hit them when Dumbledore's chess pawn Harry is lost in time… Manipulative Dumbledore, 'Slytherin!Harry', Time Travel!
- GenresFan FictionFantasyMagic
1794 pages, ebook
First published March 26, 2021
9 people are currently reading
46 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 22, 2021
Good premise, interesting idea, with a story that's all over the place, and absolutely atrocious use of language.
EDIT: I gave the book another read. I had initially dropped it at maybe 60-70% and then picked it up again later. Last week I read the epilogue. When I then went to check this review I didn't think it was as bad as I had written above, so I figured I'd give it another go from the start.
Having just dropped it again at 50-60%, I have to say that my initial review was correct. For the first 30% the use of language was, indeed, atrocious. Frequent misspellings, unfinished sentences, poorly edited sentences (two structures), etc. After that the use of language becomes.. largely normal; though still stilted and awkward and with the occasional typo at times, it was perfectly legible without anything too jarring. In the later chapters it became solid prose. You can clearly see the author's growth through the entire book, but the entire thing just needs one hell of an edit.
Aside from that the way in which the story is told is, to me, horrible. I dislike flashbacks, if only for the reason that I believe it to be a valueless device (in the sense that it adds nothing that writing it chronologically wouldn't do; the only thing it does is add unnecessary jarring elements to a story) for lazy authors who can't be arsed to write the entire sequence of events. In Basilisk-Born, the chapters tend to jump millennia and centuries at the drop of a hat. It's pointless, annoying, and deeply frustrating when you finally get into the story again to suddenly be dragged to an entirely different part of it. I ended up reading the chapters in roughly chronological order by simply skipping chapters and coming back for them later.
Again, it's a good premise, with fun ideas, but it has plenty flaws. Give it a read, but don't expect the masterpiece that the 5 star reviews might make you expect.
EDIT: I gave the book another read. I had initially dropped it at maybe 60-70% and then picked it up again later. Last week I read the epilogue. When I then went to check this review I didn't think it was as bad as I had written above, so I figured I'd give it another go from the start.
Having just dropped it again at 50-60%, I have to say that my initial review was correct. For the first 30% the use of language was, indeed, atrocious. Frequent misspellings, unfinished sentences, poorly edited sentences (two structures), etc. After that the use of language becomes.. largely normal; though still stilted and awkward and with the occasional typo at times, it was perfectly legible without anything too jarring. In the later chapters it became solid prose. You can clearly see the author's growth through the entire book, but the entire thing just needs one hell of an edit.
Aside from that the way in which the story is told is, to me, horrible. I dislike flashbacks, if only for the reason that I believe it to be a valueless device (in the sense that it adds nothing that writing it chronologically wouldn't do; the only thing it does is add unnecessary jarring elements to a story) for lazy authors who can't be arsed to write the entire sequence of events. In Basilisk-Born, the chapters tend to jump millennia and centuries at the drop of a hat. It's pointless, annoying, and deeply frustrating when you finally get into the story again to suddenly be dragged to an entirely different part of it. I ended up reading the chapters in roughly chronological order by simply skipping chapters and coming back for them later.
Again, it's a good premise, with fun ideas, but it has plenty flaws. Give it a read, but don't expect the masterpiece that the 5 star reviews might make you expect.
May 9, 2021
I’m struggling to give this five full stars, but in the end, I did, because of the sheer size (almost as long as the first five HP books together!) and goodness of the plot.
The downs:
The grammar and spelling, especially near the beginning. (It gets better later, with the author having two betas at the end.) It’s a nōn-native speaker, but I struggled to understand some sentences at first.
Some of the things happening are written badly. I had to re-read half a chapter to understand the choice Harry was given near the end, and still don’t know exactly what he ended up choosing, even if I have an idea. Some of the writing is repetitive, and the jumps between past and present were more annoying towards the end, when the present had action and the past was just tying up loose ends.
Some past events were pulled much farther into the past than they happened. The worst offender here is Bezhoneg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breton_... which is pulled back about 1500 years, and made identical to “the” language written in what Hogwarts now knows as Ancient Runes. But I can understand most of this for plot reasons and can live with that.
Some of the… things written about… were overkill. They didn’t add to the plot, only to disbelief. Inititally, I also had problems with the way wizards came into being, especially as we see Moridunon’s (and is that name ever explained? No, but it’s obvious to the aware reader…) father showing up multiple times.
But in the end, it’s a massive story with a great plot. A Har-Kan all over again, except here, Harry’s not fathering anyone in the past (which kinda makes sense as well). Well worth reading, so I don’t feel too bad about rating it highest, weighing the cons against the sheer size and pros.
The downs:
The grammar and spelling, especially near the beginning. (It gets better later, with the author having two betas at the end.) It’s a nōn-native speaker, but I struggled to understand some sentences at first.
Some of the things happening are written badly. I had to re-read half a chapter to understand the choice Harry was given near the end, and still don’t know exactly what he ended up choosing, even if I have an idea. Some of the writing is repetitive, and the jumps between past and present were more annoying towards the end, when the present had action and the past was just tying up loose ends.
Some past events were pulled much farther into the past than they happened. The worst offender here is Bezhoneg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breton_... which is pulled back about 1500 years, and made identical to “the” language written in what Hogwarts now knows as Ancient Runes. But I can understand most of this for plot reasons and can live with that.
Some of the… things written about… were overkill. They didn’t add to the plot, only to disbelief. Inititally, I also had problems with the way wizards came into being, especially as we see Moridunon’s (and is that name ever explained? No, but it’s obvious to the aware reader…) father showing up multiple times.
But in the end, it’s a massive story with a great plot. A Har-Kan all over again, except here, Harry’s not fathering anyone in the past (which kinda makes sense as well). Well worth reading, so I don’t feel too bad about rating it highest, weighing the cons against the sheer size and pros.
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August 23, 2023The author's first language isn't English and that is clear from a lot of the weird grammar and incorrect words. The incorrect words are very consistent, sighted for sighed, starred for stared, chocked for choked, etc that I'm disinclined to believe they are typos. It's not unreadable, but takes a bit of getting used to. I hear this improves over the course of the work.
Other than that, it's an interesting premise with supposedly great world-building and exploration of how magic works. I might give this another go in the future, but dropped it after 12 or so chapters because the characters didn't grab me. It seems to be much more plot-focused than character-focused. I'm also not a big fan of how the two time-lines are interweaved.
Other than that, it's an interesting premise with supposedly great world-building and exploration of how magic works. I might give this another go in the future, but dropped it after 12 or so chapters because the characters didn't grab me. It seems to be much more plot-focused than character-focused. I'm also not a big fan of how the two time-lines are interweaved.
December 21, 2021
An interesting idea that is horribly inconsistent. Additional, time doesn’t seem to mean anything to the author. 10 years can be enough to become a master healer. A 600 year time skip afterwards and nothing significant happens despite implied constant training/learning.
This is also fill of spelling and grammar mistakes that, even 7 years later, have never been corrected. I don’t know why this is so highly recommended when many other HP fanfics do this exact same thing with better research, editing, and overall writing.
The overly lengthy Oliver Twist parts should have been a separate story entirely. And technically they are; the author 'borrowed' the idea from GenkaiFan's fanfiction Poison Pen without adding any original content of his own. It feels like two stories forced together for no reason because it is two stories forced together for no reason.
I’m dropping this because I came across yet another inconsistency and started thinking about this 630k+ fanfiction as a whole. Why is this even being written?? There are two perspectives Uber power 3000 year old immortal present day Harry and a past Harry who does 'stuff' in between gigantic time skips.
Uber powerful immortal Harry is pretending to be a 15 year old child to ??? his enemies that he can overpower magically, politically, etc. etc. etc. and etc. With past Harry, beyond the very beginning, nothing really happens. Past Harry comes back from a long time skip, stumbles onto a battle (dying person, people in need etc.) quickly helps/befriends them and then does another long time skip. ALL of the interesting parts are summarize or entirely skipped over. I don’t understand the point of writing this. Present Harry can end the story in 2k words if he wasn’t playing pretend with school kids and past Harry isn’t relevant if he’s just going to do random things that occasionally create inconsistencies.
So I’m dropping this.
-Dropped Ch 24/72
Ps. I also didn’t see any need to write this in flashbacks and flash-forwards. It’s annoying and detracts from the story as a whole.
Pps. Don’t expect the historic events to make the slightest bit of sense. The author didn’t do his research and it shows.
This is also fill of spelling and grammar mistakes that, even 7 years later, have never been corrected. I don’t know why this is so highly recommended when many other HP fanfics do this exact same thing with better research, editing, and overall writing.
The overly lengthy Oliver Twist parts should have been a separate story entirely. And technically they are; the author 'borrowed' the idea from GenkaiFan's fanfiction Poison Pen without adding any original content of his own. It feels like two stories forced together for no reason because it is two stories forced together for no reason.
I’m dropping this because I came across yet another inconsistency and started thinking about this 630k+ fanfiction as a whole. Why is this even being written?? There are two perspectives Uber power 3000 year old immortal present day Harry and a past Harry who does 'stuff' in between gigantic time skips.
Uber powerful immortal Harry is pretending to be a 15 year old child to ??? his enemies that he can overpower magically, politically, etc. etc. etc. and etc. With past Harry, beyond the very beginning, nothing really happens. Past Harry comes back from a long time skip, stumbles onto a battle (dying person, people in need etc.) quickly helps/befriends them and then does another long time skip. ALL of the interesting parts are summarize or entirely skipped over. I don’t understand the point of writing this. Present Harry can end the story in 2k words if he wasn’t playing pretend with school kids and past Harry isn’t relevant if he’s just going to do random things that occasionally create inconsistencies.
So I’m dropping this.
-Dropped Ch 24/72
Ps. I also didn’t see any need to write this in flashbacks and flash-forwards. It’s annoying and detracts from the story as a whole.
Pps. Don’t expect the historic events to make the slightest bit of sense. The author didn’t do his research and it shows.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 16, 2023
This is in the top of my favorite fanfic list.
The story is enthralling, the plot is interesting, and even though there are time skips back and forth, which I normally do not care for, it is done well enough that it does not annoy me.
I notice some reviewers commenting on spelling and punctuation, so I should maybe mention that I have listened to this read to me by an AI, which means I would not have noticed any of that.
It reads above average from the AI I use for audio readings (with >80 read longfics done by now).
The only things I noticed that would bring me out of the story when encountering was minor things. Eg. as brain cells being mentioned in the far past, or language used that would be far too recent to have existed then.
It is not enough to bring down the stars for me, though.
The story is enthralling, the plot is interesting, and even though there are time skips back and forth, which I normally do not care for, it is done well enough that it does not annoy me.
I notice some reviewers commenting on spelling and punctuation, so I should maybe mention that I have listened to this read to me by an AI, which means I would not have noticed any of that.
It reads above average from the AI I use for audio readings (with >80 read longfics done by now).
The only things I noticed that would bring me out of the story when encountering was minor things. Eg. as brain cells being mentioned in the far past, or language used that would be far too recent to have existed then.
It is not enough to bring down the stars for me, though.
January 31, 2022
This is easily my favourite Harry Potter fanfiction ever. How Albus Dumbledore was portrayed perfectly-not being manipulative on purpose, but also not a great role model. I will definitely be re reading this book at some point!
July 29, 2021
Defo a fav fan fiction. The time skips and unique plot are fab
September 29, 2021
My favourite HP fanfic.
January 4, 2022
This story is amazing <3
June 26, 2025
Slow start but i loved the world building. Took total 40hrs to finish it. It was worth it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 2, 2025
This went places I did not expect but overall I really enjoyed it.
July 26, 2024
Really dragged on at times, I had to force myself to continue it. I appreciated how the characters were constantly referenced throughout the timeline
March 13, 2018
I love the premise, I love the journey, I love how it didn't make the MC a heartless jerk, I love the characters, I love me some politics and well executed revenge.
There just needs to be some closure to that revenge, you know. Fingers crossed I get to read it.
There just needs to be some closure to that revenge, you know. Fingers crossed I get to read it.
March 24, 2021
I’ve been reading this fanfic for years and I’ve never been able to find any other stories that can match it. Honestly amazing, I can’t wait to finally read the ending
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews