FANFIC: Harry Potter & the Methods of Rationality

[stePH]

I never seek out fanfic, much less read it. And I usually hate to read lengthy works unless I can hold them in printed form.

So it should speak volumes that I've been reading this voraciously since yesterday when it was brought to my attention, and I'm up to Chapter 25.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harr..._of_Rationality

(from the beginning of Chapter 22)

Something, somewhere, somewhen, must have happened differently...

PETUNIA EVANS married Michael Verres, a Professor of Biochemistry at Oxford.

HARRY JAMES POTTER-EVANS-VERRES grew up in a house filled to the brim with books. He once bit a math teacher who didn't know what a logarithm was. He's read Godel, Escher, Bach and Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases and volume one of The Feynman Lectures on Physics. And despite what everyone who's met him seems to fear, he doesn't want to become the next Dark Lord. He was raised better than that. He wants to discover the laws of magic and become a god.

HERMIONE GRANGER is doing better than him in every class except broomstick riding.

DRACO MALFOY is exactly what you would expect an eleven-year-old boy to be like if Darth Vader were his doting father.

PROFESSOR QUIRRELL is living his lifelong dream of teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts, or as he prefers to call his class, Battle Magic. His students are all wondering what's going to go wrong with the Defense Professor this time.

DUMBLEDORE is either insane, or playing some vastly deeper game which involved setting fire to a chicken.

DEPUTY HEADMISTRESS MINERVA MCGONAGALL needs to go off somewhere private and scream for a while.

Presenting:

HARRY POTTER AND THE METHODS OF RATIONALITY

Because if you had magic, you'd start getting creative.

[stePH]

Followup:
Probably my favorite aspect of this story (apart from skeptic/rationalist Harry) is the demotion of Ron Weasley to the most minor of minor characters, and making Draco Malfoy Harry's other best friend (Hermione is still #1). Rowling's Draco is merely a detestable punk; this one is, if still not likeable, at least developed and interesting.

[Talia]

Followup:
Rowling's Draco is merely a detestable punk

Yes and no; as I recall in the final volume he shows he's not quite as vile as his father.

I kinda like my villains bad and good guys good - I'm a big fan of Ron Weasley (and the whole Weasley brood really). So that's not an attraction for me. Still, it sounds like an interesting setup.

[ElectricPaladin]

Yes and no; as I recall in the final volume he shows he's not quite as vile as his father.

I disagree. In my opinion, the final volume shows that he's just as vile, only also spineless.

[Talia]

Yes and no; as I recall in the final volume he shows he's not quite as vile as his father.

I disagree. In my opinion, the final volume shows that he's just as vile, only also spineless.

You may be right, I only read it once, shortly after it came out.

[iamafish]

I kinda like my villains bad and good guys good

I've always found that really unsatisfactory, which is part of the reason why I find Harry Potter and many other fantasies slightly boring.

[stePH]

Yes and no; as I recall in the final volume he shows he's not quite as vile as his father.

I disagree. In my opinion, the final volume shows that he's just as vile, only also spineless.

This. And I felt cheated somehow, that after all that had gone before, he and Harry give each other a nod as they're sending their own sons off to Hogwarts. Somehow he'd become something other than a detestable punk, and I missed it?

Talia: while Ron W. is almost completely absent (having shunned Harry because he wouldn't shun Draco), Harry still has dealings with Fred and George.

Apparently the story so far has a word count higher than Rowling's first three books combined, with no end in sight yet.