Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness

Fanfiction
Title:	Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness
Author(s):	Thanfiction
Date(s):	Jun 11, 2008 – December 2017 (purged)
Length:	256,506 words
Genre(s):	gen
Fandom(s):	Harry Potter
Relationship(s):
External Links:	Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness, Archived version (offline, archived)
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Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness is a Harry Potter fanfic by Thanfiction. Originally started as something of a bet. As of August 2020, the story is no longer online. TV Tropes dates the deletion of Thanfiction's account (and the removal of this fic) to approximately December 2017. The reviews of the work have been saved and are currently accessible.

Thanfiction was described the project as "the most out-of-control one-shot in the history of the wizarding world" on his fanfiction.net profile. As can be gathered from this quote, the project once started as a one-shot, but quickly became a 250k+ story. Over the years, the universe (referred to by Thanfiction and fans as the DAYDverse, and often regarded as a fandom on its own) was expanded by 2 sequels (the last one currently still a WIP) and 100+ one-shots. Some one-shots were added until the deletion of the work along with the author's profile in mid-2017.

Summary:

A novel following Neville Longbottom and the students left behind at Hogwarts while Harry and the Trio were off hunting Horcruxes in Deathly Hallows. The first novel in the Daydverse Trilogy.

Reactions and Reviews

While initially a popular and beloved fanfiction, the story's reputation has waned over the years due, in part, to the author's actions (ie the DAYDian cult) as well as certain elements of the fic being viewed as having aged poorly.

At Fanfiction.Net

The story had 664 reviews on Fanfiction.net as of July 6, 2010. On June 3, 2014, this number had more than doubled, with 1,455 reviews. Reviews continued to increase, and as of August 2020, there are 1,941 reviews.

While some reviews simply address the story, there are multiple reviewers warning of Thanfiction's previous actions and warning readers against the risk of joining his cult. Recently, there are also reviews asking the author to repost the story, which is currently offline.

See reviews at Fanfiction.net

2009

Some time ago, I read Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness. If you've been hanging around HP fan fiction communities at all (anywhere except MNFF, which by the way I think should stop trying to pretend they're the only site where HP fan fiction exists, since I really don't think your Mugglenet overlords are paying attention anymore anyway), you've probably heard of it. It's written by thanfiction , who has accomplished the fairly remarkable feat of becoming a BNF in HP fandom after the end of the series and the fandom has begun declining. thanfiction has written a bunch of prequels and sequels and vignettes now, and the "DAYDverse" apparently has spawned LJ communities and fan fiction of its own. Pretty impressive.

DAATYOD tells the tale of Neville and the D.A. during their seventh year. It's the story about what was going on back at Hogwarts under Snape and the Carrows, while the Trio was on their camping trip.

I found it to be pretty good. thanfiction is a good writer, and the story was riveting at times, though occasionally too self-indulgent with the blood and angst and horror. It was definitely not written in the same tone as Rowling -- Snape and the Carrows do truly horrific things to the students, which are gruesomely described -- which really shows when Harry finally comes back for the final battle.

But, there's a reason why whenever someone asks for fan fiction about Neville and the D.A., this is the one that almost always gets recommended.

I stopped reading the sequel, Sluagh, about halfway through, because I thought the story was beginning to bear no resemblance whatsoever to Rowling's world. Nothing wrong with that, per se, but while I think thanfiction is a good writer, he's not so good that I'm interested in his original fiction. Also, he seemed to be trying to escalate the level of blood and grit from DAATYOD, until Sluagh became almost carnographic at times.

livejournal post by inverarity, from Dec 2009

2011

It's a Neville-centric fic that focuses on how the students at Hogwarts (specifically Neville) deal with the changes that were imposed while Harry was off looking for Horcruxes in the Deathly Hallows. It's fabulous, but it's dark - a fair bit darker than the original books, I think. It's twenty-four chapters with an epilogue, and 256,430 words. There are two sequels, neither of which I've read, and a number of companion fics on the author's profile here, where there are also links to artwork and an LJ comm. Yes, that's how fantastic this fic is. I swear this is canon. (Well, it could do without having Neville/Hannah, because I can't stand Hannah, but it's well done, at least).

Read it even if you don't like Harry Potter.

Rec by xslytherclaw, from Jan 2011

2018

"Infamous fic. Originally a mixed reputation; it was dark and followed Neville, Ginny and Luna's year at Hogwarts after Harry, Ron and Hermione dropped out of school, and Snape's reign of terror flanked by the Carrows and various OCs including a Nazi-esque torture scientist.

Most of the violence was pretty gratuitous and basically any character that wasn't explicitly listed as alive in the canon epilogue was killed off in quite vicious ways, including Cho Chang (crushed), Parvati Patil (dissolved in acid), Romilda Vane (literally cut to pieces by Bellatrix) etc.It was one of the first fics I read as an adult so a lot of the elements have stuck with me.

There was also a sequel which veered into batshit crazy territory with rituals, the UK-Irish civil war, and (I believe) both time travel and sacrifice of Ron and Hermione's unborn child with Ron forced to watch.

Having said all that, it was quite well-written despite the batshit crazy elements, and the stories gained a decent following for a while because certain people felt their depiction of violence and insanity was closer to actual civil war featuring an extremist faction than the perhaps slightly sanitized version JKR presented readers with in Deathly Hallows.

I vaguely feel as well that Thanfiction's Neville started to become a bit of an OC too; by the end he was definitely much more of a hero to his peers and outwardly a leader and competent etc. than canon Harry or the Harry in the story, later on after things came out about the author this became another stick to beat them with."

u/360Saturn on /r/HPfanfiction (May 2018)

"It's pretty canon-divergent, and a little gory, but SO WORTH IT. I wish I could print it out, bind it, and put it on the shelf next to the rest of my HP books."

Comment by rachofsunshine on Buzzfeed's 21 "Harry Potter" Fanfictions To Read Before You Die

2020

The author uses HP-characters to write something that has nothing to do with the tone of the HP universe, but is full of terror and torture. No character acts like they'd do in canon plus a lot of blood and more blood. There's some really good fanfiction out there - this isn't.

2022

"I quite enjoyed sections of the book, the writing is very good and there are some very strong nods to JKRs style, language and prose. However, I felt like there were sections of the book that were unnecessarily graphic or gruesome (it’s pretty tame compared to actual horror), but it didn’t really fit with the overall themes of the universe. Gore isn’t something that appears in the cannon and I feel the psychological aspects of the unforgivable curses is more effective than some of the bloody examples in this book."

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10207687-dumbledore-s-army-and-the-year-of-darkness User Sam Brett on Goodreads

Transformative Fanworks

Many Daydians (the name for fans of the DAYDverse), eager for more material after finishing Thanfiction's 1,000,000+ word series, turned to writing their own fanfiction of the series – recursive fanfiction. Thanfiction heartily approves of this^{[citation needed]}, and is often willing to answer questions about characterisation and the like to help them out. A (partial) list of DAYDverse fanfic can be found over at Thanfiction's tumblr: FICEPTION! Daydverse fanfic by Daydians.

External Links

Further Reading

• Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness on TV Tropes. See also subpages for: Awesome, Heartwarming, TearJerker,YMMV, and Funny.
• Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness page on Goodreads
• In which I spork overrated Harry Potter fanfiction by a wanky author by nevermore999 on LiveJournal (Dec 20, 2009)

Fan Resources

• DAYDverse tag at AO3
• daydverse community on LiveJournal
• daydverse community on Facebook
• daydverse tumblr, ^{Archived version}