The Sacrifices Arc
| Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Sacrifices Arc |
| Author(s): | Lightning Wave |
| Date(s): | September 2005-January 2007 |
| Length: | |
| Genre(s): | |
| Fandom(s): | Harry Potter |
| Relationship(s): | |
| External Links: | on ff.net, on Skyehawke, Yahoo!Group, lightning.ffstories.net, lightning's journal |
Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Sacrifices Arc is an epic Harry Potter AU by Lightning Wave. It is famous, among other things, for being several million words long. It consists of seven stories and tells the story of Harry and his twin brother Connor, who is considered to be the boy who lived. The story also features Slytherin!Harry, Snape as a mentor for Harry and several other clichés. In fact, reworking clichés was the author's goal:
- I've tried to take several clichés (among them Harry being Sorted into Slytherin and having a twin brother who is deemed to be the Boy-Who-Lived) and write a story that's both good and has rounded characterization.[1]
During the time the stories were published, the author wrote approximately a chapter a day and posted it afterwards.[2]
The Stories
- Saving Connor (~ 75.000 words)
- No Mouth But Some Serpent's (~150.000 words)
- Comes Out of Darkness Morn (~ 265.000 words)
- Freedom and Not Peace (~ 630.000 words)
- Wind That Shakes the Seas and Stars (~ 1.000.000 words)
- A Song In Time of Revolution (~ 910.000 words)
- I Am Also Thy Brother (~ 700.000 words)
Reactions and Reviews
I admit I didn't get all the way through this. It's just so monumentally long. For comparison the Harry Potter books themselves are only 1,084,170 and I'd have a hard time reading them one after the other as well. Yet it will truly be a huge regret on my bucket list though if I do not finish this and I do not know if I would ever forgive myself. I think I got to book 5 and it is shocking.The summary explains nothing of the book so I'll go into a little more detail. If you hate spoilers do not read on. The book starts with a huge change to the plot. In this version Harry had a twin brother named Connor and when Voldemort came to kill them when they were a year old they both received a unique scar when the killing curse backfired. The boys weren't with their parents when Voldemort came into Godric's Hollow meaning both Lily and James were alive to raise them.
This means the prophecy was also different. In this one it mentions the the younger would care for the whole world and the older would only care for the younger. Dumbledore decided that to keep the prophecy in their favour the two boys must be the younger and older. If they were not it meant that there was another boy out their the dark lord could kill to ruin the prophecy forever and they couldn't let that be so they started planning.
They pretty much condition Harry as the older twin by minutes to only care for Connor. They pretty much systematically abuse him until he cares about Connor's happiness more than his own life. They train him to be his brothers protector, train him to not care for any pleasure and tolerate any pain. If you cannot stand Lily, James and Dumbledore treating a child as less than human then don't read this.
It gets so bad at points but at the same time it's worth it for how you grow to love this version of Harry. I love him dearly to the point his losses make me cry, his hurts make me feel pain and his victories make my heart soar and I would never ask more from a book than that. This is probably a fic I would recommend to J.K Rowling herself as this fic is a castle build only on her bare template and to call it just another AU is to degrade all the clever ideas and plot that makes so much sense to the the point of nothing.[3]
I've read this series twice over now, and the author has completed all seven AU books. It's a well-written work, with rather original takes on such themes as living parents, Slytherin!Harry, powerful!Harry, manipulative!Dumbledore and so forth. Reading later in the series, it does tend to get rather repetitive at points (some of the same themes keep cropping up after you thought they were solved), but it didn't detract away from the story enough for me to want to stop reading it.[4]
Inspired Fanworks
Podfic
- Podfic by elliebetg
References
- ^ lightningwave's LJ profile, accessed 2009.10.25
- ^ The author on Skyehawke:
Accessed 25 October 2009A lot of people have asked me this, so I'll put the answer here in case anyone's interested in it: Yes, I did write this story as I went. I wrote a chapter a day, usually, though sometimes a short unnumbered chapter or a second one was posted on the same day. I had an outline, but a large part of the process has been working live without a net.
- ^ "Rec at epic_recs, May 22, 2015". Archived from the original on 2024-09-03.
- ^ "The Sacrifices Arc by Lightning on the Wave - M posted to forums.darklordpotter.net, Jan 21, 2009". Archived from the original on 2024-09-03.