Title: New Blood
Author: artemisgirl
Rating: T
Genre: Adventure/Romance
Status: In-Progress
Library Category:
Pairings:
Summary: Sorted into Slytherin with the whisper of prophecy around her, Hermione refuses to bow down to the blood prejudices that poison the wizarding world. Carving her own path forward, Hermione chooses to make her own destiny, not as a Muggleborn, a halfblood, or as a pureblood... but as a New Blood, and everything the mysterious term means. ((Short chapters, done scene by scene))
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13051824/1/New-Blood

The short chapters here will drive you insane, but the world building is generaly good. You will find Hermione bringing makeup to the wizarding world beyond cloying; then she learns to fly.

As mentioned, the updates are always very short, but do happen twice a week.

 

A strange sense of deja vu washes over me. As I said in my previous review here, the prose of this fic was legible and mostly unobtrusive. The fic as a whole becomes much less annoying after the flashbacks stop. Some of the tropes used are less awful than they first appear... I think; later chapters put doubt upon how serious certain concepts like are taken within the universe of the fic. For example:

Spoiler: New Blood

At first it appears that Luna's prophecy is "true", but later it seems as if Hermione read up on the wizarding world a little and decided that she would make sure that Luna's New Blood prophecy was a self-fulfilling one. As such, she goes around creating proof of herself being a "New Blood". It is yet unclear if "New Blood" as a concept exists beyond Hermione's machinations. Personally, I would prefer if it didn't.

The characterisation of Hermione could be much, much worse. As is, I'm not too happy with it, but it's not overly Mary Sue and it does feel like Hermione goes through some struggles. The whole thing reads far less edgy than what its summary and first 20 chapters or so might have you fear... okay maybe not less edgy, but at the very least better executed.

So all in all, lackluster prose, questionable world building, and a barely bearable protagonist. The plot is what keeps me coming back for this one, and it feels like it goes by more slowly that it really does because the author. Updates. By. The. Scene. Meaning frequent but unsatisfying updates. (I think it's Tuesdays and Fridays?)

When I first read it a few weeks ago, I caught up all in one go and lost some sorely missed sleep. For that alone, I gave it a 2. I mentioned a potential 2.5, for the sake of guilty pleasures, but decided to round down out of spite. Here, not only do I think "guilty pleasures" should be a reason weighed slightly more heavily, but my spite at wasting my time reading this fic has also faded in the few weeks since I first caught up. All in all, rounding up to 3.

 

Ah.

 

It was okay at the beginning, dunno. Some new ideas and a simple language made it easy to read it, but as it goes on it becomes a chore to keep with it. Short chapters are annoying too, I mean, 177 of them. Cmon.

My personal disdain towards Hermione didn't help.

 

I’m a page or so into chapter one and this whole bit with the prefect is lifted directly from 2 scenes in ACA

Spoiler

You're in Slytherin house. That means you're in the best house," Jade said. "We're the house of cunning, of creativity, and of ambition. We have the drive to go as far as we want and reach our goals, and our goals are always higher than those of the other houses. We usually win both the House Cup and the Quidditch Cup, and I expect this tradition to continue." She gave them another significant look.

Right – win House Cup and Quidditch Cup. Hermione made a mental note. Got it.

"Because of this, the other houses generally don't like us," Jade said, sniffing. "This is why the first rule of Slytherin is the most important – Rule #1: Slytherins stick together."

"Slytherins stick together," they all murmured back. Jade nodded satisfactorily.

"A Slytherin is always better than a student of another house," she said, tossing back her hair. "The other houses, though subconsciously, know this, and they will resent you for it. Conflicts with other students are to be expected. Because of this, the second rule is also very important – Rule #2: Don't get caught."

Hermione shared an amused look with Tracey, and, to her surprise, Blaise Zabini, who was shooting her a mischievous smile.

"So long as you don't get caught and don't leave proof behind, our Head of House, Professor Snape, will protect you from allegations from another student," Jade said. "He derives delight from it, but don't push him too far – it's better to remain completely unseen, so there's not even a student accusation to deal with."

Hermione blinked. Jade was basically giving them free reign to retaliate against other students who bullied them. It was… a new approach to bullying, to be sure. At her old schools, she'd always been encouraged to report any bullying activities to a teacher, who would handle it. The teachers never actually did handle it properly, and telling a teacher often made the problem worse, but the expectation had been there – tell an authority figure, who would put a stop to it.

Here, Slytherins were expected to take care of problems and handle any such issues themselves. Hermione hid a small smile, looking down at her wand. While that kind of approach would never have worked at a Muggle school, where physical size was largely what determined the winner of an altercation, here at Hogwarts, everyone had wands. Size wouldn't matter – your magical skill would.

Not a great start, let’s see how it goes

 

Which stands for?

 

Obamacare!


jk. It's Applied Cultural Anthropology which is the quintessential Slytherin!Hermione story.
--- Post automerged ---

Spoiler: ACA

Hermione's head was spinning as she left Snape's office and made her way to the Slytherin common room. If she understood him correctly, he had stepped in after Pansy's latest prank not because he wanted to stop her bullying per se, but only because Pansy had crossed the line-apparently the same line the prefects had been talking about, of carrying a prank so far that it exposed cracks within Slytherin.

As long as Pansy kept her pranks on the correct side of that line, she could pick on Hermione without any interference from their head of house. But on the other hand, if Hermione retaliated against Pansy, she could expect a similar amount of leeway in official oversight of her actions.

No authority figure had ever suggested such a thing to Hermione before. Her teachers had always insisted that she was doing the right thing by reporting bullying through the proper channels. Her parents had told her that bullies were just hurting themselves, really, in the long run. Every adult seemed to agree that Hermione would be better off not being drawn into a "cycle of violence."

Of course, it had always been a moot point, back in the muggle world. Hermione wasn't the weakest kid out there, but she was going to be an underdog in most physical confrontations. Professor Snape's blithe assumption that she could look out for herself was a little reassuring, but was more likely a result of the fact that for wizards, the wand was a great equalizer. After all, it didn't really matter how strong somebody was if they were under the full body bind.

Spoiler: New Blood

Hermione blinked. Jade was basically giving them free reign to retaliate against other students who bullied them. It was… a new approach to bullying, to be sure. At her old schools, she'd always been encouraged to report any bullying activities to a teacher, who would handle it. The teachers never actually did handle it properly, and telling a teacher often made the problem worse, but the expectation had been there – tell an authority figure, who would put a stop to it.

Here, Slytherins were expected to take care of problems and handle any such issues themselves. Hermione hid a small smile, looking down at her wand. While that kind of approach would never have worked at a Muggle school, where physical size was largely what determined the winner of an altercation, here at Hogwarts, everyone had wands. Size wouldn't matter – your magical skill woul

--- Post automerged ---
I have now made it to chapter 29 and despite that inauspicious start, and like @Ched said, it's better than expected. The writing is good, some of the actions are over the top but so far nothing too extreme.

At least until this chapter when hermione, who, to be clear, is eleven, started selling sexy pinup pictures of herself reclining on a broom.

 

Spoiler: ACA

Hermione's head was spinning as she left Snape's office and made her way to the Slytherin common room. If she understood him correctly, he had stepped in after Pansy's latest prank not because he wanted to stop her bullying per se, but only because Pansy had crossed the line-apparently the same line the prefects had been talking about, of carrying a prank so far that it exposed cracks within Slytherin.

As long as Pansy kept her pranks on the correct side of that line, she could pick on Hermione without any interference from their head of house. But on the other hand, if Hermione retaliated against Pansy, she could expect a similar amount of leeway in official oversight of her actions.

No authority figure had ever suggested such a thing to Hermione before. Her teachers had always insisted that she was doing the right thing by reporting bullying through the proper channels. Her parents had told her that bullies were just hurting themselves, really, in the long run. Every adult seemed to agree that Hermione would be better off not being drawn into a "cycle of violence."

Of course, it had always been a moot point, back in the muggle world. Hermione wasn't the weakest kid out there, but she was going to be an underdog in most physical confrontations. Professor Snape's blithe assumption that she could look out for herself was a little reassuring, but was more likely a result of the fact that for wizards, the wand was a great equalizer. After all, it didn't really matter how strong somebody was if they were under the full body bind.

Spoiler: New Blood

Hermione blinked. Jade was basically giving them free reign to retaliate against other students who bullied them. It was… a new approach to bullying, to be sure. At her old schools, she'd always been encouraged to report any bullying activities to a teacher, who would handle it. The teachers never actually did handle it properly, and telling a teacher often made the problem worse, but the expectation had been there – tell an authority figure, who would put a stop to it.

Here, Slytherins were expected to take care of problems and handle any such issues themselves. Hermione hid a small smile, looking down at her wand. While that kind of approach would never have worked at a Muggle school, where physical size was largely what determined the winner of an altercation, here at Hogwarts, everyone had wands. Size wouldn't matter – your magical skill woul

 

I have now made it to chapter 29 and despite that inauspicious start, and like @Ched said, it's better than expected. The writing is good, some of the actions are over the top but so far nothing too extreme.

At least until this chapter when hermione, who, to be clear, is eleven, started selling sexy pinup pictures of herself reclining on a broom.

 

When I wrote my previous post, I was at chapter 29 and as I continued reading, I was thinking about how I wanted to write my review and score it. I was going to say 3.5 rounded down.

At that point, it was a clear level above the other stories in almost recommended in terms of quality, but some of the worse tropes (which I'll get to in a bit) made me sure that it wasn't Library quality and given the whole thing about the sexy pinup pictures of the 12 year old I was almost certain that the story was about to jump the shark in a rather spectacular fashion.

I have now read all 178 of the shocking short chapters (but which total 300k words) and my updated rating would have come as quite the surprise to the me of 24hrs ago.

4.5 / 5 rounded down to 4... for now.

This story is GOOD. The same reasons I was going to round down to 3 rather than round up are why I'm rounding down again, there are certain bad foundations which cannot at this point be excised from the story. They have, though, been downplayed since the swerve to avoid the shark jump that was looming around chapter 29. If this story continues with the average quality it's had up to this point for another 500k+ words (through the end of year seven) then I expect I'll round up.

Lets start with the bad (i'm going to uses spoiler tags to cut down on the giant wall of text appearance but there arent really any significant spoilers) :

Spoiler

- THE FUCKING PIN UP PICTURE PHOTOSHOOT AND PICS BEING SOLD. I mean, what the fuck?
- Goblin tropes. Talking formally to them. Introducing them to the millennia old concept of interest as if it were novel, something for which they are grateful
- Overpowered ritual magic which Hermione has too much of a grasp of.
- Selling makeup to purebloods through her mother the Avon rep for profit.
- A Luna who is a little too prescient.
- Mother who seems a bit too focused on her daughters future sex life, boobs, and periods
- This is one that personally has never bothered me that much, but @Taure would go absolutely spare over the magical cores in this story.
- The mountain of short chapters.

And now the mitigating factors for those negatives (where they exist)

Spoiler

- After one or two mentions in the subsequent chapters, the pin up pics have never been mentioned again. I'm going to leave a review on FFN recommending that the author edit the entire thing out. It has no tie in to any of the rest of the plot and could be neatly removed
- Goblin Tropes are a pet peeve of mine and so the ones in this story bother me even though objectively most of them are not that bad. The formalism seem mostly restricted to one not-over-the-top phrase and there was no instant respect as a result of the formalisms. The thing about interest obscene and I would say almost inexcusable, except for in just the last 10 chapters there is some foreshadowing of the fact that the reason the goblins might not charge interest is not actually because that had never occurred to them which was the reason originally presented
- The ritual magic seems overpowered but it's not the magic bullet it is in some stories. It's also not an every day occurrence in the story. All and all it toes the line of being too much but so far has mostly stayed on the right side.
- The too prescient Luna is sometimes tempered by Hermione not understanding what she says but mostly by her absence from most scenes.
- I guess some mothers are like this IRL, it just did not fit with the idea I had of Hermione's mother.
- If you download the story as an ebook, you don't even notice the short chapters. In fact in the latest authors note, the author seems to acknowledge the dislike of the short chapters and recommend doing just this even going so far as to let people know that if they want to do that, they should avoid updates until july 31st and then read every one of the updates until that point together (presumably that will be the end of year 2)

The neutral

Spoiler

- Snape is OC
- Hermione is OC (kind of unavoidable in this kind of story)
- Cedric is OC in an off putting way

Now the good

Spoiler

- The writing is free from technical errors. The prose is not awkward or stuttering>
- The protagonist is an imperfect narrator, for example, there is one scene with Dumbledore that makes him seem so villainous when I read it, I groaned and thought "here comes the bashing", yet a few chapters later snape reframes the interaction in a way that changes both Hermiones understanding of the events as well as the readers. This is not pulled off as well as some authors manage, but does so better than most .
- Hermione is a dynamic character whose personality evolves over the two books.
- While I wish the story had slightly faster pacing than it does, it is progressing and not disappearing into the million word first semester of year one that seems to devour so many stories. At 360k words, the basilisk has just been killed which means we're on track for under 200k/book. If, as the authors notes suggest, the book will be finished by August, it will have been 2 school years in exactly two years since the story was posted.
-The author has managed to discuss pure blood traditionalism and great houses without the normal "lords and ladies" bullshit that drives me nuts. There are some formal conventions that are touched upon but it's done with a light touch, and Hermione did not just read a book and absorb and regurgitate them all.
-Despite romance being something hinted at since the first book, so far there aren't any kiddie romances. I'm worried its coming next year when I'd rather it come in 5th year but I'm pretty confident if it comes it won't take over the story. This is just one of a few areas where the author benefits from Hermione being almost a year older than her classmates.
-A more developed and interesting home life than most fan fictions. Her parents are fleshed out characters. One detail of which is in the spoiler tag below

and here is a spoiler tag for something that is an actual spoiler

Spoiler

Hermione's dad is apparently a DND player and sees some of Hermione's hogwarts hi-jinks through this frame. It's something that could have come off as cheesy, but it is done really well. It's genuinely charming.

In conclusion, after a rocky start where it ventures into some unfortunate tropes, it manages to mostly extract itself from them and develop into an engaging story. There is a constant worry as you read that the story is about to go wildly off the rails but so far it hasn't.

There are a lot of similarities to Applied Cultural Anthropology and if you liked that story, you'll probably like this one. I don't think this is the problem it once was at DLP, but if you can't if you cant read a story that does not center on Harry, you'll obviously not like this one.

4.5 rounded down to 4.

 

I must have been smoking crack when I wrote this review.

just tried to re read and it’s a solid 3/5 not the 4.5 I gave it before.

almost recommended is the perfect place for it

 

I'm enjoying the story; I'm glad I saw the reference to it here on DLP. The writing is professional, reads flawlessly, action and dialogue balanced nicely, Hermione is an engaging protagonist, all the kids are fleshed out well, the world building is innovative, the teachers depicted as human beings rather than cardboard cutouts and so forth.

Two big things mar it for me. The first is the 'woke factor', which is very high; the story is saturated with it. Non-heterosexuals abound, gender is explored multiple ways (one or two smartly leveraging Rowling's Hogwarts and magic) and it's Hermione's mission to make jolly sure that everyone around her is fully hip to woke. This is a personal irritant for me and will not be an issue for many other readers that are more (extreme) left leaning. The author also, in her profile page, does give a warning:

I'm 'dealing with it', but - for me - it subtracts from the enjoyment of the story. In my youth I used to roll my eyes at the cartoons that had a LESSON YOU SHOULD LEARN at the end of every episode too.

Secondly, Hermione's Mary Sue-ness is irritating and hobbles the story. In this case I have to disagree with the author, who again addresses this complaint. I don't believe a Mary Sue has to be 'perfect' and a self-insert. In this story Hermione is 'special' in a way that screams MARY SUE to me:

Spoiler

1. Powerful magic users have only one elemental (as far as I recall) and *only Hermione Granger* seems to have tried getting more.

2. Hermione is making huge advances in introducing muggle concepts into the magical world, particularly with the goblins, who are amazed at what she's telling them. Wow, it's as if *she's the only muggle-raised witch in the entire magical world*.

3. *Everyone* of note is making goo-goo eyes at Hermione Granger. This includes the girls as well as the boys, because - bonus! - Hermione appears to be bi-sexual. That's winning the woke gender lottery, right?

But really, it's #2 which is the core of my alienation against Hermione 'Mary Sue' Granger. I don't know how many times she's brought in something which is covered by that item.

It's a good story, and can be rated as 'excellent' if the woke and Mary Sue factors can be ignored by the reader.

 

I just started reading it. I'm about 4 chapters in. I like what I've seen so far, but was terrified enough of its extreme length that I thought I'd come here and look for reviews so I'd know what I was getting into. I'm satisfied, it sounds promising, I know that this is a tough crowd and I have fairly relaxed standards for fanfic, so I'm not worried.

It reminds me in some ways of one of my all time favorites, BrilliantLady's brilliant (of course) "Hermione Granger, Demonologist", https://archiveofourown.org/works/11800899 .

Update: I'm now about 10% in. I'm still enjoying it but it seems sort of like literary junk food, even for fanfic. It's super long almost for the sake of being super long. I do know that some fic readers want that and go looking for it, but I have never understood that. I have it as one huge epub file through fichub. I guess I should check into how it was originally subdivided so I can find a reasonable temporary stopping point. I'm near the end of Hermione's first year at Hogwarts', so that is probably a good place.

 

Hmm, I can't edit the above post any more, but it looks like the epub is divided into "books" labelled in the chapter titles, so book 2 starts at chapter 66. It is just under 1.1 million words and is just starting year 4, omg.

Word counts: year 1, 121463 words; year 2, 310737 words; year 3, 612253 words; year 4 unknown since just getting started. I see an exponential growth pattern similar to the Rowling boks which I quit reading in year 4. New Blood is supposed to cover all 7 years and I'm terrified.

I just finished year 1 and it was fun but I'm going to take a break from it for now.

There is a TV Tropes page about the story if that interests anyone:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/NewBloodArtemisgirl

 

Can you point on the doll where the 'woke' touched you?

Seriously you said 'woke' 4 times and the vast majority of your post is complaining about it.

That really doesn't sound like you're 'dealing with it'.

 

I've only just started reading year 2 and I haven't gotten to the parts of the story where this gender theory issue comes up, I guess. I do notice Hermione is a Mary Sue, but it's ok, it's fanfic and we are all used to that. The author claims in the linked profile Hermione is not a Mary Sue, but uses a fairly stringent criteria for what constitutes one.

The story so far imho is enjoyable light reading which is great for stories up to 100k or so. For something this long I hope to find more substantial content. If the word count of each year keeps being around 2x the previous one, and if my math is right, the full 7 year series will be around 25M words.

This is the 3rd super-long "super Hermione" story I've spent time on so far. First was "The Arithmancer", which is popular and highly rec'd on Reddit, but which I thought was overrated. I gave up after the 1st "volume". I more recently noticed that it got quite a bad review here on DLP and I found that satisfying since I thought perhaps that I was the only reader who didn't like the story. I didn't find it terrible, but only much too long. Second was "HG and the Boy Who Lived" (https://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-30822) which I liked a lot better. This is the third, and I like the Slytherin Hermione angle and the amount of mischief in the story. I gotta say the "Avon Lady" subplot, if it keeps recurring, is pretty lame (I won't bother with a spoiler since it's not very important afaict).

Added: I voted 4/5 but this is obviously subject to revision as I go forward. Really maybe 3.5 rounded to 4.