Title: Crossroads
Author:NXSE
Rating: M
Genre: Adventure/Romance
Status: In-Progress
Library Category: General
Pairings: Tracey Davis/Daphne Greengrass/Harry Potter
Summary: In a world where he's not the Boy Who Lived, Harry struggles through a myriad of obstacles in an attempt to protect the people he treasures. First person POV. 5th year and beyond. No bashing.
Links:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/56362753/chapters/143206741

This is a wonderful story despite the pairing. It is an AU fic where Harry Potter is the son of famous traitor James Potter, Voldemort's right hand man. Harry is jaded, sarcastic and very powerful without being too OP. There is no bashing, wonderful characterizations of Dumbledore, Tracey, and even Neville (the BWL). There are also some great OCs in this world, as well as incredible worldbuilding.

It is in first person, which is a little jarring at first, but filled with hilarious quotes like:

Or

The author is quite good with duelling scenes as well. About a 30k of the fics words revolve around the world duelling competition, and it's interesting as hell. It's rare that an author can write any sort of competition well enough to leave you wanting more.

At this point in time, I would give this fic a rare 5/5. It is a breath of fresh air with a unique take on magic, the world building and characterizations. The only faults I can give it is the prose can get a bit purple-y at times, and Harry is a bit TOO powerful for his age. You have to suspend some disbelief on how a 16 year old is beating countless wizards with decades of experience on him. Alas, at least he is too powerful than too weak.

 

Seconded.

I actually don't think Harry is too powerful - overall as a character, I think it's reasonably counterbalanced by the flaws of his ostracization and the fact that the author deliberately makes him strong only in specific fields of magic, while explicitly shit at others.

As far as suspending disbelief on 16 year old strength - he's a year older in canon when he knocks off Voldemort; admittedly because of wand ownership shenanigans, but still. I think the dissonance actually being felt is the power creep of introducing the OC duelists - frankly, they're interesting and strong enough that it makes Voldemort enormously stronger by comparison.

 

I've only just started it, but this story fucking rules. It's so different while still touching on canon and some tropes. While being well-written to boot.

Magnificent.

 

As powerful as Harry might seem at times in this fic, he's very well aware that he's nowhere near the level of other people like Dumbledore, Voldemort or more experienced wizards and witches. He knows his strengths, his weaknesses, he studies and works on both. Sometimes he wins, sometimes he loses. He's afraid, he's full of joy and he's alive.

In essence, the Harry Potter in this fic is a fantastic character. He's had some tough shit to go through, he's snarky as hell and he's got good friends. Tracey and Daphne might, at first glance, resemble characterizations from different fics that feature them, but they're their own characters here as well.

There's interactions with others in the wizarding world - there's things going on, worldbuilding that both intrigues and doesn't just outright flatten you with copious amounts of infodumping.

It's a wonderful, promising piece of fanfiction.

5/5

 

This shit is straight fucking fire. Finally, some good fucking food. 18 chapters worth of it so far. I'm in love with the character of Chang's dad honestly. What a glorious manlet crackhead. And this is a great Harry to boot as well. It makes for great content when this provocative dickhead leaps headfirst into pitfalls like he does. And it says something about the writing and characterization of this story that you find yourself rooting for him all the while.

There's probably some stuff you could nitpick over if you really wanted to, like the pairing or occasional meme-y piece of dialogue ("Fuck, I can't believe you've done this," etc.) but it's been pretty organic about that kinda thing so far. I'm looking forward to the meat and potatoes of the Voldemort and Death Eater conflict. This slaps.

 

whats the romance like? I get a little leery when i see tags that look like harry is in relationship with multiple people like its some sort of harem fic or 'player' harry?

 

If you're familiar with ASOIAF the author says they want to make the relationship like Aegon/Visenya/Rhaenys, and imo they're doing a decent job of making it a three person relationship without forcing it too hard.

 

The relationship has basically no similarities to Aegon/Visenya/Rhaenys in my opinion. I don't know what the author's going on about with that. If it were the case then Harry and Daphne would be an arranged marriage that neither side wants but do out of family duty but Harry decides to marry Tracey as well anyway because he actually likes her.

The story's actual setup is that Daphne loves Tracey, Tracey loves Harry, Harry loves Tracey back, but pretends he doesn't notice what's going on for fear of screwing their dynamic and because he believes he'll just end up hurting Tracey because he's terrible at relationships. Harry and Daphne are both trying to do the romantic self-sacrifice thing but Tracey's deliberately trying to get a triad going, for reasons stemming from her childhood abuse and terrible self-esteem.

All the relationship stuff here is something I'm happy to go with.

 

My review:
"Just binged this. I'm loving it.
This is the first time in years I've found a Harry Potter fic that feels like it stands with the greats. I feel like its late 2000s and I'm getting deep into fanfiction for the first time and seeing brand new ideas and fantastic characters that expand the horizon of possibility. I'm reminded of The Santi's Harry Potter and the Boy Who Lived, jbern's The Lie I've Lived, and enembee's By the Divining Light. You've built a beautiful world full of crunchy details and nuggets of interesting history. We are 100k in and you have kept the focus tight on your protagonists, each of whom is flawed and broken and still soldering on anyway. The romance is cute and heartfelt and a joy to read. I'm following this, and going to go back and dissect out your first chapters to figure out how you did all of this. It's really fantastic."
probably too strong of praise, but goddamn i haven't binged 100k words in a day in years.
5/5.

 

well all these raving reviews i think i'll need to give it a try at least despite a few reservations lol

 

I do think the praise is going a bit overboard because we've all been starved of good fics for a while.

The world feels fresh and fleshed out, which is great.

The characters are fun, cool, sweet, but not particularly alive in that way great characters can be.

The plot is yet to really kick off. There's stuff going on, and we're seeing both familiar and new characters be badasses, but there's hardly been twists and turns to keep you on the edge of your seat. That could still come, but it's also going to need to for this to get to 5 star territory for me.

It's a fun, well written fic so far. 4/5

 

OK I have to be honest tbh, I don't see the hype. I'd give it 2/5. Different strokes for different folks I suppose.

The whole thing felt very cringy to me though. It read like a teenagers vision of what cool and badass was meant to be? Like clearly HArry is meant to be 'cool' but i found the whole thing pretty cringy and unrealistic. I don't mind a first person pov thats a bit of an ego-maniac douche, but the problem is i got the sense the author thinks this harry is 'awesome'.

The plot was ok i suppose. Nothing special though. But the characters just came across so lacking in real depth to me. Clearly a very different read from everyone else here, so i suppose it is just very different taste. I didn't finish it but i did read enough chapters to know i dont like it. It just all feels very amateurish to me and the characters more like a fantasy power trip then actually 'well written'. Real people don't act or think like the characters in this story....

Meh. Glad others are enjoying it but sadly just one i dont get.

 

Okay, just finished to 18.

I absolutely hated the first chapter, but I hate a lot of first chapters, even my own. It was just too info-dumpy, and not in a good way. However, starting this thing from 'year one' isn't the way to go either, if you want to keep this from becoming a boring million word trawl.

Beyond that, it was a fun romp in the spirit of the old DLP greats, so I'll follow for a while. 4/5

 

Really enjoyed it, a true page turner - but not one of the greats, at least not yet.

The big thing I would say is Harry is clearly overpowered, in a way that you have to accept but makes no real sense in the world. Sure, he sucks in a couple of subjects - which are never notable because his friends can cover for him, they don't affect fighting and have yet to be plot relevant. Yes, he was apprenticed young and worked hard, and there's hints of talent from James, but coming fourth in the world with strong hint he'd be first in a year or two seems above and beyond the talent we saw from Voldemort/Dumbledore, and without justification. Anyway, you do just have to accept that, and it is fun if you do.

Agree the Tracey chapters elevated the character work markedly. I had found the relationships a bit weird early on, would have to reread to tell if it makes sense in retrospect.

 

Yeah this rips. It’s like Jberns stuff except actually good. I do reserve the right to change my mind until I’m further in than just a half dozen chapters tho.

 

Really enjoyed it. As with a lot of fics that prioritise witty banter in dialogue it can either be funny or fall flat, this fic is no different. In the earlier chapters Harry/Tracey/Daphne pretty much have one voice, change the names around and who is saying what and you wouldn't notice any difference.

I find myself wishing this fic started at the beginning of Harrys duelling career not when he is nearly world champion, and certainly wished he was aged up to meet his skill and not just absurdly overpowered at his age. Hopefully when he eventually fights the higher echelon death eaters they will show immense skill as well and not just be pushovers.

Overall the start is solid, an easy 4/5 for me with what we currently have. The story gets better as it goes on beyond the absurdity that a 15 year old is nearly world duelling champion.

 

4/5. Alot of fun but the romance started getting tedious in the later chapters. Definitely worth a read.

 

I think that Crossroads puts its best foot forward with the first chapter, and if you read it all in one go you'll be very impressed. Unfortunately I read the first two and then left it for a week or so, and was less charmed on my return.

One thing that stood out for me was that the author has put in a few wink wink nudge nudge moments where they signal their feelings on some common fanon tropes. The magical core monologue was bad, but the one about Hermione and house elves was worse. These moments really took me out of the fic. There's also a very on the nose 'eat the rich' moment that did the same thing.

I think that there might be too much tell and not enough show in the descriptive writing and world building, and I'm not a big fan of most of the dialogue, it feels a bit too hammy.

With the above being said, there is something about this fic that feels unique to me, I think it might be the writing style. I definitely think that it's worth a read, but it isn't for me. 3/5.

 

A very very enjoyable binge-read for me.

A few nitpicks regarding the romance:

Spoiler

-I dislike poly so I didn't enjoy their romantic dynamic that much.
-Daphne was more like their mom.
-She's ugly(Huge sin in my book xD)
-This was nothing like Aegon/Visenya/Rhaenys.
-Trace confessing her unconditional love to Harry and saying "I ONLY want you" and "I'll wait for your answer till the end of the year." Just no.
-Daph and Harry's banter got old for me sooner than I would've liked.

3.5/5

Well written and fun but it's place isn't among the greats.

 

I don't think this is very good, it's very readable but it is not very good.
I'll start with the good, the duelling/combat is fun and snappy and there is enough context to feel immersed.
There is some interesting world-building, both surrounding the duelling scene and the wizarding world at large.
The writing style is pretty unique.
The backstory for Harry/James Potter is fresh (though I'm hoping for a plot twist there)

As for the bad,
The fic tries too hard to be funny, complete with (bad) sitcom-type romance scenes and memes out of all things. Seriously what's up with all the meme references?
The emotional beats between Harry and the rest of his throuple are not badly written, but sometimes they come out of fucking nowhere with no leadup.
The throuple in question are ok? I'm not that interested in that part and they're not exactly original but I have been reading fanfiction (and quite a lot of Haphne) for years so maybe that's on me.
(Tracy seems to idolize/love Harry in a way that's unnatural bordering on wish fullfilment, I may take this back depending on how their relationship develops further down the road )
There is quite a bit of that 00's indy Harry cringe, too much snark- excessive displays of magical powers- the usual.


2/5 for me. Fun to binge read however.