Title: School Spirit
Author: Story Envy
Rating: M
Genre: Crossover
DLP Category: Alternate
Pairing: None listed
Status: Work In Progress
Last Update 7-19-11
Summary: Harry Potter wasn't surprised to learn he was a wizard. He'd been dreaming of wizards and magic for years. He was just surprised at what sort of wizard he was. Prologue is identical to "Death and Dreams". Dresden Files crossover.
Link: FFNet

Very excellent.

Harry's been dream that he was Dresden since he was seven years old. Which is basically just a good excuse to have Dresden going to Hogwarts in Potter's place.

Still, a very good job at capturing Dresden's character and explaining some of the differences between the magic systems.

5/5 from me.

 

Pretty good so far. Actually, he's not quite Dresden - he's close, but a lot of that is the writing style, which is done very well.

 

Witty, full of humor and the only canon flaw I can see is the 'Potters not having an arranged marriage in centuries' thing; one of Harry's paternal ancestors married into the Black line, and judging by that she wasn't blasted off of the family tree and with the Black family's general attitude on blood purity, it sort of screams 'arranged!' to me.

 

Oh look, there point of deviation from canon is on Halloween 1981, luckily I have my handy check-list ready:

James fights Voldemort: Check.
Hidden Runic Trap: Check.
Easily Baited Voldemort: Check.
Personification of Death, Fate, Time and Chicken Nuggets: Check.
Vague Mysterious Sounding Chatter: Check.

Eh. First chapter was retarded.

3/5

 

The set-up was indeed trite and inelegant, but I trust that it won't actually impact the fic in any way. The author just wanted a way to give Harry the memories of Dresden.

The chapters afterwards have been good, if a bit meandering. But at least we're at Hogwarts now. The latest chapter was of slightly lower quality, with preachy!Harry emerging, giving Hermione that "don't trust books" speech we all know and hate. And Sorting Hat scene was suitably clichéd. I don't know where practically all of fanfiction has got this idea that the Sorting Hat reads your memories. So far as we can see it reads your character.

I enjoyed the idea of Sirius' alternative Sorting Song though, lol. That was something fun and original.

The main problem I have with this fic is the ever-increasing risk of canon-rehash. As more chapters go by we're seeing an ever-increasing trend of Harry sidelining his knowledge of Dresden magic. At this stage the only meaningful difference we're likely to get is a slightly smarter Harry who can pull an unexpected trick now and then.

For that reason, I'm going to rate this 3/5 for now. If it looks like we're going to get some original plot I'll bump that up to 4/5 (so long as the new plot is good, obviously).

 

I'm not that happy with the serious cliche-rehash this story has been pulling out. For something that is ostensibly a fusion between HP and Dresden, this is basically just a typical "Harry is Really Smart and Has Special Magic Nobody Else Has" cliched story so far.

Deus Ex Machine giving Harry powers? check (And.. damn, but that was terrible writing of the Sandman characters)
Goblin blood signing + oddly friendly Goblins? check
Special Wand? check
Essentially out of character Harry? check
"Fixing" the houses for Hermione and Neville? ergh, check
I did not like his interactions with Hermione... just struck me as someone trying to "fix canon", which always annoys me.

Plus he really loves that MoR fic, which always makes me suspicious that the author hasn't even read any HP books at all.

So like 2.5/5 for now, but I'm allowing for the possibility of improvement.

 

I was enjoying the Harry with Dresden's style monologue...until it got preachy...and then we got to the Hermione characterization and it blew...and then to Neville having a spine...ugh what...and then everyone goes into 'better' houses...wtf.

Some parts of this fic just rub me the wrong way, not my cup of tea. Other parts like characterization are simply issues that apply to everyone regardless of their tastes in fanfiction.

 

I read that originally as everyone going into new houses for accommodation, then realized this is Harry Potter fanfiction. Bed time for me.

Gave it a read, but really it has a lot of cliches. Shopping spree, goblins, a new wand (a brother wand that is good enough for Voldemort is not good enough for Harry Potter?), the most awkward written speech with Hermione when the author wands to get his views out their and a couple other things.

I can handle resortings of character, some of the best fics out their have characters in different houses, but from the get go it is Hermione, Neville and Harry, and guess what, only those three have been resorted. No mention of Ron at all, etc. etc. Shows a narrow view in the writing/imagination of the author, just resorting what he wants without thinking about anyone else.

As it is it's just an average story, nothing special to garner interest besides the Dresden Files crossover. I'll check it out down the road if I remember to see if anything interesting happens.

3/5. Average.

 

^

Ditto. Interesting premise, not very well executed.

 

I think a large part of the problem is that most of what we've seen so far is just set up. It could either get much better as the plot kicks in or it could fail miserably, but there isn't much to review so far.

 

Harry got a mysterious new power, went on a shopping trip in Diagon Alley (getting a super special custom wand in the process), and has given live changing pep talks to Neville and Hermione. All this before school even started. The only thing keeping this from tripping my auto-fail sensors is the Dresden cross, and the grace period that earned from me is quickly running out.

 

A lot of year one rewrites take 20-30k words to set up. Not that it's necessarily a good reason for this fic to do it too, but it's not exactly unexpected and I'd wait at least another 2-3 chapters before giving up on it.

 

Oh, what the heck... throw in an cat.

2/5

 

I want to like this - I really do - but for every part of the story that's excellent, there's a part that's not so excellent. Some of the one liners had me bursting out laughing, but some of what came after had me rolling my eyes and skimming. While not exactly a total cliche-fest, the author has fallen into too many common pitfalls for me to ignore.

I think it rounds out to a 3/5, because some parts really are enjoyable. It's a pity, because I could easily see this being awesome with a DLP-caliber beta.

 

I seen this fic in the Almost Recommendable thread a few weeks ago and so far I think that's where it belongs.

3/5

 

Perhaps this was too early in development to post into review ... as it stands, if it goes to a canon rehash with minor changes to encounters, it'd have nothing to distinguish itself from the thousands of drivel rehash fics in FFnet. But it does show quite a bit of promise.

And damnit it's HP/Dresden. And readable.

A cautious 4/5.

 

I think I can agree with that.

 

Updated. Some more exploration in the differences between magic systems, though this time more practically as opposed to philosophically.

 

How does this have a 4/5 rating on DLP? Are we really so desperate for Dresden/HP crossovers that we'll give a superior rating to utter tripe?

I liked this story at first. But the author's decided he needs to use virtually every irritating Indy Harry cliche. There are numerous other rather large issues that others have noted. The author deviates from the story to get intolerably preachy often enough that it's extremely irritating. For some reason, the Potter's are no longer a pureblooded family, (he refers to them as mongrels and mutts who didn't care about marrying for blood purity). There's no apparent reason to this, and it smacks (like a number of other things) of someone who has either never really read the books or who is out to 'fix' everything that was wrong in the books

Had high hopes, but I'm being disappointed. 2/5

EDIT: For T3t

Spoiler

The Potters tended to produce above average wizards and witches, were generally against the rape and torture of non-magicals (Go Team Sane!), and we absolutely ignored blood politics, which effectively made us blood traitors to the Pureblood faction. We didn't go for arranged marriages – it had been several hundred years since the Potters had last had one, we didn't try to keep our blood 'pure' – in fact, it was a rare Potter that married anyone that fit the 'pureblood' moniker – which was having four grandparents who were magical.
Reading up on Blood politics made me sympathize with dogs. The Potters were happily mutts and mongrels.

If they don't keep try to keep their blood pure and rarely marry purebloods, then by definition the Potter family isn't pureblood.

 

I agree with the preaching, but I don't think he contradicted canon or called the Potter family names... I might have missed that but that's the sort of thing I pick up on more than cliche usage. He's posted a time-line for the next 2 chapters in his profile so I'm not worried about the pacing so much as apparent rehash.