Title: A True Slytherin.

Author: kjp08.

Rating: T.

Genre: Adventure.

Status: WIP.

Pairing: Harry/Tracey friendship for now.

Library category: Alternate house.

Summary: There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad that wasn't in Slytherin… well at least according to Hagrid. A chance meeting with Professor Slughorn changes Harry's outlook just in time for the sorting.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7406039/1/

The grammar is good and the author has quite a few original ideas. Oh and Slughorn is one cunning bastard in this story. I wouldn't put it in the 'On the way to Greatness's' league yet, but the story's got potential. The story is still young, but I'd give it a 3.5/5 as it stands.

 

Only 2 chapters and 25,000 words? Far too early to submit for review in my opinion.

Edit: Gave up half way through the first chapter. To start, there are a number spelling and grammatical errors. Also, Harry's interactions with some characters (Slughorn and Neville for example) feel extremely forced and awkward.

2/5 for me.

 

This is unreadable for me. There are so many rough edges and many of the scenes make me cringe with how shallow they are. 2/5

 

So, there's two chapters that have been published a year apart, and...

there's this gem right at the beginning:

Yeah... No.

2/5 at best.

Krishna, you have failed to make even one good recommendation in Almost Recommendable, whyever would you think that similarly shitty story put up for a review would fare better?

 

This story is of very poor quality and the only "original" stuff I saw in the first chapter was this:

Brilliant, eh?

In addition, the author is orthographically challenged, can't keep the pace of the story and seems to think that mindlessly inserting "[Scene Break]" is an adequate way to inform his readers of the obvious. The characterisation is piss poor to nonexistent too, there really is nothing that could motivate me to read on.

2/5

 

Just... why? This is dreadful, and made worse by the premise actually having some potential under a decent writer. And Nauro hit the nail on the head with his choice of quote tbh, I mean, sorry but wtf is that?

No. Only just a 2/5 for being physically readable.

 

Two chapters and published after a year is it going to be continued ? Oh well who cares i m not reading it anymore
2/5

 

The only reason I suggested the story is because of the magic system. The author came back from a self imposed break. I PM'ed him and he replied that the next chapter would be posted by Christmas.

The fandom is coming down and good stories are becoming a rarity. I ran across this and found it decent and hence, posted it. As far as writing my own story goes, English is like my third or fourth language and while I can narrate well, my dialogue sucks. It's upon us DLP'ers to bring back the Harry Potter stories to former glory. Start updating the WBA fellas.

 

You recommended a story for library just because of the magic system?

Stories that are put in library need to be good as an overall product, and not good in only one area while lacking in others (until and unless it's awesomely good in that area and average in others, but even then I would be very skeptical about it). It doesn't matter if the plot is very good, ideas are original; but if the execution is lacking i.e. it's bad grammatically etc, then others aren't going to read it or like it.

It seems to be the case with this story too. There are few good ideas, but apart from that there is nothing to separate it from most of the other tropes on ff.net. And that clearly is not enough to make this story library worthy.

As Sesc said, you should probably have recced this in Almost Recommended thread.

 

This was in the author's note. I wouldn't know how true this is since I've never been to Britain.

You are right @Sesc, a good idea is followed by a fail. I re-read it again searching for the fails and found quite a few. I dunno how I missed them the first time around.

@Sesc, since you are a moderator, please delete this thread. Perhaps we should wait for a few more updates to see if the story improves.

 

Yeah, you don't really have to defend the story just because you recommended it. I've submitted stories that didn't make it in before, quite a few of us have.

Back on topic, I don't believe this story is library worthy either. It's not cringe worthy overall, it's an above-average story for FF.net, with a few decidedly awful moments. 2.5/5

 

I too have never been to Britain, but it's certainly something that comes up frequently in works of fiction set in British boarding schools. There's plenty of things to dislike about this story, but that shouldn't really be one of them.

 

I enjoyed reading this, but it's not good. There are enough little points in this story to make reading it worthwhile, it's just that the bad points overwhelms it enough that it won't ever really get a good rating without a proper edit. Most of the good and bad points have already been mentioned so, I'll just end the post with a rating.

2.5/5

 

Okay...well there are some things that are good about this, and some things that are not so good.

The first good thing is that it is a slytherin!Harry fic. That aspect makes even poorly written works at least readable provided they don't look like the author used the writing technique of rolling his face on the keyboard.

The second is the magical system.

The third is the new element of the fagging system, that said, the fagging system in Britain would have continued into second year so a Sixth Year would have been paired with Harry rather than a Seventh Year.

Now I know that there may be shouts that such a thing isn't canon; however, we really don't know from canon how the other three quarters live.

The bad aspects....the "[scene break]". I fucking hate that when authors do that shit. Its annoying and makes it look unedited. There is no need for that if one is at least half-way competent at writing past a fifth grade level.

The underwear situation in the clothing shop. NO ONE FUCKING CARES ABOUT HARRY'S DRAWERS!!!!!123@! And even if wizards don't wear underwear given the cultural situation of both Muggle UK and presumably Wizarding UK cushioning charms should not be necessary for males anyway as they have all their anatomy down there.

Finally the fagging system was done wrong. Obviously I'm not British but my folks are, and my father did go to a Public School (which in the UK has a very different meaning than the meaning used in the US--I don't want to argue about it...look it up if you're inclined to argue). He experienced the fagging system and from what I was told there was a small monetary reward for the fag. A fag tip it was called.

Over all, on the basis of the first chapter I can say that I will continue reading this fic. However probably because I like Slytherin!Harry stories that don't look like they've been written by an illiterate.

That said the story strikes me as entirely mediocre and not library worthy. Of course it could get better or worse so at this time I'm only comfortable with a presumptive 2/5.