Yeah, the Hadrian thing I don't like but it's better than Heron.

On the way to the bank he's feeling comforted by Hagrid's presence but at the mention of the vault key he's done a 180 and excluding him from going with them.

Afterwards he asks Griphook what his name is and what a muggle is and it leads to this.

Should I just skip ahead somewhere because this Diagon Alley scene is very much not to my liking so far.

---

This makes me remember with fondness when I still though The Grass Is Always Greener by kb0 was the best Harry/Daphne fic ever. I've sadly grown past that and it hurts to read it. I can't help but wish I was still so easily entertained.

 

Pretty good, definitely readable. Not sure if it's library worthy.

Some Pro's:

Smart Ruthless Harry. Some nice character interactions. The writing is dark and decently well written.

Cons: The whole story seems to revolve around Hadrian (also a con). Not in the "Duh, he's the protagonist" way but it seems like every other character gets POVs just to muse about how intriguing he is. It gives the impression that the universe is centered on him or something.
Theres a couple other normally annoying cliches, but they don't linger around and aren't in y our face like in other stories, plus its covered up by the rest of the story.

 

Gotta take a break and do some stuff, but I have nearly finished the second story, and while it is good and definitely almost recommended, I don't see it as being anything but a guilty pleasure. Slight spoilers alert.

Beyond Hadrian :facepalm (queue Harry telling Dumbledore to call him Mr Potter, not Harry) always having the upper hand, even against adults in conversation, the Gryffindor bashing is the most annoying part of this fic. Sure it is not as in your face as most other Slytherin stories, but it is there, and it is irrational.

The only Gryffindor slightly in character is Ron, and that is because we saw his irrational hate of Slyhterins in canon. It is over the top in this story, but hey he is the closest to being in character, and with that being Ron... well.

The other Gryffindors though are completely OC to their character with no explanation. Lets ignore Seamus and Patil, because they are side characters so who gives a shit, the two biggest concerns are Neville Longbottom and Minerva McGonagall.

I never knew being the Boy-Who-Lived and a Gryffindor made you a complete arse, which is where this author has taken their character with Neville Longbottom. The most mild, good-natured character in canon is suddenly a blind Slyhterin hating Gryffindor. The only difference? He is the Boy-Who-Lived. His irrational hate is not expanded upon from there, and it has shown up multiple times so far throughout the story. And guess what? You guessed it! Every interaction with Harry just makes Gryffindors and Co. look even more like fools. Getting cursed/jinxed in the back? An invisible shield that no one sees you cast will save the day! And embarrass those pesky nay-sayers to boot. Cause Slytherins are awesome.

The nest biggest concern was Minerva. She does not have the same irrational hate of Slytherins as her students, but instead she has turned into blind a supporter of Gryffindor (not canon, she is willing to punish her own students). A fight breaks out and a whole group of Gryffindors have an altercation with a Slytherin? Must be Harry Potters fault. Even though she fully knows and understand how and why it happened, no reprimand is given to the Gryffindors, not without good guy Snape (not OC at all) putting his foot down.

That is just some of the irratonal Gryffindor bashing going on, without going into the Slytherin is awesome part of the story. I won't go deep into Albus Dumbledore because while bad, his character is not seen as much as others. The worst thing with him is he believes Slytherin house should be removed from the school and there should be no children ever allowed to go into that house. Not joking, that's in the story.

There are also other problems as well, but nothing that detracts from the story as much as the above.

Removing the Gryffindor side of things the story is enjoyable, though still not library worthy. The writing quality while acceptable, is no where near great, and the characterization is all over the place as Nuit touched upon. Minerva actually shows signs of having an independent brain now and then, before it gets shut down and she goes into old habits.

Maybe the characterizations and the reasoning behind the characters get explained, but so far at nearly the end of story two nothing worthwhile has shown up in that regard. I haven't finished reading yet, and if the authors is willing to let bad characterization with no reasoning to go on for so long... then I can't see this being resolved anytime soon, if at all.


TL;DR A 3/5 of a guilty pleasure. Gryffindor bashing abound but thankfully more subtle then other fics so you can semi-ignore it. I will be reading it, I enjoyed the fic, it just is no where near library worthy. If you enjoy Slytherin fics this is one of the not so bad ones. A decent time waster with credible writing.

 

Yeah, I never had a problem with Dumbledore and the house points. As you said, it's canon.

And I was going to go into about the POV and the favoritism in the authors writing towards Slytherin, but given how much I had written I didn't want to go into anything more. Plus mainly it is a Slytherin fic, so most people wouldn't mind as much the wanking over Slytherin. As a reader you want your protagonist to be better, I certainly do. The trick is your meant to do that without degrading those around you, because then it comes across as bashing which as a whole not just degrades the other houses, but brings the whole fic down.

A lot of the differences you can contribute to the POV, which is fine because as a whole we don't see what happens from the Gryffindors perspective, especially when it comes to canon events, but that's not the bashing I am referring to.

When it comes to Neville, why is he needed beyond the bash factor? There is a ready made hate machine in Ron. Instead we get Neville, someone who as you said was picked upon in canon from the Slytherins, yet in canon he never once expressed hate towards Slytherins (iirc?), and in my opinion he was picked on worse then Harry.

Harry could stand up for himself, Neville could not. The constant degrading of someone who couldn't stand up for himself should of festered more hate then Harry could ever have dreamed of towards Slytherin, yet Neville never had that hatred.

In regards to the fic, Neville is a complete opposite in temperament to how he was in canon. And there is no reason for it except to show how awesome Harry is. You could take Neville and the Boy-Who-Lived aspect out of the fic and nothing would be lost, you could easily replace with another antagonist. We don't see from their POV or the canon events they go through, so aren't needed. The only times Neville shows up is for confrontation of the meaningless sort, in which Harry always get the one-up. (Once again, I've only read up to end of book two, just starting on book three now.)

So if he is not needed in the story, and when he does appear it is for conflict with the Slytherins and then in turn to be made a fool of, what is that if not bashing? A cheap way to make conflict in a story. It could be something as simple as the POV makes it look worse then it is, but since we don't get a different POV and no explanation as for the reason they act the way they do, it's just plain bashing, only made worse by the fact the interactions have a minor role to play in the story so far and as such not needed.

As regards to the OOCness of characters,it is AU, but there needs to be explanation if you are going to change characters around. If there is no explanation and someone is drastically changed and then subsequently degraded for no reason, that is the definition of bashing. I have no problem with Neville looking like the fool (canon) and hating Slytherins, we saw other characters do that in canon, if there is reason given for it. We don't get that. Instead it's there, Harry is awesome, life goes on.

In regards to the "It's all Harrys Potters fault," take it thats me talking about Minerva. Harry did lose his shit towards the end, and it was justified for Minerva to punish, yet the favoritism started to happen slightly before that with the attack on Harry and Daphne.

Your right though that you can contribute that to them being her own students, and Harry in Slytherin. Just annoyed me is all, it's the typical Snape is good and Minerva is bad you come across in a lot of Slytherin fics, but it's no where near as bad here then in other fics. This is probably the biggest thing so far you can put on your POV differences, because we do see it from Minerva's point of veiw as well which softens the blow. Favoritism sure but you can actually put that on them being in difference houses and nothing irrational.

 

I have just started reading the third year story, and its leaps and bounds better then the first two. As you said, it has less interaction with Gryffindors in it we are finally getting some explanations from Daphne. Plus the story finally feels like it's progressing on its own rather then just going through the paces.

 

I detest insane chaeacters and hate Dark magic = Sith. Add that to my number one pet peeve of kids arguing with adults and the all-too-common tendency of making Harry look cool by making everyone else a complete idiot...

2/5

I wanted to give it a 1 but the author is at least literate.

 

There's too many things I don't like about this story for me to rate it any higher than average. I detest any blown out of proportion (to the point of being unrealistic) gryffindor/slytherin hate, and the way dark magic is portrayed here irks me more than it probably should. I think it's more the way the author has written it, rather than any personal bias. Also, Hadrian. That alone sends up the red flag that things probably aren't going to be what you wish they were - I'm tempted to copy the story and find/replace every instance of it. I also don't care for the Daphne character at all, but I've found that's usually the case with these types of stories; too many people trying to make her interesting, instead of just making her normal.

 

Pretty much this.

 

3.675/5

It's not a bad story at all, it's just that the premise, while exciting and new (the part about nonBWL Slytherin!Harry), is not done very well at all.

Some major negatives:

-Daphne. Her character is not written well.
-Gryffindor Bashing.
-Nevile's character.
-Snape's character.
-Jesus Christ Hadrian
-The portrayal of Dark Magic. Slytherin!Harry fics often have this problem, the one that is the exception is OTWG.
-Hermione's fate. I think he just wanted her gone and pulled a Deus ex Machina on us.
-Harry can somehow outmaneuver Dumble-fucking-dore. The man who, if he chooses, could take over the ministry before lunchtime. The same man who has spent a lifetime amassing political skill and ability with nothing except his raw talent to back him.
-Dumbledore's character.

But, the positives are there... So, I recommend this be moved to the Library.

 

You mean Dumbledore, the guy who got absolutely politically nullified in canon?

 

Personally I liked it. I really don't understand the issues re: Hadrian - its no more ridiculous than all that "just call me Harry" bullshit you see so much of these days. If I can overlook that, I can overlook Hadrian. I also fail to see the problem with Gryffindor bashing. There's plenty of Slytherin bashing in canon; why people see the reverse as unforgivable is beyond me. The author also doesn't hold back - he shows contempt for Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs as well, in a way that I find believable if I buy into the rest of the story - which I can.

Its easily one of the best recent attempts I've read - at a time when most of fanon is focussed on author self inserts or regurgitating Harry/Hermione, Harry/Ginny or Harry/Draco ad nauseum.

Like Sesc, I found it hard to stop reading. Looking forward to seeing the rest of "Book 3".

 

The problem is that there are far more stories trying to make daphne "interesting", that in fact, it's a "normal" daphne that would be far more interesting to read about. This particular characterization of her isn't new, isn't interesting, and worst of all, isn't written all that well. So many stories follow into the trap of trying to hard to be exciting, but in the end they consume themselves. Some people just don't care, but I just don't see anything in this story that sets it apart from the rest.

 

Daphne's characterization in the third book is 5/5 but in the first two it's horrible. The problem with Daphne/Tracy is that the two are just.... plain. Interchangeable in fact. Authors can play up there own versions on them and they practically become OCs. This version of Daphne is new and interesting to say the least but the story itself is just to... cliche.

 

There are far too many clichés for me to actually enjoy it. Mainly idiotic mechanics of how magic works. Yeah, Daphne is interesting, but not enough so that I would have to continue reading because of it. It kept me hooked until start of third year, which is more that I can say about most of other stories, though. 2/5.

 

This is why I get excited whenever Sesc starts a thread in the review forum. Brilliant find dude.

Instead of posting the whole series, you should have posted only the last part.

My ratings: 3/5, 4/5, 5/5 respectively for the 3 parts.

@Others, seriously, just try to start reading from the second part. You won't be missing much. Sesc can even post cliffnotes of the first part if you ask for it.