Title: Harry Potter and the Slytherin Selection
Author: DrizzleWizzle
Rating: K+
Genre: Adventure/Friendship
Status: Complete
Library Category: General/The Alternates
Pairings: None
Summary: At Madam Malkin's, Harry Potter introduces himself to Draco Malfoy. Draco offers to help Harry navigate the bizarre, new wizarding world, and Harry accepts. While Harry finds magic to be strange and amazing, there is no class to teach Harry about the complexities of friendship and social life in Slytherin...
Link: FanFiction.Net

This story pretty much follows along the plot of HPPS and is part of a 7-book rewrite. I know, not very popular with DLP. However, the author seems serious about finishing it, as he posts on a schedule of a chapter every other friday and is currently on book 5, where the plot finally seems to be diverging from canon. Up to this point, it was mostly about character interaction and Harry's social life in Slytherin.

I think this is one of only a few stories where early-teens Harry is portrayed as an actual early-teens boy. The character interactions also seem genuine, rather than forced towards an inevitable plot-point. This makes the stories appear not rushed and fun to read, as you keep guessing at what might happen next. This series reignited my love for HP fanfiction again, even despite the occasional grammar and stylistic errors.

I haven't enjoyed a story as much as this one in a long time; 4.5/5, rounded down to 4 for the writing style.

 

Link leads to a French fic.

 

I have absolutely now idea how that happened. Apparently, I copied the FFN code from the author's page, instead of the story link. Fixed now.

 

Is this really not already in the library?
The story isn't amazing, but it fills the niche as one of the few good Slitherin Harry stories. It certainly isn't as good as On The Way To Greatness, but it is better than They Shook Hands, in my opinion. As a top Slitherin Harry story where Harry, 4/5. If I was rating book 4 alone, I would give it 5/5.

 

I'm not really liking this fic. Draco just seems way too OOC. I know he's an eleven year old, but I imagine Draco would be a little more guarded and have more self control then to be so happy to someone he doesn't know. They are spelling McGonagall wrong. The story just seems to be a re-hashing of canon just with Harry in Slytherin. I'm going to rate it a 3/5. I've seen way too many stories like this for it to feel unique.

 

At 8 chapters and 24K words, I didn't expect much - I wasn't disappointed. This is JKR-Lite. Most of the story, none of the flavour. With some really ridiculous maneuvering to ensure that despite being Slytherin and friends with Draco, Harry STILL gets to be friends with Hermione & Ron.

4/5 for the author's ability to cut and paste. 2/5 overall. For me to rate it any higher would require the author bothering to put in some effort on plot and characterisation.

 

I hate these type of fics. The amount of effort authors put into keeping the fics in canon tracks could be channeled into something interesting, but no we get the same old story with some reheated fanon cliches thrown on top.

Now I did only skim the first story and it might get better later, but why the fuck should I care? If it gets better later why didn't the author just start there and not waste my time with all the canon rehash?

 

Because writing is a constant work in progress and before this he never wrote anything else (as far as I know), thus the quality is obviously going to be lacking in comparison to the latter installations in the fanfic series?

Anyhoo, onto the review bit.

For starters, why not link all of the author's fics in the series, so that they could be reviewed as well in the process? Anyhoo, it's been a while since I read the first four fics, and the fifth one is so far rather... not all that great. I suppose I have a problem with his updating schedule (once every 2 weeks and only 3-5k words per chapter) nowadays, but before, when I had been reading the first fics that had already been finished at the time, I remember I enjoyed them, even though there were parts that pissed me off (Ginny and the Yule Ball in the 4th one come to mind, especially the aftermath).

I'll probably re-read the first four now, since it's been a while, but all the same, have a 4/5 from me.

 

I don't care what anyone says, this is a good series. Not exceptional, but good nonetheless.

It may follow canon too closely (Quirrel, the Diary and so on), but it is still very competent and quite enjoyable. I think it is only now reaching its full potential.

Unlike what Odran has said, I like when the author deviates from canon and I consider the stupidity with the Yule Ball and Ginny in general to be one of he high points of this series. If we have a story about teenagers why can't they act like morons in social situations?

To summarise, this is a good series, maybe not the best one out there, but definitely better than the average ff crap.

I would rate it a 3, but because it is a series with a very high chance of completion I will rate it a 4/5.

 

How does this series compare to the They Shook Hands series by Dethryl? Both sound pretty similar. Is it significantly different from canon, or is it just a canon rehash? I am quite sick of rehashes, but if the series is in any way similar to On The Way to Greatness, I would love to give it a read.

 

Wait is this H/G? Because that's kind of a make/or break factor in what I read. Do you mean they went to the ball together or that she did something annoying during/after?

 

They go to the Ball together because reasons. There is no ongoing pairing whatsoever, least of all Harry/Ginny. They went to the Ball, something happened, Ginny reacted in a stupid way some time after in an effort to humiliate Harry, but ultimately failed.

Harry proceeded to verbally humiliate her instead, whereupon she wept bitch tears and then everyone was like "Woah, not cool Harry, I mean yeah, her trying to humiliate you is fine, but doing that to her is just uncalled for."

If I had my way, there'd be flaying involved, and not of the verbal kind.

Look, don't misunderstand my aggravation with the characters. I get it. They're kids. They're teenagers. Of course they're gonna act stupid and do hurtful things. Doesn't mean I have to be pleased about it.

 

I really hate that kind of sexism, it's ok for a woman to do stupid/mean shit. But when a guy does it to a woman, so many steps over the line it's ridiculous. Like I can totally see a fic where a girl absolutely humiliates Harry because he 'deserved it' for being a bad date. But the opposite? Where Harry humiliates the girl for the same thing? LOL never happen, the amount of rage and calls of how wrong it was to do that would be enormous.

That really annoys me. Kind of offtopic but that kind of sexism really gets to me.

Topic related, in that case I might give the series a shot.

 

Dethryl did it better.

 

Quickly googled him to see his work. He seems to have redone all his fics after canon was done for whatever reason. Don't really care about that. What I do care about is on all of those revision stories he has "More Snape!" written in the summary. (As in more than in the original story).

I dunno, I feel like I'd be jumping into a shark infested pool.

 

I've read the series.

It's decent, and still updating (currently in year 5).

Starts out as pretty canon rehashy, but has hints of spiraling away from it, and last few being decent, maybe.

 

Snape isn't portrayed as a total asshole, and deigns to give Harry a chance. Harry lives up to it, and thus he a Snape have a better relationship.

Although, Hermione dies for rather stupid reasons.

 

While often written terribly, I do actually like her, so I'm glad I know that and can avoid the fic now.

 

What a terrible reason for not reading something. Don't get me wrong, not a good fic imo, but still. Bad reason is bad.

 

Well I was already not very interested, it seemed kinda trashy. That was just the icing on the cake. If that was the only thing I disliked about a fic it wouldn't stop me reading it. It's that combined with other things.

EDIT: I also agree with the next post. If they kill them off because they don't like them then that's character bashing and always reads like crap. Good evidence the author sucks and won't deliver a good story in the long run anyway. I'd make a new post to say that but I don't want to contribute any further to the derail.