Title: Harry Potter and the Untitled Tome
Author: Ihateseatbelts
Rating: T
Genre:Fantasy/Supernatural
Status: WIP
Library Category: The Alternatives
Pairings: None Yet
Summary:Some call him the next Dumbledore. Others, a thrall of Grindelwald. Not even Harry himself is sure of where he belongs, until one book leads him on the path to discovering his ill-fated parents' efforts to conceal a dangerously magical secret. In the meantime, Chief-wizard Malfoy has his eyes set on Hogwarts, and only Sir Albus stands in his way. Massive!Wizarding World, No!BWL.
Link: Here

I've been following this story for awhile and I was surprised it hadn't shown up here yet. As the author claims it is a massive AU of the setting. The wizarding world is almost entirely different but it retains the charm of the original. Most of it is from Harry's point of view so the differences between canon and the story are rarely spelled out, but you occasionally get glimpses of the differences. There's dueling, intrigue, and murder, I think it's well worthy of consideration for the library. 4/5

 

I've just read 11 chapters of it. The quality of its writing is quite good, and the stylistic nostalgia recalls a bit of JKRs whimsy.

The pace is very meandering, however.

 

It's fantastic, but I've never read a fic where Hermione is so, incredibly against anything that would be remotely cool. It's obnoxious as fuck. The entire Muggle subplot is boring; I don't care about characters I saw for literally 1000 words, when Harry featured prominently for the rest of them.

4/5 at the moment, but tentative. I'll edit it down if the fic maintains its position that Muggles and Wizards are ~equals~ and Hermione is right and we should all love her.

 

The problem I have with this fic is that it never reaches a stage where the reader gets an idea of the environment and the magic where with canon HP you easily immerse into it. The writer is overloading the reader with new concepts, characters, gimmicks and whatever changes I hardly see a light at the tunnel. It's mighty irritating.

 

The writing in this story is superb. But as newageofpower points out it does meander. There are so many plot point threads the story feels unfocused. However there seems to be a change once you get into around chapters 17 and on that the author is starting to merge the those for mentioned plot threads.

 

There are many small issues with this story, first Obliviating the families because electricity doesn't go well with magic... Horrible reason and while blood purists don't like muggle borns they're going to try and separate them from the the normal population and make them isolated which keeping them in the muggle world does. This was weak reasoning from the start and just serves to show a good guy bad guy difference and not really all the time that was devoted to that. Sub problem, why do it at 11 and not when they leave for school? the transition would be easier and then they don't have to kill the children in the mind of the parents, make them runaways, that way there's a chance for reconciliation when they're old enough to control the outbursts?

Problem two, while the classes taken are interesting, some of them are too advanced for those that are starting magic. Artifacting requires lots of knowledge for runes and arithrimancy that's why in canon it's learned after hogwarts or in 6th and 7th year. Theurgy needs someone to already be intone enough with magic that they can sense it without a wand or focus, that requires a lot of experience with magic in general and someone just starting wouldn't be able to do that well and would better serve as a 3rd year elective. I'm not seeing the difference between potioneering and potions as well. the two week schedule makes little sense outside of cramming classes for the author to write about, doesn't feel like anyone could learn well with that.

Snape is really OOC which isn't bad, just feels off.

The main problem for me though is a lack of driving force in the plot, there's no sense of urgency or motive that's really driving the narrative except Grindlewald cold war. So it just makes it a bland AU school year, with no Voldemort you need to make something else to press the characters forward so they grow in the story, A teacher as a spy for Gellert would have been a great first year plot and make sense in the cold war type situation that's going on.

so 2.5/5 rounded up to 3 for me.

 

Wait, you'd reduce the rating of a story that portrays Muggles and Wizards as equals? Wow, we have diametrically opposite views on Wizard-Muggle equality then, 'cause that would make me increase my rating.

In fact, this fact you've mentioned has given me the desire to read the fic. Thanks for that.

 

Yeeeeah... you might wanna slow your roll on that one, homie. The Muggles haven't shown up in a while if Frantic is where I think they are (i.e. most recent chapter). They won't really show up until the next arc/sequel fic and... let's just say there are no real angels.

tl;dr People are just shit.

P.S. I hesitated on posting here for obvious reasons, but I'd rather people not read the fic for reasons that will definitely disappoint.

 

Well, I read it and... meh. I was underwhelmed. I found myself skimming over the dueling, the classes, and pretty much everything to do with Harry, really, as it was the other stuff I found truly interesting. I really couldn't give two shits about Harry in this story, I wanna know what's going on with the war, with Peter, and what Malfoy's up to. I'm also really interested in what caused the history of this universe to diverge from the canon one.

I'm also curious about one thing. The first chapter said that Voldemort didn't exist in this universe... but it said nothing to the effect that Tom Riddle did not exist, and there are hints dropped in the story that he does, in fact, exist. I'm interested to see if this is true, what he's been up to, and what role he will play. For some reason, I have a feeling he's connected to this Redmoor school that's been mentioned a few times. Probably way off, though.

Still, as much as I've skimmed over this story, I don't feel it's quite for me at the moment. It's technically well-written, but I just don't care all that much about the majority of the story. 3/5 for now.

 

Fair play, lol - many thanks for the feedback (that goes for everyone, by the way).

 

I'd call this a light 4/5 with potential to be great or flop down to readable.

The prose, grammar, and diction is great; words like moreish, quango, and crèche stuck out from pretty most of the FF I've read. It really captures the boarding school drama that HP grew out of, and it's done in a complex, realistic magical world.

I'd agree that it's meandering because of a heavy emphasis on world building and character development, and it could be balanced with a clearer overarching plot, otherwise it'll be a character driven boarding school drama. Will it focus on the ignition of the cold war with Grindelwald? Will the cold war persist, and take on a more espionage/assassination tone? What's Harry's role in confronting the primary antagonist (Albatross/Worm-Tail one assumes)? Etc.

Trope use is relegated to well written examples, and are sometimes semi-inverted; i.e. muggleborns are reclaimed but with realistically coerced parental consent a la 'white schooling' for Australian/Canadian/US native peoples.

My biggest gripe, aside from a more unified plot (after say 20+ chapters), is the discussions which the reader has no way of understanding (e.g. and so with X's 32nd interaction on the Y variance of alchemical transubstantials). They show magic is more complex than we can see, but after a while I get the point.

Also, the OOCness can get a bit strange unless you just accept it's a radically altered timeline that allows Dolohov to be a professional duelist. I'm curious about Snape, but honestly, in canon, he never made as much sense to me as an adult reader as he did when I was a kid.

"There you have it."

 

I'm about halfway through just now, and I'm happy to give it a 4/5. Its easy reading, with the occasional bit that throws you and really makes you think.

 

They've appeared for literally three chapters, and it's boring as shit. Harry constantly brings up characters who I read maybe 500 words about, and the story acts like Hermione is 100% correct and wizards are monsters. It's really boring, because I have no reason to care about any of these people. Harry's mentioned his obnoxious Muggle family that we saw for literally one chapter eighty times. I don't know them. I have no reason to care about them. It's boring, uninteresting, and irrelevant.

Also, Riddle is blatantly being hooked to come

Spoiler

to Hogwarts, to teach Harry Wandsong.

It's one of the most obvious hooks in the story.

e - Also, I have no idea what Harry's greater role is. Like, he's clearly a prodigy and the ilk, but he's not really doing anything? Hermione's been forcing him to do stuff that vaguely relates to the plot, but the plot just jumps ahead and grabs him.

 

Spoiler

Bet you feel a wee bit silly now that it's not Riddle, eh...

This is one of those fics where I could read anything the author writes and enjoy it. There is a sense of wonder and magic p) in their writing that I love.

 

For the early chapters I would have agreed that this fic is completely captivating. The author has a nice way of portraying his characters in a way that makes them feel human and the changes introduced to the story are interesting.

But than it reached the point, which all of these type of AU's does, where nothing is really recognizable as HP anymore. The challenge is to make us care about the characters without the crutch of canon to support them by this point, but this fic came just short of that. The weird and massive change in Susan's personality, not that her original was any good, coinciding with where I reached it did not help.

Overall I enjoyed the first year. Above all the world he created was interesting, so perhaps I would be interested in a rewrite.

4/5

 

I'm a big fan of AU's that expand and enhance canon, so this is a really welcome surprise.

The writing is smooth and really easy to read and I really like how Hogwarts is portrayed as an elite, east coast (if you're from the states) boarding school. The devaluing of the house system and the expanded subjects/extracurricular's are interesting as well. On the negative side is the pacing. I'm through 60k words and he just finished his first potions lesson with an OC Snape.

Still a solid 4/5

 

So far I give this a 4/5. I enjoyed it quite a bit but it does throw a lot at you quick. All in all though its a good read.

 

I'm liking this so far, but it lacks a certain extra push that would make me love it. Things just aren't fleshed out enough and, as many have pointed out, there's too many things going on. The tension with Susan and the Hufflepuffs was never fully explored. The most they said was that he's left handed and was too good at curses from the moment he came in, but he was really good at practically everything from the moment he came in, so it doesn't really follow for me.

Which is another thing, just how good he is isn't really explored. We know he hears the wandsong which is rare, and that he only got one A in his tests, but we aren't told if the others were Os or EEs. Him being really good at everything is mentioned fairly often, but so far I have a feeling of, "ok and?"

The side plotline of Lucius' plan for the muggle-borns feels off, because it hasn't really touched our protagonist at all, yet it's had a good amount of words dedicated to it.

The best news right now is that

Spoiler

James finally responded in the grimoire, even if why he hadn't responded until now was left very unclear.

Overall I just feel like there's too many plotlines it's trying to explore. Might have been better to spread them out over two or three school years.

 

Good stuff, I really enjoyed the setting in this fic. The problem I have with it is that it can sometimes feel a bit bogged up with too much stuff going on. That said, interesting AU is interesting. 4/5

 

I'm halfway through and I've been putting off catching up on the rest. Will attempt to read up a bit today when I'm not trying to write myself. I'm not gonna rate just yet, but after 10 chapters I'm at a tentative 4/5. Will see if this opinion solidifies as the story progresses.